christa

These are journal entries. The format was the first thing that struck me. It's ALL the same. Other spoken word artists still pay attention to format so I was disappointed with that. But most of all, the writing itself is unsophisticated. There is very little craft. There are no scenes or striking imagery, barely any meaningful metaphor. I was just completely disappointed with this.
I would give examples of poems that were lacking but I think most of them, if not all, could use revision.

I think the themes and ideas behind these poems are powerful. And the emotions behind them are valid. But when you hide behind cliches and surface level understanding of complex ideas, it's hard to actually care about what's being said.

I think this is a poetry collection that's easy to love for most because it's saying what you're already thinking. You've quite literally already heard it all before. If you'd like some validation or relatability, this might be for you. It's a ‘fun' read if you're not really focused on craft or lyricism which I think is a valid way to read!

I feel like I didn't love this book partly because of my expectations. I wanted a book about food. About her mother and her eating disorder. I was surprised at how the book shifted so quickly from this to romance.

And romance isn't even the right word. I love a sapphic read and I also don't MIND sex scenes. But the scenes in here were hard to get through. I think this was mostly because the tonal switch from regular conversation to sex was so intense and went in and out very often. I understand that sex is a part of life but we're not meant to get every detail of it. I think the handful of sex scenes could've been shaved down. It just takes away from the larger topics that didn't get enough airtime. The sex was not profound, at least in its frequency. I know this seems like a prudish take, but I was genuinely not expecting this book to be so glued to clits and wetness and finger fucking. It's barely dealing with sexuality, mostly just sex itself.

A big element of this story is our narrator's mother. The entire time, there's this assumed build to something dramatic and heart wrenching. We never get there. The book ends so abruptly when there was so much more to explore. What information we did get about her mother was (INSANELY) during masturbation and sex. I just wished it was handled with more care is all.

One of my biggest criticism that I know most people will not agree with is how unlikeable this narrator is, specifically in the way she thinks about Miriam. This is a fat woman just minding her own goddamn business. Our narrator literally admits to wanting to “improve her”. Also, I totally imagined Miriam as hispanic for a long time. Even after she was described I was just like, nah she's totally just a hispanic woman with dark hair and a nice smile! I think that made it bearable, making something of my own with what I was given.

The writing wasn't bad, though the dialogue was sometimes awkward. Sometimes it was purposeful and hit. Other times, it fell flat for me and made me eye roll. Some things are not profound just because you proclaim them to be.

memorable lines:
“As I teased, I smelled the faintest waft of shit coming from underneath her” p. 218

“I'd worn skirt and tank on purpose, because I knew that I looked thin in the outfit. I wanted to accentuate this feature to remind Miriam of what I was and of what she was in that old competition between women. If I was going to be vulnerable, express that I wanted her, then I needed to already be some kind of victor” p. 209... because holy shit.

Maas done wrote a character that hates herself so much she wants to die and I have never felt more seen. I'll spare you the 600 word spiel I wrote up in my notes app the other day and just tell you that grief looks different on everyone. I mean, think about a time where you were So Extremely Sad. Maybe you have healthier coping mechanisms, but for me, I feel so powerless in my sadness. Everyone around you is angry at your attitude when you're just fighting everything within reach to survive. For Nesta, I think the decision to lock her up in the House of Wind was a decision filled with hatred (rhys), embarrassment (feyre), selfishness (cassian), and a desire for control. Despite whatever your frustrations are with her, she's a grown woman who should be allowed to drink wine and fuck whoever she wants. And I think that was the MOST frustrating part...she was essentially stripped of her bodily autonomy. (why couldn't this woman just get a job and pay off her debts instead?). It's definitely convenient that Nesta thinks of his time as really self destructive (like she's not worthy of having friends because she had casual sex?). If I had to compare it to anything, it felt like the edge of seventeen. That one movie where everyone keeps telling this 17 year old girl that she pities herself too much and no one likes her and then she has to apologize to everyone at the end for some unknown reason. Except maybe the apologies Nesta gives out are kinda valid! ONE LAST MESSAGE ABOUT NESTA: A lot of you have darker fucking spirits and make deeper cuts than her. AND A lot of you want the complex, morally grey characters but can't even stomach a woman who drinks too much wine and says mean things to her sisters. If you never intended to extend empathy towards her, you never should've asked for more POVs. I DIGRESS NOW.

The smut in this book was SICKENNINGGG! My metaphorical dick was twitching. It started slow and got downright nasty at times. Mrs. Maas, I see your growth. I don't think we needed AS MANY as we got though. It made me wonder at times if they even liked each other.

