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vigil's reviews
186 reviews
In the Garden of Echo by H.S. Wolfe
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
:/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Gore, Murder, Sexual content, Vomit, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
Monstress, Vol. 8: Inferno by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
easily the best entry yet, and definitely the most confusing. still in the habit of fleshing out its world, but i can see that much of the wandering was building to all of this. this was probably the most direct progression we’ve made in a while. it’s all coming together and i hope maika’s dad gets murdered soon.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Blood, Death of parent, Child death, Confinement, Child abuse, Gore, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Torture, Violence, Death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, War, Body horror, and Kidnapping
Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
look i tried. it is not unreadable or anything, but with an overwritten prose style leading to an egregious 600 page count (full of absolutely NOTHING) it’s flaws are glaring. how the world building manges to be both overly descriptive, info dumpy, tedious, shallow, and nonsensical all at the same time is truly a feat. i don’t have it in me to care about these rich people or the idea of a forbidden romance involving lin and conor, who is easily the most bland, uninteresting, annoying, useless characters i’ve read in a long time. it was like watching a black hole suck the life of of me and everyone else on the page. i almost wished kel would snap and bomb that goddamn palace to free me from my misery if nothing else.
lin doesn’t have a personality of much note, cassandra still falls into generic YA tropes despite ostensibly being an adult book (it’s not. the characters are just 23. you can tell because they ✨visit brothels✨) and it’s quite clear no one has seriously edited this woman in a long time. the most interesting part of the story is definitely lin and mayesh which we tragically get very little of and instead suffer through paragraph after paragraph of lin suffering through nonsensical misogynistic oppression (i understand the oppression towards her race, even if i think it’s poorly written. but why is there misogyny but no homophobia. does cassandra have any clue how these things work on a systemic level? i know the answer is no, but good god.) and her sad boring friend marie. enough!
lin doesn’t have a personality of much note, cassandra still falls into generic YA tropes despite ostensibly being an adult book (it’s not. the characters are just 23. you can tell because they ✨visit brothels✨) and it’s quite clear no one has seriously edited this woman in a long time. the most interesting part of the story is definitely lin and mayesh which we tragically get very little of and instead suffer through paragraph after paragraph of lin suffering through nonsensical misogynistic oppression (i understand the oppression towards her race, even if i think it’s poorly written. but why is there misogyny but no homophobia. does cassandra have any clue how these things work on a systemic level? i know the answer is no, but good god.) and her sad boring friend marie. enough!
Bad Fruit by Ella King
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Rape
Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Monstrous by Jessica Lewis
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
the dialogue was unfortunately twitter poison, flipping between therapy speak and ironic quips, and the plot couldn’t help but undermine itself at every given opportunity. the ending reads as half finished, the initial story ended up being completely irrelevant to what actually went down, and our purpose for the entire story was discarded, the book only accomplished maybe a quarter of what it initially intended to do and all of it proved to be rather useless in the long run with no bearing on the actual narrative.
the emotional thread was all over the place, the romance proved to be quickly tiring, and at the end our main goal is implied to be accomplished offscreen after the book ends. except it wasn’t really our main goal because the original goal was made forcibly irrelevant by the narrative. at the end of the book i could only wonder what the was the fucking point? why write 400 pages of a nothingburger plot with a shit ending? why do i still think YA is a salvageable genre? what happened to the plot of the movie!
also are we still doing villain exposition monologues. even if it is YA, evil grinning cartoon villain monologuing his whole plot to the protagonist is very played out.
it’s only getting two stars for the snake.
the emotional thread was all over the place, the romance proved to be quickly tiring, and at the end our main goal is implied to be accomplished offscreen after the book ends. except it wasn’t really our main goal because the original goal was made forcibly irrelevant by the narrative. at the end of the book i could only wonder what the was the fucking point? why write 400 pages of a nothingburger plot with a shit ending? why do i still think YA is a salvageable genre? what happened to the plot of the movie!
also are we still doing villain exposition monologues. even if it is YA, evil grinning cartoon villain monologuing his whole plot to the protagonist is very played out.
