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soupstix's reviews
132 reviews
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
if i'm being quite honest, nothing about this book caught my attention. the premise is mildly interesting, but i never would've picked it up on my own. after my disastrous encounter with <i>death warrant</i>, i'd implicitly sworn off of male authors and, given my history with ya novels, i've increasingly strayed away from the genre as i've gotten older. i've never been a big fan of dystopian ya novels either, although i did once adore <the giver> and its sequels. i only read this because my little cousin asked me to... and so i slogged through this awful book.
mild spoilers ahead, so be warned.
firstly, the narration was so...dry. which was mildly irritating at first, but had me wanting to glean (haha) myself halfway through the novel. the most stand-out parts to me were the unnecessary fatphobic jokes (particularly pertaining to esme... she is a nine-year-old girl. why are characters focusing on how fit or not fit she is?) and that one uncomfortable throwaway remark about how scythe rand would want to do "lewd things" with rowan once he became of age as a result of his training honing his physique. these are all small, inconsequential passages within the text, i realize. however, they are the only pieces of text of note because they are the only parts that i had any kind of emotional reaction to. the rest of the novel is just an unbearably mind-numbing slog of the most boring worldbuilding known to man. near the end of the novel, i realized i hardly had any idea what citra and rowan or scythe farraday looked like because shusterman's writing style is frustratingly bare-bones.
citra and rowan are ... characters, for sure. they're very tropey and clichéd, which i can't really fault them for since this is a ya novel, but i can't forgive their severe lack of chemistry. immediately upon meeting, they mildly dislike each other despite some very contrived attraction. then they hardly seem to interact before they're separated, after which citra ponders over how rowan has changed and rowan has resigned himself to a boring, sacrificial fate. and then they end up in love, of course, despite the lack of build-up or even any form of interaction during the bulk of the entire book.
the morality was also so painfully dull. there's "good" scythes, the traditional scythes who want to uphold the original tenets of scythedom. then there's the "bad" scythes -- who have been rebranded as "forward-thinking" -- who indiscriminately kill just for the fun of it, and people follow them just because their ideas are new and fresh. i found myself greatly confused by the character of scythe volta, who follows scythe goddard because he's a "<i>visionary</i>" but gives absolutely no true reason for why he believes he <i>needs</i> to follow goddard. it's purely because he views goddard as a visionary--but why? there's no rationalization for it. it feels as though shusterman is afraid to delve into why goddard's modus operandi is so appealing to so many of these background characters, much to the detriment of this book, because it ends up making goddard flatly and cartoonishly evil. oddly, it reads as though this novel is championing conservatism, at least in respect to whatever's going on in scythe society, because change seems to be synonymous with goddard's specific brand of destruction, hedonism, and megalomania, while tradition is associated with moral ascetism and righteousness.
i will say i found scythe curie's journal entries to be somewhat interesting at first with her ponderance over human nature and morality, but the appearance of her character outside of those journal entries completely undercut that. she's strangely dismissive of rowan immediately after he's taken under the wing of goddard, which paints a picture of very black-and-white morality. her past romance with faraday was also just... so creepy! what do you mean 17-year-old curie was going to slide into bed with a sleeping 22-year-old faraday so that she could "be with him"? this is why i've renounced male authors! what is this weird dismissal of consent! i think there was also something mildly interesting about the concept of stagnation in immortality? that i don't think was explored to its fullest potential and might be elaborated on in the sequel books... but with how much i hated this one, there's no way i'm touching the rest of this trilogy.
also, i'm surprised how no one in the reviews has pointed out how blatantly christian this book is. i don't necessarily have a problem with christianity, but this books plays out a form of unaware secular christianity that doesn't challenge its own worldview whatsoever. the ten scythe commandments are an unambigious biblical reference to the ten commandments ("thou shalt kill" -- "thou shalt not kill"). there's also the all-powerful ai cloud -- or i'm sorry, <i>almost</i> all-powerful -- that is loving and caring and knows everything about everyone and is perfect in its morality and whose own self-imposed rule to not interfere in scythedom is what allows corruption to persist... it seems much like an allegory for the christian god who is, of course, perfect in his morality but also doesn't interfere in humanity's sin. and let's not forget about the tonists, whose religion is painted as a joke by most of society, but who are ultimately shown to be dutifully faithful and therefore... perhaps moral? to me, it seemed a pretty blatant allegory for how christianity is more popularly undermined and mocked by atheists/non-christians in the general populace, but where christianity would ultimately turn out to be a higher form of morality that non-believers simply don't understand but will soon learn to. (just to be clear: i am not christian, nor do i have anything against christianity in itself, i'm just stating what messages i feel that the author was conveying, whether intentional or not.)