The introduction to these troves and new antagonists is smart and helped keep the story fresh. Wasn't sure how Maas was going to continue the series after the war but she somehow created new turmoil, gave us new history lessons, and extended this world so much farther that I ever could've imagined. While I do think this works, a part of me does get the feeling that all this newness was a desperate attempt to keep things going? I LIKE the newness, but is obvious to me that the newness reworks the series into something completely different than it was before. Especially since none of these tools and creatures were ever mentioned in previous books. I guess I'm just a sucker for foreshadowing and wished we'd been introduced to some of these things earlier. Still, I think it worked out well so I can't say too much about it!

This is my favorite in the series for the SHEERRRR FACT that it made me cry the most. I felt so seen, as someone who's always filled with anger. I get payback in arguments by saying the mean stuff and regret it. I have a hard time apologizing. And it makes me hate myself! (Which like, fair!) Nesta lowkey showed me that there is a way out of that toxic behavior (literally just meditation and good dick?)

I usually don't cry over books. I cried over this one.

extremeeeee spoilers ahead






The writing was very basic and repetitive. It got better when we got into the paranormal aspect of the book and when there was some urgency. Other than that, the actual writing itself was not great to me.

There were a few details that I felt were put there to set something up and we never got back to it. The most notable examples is the REPEATED detail that he was actually wealthy and Layla “didn't know it yet”. It set up a moment where Layla is supposed to find this out about him and she never does.

Then there's the unrealistic responses to the relationship at the end with Aspen, the sister. Are we supposed to believe he would eventually “win her over” after her sister confesses that she's been drugged and tied up, only to play it off as a joke seconds later? He has BLOOD and SCRATCHES on his arm at the hospital and she's just a bit upset? Also, Leeds could've totally played off the wrist issue by saying they were having kinky sex (aka handcuffs) and the “drugging” could be a inside joke about sex pills (the ones that make ur sex drive go up like crazy). This couple has mentioned sex to each other before so it would not have been irregular and could've added some humor. This could've been added to make the whole Aspen situation fall away in a REALISTIC way.

I also was confused on whether or not he was IN the pool with her. I imagine it would be very, very difficult to drown someone if you're just on the edge of the pool? So I imagined him in there with her. So why was he not wet? If he was on the side, I think there should be more stress on the awkwardness and the sheer FORCE it would take to make this happen. I just think many of these details were awkward or not realistic.

I think a small note is that I think this narrator is just really unlikeable. I don't find this to be bad though. I just hated him. He seems to think he's redeemed at the end which I thought was just so typical of a man. But really, my hatred for him stemmed from his need to make everything sexual. He couldn't even kiss his girlfriend (her soul? inhabiting her old body? whatever) without thinking about wanting to fuck her. But like I said, I don't dislike the writing of this. In fact, I think it's the most realistic characterization ever.

other remarks:

why are we referencing ALEXA at the end??? i hate contemporary references so muchhhh

we never got back to the suicide note. did he successfully delete it?

even if sable was inhabiting laylas body, i still find it weird they would HAVE SEX in that possessed state....sable still has a MIND and FEELINGS and therefore should have autonomy. the book itself says she might not KNOW she is sable. so you're inhabiting the body of an innocent person and then having sex with her posssed body. i just thought this moment was inappropriate at best.

can't even count on my fingers how many times his worry and predicament were repeated to us in almost the exact same way. “ahhh i'm starting to fall out of love with layla and that's so fucked up but i LOVE willow”. if the WRITING of this emotion was better, each moment Leeds thought about this, it would feel different. it felt as if the same thing was bejng said over and over and over without variation or nuance. you don't have to fill up space to just go fill it.


all of this being said, i thought the actual plot was pretty fascinating. i especially loved the detail of the detective who was ALSO a ghost. (though, even he was a bit rushed and had very little characterization to me). i just think this could've been edited some. it was obvious this was done pretty quickly and thrillers, especially ones that are complex in this way, need to be precise and well thought out.

tw death, suicide

okay. brief complaint: run on sentences that were SO LONG, I got lost so many times and found myself rereading over and over. it did not help that many of these run ons were obnoxiously long lists of allusions or references to things I have never heard of and that would be tedious to look up. and sometimes i was just lost generally in the words themselves. for example, “songs you don't so much listen to as project your memory onto the wax,” was one that stuck with me for so long i had to keep it in my notes app for future reference. so as much as i loved this, there were long stretches of it (specifically in the beginning to middle) where i was not understanding much and was just reading over shit.

