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laurareads87's reviews
536 reviews

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Reading Parable of the Talents for the second time – in 2024 – is a particular sort of experience. These books, when written in the 1990s, depicted a dystopian near-future that was disturbingly believable. Now, here we are in 2024. Parable of the Talents depicts the election of a president promising to ‘make America great again’ (yes, in those words) whose Christian supremacist thugs engage in every violence imaginable from ‘witch burnings’ to child abduction.

While the Parable books are shelved as science fictional and as dystopian and each of these classifications describe some components of the novels, I don’t think this really captures them in their entirety. I very seldom re-read. These books, I think, almost require re-reading – there is so so much to grapple with here in terms of power relations, activist strategy, spirituality, community-building, and so much more. Absolutely recommend, with the note that the content warnings these books require are extensive. They are not easy reading, but they are brilliant and they are important.

Content warnings: racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, violence, murder, death, rape, sexual assault, sexual violence, human trafficking, slavery, kidnapping, grief, forcible confinement, physical abuse, emotional abuse, gaslighting, religious bigotry, child death, death of a parent, mental illness, medical content, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, suicide, gun violence, fire / fire injury, injury detail, blood, gore, incest, torture, domestic abuse 
Echo of Worlds by M.R. Carey

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adventurous funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Wow, what an end to the duology! I have to say, the sequel for me actually outshines the first installment a bit. Carey has really done a lot here: really effective multi-POV storytelling, lots of excitement, meaningful diversity, and thoughtful treatment of ethical and philosophical questions. In the first book I found some POVs more compelling than others, but in this one each finds its place and they all work together well. I feel like everything about this duology feels very deliberate: nothing is filler, nothing is extra, everything works together toward the conclusion and what a conclusion it is. This duology is the first of Carey's work I've read and on this basis, I'll definitely be checking out more. 

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

Content warnings: violence, war, murder, death, gun violence, blood, injury detail, discussion of genocide
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The Truth of the Aleke by Moses Ose Utomi

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Truth is a cruel teacher. It does not appease. It does not reconsider. Its lessons vary in delivery--sometimes trickling in over decades, sometimes crashing down all at once--but consistently disregard the desires of the student.

In The Truth of the Aleke, the protagonist is Osi, a junior Peacekeeper keen to rise in the ranks of the City of Truth and defend it against the threat of the Aleke. When the Aleke and its cultists commit a massacre and steal from the city and Osi is witness to the violence, he joins the city's defense earlier and more intensively than anticipated. It turns out the Aleke might not be exactly what he's been taught.

I really liked the first novella in this series, and liked this one even more. Utomi does so much here with some really complex themes - cycles of revenge, ideology - and the characters are multi-faceted and well developed in so few pages. I feel like I'll be thinking about this book for some time, and while I'm not a big re-reader this one is going on my list to revisit later. This is hands down the best novella I've read all year, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series.

Content warnings: violence, war, death, gore, child death, murder, grief
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The Unrelenting Earth by Kritika H. Rao

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

The Unrelenting Earth picks up right where its predecessor left off (you definitely need to read this series in order!) and has many features I appreciated in the first book: the alternating POVs of Ahilya and Iravan, compelling world-building, meaningful diversity that in no way feels tokenizing, an interesting magical / technological component (though I definitely do not fully understand the vocabulary used to describe it), and a lot of entirely believable political manoeuvring between different ashrams and the classes and interests therein. This book moves faster than the first in terms of pacing, and toward the end I couldn’t put it down. Rao has written a second book that sets up the third very well but that doesn’t suffer from ‘second book’ issues of feeling like filler or like its only purpose is setup: meaningful action and change for the characters happens and significant details of the societies’ histories and the surrounding world are revealed. I’m really enjoying this series, and look forward to the final installment. 

Thank you Titan Books & NetGalley for providing an ARC. 

Content warnings: violence, death, grief, blood, pregnancy loss 
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Resisting Eviction: Domicide and the Financialization of Rental Housing by Andrew Crosby

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informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

This book is well researched, thorough, and well organized with a clear trajectory from theoretical framing to methods to findings. As someone who works in an area related to tenants' rights in Ontario, some of the content was familiar to me but I still learned quite a bit and have come away with some new ideas that I think will be really helpful to eviction prevention work. I would have liked if the book included a bit more on the organizing dynamics of the Herongate Tenants' Coalition (ex. decision-making processes). I appreciated the level of detail in the assessments of different tactics and their effectiveness (like the usefulness of FOIs, different approaches to legal challenges, etc). 
The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo

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sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

 I love this series but I am so disappointed. 

For me, this novella feels out of place in the Singing Hills cycle. It touches on some themes that have woven throughout the series – memory, especially – but not in ways that felt new, interesting, or on the level of depth of the other novellas (all of which I’ve rated 4 or 5 stars). Past instalments have had intense political manoeuvring and thoughtful feminist themes and I found none of that here. The pacing also felt off – a few too many things squished into novella length, perhaps – and the abrupt near-complete shift in tone in the middle of the book really didn’t work for me. 

What did work for me? I love Cleric Chih as a character based on the rest of the series so inevitably I enjoyed reconnecting with them in this newest novella. They are decidedly out of character here, though the reasons for that do become clear and make sense toward the end. 

This works as a standalone, but if you’ve been at all curious about this cycle I would not suggest starting here. I can acknowledge that a lot of my disappointment with this book is rooted in having so loved the prior ones, but ultimately I do think that even if this was a total standalone and I had no prior familiarity with the world/characters, this still wouldn't have worked for me. 

