takecoverbooksptbo's reviews
156 reviews

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Despite some misgivings about how Fracassi resolves the conflict between the real-world harms Catholic institutions have inflicted and the spiritual salvation that the religion offers, this book rules. As possession narratives go, you’d be hard pressed to find a book that is paced this well and also finds time to develop characters, mood, and dread. There are some very scary, unsettling moments in this story. I’d highly recommend it if you want an action-packed horror story that will tug at your heart-strings a little bit.

Content Warnings

If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution by Vincent Bevins

Go to review page

challenging inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Vincent Bevins might be the best journalist-historian working today. Between his outstanding 2021 book The Jakarta Method and this one, he’s laid out a convincing set of events that both confound and elucidate the modern era. If We Burn takes aim at what it calls « the Mass Protest Decade » (the 2010s) and tries to find the reasons why internet-fueled and hypermediated uprisings in far-flung places like Egypt, Brazil, Hong Kong and Tunisia had such varied and often disastrous political effects. Bevins uses first-hand accounts of the events, along with rigorous historical research to look into how reactionary forces were able to co-opt protests that almost universally began as horizontalist, neo-Anarchist demonstrations and movements. If you’re looking for the reason why the mass protests of the 2020s have failed to result in meaningful progressive change, this is your book.

White Horse by Erika T. Wurth

Go to review page

dark emotional sad slow-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

3.0

Content Warnings

Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis by Gregor Craigie

Go to review page

informative reflective medium-paced

2.0

I honestly don’t know why this book exists. Craigie uses chapters that alternate between examples of broad problems in the Canadian housing crisis (region by region) and how international locales have attempted to solve these problems.

While the book’s form creates some interesting political juxtapositions, Our Crumbling Foundation has a larger problem: while it acknowledges the exigent state of Canada’s housing crisis, the solutions put forward will always be inadequate because it leaves the housing market intact. As a result, the book wastes a lot of words and pages on the crisis without ever naming the core problem that needs to be fixed: the marketization of home ownership. As long as we see housing as a commodity and not a right, nothing will be fixed in Canada.

Craigie wrote a pretty depressing book here, but not for the reasons he probably thinks. As a watermark for where mainstream Canadian liberalism stands in our age of rising inflation, as well as a benchmark for the political desire to legislate change, this is pretty pathetic.

Content Warnings

Scanlines by Todd Keisling

Go to review page

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Scanlines is absolutely deserving of the title « the most disturbing book I’ve ever read ». It’s not the most violent or gruesome story you’ll read, but it will bother you.

Having said that, the novel is very effective. As an exploration of depression, suicide, morbid curiosity, and self-destructive desires, it’s among the best horror stories I’ve come across. It’s a coming of age narrative in the worst way possible and, I guess I’ll leave it at that. Check it out and abandon all hope.

Content Warnings

Even the Worm Will Turn by Hailey Piper

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

I was hoping Even the Worm Will Turn would expand on the intriguing concepts introduced in The Worm and His Kings. Instead, Piper heaps on additional concepts and ideas that ultimately undercut the character driven cosmic horror of the first book in the trilogy. I will be checking out the series’ third instalment later this year, in the hopes that Turn will be given meaning and significance retroactively. For the time being, though, the book is intriguing and mysterious, but not much else.

Content Warnings