but genuinely, i digress and that complaint means very little because, by the end, i was like...basically in tears. as it progressed, it was less about a weird set up in this household. it became an insanely emotion illustration of an obscure (and pretty conditional) relationship between women. the MC makes some cruel decisions but i would argue that she does not get a fucking break and this cruelty only stems from that.

the most impressive (and potentially triggering) aspect of this was the way suicidal thoughts were just kind of planted everywhere and they felt authentic and perfectly placed. dare i say, i resonated with some it (but like im okay??). for example, there's this moment where she's talking to the husband and she's talking pretty abstractly about how surviving as a HIM vs. as herself is very different. she defines their relationship and survival as, “a terribly unspecial thing that is just what happens when you keep on getting up and brushing your teeth and going to work and ignoring the whisper that comes to you at night and tells you it would be easier to be dead”. And idk, i cried at that. Leilani just has a way of describing wanting to die! what can i say! anyways, if u get nothing else from this dense ass paragraph, it should be that death is spoken about very bluntly and if that's triggering for you, i would probably steer clear of this one.

if you love stream of consciousness, bluntness (towards sex, death, race, etc), brief dialogue, and open endings, you might like this. the language feels informal/coversational at the start then gets profound as fuck at the end. idk!!!!!! just read it. i literally read it in one day.

my main complaint is that there's too much coincidence. too much good happening that wraps this all in a pretty bow. armen should've vanished...that is the logical next step. yet we find a loophole again so we don't have to lose any of our beloved characters. as nice as that is, its not realistic and all the devastation is immediately upended and lost. and this is not to mention just how DRAMATIC death scenes are when, in the next chapter, these people keep surviving and being brought from the dead. if the characters actually died, their death scenes would be gut wrenching. but we lose that feeling when they come back 3 seconds later. And when someone DID finally die (aka their dad), it meant almost nothing to us because we hadn't truly met him. We connected to his death for the simple fact that he was their father. So not only was his death not very emotional, but neither was his motivation for fighting for them. We just didn't see that bravery before and didn't see his journey OUT of cowardice. So his choice to sail and fight was out of character and unearned, in my opinion. Still, bringing him back was a cool choice. Maybe we might get more of his story in another books.

Unlike usual, I don't think this was too long (I genuinely don't think books should be more than 500 pages because WHY!!). I appreciated the prose (I know many people will disagree on this) and I also didn't hate the sex scenes! Maas definitely has a tendency to go a “tasteful” route with them, which I'm not sure if I love or hate. Usually, I think if you're gonna write smut, it needs to be SMUT. Because why else are we reading it if it's not actually hot? Most of all though, I was impressed at how much I truly understood and remembered with past books and characters. I usually have a hard time connecting books together when I read a series (I read the other two LAST SEPT), but the other books were so memorable that I rarely had a hard time. And all the characters were distinguishable. I had a hard time separating Cassian and Azriel in past books and this one just cleared all of that up. They have their own stories, obviously, but they blended together in book 1 and 2 for me. The fight scenes were intense but not unnecessarily gory. Their enemies were worthy opponents, which I loved. And there's tons of things left to resolve in the next books, which make me excited for what comes next. I'm particularly interested to see if the Cauldron will have any reaction to Feyre's pleading that she'd do “anything”...if she unknowingly locked herself into an agreement PERHAPS? Maybe not.

I appreciate that the conflict here is interpersonal and community based instead of worldly. Yes it's a break, but it's also a totally different type of turmoil. Part of war is rebuilding, acknowledging the aftermath, and fostering better relationships with your friends, family, and community. While this could've used a bit more drama, it's still very interesting to me. At the same time, I'm not sure if the prose was good enough for this to be worthy of its own book. Stuck to the intro of another book, this might work because it felt like one of those sections in Sarah J Mass books that's just downtime for the obvious tragedy and drama that's coming soon. But we never get the drama that's coming soon. There's honestly a lot of resolution here to say a 700 page behemoth comes next.
The smut was unnecessary but not bad. And it set up the Cassian/Nesta thing very well. Ultimately this was decent and not as bad as people made it seem!





This is also not skippable in the series. **spoiler part* Things you'll miss: new homes!, nesta and cassian relationship, tamlin just in general, feyre's place in velaris community (new character as well) and more.

