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librarymouse's reviews
347 reviews
The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw, Richard Kadrey
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The Dead Take the A Train is an incredibly funny, disgustingly bloody adventure with a tender human heart at its core. I love a book where the main character is an objectively terrible person who is someone the readers come to love somewhere along the story. Julie is an addict who has a reputation as a killer. Even if it's a wrongful accusation, the bloody nature of her methods and her cocaine-fueled, alcohol-soaked self keep up the facade. I have a feeling Julie's veering away from the liquor store after her resurrection for a Butterfinger may indicate that the monkey's paw's curse is an aversion to alcohol.
Dead Air, St. Joan, and Sarah round out an interesting and mysterious found family. Their love and care for one another is so tender among the carrion and gore of the book.
There were some loose ends I wanted to know more about, but that means it's a good cliffhanger for the rest of the series to jump from.
Dead Air, St. Joan, and Sarah round out an interesting and mysterious found family. Their love and care for one another is so tender among the carrion and gore of the book.
There were some loose ends I wanted to know more about, but that means it's a good cliffhanger for the rest of the series to jump from.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Cancer, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Self harm, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Cannibalism and Lesbophobia
Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs
funny
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
The more I read of Augusten Burroughs' writing, the more complicated I feel about him. He's kind of a terrible person and many of his earlier pieces of writing are products of their time that are sometimes uncomfortable to read. There's a focus on the race and ethnicities of others that I'm uncomfortable with. His fascination with the physical deformities and disabilities of others is unsettling.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Racism, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, and Abandonment
Minor: Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Abortion, and Fire/Fire injury
The Girl in the Locked Room: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
I picked it up from the library free bin. I don't necessarily regret reading it all the way through, but the quote below tanked my opinion of this book and author.
"the world must have changed a great deal since the girl last saw it. Maybe boys wear skirts and play with dolls now. Maybe children take their grandparents for rides in baby buggies. How silly. She giggled at the very idea." (58)
It's embedded in a section about the ghost character's opinion on the modern people's weird clothes, but that addition is pointed, even if I give the author the benefit of the doubt that it could be an unconscious bias, especially in a book published in 2018.
It feels like an insane critique for me to make of an award winning children's author, but she's kind of bad at writing children. This book is deeply disjointed and the kids are so formal. They don't really talk like children. The plot isn't particularly well-explained either, but I read it in one day and it read like something I would have bodied and then forgot about in early middle school.
"the world must have changed a great deal since the girl last saw it. Maybe boys wear skirts and play with dolls now. Maybe children take their grandparents for rides in baby buggies. How silly. She giggled at the very idea." (58)
It's embedded in a section about the ghost character's opinion on the modern people's weird clothes, but that addition is pointed, even if I give the author the benefit of the doubt that it could be an unconscious bias, especially in a book published in 2018.
It feels like an insane critique for me to make of an award winning children's author, but she's kind of bad at writing children. This book is deeply disjointed and the kids are so formal. They don't really talk like children. The plot isn't particularly well-explained either, but I read it in one day and it read like something I would have bodied and then forgot about in early middle school.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence
Moderate: Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Blood, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Transphobia
The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I kept having to stop reading at certain points. The Past and Other Things that Should Stay Buried is very, painfully, teenage and sincere as it's quippy and sarcastic. A lot of things are brought up that are never really answered, but the depictions of grief are real, and to an extent unanswered questions are a part of grief. I don't know that I liked July Cooper. I don't really know that I liked Dino Deluca, but they were compelling characters, and they loved each other.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Suicide attempt
Minor: Gun violence, Homophobia, and Sexual content
Yellow cab by Christophe Chabouté
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
This was an enjoyable read, and not what I'm used to for Christophe Chabouté. The mix between himself and Benoit Cohen was really interesting and the meta nature of the story telling was engaging
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism and Sexual harassment
Minor: Alcoholism, Gun violence, and Hate crime
Garlic and the Vampire by Bree Paulsen, Bree Paulsen
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
This book is VERY cute! The illustration style is adorable, especially the characters' facial expressions. This was a cozy read and Garlic's anxiety is deeply relatable.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders
The Dinner Lady Detectives by Hannah Hendy
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
It took me quite a while to get into this book. At some points it was difficult to tell whether it was Marjorie or Clementine speaking, and there were certain points at which I found the characters, Clementine in particular, hard to like. However, I found myself wanting to know what happens next. Overall, this is a cozy mystery with a cute, elderly, lesbian couple at its heart. The death is catalyst for the mystery is pretty horrific though for something defined as cozy
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Car accident
Moderate: Death and Medical trauma
Minor: Gun violence
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
emotional
funny
hopeful
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? Yes
5.0
For a book about death and grief, Under the Whispering Door managed to be so soothing to my existentially devastated heart. There's so much hope in this book and T J Klune manages to be so incredibly funny.
Wallace starts off the book as a terrible little man and becomes so easy to love by the end of it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Child death, Death, and Suicide
Minor: Animal death
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
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
4.5
The Museum of Extraordinary Things was one of my favorite books as a teenager. I reread it recently to see if it's still holds up. I didn't remember Coralie being so religious as a child, though it tracks with the conservatism forced upon her by her father. I didn't remember how it ended when I went into the book. I read another review or somebody said that the epilogue ruined it for them, but I think that might be the nicest way that Alice Hoffman could have tied up the loose ends. All Coralie ever wanted was to live a normal life. What she got was a normal life that she did not have to change herself to achieve, a husband who loves her, and a skill in fiber crafting that the part of herself she'd considered a deformity makes her exceptional at. I wish Maureen the world and then some. She's a wonderful character throughout the novel, but to know that she came to the professor beautiful and unscarred, and then stayed to raise Coralie after professor threw acid in her face makes her all the stronger mother figure, regardless of whether or not Coralie is biologically hers. I am glad for the implications in the epilogue that Eddie reconnected with his father and to some extent his religion.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism
Minor: Genocide
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Orlando's fully unquestioned physical and social gender transition is somehow the least absurd part of this book. Not only is she unhesitatingly referred to with the correct pronouns upon the switch by the narrator, but by her fellow characters as well. The book was fine overall, though the extended timeline across a small number of pages is deeply strange when compared to Mrs. Dalloway's one day explored in detail as the only other Woolf book I've read. I really enjoyed Orlando's juggling of attraction with the gendered expectations of personality and aesthetics, and how they differed between the traditional clothes of other countries. Orlando isn't particularly likeable but I don't know that liking her was the intention behind with a novel.n her introduction to the reader, in the first pages of the novel puts her at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to likeability.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny, Racism, and Sexual content
Minor: War