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skywhales's reviews
52 reviews
Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-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
oh my god. like oh my god. emily austin i will swear my loyalty to you forever if you want just say the word
i like characters who are very different from me a lot of the time. there are a lot of ways to enjoy characters. but i don't think i've felt seen the way i felt seen reading this book in my entire adult life. enid is a lesbian with a weird relationship to gender who's probably autistic. she plans out her social interactions and replays them in her head later. she shares fun facts with her mom. she's worried she's a terrible person. she's a different person to everyone in her life. she overthinks and lets her anxiety take over and has weird and bad and maladaptive coping mechanisms and god i loved her. i genuinely felt my breath taken away by how much i related to her at times.
honestly every character in this felt so real and genuine and likable (mostly) with their own quirks and flaws and i found myself finding something to like in all of them. particularly polly. sometimes it's hard for me to see what the narrator sees in a love interest but i adored her. she wasn't perfect but that just made it all the easier to see why she fell for the equally strange and imperfect enid. and this won't make sense until you're at that bit but "i love weird little bugs, remember?" made me exhale and close the book and hold it to my chest because i had such big feelings.
god. fuck. i think i also really like books that are depressing, and sad, and deal with fucked up shit, but end in a way that reminds us that despite all that, things can be good. and we can be good and we can get better. my problem with a lot of "cozy" fiction is that it feels afraid to deal in dark topics in more than a few brief mentions, or else dark topics come out of nowhere and feel so shocking that they throw you out of the narrative entirely. i Love, however, books that are dark and sad and occasionally get worse before they get better but they do get better. i think it might hit harder when we actually see the protagonist having to fight so hard for that improvement.
also i have a lot of mostly negative feelings about true crime stuff and was wary about that going in but i think it was not only tied very well to the character but the worst elements of it were discussed and touched upon in a way i was worried they wouldn't be.
i like characters who are very different from me a lot of the time. there are a lot of ways to enjoy characters. but i don't think i've felt seen the way i felt seen reading this book in my entire adult life. enid is a lesbian with a weird relationship to gender who's probably autistic. she plans out her social interactions and replays them in her head later. she shares fun facts with her mom. she's worried she's a terrible person. she's a different person to everyone in her life. she overthinks and lets her anxiety take over and has weird and bad and maladaptive coping mechanisms and god i loved her. i genuinely felt my breath taken away by how much i related to her at times.
honestly every character in this felt so real and genuine and likable (mostly) with their own quirks and flaws and i found myself finding something to like in all of them. particularly polly. sometimes it's hard for me to see what the narrator sees in a love interest but i adored her. she wasn't perfect but that just made it all the easier to see why she fell for the equally strange and imperfect enid.
god. fuck. i think i also really like books that are depressing, and sad, and deal with fucked up shit, but end in a way that reminds us that despite all that, things can be good. and we can be good and we can get better. my problem with a lot of "cozy" fiction is that it feels afraid to deal in dark topics in more than a few brief mentions, or else dark topics come out of nowhere and feel so shocking that they throw you out of the narrative entirely. i Love, however, books that are dark and sad and occasionally get worse before they get better but they do get better. i think it might hit harder when we actually see the protagonist having to fight so hard for that improvement.
also i have a lot of mostly negative feelings about true crime stuff and was wary about that going in but i think it was not only tied very well to the character but the worst elements of it were discussed and touched upon in a way i was worried they wouldn't be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Lesbophobia
Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
sarah gailey does it again!!!!!! three for three with concepts i love pulled off pretty well for the most part
i read a short story once with a very similar premise to this (<a href="https://ck-walker.com/2016/04/12/death-at-421-stockholm-street/">here</a> if you're curious but if you read this book then the twist has been spoiled for you) and always kinda wanted to know what happened afterwards so this was kind of perfect for me in that respect. i'm not AS much of a haunted house aficionado as other horror buffs i know butthe house being "alive" in a sense is something that makes me go kinda crazy stupid and while admittedly i started out being disappointed when it took a turn into supernatural horror (as much as i love monsters and ghoulies and shit for the sheer coolness factor the actual Horror of something always tends to hit harder when it's something that could straight up happen irl in my opinion) i think it was pulled off in a way that i liked in the end, though not everyone does from the looks of the reviews. while the start was maybe a tiny bit slow i tore through most of this book in a night.
sarah gailey is ALSO three for three in making women who are crazy and fucked up and SOOOOOO much fun to read about. vera was a little freak and i was here for it from beginning to end. i think the only thing that left a not great taste in my mouth was the sort of. i hesitate to call it lesbian-baiting because i kind of trust sarah gailey to not be shitty about stuff like this but i don't have a term for it exactly? like. she told the guy whose name i forgot (james. it was james) that she doesn't date men period and i was like oh sweet lesbian protagonist!! and then she's like actively repressing sexual feelings for this dude and the bartender and whatever and it's like ah. well no accounting for taste i guess butrepression due to a wild bioessentialist serial killer philosophy is still kinda cool. but then later there's a bit about how she didn't know yet that never marrying a man was an option? and her whole thing where she assumes she'll marry brandon when she grows up because he's the most normal boy she knows so if she has to pick one it might as well be him. and then at the end where it turns out the sexual feelings might have been bloodlust all along but maybe not???? and nowhere in here whatsoever is any indication of her potential feelings towards women so really who knows at all. honestly i found vera's relationship with all of the men in her life really fascinating and while i do think they maybe would be more so if she was gay that could also be my biased gay self talking.
