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vaporization's reviews
498 reviews
Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee
2.0
There was a point where I really hated the book and was ready to give up. The last third or so got a bit better, because it wove in much more nuance than the beginning, which I feared was heading down a sort of black and white, very negative and aggressive depiction of activism, kind of like Iron Widow. I still don't like a lot of things about the book, but it was all right. I thought it was going to be fun, or at least funny. It was neither. It was mostly angry and depressing. Just not for me, really.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
2.0
This book is less than the sum of its parts. Individual scenes are interesting. The prose is good, and there are plenty of well-written and thought-provoking lines. But all together it somehow becomes an emotionless, boring slog. I had no interest for the latter half of the book and skimmed the last ten chapters just to see where it all ended up. I think I just expected more to happen. I came into it thinking we would move on from Valentina and Marius, so Luzia would be able to move farther, and just do much more, but no. That's just not what happened.
I liked Luzia at first. She's a headstrong female protagonist. But then she just became boring? Uninteresting? And I didn't care for Santángel at all. Like I felt nothing towards him and most of the time he was just kind of irritating and/or uncomfortable. So I didn't buy the romance at all. I felt like they had no chemistry. That's kind of a big seller of the book and I felt nothing. It was weird. I usually like these kinds of dark mysterious love interests. But I was so emotionally detached from him and from the romance.
I liked Luzia at first. She's a headstrong female protagonist. But then she just became boring? Uninteresting? And I didn't care for Santángel at all. Like I felt nothing towards him and most of the time he was just kind of irritating and/or uncomfortable. So I didn't buy the romance at all. I felt like they had no chemistry. That's kind of a big seller of the book and I felt nothing. It was weird. I usually like these kinds of dark mysterious love interests. But I was so emotionally detached from him and from the romance.
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang
2.0
Well, I read it. I agree with the people who read this and thought it was a colonizer romance. No matter how it ended up, you cannot deny that Ruying spent just...too much of this book romanticizing Antony. Whatever the author set out to do, she did it poorly. Is this the book's biggest crime? Mostly I felt nothing reading it. It wasn't fun to read. It wasn't sad to read. It wasn't emotional in really any way, except maybe irritating.
The top rave reviews rave about the love interest being morally gray and the enemies to lovers actually being good. The only romance developed in this book is between Ruying and the colonizer prince Antony. So I think it's incredibly disingenuous to say that this book never meant to or doesn't romanticize Antony.
The writing style might be the thing that bothered me the most about the whole book. Because at least with the colonizer stuff, I can understand that the author had good intentions (even if it wasn't executed well). The writing was just plain irritating. Not every sentence needs to be its own paragraph. The last chapter is pretty much verse with how many line breaks there are. You can also tell when the writing is trying to be profound and poetic.
Because of how many paragraphs there are, the reading experience was incredibly choppy, and that carries over to the plot as well. Nothing really flows; scenes just happen.
Enemies to lovers is my least favorite trope. I do not care how it ends, it is developed as enemies to lovers for 95% of the book. I have a hard enough time believing romance when characters actually like each other. I have absolutely no clue why Ruying likes Antony, besides him being hot I guess. You're telling me she threw away all her morals just because this guy was kind of nice to her? She killed so many of her own people but couldn't even fathom killing Antony because oh he likes her? Girl shut the fuck up. I have no sympathy for Ruying. At all. And I'm saying this as a coward myself. Nothing she did was justifiable. She did it "for her family" but did she? Did her family want that? Everything she did was selfish.
To be honest Ruying's 180 at the end barely makes sense. Why was that the thing that sparked the change in her? Everything else before that wasn't enough? She basically knew about it before, like it wasn't that surprising. And she only cared because it was someone she knew getting hurt. Again, she killed her own people just like that for Antony. But it was okay because she didn't know them personally.
Ruying is a bad person. Morally gray or whatever. I straight up don't care what happens to Ruying. She deserves it.
I also dislike that the colonizers are the Romans. I think it would have been more significant if the colonizers were Japanese-adjacent, because it's important to remember that the Brits and the French and all those white people were not the only colonizers. They get a lot of flack for it, as they should, but they were not the only ones. Colonized peoples also mistreated and displaced other indigenous folks. But I guess that would be too complex for this story.
The top rave reviews rave about the love interest being morally gray and the enemies to lovers actually being good. The only romance developed in this book is between Ruying and the colonizer prince Antony. So I think it's incredibly disingenuous to say that this book never meant to or doesn't romanticize Antony.
The writing style might be the thing that bothered me the most about the whole book. Because at least with the colonizer stuff, I can understand that the author had good intentions (even if it wasn't executed well). The writing was just plain irritating. Not every sentence needs to be its own paragraph. The last chapter is pretty much verse with how many line breaks there are. You can also tell when the writing is trying to be profound and poetic.
Because of how many paragraphs there are, the reading experience was incredibly choppy, and that carries over to the plot as well. Nothing really flows; scenes just happen.
Enemies to lovers is my least favorite trope. I do not care how it ends, it is developed as enemies to lovers for 95% of the book. I have a hard enough time believing romance when characters actually like each other. I have absolutely no clue why Ruying likes Antony, besides him being hot I guess. You're telling me she threw away all her morals just because this guy was kind of nice to her? She killed so many of her own people but couldn't even fathom killing Antony because oh he likes her? Girl shut the fuck up. I have no sympathy for Ruying. At all. And I'm saying this as a coward myself. Nothing she did was justifiable. She did it "for her family" but did she? Did her family want that? Everything she did was selfish.
To be honest Ruying's 180 at the end barely makes sense. Why was that the thing that sparked the change in her? Everything else before that wasn't enough? She basically knew about it before, like it wasn't that surprising. And she only cared because it was someone she knew getting hurt. Again, she killed her own people just like that for Antony. But it was okay because she didn't know them personally.
Ruying is a bad person. Morally gray or whatever. I straight up don't care what happens to Ruying. She deserves it.
I also dislike that the colonizers are the Romans. I think it would have been more significant if the colonizers were Japanese-adjacent, because it's important to remember that the Brits and the French and all those white people were not the only colonizers. They get a lot of flack for it, as they should, but they were not the only ones. Colonized peoples also mistreated and displaced other indigenous folks. But I guess that would be too complex for this story.
Remnants of Filth: Yuwu (Novel) Vol. 3 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou
3.0
I need to know what's up with Murong Chuyi
Salomé by Oscar Wilde
3.0
pas trop difficile, mais je l'ai lu très lentement. also traumatized by subjunctive, I was too aware of it every time it was used