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visorforavisor's reviews
32 reviews
A Full Life: James Connolly the Irish Rebel by
emotional
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
5.0
A very nice graphic novel of Connolly’s life.
Content Warnings
Minor: Murder
Peril at the Exposition by Nev March
adventurous
lighthearted
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? It's complicated
5.0
Nev March writes excellently. A second mystery for Jim and Diana Agnihotri, this one set in the States.
Diana’s voice is a really fun narration. Her view of Jim is really fun to get after spending the first book in his head, to see how others see him. The occasional inclusion of a chapter from his point of view was fun too.
Without giving too much away, there’s a trans character in this. It’s not a book in which I expected to find a trans character, nor one written with such compassion — murder mysteries set in the 1890s aren’t typically full of queer rep — but I loved her very much.
The exploration of whether the anarchists are right and who the capitalism of America really benefits was, I thought, interestingly done.
I’ll be very interested to read the next installment.
Diana’s voice is a really fun narration. Her view of Jim is really fun to get after spending the first book in his head, to see how others see him. The occasional inclusion of a chapter from his point of view was fun too.
Without giving too much away, there’s a trans character in this. It’s not a book in which I expected to find a trans character, nor one written with such compassion — murder mysteries set in the 1890s aren’t typically full of queer rep — but I loved her very much.
The exploration of whether the anarchists are right and who the capitalism of America really benefits was, I thought, interestingly done.
I’ll be very interested to read the next installment.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Transphobia, and Violence
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Andrew Joseph White is a talented writer with a sharp mind.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth centres on the story of Silas Bell, who is trans and autistic (although neither of those labels are used given the book’s 19th-century setting). Silas lives in a world where certain people — those with violet eyes — have the power to reach through into the afterlife and communicate with the angry spirits of the dead, but this is only deemed acceptable for men. Since he is seen as a woman, or indeed a girl as he is only sixteen, this is not an option for Silas. When he’s caught trying to do what is deemed as men’s work, trying to become qualified in communicating with the dead, he’s sent to an institute for girls and young women who have ostensibly become sick from contact with the afterlife: a transparent lie; it’s to stop them trying.
This book is very heavy on medical horror. It’s all excellently written and it doesn’t feel like gore for the sake of gore, but it is fairly graphic in places. I don’t do horror, ever, and it was about as close as I could manage to actual horror, but it didn’t go over that line.
The discussion and exploration of overlapping trans and autistic identities was something I as a trans autistic person found fascinating in The Spirit Bears Its Teeth. In providing an trans allistic character and a cis autistic character, Silas is given the space to determine what he feels about the connectedness of these two identities that he possesses.
Mr White puts words onto many things I’ve felt, but struggled to explain, about my own autism and my own transness over the years. This is a very heavy but extremely refreshing read.
I would thoroughly recommend.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth centres on the story of Silas Bell, who is trans and autistic (although neither of those labels are used given the book’s 19th-century setting). Silas lives in a world where certain people — those with violet eyes — have the power to reach through into the afterlife and communicate with the angry spirits of the dead, but this is only deemed acceptable for men. Since he is seen as a woman, or indeed a girl as he is only sixteen, this is not an option for Silas. When he’s caught trying to do what is deemed as men’s work, trying to become qualified in communicating with the dead, he’s sent to an institute for girls and young women who have ostensibly become sick from contact with the afterlife: a transparent lie; it’s to stop them trying.
This book is very heavy on medical horror. It’s all excellently written and it doesn’t feel like gore for the sake of gore, but it is fairly graphic in places. I don’t do horror, ever, and it was about as close as I could manage to actual horror, but it didn’t go over that line.
The discussion and exploration of overlapping trans and autistic identities was something I as a trans autistic person found fascinating in The Spirit Bears Its Teeth. In providing an trans allistic character and a cis autistic character, Silas is given the space to determine what he feels about the connectedness of these two identities that he possesses.
Mr White puts words onto many things I’ve felt, but struggled to explain, about my own autism and my own transness over the years. This is a very heavy but extremely refreshing read.
I would thoroughly recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Medical content
Moderate: Ableism, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Sexual harassment
Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March
adventurous
challenging
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
Wow, this book is amazing. Nev March weaves an intricately detailed image of late-19th-century Bombay (now Mumbai) and excellently walks the fine balance between not over-explaining things for non-Indian readers while still being totally comprehensible, while also making what explanations or translations are there into seamless parts of Jim’s narration. (There’s also a glossary at the back.)