Let me get this out of the way:
- they weren't lying when they said this was a retelling of beauty and the beast... the curse, turning into a monster, having to marry/fall in love with a human, etc. it follows it a bit too closely for me at times
- the answer to the riddle was extremely obvious to me?? felt so corny.
- the romance between tamlin and feyre felt rushed, and i think the chemistry between lucien and feyre is SO SO MUCH stronger.
- too much of the major plot twists were revealed from pages and pages of monologue in boring settings. we learn most of ~the secrets~ through alis while she's grabbing spices and food from cupboards. I wanted some sort of action or stakes involved in it. Even in the scene I'm mentioning, neither characters are noticeably scared of being caught so it's literally just a convo between friends.
- yall hyped this up for being spicy asf and it was not. “It gets spicier in the second book”...this book is literally 400+ pages long.

All of that being said,
I've never read a fantasy novel that was so incredibly easy to sink my teeth into.

- I loved learning about Feyre's family dynamic and her responsibilities
- The plot was so engaging, an explicit sex scene might've been disruptive.
- The painting detail was really interesting especially when she self admittedly is not an expert. Her noticing the painting on the walls/learning to read was a cool detail too.
- It's gross and full of fucked up (both evil and morally grey) characters, which I love so much.
- if you're not a fan of series/sequels, I think this works well as a standalone read to be honest. It feels pretty resolved (obviously is not really)

Ultimately, I wished the romance and banter was stronger, but I also think it was important to detail the past and rules of this fantasy world before getting to that. Tamlin is a bit boring. And I hope we learn more about Feyre's family in the next books. Pretty solid. :)

why did this take me an entire month to finish. halfway thru i was HONESTLY lost on what they were even doing...what is this book they're looking for?? why are we traveling?? it just dragged on and i could only read in pieces.

it's a great series so far, i think it's just important to get a break between them. it was good. still, the sex wasn't as riveting as it was hyped up to be but that was fine. kind of excited for feyre's trickery towards tamlin though! i always thought he was boring asf anyway

*spoiler alert and i also go on a lengthy rant that is incredibly necessary for my sanity

If you're a non black person who refuses to google what a ring shout is (or just refuses to intently read as these character perform it IN DETAIL), this is not the book for you. It's extremely valid to not enjoy this or to struggle with its plot. Its not at all valid to read an entire novel ingrained in gullah culture, black history, and ring shout rituals, only to come on goodreads and ask us what ‘all the ring business is about'? If you refuse to learn something new, to engage with a history that is uncomfortable, this is also not the book for you. If you can't engage with books with dialect and slang, this is definitely not for you. t is not “southern women speaking redneck”, or someone who “doesn't talk correctly”, it's black vernacular and short inclusions of the Gullah language. It was incredibly disheartening to read that so many people could read this and take absolutely nothing from it. Again, i have no problem with low ratings and genuine criticism. But I cannot sugarcoat that some peoples comments leave an incredibly bad taste in my mouth. I had to stare at a fucking wall to try and understand how someone could read this and pay so little attention that, by the end, they did not know what a ring shout was and how integral it was to the story. and then complain that they were confused. I personally had difficulties with the magic system so that is not what i'm talking about. But if you can read a 500+ page high fantasy novel, this really should be child's play!

No hate on audiobooks (I think they are awesome resources especially for busy bees and those with disabilities in particular!), but the recurring theme here is that people who were confused were LISTENING to the book. I personally slip in and out of audiobooks and this is not the type of book that is accessible in that way. If at all possible, this works best in print or e-book. If not, this is one I'd read sitting in my bed doing nothing honestly. But ultimately, you need to be paying attention. You need to care. If you do not care, don't read the book. I'm being incredibly serious. If you do not care about the themes presented in the blurb, please do not go through the process of reading and then making comments about dialect and tradition that you would never say to a black person's face. And if you don't read the blurb and complain that you ‘seriously wished you'd known what it was about before reading because you would've never picked it up if you did', KINDLY get a FUCKING grip.

ALL THAT BEING SAID,

Ring Shout surrounds Ku Kluxes, klan members turned monsters, that are evolving into something more powerful and hope to ~take over~. What they wish to take over is left intentionally vague, but it's important that they have hate to become more powerful. The badass main characters, who introduce us to the Gullah language and rituals, are saving the day with the help of ancestors and their ‘magical system'. I put quotes around magical system because, despite that being an accurate word for its function in fantasy, it is pretty deep rooted in real tradition, ring shouts, and Gullah culture in general. There's bloodshed, dialogue heavy scenes, death, and dream-like sequences that were incredibly engaging throughout.