it’s only getting two stars for the snake.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Child death, Death, Violence, Animal cruelty, and Murder
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Abandonment, War, Death, Body horror, Animal death, Child abuse, Murder, Blood, Death of parent, Cursing, Confinement, and Alcohol
Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
a cute yet underbaked novella. thanh was, to put it bluntly, a dislikable idiot and her plotlines were unconvincing in regards to the character that we see on the page. the other characters were there mostly, aside from the mother, who i couldn’t figure what the author wanted me to think about her. i’m assuming we’re supposed to feel bad and disagree with her mother calling her a stubborn selfish idiot who’s bad at her job but she IS a stubborn selfish idiot who’s bad at her job.
theendgame romance was awfully rushed and uninteresting (considering their backstory, it didn’t need to be) it but it saved me from the clutches of eldris x thanh so i can find it in my heart to forgive it.
this book does fall prey to the narrative of “violence upon your abusers / colonizers makes you just as bad as they are! see how you can go too far!” which i feel as if every fiction book that is even vaguely about abuse or colonization takes this position and i’d dearly like for authors to cut that shit out. it is not nuanced, it is not revolutionary, it’s not even interesting. do something else.
the
this book does fall prey to the narrative of “violence upon your abusers / colonizers makes you just as bad as they are! see how you can go too far!” which i feel as if every fiction book that is even vaguely about abuse or colonization takes this position and i’d dearly like for authors to cut that shit out. it is not nuanced, it is not revolutionary, it’s not even interesting. do something else.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, War, and Xenophobia
The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick
Did not finish book. Stopped at 39%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 39%.
uninteresting, and a cheap shallow take on race and colonialism that the white authors had no business trying to include, considering their lack of skill. i don’t care about a race traitor cop, or a con woman who barely gets to do cons, and has the morals of your average victorian aristocrat, despite being a mixed race street orphan.
and for a novel that goes to painstaking lengths to demonstrate a queernormative society, this book is oddly against anyone doing anything really queer.
and for a novel that goes to painstaking lengths to demonstrate a queernormative society, this book is oddly against anyone doing anything really queer.
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
if nothing else, this book serves as a great manifesto to the vile natures of boy moms.
somewhere in this book there is a promising story. unfortunately, it comes in small increments, few and far between.
the first issue with this book is structural. there are two timelines, a past timeline, and a present timeline. in her commitment to the dual timeline, dean gives justice to neither of them, creating an uneven overly drawn out narrative but also an undeveloped and not well thought out one. this book, when it is not repeating itself, giving long drawn out explanations, revealing plot points too early or too late, will actively contradict itself, even when concerning information that was given not even three pages prior.
in my opinion, this reads like the first draft of a book. the seeds of promise are there, but is ultimately bogged down by nonsense and unnecessary factors. any editor worth their salt would not have sent this book out to print; i am upset that dean doesn’t seem to have that editor in her corner.
another issue is the premise. book eaters are a species, created by an alien known as the collector, to eat and gather knowledge. however the collector apparently abandoned them, and this plot point is utterly irrelevant to the novel. they live in secret societies for no good reason, and it seems to only make things harder on themselves. there is a sort of vampire racism here (the book eaters here are a very dumb vampire allegory) in the mind eaters who do exactly what you’d think they’d do. this sort of biological reasoning for oppression and discrimination is a common and short sighted trope in sci-fi fantasy and i really wish it would die off already.
this book also chose to essentially make a poor imitation of the handmaid’s tale, by implementing a gender essentialist society (which is utterly ridiculous in general, but especially here where the basis of the society is that knowledge is power) and recreating patriarchal structures, despite book eaters being secluded from human society and explicitly not sharing their customs, aside from stupid moments of christianity that are unaddressed and make no sense.
the author’s handling of this misogyny is shallow and reductive, and often ends up falling prey to the very structures it is attempting to criticize. it writes a cartoon character of a villain in her elder brother ramsay, who’s pov is written identically to that of a 13 year old boy who’s been radicalized by andrew tate.
devon herself is mostly devoid of a personality, aside from being kind of selfish (though she has been given no reason and often no option to be selfless) and her most important trait, being a mommy. you’d think that as a former childbride who was sold off twice to become an incubator and had to abandon her first child at three, and had her second unwanted child be a monster who eats brains, her relationship to motherhood and her children would be fraught and complicated, especially in the case of cai, where she is forced to murder innocents to keep him fed. but alas, no. everything is overcome through the power of motherlove which overcomes all, and is magic, instantaneous, and controls all your thoughts. give me a goddamn break.
