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alexiacambaling's reviews
442 reviews
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Endless Night by Agatha Christie
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
3.0
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
CWs: Homophobia, Transphobia, Underage sex, Pedophilia, Prostitution, Drug Use, Teen Pregnancy, Abortion
How can I describe Hurricane Season but as a storm? A flurry of words that make up a dark, gritty, and gripping narrative. I've read many books during the first half of this year, a few of them I consider to be some of the best books I've ever read and none could compare to Hurricane Season. One of the most intense books I've read, certainly one of the darkest as well. This is the kind of book which if I ever get around to some sort of fluency in Spanish some day, I'd love to read in the original language. However, as good as Hurricane Season is, it's really difficult to talk about the book and say that I recommend it because it won't be for everybody.
The content warnings above aren't for show, be warned. Hurricane Season explores a lot of dark topics and provides a deep dive into the minds of its characters, the good, the bad, and the ugly. There isn't really a black or white kind of morality, but several shades of gray. You get a glimpse into the lives of people who live in the small Mexican town of La Matosa and see the bleakness and the difficulties they face.
The book is kind of a noir in which in the beginning of the book, a body was found. The body belonged to a woman the townspeople call the Witch, a mysterious woman clad in heavy veils, known for her parties, and folk remedies. She's also known for having helped some women get abortions and in general, she's quite the controversial figure. Her death forms a very important and significant part of the narrative, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a mystery. The who killed her part is insignificant. It's easy to guess who did it from the first few chapters. It's what led to her killing and the circumstances around it which made the story gripping.
There are few truly sympathetic characters in Hurricane Season. I'd say that the only one I truly felt sorry for was Norma because she's literally thirteen and shouldn't have been placed in the situation she's in. She isn't perfect but she really wasn't at fault for her circumstances and her story can be at times the hardest to read. All of the other characters I enjoyed reading about. I wouldn't say I hated any of them but I'd say that every character in this book is complex, all shades of gray, not truly good, while also not being all bad either. They have complex motivations, their pasts are explored, you see why they become the way that they are and how their circumstances have shaped them as people.
Hurricane Season is difficult to read. I've had to put it down at times to reflect on the words in the pages and sometimes I'd think that it's too hard for me to handle, but I just kept pushing. Again, I'll reiterate that the book is a hard read. It goes places I didn't expect and sometimes in shocking ways too. Hurricane Season isn't just difficult because of its subject matter however. It's also a difficult read style-wise. It makes use of very long, winding sentences and explores its characters psyche that way. I titled this review "A Storm of Words" because it feels like that, a storm. A whirlwind of the thoughts and emotions raging through its characters. It's part of what makes the book so difficult, but also rewarding. This kind of style perfectly matches the book and helps set the tone so well.
Overall, while I loved this book, I have a hard time saying that I recommend it. Normally when it comes to books I love, I'd say yes, I recommend it. However, with this one, I'd say heed the trigger warnings. This book doesn't kid around when it comes to triggering content. It's very harsh and sometimes unforgiving. An excellent book, but definitely not for everybody. It can get very descriptive too, so I'd be wary about that if any of the warnings above is your trigger. A great book, but difficult to recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Hate crime, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and Pregnancy
The Stranger by Albert Camus
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
May contain spoilers.
Alone With You In The Ether has captivated me in a way that no romance novel has before. It is beautiful, literary, philosophical, magical without being fantastical, romantic, and intimate. It feels like baring a part of your soul to another, it conveys the intimacy that comes with a conversation with someone who doesn’t simply listen to what you’re saying because listening is the easy part. It conveys the feeling of the intimacy that comes with someone who engages with what you’re saying no matter how little they understand what you’re talking about simply because they find it- you interesting. It conveys the feeling of letting someone into your space, and allow them to get to know you- not the façade you might put up, but the real and the messy, even if it’s done inadvertently because they see you, see through you.
Alone With You In The Ether is one of the best romances I’ve read in a long time and I will continue to think about it for a long time. It’s a truly underrated book that I want to recommend to everyone I know. It’s a book that made me think deeply about love, life, time, and art. It’s a literary romance in the best sense of the word and because it is a romance novel, there is a happy ending, or as happy as it could be given the personalities of the characters. But it is a happy ending.
What does it mean to fall in love? When do you realize you’ve fallen in love? How do you love even when you’re broken, when you yourself struggle to accept the rawest, most honest parts of you?
I originally picked this book up because I’ve seen a lot of people talk about The Atlas Six on my twitter timeline so I decided to check out Olivie Blake’s other books. Alone With You In The Ether caught my eye and it seemed more like the kind of books I’ve been picking up recently so I decided to read it first. I didn’t realize it would be the perfect romance novel for me. It is so to my taste in a way I haven’t even considered exactly what my tastes are. It is simply incredible and it’s difficult to fill or even articulate the void it left in my heart after I finished it. It’s the kind of book you’d want to read in the summer, in the daylight because it fits the mood perfectly. If you’re into academia aesthetics, AWYITE kinda reminds me of light academia and/or romantic academia.