I wouldn't necessarily categorize this as horror to be honest. Its gore was not extremely gory or hard to swallow to me. And the fight scenes were incredibly short, in my opinion. But I actually really enjoyed that because I was more invested in the relationships of this group/community. The biggest emotional investment here for me was the main speakers unwillingness to tell us her trauma. And that trauma was not spectacularly surprising and unexpected, but hey! It's the KKK. They are not the most creative and inventive bunch! I do agree with some others that I felt the rules of the magic system should be less haphazard. For example, the Night Doctor element confused me a bit because, with the books explanation of them, they kidnapped and used black people for their own gain. But in the end, they help defeat the cyclops? Was a bit confused if we were supposed to be rooting for them.

I think my ultimate criticism is that I was a bit disappointed that the HUMAN klan members weren't really antagonists here. They got to survive every time. And all the criticism received of them was always to their monster counterparts. So they didn't really take on any responsibility for anything because there was always some scarier, bigger monster to worry about. The human monsters got to stumble away in confusion and awe. Despite the fact that there wasn't quite enough connection between the KKK and Ku Kluxes for me, I think a fascinating aspect of the human members is their obvious lack of intelligence, how they are so easily recruited into the scheme, only to be taken over and used for evils they believed they were immune to. Not only this, but there was some seriously amazing commentary on their hate: “the hate they give is senseless...Their fears aren't real—just insecurities and inadequacies. Deep down they know that. Makes their hate like...watered down whiskey”. There were just some amazing moments that solidified the klan members were merely pawns in a much larger game. They didn't necessarily LOSE (as they still exist, were not defeated) but definitely did not win. That was incredibly refreshing. And I think it's important to say that, as mentioned in someone else's review, the human KKK members are not absolved of their hate because they were taken over by the Ku Kluxes. The Ku Kluxes merely took advantage of the hate that already existed inside them. I think it's quite rich that a white person could read the whole book, think about it enough to write a lengthly review on it, and still come to the conclusion that the author is trying to absolve the KKK of their crimes. Take away the gigantic cyclops/a hundred mouths and the monsters and KKK members are the same. In the end, I thought the concept was so so cool. I thought the execution was just as awesome. If anything, I wanted more history, more personal connections and exploration of self/identity.

P.S. I'm usually not so heated in reviews. Usually I am much more thorough on craft and what I enjoyed. And there was so much to enjoy here. but I thought some comments/reviews were genuinely insensitive. I would list them all in quotes here if I thought I could stomach it.

I felt as though this internal struggle was going on for a long time and was saying the same thing over and over. The ending almost defeated the point of all of that. Wasn't necessarily the most clever ending but I can appreciate it.

Also, wasn't quite sure whether this “love” between “Jasmine” and him supposed to be viewed as consensual or if it was meant to be commentary on something. Just wondering if we're supposed to genuinely believe this woman loves her captor.

A reader who's been abused or is particularly vulnerable to the victim blaming and dismissiveness of abuse, should probably steer clear of this book. I think this book does a lot of things right. It very accurately portrays how a victim might dismiss their sexual abuse or ‘fall in love with' their abuser. This is a completely valid journey for a survivor to take. However, I will always believe that literature has power and it's intentions/purposes change the MINUTE it is released to the public. Every single reader has a different interpretation and personal experience. Because of this, I thought the book was one-sided in its language about victimhood and abuse. The voices that are meant to oppose Vanessa's thinking are just not loud enough, not impactful. And they were written like that on purpose. What I'm saying is that a reader teetering between “was I abused” or was I not, will read this book and be convinced that what they endured wasn't “enough”, that how they reacted to the abuse makes it not abuse at all. The book needs a CONSTANT voice of reason. I thought the therapist or Taylor might have been that. But their voices and their arguments do not stand against Vanessa's delusions about Strane and what she's been through. Again, I think this point of view is done WELL. The writing is good, the dialogue is believable, even the characterization is three dimensional. But I think this book has dangerous rhetoric and logic for the wrong readers. And to the argument that, “well this is how people think in real life”, I ask you, if someone said you were not a victim in real life, would you back down, say “valid!”? Harmful logic written down on paper is still harmful logic, no matter what merit the writing itself holds.

And to the argument that says, “well that's the books purpose! it's supposed to show an accurate depiction of someone who won't accept their own victimhood!!!”, i say, “so what?”. A speaker that says “you can't rape the willing” (because of their trauma) is still saying “you can't rape the willing”. And that type of language would make more sense if there was an interjection from an outside voice of reason. But again, there was none. We're left with “you can't rape the willing is a horrible joke but IT MAKES SENSE”. I mean lord.