the family relationships in this are just AUGHHHHH. this and magic for liars both have the MOST wonderful fucked up painful awkward weird complex family dynamics that i just love to sink my teeth into. seeing vera's dad from her eyes and the way he acted around her made you sympathize with vera's discomfort in the media that painted her father as a monster despite the fact that the logical parts of your brain would tell you he's obviously terrible. and he is! but it felt like i Understood him to such a degree and that's exactly what i like out of killers and generally "evil" characters. i wish we had seen more of daphne's relationship to vera's father and how/when she learned about his. Activities. i also wish we had gotten more about the writer who published a book about the dad, it felt like that kept coming up for little moments here and there but never sticking very much despite the artist guy being the writer's son.
magic for liars still my favorite book from this author but i'd have to reread the echo wife to see if this one beats it.
i read a short story once with a very similar premise to this (<a href="https://ck-walker.com/2016/04/12/death-at-421-stockholm-street/">here</a> if you're curious but if you read this book then the twist has been spoiled for you) and always kinda wanted to know what happened afterwards so this was kind of perfect for me in that respect. i'm not AS much of a haunted house aficionado as other horror buffs i know but
sarah gailey is ALSO three for three in making women who are crazy and fucked up and SOOOOOO much fun to read about. vera was a little freak and i was here for it from beginning to end. i think the only thing that left a not great taste in my mouth was the sort of. i hesitate to call it lesbian-baiting because i kind of trust sarah gailey to not be shitty about stuff like this but i don't have a term for it exactly? like. she told the guy whose name i forgot (james. it was james) that she doesn't date men period and i was like oh sweet lesbian protagonist!! and then she's like actively repressing sexual feelings for this dude and the bartender and whatever and it's like ah. well no accounting for taste i guess but
the family relationships in this are just AUGHHHHH. this and magic for liars both have the MOST wonderful fucked up painful awkward weird complex family dynamics that i just love to sink my teeth into. seeing vera's dad from her eyes and the way he acted around her made you sympathize with vera's discomfort in the media that painted her father as a monster despite the fact that the logical parts of your brain would tell you he's obviously terrible. and he is! but it felt like i Understood him to such a degree and that's exactly what i like out of killers and generally "evil" characters. i wish we had seen more of daphne's relationship to vera's father and how/when she learned about his. Activities. i also wish we had gotten more about the writer who published a book about the dad, it felt like that kept coming up for little moments here and there but never sticking very much despite the artist guy being the writer's son.
magic for liars still my favorite book from this author but i'd have to reread the echo wife to see if this one beats it.
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin
dark
funny
hopeful
sad
fast-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? Yes
5.0
augh. auuuuuuuugh. aug. ough
oh this did not assuage any of my worries about death as someone who also happens to be an anxious lesbian who thinks too much about this shit but it Does do one of my favorite things which is remind you that every day all around you are small wonders that you often forget to think about. and people can be good. people do a lot of good even if they also do a lot of bad. one of my favorite parts of the book was the list of things we'd consider magic if they didn't exist.
gilda as someone who is lonely and yet surrounded by people and the way she interacts with the people in her life is so. it's so. depressed protagonists who still love other people and the world around them but don't know how to express it or if there's even a point in it. christ. as someone who doesn't have gilda's exact mindset but does have something i call "angry optimism" (yeah lots of majorly terrible shit is happening all the time constantly but there's GOOD things too! there's GOOD things! it's not just endless misery and then you die unless you insist that it has to be that way!) this just made me feel like i'd found something i didn't even know i was looking for.
mannnnn. i know there's more i could say about this but i can't think of it because my thoughts got blasted out of my head. despite this book relying on a trope i hate because of the absolutely debilitating secondhand embarrassment it gives me (character lies a lot until they're in too deep and then it all comes crashing down around them) i can still honestly say it might be one of my new favorites.
oh this did not assuage any of my worries about death as someone who also happens to be an anxious lesbian who thinks too much about this shit but it Does do one of my favorite things which is remind you that every day all around you are small wonders that you often forget to think about. and people can be good. people do a lot of good even if they also do a lot of bad. one of my favorite parts of the book was the list of things we'd consider magic if they didn't exist.
gilda as someone who is lonely and yet surrounded by people and the way she interacts with the people in her life is so. it's so. depressed protagonists who still love other people and the world around them but don't know how to express it or if there's even a point in it. christ. as someone who doesn't have gilda's exact mindset but does have something i call "angry optimism" (yeah lots of majorly terrible shit is happening all the time constantly but there's GOOD things too! there's GOOD things! it's not just endless misery and then you die unless you insist that it has to be that way!) this just made me feel like i'd found something i didn't even know i was looking for.