There are two characters we follow in this story, Charlotte Regan or Regan, who works at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has mental health issues, has a court-ordered psychiatrist, and has been arrested for counterfeiting art. Regan is a curious woman, a compulsive liar, and has a lot of issues with her family. She’s an artist or at least wants to be, but she feels that her pills make that difficult. Rinaldo Damiani or Aldo, is a pot-smoking, leather jacket wearing doctoral student of theoretical mathematics who has an incredibly low rating on ratemyprofessor.com and is anti-social as well as clinical depressed and OCD. Simply, put they’re both not okay in their own way and having two neurodivergent characters as leads in a romance novel is one of my favorite things in this book. Honestly, I’m not a genius nor do I love math, but I relate to Aldo so much for some reason because of how his mind and thought process works which is probably part of the reason why I love this book so much.
Aldo and Regan are also both biracial- Regan is half-Chinese while Aldo is half-Dominican but their heritage isn’t really explored in the novel and just touched upon. It’s a part of who they are, and kind of left at that. I kind of wish it was touched upon more, but it doesn’t really influence the story all that much.
This is a gorgeously written book and I can’t stress that enough. If I could, I’d have highlighted my entire kindle copy. If I had a physical copy, I might have turned it into a coloring book. I’d say it has an unputdownable quality to it but I’d be lying because I sometimes found myself putting it down to savor it, to write down my thoughts and the quotes that struck me- and there are a lot of quotes. This book has so many beautiful lines it’s difficult to decide which ones I want to put in my review.
There are some style choices here that were apparently done to show the characters’ mental states as the story progresses and it’s done really well. It captures the feeling of spiralling, of the hatred you feel for yourself, the conversations you imagine having with other people that may or may not actually happen. It feels raw and authentic.
Alone With You In The Ether is an inward looking book. It has a lot of interiority. It bounces back between point of views, it injects first person with the third person. It digs deep into the characters’ psyche and pulls out the rawest, most honest parts of them. It is at once painful and cathartic. Both of their problems are for the most part, a result of their personalities conflicting with the rest of the world. While there might be some disapproval coming from their families, it is a minor issue easily brushed off, it’s not the focus. It’s not the main reason for their problems. Regan and Aldo are flawed, they feel real, human.
This book is very intellectual and neurotic in a way that’s just so appealing to me. From Regan’s musings on art to Aldo’s love for solving math problems, hexagons, and bees, it just gives me so much serotonin. It’s very romantic academia and there’s a certain intenseness and intimacy to their interactions that goes simple sexual or romantic attraction. It’s intimate before it explicitly became romantic, and it’s intimate due to the nature of their conversations. I love the way Regan and Aldo converse. There’s a natural chemistry and intimacy borne out of talking to someone on the same wavelength as you. Their romance just gives me so much buzz and it’s so intimate because during their conversations, Regan doesn’t really have to understand what Aldo’s talking about. She just listens and she engages because she’s interested in what he’s saying and I felt that. It’s one thing to think someone is attractive and another to find someone you want to know the deepest, most intimate parts of you.
What is art? Art is emotion. Art is putting a piece of yourself out there for the rest of the world to consume, it is baring a part of your soul to others. Art is intimacy. This is something that Regan comes to discover as she comes to discover herself, as she comes to terms with her art, with being an artist. It’s a conclusion she might not have been able to reach without Aldo, but it is a conclusion all the same. Regan and her art are as intertwined as Aldo and his math even if it might not have been apparent at first. Neither can truly be understood without understanding these obsessions of theirs.
I think that the dual protagonist structure just fits this book perfectly. If we’ve only gotten Regan’s point of view, Aldo might seem a little bland and if we’ve only gotten Aldo’s point of view, Regan could have come across as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Instead, both of them are complex characters who struggle, who try to be better than they are, and in doing so, feel real. Their relationship has a lot of fears, healthy fears, unhealthy fears, and normal fears and it makes their relationship less perfect, but more honest.
I think that for Regan, meeting Aldo was like waking from a long nap, from a stupor, a rut you’ve unknowingly fallen into. For Aldo, it’s the same way, it’s a break from his routines in a good way and it helps him grow. When they fall in love, both of them are afraid, afraid of the other one not loving them as much as they do, afraid of being alone, afraid because once they’ve gotten used to each other, it’s becoming difficult to recall a world without each other, afraid of a world without each other. It’s a story that is so intimate on so many levels, from their conversations, to sex, to their very beings. It deals with their mental health, with the issues they have and the book isn’t afraid to explore it.
What is Alone With You In The Ether if not a collision of forces? A meeting between two people who get to connect and grow to understand each other on a deep level. It almost feels like a fated meeting if either of them believed in such a thing. This is something Regan touches on in the first pages of the book, in her hypothesis about her and Aldo meeting. Later on in the book, Aldo even says that he’s toyed with the idea of the multiverse (an idea which I admit has fascinated me too) and essentially says that he’d rather there be one universe, a universe where they meet, one Aldo and one Regan, not multiple possibilities, or multiple versions of themselves.
