Did everyone know that Ariadne was going to end like this? I feel like with TSOA I already knew what was going to happen because I read Circe first. I think that's what made my experience with Ariadne better because there wasn't all this expectation for the "big event" to happen.

I'm slowly starting to realize that the quickest way to my heart when it comes to a protagonist is to have her be a man-hater. The biggest theme in this book has to be how women consistently pay for the mistakes of men and suffer because of them. I think the biggest thing that was missing for me was that arc of character development where the characters do something to change their fate.

I expected so much more from Phaedra - I know it's hard to move away from the existing stories when it comes to Greek Mythology, but I wanted her to show more of her independant side - "Phaedra never could accept anything that wasn’t as she wanted it to be." & "It had chafed against my nature all of my life to wait passively for things to happen."

Although I have to say that Jeniffer Saint's writing was beautiful - "Perhaps it would feel exhilarating, to sweep through the air, to plummet in its weightless embrace, free for a few glorious, doomed seconds."

Some Highlights:
"If the gods held me accountable one day for the sins of someone else, if they came for me to punish a man’s actions, I would not hide away"

"however blameless a life we led, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do."

"It was the women, always the women, be they helpless serving girls or princesses, who paid the price."

"these men, these gods who toyed with our lives and cast us aside when we had been of use to them, who laughed at our suffering or forgot our existence altogether."

"and like a thousand women before me, I would pay the price of what we had done together."

"A fallen woman is the sweetest entertainment they know; I saw it before,"

"The price we paid for the resentment, the lust and the greed of arrogant men was our pain,"

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Trigger warning, if reading about abuse triggers you, do not read this book or this review.

This is one of the rare memoirs that I've read- honestly not sure if I'm a memoir reader. I feel that this was much easier for me because the format of this book was done so well. Machado brings to light how abuse in queer (esp WLW) relationships are overlooked in the justice system. And how people of color suffer even more in that system. The idea of being "gaslit" was so prevalent in this book and how abusers use that to manipulate their victims. I loved her use of the dreamhouse as a metaphor and the different references she makes "Dream House As Famous Last Words" & "Dream House As Queer Villiany" She highlights how

when you don't see a queer woman, you don't see her pain.

Machado also talks about how easy it is for people to tell victims to leave or say something and she highlights how "You have forgotten how leaving is an option" & "He turns her mind into a prison" and even using the metaphor of her mother's dog to highlight this. This is the beauty of this book, she uses so much imagery to highlight her pain and her experience.

The format of the book on its own just made it unlike any other memoir that I've read - there's even a chapter where its "Choose Your Own Adventure". She adds footnotes from the "Motif Index of Folk Literature" which I don't totally get but its interesting to see the way that the different experiences of women are "categorised"

Highlights

"All the unique and terrible ways in which people can, and do, fail...People love an idea, even if they don't know what to do with it. Even if they only know how to do the exactly the wrong thing."

"Our culture does not have an investment in helping queer folks understand what their experience means"

Content Warnings

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My first 5 star of the year! A tragic story about love and loss but so nuanced and well-written.

The themes of racism and sexism were discussed so well, Celeste Ng really knows how to thread that needle. I usually don't read a lot about motherhood, but the themes of motherhood, the kind of influence your parents have over your life - so deeply and carefully discussed.

I really liked it when Ng used the words of her character to say things that aren't being said. Like when Marilyn says "marry someone more like me" what she's saying about race, perception and another version of that James continues to hear for the rest of his life.

When Marilyn says "when I die..." she's not referring to her leaving or emotional blackmail but the memory that her own Mother left her, again here Lydia hears something else

10/10 would recommend.

Content Warnings

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

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mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

My first classic! I read this as part of The Late Night Book Club's January pick but to be honest there were many times I wanted to DNF it - kept thinking about the saying that life is too short to read a book you don't like. Although I must say that I'm glad that I didn't DNF it because of the ending. I think I'm just not interested in the stories of het men doing stupid things. I was in love with the start of the book and till after he made the monster but it reached a point where it was just Victor's ramblings and I was like "who cares who cares who cares"

I did fall in love with Shelley's writing though, so that makes me think I could enjoy classics like Pride & Prejudice or Jane Eyre, so excited to read more classics this year!

I think the part that fell flat for me was the cowardice of Frankenstein's character, like I respected his monster more than him for actually doing something about his life and trying to change it but Victor just consistently made terrible decisions.

Why didnt he go to the magistrate sooner, if he had done that and people were like "yea this dude is crazy" then yes, I would accept that, at least Victor did try, I could have at least respected him then. He didn't help Justine, Elizabeth or Henry (and in some ways his father), people whose death Victor could have easily avoided if he used his brain. Like I wanted him to have a moment of claiming responsibility. Was Victor so self-absorbed that he couldn't think about the fact that obviously, the monster was going to kill Henry first since he was nearby? When the monster mentioned wedding night, it obviously meant he was going to kill Elizabeth. Riddle me this Victor, what is going to be a bigger form of torture for you, your own death? or the death of the love of your life? Only respected him for the fact that he did NOT create a female companion for the demon and actually stood his ground.

All this to say, it's not Shelley's writing that I hate but Victor as a character that I just couldn't get behind. His stupidity and cowardice were just something I couldn't get behind.

