uuuultraviolennnnt's reviews
99 reviews

Standing Heavy by Gauz

adventurous informative reflective 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? No

4.5

As an Ivorian who has lived in Paris, I really appreciated these big observations in little worlds, the beautiful rhetoric on Judeo-Christian education, the poignancy of laying out the geography of paris and it’s immigrant communities into roads, as consumers, and the authenticity of this language, with all its West African jargon and the place-markers that have shaped my life. An essential read, very real in ways you don’t see much of in the way of West African diasporas— the older and modern time frames were so essential to making this novel feel complete despite its terseness.

The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Coleman

challenging emotional funny sad fast-paced

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

4.0

so good i had to read it twice; once slowly, again in one sitting. O, Emily Holmes Coleman, this poetically infused stream of consciousness is exactly the writing i love. The scenes were so vivid, the pain and desperation of Marthe so apparent, I was looking up and clenching my teeth at most moments to the unfairness of it all, you really feel the realness, that’s what this writer captures in terms of female emotions. Realness, and a mystery in that, and the beauty and scariness of “crazy” though the only “crazy” is the wild type. This women just needed care. She was insane only by force, because they wouldn’t understand.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

adventurous challenging funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

A meme on Pinterest accurately divides this masterpiece of a story into 20% ‘oh, cool greek lit students living it up,’ and 80% ‘umm wtf wtf wtf!’

I wtf-ed at Tart’s narration in the best ways, every plotline wetted my appetite for more, more of this, more filler even, more, more, Donna Tart makes me want more, all these filmesque settings and days à-la-chaine of nothing but clever character studies filled to the brim with all their troubles, their lives out in Vermont, their student life, their family lives, their decandence and deviancies and convulsing abnormality, their unnatural pull. I love them.

Mona by Pola Oloixarac
Did not finish book. Stopped at 26%.

So bad. So infuriatingly weird and bad and cliché but knowingly? I hate the main character so much

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire

emotional tense fast-paced

3.25

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

dark funny reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

I’m skinny, I’m rich, I’m blonde, and I’m a little bit of a bitch

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Death of parent

Moderate: Xenophobia

Bimboland by Erin Taylor
Did not finish book. Stopped at 39%.

I don’t want to force myself to read this heterocentric mess anymore

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak

adventurous emotional informative sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

The gift of tears this novel so carefully places on my heart, phrases beating out in my ears because breathless— I sense the déjà vu, because Leila’s lonliness is like mine, her water family satisfies that empty type, that different type.

A beautiful country, Turkey I wish to live amongst her colours. I want her Crazy. The olfactory openings to each minute after death were an engaging chorus. Family, religion, conviction, devotion, judgement, desolation, grief, chosen love… we grow with all of these things in this strange world

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: by Pablo Neruda by Chris Jansen

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

a culmination of love and despair in love, this is certain. I’ve dogged eared so many, and re-read them like farmers re-toil their land. This land is rich, and a lot of cold lonely rain drops have fallen in it, you can tell. It’s a sort of smell, dark red rich wet minerals. It’s love and despair. “Tonight I can right” is so real for me in this time…

En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule by Édouard Louis

emotional reflective fast-paced

3.75

Le comportement des femmes v. celui des hommes… est-ce juste de comparer? La comparaison, peut-elle être si banale? on est tous nés différent, mais la douleure de la différence ne prend pas pitié sur ceux qui se diffèrent avec. L’auteur parle avec un language que rapproche, qui rends toute l’histoire véritablement honnête et émotionnelle. Les problèmes qui surviennent avec cette séparation incorrecte des sexes, ces aprioris sur « qu’est-ce qui fait un homme »… L’homosexualité n’est pas un crime de l’homme, le crime de la différence: c’est elle qui est criminalisée.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying