st0bbit's reviews
100 reviews

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

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

4.0

this was painful to read but one of those books where it’s rly important to process and understand… i loved the afterword and the author’s thoughts on the censorship of her book
Family of Liars by E. Lockhart

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

3.75

i actually enjoyed this more than we were liars imo… i still like family drama elements and all the internal politics involved lol 

i do wish there’d been more links to the present though, because it’s still hard to see how all the girls went from such successful and intelligent sisters who all banded together, to women trying to go behind one another’s back, women who were willing to leverage upon their children for inheritance and money. small questions that i also wish were addressed; how did penny and carrie drift so much from bess? did carrie ever suspect the truth behind her son’s death, ever resent cadence for her survival? i wish these had been answered, it would’ve tied up some of those ends and provided more closure
Final Girls by Riley Sager

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mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i did not see that coming… definitely a page turner 
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

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adventurous emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

i sorta knew what happened at the end, or at least that cadence is an unreliable narrator. but i still enjoyed reading this, and i finished it in a few hours because i was determined to find out exactly what happened. i really liked the way this was written, except for the use of physical ailments sometimes to express cadence’s emotions — especially at the start where i wasn’t sure how literal to take what was being told to us. also some dialogues don’t feel like what 17 year old would say… HAHA but again this is all from cadence’s perspective, and to a certain extent i suppose we can chalk it up to what she perceived them to be. i like how gat’s perspective and the racism was slowly explored more though, and it felt like a succinct reflection on how the privileged are insulated in their bubbles of wealth, and don’t notice others outside of it. overall this was decently interesting, and considering it’s length i felt pretty attached to the Liars (which i also still don’t understand… what led them to being called the Liars?). a quick story that’s really easy to read and get immersed in!
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 49%.
too stream of consciousness-y to me…. elio’s thoughts all feel centred around oliver and i got bored of reading his constant pining and introspections on infatuation lol. too draggy and to the point where it got confusing… and i don’t really root for their relationship either
Arcadian Nights: Greek Myths Reimagined by John Spurling

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 49%.
maybe i’m just not into greek mythology. i thought i was a mythology person thought (chinese mythology at least) so i can’t place why i didn’t quite like this enough to continue. oh well
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

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dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-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? No

5.0

this feels like loss, personified. the writing is so poignant, and just hits right where it hurts. so many quotes that i’m gonna be thinking about for days on end…. such an important book, and probably my favourite one thus far </3
The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith

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challenging dark emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

really makes u think about the myth of the model victim :( eden is hard to love, and understand, and excuse, but that’s what makes her so real. trauma is not glamorous, and it bleeds into victims’ lives, and that of those around them slowly. discusses such important topics, and certainly one that many, many people should read. 

i remember thinking that the one thing that never sat right with me was how josh and eden’s relationship started. it always felt superficial, shallow — based off her looks. but jeez, everything else i love about this book makes this feel v minor. and by the end….. you cannot tell me there’s no chemistry. they rly had something :/

as mentioned right at the top… i love that eden is such a frustrating MC. she is not lovable and is definitely not meant to be, she isn’t romanticised and i love that she realises she cannot be fixed by any one.
even though she doesn’t get her happy ending with josh (at least… in my head they do but not in the book….), she definitely was in no state of mind for a relationship, neither could she have expected josh to single-handedly dragged her out of the pit she was in.
a happy relationship will not magically save her, and i’m glad this book made that clear.

the ending felt right to me… or maybe because i sped through this in a few hours straight. but i like this place, enough closure, yet still open enough for us to imagine where the road takes her! and the many possibilities she still has, despite her life having once felt like it had ended
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The Picture of Dorian Gray: Vintage Classics x MADE.COM by Oscar Wilde

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

4.0

i know this is supposed to be a more accessible classic, but some portions were still too chim for me…
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The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi

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challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

there’s several themes discussed in this story that i thought where done particularly well. the american dream (or tara and salim’s version of it), maintaining your sense of identity in a completely different country with widely separate culture, tara’s trauma and how it manifested in her everyday life. tara isn’t one of those lovable main characters — but the way her grief affected her, and her behaviour was understandable to me, although certainly not justified. and while the change did feel very jarring and abrupt, especially in the way she viewed mukta after — i think that’s also a part of grief, and how it seemingly overwhelms and transforms those affected by it. the descriptions of india as well is the sort of representation i wish we could see in more books about developing countries that tend to be looked down upon or even vilified by western media. focusing on the everyday moments and the bustle of life that is so important to those living there. it’s the little things, the good and bad and even the ugly, like the prevalence of masala chai drank, religious rituals, the red light districts, the persistence of caste divide that really reflect the realities of what life in india might look for a variety of different people. so i really liked reading those descriptions, or the busy traffic, the familiar sounds and scents of bustling neighbourhoods, that make india feel like home to so many people. and of course, the use of terms frequently spoken by those living in indians. they all humanised the country the story was set in, to a lovely and familiar degree.

this book also doesn’t feel consistent, in the sense that there were aspects i both liked, and didn’t like as much at other times. the language was fluid and poignant, but also abrupt and repetitive at other points. the distinction between when police was good and when they were corrupt felt unclear and again, inconsistent when it came to the brothels and the organizations. the relationships overall felt unnecessary, but made sense in the wider scheme of the story. 

but some elements in the book threw me off as well; the dialogue being one of the first things that stuck out to me. there are some lines that you knowww damn well no one would say in real life. this is especially seen in brian, with his fake-deep lines that ended up coming across as pretentious. about the relationship between him and tara…. no chemistry at all, especially with the whirlwind way it seemed to start. but perhaps that was the author’s intent, and i did enjoy reading about how tara’s trauma and grief manifested through her  feelings towards him. speaking of tara…. sometimes the ways she’s written in her pov’s feel like a shell of the way others perceive her. especially from mukta’s pov… i get that she idolised tara, but when she waxes poetic about tara’s stories, and the way she sees the world, or her bravery… it’s not reflected enough in tara’s everyday behaviour, apart from like. one rare moment in the story. so it was hard seeing what ended up drawing mukta and brian to her. if anything, mukta was the one who saw the world differently, uniquely. smaller things, like a lack of punctuation or typo perhaps missed out in the editing process, and italicised words that threw me off because they felt extra.

but overall, it was bittersweet story with closure, and does shine light on issues and backwards traditions that do still exist to this very day in such countries. while there were a number of things i did not particularly enjoy about this story, what was done well were all done really well, and i particularly enjoyed those bits!
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