mannnnn. i know there's more i could say about this but i can't think of it because my thoughts got blasted out of my head. despite this book relying on a trope i hate because of the absolutely debilitating secondhand embarrassment it gives me (character lies a lot until they're in too deep and then it all comes crashing down around them) i can still honestly say it might be one of my new favorites.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Religious bigotry and Homophobia
Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
good lord i need to reread the sequel to this immediately this had so much of my favorite shit in it!!! awesome worldbuilding and magic systems, a romantic relationship i genuinely enjoy, gender fuckery, HURGH. this would've been perfect if it wasn't for like three things.
first off tsira and jeckran OHHHH i loved them both SO much. dare i say it. reigboss and malewife. their banter with each other and other people and their relationship...while tsira is not technically a woman this is still everything i wanted in a m/f romance and more. they're so protective of each other and so silly and cute i just adore them.i will say that the pregnancy shit felt unnecessary to me. like we have a character as cool and groundbreaking and gender complicated as tsira and somehow she's STILL reduced to angst about being able to have a kid. (also...tmi perhaps but every time they had sex it was Her fucking Him so like...when did they do the baby making sex lol.) maybe i just am a little squicked by pregnancy. i wouldn't even have really minded that much if they ended up adopting a kid or something it just felt weird and annoying to me.
onna was sadly a little disappointing. from the synopsis she seemed like the kind of character made for me. i love you genius girls forever!!! i wish more time had been put into her learning to not apologize for being smart and not have to put themselves down for men all the time because as much as i love girls who stick out and don't fit in and are unquestionably talented it makes me so sad when they cover up those talents and apologize for everything and let themselves get condescended to by men. i thought this was going to be a thing that she'd get character development for but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. also she was SO boy crazy it was a fucking slog. every time some new man entered the picture it's all about how handsome he is and his nice hair and whatever the fuck else. it was deeply deeply boring to read and i had to skim it. i kept forgetting who the fuck haran even was because whenever he entered the picture onna's internal monologue got so insufferable. she was a very likable character whenever she wasn't trying to impress some dude i wish we got more of that.
loga was also kind of a miss for me. he had a lot of things i could like in a character but i HATED how he talked to onna. it felt so condescending a lot of the time and sometimes even kind of flirtatious?? which was fucking gross. it got so bad that at one point i wondered if the twist at the end of the book would be he was taking advantage of her the whole time but no i guess that's just what their relationship is like. rubbed me the wrong way.i also didn't like the implication that he and jeckran had a thing going on near the end. not because i think tsira/jeckran have to be monogamously in love obviously but i just really can't stand the "one person gets off on being a nuisance to the other one and the other one just grumbles and gets flustered about it" ship trope. it annoys me every single fucking time. it felt like they were introduced to each other way too late in the story to have any sort of meaningful rapport.
i think we also could have done with more women in the supporting cast. but that's neither here nor there.
the worldbuilding and the magic system and all that were completely top tier. exactly what i like to see in my fantasy worlds. this is why i need to reread the sequel and pay more attention to it. i want to know more about the different schools (it was mentioned onna was specializing in illusion but that got dropped kind of) and how magic's practiced in different places and. all of it basically. god i love you worldbuilding. the plot was fairly interesting, even if the ending was slightly unsatisfying. i also wish the two storylines had intersected earlier because it did get a little headachey to follow at times. overall though i liked it quite a bit for the most part. i really liked seeing the different cultures of the world and how they interacted.
this gets to go with carter and saint death's daughter in the "4 stars for some personal reasons but also has stuff that'll live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future" corner.
first off tsira and jeckran OHHHH i loved them both SO much. dare i say it. reigboss and malewife. their banter with each other and other people and their relationship...while tsira is not technically a woman this is still everything i wanted in a m/f romance and more. they're so protective of each other and so silly and cute i just adore them.
onna was sadly a little disappointing. from the synopsis she seemed like the kind of character made for me. i love you genius girls forever!!! i wish more time had been put into her learning to not apologize for being smart and not have to put themselves down for men all the time because as much as i love girls who stick out and don't fit in and are unquestionably talented it makes me so sad when they cover up those talents and apologize for everything and let themselves get condescended to by men. i thought this was going to be a thing that she'd get character development for but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. also she was SO boy crazy it was a fucking slog. every time some new man entered the picture it's all about how handsome he is and his nice hair and whatever the fuck else. it was deeply deeply boring to read and i had to skim it. i kept forgetting who the fuck haran even was because whenever he entered the picture onna's internal monologue got so insufferable. she was a very likable character whenever she wasn't trying to impress some dude i wish we got more of that.
loga was also kind of a miss for me. he had a lot of things i could like in a character but i HATED how he talked to onna. it felt so condescending a lot of the time and sometimes even kind of flirtatious?? which was fucking gross. it got so bad that at one point i wondered if the twist at the end of the book would be he was taking advantage of her the whole time but no i guess that's just what their relationship is like. rubbed me the wrong way.
i think we also could have done with more women in the supporting cast. but that's neither here nor there.
