laurareads87's reviews
536 reviews

System Collapse by Martha Wells

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

4.5

 4.5. I love Murderbot and am so excited to have another installment. In System Collapse, we follow Murderbot, ART, and ART’s crew who are attempting to assist colonists on a hostile planet; unfortunately, Barish-Estranza is there too, and they have their own intentions toward the colonists. Meanwhile, Murderbot is grappling with its recent experiences and ... its feelings. 

System Collapse picks up right where Network Effect ends; I would suggest reading the last two chapters of Network Effect to refamiliarize before starting this book, especially if, like me, you’ve been reading the series as it is released. 

I love every Murderbot book. What I loved about System Collapse is (as usual) the relationship between Murderbot and ART, as well as Murderbot’s encounters with other SecUnits. Murderbot has to be one of my all time favourite first-person POVs to read, and this book is no exception. I also feel like this installment moves the series forward well – there is growth here, and the opening of new directions for future books to take. I did struggle a bit at the beginning; even having just re-read a few chapters of Network Effect to refresh my memory, it took a while for me to fully sink into the action of this book and feel like I fully knew what was going on, but once I was in I was in. 

If you haven’t started the Murderbot series yet, what are you doing?! Go do that. Don’t start with this book though. 

Content warnings: gun violence, violence, post-traumatic stress, injury detail, references to enslavement and labour trafficking 
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A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River by Aldo Leopold

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informative medium-paced

2.0

Sand County Almanac is a classic of conservation writing, released posthumously by the author’s son as two volumes (here combined) in 1949 and 1953. 

What I appreciated about this book is some of the nature writing – there are some truly beautiful turns of phrase here, and I enjoyed the author’s descriptions of the land, trees, and animals. As someone who grew up on a similar latitude to Sand County, many of the species were very familiar to me which I’m sure made me appreciate it even more. I also appreciate Leopold’s vision of education fostering an ethical orientation toward land and other species and a desire to understand the complex interconnections of ecosystems – these visions, I think, are still relevant and still needed amidst so much disconnection from nature. 

With this said, there is a lot about this book that I think doesn’t work today, and which I found rather frustrating. He writes that “we abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us” [xviii] and that conceiving of nature in capitalist terms, or in capitalist terms only anyway, is a problem – yes!! – but then continues to conceptualize it in terms of “resources” for humans to use (albeit not solely economic resources). This, I think, doesn’t go nearly far enough to undermining the commodifying thinking he criticizes. He calls for enlarging the boundaries of ethical community to include non-human species and the land, and to conceptualizing nature in terms of community, yet continues to set humans apart, even writing of humans’ “superiority over the beasts” having “objective evidence” to support it [117-119] and continuing to justify killing members of other species simply for the enjoyment of it. There is also very little connection made between the exploitation of the land for capitalist gain and America as a violent colonial project. So, while I can see relevance of this text in learning about the history of ecological or conservation writing in the United States, I cannot recommend it beyond that. 

Content warning: animal cruelty, violence towards & death of non-human animals, colonialism 
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Compulsory by Martha Wells

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adventurous funny inspiring fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

"Apparently suddenly getting free will after having 93% of your behavior controlled for your entire existence will do weird things to your impulse control."

A very short (too short!) little prequel to Murderbot, set before all the other books during Murderbot's time guarding mining equipment.  Fans will love it -- obviously, I loved it -- but with its length it feels more like a foreword than a standalone story.  
Solarpunk Creatures by Rajat Chaudhuri, Norie Tamura, Deborah Cleland, Melissa Ingaruca Moreno, Christoph Rupprecht, Sarena Ulibarri

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

3.75

3.75, rounding up. I really like the premise of Solarpunk Creatures, an anthology featuring "more-than-human protagonists: organic and digital, alien and fantastic, tiny and boundlessly large."  The editors note that a key theme of the collection is "nonhuman agency" and the negotiation involved in diverse species making community and living together.

It is hard to rate this collection as, inevitably, I enjoyed some stories more than others; one I didn't finish for 'content warnings' related reasons, and two I did not finish just because they didn't hold my attention.  The rest, I enjoyed.  A few favourites include:
-"Sonora's Journey" by Kai Holmwood - a personification of a desert as a protagonist, and an interesting structure
-"The Business of Bees" by Andrew Knighton - a cat protagonist, so of course I loved it
-"AI Dreams of Real Sheep - More at 8" by Commando Jugendstil and Tales from the EV Studio - a linguistic classification program gains sentience
-"Quarropts Can't Dance" by Rodrigo Culagovski - hilarious song and dance battle
-"Leaf Whispers, Ocean Song" by Tashan Mehta - beautiful story of beyond human language, grief, and communing with those around us

Thank you to World Weaver Press & NetGalley for providing an ARC for me to review.
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The Captain of the Polestar: A Ghost Story for Christmas by Arthur Conan Doyle

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

In The Captain of the Polestar, a physician on a whaling vessel recounts strange occurrences on a voyage through the icy sea.  I appreciated the descriptions of the silence and the darkness surrounding the ship -- these were well written and provided an eerie atmosphere -- as well as the doctor's descriptions of the captain and several of the sailors, but this is not the most exciting or interesting story, and certainly not scary.  I liked the sketches included, though, and would check out other stories published in this series.
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Tarot for Transformation II: Pentacles: A journey of healing and self-growth through the minor arcana by Dreya Blume

