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shottel's reviews
27 reviews
House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.
I am not the target demographic of this book, or, likely, any of Sarah J. Maas's books. As one article put it, Maas specializes in "attractively damaged" characters, and as far as I read this book seems chock full of them: people who, from an objective accounting, have a lot going for them, but they're just very upset about something. In the case of this book, in the opening the main character has a rich and powerful dad, a rich and powerful boyfriend, and a rich and powerful best friend. I do not feel particularly bad for her lot in life, although it seems I am supposed to.
Additionally, Crescent City is supposed to be the more "mature" line in Maas's portfolio. To be entirely frank, it felt a little bit like an 18 year old's idea of what "mature" means. The characters you are immediately introduced to are painted as irresponsible punks, but also hold positions of prestige; they are highly respected, but also get to skip lines and do drugs. I'm aware I stopped right before the plot picked up, but this is how they spent the first 50 pages establishing the world. It's not the kind of "mature" I'm looking for.
If you're like me, then you might want to try something else. But if you like this kind of story, or Maas's other works, then don't let me dissuade you. The writing is solid, and the world is interesting. I just couldn't get with the characters, and how they were presented.
Additionally, Crescent City is supposed to be the more "mature" line in Maas's portfolio. To be entirely frank, it felt a little bit like an 18 year old's idea of what "mature" means. The characters you are immediately introduced to are painted as irresponsible punks, but also hold positions of prestige; they are highly respected, but also get to skip lines and do drugs. I'm aware I stopped right before the plot picked up, but this is how they spent the first 50 pages establishing the world. It's not the kind of "mature" I'm looking for.
If you're like me, then you might want to try something else. But if you like this kind of story, or Maas's other works, then don't let me dissuade you. The writing is solid, and the world is interesting. I just couldn't get with the characters, and how they were presented.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol and Sexual content
Minor: Drug use, Slavery, and Sexual harassment
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Outside of the deep themes of regret, loss, absence, grief, and psychosis, there is much to say positively. Harrow manages to pull off pop culture references and memes humorously, without making me want to throw the book across the room. (Minimally spoiling example: A subtle joke invoking none pizza left beef.) This, combined with a tamer but still present version of the sense of humor that made Gideon distinctive makes for an enjoyable time. It doesn’t lag so hard in the first half like Gideon does (although I do feel it could’ve likely been shortened a good 50-100 pages). The ending was exciting, the payoff for working through over 400 pages of confusion (albeit a well-written 400 pages) deeply worth it. My only gripe is that, without spoiling anything, the last 5 or so pages are a bit confusing and sad in a way I don’t think fits, but this doesn’t harm it enough for me to say the ending was anything but excellent.
Overall, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has read Gideon the Ninth and would be interested in a good mystery or an evocative portrait of disturbed mental faculties.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Like Gideon the Ninth, the book-cover reviews and summaries don’t do it justice. Harrow the Ninth is a fantastic, funny, unique, genre-blurring novel whose worldbuilding and mystery-oriented storytelling makes it worthy of reading on their own. To an even greater degree, it is a poignant picture of psychosis and grief. I was not expecting to see in such detail a broken mind, agonized by self-doubt and the mistrust of others, and the crushing weight of immense loss.
Outside of the deep themes of regret, loss, absence, grief, and psychosis, there is much to say positively. Harrow manages to pull off pop culture references and memes humorously, without making me want to throw the book across the room. (Minimally spoiling example: A subtle joke invoking none pizza left beef.) This, combined with a tamer but still present version of the sense of humor that made Gideon distinctive makes for an enjoyable time. It doesn’t lag so hard in the first half like Gideon does (although I do feel it could’ve likely been shortened a good 50-100 pages). The ending was exciting, the payoff for working through over 400 pages of confusion (albeit a well-written 400 pages) deeply worth it. My only gripe is that, without spoiling anything, the last 5 or so pages are a bit confusing and sad in a way I don’t think fits, but this doesn’t harm it enough for me to say the ending was anything but excellent.
Overall, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has read Gideon the Ninth and would be interested in a good mystery or an evocative portrait of disturbed mental faculties.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Body horror, Gore, Mental illness, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Toxic friendship, Murder, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Vomit, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Alcohol, and Self harm
Minor: Pregnancy, Dementia, Sexual assault, and Sexual content
The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die by Katie Engelhart
Did not finish book. Stopped at 64%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 64%.
I couldn't finish this, but not for any fault of the author. What I've read was fantastic, informative, well-written. But it was just too heavy for me to handle now, and perhaps ever - I already put it down once before and tried to give it another shot.
If you think you can handle hearing, in detail, about why these people want to die and how they intend on doing it, and you are interested even slightly in the right-to-die movement, then I strongly recommend this book. It's just not something I can read.