the worldbuilding and the magic system and all that were completely top tier. exactly what i like to see in my fantasy worlds. this is why i need to reread the sequel and pay more attention to it. i want to know more about the different schools (it was mentioned onna was specializing in illusion but that got dropped kind of) and how magic's practiced in different places and. all of it basically. god i love you worldbuilding. the plot was fairly interesting, even if the ending was slightly unsatisfying. i also wish the two storylines had intersected earlier because it did get a little headachey to follow at times. overall though i liked it quite a bit for the most part. i really liked seeing the different cultures of the world and how they interacted.
this gets to go with carter and saint death's daughter in the "4 stars for some personal reasons but also has stuff that'll live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future" corner.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Misogyny and Violence
Minor: Pregnancy
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
well, i think to myself as i spot this in the used books section of one of my favorite bookstores, everyone puts sarah waters at the top of their lists of great lesbian writers. may as well give her a shot sometime, right?
my only regret is i didn't do it sooner.
this might just be my new favorite historical fiction novel (though to be fair it's not a genre i read all that often, so the competition is slim). (also as i write this i realize i forgot about carter the great. sorry man you're still like hella up there.) admittedly it does start off slow, and i didn't find nancy very likable at first. her infatuation with kitty to the point of neglecting her family really rubbed me the wrong way. though as i kept reading i figured the Point of her is she's not all that likable. sarah waters even says so in her notes at the end. she's kinda cocky and annoying and sometimes lacking in common sense, but even as i hate her i still find her a deeply entertaining protagonist. and i still do Want her to find happiness!
once the plot gets going it really hooks you. you're on this wild ride through victorian london through all the gritty, weird, sometimes sexy places that nan visits on her travels. i don't know how much of this was historically accurate, but i do know that all of it was very very fun. i learned a lot more about oyster preparation than i ever thought i would. and loads about the victorian lesbian scene, which i maybe could have predicted myself taking an interest in at some point in my life.
idk what to say about this that hasn't already been said, to be honest. the romance aspects, which can so easily make or break even a lesbian book for me, felt so fully realized and beautiful (or ugly, at times). the sex was. well. i ain't complaining.
now to add every sarah waters book to my tbr
my only regret is i didn't do it sooner.
this might just be my new favorite historical fiction novel (though to be fair it's not a genre i read all that often, so the competition is slim). (also as i write this i realize i forgot about carter the great. sorry man you're still like hella up there.) admittedly it does start off slow, and i didn't find nancy very likable at first. her infatuation with kitty to the point of neglecting her family really rubbed me the wrong way. though as i kept reading i figured the Point of her is she's not all that likable. sarah waters even says so in her notes at the end. she's kinda cocky and annoying and sometimes lacking in common sense, but even as i hate her i still find her a deeply entertaining protagonist. and i still do Want her to find happiness!
once the plot gets going it really hooks you. you're on this wild ride through victorian london through all the gritty, weird, sometimes sexy places that nan visits on her travels. i don't know how much of this was historically accurate, but i do know that all of it was very very fun. i learned a lot more about oyster preparation than i ever thought i would. and loads about the victorian lesbian scene, which i maybe could have predicted myself taking an interest in at some point in my life.
idk what to say about this that hasn't already been said, to be honest. the romance aspects, which can so easily make or break even a lesbian book for me, felt so fully realized and beautiful (or ugly, at times). the sex was. well. i ain't complaining.
now to add every sarah waters book to my tbr
Content Warnings
Moderate: Lesbophobia and Homophobia
The Troop by Nick Cutter
dark
emotional
sad
medium-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? It's complicated
4.0
this didn't like frighten me to my core or anything though it was satisfyingly grotesque but it did make me deeply sad and a little nauseous. i consider that a win kind of
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Animal death, and Gore
Moderate: Violence, Bullying, and Child abuse
Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky, Arkady Strugatsky
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
another foray into classic sci-fi. even introduced by ursula k le guin! (the version i read was). burned through this in a day. this is definitely a book that i think only got the score that it did because of my personal reading biases. i've never claimed to be an objective reader but at least i have the self awareness to recognize that i am not an objective reader. and i did get the major thing i wanted from this book anyway.
i was fascinated by this premise as soon as i heard about it. the idea of humans basically being a blip on the galactic scale. the cockroaches in the rest stop of the universe. aliens who just stopped by and left a bunch of weird shit around that no one knows how to clean up. the Science Fiction in this book was good. the world it created was gritty but interesting. this book's tone is...mostly depressing, pretty much all the way through. which i don't usually love in my normal reads but i already knew going in that in lots of ways this would be a departure from my normal reads. and despite the extreme open endedness of it (another thing i don't usually enjoy) the ending was very poignant, and i believe it'll be the thing that sticks with me the most from this book.
i know you can't judge older books by the standard of the modern era or whatever but god the sexism was a MAJOR factor that impacted my enjoyment of the book. every woman being someone's girlfriend or wife or daughter and reduced to a meaningless sex object or (in the monkey's case) a catalyst for growth from the protagonist. dina's one personality trait was getting called a slut by men fifteen years older than her. a man apparently has a running joke about SAVING HIMSELF FOR AN EIGHT YEAR OLD. the usage of "young men" vs "girls." my expectations were low but this went lower. yuck.
most of the characters were relatively unlikable, but that added to the grim and generally crappy world they lived in and didn't really turn me off from the book, since this isn't really the kind of thing i'm reading for great lovable character design.