I think the moment that solidified my dislike for this book was when Vanessa is masturbating to Strane talking about his new student he will, no doubt, sexually abuse soon. It is completely valid to stay silent on being abused because it is overwhelming and difficult for you. It is not valid to stay silent and not prevent potential abuse to other children. It is even less valid to get off on it. All of this to say, a victim is allowed to not think of themselves as a victim, but to use language that invalidates OTHER women's abuse and experience, is language that must be met with a sensitive, mature audience. I don't even think some adults should read this. I think some of the replies and reviews might show it well. ex. “I remember being 15. I know my 25 year old boyfriend didn't groom me”.


While all of this is frustrating, I can't say the writing is bad. I just think it wasn't handled with the upmost sensitivity. Even if an author is abused themselves (which I don't know, don't think its anyones place to ASSUME), that still does not change the impact of harmful language. A survivor can THINK they were not abused, but this book wholeheartedly (and constantly) assures us that our speaker couldn't POSSIBLY have been abused and takes 300+ pages to get to any sort positive conclusion. Again, I understand that this is a very true journey many people go through. I understand that some people suffer and dismiss it to cope. But I think our coping methods, if dangerous or harmful, should be kept to ourselves. It's as simple as that, in my opinion.

read this for class and was genuinely taken aback at how much i loved this. and how much i learned!

you can argue that small island is trying to do too much...lots of POVs and lessons to learn here. but each one was given its proper time in my opinion.

i found bernards sexual issues to be particularly interesting. We've seen bullies and racists written but we seldom hear about their sexual and romantic repression brought on by the very same racism they keep close.

and queenie is a scarily accurate illustration of white allyship, specifically in an individual who is truly convinced there is very little learning involved in it (and that being an ally for selfish reasons is good enough). i respect queenie so much for being able to break some barriers and ruffle feathers. at the same time, i think she enjoys ruffling them and does not consider the danger of it, especially for her tenants who will ACTUALLY be affected by that danger. which i think is such a frustrating part of white allyship...you don't get to stir shit up and say “hey look what i just did!”. she can't keep her tenants safe from these people shes angering and bernard's reappearance (and the theatre scene) are great examples of that. lots of allyship comes from resistance to the people who brought us up. and once that rebellion is no longer fun, it's only about what you can get from it (ie, being a white knight to feel better about yourself or fucking the men you're meant to be advocating for.) i did all that talking to say that queenies character felt so real to me. and i also don't hate her! i think she's doing her best and that's obvious to me in her selfless act at the end. maybe it's not selfless to you but let's consider the alternatives! no black child should live in a world that will grow to hate or resent it for literally no reason. you can argue that sheltering them from it (aka bernard) will only make them unprepared for it (aka racism) but our parents and our childhoods are some of the most formative tools we have. why make a kid suffer for the sake of preparation? some of us were simply ignored and talked to harshly as a kid and it still affects our ability to communicate and love. so i think it's pretty selfless to give him the opportunity to not live in a household with a man, however caring he is now, that will resent his skin, his face, his heritage. and let's also be honest. bernard is only soft towards micheal because he's a literal newborn. the minute he made a mistake, perhaps fulfilling a stereotype, michael would be just like the rest of them. can you tell i feel strongly about this? this anger is good. it means bernard is real too, which is terrifying! frightening even.

anyways. i thought hortense and gilbert's slow love story was one of most impressive aspects of the story. but i think the whole micheal situation coming full circle was expected and at the same time, did not feel believable. things happen i guess! ultimately though all my lil negative tidbits did not actually affect my reading as a whole and i thoroughly enjoyed it.

I've had this book since 2019 and I think I avoided this because I usually do not like romance. But I do appreciate when the MCs in romances have characteristics people like to avoid (fatness, disability, etc). Not only does it separate it from other romance novels, but it also just shows the nuances in relationships where people are struggling with disabilities/issues.

I loved the banter between these two. I honestly wished the tension was extended even farther. I love a slow burn and this, personally, could've been so much slow. I think it's pretty obvious that the gem of this book was the fresh and romantic sex scenes! Smut is often too repetitive to me and each scene here felt unique.

Another great aspect of this is how, with Red's situation, how it shows the way abuse affects our behavior, sometimes manifesting as self sabotage. This is why I actually really appreciated the fight at the ending. This book tackles a) how abuse and past trauma must be worked through, as to not make both partners suffer and make destructive decisions and b) partners should catch on to limits and accommodations needed to help the people they love, instead of pretending their disabilities/limits don't exist. I just wished we'd gotten to this sooner. It was over right as it started.

So much of his art stuff did not hit emotionally to me for this same reason. His insecurity over his artwork was relatable obviously, but there was very little else to latch on to until we were provided context. Both Chloe and Red are imperfect in the way they handle their issues and it would've been more emotional had we understood why from the beginning (or at least earlier).