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emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

5.0

Ambitious and wide ranging, Dreya Blume’s Tarot for Transformation II: Pentacles brings fresh insight to the ‘last’ suit in the deck. The text moves through the suit, King to Ace, meandering through a blend of historical information (about symbolism and items in the cards, about Pamela Colman Smith and AE Waite) and innovative connections (to Nietzsche, to Greek and Hindu deities, to Buddhism, to Biblical stories, to ancient history). Each card’s entry is interspersed with journalling prompts inspired by the card and Blume’s analysis of it. In theme, questions range from deep and intense to lighter and more everyday. Somehow, Blume has taken the card-by-card table of contents structure that is common to many tarot texts and come out with something very new. 

The way I approached this book was to read one card’s section, then asterisk a few (generally 3-4) of the journalling questions from that section; I bought a notebook just for this book series, and wrote my reflections on the questions in there. In addition to the questions from each card that I chose, I also every single time answered the question: ‘this card has an important message for you – what is it?’ and concluded my journalling with that. So, I now have many pages of personal reflection plus a paragraph-long card meaning for each Pentacle card that I wrote myself, inspired by the reflection on my own life that the book prompted. I am grateful for this book for pulling this tarot writing out of me, truly – I feel like I’m going to end up with my own little book of tarot meanings when the series is done. This is not really a “learn to read tarot” book, but I do feel like my readings will be enriched by having read it. 

In terms of intended audience, this book is written for those most interested in using tarot as an aid to self-reflection and personal growth. The tone of the writing is welcoming, and I experienced this book as inclusive – something I get to write far too rarely in tarot reviews. 

There is, as I’m sure my review makes clear, not much I’d change about this book. I’d love if the print version had page numbers (I like quoting directly in reviews and in my notes). I’d also have appreciated a bibliography; quotes are clearly attributed to their authors in the text, but a bibliography would allow for more precision here in terms of specifying translations/editions used and indicating where particular ideas came from beyond just the author’s name. 

I am absolutely thrilled that there will be a book like this for each of the four suits, and that the recently published Swords installment is even longer than this one. 

Content warnings: As the author notes in her ‘Please Read’ section at the beginning of the book, “some of the readings and journal questions in the book may bring up strong emotions.” Themes like sexuality, class / finances, death, and (mental) health can be difficult to delve into in the ways this book invites. Take care, readers. 
The Sentient by Nadia Afifi

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

The Sentient includes a lot of heavy themes - cloning and medical/research ethics, religious coercion and patriarchal cults, trauma, memory, class disparities, reproductive justice - within the context of a coherent plot set in a relatively believable near-future setting with an interesting protagonist POV.  In other words, I like a lot about this and I think it's a really solid debut.  I feel like the characters were mostly well developed even though there were quite a lot of them, and it felt like a fresh take on the subject matter.  What didn't quite work for me is some of the pacing toward the end; there were perhaps one or two too many things going on, and the technology got a bit convoluted and less believable.  I also felt like in a few places it skewed YA (which isn't my thing) though I wouldn't say it reads as YA overall.  Overall, though, I liked this and I'd happily read more from Nadia Afifi.
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Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation by Raja Shehadeh

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emotional informative medium-paced

5.0

My second read by Raja Shehadeh. Going Home follows the author on a walk through Ramallah; over the course of a day, walking through various neighbourhoods of the city that he has spent his life in, Shehadeh explores the resistance and its history, his experience of growing up and aging, his relationship with his family, and the ways that Ramallah and Palestinian society more broadly has changed over the course of his life.  An emotional read; highly recommend.

Content warnings: violence, murder, death, death of a parent, blood, colonial violence, police / military brutality, grief
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Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley

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challenging reflective 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

 Three Eight One follows two storylines – one is a story from 2024 in which a young protagonist, Fairly, goes on a quest; the other frames it: Rowena, a curator living in 2314, tries to make sense of Fairly’s story.  
 
This novel explores some interesting themes – the reliability or not of historical evidence, the ways historical evidence must be categorized and ‘made sense of’ at later times, the nature of quests and the ‘hero’s journey,’ and more.  Understanding all aspects of the novel is emphatically not the point – I think readers with this expectation will be frustrated or disappointed by it – and it leaves one with, perhaps, more questions than answers.  I really enjoyed this novel overall, but I did find the pacing inconsistent – I found the first 40% or so dragged compared to the rest, which I found much more captivating.  
 
Thank you to Solaris & NetGalley for the ARC I read for this review. 
Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson

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

3.0

Open Waters follows Stephen, a young Ghanian-British man, in the years after high school; it is especially focused on his relationship with his father and his changing connection to his long-time friend.  Stephen is a musician, and I loved Nelson's inclusion of so many musical references; I would love a playlist of all the songs mentioned in this book.  I found it more interesting as it went along, and didn't love the repetitive writing in places.

Content warnings: racism, discrimination, police brutality, grief, death of a parent, drug & alcohol use
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