Also, mad props to Mary Shelley for writing this out when she was so young and in 1818. Damn sis, respect.

Some highlights:
"It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed for ever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard."

"how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow."

“are you always to be unhappy? My dear friend, what has happened?”

"You throw a torch into a pile of buildings; and when they are consumed you sit among the ruins, and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend!"

"It is not pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn from your power.”

"I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me,"

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

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dark emotional funny mysterious reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I usually actively decide not to read books about motherhood mainly because it's always such a painful thing to read about and it always gets too real for me almost immediately. The entire concept of motherhood is just pain after pain and I don’t know what other pursuit in life even comes close. Like with this book even, I always saw myself as someone who would never have children, and Nightbitch’s struggles just cemented shut that already very closed door. But Noelle and Sunny BOTH recommended this book so I decided to give it a try.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the role of the husband towards the end of the book but at the beginning damn I wanted to punch him in the face so many times.

"Why couldn’t her husband say something kind or comforting, I’m so sorry or Thank you for all you do? Why did he not grasp the transactional emotional norms of customary human interaction?"

I feel like Nightbitch needs to be studied as a feminist text - there’s so much conversation around the perception of motherhood, even the term “working mother” as opposed to just “mother” is motherhood in itself not work? Why have we as a society made that distinction? The descriptions of childbirth and its violence *chef’s kiss*. I loved the mother's voice so much, like not only did she convey the suffering that was her experience with motherhood but she was FUNNY. loved that.

I would have confidently given it a 4 star up to the ending, not sure if everything that she went through or was feeling throughout the entire book could be solved so simply?

So many highlights from this book putting them here would be essentially asking you to read the book here (seriously go read the book) but here goes -

"who isn’t a working mother?... Imagine saying working father."

"Bitch just had a ring to it, that condemning, inescapable ring, a ring that fucker or asshole could never fully conjure for a man."

"And no matter how much she cleaned, the place never felt clean." - I felt this.

"Sure, her mother was saying, it’s bad, but since you are a woman, this is your lot in life, your work, to do what’s hard, what’s unspeakably painful, and then to keep this covenant of silence."

"what should a woman fight for? Given her limited resources, limited time and energy and inspiration, what is worth fighting for?"

"How evil to praise women for giving up each and every dream."

"her tale of That First Job and The Excitement of It, her new office-ready clothes that made her feel so grown-up, the working lunches, the thrill of a promotion, that sense of being a vital part of a system,"

Christine by Stephen King

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

was not expecting Arnie to die at the end I’ll give you that. I also didn't realize that it was Le Bay and not Christine possessing Arnie until much much later, so that was a really well-written reveal.

I wasn't expecting to fall in love with this book the way that I had, the idea of Christine as this living breathing character was so visual and vivid. The relationship between Arnie and Dennis was so innocent and perfect - their banter really made the two of them characters that I wanted to root for. The relationship Arnie had with his family was also beautifully written, I didn't know whose side I wanted to be on - Arnie's? with his rebelliousness, or Michael who wanted to keep the peace.

“You’re wrong about that. Just as wrong as you can be. She sounds like her, and you sound like her, but I just sound like the guy in charge of some dumb UN peacekeeping force that’s about to get its collective ass shot off.”

There was a lot of focus on the eyes of the characters, which I loved, a lot of moments where characters laughed but the narrator was always noticing how it didn't go up to their eyes.

I think with any Stephen King book it's hard not to compare it with others, and honestly other than The Outsider, this book is a strong second. My biggest surprise is that I enjoyed it more than Misery - Christine also seemed to be peppered with a more light-hearted stream of consciousness writing as well. My biggest complaint was the way King uses racist and sexist undertones to evoke that feeling of horror still doesn't sit right with me - although I feel like with Misery, The Outsider and If It Bleeds, there wasn't so much of that. That aspect of his older writing makes me feel like I shouldn't be supporting his books, but I still want to read Dolores Claiborne.

Some highlights:

" up—I’m okay, you’re okay, I’m a person, you’re a person, we all respect each other to the hilt, and whenever anybody does anything wrong, you’re going to get what amounts to an allergic guilt reaction."

"Love is the old slaughterer. Love is not blind. Love is a cannibal with extremely acute vision. Love is insectile; it is always hungry.”

"But the mind, that perverse monkey—the mind can conceive of anything and seems to take a perverse delight in doing so."

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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adventurous emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I know it's a bit stupid to make the comparison but honestly, I feel that Circe was the better book. But that might be because of who I am as a person.

I really wanted Thetis

to start liking Patroclus at some point but I guess he needed to die for her to understand what Patroclus meant to Achilles, for a god, Thetis is dumb as fuck. Like why couldn't you have hidden your son better? Why don't you realise that your son is actually in love with someone and find a way to deal with your own trauma instead of projecting

My perception of the book from the synopsis was that Achilles chose to go when he heard there was a war. The fact that Odysseus kept having to beg him made me dislike the rest of the characters.

The only two characters I genuinely liked were Briseis and Patroclus and

I'm actually quite bummed there's not more about Patroclus that I can read about

. Excited to read A Thousand Ships and The Silence of The Girls after this! Definitely a fan of Miller now!

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shafnut's reviews 98 reviews

shafnut's reviews
98 reviews