in general i think the actual, central "roadside picnic" was the best and most engaging part of the story. i might have liked this better if it had been even shorter, like novella length, because then maybe they wouldn't have gone into detail on all the shit i disliked (the fucking misogyny) and centralized the stuff i read it for in the first place. but my regular disclaimer: maybe i'm just uncultured.
i was fascinated by this premise as soon as i heard about it. the idea of humans basically being a blip on the galactic scale. the cockroaches in the rest stop of the universe. aliens who just stopped by and left a bunch of weird shit around that no one knows how to clean up. the Science Fiction in this book was good. the world it created was gritty but interesting. this book's tone is...mostly depressing, pretty much all the way through. which i don't usually love in my normal reads but i already knew going in that in lots of ways this would be a departure from my normal reads. and despite the extreme open endedness of it (another thing i don't usually enjoy) the ending was very poignant, and i believe it'll be the thing that sticks with me the most from this book.
i know you can't judge older books by the standard of the modern era or whatever but god the sexism was a MAJOR factor that impacted my enjoyment of the book. every woman being someone's girlfriend or wife or daughter and reduced to a meaningless sex object or (in the monkey's case) a catalyst for growth from the protagonist. dina's one personality trait was getting called a slut by men fifteen years older than her. a man apparently has a running joke about SAVING HIMSELF FOR AN EIGHT YEAR OLD. the usage of "young men" vs "girls." my expectations were low but this went lower. yuck.
most of the characters were relatively unlikable, but that added to the grim and generally crappy world they lived in and didn't really turn me off from the book, since this isn't really the kind of thing i'm reading for great lovable character design.
in general i think the actual, central "roadside picnic" was the best and most engaging part of the story. i might have liked this better if it had been even shorter, like novella length, because then maybe they wouldn't have gone into detail on all the shit i disliked (the fucking misogyny) and centralized the stuff i read it for in the first place. but my regular disclaimer: maybe i'm just uncultured.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Alcohol, and Death
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Pedophilia
Saint Death's Daughter by C.S.E. Cooney
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
almost got a 5 from me but if carter can still be occupying my brain today but couldn't make it to a perfect 5 than this can't either, sorry </3
but good god the WORLDBUILDING. FUCK. we've got a pantheon of unique gods, an intricately designed magic system and possibly the most interesting take on necromancy i've seen to this day, a calendar and dates system, multiple cultures and languages and Rituals and Holidays and ohhhhhmygod i wish EVERY book had this much going on in its world. made my own little glossary of terms i thought i'd need to keep track of (learned from baru) but didn't end up needing it all that much and that was nice. quadic being in iambic pentameter was incredibly delightful. i actually wish we'd learned more about the different kinds of magic. like i know each one is tied to a god but if the parliament of rooks has 24 wizards with different abilities in it which gods have domain over multiple abilities? which goes with which? especially if they usually don't have necromancers/fire wizards. so 10 gods and 24 strains of magic. also are the parliament of rooks' bird patterns literally fused to their skin? unrelated. god i love a richly detailed world.
the prose was at times really good, at times a tad grating. there were some things that probably could have done with less description. and also--and i am aware that in this instance this is solely personal preference--i'm usually not a fan of "quirky" humor and there were certain things that just made me roll my eyes or cringe. loved most of the dark humor associated with the stones and their fucked up bloody legacy though. exactly my kind of thing. something that i don't know was intentional or not was just how little time was spent on certain things that to me felt like Big Revelations but to lanie i guess were just. whatever? or she already knew but didn't state?mostly i am talking about goody being quick fantastic stones and canon lir being errolirrolin <- had to go back to the book to spell that name. to me those were HUH. OH MY GOD moments but maybe we were expected to have figured them out??? wish we coulda sat with those for a minute. i mean they made Sense but still.
it took me a while to come around on most of the characters--longer than some books would have, but then in other books i may never have come around at all so really it all balances out i suppose. lanie was cute--there was an air of Super Special Unique Awesomeness about her that annoyed me at first but i love how she loves her creations. mak was okay, not like an all time favorite or someone i could see myself getting mentally ill about but he was a solid, well-rounded and likable character. datu was fun. i like morbid children. havoc and the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo whose names i have sadly Already Forgotten were...fine. havoc was the source of a lot of the quirky humor that annoyed me (i like her name though), and while i liked the other two more they were all introduced too late in the story for me to really feel completely attached to them. the story of the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo forming their bond was very sweet though. goody was one of my favorite characters and i definitely think her relationship with lanie was the most powerful in the book for me. nita was...conflicting. i just strongly dislike the idea of any character being quintessentially "born bad" and the story seemed insistent on telling me that that's what nita was like. i also strongly disliked the back cover's use of "psychotic" to refer to her when that's a real mental illness that doesn't automatically equate to an evil or dangerous person. i would have appreciated her role in the story a lot more if she wasn't portrayed as unrepentantly evil even as a child and rather as someone working to live up to the legacy of the stoneses and gradually losing more and more of her humanity along the way, until her hubristic downfall. also i think i would have really liked unnatural stones if he was. an actual character. the blackbird bride was a pretty good villain even if i wish i could've seen more of her motivation. i mean i know her Obvious motivation but i want to know more about her feelings. the feelings of the rest of the parliament. yknow. also unless i misread something she married her cousin which EWWWWW. i fucking hate reading about incest no matter the justification. it automatically makes my reading experience at least 15% more unpleasant. sorry if that makes me a prude or whatever. i don't care.