If you think you can handle hearing, in detail, about why these people want to die and how they intend on doing it, and you are interested even slightly in the right-to-die movement, then I strongly recommend this book. It's just not something I can read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Suicide
A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
A Day of Fallen Night is an improvement over The Priory of the Orange Tree in nearly every way. It would take a long time to enumerate all the positive changes, but a few in short: The pacing is better, the diversity is better, the appeal to modern audiences is better, the feminist themes are clearer, and even the cover art is better! Priory's Eastern branch lagged, but the branches are deftly balanced in Fallen Night. The book remediates Priory's odd penchant for mostly only mentioning the skin type of white characters, and features a significant number of LGBT+ (every letter of the acronym! and then some!) main and secondary characters. It draws on contemporary writing trends from other adult-genre books and, seemingly, fanfiction ("It's too cold, we have to cuddle for warmth") to excellent effect. And women's issues, most notably issues of pregnancy and birth, feature far more prominently, with the noble requirement to sustain a bloodline playing a role throughout the book.
This mandate to procreate establishes this book as far more clearly feminist (the idea that women have issues, interests, and stories worth hearing as much as men do) than its sequel. The need for nobility to sustain itself through childbirth is a recurring, central issue of the book, among other issues which concern women more than they do men, which also make frequent appearances.
In some ways, this book feels like it was written to an audience that might be into medieval court drama or epic adventures, but aren't too fond of the biases that pervade those genres. It is a grand epic, fantastically wrote, including women, LGBT+ characters, and people of color as equals to men, cishet, and white characters.
There are only a few places where it falters. The biggest problem I had is that the action scenes are confusing. I found myself frequently struggling to imagine the scene, re-reading portions over and over again. At first I thought it was a me issue, but after a half-dozen or so times, I figured it's probably not a me problem.
Additionally, I flagged two more minor concerns. First, with the presence of so many LGBT+ characters, the lack of transfeminine characters stands out oddly. Perhaps one or both of the nonbinary characters in the book are intended to be transfeminine, but there is no way to know this from the text. I don't make any guesses as to why; it just sits weirdly. Secondly, while *Priory* is a truly self-contained work, *Fallen Night* hints at an intention to write another book set between the two. This is the only change which I find to be a step backwards from *Priory*.
When layered inside an over 800 page grand adventure, these issues are minor, thus my score of 4.75/5. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in grand adventures, feminist fiction, fantasy, or fiction with LGBT+ main characters.
This mandate to procreate establishes this book as far more clearly feminist (the idea that women have issues, interests, and stories worth hearing as much as men do) than its sequel. The need for nobility to sustain itself through childbirth is a recurring, central issue of the book, among other issues which concern women more than they do men, which also make frequent appearances.
In some ways, this book feels like it was written to an audience that might be into medieval court drama or epic adventures, but aren't too fond of the biases that pervade those genres. It is a grand epic, fantastically wrote, including women, LGBT+ characters, and people of color as equals to men, cishet, and white characters.
There are only a few places where it falters. The biggest problem I had is that the action scenes are confusing. I found myself frequently struggling to imagine the scene, re-reading portions over and over again. At first I thought it was a me issue, but after a half-dozen or so times, I figured it's probably not a me problem.
Additionally, I flagged two more minor concerns. First, with the presence of so many LGBT+ characters, the lack of transfeminine characters stands out oddly. Perhaps one or both of the nonbinary characters in the book are intended to be transfeminine, but there is no way to know this from the text. I don't make any guesses as to why; it just sits weirdly. Secondly, while *Priory* is a truly self-contained work, *Fallen Night* hints at an intention to write another book set between the two. This is the only change which I find to be a step backwards from *Priory*.
When layered inside an over 800 page grand adventure, these issues are minor, thus my score of 4.75/5. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in grand adventures, feminist fiction, fantasy, or fiction with LGBT+ main characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Sexism, Blood, Death, Violence, Grief, War, Terminal illness, Misogyny, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Kidnapping, Child death, Infertility, Body horror, Gore, Emotional abuse, Torture, Miscarriage, and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Cannibalism, Abortion, and Animal cruelty
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Reading this book feels like complaining about something and feeling a little stupid while you do, but the listener has the warmest, most caring expression on their face the entire time. This book knows exactly what it wants to be and executes it masterfully. Any flaw I can stretch for is so small that it drowns in the excellence of the rest of it. This isn’t a book for any time or any mood, but A Psalm for the Wild-Built is as perfect a book can be for the times when you are lost and don’t know what you’re doing anymore. I recommend this book without reservation to anyone who could use a break and a nice cup of tea.
Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A short little lesbian supernatural noir book I finished in a single sitting, Even Though I Knew the End managed to fit a lot of story into less than 150 pages. Set in 1941 Chicago, a mystic detective ends up being hired for a murder case that ends up being a lot more than a murder case. I'm not normally a noir person, but I found this perfectly enjoyable. Well-paced and well-written, I would recommend this to anyone who finds the premise interesting.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Homophobia, Sexism, Death, and Death of parent
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
The writing, plot, and world-building are brilliant. The only reason it is not a 5 star book is because I nearly put it away before I reached the half-way point. In the first half, it turned into a slog. Little happens with Gideon in terms of her advancing the plot, experiencing the plot advancing, or with her own development. To make matters worse, the tone of the book, which is otherwise brilliantly presented, stays completely uniform the entire way through. I had to sit through over a hundred pages of what felt like very little before experiencing an explosion of activity in the second half. This hundred pages of nothing did accentuate the drama of the second half, but that could have been done while allowing for tonal shifts or personal character development that would have made the first half more interesting to read.
Despite this, if you are like me, keep pushing through until about page 250 and the payoff will absolutely be worth it. I recommend this to anyone who would be interested in reading about lesbian space necromancy.
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
The quote by Charles Stross on the front of the book sums up the setting very well: "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless Emperor! Skeletons!" Yet it misses the most notable feature of the book: The witty, gruesome writing. Much of the story is told as if the titular Gideon the Ninth is the narrator herself - sarcastic, crude, dark, judgmental, and witty. It frequently invokes death, decay, and viscera without ever being overbearingly grimdark.
"She was down there last night too and, if I'm correct, never surfaced. Her blood's on the floor down there." Because necromancers lived bad lives, he added: "To clarify. Her intravenous blood. Her intravenous blood."
The writing, plot, and world-building are brilliant. The only reason it is not a 5 star book is because I nearly put it away before I reached the half-way point. In the first half, it turned into a slog. Little happens with Gideon in terms of her advancing the plot, experiencing the plot advancing, or with her own development. To make matters worse, the tone of the book, which is otherwise brilliantly presented, stays completely uniform the entire way through. I had to sit through over a hundred pages of what felt like very little before experiencing an explosion of activity in the second half. This hundred pages of nothing did accentuate the drama of the second half, but that could have been done while allowing for tonal shifts or personal character development that would have made the first half more interesting to read.
Despite this, if you are like me, keep pushing through until about page 250 and the payoff will absolutely be worth it. I recommend this to anyone who would be interested in reading about lesbian space necromancy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Terminal illness, Suicide, Blood, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Body horror, Cancer, Violence, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, and Death
Moderate: Child death and Murder
Galaxy: The Prettiest Star by Jadzia Axelrod
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia and Bullying
Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
A "self-help" kind of book focused on maximizing lifespan and healthspan (how long you have good capabilities), it succeeds on nearly every front. The author, Dr. Peter Attia, never resorts to "trust me, I'm a doctor." Instead, he spends most the book justifying his fairly simple conclusions, and he does so with clear language and in ways that allow you to check his work. His studies are cited; his theory is compelling; his methods are thorough. This is, without hesitation, the very first resource I would recommend to anybody trying to be healthy at all, let alone anybody interested in longevity.
His topline recommendations are strikingly simple: Don't eat too many calories, or too few; get all your essential fats, vitamins, and minerals, and way more protein than the FDA suggests; eat more fresh stuff, and less processed stuff; avoid added sugars and fructose; do cardio; do strength training, with a strong emphasis on safety so you don't injure yourself; get 7-8 hours of sleep; take care of your emotional health. That's the gist of it. Of course there are details to add (what fats, vitamins, and minerals? how many calories is right? what's the best cardio? etc.) but these details take a small fraction of the book's roughly 400 pages to document.
His rigorous approach comes together with a clear writing style, lightly seasoned with humor, to make an excellent book. It deserves the attention it has gotten and has provided direction to my months-long goal of developing a fitness plan. I strongly recommend it to anyone who's interested.
His topline recommendations are strikingly simple: Don't eat too many calories, or too few; get all your essential fats, vitamins, and minerals, and way more protein than the FDA suggests; eat more fresh stuff, and less processed stuff; avoid added sugars and fructose; do cardio; do strength training, with a strong emphasis on safety so you don't injure yourself; get 7-8 hours of sleep; take care of your emotional health. That's the gist of it. Of course there are details to add (what fats, vitamins, and minerals? how many calories is right? what's the best cardio? etc.) but these details take a small fraction of the book's roughly 400 pages to document.
His rigorous approach comes together with a clear writing style, lightly seasoned with humor, to make an excellent book. It deserves the attention it has gotten and has provided direction to my months-long goal of developing a fitness plan. I strongly recommend it to anyone who's interested.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse
Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Dementia, Chronic illness, Forced institutionalization, and Child abuse