sara_berlin's reviews
274 reviews

Persepolis is a very personal story; it almost feels wrong to rate it, but I will anyway because it's deserved. I think that graphic memoirs are so unique in how they can show you how people change over time directly, and it's just generally a very conducive medium for those kinds of stories. I personally know almost nothing about Iran nor it's multiple revolutions, so this book was quite informative in that sense as well. I think that the Middle East's conflicts are ones where we don't see the perspectives shown nearly as much as things like WW2, not that those shouldn't be shown, but that everyone deserves to have their voices heard and I'm glad this author has managed to accomplish that. 

feel like it was a little too late for me to read this book. Most of the conclusions and thoughts drawn in it are things that either don't apply to me or that I have already understood previously, but it was still fun to seen it all written out
It also made me want to visit Memphis, so I guess that’s a bonus. 

It somewhat shocks me that I've never seen anyone recommend this before, considering what a beautiful book this was. Yet another sign to trust your instincts when it comes to everything, including which books to read. 
This is a kind of memoir written in letters to Akwaeke Emezi's friends, relatives, lovers, strangers, just people in their life, and it's so honest and visceral, and frankly, fascinating. I won't say it's changed my life, since my life is still the same for now, but it's probably one of the most inspiring and deep pieces of literature I've read so far, maybe that I'll ever read. It feels corny to call something deep, but I can't think of a better word. It does get dark at times, but not in a very morbid or excessive way. I know most of us have had similar feelings. 
With Pet I admired that they don't mind being brief, same goes for this one. It was also spellbinding to see how they use metaphorical and literal language, and blur the lines between the two; sometimes you can't tell if what's said is completely literal or if it's meant in an allegorical way, but honestly, I got so lost in the lyrics of this wonderful song that whether something was meant to be taken at surface level or required some interpretation didn't change much for me. It really made me think of Untitled God Song by Haley Heynderickx. I don't think a musical piece that is like, three minutes long, could encapsulate the entire text, but it reminded me of some aspects of it. 
Everything ends, including this book, but that doesn't mean we cannot mourn it. 

I admit, before I read this I didn’t really understand what queer theory is. I kind of got that it was a discipline of analysis of queerness but I hadn’t encountered many specific examples. I think this was a great starting point but also supplement to my ever changing opinions and knowledge on these topics. It’s interesting to me how much of this I had already discussed with friends or seen talked about online, although often in more specific or more general terms than this. I really liked this as a staring point and it helped me understand the big picture a little better, but also understand my own feelings around gender and sexuality, as someone who doesn’t always “fit in” with a lot of the binaries and has found that a lot of those constructs have closed just as many doors as they have opened for me. 

Honestly, it felt kind of long. I realize that the book is 500 pages, but I figured that because it was a more mixed-media format, it would be shorter. In reality, the format and perspectives made it a little more difficult to understand what was happening, as well as seeing the big picture of the story. I think it was very unique, and honestly pretty scary when you think about the similarities of COVID and the way AI is becoming more and more present nowadays. The goal of many science fiction novels is to present real life problems in a more hypothetical and extreme, often more frightening, setting,  but also in an emotional way, and I think this book did a good job of that. On my way to get the rest of the series :)

Honestly, I've heard very mixed reviews about this book, but I really loved it! I think for what it is (a YA fantasy) it does a great job. Jude and Cardan were actual enemies to lovers, and the world is fascinating too. It's also not completely shallow; there's a decent amount of political intrigue and Jude isn't unrealistically perfect but she's also not stupid. And the plot twists worked! I'm not the best at predicting what will happen because I'm normally too wrapped up in the story to try to see what will happen, but I was surprised. Also, it was just plain old fun. Excited to read the sequels but not in a rush, as I have a couple other series to occupy me for the time being. 

This was beautiful. I always wonder at Leigh Bardugo’s ability to wrap up an ending in what seems like a short span of pages. I don’t want to spoil anything so there’s not much I can say, but this is probably my favorite after the first Six of Crows book. You can clearly see how her writing has improved over the course of writing the Grishaverse. 
I liked how it revisited and reviewed themes and characters from the previous books, as well as building on the complex magical world that they live in. I feel like there’s still room for sequels, and I await them with great anticipation. I also feel a bit of sadness at finishing such a wonderful collection of books that has made me think and feel so much, and has also brought me together with people in real life. I’ll read the anthologies, and reread these books, but there will never be anything like reading this again for the first time. 

I'm not really sure why I took half a point off except for the fact that Six of Crows was still better. Also, I wish she gave us slightly more information on what happened in the gap between the end of Crooked Kingdom and the start of this one. Either way, I really liked seeing Nikolai's perspective, and even more of Zoya and Nina's character development. I missed them for sure. Also, the world expands so much! It was super interesting seeing things we learned previously be subverted, but not contradicted (Leigh Bardugo would never). 

I think I prefer the poetry format of this book over the graphic novel, simply because I like free verse poems, but it does have a slightly different tone this way. It feels a little more distant. Either way, it was a gripping depiction and I really appreciate the way magical realism was used to convey real world issues.