clovetra's reviews
215 reviews

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

adventurous emotional lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

oh. i didn’t expect to be this sad. i am broken yet somehow not. this book is very confusing for my emotions. like on one hand i want to bawl my fucking eyes out, but on the other hand it’s somehow uplifting????

i’ll say this book really starts off slow. after reading the first chapter i really thought this was gonna be a 3-star for me. but my god that fucking second chapter. THAT SECOND CHAPTER.

my grandpa is going thru dementia right now so i’m not kidding i was sobbing like a little baby.

the third chapter was pretty sad as well, but then that final chapter hit me like a tonne of bricks. how is this book pulling on my major heart strings.

first an old man with dementia and then a kid without her parent?????????????

i think this book was engineered to psychologically break me /j

the characters felt pretty flat and one-dimensional apart from kei, and after the first chapter the plot felt kind of predictable. but i mean i think i just loved this book because it knew how to tug on my heartstrings.

i’m very conflicted with this because on the one hand yes i did cry and usually a book that makes me cry is an automatic 4-star (at least), but man the actual book itself was quite mediocre. i think if this book didn’t hit my tear triggers i would be very Meh on this.

i will say tho i really liked how when someone travels, if the people in the cafe are aware of the time travelling chair, they realise that person is from the future. idk i thought that was a neat addition you don’t see too often in books where people time-travel. like instant “oh hi ur from the future!” no ifs ands or buts.

anyways shout out to hirai she seems cool

Content Warnings

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

damn. this is probably the best adult mystery novel i’ve read.

i mean already bonus points for being australian. like idk the tone of this book just makes sense to be australian. it’s so goofy and wacky yet insane. once i realised the setting i went “ahhh yes everything already makes sense”.

also props to the writing of ernest. not only is he so incredibly funny, but he’s intelligent and intriguing. he has a personality beyond the detective role in this novel, and his fourth wall breaks were just epic. i mean cmon him telling us after someone’s vomiting “she’s not pregnant u idiots i know it’s a cliche but she’s not pregnant i can assure you”. and this book is just that for like 370 pages which was AMAZING. i always love me some well-timed meta-commentaries and this book is filled to the brim with it. i’m so serious at times i was doubting this was a work of fiction and not just an autobiography with some names changed.

the other characters in this cast felt a little flat to me, but i think that’s just because there’s so many people. almost everyone except ernest is reduced to one or two facts about them until the very end where there is exposition diarrhoea about every single character.

except andy bro was just along for the ride. he started the story with a beer, and ended it with hitting someone with a fire poker. thank you for your service andy

and that brings me to why this book isn’t 5-stars — the actual mystery. now i will always give a book credit where credit is due, in that i didn’t guess the killer. yay!!!! but honestly i don’t think i could if i tried. so much was going on even at my hardest i could not follow what was going on. and when this character is hiding x and this character is hiding y and this character is hiding z i was just flatlining. there’s a fine line between keeping your audience on their toes and letting your mc figure out the mystery just before they do, and having ur reader so fucking lost that they have no hope of figuring it out until the great reveal where all is explained. like yes okkkkk i do understand how this all went down at the end…. but holy shit there were so many fucking moving pieces and conclusions leapt to by one liners i really had no hope. and that is where this book lets me down. it’s trying to be so clever and it does achieve that, but at the risk of the reader having to just roll with the punches because almost every chapter there is a plot twist and at some point you just cannot keep up with them anymore.

i will say though that i will defo be continuing this series, as although i just bitched and moaned about how this book was too intelligent, i still had a great time.

i will say though that as much as this book tries to sell to the readers that it is not your average mystery novel…… by the end it lowkey does turn out to be 🤐

Content Warnings

Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

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emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

now my expectations were already astronomically high because i adore macbeth. it’s probably my favourite shakespeare work because i studied it so intensely in high school to the point my teacher literally made me read lady macbeth. i was on crack when we read macbeth, having the time of my life.

i think i went in with my expectations so insanely high this book was never going to be able to live up to what i was expecting. i do think this book did have some wins.

for one, hello roscille!!!! she’s such an interesting character. i loved how cunning she was, even for something as small as wishing for the coat to the end. i will say her motivations didn’t feel authentic to me reading this, so at times where i should’ve been rooting for her, i was instead trying to work out why she was doing something.

i don’t really like what was done to macbeth in this either. idk i liked how in the original they were very clearly madly in love until the story begins, whereas this story paints him to be like every other man. yes yes i know this is a “feminist” retelling so therefore macbeth kind of needs to be a bit more brutish, but i wasn’t a fan. lady macbeth going along with macbeth’s plot in the original felt realistic, as they were a power couple and went beyond the classic representation of shakesperian relationships. roscille and macbeth here just felt like a cliche, and it was honestly a bit boring and predictable at times.

