uuuultraviolennnnt's reviews
96 reviews

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

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challenging funny mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • 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

4.25

a jaunt through europe’s performative politics of the roaring twenties, the doctor a con, the Baron a con, Robin, the original sapphic heartbreaker, and their world a concoction of oyster like opulence and overt self-importance, all of it so wet and gross and shiny.

dogmas for days, save the rapture of xenophobic ramblings, in a period where a mentor and an American were synonymous; the prose is voluptuous. The narrator provides the very thing I love from a novel : decadent visuals, observable and dynamic characters, scenes so beautiful they are literally pressing on the page, drawing fire.
The Origins of Creativity by Edward O. Wilson

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challenging informative medium-paced

3.25

I love that people like Edward Wilson have taken the time to delve into the humanitarian aspects of Biology, as it is everso present in its students. The roots and connections between creative expression and evolution are in fact abundant.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

soft and innocent, the gentle tear jerker 
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted fast-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

4.0

I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it’s not faith, right? Ugh Camilla!! opening my heart up with a dedicated, forgiving hand. There is no greater empath than Camilla Dunne

Skip the out-of-order 70s starlight name-dropping at the start, which I hope served to provide the reader with visuals and sounds for the book and not to prove that the year is 1979, I have NO criticisms. Literally the best novel I’ve read this side of the year.

I spent the entire novel effectively underlining everything Daisy Jones said. She is alarming, unapologetic, wildy herself and it clocks something deep to hear a woman be so whole, so free. 
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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 36%.
America, land now owned by the deceitful. The Creeks, the Osage, the black slaves who knew only pain… I can not do 700 pages of humanity-failing history
Book of Wayward Girls and Wicked Women by Angela Carter

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funny lighthearted mysterious reflective slow-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

3.5

The Girls by Emma Cline

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

5.0

poor girls. girlhood is so magic even in the realm of abuse, which is maybe the worst thing ever. how does emma cline narrate so secretly, allowing this sad story to read smoothly.
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The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan

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challenging dark emotional reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

immediate prose, so modern. an honest account of living and dying in the 21st century. the children are cruel, life’s nihilism even crueler. the irrelevance of whole pieces of body just disappearing was really scary, because it truly doesn’t matter anymore. we’ve lost mattering and hold on to life for dear solace. 
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Assembly by Natasha Brown

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challenging emotional funny informative tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

my ‘as a woman, as an immigrant, as an over-achiever’ frustrations exemplified.

“Best case: those children grow up, assimilate, get jobs and pour money into a government that forever tells them they are not British. This is not home”
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I catch eyes when I read this novel on public transport. Japanese literature is serious about its naturalist perspective. The way Yasunari speaks of women is intriguing, poetic, and so careful. Snow country holds many beautiful interactions in such a short space, what an ethereal escape