the romance was a little saccharine at times and not entirely my favorite thing but at least canon lir was a pretty interesting character and the twist at the end was sufficiently OH SHIT! i just wish there had been more substance to it than "childhood friends endlessly fawning over each other." btw this book seems to (but to be fair this is conjecture) operate on an "everyone is bi" mindset, or at least all of the main characters are (probably), which isn't my faaaavorite kind of lgbt+ fantasy world? just because i think there should also be a place for people who have fought to have their identity recognized as not having anything to do with men/women. but, like, it's leagues better than an "everyone is straight except for a few weirdos" world. and nita might have been straight. but that doesn't really mean anything.
the climax of this book was So Stinking Cool. the kinda thing that makes the thirteen year old boy part of me go a little bit apeshit. i love awesome climaxes i love awesome worldbuilding that was soooooo fucking epic.
of all the books i've read this would be the one i'd recommend most decisively to locked tomb fans. it's got the necromancy yeah but it's also got the casual genderfuckery and the deep intense bond between a warrior/caster duo that isn't necessarily romantic. and cringy dialogue. sorry locked tomb fans.
will be reading the sequel when it comes out but after i've made a substantial dent in my tbr because i need time to let the whole thing sink into my head and i kinda rushed through this one because i'm going back to boston in a few weeks and need to limit the amount of books i bring.
but good god the WORLDBUILDING. FUCK. we've got a pantheon of unique gods, an intricately designed magic system and possibly the most interesting take on necromancy i've seen to this day, a calendar and dates system, multiple cultures and languages and Rituals and Holidays and ohhhhhmygod i wish EVERY book had this much going on in its world. made my own little glossary of terms i thought i'd need to keep track of (learned from baru) but didn't end up needing it all that much and that was nice. quadic being in iambic pentameter was incredibly delightful. i actually wish we'd learned more about the different kinds of magic. like i know each one is tied to a god but if the parliament of rooks has 24 wizards with different abilities in it which gods have domain over multiple abilities? which goes with which? especially if they usually don't have necromancers/fire wizards. so 10 gods and 24 strains of magic. also are the parliament of rooks' bird patterns literally fused to their skin? unrelated. god i love a richly detailed world.
the prose was at times really good, at times a tad grating. there were some things that probably could have done with less description. and also--and i am aware that in this instance this is solely personal preference--i'm usually not a fan of "quirky" humor and there were certain things that just made me roll my eyes or cringe. loved most of the dark humor associated with the stones and their fucked up bloody legacy though. exactly my kind of thing. something that i don't know was intentional or not was just how little time was spent on certain things that to me felt like Big Revelations but to lanie i guess were just. whatever? or she already knew but didn't state?
it took me a while to come around on most of the characters--longer than some books would have, but then in other books i may never have come around at all so really it all balances out i suppose. lanie was cute--there was an air of Super Special Unique Awesomeness about her that annoyed me at first but i love how she loves her creations. mak was okay, not like an all time favorite or someone i could see myself getting mentally ill about but he was a solid, well-rounded and likable character. datu was fun. i like morbid children. havoc and the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo whose names i have sadly Already Forgotten were...fine. havoc was the source of a lot of the quirky humor that annoyed me (i like her name though), and while i liked the other two more they were all introduced too late in the story for me to really feel completely attached to them. the story of the gyrgardu/gyrlady duo forming their bond was very sweet though. goody was one of my favorite characters and i definitely think her relationship with lanie was the most powerful in the book for me. nita was...conflicting. i just strongly dislike the idea of any character being quintessentially "born bad" and the story seemed insistent on telling me that that's what nita was like. i also strongly disliked the back cover's use of "psychotic" to refer to her when that's a real mental illness that doesn't automatically equate to an evil or dangerous person. i would have appreciated her role in the story a lot more if she wasn't portrayed as unrepentantly evil even as a child and rather as someone working to live up to the legacy of the stoneses and gradually losing more and more of her humanity along the way, until her hubristic downfall. also i think i would have really liked unnatural stones if he was. an actual character. the blackbird bride was a pretty good villain even if i wish i could've seen more of her motivation. i mean i know her Obvious motivation but i want to know more about her feelings. the feelings of the rest of the parliament. yknow. also unless i misread something she married her cousin which EWWWWW. i fucking hate reading about incest no matter the justification. it automatically makes my reading experience at least 15% more unpleasant. sorry if that makes me a prude or whatever. i don't care.
the romance was a little saccharine at times and not entirely my favorite thing but at least canon lir was a pretty interesting character and the twist at the end was sufficiently OH SHIT! i just wish there had been more substance to it than "childhood friends endlessly fawning over each other." btw this book seems to (but to be fair this is conjecture) operate on an "everyone is bi" mindset, or at least all of the main characters are (probably), which isn't my faaaavorite kind of lgbt+ fantasy world? just because i think there should also be a place for people who have fought to have their identity recognized as not having anything to do with men/women. but, like, it's leagues better than an "everyone is straight except for a few weirdos" world. and nita might have been straight. but that doesn't really mean anything.