the overall plot was decent… until fantasy elements enter which are so immersion breaking it actually annoyed me a bit. the witches’ were adapted well to this story and i like the depth that was added to them, but their ending felt stupid and rushed. and don’t get me started on lisander. this book did not need that addition to his character and completely changed the tone of the story.

the ending was also incredibly lacklustre. we have built up to this big battle for so long and it just….. fizzles out. like seriously when we spend most of the book with roscille pissfarting around and then the ending happens in the span of like 5 pages. what are we doing here.

as with any retelling, there were changes to this adaptation. some of them were great! i loved the element of roscille and her veil, although i don’t really think it added much to the plot, but hey it seemed cool. some deaths were changed, and some new characters were added, like senga. senga has my heart baby grill u can ride with me. but the changes to the story felt a bit surface level for me, and honestly ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. i will say however that my little autistic brain did a little dance whenever trepanation was mentioned. my ass loves old timey medicine!!!!!!!!

finally, ava reid the woman you are. god her prose was so addicting. the style she writes in is so unique yet so fascinating. i loved it.

i really think feminist retellings are overdone. the market is incredibly oversaturated, and at times it feels cliched and boring. the new plot elements added to this book certainly help set it apart from the rest, but i really don’t think this lives up to its original inspiration.

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The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

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emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

i mean this was cute!!!! i’ve heard rave reviews about this and honestly was expecting a bit more.
i think this book fell a bit flat for me because i don’t have a hint of religious trauma. i can count on my hands the amount of times ive been to a church service. i imagine what xiomara goes through in this book is the reality for a lot of children, but for me it almost felt a bit cartoonish.
xiomara herself was kind of interesting, but it was hard to imagine xiomara as three-dimensional due to the length of this book. idk this entire story i couldn’t fully get immersed — i was always reminded i was reading a fictional book.
i really liked the climax, it felt realistic and raw, but idk after that the book took a nose dive.
i think the main thing for me is that because this is a poetry collection, there’s only so much that can be conveyed in the span of a book.
this is my second acevedo book and i think my last. sadly i don’t think her writing style is for me :(

Content Warnings

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

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adventurous challenging emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

oh my god. go read this.

i actually think this might be one of my new all-time favourites.

i’m so serious this book was so good with <50 pages left i was so excited my apple watch kept telling me my heart rate was too high. this book got me THAT EXCITED my apple watch kept alerting me until i finished this 😭

firstly, the illustrations are so fucking beautiful. within each chapter, as well as the big spread of the main characters were magnificent illustrations, and it was so fun to see what the characters were supposed to look like, as well as small snippets of what was happening through the chapter introductions.

the characters are written so wonderfully. abitha is a bad ass bitch, samson is incredibly interesting, and forest, creek & sky were great additions. the townsfolk were surprisingly well flesh-out, especially the carters & wallace.

the plot kept me wanting to come back for more, as i was not just invested in abitha getting her revenge, but in finding out the truth behind samson.

i loved the ending, and the atmosphere as well as the horror elements to this book were delectable.

i was so in love with this book i didn’t want to pick it up because then i knew it would end. i think i could read this again and again and never be sick of this.

i actually can’t stop thinking about this book. GOD IT WAS SO GOOD.

Content Warnings

The Coiled Serpent by Camilla Grudova

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challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

thank you NetGalley & unnamed press for providing me a copy of this book in return for an honest review ❤️

this review has taken me 3 days to write. it was originally 2k words. bear with me.

this novel is insanely hard to describe, not only because it is a collection of short stories where i have vastly different opinions on each, but because this is bonkers. i think to enjoy this you need to go in with an open mind, and be aware no topics are off-limits for grudova.

overall, this is quite a unique compilation of stories. the stories often stuck with me after reading them, and i was left pondering them. i also think (for me at least), this is a sleeper hit. i’ll be honest and say i wasnt enjoying this novel until about 7 stories in, and there are 16 total, so it took me a bit to get into this book.

my biggest gripes with this book are that there feels like there’s no link between stories in terms of themes or tone. also this book CONSTANTLY mentions poop. i think i counted it up and like half of the stories mention poop in explicit detail. I KEPT A POOP COUNTER WHILST READING THIS. i was losing it. finally, the endings of each story seem like the story was cut. the endings most of the time felt like there was zero conclusion which annoyed me endlessly.

i think its best if i break down my thoughts per each story, as some of these i couldn’t stand (simply due to personal preference), whereas some i adored.