I guess I just had a hard time with this. Apart from the fact that he did not commit a victimless crime, I just didn't love the poetry itself. I was hoping the poet would play with form a bit more? Obviously the redacted poems are super cool in their format but, besides this, they all look quite similar and I just got a bit bored.

I was particularly stunned by “Night” in which, if I've read correctly, we are being told that the speaker has stalked and physically abused “his woman” and still, somehow, we are meant to empathize with the fact that she is “a threat to the freedom [he] imagined she gave”. If I am misinterpreting this relationship and poem, please let me know. I would HOPE and prefer that I am wrong or misread.

As for the whole “victimless crime” thing I mentioned, I just don't think any of these read as if the speaker believes they committed a crime that deserves punishment. I want to make it very clear that I 100% understand a lot of these poems are commenting on the unfair treatment experienced while in prison. “Punishment” does not include being humiliated, abused, and exploited. But I also think there have to be some slices of awareness when you've committed a crime that has hurt someone.

The severity of their environment, though, is fully formed and discusses in such a gut-wrenching way. The moments with the sons are some of the most emotional moments for me. These moments were the most honest. I most “liked” the poems “if absence was the source of silence”, “mural for the heart”, and “For a bail denied”. There is some excellent commentary on the prison system and fatherhood .

Again, I am open to hearing other interpretations of this! Particularly in the poem Night, I'd like to know how others read it, what it really means, what I might have overlooked.

crying because i want to love this so much but i have genuinely no idea what's happening

I somewhat liked the writing style? But I felt like it was trying to be really deep when it should've taken a more fun route. Like the ending felt very cheesy and some of the dialogue felt unnatural. And, don't get me wrong, I love fiction that has weird dialogue but I don't think this is the genre or book for that. I wish the twins weren't perceived so closely together all the time. They ate and thought the same things, burst at the same time, even spoke in unison (literally all the time??). It just didn't make sense. These are super amazing and rare kids. let them have their own identities.


Onto the positives, it moved pretty fast and was an easy read! I loved Carl! Almost wanted him and Lillian to raise the twins as coparents or something. Carl was just such an amazing and nuanced character to me. And the relationship between Madison and Lillian was cool too. Genuinely love this wlw arch. And I really like that it goes unexplored and unanswered at the end. It just feels realistic.


Although I did have some eyebrow raisers and small things I'd change, I did really like this. I think it's a good book if you're just getting back into reading novels OR you want something that's very low pressure (not too much adventure/action, pretty PG?). I also very rarely give anything below 3 stars so 4/5 for me :)

I hate that I hated this because I love Kuang's other stuff and I was so interested, in theory, with the historical aspect of this. I went into this already on the wrong foot: I forced myself to reread the first 60 pages after DNFing it a few months ago. And it just pains me to reread stuff, so I was trudging through it. But I really expected things to pick up. It certainly did. 400 pages in.

I enjoyed the interpersonal relationships and internal stuff here. Meaning, I loved getting to know the characters, how they spoke and acted, and interacted with one another. Their dialogue, their banter and arguments, their habits and movements, were all very well done. In fact, the only dynamic I was attached to here was Atlan and Rin. It felt like when you're 10 and on vacation and think that you, a small child, are attracting the 23 year old lifeguard by doing handstands in the pool. I mean, that painful secondhand embarrassment of watching a crush that could never come to fruition. Mostly because I wasn't sure their age gap (I can't imagine it was more than 1-3 years), but also because it was painfully obvious to me that Rin thought they were friends (was she so deluded to think so?). His death was surprising to me because she set up the perfect romance arc. But I can see why it wouldn't go there. Once we'd gotten to Altan and Rin alone (going to the prison) their relationship was the only thing really keeping me going.

I honestly just felt really disconnected from the history and god element of this. It's obvious that Kuang was trying to give us all the keys to understanding the war (we get an ACTUAL history lesson) but I just kept getting lost. There are so many characters and they started to blend together. I am really interested in the story of Nanking though. I actually own The Rape of Nanking and didn't even know it.