There is a degree of unhealthiness and dependency that they acknowledge and work on because they love each other and they believe in each other, because what they have is real and they believe in it. Regan and Aldo don’t fix each other, they turn a corner, they grow, and they keep growing until what was originally a passion, a curiosity became something deeper, something with the capacity to be long-lasting. It’s the intimacy of letting someone in, into your space, in your head, allowing them to get to know the deepest parts of you in all their messy, human glory.
Often, we get stories where people who have issues see them fixed through the power of love. This isn’t one of those stories because Alone With You In The Ether understands that sometimes, the parts of us that need fixing can’t be fixed by love. Regan knows this and Aldo comes to understand this. Not every part needs fixing, but the parts of us that need fixing- it’s up to us to fix, to work through, although that doesn’t mean that we don’t need a support system while we do or that we can’t love while we do. Love isn’t about fixing someone with your love. It’s about staying with someone even though they have issues because you want to support them, you want to be there for them, and because just because you’re “broken” doesn’t mean you can’t love. Regan and Aldo’s issues are never downplayed, or brushed off and the narrative is very honest about it.
AWYITE doesn’t tell you you have to be okay before you can love or before you can be loved. It tells you you can pick up the pieces of yourself with someone you love by your side. I read this book at a pretty difficult time in my life and it left me feeling vulnerable and exposed. I can’t recall a book that has left such a deep, meaningful impact on me and I really want to thank the author for this beautiful book. In a way, this book made feel that I’m not alone in my pain and it made me feel hope that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel.
Alone With You In The Ether is a deeply philosophical love story. It’s about two people who tend to disappear into a world of their own when they converse, when they interact, two people who gain a deeper, more intimate understanding of each other than anyone they’ve met before. It’s deeply romantic before it became explicitly romantic. Passionate without being overbearing. Soft, yet raw and honest. For me, the best kind of love story because what is love if not honesty? The truth? The promise of having someone who sees you?
To wrap up this long review/discussion post, I really do highly recommend this book. It’s a lovingly told love story with two flawed, but deeply fascinating characters at its center and a message that just because you have issues doesn’t mean you can’t love or you don’t deserve love. It’s literary, philosophical, intellectual, and romantic. No other book has left such an impact on me. No other book made me reread after I finished it. It quickly became my favorite book and it surprised me in such a good way that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully articulate.
Also, I don’t think a book has ever made me actually interested in math although I do like reading about quantum theory and multiverses so there.
If you love the aesthetics of academia and you love love stories, you should read this. It’s highly underrated and written by an indie author so give it some love. This is the longest review I’ve written on my blog and if you’ve made it this far, all I can say is, read this book. It feels so deeply personal and reading it was like waking up from a stupor of my own and seeing the bright sunlight filtering from my window in the morning.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content warnings: Abusive relationships, sexual abuse, rape, victim blaming
If I could rate Girl, Woman, Other more than five stars, I would. What an incredible, amazing book. I read this because as I’ve been getting into literary fiction, I wanted to see what kinds of books get shortlisted for and win literary prizes. Girl, Woman, Other caught my eye as it won the Booker Prize and I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, though not much on what it’s actually like so I was still pleasantly surprised going into it.
This book is actually written in a blend of prose and verse telling the story of twelve Black women living in Britain through different time periods. It has an unconventional style and as you read the book, you’ll see how it all ties together and how all of these women are connected to each other. I wish the book came with a character map, but it’s still easy to follow without one. Throughout the book, relationships between women, whether familial, friendly, or romantic are explored and you gain a glimpse into how they view each other and themselves. The relationships between all of these women are really great to explore and I loved each character despite their flaws.
For a book which is essentially twelve short stories about twelve different women, Girl, Woman, Other is very concerned with interiority. Each woman not only lives a vivid external life, but also has a rich inner life we see glimpses of through their point of view. None of the women felt like characters in a book, each of them felt real, well-rounded, and flawed. No one character feels either likable or unlikable, as each of them grow throughout their stories, and we can even see them in others’ stories. They are messy, flawed, brilliant, and ultimately very human.
Most of the characters are held together by a common thread, and I liked the setup of Amma’s play being a catalyst for most of them meeting again or reminiscing about their pasts, and seeing how it ties back to the other women in their lives. There’s this kind of setup where each chapter features a mother, a daughter, and a friend so wee see how these interconnected relationships affect each one. I really enjoyed this kind of structure as no one feels disconnected.
Most of these women lived difficult lives in Britain. They’ve faced racism, discrimination, and abuse, yet managed to thrive. Throughout all of their stories, you can’t help but feel for the characters as they go through various hardships and root for them as they succeed. All of the women in this book are strong in their own way, not always amazing (one character in particular was uh, something) but always felt human.
Overall, I highly recommend Girl, Woman, Other. It’s a highly interesting book that grabs you from the get-go and never lets up. This book is one of those books that make me want to rethink my rating system because it’s that good. It has kind of an experimental writing style, blends poetry and prose in the best way, and it has some of the most human characters I’ve seen in fiction.