Mercer
This book was very good, but there were some VERY explicit parts which felt out of tone with the rest.
If you love(d) Twilight, this book has very similar vibes. I actually was recommending it to basically any friends I knew that liked that series, however after finishing the book I felt I had to caveat and warn people.
Were it not for the very explicit parts I would likely be running right on to the next book. However, it really took me out of the story and I just don’t know that I want to carry on and experience any more.
I really wanted to love this but deeply struggled with it. Part it feels like it wants to be hard SF, but is actually written like a Becky Chambers novel. I love Becky Chambers’ books because of how different they are from “traditional” SF, and this book, unfortunately, was not able to stick that landing.
The last 17% of the book was very interesting to me, but it resolved too quickly and easily. I’m giving it a three because I thought the premise was interesting, but it’s probably more of a two because I don’t know that I’d actually recommend it to anyone. An interesting thought experiment, I suppose, but not good enough to make me want to read the next two and endure more of the same.
This was an extremely honest book by a chef who I have always admired. I appreciated knowing the ins and outs of Chang’s life and hearing his honest appraisal of his successes and failures. There was some time slippage and things seemed out of place occasionally. I also don’t imagine that someone who wasn’t a Momo-fangirl would like this as much as I did. So, 4 instead of 5.
I tried to read this twice. Both times I had to put it down. The first one at like 5% and the second one at 20. The writing is so juvenile and feels like I’m being handheld. 20% in and I still also have no sense of importance—ie, who should I care about and why?! I have other books on my to read list that won’t feel like such a slog, and this one feels too amateur to bother continuing.
The first two parts of this book were so relatable to me. A visceral, triggering reminder of what it was like parenting my two young boys during thunderdome. The third part of the book, I thought, was an excellent metaphor for what we are all trying to do, and what a spectacle the experience of motherhood has become. Everyone is always watching. Everyone always has an opinion. Everyone gets uncomfortable but no one looks away.
Anyway, this book was great.
I am a mom. I have rage. I know many other moms that also have rage. What I needed from this book wasn't solidarity (which I already have) but suggestions for how to move forward. I did not find that here. Giving it 2 stars Because it may be useful for humans that want to understand WHY the rage happens, but wouldn't recommend it for anyone else who feels the rage.
I feel sad that I no longer want to read books like these. I love the retellings of mythology from the perspective of underrepresented women in the stories. What I don't love is the demonization of the men alongside them. We do not need to emphasize the weakness of men to draw attention to the strength of women. The women can be strong just because they WERE strong.
All of these books fall into this same pit: every man is terrible, every woman is cunning and smart. That's not true in real life and it's not true in mythology either. I feel like it cheapens the story of the women to have it so heavily focused on how all the men around them are terrible. It also makes me trust the narrative less, as none of use are perfect.
It doesn't help that I already know all of these stories as a scholar, so I know what is coming down the line.
I'm giving this three instead of two because it was well-written. The story was accurate, which some others of this genre are not.
This book was layers upon layers—and I loved every bit of it. Truly everything one could want from SF/dystopian fiction, and so much to take in. There are some deeply triggering topics, but that shouldn't come as a surprise in this genre. I need someone to scream about this book with, so if you read it and are on my friends list, please talk to me about it!
This was...weird. I'm between a 3 and 4 here. There were three separate story lines and I'm not sure that really any came to a meaningful or satisfactory ending. That said, the characters themselves were beautiful and their stories engaging. I appreciated the craft with which the author portrayed anxiety, but/and I would love to hear a trans person's take on how that experience was portrayed. It felt like sometimes the author was making assumptions about experience or playing a bit too hard on certain points or aspects, such as dysphoria and abuse, but not as much on moments of gender euphoria or uplift.
Anyway, a fine book—certainly a unique one—but not one I'd recommend to many people.
Alex is a great peloton instructor with a very compelling story, but he is not a great writer, unfortunately. I liked that the main points in this book were the same one that we got on the bike, and I like that we got a bit more of the backstory behind them, but it didn't always feel compelling or really meaningful.
Giving this three stars because it's probably helpful advice for someone, and I enjoyed the story behind his main quotables, but it's probably not compelling unless you're a Toussaint Stan.
Wowie. I demolished this book. Very well-written about such nuanced topics. I'm not sure how one tackles class, race, privilege, abuse, queerness and small-town loyalty all in one book and still have it be cohesive, but this book did it.
It felt very true and very real and also very bittersweet. There were many hard pills to swallow but the author didn't feel the need to clean them away, which I appreciated.
Not sure I need more books in the series—not sure there even needed to be a series?? But this one is perfect.
I loved this book so much. The characters were extremely endearing. The only reason I didn't give it a 5 is because I wouldn't recommend it to EVERYONE, as there is some willing suspension of disbelief that needs to come with reading it. Reminded me of a cross between Soul of an Octopus and the Art of Racing in the Rain.
Written by a friend, so of course I loved it—handing it off to my younger cousin, a competitive cheerleader who has watched Bring It On “for literally every cheer trip,” tomorrow.
I learned so many fun facts from this book and didn't want to put it down. For instance: did you know that Sufjan loves Bring It On? Did you know about the mass amounts of effort that had to go into even convincing a studio to take the project on? Did you know that there is a theory that Missy is just “handing Torrance off” to the male version of herself (my shitty paraphrasing)? All this and more! I loved it.
I DNF'ed this and am giving it one star which is very unusual for me. Normally with DNFs I will give them at least two Because I feel like I haven't given them the benefit of the doubt. However, this author has done NO RESEARCH into the subject of her writing.
As a person who went to boarding school and was kicked out for trying to kill myself, I feel uniquely positioned to have an enhanced perspective on this topic given that that is what this main character's whole MO is. The plot is rife with holes and over-simplifications (gasp! Someone will discover I'm on lithium! Gasp! I cant even look at the bottle of Tylenol! I have to take my long sleeves off and everyone is going to see my scars!) The author does not treat the topic with the respect that it is due, and she obviously didn't do any character research. Beyond that, this book is billed as dark academia. It is not. Just because something is set in a school does not make it part of the genre.
An insensitive, problematic, shitty book.
I want to believe that this is a brilliant book and I am just not in a place to receive its brilliance. A...dating story (?) set in a US mid-second-civil-war. It feels like it was meant to be a commentary on how second-nature terrible things are nowadays that the main character perspective couldn't even focus on the war at hand and instead was recounting her dating escapades. I want to believe that it was intentional, but I'm not sure it was done artfully enough to get it all the way there.
I stopped at about 90% done because I felt I had better things to do and it didn't feel like it was ever going to nail the point home.