twistingsnake's reviews
360 reviews

Mouth to Mouth to Mouth by wilt

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I write trans masc fiction and a reader and friend of mine wanted to buy this book for me because they thought (rightfully) that I’d enjoy it. The violent erotica of transformation is something important to me as a trans person, a creator, and consumer and this collection captures it perfectly. 

It’s rare that I read horror that capitalizes on what I also find horrifying. My favorite works from this collection (crystalline, godling, womb witch, and the title work) were all stories that pressed on my own terrors. Crystalline made me feel like having my ribs cave in - an indescribable claustrophobia. Godling was a prolonged panic attack. Womb Witch felt like staring in a mirror. Mouth to Mouth to Mouth was just an indescribably beautiful experience, satisfying in ways that I rarely experience. 

To read about men like me dealing with the horror of pregnancy, loss of autonomy, being unknown and unseen for their true natures, having their unwanted body parts ripped off their bodies while they watched - it was all so gratifying. To be really, truly seen. Horror is the reflection of humanities dark spaces - traditional horror does not scare me often because it does not reflect me. This collection scared me - it also turned me on, soothed, and exhilarated me. I love that it exists and it inspires me to make and share more trans art. It matters very much that we can see ourselves: blood, bone, and sinew. Beautiful, transcendent flesh. 

Paganism In Depth: A Polytheist Approach by John Beckett

lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.0

Not nearly as successful or insightful than his first book. If you really enjoyed the second half of that book then you’ll probably get something out of this one (pagan leadership and community work) but there’s very little practical pagan knowledge in this. Still, I love Beckett and the way he views his faith and the practicality of his approach. I’ll never not enjoy his writings even if I left this one without much in regards to applicable knowledge. 

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

4.0

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

4.0

Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

What a complication of a book. It's romantic and tense, tragic and beautiful. I loved every brutal twist inside it and how to demanded such tenderness despite it. I really do think this is one of those queer classics everyone should read. I like that this is not a love story so much as a book about two men who exist in a space they would have never occupied otherwise. And in that, they find each other. Despite themselves. It's heart-wrenching and a little mean in a way I love. 

Animus and Anima: Two Essays by Cary F. Baynes, Emma Jung, Hildegard Nagel

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

Emma Jung is a brilliant mind who is hindered severely by the sexism of her time. The first essay in particular, while the strongest and my personal favorite of the two, is always undercut by her misunderstanding of misogyny. It's an interesting contraction, her insistence on women being proud of their anima and their sex while also undercutting the ability of women to exist outside the home at every possible moment. There's a particularly tragic, almost laughable passage about how without the male animus there would have never been spoons invented for women to stir their soups in. Because women are dreamers, and men are doers and that's just how the spirit is fractured. 

If only she knew the inventions that women would make outside her time. At the systems that held minds like herself back from expanding beyond the home and marriage. Jung despairs against the feminist movement but also exists in a strange juxtaposition of understanding the societal inequality between sexes. Importantly, she highlights that the male mind rejects its need to embrace the anima because it is female, and therefore weak. In comparison, women do no engage with the animus because they do not think they are worthy of thinking. Proof that you can understand the pieces of the puzzle, but stubboringly ignore the completed picture. I enjoy the concept of the animus/anima, though I believe it to not be a gendered experience, rather a complicated balance unique to each individual. Ultimately, she made me think! I enjoyed the first essay so much that I rushed home from work to finish the second, which was neither spectacular or intellectually stimulating. I would have rated it higher if it matched the drive of the first but, still. A worthwhile read. 

The Modern Witch's Spellbook: Book II by Sarah Lyddon Morrison

sad fast-paced

0.5

Booooooooo. This is a travesty. I enjoyed the first book, despite its love-spell heavy beginning, I found its approach to craft (black and white) incredibly refreshing and interesting. I don't know what happened to this author in the years between publication, but this is an absolute embarrassment. It contains the practicality of the first, but while that book focused specifically on craft (the good, the bad, the gray) this is more of a reflection of the political turmoil of the times and bizarrely, Christianity. The first book does not source any specific spirit to credit for a successful spell, but god, does she hammer it into you here. If you want a very conservative, bizarrely Christian, functionally useless spellbook than this is the one. The first one is worth the read, this one is only good for the bin which is where I will be promptly sending it. Goodbye! 

The Modern Witch's Spellbook by Sarah Lyddon Morrison

adventurous dark funny informative medium-paced

4.0

I will admit, this lost me in its first love-magic heavy half. Of all the forms of magic, I loath love-magic the most. I see it as one of the highest form of violation a person can do to another magically. That being said, I think it's the right of all magic users to use magic as they see fit. It's just not something I ever dabble in. I much prefer more straight forward black magic. After page and page of endearingly folksy love-magic I was certain that this book was a wash. Until, you get to the second half and Sarah Lyddon Morrison gives a very detailed explanation on grave robbing. If you're looking for a book on baneful magic, this has some zingers! Don't let her easy dismal of darker magic in the beginning fool you, this girl has no problem giving you as many death rituals as she can jam pack into one chapter titled only as "Hate Magic". 

Also, I found this era of magic refreshing. Most modern books are so preoccupied with upselling you overpriced crystals and the schematics of a self-love jar that they forget to tell you the history behind the craft. The complicated, often immoral motivation behind magic. I love how lived in this book feels, how you get glimpses of a society of young, 70s witches up to all sorts of mischief. I love that she's got her own less-than-dubious herb dealer that she advises you approach cautiously before asking for hens blood. I added a lot of her morally dubious spells to my grimiore and I'm leaving the love-spell section of this to my much more inclined little sister. A fun read! 

Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky

challenging informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.5

Kandinsky's meditation on art is that the artist has a spiritual duty to create work that resonates with the soul. Not just in the century it was created, but in the ones after. I enjoyed his perspective that art is defined by the period in which it is created, and any art created in imitation of it, will contain a hollowness of not being contextualized in that period. That all art is a child of it's time, but it can only be a mother for future children if it contains meaning and insight that will construct the future. I also really enjoyed his distinction of the spirituality of white/black. I am of the personal belief that art does not have to have spirituality to be meaningful or impactful. Kandinsky is defined by his own context, after all and could not imagine the type of art and intention that would exist in the 21st century. I enjoyed his manner of speaking and conviction, however, and I imagine his rigid beliefs have informed my own in some significant way. A quick, but insightful read! 

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Endlessly more successful than the first. In part, because Lestat is Anne's clear favorite, and the amount of love and consideration she pours into him is evident on every page. Also because Lestat delights in being a vampire in a way that Louis despaired and so rather than a confession of sin, this reads more of an exaltation of immorality and otherness. I also found the occult and spirituality aspect of this fascinating and beautiful. There are so many dialogues between characters that had me enraptured, reading passages aloud so that I could hear them being spoken.

Did the druids do (handwave) sacrifices with a hodgepodge of rituals created from superstition and butchered folklore? Yes. Did I have a lot of fun? Absolutely. I can see why people who liked the more narrative driven Interview with a Vampire disliked this one or found it boring or slow. I'm an occult academic and a Scorpio, however. So this absolutely was a 5-star read for me.