devon has approximately two positive female dynamics, one is the sister of her male friend who she talks too all of twice, and bond over #motherlove with, and the other is a woman she spent two days with and somehow fell in love. the other women are generally portrayed as jealous old hags, and not usually mentioned.
and the ending. the ending is contingent around the fact that the book eater families are undocumented and thus the women cannot leave. so they must go to ireland where there is an unguarded border.
the issue is that the idea for the ending is introduced just a few chapters after the reveal that one of the book eater families uses undocumented immigrants for cheap labor. if you can traffic people in, surely, as an ancient super race, you can find a way to get across the ocean. (if you’re wondering if the human trafficking is relevant or commented upon much, the answer is no. like 50% of all the other information in this book.
the only reason I’m not giving it a flat one star is because this book is exactly like a cw show. it’s not outstanding but mostly banal in its inoffensiveness(aside from the aforementioned shallow treatment of feminism and the fact that the author creates an asexual character just to be aphobic to him whenever it’s brought up) and somewhat interesting in its ideas. you can see the promise and potential it has, and occasionally it lives up to it….. then crashes and burns back down.
it’s like if julie plec did a vegan vampire take on the handmaid’s tale. if that doesn’t make you shiver in horror then i can’t help you.
somewhere in this book there is a promising story. unfortunately, it comes in small increments, few and far between.
the first issue with this book is structural. there are two timelines, a past timeline, and a present timeline. in her commitment to the dual timeline, dean gives justice to neither of them, creating an uneven overly drawn out narrative but also an undeveloped and not well thought out one. this book, when it is not repeating itself, giving long drawn out explanations, revealing plot points too early or too late, will actively contradict itself, even when concerning information that was given not even three pages prior.
in my opinion, this reads like the first draft of a book. the seeds of promise are there, but is ultimately bogged down by nonsense and unnecessary factors. any editor worth their salt would not have sent this book out to print; i am upset that dean doesn’t seem to have that editor in her corner.
another issue is the premise.
this book also chose to essentially make a poor imitation of the handmaid’s tale, by implementing a gender essentialist society (which is utterly ridiculous in general, but especially here where the basis of the society is that knowledge is power) and recreating patriarchal structures, despite book eaters being secluded from human society and explicitly not sharing their customs, aside from stupid moments of christianity that are unaddressed and make no sense.
the author’s handling of this misogyny is shallow and reductive, and often ends up falling prey to the very structures it is attempting to criticize. it writes a cartoon character of a villain in her elder brother ramsay, who’s pov is written identically to that of a 13 year old boy who’s been radicalized by andrew tate.
devon herself is mostly devoid of a personality, aside from being kind of selfish (though she has been given no reason and often no option to be selfless) and her most important trait, being a mommy. you’d think that as a former childbride who was sold off twice to become an incubator and had to abandon her first child at three, and had her second unwanted child be a monster who eats brains, her relationship to motherhood and her children would be fraught and complicated, especially in the case of cai, where she is forced to murder innocents to keep him fed. but alas, no. everything is overcome through the power of motherlove which overcomes all, and is magic, instantaneous, and controls all your thoughts. give me a goddamn break.
devon has approximately two positive female dynamics, one is the sister of her male friend who she talks too all of twice, and bond over #motherlove with, and the other is a woman she spent two days with and somehow fell in love. the other women are generally portrayed as jealous old hags, and not usually mentioned.
and the ending. the ending is contingent around the fact that the book eater families are undocumented and thus the women cannot leave. so they must go to ireland where there is an unguarded border.
the issue is that the idea for the ending is introduced just a few chapters after the reveal that one of the book eater families uses undocumented immigrants for cheap labor. if you can traffic people in, surely, as an ancient super race, you can find a way to get across the ocean. (if you’re wondering if the human trafficking is relevant or commented upon much, the answer is no. like 50% of all the other information in this book.
the only reason I’m not giving it a flat one star is because this book is exactly like a cw show. it’s not outstanding but mostly banal in its inoffensiveness
it’s like if julie plec did a vegan vampire take on the handmaid’s tale. if that doesn’t make you shiver in horror then i can’t help you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Cursing, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Sexual violence, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infertility, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, and Violence