Bailey
This book was so beautiful and heart-wrenching. As an extreme misandrist I rarely have any interest in books where the main character or POV person is a man, but I was totally captivated by this book.
Entertaining story with a focus on disability justice. I learned a ton about deaf culture and history, and appreciated the emphasis on grassroots organizing as essential to disability justice. I listened to the audiobook version which was really cool because sometimes they included the sounds that go along with signing (breath sounds, movement sounds, etc.), which I hadn't thought much about before.
So good!! Super creative horror, well-paced and easy to read. Clever use of structure with a main narrative interspersed with related but separate stories. Really nuanced look at race and class in a small town.
This book was super entertaining and engulfing, and did a fantastic job making social commentary that was empathetic and not heavy-handed. I thought it did a great job painting a picture of the ways white women both experience oppression and enact it upon Black people. The plot was enthralling and it was a great supernatural thriller on top of the work delving into privilege and injustice.
As a note, from the title and cover I expected it to be a lot lighter than it was - there were many heavy and devastating scenes and issues. It's not just a quick and easy, cheeky thriller. It's about whiteness and racial oppression, as well as gaslighting and controlling spouses. CN for rape and domestic abuse.
I've read a million changeling stories and kind of expected this to just be another one but I was extremely wrong. Brilliant odyssey with a super complex and original but cohesive plot, poignant humanness commentary, great balance of myth/humor/terror. I was hooked the whole time and basically read it in one sitting.
Finding My Way Out of the Darkness by Tony Ferraiolo is an incredibly honest and inspiring memoir. Tony opens up about his personal battles with mental health and addiction, and his journey to healing is nothing short of powerful. His writing is real, relatable, and full of hope. This book is a reminder that no matter how tough things get, there's always a way out. It's a great read for anyone going through tough times or looking for some inspiration. Highly recommend it!
I am an attorney who learned a little bit about how the law impacts sex workers during law school, but this book taught me a TON I didn't know. It provides a super nuanced perspective and I found it really accessible, describing tricky legal issues and policies with very clear and easy-to-understand language. I also really appreciated reading about people's lived experiences, and thought the book provided strong arguments and data to back up the solutions it advocates for. Definitely recommend it!
Weirds me out that the author is white and changed her name to Starhawk. Otherwise a super creative and idyllic world, very relieving as an escapism tactic right now. A little indoctrinationy but for a system I'd like a lot better than the one we have now so it doesn't feel slimy, a little redundantly didactic but mostly self aware about it and feels beneficial. Refreshing perspective on poly relationships/nonnuclear families, honest and thoughtful commentary on many aspects of social movements.
Loved this book!!! So sweet and smart and hilarious, great if you need a dose of supportive queer chosen family, everyone being absolutely normal about a person using they/them pronouns, warm irreverence. I really hope the author makes this a series!!
Like if Stephen king and ray bradbury wrote a book together, without the bradburian racism and with some lagging in the middle. Overall creative and entertaining
So good! Viscerally scary in a way I hadn't felt in a long time, like a turning reality inside-out but in a believable way kind of scary.
This series made me feel like my consciousness was a mini, porous universe orb slowly bopping around between my head and who even knows where, probably the forest in the first part of the series. It was a new form of and location for and behavioral pattern of consciousness for me.
This book was really creative, I appreciated the surprise sci-fi vibes. The story itself was cool and unique and thought-provoking, but I didn't really connect with the characters. A lot of the reviews are calling it “political” which is clearly a dogwhistle; the book is about rampant sexism and racism in academia, not politics. I did find a lot of the messaging to be redundant and annoyingly heavy-handed, I think the book could have done with some more editing for that.
I've loved everything I've read by Grady Hendrix and this one is no exception! Complex and imperfect characters that don't fit into standard archetypes, explorations of generational trauma and its manifestations, and artfully written with a ton of heart and empathy. Not to mention it is SO creepy and scary and eerie and I read it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down. I will not be forgetting certain scenes for a while. Really excellent visceral imagery and a creative storyline, which is not easy to do with a haunted house plot. Definitely recommend it!
I think this might have been more enjoyable if I were part of the literary/publishing world? For me it was an unlikable protagonist doing questionably problematic things and lying to himself about them, which I guess is something we should all learn to recognize from a cognitive dissonance perspective but it didn't capture my interest. The book didn't feel super thrilling because the stakes felt pretty low and unless I missed something the multiple meanings of “plot” and book-within-a-book tropes/themes fell a little flat. I did like the ending but it didn't salvage the whole book.
So good!!!! I listened to the audiobook version which was a very particular experience and I definitely recommend. Grace Lavery is a genius and her book assumes its readers can keep up and it takes some cracking open of new brain pathways to follow sometimes but in a way that is hilarious in a revelatory way and super worth the work.
I looked at some of the reviews with not a lot of stars and they all seem to be like “this wasn't for me” which, fine, but is that a value statement? Or “it's too all over the place” which I don't think it is if you pay attention.
This book is SO GREAT at being what it is - a funny, light, smart, creative romp with relatable characters, perfect pacing, and accessible sci-fi ideas. Highly recommend for a quick and entertaining read!
This was a neat little story and well written but I personally am so bored and irritated with the “‘it's a mystery and what's going on and things are strange' buildup that leads to the ‘ohhh it was just Christianity all along' reveal” trope. It feels like such a cop-out to me to build and create a whole new world that has so many possibilities and then have the explanation behind it be “oh right, Christianity.” I really liked the writing and would read other things by this author, I'm just always so let down when a book relies on the most pervasive and tired occult force in the world whose supremacy is already integrated into everything in existence as a way to explain an otherwise inventive plotline away.