This book is so, so incredibly fascinating and tantalising. It’s a perfect mystery, wrapped up in the changing and complex socio-political situation of British-ruled India. Our hero, James Agnihotri, is loveable and frustrating in equal measures, and his wry commentary and Sherlock Holmes references make for a delightful read.
Jim (or Ms March, however you want to see it) draws in the reader by point-blank describing nasty parts of life in the 19th century, not shying away from describing the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion, or prostitution being forced on teens, or poverty. Describing the horrors that largely resulted from the British rule in India makes us care all the more for the people Jim then helps, and gives us more of an insight to his experience as a man with one English parent and one Indian, and the potential to pass for either one of those nationalities depending on the situation.
The mystery at the heart of this story — the murder of Bacha and Pilloo Framji, wife and sister to Adi Framji — is intricate, detailed, cleverly constructed, and never confusing as it continually grows.
Jim’s narrative voice is one of my favourites of things I’ve read recently, and I really did root for him in everything: love, mystery-solving, and finding a family.
This book will break your heart in places, but it’s the best mystery I’ve read in a long, long time and it’s also great to see publishing finally starting to realise we should publish historical and mystery books outside of England and the States.
I also really appreciate the brief passage making it clear to us that Jim is in support of homosexuals. Not strictly plot-necessary, but super nice and tells us more about who he is.
This book is so, so incredibly fascinating and tantalising. It’s a perfect mystery, wrapped up in the changing and complex socio-political situation of British-ruled India. Our hero, James Agnihotri, is loveable and frustrating in equal measures, and his wry commentary and Sherlock Holmes references make for a delightful read.
Jim (or Ms March, however you want to see it) draws in the reader by point-blank describing nasty parts of life in the 19th century, not shying away from describing the 1857 Sepoy Rebellion, or prostitution being forced on teens, or poverty. Describing the horrors that largely resulted from the British rule in India makes us care all the more for the people Jim then helps, and gives us more of an insight to his experience as a man with one English parent and one Indian, and the potential to pass for either one of those nationalities depending on the situation.
The mystery at the heart of this story — the murder of Bacha and Pilloo Framji, wife and sister to Adi Framji — is intricate, detailed, cleverly constructed, and never confusing as it continually grows.
Jim’s narrative voice is one of my favourites of things I’ve read recently, and I really did root for him in everything: love, mystery-solving, and finding a family.
This book will break your heart in places, but it’s the best mystery I’ve read in a long, long time and it’s also great to see publishing finally starting to realise we should publish historical and mystery books outside of England and the States.
I also really appreciate the brief passage making it clear to us that Jim is in support of homosexuals. Not strictly plot-necessary, but super nice and tells us more about who he is.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
Moderate: Child abuse, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, and Sexual harassment
Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Rebecca Kuang is doubtless one of the best writers to have ever existed. I’ve not read anything else of hers yet, but Babel alone will tell you this.
Set in an almost-fantasy 1830s and 1840s England, Babel follows Robin Swift, a Chinese-English student of languages in the prestigious “Babel”, Royal Institute of Translation in Oxford. The world in this reality runs on magical silver bars, which operate by capturing the meaning “lost in translation” between pairs of words, because nothing can truly be translated accurately. Robin learns here alongside three classmates: Ramy Mirza (a Muslim from Kolkata), Victoire Desgraves (a Haitian-French girl), and Letty Price (an English aristocrat). All are prized for their knowledge of languages, which are needed to make the silver bars work.
Babel delves into the part that languages and translation play in colonialism. European language match-pairs are far more well-known, meaning that Robin, Ramy, and Victoire in particular are useful because their knowledge of Mandarain and Cantonese (Robin), Urdu, Arabic, and Persian (Ramy), and Haitian Kreyòl (Victoire), as these are resources not yet plundered. This mirrors English (and other) colonialism deiciding to take other cultures’ resources when their own do not provide the monopoly they want. If a business owner can get an Urdu / English match-pair from Ramy, and not tell anyone about it, it’s infinitely more useful than a German / English one (which would also contain less “lost in translation” meaning, due to the languages being far more closely related).
Kuang doesn’t let her reader forget for a single minute that Robin, Ramy, and Victoire have been uprooted from their natural homes and put into England to facilitate the further exploitation of their countries and peoples. She efficiently footnotes just about everything, reminding her reader that while this may be a fantasy it’s not too far from the reality of England in this time.
White womanhood and the overlap of oppression and privilege that comes with it is explored deeply with Letty, who more or less personifies the saying that “White women are oppressed enough to pretend they’re not privileged and privileged enough to utilise their oppression”. The fact that Letty’s experience with misogyny will never, ever equate to the racism faced by her friends of colour is something we are not allowed to forget.
