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baielleebooks's reviews
59 reviews
Rosewater by Liv Little
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
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
3.75
Rosewater's second half is where the strength of the novel truly shines and charges forward with emotion.
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Elsie was interesting to follow as a protagonist, particularly in terms of her initial acts and inner dialogues of emotional avoidance, her being a total smooth criminal in the dating game and her true, beating heart as a fierce friend and lover.
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My only gripe was that I did feel the stakes were somewhat missing in the early stages of reading, and I didn't feel that drive to barrel on through to begin with. But there was real reward with overcoming those early uncertainties, firming up as a love story presented with lyricism and tenderness.
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Elsie was interesting to follow as a protagonist, particularly in terms of her initial acts and inner dialogues of emotional avoidance, her being a total smooth criminal in the dating game and her true, beating heart as a fierce friend and lover.
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My only gripe was that I did feel the stakes were somewhat missing in the early stages of reading, and I didn't feel that drive to barrel on through to begin with. But there was real reward with overcoming those early uncertainties, firming up as a love story presented with lyricism and tenderness.
Green Dot by Madeleine Gray
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Hera as the central character dazzles with hilarity, tenderness and goes above and beyond in delivering an exploration into the human heart when it is locked in embattlement between its deepest desires and embodied circumstances.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity and Toxic relationship
Minor: Animal death and Pandemic/Epidemic
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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? Yes
3.25
A book that captures love in all its alluringly sensory details, in its transient moments and how it can aid in chipping away at the emotional tensions of even the most pessimistic individuals, like the book's central protagonist Young. While I can't say the plot hugely gripped me, I have admiration for the textual detail of the book, and the translator's afterword beautifully affirms that appreciation.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abortion and Death of parent
Minor: Alcoholism
Down the Drain by Julia Fox
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Julia Fox showcases her flair for storytelling in a biography that speaks to her mission to always present as her quintessential self. Despite speaking about immense experiences of emotional turbulence, loss and toxicities in relationships, Fox does so with a breezy cool, candour and humour that point to a savvy industriousness. It's far from a detached reporting of a series of breakdowns, but rather a life story that illustrates a sustained surge to a cultural and personal breakthrough.
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Listened to via Audiobook.
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Listened to via Audiobook.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Grief
Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Blood
Minor: Miscarriage
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
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
4.25
Great book; richly written dialogue (Saloni's shade is SECOND to none), deeply affecting in rendering Geeta's isolation and her charged journey to self-liberation, and informative in its framing of the intersection of caste and gender-politics in India, and its honouring of Phoolan Devi, the book's guiding motif.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Rape, and Alcohol
Minor: Child abuse
Until August by Gabriel García Márquez
adventurous
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Until August's flair is in delivering sensual passages that show a deftness for language. And it is really something to observe the final piece of work by a renowned author come to fruition, and have its symbolism of being in the world
explained by a poignant foreword.
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Truth to be told my attention did yo-yo with this novel, and Ana Magdalena Bach was someone I didn't draw a great deal from, but Until August was well poised in situating me as a reader inbetween that rock-and-hard-place of unspooling yearning, yet being constricted by one's reality and not knowing what it is that one truly desires.
explained by a poignant foreword.
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Truth to be told my attention did yo-yo with this novel, and Ana Magdalena Bach was someone I didn't draw a great deal from, but Until August was well poised in situating me as a reader inbetween that rock-and-hard-place of unspooling yearning, yet being constricted by one's reality and not knowing what it is that one truly desires.
Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez
challenging
dark
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.75
Haunting and incisive, Mariana Enriquez refracts Argentina's legacies of dictatorships and militaristic brutality into twelve brilliant short stories that truly stab you in the gut. They do so in their ability to rouse emotion and confront social issues otherwise shoved to the peripheries of nostaglic or superfically rose-tinted national histories.
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What I personally found so deeply original were her framings of youth, as we witness the constructed purity of childhood shattered in sharp anti-social turns against the backdrop of political instability in stories such as The Intoxicated Years and The Neighbour's Courtyard.
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My favourites, in addition to the two aforementioned, included Adela's House, a story that set the standard for how Enriquez' stories lacerate and truly leave their mark.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
4.5
Now I must say that the Autumn and Winter sections of Good Material are particularly to DIE for! Dolly Alderton allows you as a reader to breeze through on cruise-control while navigating with exactitude the simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking aspects of the human experience. Brimming with warmth, great humour and a story of one man's post-break-up flop era that veers clear of ever disintegrating into a purile pity party.
At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Hypnotic and haunting, with poetic prose and stirring repitition, At Night All Blood is Black is poignant in capturing the total crushing of its protagonist's soul during the Great War.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and War
Moderate: Mental illness
Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell
informative
slow-paced
4.5
Rigorously researched, terrifically nuanced and further proof that a reader can always be trusted in Amy Odell's hands.