historyofjess's reviews
1987 reviews

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

mysterious 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? Yes

3.5

There is a lot that I liked about this book, but I was left feeling a bit unsatisfied at the end. I think I would've been much more interested in some of the content from the epilogue actually being expanded in the novel rather than blown through so quickly. I think some of that could have been even juicier than the stories that were included in the novel. I also would've liked if we had discovered some of the supernatural elements along with Luli rather than having her info dump them so much early on. But generally, this was a fan magical take on the old Hollywood studio system.

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown

informative medium-paced

4.5

This was a fascinating read, not only for author's Black and asexual perspectives on sexuality and its pervasiveness in our culture, but as someone who is not asexual, I found it really interesting to contextualize my own sexual history, particularly how my relationship with sex changed after I began having pelvic pain. This feels like a text that anyone could benefit from reading because it makes you look at sex and sexuality, and the value we culturally place on sex, from a totally different perspective.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I liked the first half of this book more than second half, but that probably has a lot more to do with the fact that the second half felt largely like a setup for the rest of the series (which concerns me a bit, knowing that Butler never finished this series). I was very riveted by the set up to this world at the edge of breaking. The journey north just kind of lost me a bit. I will say, I was a bit taken aback to find another very drastic age difference romance in a Butler novel. It wasn’t as creepy as Fledgling because Lauren is young but doesn’t have the appearance of an actual child. But a just-barely-an-adult heroine having a sexual relationship with an old man is still kinda icky and it’s entirely possible that it put me off the ending of the book a bit.

Thirsty Mermaids by Kat Leyh

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-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? Yes

3.75

So cute, so fun. This is one of those books I got because the title just seems like it's going to be cheeky and fun and it absolutely is that. It's also a lovely queer found family story. If you'd asked me what it was going to be about based on the cover/title, I don't think I would've said, a trio of drunk mermaids that accidentally get themselves stuck in human form when they're looking for more booze. It's delightfully literal fish out of water story with some truly loveable fishes at the center, even if they are chaotic boozehounds.

Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal

funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

3.5

I didn't actually know this had been a web comic when I started reading, though I picked that up fairly quickly after the initial introductive panels and once I adjusted to that, I was just really charmed by the playfulness of it all. There's certainly some political themes in here, but most of it is just fun little running jokes and winsome characters going on with their lives...in a world that just happens to be devoid of men. I will never stop thinking about the little girl obsessed with a found DVD of Paul Blart: Mall Cop and having that has her only concept of what men is. It will never stop being funny.

Witchlight by Jessi Zabarsky

adventurous funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This was a very sweet story. It read really quickly for me, which was both nice, but also made it feel a little weightless, despite there being some heavy character history in it. Mostly I was just left feeling that the relationship between the main characters is just really lovely.

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray

informative reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

I read this book as part of the D&I Book Club at work and it was not my first choice for this quarter's selection because it's just not the type of book that normally grabs me but I kept an open mind about it going in and...it still never really grabbed me. While of a Black woman passing in both a white and male-dominated world sounds interesting to me, it was really this particular world that never grabbed me. The glittering world of well-moneyed collectors of antique books (and sometimes artwork) is just somewhere I had no desire to visit and I was far less charmed by the men Belle rubbed elbows with than she was. This was especially true with both her love story with an art historian and he flirtation with her boss (J.P. Morgan, one in a long line of robber barons). Not only was the romance underbaked, these men were just awful.

There is an author's note at the end of the book that goes into detail about the various plot points in the book and how they are related to historical facts that are known about its protagonist and I couldn't help but wonder if the authors were so focused on being accurate in their portrayal that they didn't allow for any real depth on the page. There were so many characters in this novel and yet none of them ever felt fully realized to me. It felt like I was just hitting points on a chronological map. And it seemed like they were also so enamored with the woman they were writing about that they never really allowed her to be real person, which is an issues I have with a lot of fictionalized biographies.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Apart (of me), Part 1 by Scott Allie, Andrew Chambliss, Joss Whedon, Cliff Richards

adventurous fast-paced

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

2.0

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs by Jeffrey Cranor, Janina Matthewson

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

This was such a fun read. The book is presented as a piece of found literature (a memoir) with addendums and footnotes from the organization that found her writing and made the, as they say, controversial decision, to publish it. The narrator traces her life in an alternate history of the Earth beset by worldwide conflict in the early 20th century all the way through the building of a new society. But what could have been just an intricate world-building book is elevated by the book's structure, which becomes a battle of unreliable narrators.

The footnotes and interludes begin with a kind of passionless, historically-minded voice, but as they needle and pick at the author's recollections over the course of the book, they become more hostile and judgmental. And as we learn more about the story the author is telling and why she is telling it, the longer footnotes seem less insidious than the frequent use of brief, "edited for clarity" notes. It's a wild ride that I thoroughly enjoyed and I was excited to learn at the end that this was actually born from a podcast these authors created in this universe and I'm excited to dig into that, as well.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

While reading this, I kept thinking of Martin Starr's Silicon Valley talking about his obsession with "hard sci-fi." There is definitely a lot of science in this book. As a non-scientist, I can't speak to the veracity of any of it, especially because I zoned out during so many of those passages. It was like the songs in Tolkien books, but if they were mostly made of numbers. But my real issues with this book is the characters...or lack thereof. There are a lot of people in this book, but no fully realized characters. The author is clearly much more interested in the puzzle box of science that they have created and the people they have chosen to convey this were very much an afterthought. And that's just a flaw that I can never get past in a book. I don't care how detailed and meticulous your plotting is, if you can't give me characters to care about. Also...there's kind of a plot, but mostly it's just a mystery box set up for the future books in the series.