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thehelenaiad's reviews
56 reviews
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
5.0
In all actuality, I’m between 4 and 5 stars for this book!
I don’t think words can be adequately used to describe the emotional whirlwind I went through alongside these characters! I’m heartbroken, so in love, furious, and essentially every other emotion at once.
The characters written in this book, with their immaculate ambiguity as gifted by James Baldwin are characters I hate to love and YET simultaneously love to hate!
The way time is played around to give you a feeling of dread stretched until the very moment it clicks and everything comes together was truly captivating and made me unable to set this book down.
As for some of the content/themes presented in the book:
Given the time period in which this was written, I think the themes tackled were done so with such excellence and yet such a blunt nature that today they may seem malignant in a way.
I don’t believe this was the true intent of Baldwin’s writing, as characters within the story show their true colors through their misogyny (and internalized homophobia). These characteristics/character flaws made the characters feel all the more real for the period and thus the story.
This book blew me away with so many aspects yet kept me crawling back for more! It is definitely going onto my reread list so I can annotate and catch all the beautiful writing I missed in the first time through.
I don’t think words can be adequately used to describe the emotional whirlwind I went through alongside these characters! I’m heartbroken, so in love, furious, and essentially every other emotion at once.
The characters written in this book, with their immaculate ambiguity as gifted by James Baldwin are characters I hate to love and YET simultaneously love to hate!
The way time is played around to give you a feeling of dread stretched until the very moment it clicks and everything comes together was truly captivating and made me unable to set this book down.
As for some of the content/themes presented in the book:
Given the time period in which this was written, I think the themes tackled were done so with such excellence and yet such a blunt nature that today they may seem malignant in a way.
I don’t believe this was the true intent of Baldwin’s writing, as characters within the story show their true colors through their misogyny (and internalized homophobia). These characteristics/character flaws made the characters feel all the more real for the period and thus the story.
This book blew me away with so many aspects yet kept me crawling back for more! It is definitely going onto my reread list so I can annotate and catch all the beautiful writing I missed in the first time through.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
4.0
I can’t believe I ever set this book down in a soft DNF!
This book’s prose is something I’ve never experienced before. Arundhati Roy’s writing is something so incredible and even without the story presented in this book would be something so breathtaking within itself.
This book is something so strange and deals with heavy topics in a way that get beautifully (if that’s how you can even begin to describe this writing)and yet loosely explained until everything seems to come together, plot wise.
I will say, however, there are content warnings that may need to be looked into before picking up this book!
Overall, the exploration of time, family, “love laws”, and oppression amongst other things, were very captivating.
This is not a 5 star read for me only because it kept me swept into a whirlwind I was not able, at some points, to keep my head from.
But! It was an amazing book.
This book’s prose is something I’ve never experienced before. Arundhati Roy’s writing is something so incredible and even without the story presented in this book would be something so breathtaking within itself.
This book is something so strange and deals with heavy topics in a way that get beautifully (if that’s how you can even begin to describe this writing)and yet loosely explained until everything seems to come together, plot wise.
I will say, however, there are content warnings that may need to be looked into before picking up this book!
Overall, the exploration of time, family, “love laws”, and oppression amongst other things, were very captivating.
This is not a 5 star read for me only because it kept me swept into a whirlwind I was not able, at some points, to keep my head from.
But! It was an amazing book.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
5.0
I can not believe this is a debut novel!
Aiden Thomas really did some amazing work on this book. Their crafting of characters I could see so vividly in my head made this reading experience so, so enjoyable!
The way, as well, culture was explored in a fantastical way was such a refreshing experience, especially in YA fiction.
Now, I did NOT expect this story to have such heartbreaking yet equally loving and lovely elements that moved me with such incredible force. I did not expect to cry! (Even if there were merely a few stray tears, the book made it happen, and it was great.)
Friendships, family, loyalty, love, and sheer determination were absolutely redefined with a whole new lens for me throughout this story.
All the good being said, I was en route to a 5 star read up until the last few chapters of the book. It was here where, I find, the plot gets a little skewed and at points quite typical. Perhaps since it is a YA book, it really did read that way to me at times, even if it was an older audience YA story. I predicted some twists—which took some of the fun of actually finding out for certain away—but, I did thoroughly enjoy most of it.
This is definitely a character driven book so my issues with the plot weren’t so grand, seeing as I was much more taken with the dear characters I grew to love and route for.
This is a high 4 star read for me but for the sake of this rating system, I’m rounding up to a 5!
Aiden Thomas really did some amazing work on this book. Their crafting of characters I could see so vividly in my head made this reading experience so, so enjoyable!
The way, as well, culture was explored in a fantastical way was such a refreshing experience, especially in YA fiction.
Now, I did NOT expect this story to have such heartbreaking yet equally loving and lovely elements that moved me with such incredible force. I did not expect to cry! (Even if there were merely a few stray tears, the book made it happen, and it was great.)
Friendships, family, loyalty, love, and sheer determination were absolutely redefined with a whole new lens for me throughout this story.
All the good being said, I was en route to a 5 star read up until the last few chapters of the book. It was here where, I find, the plot gets a little skewed and at points quite typical. Perhaps since it is a YA book, it really did read that way to me at times, even if it was an older audience YA story. I predicted some twists—which took some of the fun of actually finding out for certain away—but, I did thoroughly enjoy most of it.
This is definitely a character driven book so my issues with the plot weren’t so grand, seeing as I was much more taken with the dear characters I grew to love and route for.
This is a high 4 star read for me but for the sake of this rating system, I’m rounding up to a 5!
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