the climax of this book was So Stinking Cool. the kinda thing that makes the thirteen year old boy part of me go a little bit apeshit. i love awesome climaxes i love awesome worldbuilding that was soooooo fucking epic.
of all the books i've read this would be the one i'd recommend most decisively to locked tomb fans. it's got the necromancy yeah but it's also got the casual genderfuckery and the deep intense bond between a warrior/caster duo that isn't necessarily romantic. and cringy dialogue. sorry locked tomb fans.
will be reading the sequel when it comes out but after i've made a substantial dent in my tbr because i need time to let the whole thing sink into my head and i kinda rushed through this one because i'm going back to boston in a few weeks and need to limit the amount of books i bring.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Death
Moderate: Blood and Child abuse
Minor: Incest
Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill
adventurous
dark
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
WHOO oh all sorts of feelings about this one man.
this came on the heels of the first book i dnfed in quite a while (which i won't review since i don't usually review books i dnf. principle of the thing or whatever) and so maybe i'm just spoiled by this book not being That book. but also ugh i loved this
this has gotta be one of my favorite frankenstein adaptations (if this counts as that). it takes a definitively unique spin on the whole "victorian scientist creating life" premise and delves deeper into the real life scientific societies of england at the time, which was really enjoyable to see. and god, i LOVED the creature. we need more frankendinosaurs right now immediately. charming, exciting and fun nearly all the way through.
i have this funny thought that these characters could have easily been in a less well written book and would have been a total mess. but they weren't and i'm very happy about that. it took me a little while to fully come around to mary since i am a little tired of one person automatically being the only morally upstanding person in the room at a time where a lot of backwards opinions were commonplace. but i found i could relate to her anger with the fucked up practices of her community, and yes, i continue to adore women of science. i also like that they specified her love for her child was different than her love for the creature and shot down the idea that she was basically using it to replace her kid because if they had compared the creature to her daughter i would have cringed SO hard. honestly i feel like the author did a good job writing a character who isn't really typically motherly and wants to exist as a person outside of that. and while losing her child is always going to affect her, there was a lot going on with her that didn't have anything to do with that.
maisie was so sweetiepie...the sort of character i'm so glad was allowed to be a love interest. she's allowed to be less physically strong and be chronically ill but at the same time she's so full of life and perky and multifaceted and lovely...also sapphic stories where the love interest is the more feminine one always make me jump up in the air for joy. though i know it's victorian times and there's a base standard of femininity for both of them but you get what i am saying. you understand. henry was AUGH! it's so crazy because like. most of the time when a character has a crappy husband it kind of smacks you over the head with it but henry was maybe one of the most realistically flawed of these kinds of characters i've seen and it legitimately took me by surprise. a lot of his banter with mary was genuinely sweet! i could genuinely see that at one time there was love there! and there still was and still might be but those flaws begin to become less and less charming as mary becomes more and more disillusioned. he also got a lot worse whenever clarke entered the picture which i also appreciated even as it pissed me off because it's true that a lot of men who are otherwise somewhat decent people can easily go downhill when surrounded by an echo chamber of way worse friends. speaking of clarke i wanted to shred him into little bits so that characterization did its job.
if i had a qualm with the book i'd say that it does -sometimes- seem to kind of reinforce the idea that men are the ones thinking of Logic and Facts and women are the ones guided by Emotions. a lot of choices mary made were spur of the moment emotional ones that ended up just making everything worse but also i'm realizing even as i write this that it makes me sound like a major asshole. maybe i'm just too used to baru-type characters who make awful decisions in a different way. and overall i did understand her anger in most of the situations she found herself in. also i guess henry's emotions get the better of him a lot. i also didn't really love that mary apologized to maisie before vice versa after she showed her the creature and maisie reacted badly. honestly i feel like she had a lot more to apologize for. yes maybe mary shouldn't have been lying to her the whole time but also she ended up literally being right to keep it from her because she reacted with such disgust!! it was nice that she came around to the creature after watching mary interact with it and it would still be nice for that to be the thing that changed her mind but it made me feel weird. maybe it was supposed to show that mary is willing to be the bigger person for maisie? but it still felt like she was the one less in the wrong so it felt more frustrating than anything.
honestly a really lovely book. full of things i enjoy that i haven't seen enough of. and a couple quotes i liked so much i wanted to take a picture of them (because this book is also not my book it belongs to the library).
this came on the heels of the first book i dnfed in quite a while (which i won't review since i don't usually review books i dnf. principle of the thing or whatever) and so maybe i'm just spoiled by this book not being That book. but also ugh i loved this
this has gotta be one of my favorite frankenstein adaptations (if this counts as that). it takes a definitively unique spin on the whole "victorian scientist creating life" premise and delves deeper into the real life scientific societies of england at the time, which was really enjoyable to see. and god, i LOVED the creature. we need more frankendinosaurs right now immediately. charming, exciting and fun nearly all the way through.
