uuuultraviolennnnt's reviews
92 reviews

I Cannot be Good Until You Say it by Sanah Ahsan

slow-paced

2.75

i’ve known better queer poc poets who stab more edgingly into the disassociative memory-bone

sanah ahsan uses old, immigrant-religiosity to bring forth 21st century tears; when held up to scripture, their poetry is lacklustre

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective medium-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? Yes

5.0

‘Truly, nothing in the world has occupied my thoughts as much as the Self, this riddle, that I live, that I am one and am separated and different from everybody else, that I am Siddhartha; and another nothing in the world do I know less than about myself, about Siddhartha.’

‘I have asked the river, my friend, I have asked it many times, and the river shook itself with laughter at our folly. Water will go with water,’

‘Everything that was not suffered to the end and finally concluded, recurred, and the same sorrows were undergone,’

Content Warnings

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

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emotional reflective sad medium-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? Yes

3.75

his life was sour when all he craved was sugar sweetness.

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The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

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challenging dark informative medium-paced

5.0

“ Hence the question: Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house? “

I took my time with this beauty, and have been emboldened by these great words against racism in our society

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

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inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

with great respite, born from this, i am again called to my desk to write. it is littered with impatience, but the oftener i cleanse with these letters the sooner the depths of my weathered mind will see the eternal sunshine of creativity

God Complex by Rachael Allen

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adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.75

An epic very similar in imagery and limerence to Elizabeth Smart’s poetry with striking, tasteful draws between environmental distaster and unrequited love, all organised in succession. So much nuance created along the river pulling Rachel Allen’s self out of her wood-rotting relationship. The prose and poems read like a vibrant green slideshow, the greens like that of cyanide leaves, of new bile, of toxic waste

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Smart, Elizabeth (May 7, 2015) Paperback by Elizabeth Smart, Elizabeth Smart

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challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

I wanted to hit her behind the head with a hard baton of reality…

I needed to pause a lot while reading each chapter to allow Smart’s metaphors to take root before they quickly passed into another, and another, and another. It was endless, and so very weighted— a dizzying, albiet charming read. The narrator spends the length of this novel spiralling, employing cultish, catastrophic love-language. She speaks only in justifications. The narrator desperately seeks to be validated by EVERYTHING, from Evolution to the Bible to plumbing to the metaphysical world. The ruse is sickening and very ridiculous. Delusions are all I see in her. But is that because I am not in love? No, it is because I’m not guilty.

Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion

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dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

Devoured in days. Joan Didion has a sharp pen and mind. with one clear path, she pins down the bodies of empty Americans, devoid of just — anything, and inserts a sort of magic into their persons, so as to expand them to the height of impressive marquis’, ones i love to filter through, feel the humidity pulsating off the plastic, human walls, the life inside these basic, basic bitches.

Content Warnings