alexture's reviews
921 reviews

Transitory by J.M. Redmann

everyone is lovable except for the very evil evil guys and... the alcoholic gun-happy landlord detective. unfortunately I think we're meant to like her, and this distracted me quite a bit.

Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka

5.0

The Britannias: An Archipelago's Tale by Alice Albinia
Did not finish book. Stopped at 3%.

I thought this would be about geography and politics. The whole Sacred Feminity vibe doesn't appeal to me at all.

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

3.75

Who knew reading the biography of a dull and supremely unlikeable person, who doesn't even exist, would be so gripping.

I was definitely more taken with the world-building than I was with the characters. I don't mind a boring narrator, I even think this one was pretty cool in how she was boring - it's just hard to see this bigger-than-life subject of the biography being incredibly bland and arrogant the entire time without the reader ever really understanding what made her the acclaimed genius that she seems to be.

And a small thing that really bothers me: the name-dropping of people who existed and who did not ask to be included in this.

All in all an interesting read, but one of those books where I close them and think "there's probably fanfiction better than the source material somewhere, right?".

Blackwave by Michelle Tea
Did not finish book. Stopped at 5%.

i am so sick and tired of books about people being drugged messes and I don't know why they keep popping up in my toRead list 

The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization by Eviane Leidig
Did not finish book. Stopped at 4%.

I feel like I've exhausted my patience for alt-right related stuff 

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

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

Big Swiss is the unlikeable story of an unlikeable woman who commits identity fraud to sleep with another unlikeable woman, and then other bad things happen.

It's good, but in a repulsive way. I found myself muttering "urgh" to myself every few pages, and yet going to the next page to know what was going on.

Disgusting and fascinating, this book had the effect of a zit popping video.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

4.75

I could not put this book down. If you asked me what made it so great, the only answer I could give you would be a confused shrug - I have no idea.

Choral cast novels have always been a soft spot of mine, so maybe it's that. Maybe it's how incredibly well-defined each of the four points of view is, with extremely different writing styles (Imelda's section is 100 pages without punctuation, which is about as enjoyable as talking with her must be). Maybe it's how everything converges and how you want to mutter "oh no please don't do that" every three pages for six hundred pages.

Maybe it's the Big Gay, maybe it's the Irish village, maybe it's the broken college student or the child who thinks he'll get sent to boarding school if he tries to get his needs met.

Maybe it's the ending.

Maybe it's all of this and more, mixed into one big block of "oh no god no".

 

Bellies by Nicola Dinan

sad tense

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

3.5

This novel is told in two points of views, Tom and Ming's. The narrator isn't always clearly identified from the start, so it sometimes took me a paragraph or two to realize that a new person was talking.

I liked the way that the same thing was shown from two very, very different points of view. And I can relate with both characters: Ming, terrified that she's giving up on being lovable and desirable by transitioning, Tom, a gay man who loves his girlfriend but just cannot love women.

It's a very slow trainwreck, with some hope still, in some ways. It's horrible and painful, and really good (and realistic).

Special shoutouts to Cass who deserved better than whatever all this was.

If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu
Did not finish book.

Read a couple of pages and there was just too much cursing, which took me out of the novel. Unfortunate because everything else was enticing.