through ceilings & walls: in my opinion, this was the worst story to start the book off. compared to all the others, it felt flat, low in horror, and wasn't interesting at all. my third least-fav.

ivor: this story stuck with me for a while after reading it. it didn't raise my expectations for the collection, but i will say i did like it. but, i felt the horror elements were missing, and honestly this story had me on the fence whether i actually enjoyed it, or just had fun compared to the first story. my third favourite overall.

description and history of a british swimming pool/banya banya!: the poop bit started wearing me down at this point. i felt like this story was just aiming to be gross just for the sake of it, and felt like there were no connections between any points, and things were just being said because “oh yeah that sounds bananas”. 10/16 for me.

the custard factory: here i REALLY was getting worn down with this book. yet again, more explicit poop explanations, random things going on just for randomness, and i was not having fun. like this felt like it was gross just to be gross. this is 11/16 for me.

the green hat: here is my favourite story. i cannot rave about this one enough! i think honestly at this point if this story didnt exist i would have dreaded reading the rest of this. but GOD i loved this! the allusion towards real-life uranium girls, and the commentary of capitalism, plus some actual good-ol fashioned horror?

a novel (or a poem) about fan, aged 11 years or the zoo: i enjoyed this one! it kind of felt like it was reverting to just being crude and not horror, but i dig the themes of exploitation, and this story made sense. overall i’d say this is 7/16 in ranking for me.

mr elephant: i’ll be candid here. i dont know what was going on here. i cant even say i hated this because there was no story. it just felt like this was a full novel and this was a section isolated, because nothing felt important in this story. everything felt meaningless. my second least-fav.

avalon: i think here the entire tone of the novel does a 180, and goes from “pee pee poo poo vomit bodily fluids collecting teeth” gross kind of horror and into “murder death horrific acts but more so thriller but i guess it is horrifying” type of horror. and i enjoyed this shift in tone! this story wasn't my favourite, but compared to all the stories before it (minus the green hat my beloved), this was a step up. this is the fifth best for me.

the poison garden: i mean this was fine… i was back to not caring about the stories honestly, as it started getting repetitive with this new tone. 9/16 for me.

the surrogates: honestly i was mad as hell at this one. mainly at the ending. because seriously there was this one line that actually infuriated me. it wasnt needed, was there just for the shock factor, and made me feel icky.. and not in a horror way but an “oh this is um…” way. this is 12/16 for me.

madame flora’s: so fun, very zany yet also felt realistic? easily my second fav. BONKERS.

the coiled serpent: for the namesake of the collection, this was fine. by this point i felt like i was getting the hang of grudova’s writing.. with four stories left. for me this is the 6th best story.

the meat eater: here grudova lost me again. the last two stories were so good, and this one just felt like a very formulaic rehash of half of this collection. this is 8th for me overall.

white asparagus: i was once again disillusioned with grudova’s writing. the stories began bleeding into one, as they all seemingly followed the same pattern of “murder murder ew ew weird thing mc does with the body”. this is 13/16 for me.

the apartment: somehow grudova pulls another 180 because i enjoyed this! this felt very new yet still true to the voice established in the other stories! i was happy again! this is fourth in rankings for me.

hoo hoo! another complete tone shift. i hated this. i had no idea what was going on, it felt completely out of character for the other stories, and honestly i was over this constantly see-saw i was having with the stories. worst story imo.

i really cannot explain my thoughts on this collection coherently. it is so unique in the worst and best ways. i can only really compare this book to “bliss montage” by ling ma. i was disappointed as i was expecting horror, and i don’t know what this was, but it defo wasn’t horror. it transcends genre.

if you like gross horror or books where you don’t know what’s going on but you’re hear for the ride, this books’ for you.

Content Warnings

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

i will not be leaving a public review for this book or any of holly jackson’s books (if i decide to finish this series), as she works with an israeli publisher & hired an israeli actress for her show adaptation of aggtm. for more information: https://x.com/paedynsgf/status/1825836303684087823?s=46&t=9OvIYdlyuT0qXkMrWFaSaA

to anyone i know who has read these books and liked them: please don’t feel as though i am shaming you. this is purely a personal choice on my end. this information is not widely known, so please do not feel ashamed.

