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11corvus11's reviews
886 reviews

Aftermath by LeVar Burton

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4.0

I decided to read Aftermath after reading an excerpt in the scifi collection "Octavia's Brood" not knowing what to expect from this Star Trek actor and Reading Rainbow host. This book is not the best writing and is full of cliches and plot holes. But, at the same time it brings a diverse set of likeable characters, an atypical post apocalypse story, lots of good ideas, and lots of nods to radical movements and struggles faced by more than the usual white male protagonists in sci fi. I couldn't decide whether to give it 3 or 4 stars. It was reading rainbow, not writing rainbow, for a reason. But I'm glad Burton wrote this book anyways.
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay

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3.0

I have mixed feelings about this book.

It gets 5 stars for writing style, debut, and for accurately portraying PTSD. It definitely held my attention and made me read it through the end.

What makes me give it three stars is that I honestly found all of the characters incredibly unlikable and unrelatable. I was supposed to be empathizing with the main character and I could not, despite things we have in common. I also found it to be trauma after trauma and I wasn't sure what the point of it was. It didn't feel liberating at all throughout the book, and I found it on a feminist book list. I found that the main character's class privilege was (perhaps accurately) reflected in her behavior which made it really hard to relate to her and want to read about her, even though what happens to her is so devastating and she is indeed strong.

I don't know, I'd read something else by this author for sure because the writing was excellent. I just didn't like this book and wouldn't recommend it.