The war going on in the book though, was kind of foggy in my head. I think I just am not interested in reading about war, especially in a fiction sense? Or maybe I'm just a little slow and need it spelled out for me even slower. I thought the beginning was very slow paced and the spiritual moments where Rin meets with the gods were so abstract that there was nothing tangible to them (for me). In other words, I found it very difficult to visualize. I was ready to hunker down and tackle this entire series but I think I'm good. In place of that, I might just reread Babel....basically my favorite book of all time

This is a really well written book with stories that are so weird that it makes me love them. I do have to say though, nearing the end of the book, I felt that the endings were all the same. It makes them predictable when the third story in a row ends in people kissing.

sometimes i felt the lyricism of these overshadowed the genius of what each essay was getting to. for instance, most people, when they see someone doing a moon walk in a coffee shop might think, “they really don't care what others think of them and i love that”. ross gay is able to take it so much farther and articulate it in the most beautiful way. i just felt that was clouded SOMETIMES by this desperate need to make everything sound like a poem. and i find that so funny because i never bought this expecting poetry (and still found it IMO). aside from that, i loved this. it really is just a nice gratitude journal for all of us to indulge in. i feel honored everytime i read gay's work, that he lets us into his brilliant big brain. it's just awesome.

also, i really don't know how there could possibly be this much joy and optimism in one body. i mean, this dude can find the small joys in everything. even in shit. literally. it's just really refreshing. poetry is often so tragic (not denying a lot of gay's poetry is tragic/sad) and is unable to find any light and happiness (is it really their fault?). i just always find myself coming back to ross gay to remind myself there is love and beauty and song absolutely everywhere and i don't have to look very hard. anyways.

This is like if you recorded yourself going through a mental health crisis (where your thoughts turn into conspiracies and everything is evil and disgusting and you're convinced you'll never be happy again) and you watch it back once you've been medicated or taken a long nap. You notice valid points in arguments and evils you've conjured up, but you've also come back to earth by now and realized you sound a bit crazy and don't have control over any of these things and maybe even blew everything out of proportion.

At times, I found Millie extremely unlikeable and whiny because of this. Her predicament is a somewhat lucky one. I mean, she had a temp job that she might've been able to keep had she shredded a small stack of papers. But I also realized that I've had her same anger and jealousy so I can't hate her too much. Her job was unfulfilling and she was obviously depressed. Having your parents to fall back on you can't erase that, thought it was an unrealistic aspect of her career. You get to keep your apartment for weeks with no job, great! Her friend pointed this out, which was cool. But her friend was just as awful and bitter so I hated her as well.

Ultimately what I took from this is that it never really gets better. You just find a job that you can survive on and keep it. The young people who come after you will always think less of your position and personality and are convinced they can do better. They cannot. It's a bit bleak. But it's something you can resonate with or see yourself in. I had a hard time getting into moments where Millie gets to thinking about life on an almost philosophical level (just quick thoughts, nothing too serious. this is not a book about philosophy). Just moments where her struggles make her think about free will, what it means to be an individual, etc. Just felt a bit cheesy? Millie is obviously struggling but like, let's go on LinkedIn or Indeed girl! It felt like a cop out to blame the universe or a lack of free will.

I'll always make this disclaimer for books where I hated everyone: maybe that's the point. If the author was going for unlikeable characters who have no joy and the tension/conflict is mostly in their head, then they did an excellent job! If nothing else, these are characters who are awful or mean to each other (and themselves). They're complex and angry, which people don't write all the time. But it still wasn't my favorite and I found myself skimming entire paragraphs at a time (and still being able to keep up with the plot somehow). It is a quick read so it wasn't too much of a loss of time. This is definitely not for everyone.

I initially really loved this and had given it a 5 star review. Then I read a comment about how this books screams privilege, decided to give it a 4 star. Then realized that's the point. There's an obvious “privilege” here and as a black girl who sees privilege and injustice in everything without wanting to, it was so obvious but didn't effect the way I read this. Regardless, this is good work.

I will never quite agree with people who say this isn't interesting though. When the plot wasn't, the language and thought process of the main character was. There was never a seemingly “dull” moment.

i can't articulate how much i loved this. but i think there's not a single wasted line in this entire thing.

some favorite poems are “leverage”, “three strikes”, “the ghost's daughter speaks: white elephant”, “kin”, “for Carol, who is no one”, and “the last time”.

notable favorite lines:

“I cannot help but admire
this horrible power
of mine, how each small thing
can become a death:

the lost house key,
a spoiled egg, a howling dog.

There is no prayer
or pill for this.”

* “She keepslots of     dead        cats in her freezer     says if I'm good                &pray        they will come back      to      life     &     be my pets”“Back then, I wasn't shit.Just electrified violence.All fists, piss & safety pins”“This is no poisoned applemovie-star spell, Mother.”*

“quit saying better when you mean eviscerated.”

and too many more.

Some moments were repetitive. But literally who cares?? It was great