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During the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the …
I'm really liking this but you'll be shocked to hear that this book about a soldier and a nurse in WWI is pretty bleak so far
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by …
What an absolute delight. I haven't read this in a decade and didn't realize how thematically in line with Jeeves and Wooster it is
For just a moment, things seem to be under control for the soldier known as …
I didn’t think this book was as strong as the start of the series; it got a little… whimsical? and some of the character dynamics didn’t make a ton of sense to me, but I still was very happy to revisit this
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing …
I've been on a bit of a re-reading kick and this was so fun to revisit
Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …
So far, I'm really liking this
How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will …
I was curious about this book because Davis has seemed ubiquitous lately when there's any mention of housework. I thought it was really good -- a lot of the approaches she uses (like framing cleaning as a kindness to your future self, and arranging your space to serve your needs) are things I've been doing for a long time and were very helpful in becoming someone who now has an overall functional and happy relationship with housework.
dead parents and john prine; they got my number for this one
Volume 1 of The Mirror Visitor Quartet
Winner of the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire
Where …
This really did not hold up to a reread; perhaps knowing how disappointing I found the later books colored it. But it was an escape when I needed one.
One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first century: the story of the …
This was a delightful quick read; lively and engaging and ultimately sad
A young woman's workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements …
Re-reading to see if this hold up enough to give my sister for Christmas
John Boswell's National Book Award-winning study of the history of attitudes toward homosexuality in the …
I would say I'm back on my bullshit but I can't say I ever got off it -- really enjoying this so far.
This really didn't do it for me! I think part of that is that I'm not wild about romances and this was a romance. A big complaint for me is that the romantic leads behave so constantly and consistently we've-been-to-therapy correctly towards each other that I found their interactions tedious and didactic. It felt moralizing to me ("observe, this is the correct way to handle an emotion"), but I think it was intended to be more of a wish fulfillment love story ("imagine if you dated someone this emotionally mature"). Also everyone is described as being super hot and I did not enjoy that.
The heroes behaved perfectly in every situation and the villains were over-the-top horrible in every situation, and even though the moral stakes were ones I agree with (don't sexually assault people, don't be homophobic, don't murder people), I was put off by the black-and-white-ness of the …
This really didn't do it for me! I think part of that is that I'm not wild about romances and this was a romance. A big complaint for me is that the romantic leads behave so constantly and consistently we've-been-to-therapy correctly towards each other that I found their interactions tedious and didactic. It felt moralizing to me ("observe, this is the correct way to handle an emotion"), but I think it was intended to be more of a wish fulfillment love story ("imagine if you dated someone this emotionally mature"). Also everyone is described as being super hot and I did not enjoy that.
The heroes behaved perfectly in every situation and the villains were over-the-top horrible in every situation, and even though the moral stakes were ones I agree with (don't sexually assault people, don't be homophobic, don't murder people), I was put off by the black-and-white-ness of the characters.
While the author has put a lot of thought into gender and sexuality, even if I found it ultimately shallow, I found the near total absence of a critique of power and class to be pretty uncomfortable.
That said, it wasn't hard to read, and if you wanted a comforting romance about healing from assault (which, fair warning, is very graphic, though not imo gratuitous), it might be for you. And I really liked that the protagonists spend the whole book trying to solve a mystery and do an absolutely abysmal job at it.
All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of …
This book really stuck with me after reading it. I had to stop reading it before bed because I would stay up too late reading it, which is a trait I cherish in a book and is also hard to pull off in a book with such heavy themes -- brainwashing, abuse, reproductive coercion, war,.... And the characters were so well articulated. I really live for books where characters seem like actual humans who are capable of being really truly horrible to each other and also capable of kindness and growth.
Darryl Cook is a man who seems to have everything: a quiet home in Western …
I really got such a kick out of this, Ess does an amazing job of writing from the perspective of a character who is kind of a nightmare in way that is self-aware and captures the facepalm-type thoughts of this guy in a way that's funny and realistic. The only thing I wasn't sure about was the ending, and I can't put my finger on exactly why. I guess it felt a little like it gives the reader a moral comeuppance in a way read to me as a little too neat? But I would not let that deter you.
A young woman's workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements …
I loved this! it was weird, dreamlike, and unexpected. The writing is so smart and witty, and the story manages to be both surreal and tangible. Without any spoilers, I couldn't have fathomed how to end a story like this but I loved the ending. This is the first book in a while that I walked down the street reading because I didn't want to put it down.