overall, there was something so... bleak about this book. the character relationships all lacked warmth and love. i understand that for rowan this was by design (as the lettuce), but his friendship with tyger was so gloomily transactional. he (nor did any of the other characters) did not treat esme with any kindness, just annoyance and toleration. his development with citra was nonsensical because there was nothing there at all. citra managed to have somewhat more emotional weight in her relationships with other characters -- but her supposed decent relationship with her family felt more told rather than shown (she hardly spared them a thought during her training, although her test with her younger brother was a bit sweet). and although she ... sort of? has moments with farraday and curie, they still feel hollow. more to move the plot along, rather than to develop interesting relationships.
anyways, sorry little cousin. i truly did not like this book at all, but i'm just not the demographic for it either. and hey, maybe if the rumored movie version of this book turns out to be a truly unfaithful adaptation, i'll spare it a watch.
mild spoilers ahead, so be warned.
firstly, the narration was so...dry. which was mildly irritating at first, but had me wanting to glean (haha) myself halfway through the novel. the most stand-out parts to me were the unnecessary fatphobic jokes (particularly pertaining to esme... she is a nine-year-old girl. why are characters focusing on how fit or not fit she is?) and that one uncomfortable throwaway remark about how scythe rand would want to do "lewd things" with rowan once he became of age as a result of his training honing his physique. these are all small, inconsequential passages within the text, i realize. however, they are the only pieces of text of note because they are the only parts that i had any kind of emotional reaction to. the rest of the novel is just an unbearably mind-numbing slog of the most boring worldbuilding known to man. near the end of the novel, i realized i hardly had any idea what citra and rowan or scythe farraday looked like because shusterman's writing style is frustratingly bare-bones.
citra and rowan are ... characters, for sure. they're very tropey and clichéd, which i can't really fault them for since this is a ya novel, but i can't forgive their severe lack of chemistry. immediately upon meeting, they mildly dislike each other despite some very contrived attraction. then they hardly seem to interact before they're separated, after which citra ponders over how rowan has changed and rowan has resigned himself to a boring, sacrificial fate. and then they end up in love, of course, despite the lack of build-up or even any form of interaction during the bulk of the entire book.
the morality was also so painfully dull. there's "good" scythes, the traditional scythes who want to uphold the original tenets of scythedom. then there's the "bad" scythes -- who have been rebranded as "forward-thinking" -- who indiscriminately kill just for the fun of it, and people follow them just because their ideas are new and fresh. i found myself greatly confused by the character of scythe volta, who follows scythe goddard because he's a "<i>visionary</i>" but gives absolutely no true reason for why he believes he <i>needs</i> to follow goddard. it's purely because he views goddard as a visionary--but why? there's no rationalization for it. it feels as though shusterman is afraid to delve into why goddard's modus operandi is so appealing to so many of these background characters, much to the detriment of this book, because it ends up making goddard flatly and cartoonishly evil. oddly, it reads as though this novel is championing conservatism, at least in respect to whatever's going on in scythe society, because change seems to be synonymous with goddard's specific brand of destruction, hedonism, and megalomania, while tradition is associated with moral ascetism and righteousness.
i will say i found scythe curie's journal entries to be somewhat interesting at first with her ponderance over human nature and morality, but the appearance of her character outside of those journal entries completely undercut that. she's strangely dismissive of rowan immediately after he's taken under the wing of goddard, which paints a picture of very black-and-white morality. her past romance with faraday was also just... so creepy! what do you mean 17-year-old curie was going to slide into bed with a sleeping 22-year-old faraday so that she could "be with him"? this is why i've renounced male authors! what is this weird dismissal of consent! i think there was also something mildly interesting about the concept of stagnation in immortality? that i don't think was explored to its fullest potential and might be elaborated on in the sequel books... but with how much i hated this one, there's no way i'm touching the rest of this trilogy.
also, i'm surprised how no one in the reviews has pointed out how blatantly christian this book is. i don't necessarily have a problem with christianity, but this books plays out a form of unaware secular christianity that doesn't challenge its own worldview whatsoever. the ten scythe commandments are an unambigious biblical reference to the ten commandments ("thou shalt kill" -- "thou shalt not kill"). there's also the all-powerful ai cloud -- or i'm sorry, <i>almost</i> all-powerful -- that is loving and caring and knows everything about everyone and is perfect in its morality and whose own self-imposed rule to not interfere in scythedom is what allows corruption to persist... it seems much like an allegory for the christian god who is, of course, perfect in his morality but also doesn't interfere in humanity's sin. and let's not forget about the tonists, whose religion is painted as a joke by most of society, but who are ultimately shown to be dutifully faithful and therefore... perhaps moral? to me, it seemed a pretty blatant allegory for how christianity is more popularly undermined and mocked by atheists/non-christians in the general populace, but where christianity would ultimately turn out to be a higher form of morality that non-believers simply don't understand but will soon learn to. (just to be clear: i am not christian, nor do i have anything against christianity in itself, i'm just stating what messages i feel that the author was conveying, whether intentional or not.)