Content Warnings

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 19%.

this book just seems to ramble on with no true direction, and i actually don’t give a flying fart about any of the characters. that’s all this book has going for it. it feels like pulling teeth. plus i’m sorry books with extremely long chapters automatically lose points for me. maybe ill come back to this, but i don’t get why it’s so loved when it just rambles and rambles and rambles.

i might try to come back to this in 2025 but right now this is a miss

Content Warnings

How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

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adventurous dark mysterious relaxing tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

what a sweet little story. usually with books i’m either in love with it or i absolutely despise it. and i am happy to report this was perfectly middle of the road for me. which is rare! in my mind average is still good.

i found the mc to be a bit bland. it felt as though she had no personality and was designed to be a reader surrogate, but that doesn’t really work considering annie’s role in this is connected through familial ties. i kind of feel as though she’s supposed to be a blank slate, but in the same vein she kind of can’t be due to her role in the story. i defo was rooting for her, and i liked that her prowess for mysteries was explained through her being a writer, but idk i didn’t really connect to her. like when weird shit was happening to her, i didn’t feel invested enough to be concerned for her.

the side characters felt like they had even less characterisation. i think that’s because there’s just so many moving parts in this story, and ill be real it took me longer than i’d care to admit to align frances’ diary entries to their modern-day versions. but god because there were so many characters i lost track of a character’s significance. for example, because in frances’ diary the girls kept swapping between so many boys, i kept forgetting who ford or billy or archie were. i love when a mystery book can surprise me because i usually have a good track record for figuring out culprits, but i honestly think the reason i couldn’t crack this isn’t because this book outsmarted me in terms of how things happened, but i literally was forgetting who did what and how that links to the crime(s). i’ll give the book a point for keeping me guessing, but even still when the entire mystery was explained to me, i was still a bit confused because there were just. so. many. characters. especially mfs with the same last name. i know it’s because it’s a small town but oh my god i couldn’t keep track of who was related to who and how and my god my brain couldn’t keep up.

i did have quite a lot of fun reading this though. it’s the perfect book to cuddle up with under a blanket, and for a murder mystery, is pretty lighthearted (in a good way!!!!). i don’t want to seem like a dick but this was generic in some ways, but honestly cliches are so common because they’re good. you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. and i honestly didn’t want to put this down because i wanted to see where it was going.

overall i’d say i had a swell time, but god you almost need to take notes reading this to keep track of who’s who in the past and the future as well as who’s related to someone from the past.

Content Warnings

Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

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adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

4.0

ugh i wish i managed to squeeze this in for sapphic september but alas, it is an october read. which ngl im not too mad at seeing as it fits the vibes.

god i really get why this has so many fans. i was mesmerised with the writing, and all the characters were great.

sade was a wonderful protagonist who immediately gripped me and had me rooting for her; baz is the much needed comic relief yet also has depth to him; persephone was equally mysterious and intriguing; and the cast of ANA mostly didn’t feel flat. i say mostly because im ngl… the way the unholy trinity was built up, i was expecting mean girls 2. instead i got one interesting character and two who felt like they had zero personality outside of “money” and “lacrosse”. i mean hey i like money and lacrosse but ur side characters need more than that i beg. but honestly the characters kept this book going…. because its plot didn’t.

ok that’s so shady esp since im giving this 4-stars. but as someone who mostly vibes when reading…. i guessed the “culprit” like 20% deep. and the clues were JUST beginning to build. not only did i guess the culprit… i guessed the motive. cmon now.

and speaking of the mystery element…. it felt lacklustre. the way the “crime(s)” played out felt predictable and a let-down. i was expecting this book to just keep unravelling with its mystery, but instead i got something that could’ve been solved by the characters like 250 pages in if they stopped dicking about. like as much as i loved seeing sade just living her life, i was expecting a mystery. and instead i got class scenes, lunch scenes, a party, another party, swimming…. im contradicting myself i know. i loved the characters but the things that build them up, i seemingly hated. it’s just that the mystery was so appealing, and yet it felt dragged out because really, it could’ve been solved halfway through the book. it was so insanely simple i thought i was missing some extreme oversight, but no. i guessed most of the plot less than a quarter way through. and that’s fine! a mystery should have breadcrumbs a reader can follow! but when you are touting this as a mystery book…. and it is not a mystery at all what ha happened (/ref)……. yikes.

like i said, i honestly loved the characters so much the lack of complexity didn’t piss me off to the point i hated this book, but i can’t lie and say i loved this. if this was marketed as a contemporary? sign me up man. literally any other genre & i would’ve loved this. but the mystery was not mystery-ing for me.

i liked the mystery surrounding sade’s background.. but i have the same thing about her past to say about the plot itself. it was a letdown. i will say i didn’t guess what it ended up being, but when the book is pointing you in one direction, and then ends up dragging you to another and, and that end is disappointing compared to the other end…… yet again a chop for me!

anyways tldr i love sade but homegirl please stop having meet cutes with like 3 ppl at once and solve the mystery. i support you but also god damn girl let’s get the show moving and figure out what happened!

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clovetra's reviews 215 reviews

clovetra's reviews
215 reviews