i have this funny thought that these characters could have easily been in a less well written book and would have been a total mess. but they weren't and i'm very happy about that. it took me a little while to fully come around to mary since i am a little tired of one person automatically being the only morally upstanding person in the room at a time where a lot of backwards opinions were commonplace. but i found i could relate to her anger with the fucked up practices of her community, and yes, i continue to adore women of science. i also like that they specified her love for her child was different than her love for the creature and shot down the idea that she was basically using it to replace her kid because if they had compared the creature to her daughter i would have cringed SO hard. honestly i feel like the author did a good job writing a character who isn't really typically motherly and wants to exist as a person outside of that. and while losing her child is always going to affect her, there was a lot going on with her that didn't have anything to do with that.
maisie was so sweetiepie...the sort of character i'm so glad was allowed to be a love interest. she's allowed to be less physically strong and be chronically ill but at the same time she's so full of life and perky and multifaceted and lovely...also sapphic stories where the love interest is the more feminine one always make me jump up in the air for joy. though i know it's victorian times and there's a base standard of femininity for both of them but you get what i am saying. you understand. henry was AUGH! it's so crazy because like. most of the time when a character has a crappy husband it kind of smacks you over the head with it but henry was maybe one of the most realistically flawed of these kinds of characters i've seen and it legitimately took me by surprise. a lot of his banter with mary was genuinely sweet! i could genuinely see that at one time there was love there! and there still was and still might be but those flaws begin to become less and less charming as mary becomes more and more disillusioned. he also got a lot worse whenever clarke entered the picture which i also appreciated even as it pissed me off because it's true that a lot of men who are otherwise somewhat decent people can easily go downhill when surrounded by an echo chamber of way worse friends. speaking of clarke i wanted to shred him into little bits so that characterization did its job.
if i had a qualm with the book i'd say that it does -sometimes- seem to kind of reinforce the idea that men are the ones thinking of Logic and Facts and women are the ones guided by Emotions. a lot of choices mary made were spur of the moment emotional ones that ended up just making everything worse but also i'm realizing even as i write this that it makes me sound like a major asshole. maybe i'm just too used to baru-type characters who make awful decisions in a different way. and overall i did understand her anger in most of the situations she found herself in. also i guess henry's emotions get the better of him a lot.
honestly a really lovely book. full of things i enjoy that i haven't seen enough of. and a couple quotes i liked so much i wanted to take a picture of them (because this book is also not my book it belongs to the library).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Sexism, and Racism
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual harassment, Animal death, and Homophobia
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
i like when books make me feel smart by making me feel just a littttllleee bit stupid but not so much that i feel totally lost. honestly i think the hype this got kind of intimidated me more going in than i ended up needing to be? like it felt like i'd overreacted in the end. honestly some of the reviews have me wondering if we read the same book. especially the people saying this is about how life is inherently Bad?? this seems to be quite blatantly saying the opposite
i know some people didn't like the book because of how long it takes for Plot to start happening but i was a kid who read those long plotless manuals about the magic system or bestiary for some kind of specific fantasy world. this was never a problem for me. i liked the journal entries i liked just wandering around the halls i liked the hint of the mystery we got!
all of the characters apart from piranesi felt pretty flat (maybe with the exception ofarne-sayles? ) but maybe that was on purpose. i can't really be too upset about it because after all the book is About piranesi. if we had to only flesh out one character it's good that it was him. i liked raphael right up until we learned she was a cop :( will never ever be able to truly enjoy a cop character who is portrayed as a Righteous Force For Good and nothing is put into truly examining that idea. though i don't know what i expected from a book of this size and a specific story to tell.
definitely a book i will read again and probably take notes on because a couple of times i was like ohh if i was the kind of person who took notes on books i would make a note of this. couldn't write in this as it was a library book and i don't like writing inside of books anyway because i smudge everywhere but i need to start just. making documents again.
honestly if i leave you with one thing it is that this book is really not at all intimidating as long as you are the kind of person who likes reading about some pointless minutiae (and i am so it worked for me). and despite the awfulness of some of its characters i absolutely believe that this is a book about hopefulness and the beauty of humanity. and i continue to be a Sucker For That Shit.
i know some people didn't like the book because of how long it takes for Plot to start happening but i was a kid who read those long plotless manuals about the magic system or bestiary for some kind of specific fantasy world. this was never a problem for me. i liked the journal entries i liked just wandering around the halls i liked the hint of the mystery we got!
all of the characters apart from piranesi felt pretty flat (maybe with the exception of
definitely a book i will read again and probably take notes on because a couple of times i was like ohh if i was the kind of person who took notes on books i would make a note of this. couldn't write in this as it was a library book and i don't like writing inside of books anyway because i smudge everywhere but i need to start just. making documents again.
honestly if i leave you with one thing it is that this book is really not at all intimidating as long as you are the kind of person who likes reading about some pointless minutiae (and i am so it worked for me). and despite the awfulness of some of its characters i absolutely believe that this is a book about hopefulness and the beauty of humanity. and i continue to be a Sucker For That Shit.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Gun violence
Minor: Animal death