Content warnings: murder, violence, death, gore, blood, cannibalism (of sorts), forcible confinement, sexism/misogyny 
The Tale That Twines by Cedar McCloud

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

The Tale that Twines follows June, an apprentice to an Illuminator who creates eternal books in a magical, fantastical library. I enjoyed the author’s previous book in this series so was happy to pick up this one. The Tale that Twines features an autistic ADHD demiromantic narrator, diverse queer representation, and really thoughtful engagement with themes around trauma; I am appreciative to the author for their ability to create books that feel cozy and supportive that also address serious themes, and I feel like they’ve grown as an author between the first book in the series and this one. The setting, Caspora City, and the broader dynamics between countries is more developed here than in the prior book, and I think the characters read more consistently in terms of their ages (in my review of the prior novel in the series, I’d noted the characters felt quite a bit younger than described; here they don’t so much). The writing does feel overly didactic in some places, but overall I liked this a lot + recommend it for those looking for queer cozy heartwarming fantasy with magic and lots and lots of books. 

The Tale that Twines is a prequel set forty years prior to The Thread that Binds and linked to an oracle deck created by the author, The Threadbound Oracle (the deck itself figures into The Thread but not this novel). This one could be read before or after the other, or as a standalone. Having the deck, or having any familiarity with oracle decks in general, is not needed to enjoy these novels. The author provides a pronunciation key, a note on pronouns (especially e/em/eirs), and content notes. 

Content warnings: the author provides a detailed list at the outset of the book. Content includes grief, death of a parent, survival of a natural disaster, trauma / symptoms of post-traumatic stress injury including panic attacks, religious bigotry, mention of past sexual abuse (not graphic in any way), medical content (mention of cancer), toxic relationship, gaslighting 
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The Book of Elsewhere by China Miéville, Keanu Reeves

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

3.5

 3.5, rounding up. This is one of my most anticipated releases of 2024, and seeing + reading the interviews with Reeves & Miéville together has only added to my excitement (their dynamic is great – do check out an interview if you’re a fan of either of them, whether you plan to read this or not). 

The Book of Elsewhere follows Unute, also known as B., an 80,000 year old man who cannot die (or, perhaps, who can die repeatedly while returning with memories perfectly intact). Throughout his existence, he has been subject to curiosity that has manifested in cults, underground societies, and, of course, experimentation to attempt to replicate his longevity. The main timeline of this novel is contemporary and focused on a special unit dedicated to researching Unute with the goal of creating super-resilient soldiers (of course), while some chapters jump back to different points in Unute’s life. 

I feel like it’s important to note that I read this having read almost all of the fiction China Miéville has published, but with very very little familiarity with Reeves’ comic series which introduces this book’s main character. I can see how a negative review seems to be the result for some readers coming from the opposite direction: Miéville definitely has his own style, and not having any familiarity with that I think would really skew expectations on what this book would be like. A lot of the things that reviews are mentioning as ‘negatives’ – big vocabulary, somewhat experimental style/format, a non-linear structure – are to be expected with Miéville’s work. For me, these are strengths. I would not say that this book is Miéville’s best by any stretch – and some of his other novels are favourites for me – but I do think that fans of his work will enjoy it. Just don’t expect for everything to be clear and comprehensible from page one. 

Content warnings: violence, gun violence, blood, gore, body horror, death, murder, torture, confinement, animal death, animal cruelty (experimentation), war, suicide / suicide attempt (very graphic and on-page) 

Thank you to the authors and to Penguin Random House Canada for an e-ARC in exchange for a review. Note: for formatting reasons, I ended up buying a hardcover to read instead, so my review is based on the final published version. 
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Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I have enjoyed a lot about the Between Earth and Sky trilogy: a diverse range of POVs, fascinating Central America-inspired world-building, and a lot of action. I was happy with the range of characters featured as POVs in this particular novel, and there was so much intrigue and betrayal and alliance-shifting that I was hooked from the first page. 

Note that the second and third installments of this series do not work as stand-alones – each picks up right where the previous one left off with no reminders as to what’s going on. 

This is not my favourite installment in this series. Others have critiqued the pacing in this one for involving too much build-up and not enough climactic action; I don’t feel that way necessarily, though some parts did feel a bit ‘side quest’ to me. I’m just not thrilled with how the trilogy concludes; in some ways, I’d be happier if I knew there was a 4th book coming. 

Overall, though, definitely enjoyed this trilogy and will read more from Rebecca Roanhorse. I’d love it if she published a collection of shorter works set in this world. 

Content warnings: war, violence, injury detail, blood, gore, torture, murder, grief 

Thank you S&S/Saga Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to review. 
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Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century by

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informative inspiring medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A

4.0

A solid collection of essays on Afrofuturism that, for the most part, I would say could be enjoyed by readers with varying degrees of prior familiarity with both literary theory and Afrofuturism. I particularly appreciated the framing of this collection - the introduction and conclusion as well as opening with an Author Roundable discussing Afrofuturism itself (as a concept, as a framework, as a genre, what it includes and doesn't, and the varying degrees to which authors would describe their own work as Afrofuturist). In their conclusion the authors write that with this collection, they "wanted to make conscious the utility of Afrofuturism as a critical term in the battle to stake claims for people of color - and people of all colors - in the future imaginary" [231]. This wide ranging collection, covering a variety of both older and very contemporary works, is one I'd recommend.