librarymouse's reviews
393 reviews

Anxiety inducing in an actively un fun way

This book was really sweet! It's definitely meant for a younger audience, but I really enjoyed the use of the found family trope in a book written with a younger audience in mind. There's a lot of creative problem solving in this of a type often missing from books written for adult audiences.

This was an interesting look into the lives of the average North Korean of a decade and a half ago. The fear mongering of Western media and the violent escalation of North Korean threats against enemy nations and against its own people has made the country into something larger than life in the eyes of the general public. The people of North Korea having to just barely scrape by while their leader lives in luxury and hides the poverty of the average citizen even while seeking aid is horrifying. It's sad to see how little has changed in the last fifteen years.
This book is well written and the firsthand accounts of life in North Korea add weight to the input of what Demick has to add as a foreign journalist.

This was a really interesting look back on trans history and how it intersects with the history of other identities, past and present. I appreciate how the author made sure to define the shape of where they understand their boundaries and empathy to stop, and where the voices of others must take over in order to be fully understood. Overall, this was a good introduction/overview to a variety of identities that we, in western communities, would understand as queer and/or trans.

There were some aspects of this book that I really enjoyed and others I did not. Aspects of this novel relied heavily on romance tropes and scenes very familiar to digital natives and those who've spent any significant stretch of time familiarizing themself with Tumblr in the 2010s - this is most overtly recognizable in the tattoo scene in which Lottie calls Marigold a good girl. That scene and dialogue is taken almost word for word from a Tumblr post inspired by a tweet from Twitter user @FloralSappho (https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/p8w33h/r_tattoo/?rdt=62663). I think in some ways this is an ingenious move, especially in new, sapphic romance, to bring in new and more relevant tropes than what is used in straight romance novels and romance novels aimed at an older audience. However, the pacing of the novel and Marigold's characterization are wildly inconsistent. It remains hard to track the movement of time as events in the novel progress, and throughout the events of the novel, Marigold oscillates rapidly between being a highly sympathetic character to being insufferably entitled and in some cases actively unkind.

The introduction to the novel sets up an interesting magic system and mysteries with a lot of promise, only to throw those away the moment Marigold leaves with her grandmother. The curse is explained in the beginning of the novel in a way that is quite different from the actuality of what the curse means for Marigold. Initially, it's explained as if Marigold is unable to fall in love, admit it, and give into it without sacrificing her powers. However, as the novel progresses

the actual impact of the curse is to cause immediate, and in some cases fatal harm to her true love. People can love her and she can love them, but they cannot act on it. This isn't how the curse is explained to Marigold at the start of the novel, and Marigold spends the whole novel believing that she's literally unlovable because of the curse, only for Lottie to be stupidly devoted and ready to kill herself to sleep with Marigold

The foreshadowing for the uses of different types of honey is very heavy handed. The writing does get better as the novel progresses, but do be warned that the last quarter takes a hard left turn away from cottage core romance into explicit description of torture, kidnapping and severe fire injury.

Overall, I don't regret reading this book, but the poor structuring and inconsistencies of the magic system were disappointing for me. The formality of the language was also striving for the beauty of something like Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, but ended up mostly just being in dire need of some contractions to make the dialogue sound like something real people would say.

These books are so comforting and so easy to read. I didn't realize this was the last one currently out in this series. I almost definitely plan on rereading this series soon. Murderbot is a fantastic narrator and I really enjoy its journey towards learning to accept that it is loved and loves others in return. This book expanded in really interesting ways on the variances in human culture in corporate systems vs places of refuge like the Preservation Alliance and ART's university. Great world building and engaging storytelling to bring ART's crew further into the fold.

A great novelization of the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So much of the show's subtext is just text on the page, and I enjoyed getting glimpses of other characters' perspectives.

I read this for a Halloween reading challenge. It's a fine read, but I've enjoyed retellings of it far more in the past.

The format of this series is so endearing. Fred sharing his journal entries to make sure other newly turned vampires, whom he adamantly believes to be good people, don't feel alone. Fred, his friends, and his adamance at continuing his normal life as much as possible make this series so entertaining and enjoyable, while still holding true to vampire, etc. lore. I like the wrench in the machine that is Gideon.

This was a fun take on vampires and fantasy lore. Initially, I was somewhat resistant to the way Hayes, and by proxy, Fred was describing Krystal. It read like a slightly less skeevy version of Jim Butcher's male gaze, making all women out to be sex objects and manic pixie dream girls, but as I read on, Krystal grew into a round and dynamic character. She isn't just pretty. She's pretty in a surprising way to Fred because of who they both were growing up, and that plays into her abilities and job requirements as an agent. I also really enjoyed that this series is set in a city other than New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago. I also am liking the vignette format. It reads like a connected collection of short stories, glossing over the boring parts of life. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series!