White readers (like myself), I recommend you read. It’s a rough read, but that’s probably a good sign. If we didn’t feel uncomfortable reading it, I don’t think we’d be acknowledging the damage we cause properly.
Babel’s subtitle, “The Necessity of Violence”, really comes into play in the latter part of the book. True change will never come from working with those who stand to benefit from the status quo, and what Robin and his friends attempt wouldn’t have worked if they’d tried to just talk with those running the empire. Kuang lets you think for a second that it could, then slashes down that fantasy with brilliant precision.
I’m sure there are people who can analyse the racial aspects of this story far better than I can, so I’m going to leave my review here, but this is one of the best books I’ve ever read and I’d encourage everybody to read it. Kuang is brilliant.
Set in an almost-fantasy 1830s and 1840s England, Babel follows Robin Swift, a Chinese-English student of languages in the prestigious “Babel”, Royal Institute of Translation in Oxford. The world in this reality runs on magical silver bars, which operate by capturing the meaning “lost in translation” between pairs of words, because nothing can truly be translated accurately. Robin learns here alongside three classmates: Ramy Mirza (a Muslim from Kolkata), Victoire Desgraves (a Haitian-French girl), and Letty Price (an English aristocrat). All are prized for their knowledge of languages, which are needed to make the silver bars work.
Babel delves into the part that languages and translation play in colonialism. European language match-pairs are far more well-known, meaning that Robin, Ramy, and Victoire in particular are useful because their knowledge of Mandarain and Cantonese (Robin), Urdu, Arabic, and Persian (Ramy), and Haitian Kreyòl (Victoire), as these are resources not yet plundered. This mirrors English (and other) colonialism deiciding to take other cultures’ resources when their own do not provide the monopoly they want. If a business owner can get an Urdu / English match-pair from Ramy, and not tell anyone about it, it’s infinitely more useful than a German / English one (which would also contain less “lost in translation” meaning, due to the languages being far more closely related).
Kuang doesn’t let her reader forget for a single minute that Robin, Ramy, and Victoire have been uprooted from their natural homes and put into England to facilitate the further exploitation of their countries and peoples. She efficiently footnotes just about everything, reminding her reader that while this may be a fantasy it’s not too far from the reality of England in this time.
White womanhood and the overlap of oppression and privilege that comes with it is explored deeply with Letty, who more or less personifies the saying that “White women are oppressed enough to pretend they’re not privileged and privileged enough to utilise their oppression”. The fact that Letty’s experience with misogyny will never, ever equate to the racism faced by her friends of colour is something we are not allowed to forget.
White readers (like myself), I recommend you read. It’s a rough read, but that’s probably a good sign. If we didn’t feel uncomfortable reading it, I don’t think we’d be acknowledging the damage we cause properly.
Babel’s subtitle, “The Necessity of Violence”, really comes into play in the latter part of the book. True change will never come from working with those who stand to benefit from the status quo, and what Robin and his friends attempt wouldn’t have worked if they’d tried to just talk with those running the empire. Kuang lets you think for a second that it could, then slashes down that fantasy with brilliant precision.
I’m sure there are people who can analyse the racial aspects of this story far better than I can, so I’m going to leave my review here, but this is one of the best books I’ve ever read and I’d encourage everybody to read it. Kuang is brilliant.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, and War
The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is so good!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore and Murder
Minor: Sexual assault
Show Us Who You Are by Elle McNicoll
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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? No
5.0
Elle McNicoll is a supreme writer. I’m eighteen years old and I cried many many times while reading it.
I’ve never seen such a beautiful exploration of the fact that we are seen as our best when we seem the least autistic.
Cora and Adrien fulfil one of my favourite tropes ever (autistic-and-ADHD friendship), and are so perfectly written. There’s such a joyful celebration of ND kids in this book and it really gave me hope. Cora is what I wish I’d been at that age.
Thoroughly recommend.
I’ve never seen such a beautiful exploration of the fact that we are seen as our best when we seem the least autistic.
Cora and Adrien fulfil one of my favourite tropes ever (autistic-and-ADHD friendship), and are so perfectly written. There’s such a joyful celebration of ND kids in this book and it really gave me hope. Cora is what I wish I’d been at that age.
Thoroughly recommend.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism and Car accident
A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
slow-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
A Far Wilder Magic is incredible. Allison Saft flawlessly weaves diaspora experiences, light fantasy, and late-1920s America together in this gripping adventure featuring two young adults.