overall, there was something so... bleak about this book. the character relationships all lacked warmth and love. i understand that for rowan this was by design (as the lettuce), but his friendship with tyger was so gloomily transactional. he (nor did any of the other characters) did not treat esme with any kindness, just annoyance and toleration. his development with citra was nonsensical because there was nothing there at all. citra managed to have somewhat more emotional weight in her relationships with other characters -- but her supposed decent relationship with her family felt more told rather than shown (she hardly spared them a thought during her training, although her test with her younger brother was a bit sweet). and although she ... sort of? has moments with farraday and curie, they still feel hollow. more to move the plot along, rather than to develop interesting relationships.
anyways, sorry little cousin. i truly did not like this book at all, but i'm just not the demographic for it either. and hey, maybe if the rumored movie version of this book turns out to be a truly unfaithful adaptation, i'll spare it a watch.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
challenging
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Speaking from the Heart: 18 Languages for Modern Love by Anne Hodder-Shipp
informative
1.75
i appreciate what this book is trying to do and i think the dialogue it opens up about how we express love throughout our platonic, romantic, familial, and just general interpersonal relationships is very worthwhile. however, i just feel like there were too many categories, many of which had overlap, and what each category entailed just didn’t feel as intuitive as the more popular categories of “physical touch, words of affirmation, gift-giving, quality time, and acts of service.” if someone told me their primary love language was “solidarity” or “bestowing,” even after reading these descriptions, i feel like i would need to ask questions to further understand what that looks like for them and what exactly that means. although it is an interesting examination of the way we express affection to people in our lives, the categories in this book don’t hold up as tools for understanding myself or others.
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
emotional
reflective
fast-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
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Idol, Burning by Rin Usami
emotional
tense
medium-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
3.75
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
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
i’m not exactly sure how i felt about this. on one hand, there was something so insufferable about these self-centered white people and the way they pathologically intellectualized every single one of their tribulations. in a way that was almost too obnoxious to really bear. on the other hand, i did feel things. everything that happened in this book did, in fact, elicit an emotional reaction in me. and yet, by the end, i still did not know quite how to feel about anything that happened. i did enjoy the prose, however, and i think overall i enjoyed my experience with this book. so three stars it is.
Death Warrant by Bryan Johnston
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
i thought the premise was pretty interesting but the ending was just…extremely anticlimactic and overall it just didn’t feel like this book had much to say. or maybe it did, and the message was just not worth absorbing. the billionaire deus ex machina was such a copout. also, you could tell frankie was written by a man based on the weird, off-color remarks she kept making about other women.
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
though i have been peripherally aware of this is how you lose the time war for a while now, i have been pushed to read it at — you guessed it — bigolas dickolas wolfwood’s acclaim. i did exactly as instructed: i did not look up anything about it before i read it, i simply read it.
honest review? i’m not a fan of epistolary novels in general, so this novella already had the odds stacked against it. when i realized that was what i was getting into…well. suffice to say i am less-than-enthused about the entire novella. apologies to bigolas dickolas.
time war has an ambitious premise to fit in such a compact package. as it says on the tin, it takes place during a time war, and as a result it jumps through time and space in a pretty incomprehensible manner. despite its prominence in the title, there isn’t much, if any, explanation about the war going in the backdrop. for that exact reason, the war merely serves as a backdrop. the main thread throughout the novella is the letter correspondence between two characters: red and blue. while there were very many bits of pretty prose that jumped out at me, i struggled to find these characters’ romance at all compelling. the main question that followed me throughout this book was: why? why are they fighting in this war? why are these two characters drawn to each other? why should i care about these characters at all? why should i care about the outcome of this war? why, why, why, why…
to me, this is how you lose the time war is a pretty rendition of a tired regurgitation of tropes. this book is pretty, that’s the only way i can describe it. pretty prose with pretty set pieces. but there isn’t enough substance for me to dig my teeth into. i see why some people have found value in it, but it’s just not for me!
honest review? i’m not a fan of epistolary novels in general, so this novella already had the odds stacked against it. when i realized that was what i was getting into…well. suffice to say i am less-than-enthused about the entire novella. apologies to bigolas dickolas.
time war has an ambitious premise to fit in such a compact package. as it says on the tin, it takes place during a time war, and as a result it jumps through time and space in a pretty incomprehensible manner. despite its prominence in the title, there isn’t much, if any, explanation about the war going in the backdrop. for that exact reason, the war merely serves as a backdrop. the main thread throughout the novella is the letter correspondence between two characters: red and blue. while there were very many bits of pretty prose that jumped out at me, i struggled to find these characters’ romance at all compelling. the main question that followed me throughout this book was: why? why are they fighting in this war? why are these two characters drawn to each other? why should i care about these characters at all? why should i care about the outcome of this war? why, why, why, why…
to me, this is how you lose the time war is a pretty rendition of a tired regurgitation of tropes. this book is pretty, that’s the only way i can describe it. pretty prose with pretty set pieces. but there isn’t enough substance for me to dig my teeth into. i see why some people have found value in it, but it’s just not for me!