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wchereads's reviews
263 reviews
Hook-up to Holidate by Rose Santoriello
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
4.25
So cute & funny, got me giggling and kicking my feet. Also love the spice 👍
Breathless: A Fish Monster Romance by Cat Wynn
emotional
5.0
This was SO GOOD????!!!!! LEFT ME SOBBING
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Police brutality, and Stalking
Moderate: Violence, Child abuse, and Gore
Indian Burial Ground by Nick Medina
In Indian Burial Ground, lots of people in the community died in inexplicable and horrifying ways due to the influence of a spirit. It was heartbreaking and unsettling to read, but I wasn't sure why that was the case. I didn't make the connection with the equally heartbreaking and bafflingly high suicide rate in indigenous communities. It IS a supernatural twist that a three-year-old child would climb into fire and had the stength to rival a teen; but indigenous children as young as ten to twelve years old ARE taking their own lives and the cause may be multi-layered but definitely not supernatutal.
With that in mind, Louie's battle with the alligator is even more heartwrenching the more I think about it. This was a truly haunting read and my wish is that more people start paying attention to the HUGE amount of issues that indigenous communities face and how western settler colonial government is routinely failing them - or, to be more truthful, actually causing all their challenges and problems: from air pollution, to unclean water, to racism, to racially motivated violence, to the racist and violent police system, to lack of public schools...
🗣️from turtle island to palestine🗣️
🗣️we demand land back🗣️
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
Note: this review will not be spoiler free because I don't know how to talk about it otherwise.
CW: mentions of suicide and alcoholism
The author wrote in the "acknowledgements":
CW: mentions of suicide and alcoholism
The author wrote in the "acknowledgements":
Finally, I'd like to acknowledge the two horrific and heartbreaking themes that run through this book - suicide and alcoholism - specifically in regard to their prevalence among Native and Indigenous peoples.
In Indian Burial Ground, lots of people in the community died in inexplicable and horrifying ways due to the influence of a spirit. It was heartbreaking and unsettling to read, but I wasn't sure why that was the case. I didn't make the connection with the equally heartbreaking and bafflingly high suicide rate in indigenous communities. It IS a supernatural twist that a three-year-old child would climb into fire and had the stength to rival a teen; but indigenous children as young as ten to twelve years old ARE taking their own lives and the cause may be multi-layered but definitely not supernatutal.
With that in mind, Louie's battle with the alligator is even more heartwrenching the more I think about it. This was a truly haunting read and my wish is that more people start paying attention to the HUGE amount of issues that indigenous communities face and how western settler colonial government is routinely failing them - or, to be more truthful, actually causing all their challenges and problems: from air pollution, to unclean water, to racism, to racially motivated violence, to the racist and violent police system, to lack of public schools...
🗣️from turtle island to palestine🗣️
🗣️we demand land back🗣️
Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine by Refaat Alareer
thinking about some of the young people who wrote the stories are probably not alive anymore and the thought absolutely broke me
Wilted Pages: An Anthology of Dark Academia by Ai Jiang, Christi Nogle
dark
mysterious
reflective
5.0
I highly enjoyed this anthology. Oftentimes an anthology will have a lot of misses for me but there were so many I really liked and several that I absolutely loved. I am so glad I picked this one up.
Ones I liked:
Ones I liked:
- The Girls of St. X by Simo Srinivas
- Humanities 215 by Jo Kaplan
- Hugging The Buddha's Feet by Amber Chen
- In Vast And Fecund Reaches We Will Meet Again by Cyrus Amelia Fisher
- Preservation of An Intact Specimen by Premee Mohamed
- Those Shining Things Are Out of Reach by Octavia Cade
- Those Who Teach Pay Knowledge Forward by R. J. Joseph
Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Jessica McDiarmid
Did not finish book. Stopped at 43%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 43%.
i gave the audiobook a good try but i think i'll read the rest as a hard copy!
Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nascosta
the steamy pick-me-up i didn't know i needed. Also a big fan of the narrator. My reading slump never stood a chance
Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
tense
5.0
SOB
Death by Bubble Tea by Jennifer J. Chow
emotional
relaxing
3.5
This was a great cozy mystery. The way the protagonist opened up & bonded with her cousin was just too sweet and cute. I don't think the mystery unraveled in a very engaing way, but I didn't mind that all that much because all THE FOOD DESCRIPTION 🤤
The only reason this book didn't get a higher rating from me was because of the neutral or positive-leaning representation of the law enforcement. I get that It is inevitable to include them in a murder mystery, but still! I love me a good mystery and would really appreciate to read something one day that involves something that is like, say, a grassroot effort to find missing people or provide emotional support to relatives of the deceased, etc, instead of something that normalizes cops further. We already have enough of that, tysm.
The only reason this book didn't get a higher rating from me was because of the neutral or positive-leaning representation of the law enforcement. I get that It is inevitable to include them in a murder mystery, but still! I love me a good mystery and would really appreciate to read something one day that involves something that is like, say, a grassroot effort to find missing people or provide emotional support to relatives of the deceased, etc, instead of something that normalizes cops further. We already have enough of that, tysm.