torts's reviews
1701 reviews

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

adventurous dark emotional funny

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

The Tea Dragon Tapestry by K. O'Neill

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective

5.0

maybe kind of almost made me cry.... reminded me of Kiki's Delivery Service in how it addressed a changing relationship to your art/passions, but with an extension of those ideas to apply more to different phases of life (and aging/settling more generally)

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

adventurous funny mysterious

• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

adventurous emotional funny informative lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
Did not finish book. Stopped at 14%.

the whole he-thinks-she-died-but-somehow-she-lived thing felt too...tropey? poorly explained (in a way that was meant to be mysterious, i'm sure, but it just felt like a narrative gotcha to say she was dead, switch to his perspective to convey how thoroughly he'd run away and isolated himself from the people who could've let him know she hadn't truly died or came back after the initial cry over her death, and then switch back to hers with no explanation of how she Lazarused)... also the random switches to spanish felt awkward and clunky, not like they were being used for worldbuilding or prosity as they could've (should've?) been

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The Scholomance...but cozy(!?). With a protagonist in her thirties, dealing with (slightly less deadly) magic school antics that still have resonance with actual issues of colonialism and tell a story about finding/creating safety in a world where it is dangerous to be different, and where being magical means attracting negative attention, and where being vulnerable and falling in love is basically equivalent to risking your life.

Bonus: This brown-skinned protagonist raised in (white) British culture was written by a non-white author. And when she is tasked with caring for three girls of color she rejects the call (from the white found-family members) to teach them how to Be People of Color. (I thought Novik did a great job in the Scholomance series, but I had seen the white author writing a brown prota onist as a criticism and do think it's worth giving attention to non-white authors writing about the particular feelings of outsiderness and othering and tokenization that Novik kind of skirted around.)

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

https://electricliterature.com/now-more-than-ever-we-wish-we-had-these-lost-octavia-butler-novels/

The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey

adventurous hopeful

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland

challenging dark emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Addie LaRue did the immortality curse with flashbacks/alternating perspectives plot better, but the vampire element (and focus on maternal rather than romantic love) made for an interesting take on (im)mortality. I kept waiting for more to happen (or for there to be another big twist after the main twist relating to Leo's family), but in the end it was kind of nice for it to just be about making her peace with immortality and learning to join her fellow vampires instead of moping around and trying to make a life among mortals.

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Amelia Nagoski, Emily Nagoski

informative

4.0

at the time it seemed eye-rollingly obvious and kind of not worth writing an entire book to say "do some cardio to complete the stress cycle and let your body relax" but i keep finding myself referring back to it so maybe it was worth an entire book to hammer home that point