Maggie Welty is the fantasy equivalent of Jewish, and Wes Winters is the fantasy equivalent of an Irish-diaspora Catholic. The way these religions, and the sectarianism imposed on them in early-20-th-century America, are blended into the exciting hunt plot is truly exceptional. The power held by the “White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant” types is evidenced here beautifully.
I’m Irish, and I speak the language pretty well. As such, I think my favourite detail of this book may be the impeccable integration of (correctly grammared, which is rare in American books) Irish-language terms into the text. Wes’s mother refers to him as “a thaisce” and “a leanbh”, Wes himself thinks about the aos sí, and so on. I particularly found interesting (and accurate) the naming of Wes’s family. His mother is Aoife, and he and his siblings are Madeline, Christine, Weston, Colleen, and Edie (I think I have the order right). His mother’s name is much more Irish, while the children have more Anglicised names (especially Colleen, whose name is an Anglicisation of the Irish word for “girl”). The Irish history of famine and the like was also not skimmed over.
I’m not Jewish and I don’t know a huge amount about Judaism, so I can’t speak to the accuracy of its portrayal in this book, but I loved how the fantasy elements were woven into the beliefs of the various religions represented in the story.
I don’t know whether it was deliberate, but Maggie was pretty explicitly coded as autistic, and Wes as ADHD and dyslexic. I loved this very much and found the writing of this aspect both amusing and true-to-life.
Would recommend to everyone.
Maggie Welty is the fantasy equivalent of Jewish, and Wes Winters is the fantasy equivalent of an Irish-diaspora Catholic. The way these religions, and the sectarianism imposed on them in early-20-th-century America, are blended into the exciting hunt plot is truly exceptional. The power held by the “White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant” types is evidenced here beautifully.
I’m Irish, and I speak the language pretty well. As such, I think my favourite detail of this book may be the impeccable integration of (correctly grammared, which is rare in American books) Irish-language terms into the text. Wes’s mother refers to him as “a thaisce” and “a leanbh”, Wes himself thinks about the aos sí, and so on. I particularly found interesting (and accurate) the naming of Wes’s family. His mother is Aoife, and he and his siblings are Madeline, Christine, Weston, Colleen, and Edie (I think I have the order right). His mother’s name is much more Irish, while the children have more Anglicised names (especially Colleen, whose name is an Anglicisation of the Irish word for “girl”). The Irish history of famine and the like was also not skimmed over.
I’m not Jewish and I don’t know a huge amount about Judaism, so I can’t speak to the accuracy of its portrayal in this book, but I loved how the fantasy elements were woven into the beliefs of the various religions represented in the story.
I don’t know whether it was deliberate, but Maggie was pretty explicitly coded as autistic, and Wes as ADHD and dyslexic. I loved this very much and found the writing of this aspect both amusing and true-to-life.
Would recommend to everyone.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism and Classism
Ask a Historian: 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know by Greg Jenner
challenging
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Ask a Historian was just brilliant. Absolute kudos to Greg Jenner for writing an engaging, informative, and amusing book in one. It’s not too jargon-filled but he doesn’t baby his reader either, simply explaining relevant terms.
The questions he chose are fascinating and I really appreciate that he doesn’t shy away from difficult or controversial topics — the genocide inflicted on the Irish in the seventeenth century, the racism faced by the Windrush generation, the fact that that XX-chromosomed Viking skeleton might be a trans man — while also taking care to address them properly. He’s never flippant about it, and is always very respectful.
The book has a good sense of voice the whole way through, which — for me as a frequent enjoyer of the You’re Dead to Me podcast — really helped the book not feel academic.
The questions ranged from the origin of curry to why Anne Boleyn is so constantly in people’s minds to ancient translators and interpreters to the first recorded instance of BSL.
Cannot recommend highly enough!
The questions he chose are fascinating and I really appreciate that he doesn’t shy away from difficult or controversial topics — the genocide inflicted on the Irish in the seventeenth century, the racism faced by the Windrush generation, the fact that that XX-chromosomed Viking skeleton might be a trans man — while also taking care to address them properly. He’s never flippant about it, and is always very respectful.
The book has a good sense of voice the whole way through, which — for me as a frequent enjoyer of the You’re Dead to Me podcast — really helped the book not feel academic.
The questions ranged from the origin of curry to why Anne Boleyn is so constantly in people’s minds to ancient translators and interpreters to the first recorded instance of BSL.
Cannot recommend highly enough!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Well written.