librarymouse's reviews
347 reviews

Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases by Lydia Kang, Nate Pedersen

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challenging informative fast-paced

3.0

This was an enjoyable read for the most part, though it was probably not the best life choice, in terms of the constantly thrumming anxiety in the back of my mind, to continue reading this after being exposed to covid. I couldn't always make sense of the way chapters transitioned into each other and the book did end somewhat abruptly. But I did learn things!
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Down the Hill: My Descent Into the Double Murder in Delphi by Susan Hendricks

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

Susan Hendricks uses this book to showcase the lives of Abby, Libby, and their families, and lets their vibrance outshine the normally sensationalized detail on their deaths and the identity of the murderer. While this book works to showcase who the girls were, Hendricks also works to explore the downsides of social media and online sleuthing in murder cases like this one. Overall, a really thoughtful read.
It did feel odd for me, initially, that this book was published before the trial of the accused, however, after reaching the point at which Becky realized that there really is no closure in the possibility of knowing, this choice makes sense.
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The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

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funny informative medium-paced

4.0

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The author is genuinely funny in his delivery of the material, making jokes and grounding theoretical subjects in tangible metaphors/analogies/examples. At a certain point, near the 3/4 mark of the book, the physics and chemistry started to go over my head, and kept at that level. The history aspect was consistently engaging and accessible to someone who hasn't had formal instruction in physics or chemistry for the better part of a decade The author consistently ties the biographical information and historical events back into the science science, referencing back to the individuals mentioned in earlier chapters as they came up again and again. Overall, a really engaging read. I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 because I had to restart the book after my first attempt at the introduction and first chapter. That very well may have just been a me problem, and not the book.
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The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I read this book for the first time when it came out in 2013. Over a decade later, I am so happy that this book has held up against the memory I had of reading it for the first time. It does hit some of the pitfalls of other vampire fiction, like a man who looks young but is nearly a century old falling in love with a seventeen year old girl. However, Holly Black's exploration of the characters and the reasoning behind the formation of their mutual interest being rooted in something other than just physical attraction, made it far less icky than it could have been. With the impulsivity of the young vampires and the impulsivity and hedonism of the vampires who were turned at a young age, it makes me wonder if there is a halting of mental and emotional development at the age at which they were turned in this iteration of vampire lore. This book is absolutely blood-soaked, with descriptive explanations of viscera and torture, but it is also incredibly funny, and oddly very human.
I really thought Aiden was going to kill Pearl after his shenanigans and coercion after being turned. It was a nice twist to see that even as they've become morally gray, they're still the same characters - the existential question underlying the entire book
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It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

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dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.0

I stopped reading on page 127 for over a month, for no discernable reason. However, I really did enjoy this book. I like reading things that make the author/artist feel real and tangible on the other side of the book. Somehow, that's still rare when reading memoirs. The illustrations are fantastic and Thorogood has a strong voice. I also really enjoyed the meta bits.

This book has one of the most eye catching and memorable opening lines I've read recently.
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Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy, Octavia E. Butler

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dark reflective medium-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? It's complicated

3.75

There were some parts of this book I really liked and others I really didn't. The 39 year age gap between Lauren and her love interest who she first recognizes through associating him with her father is one of the major dislikes. I like both characters, but the situation is uncomfortable, especially when he is made out as a sympathetic, likable character. I'd had this book and the novel it was adapted from on my to read list for a while, and I'm glad I got around to reading this for school. It's really neat to see the roots of the literary solarpunk movement as it's rooted in afro futurism and the questioning of the continuing hegemony of colonial structures that are still being offered as solutions to the climate crisis today. It is weird to be reading this in 2024, though.
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The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston

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dark informative mysterious medium-paced

4.5

This was a wild story, start to finish. I love Florence. Getting an intimate look at the Italian and Florentine judiciary systems makes me not want to go to back. However, as Preston points out, the US is just as bad - just in different ways. This is a wild glimpse into the case of the Monster of Florence and life in Florence in the 2000s. Overall, really engaging read, though I did have to put it down for a moment when Spezi's wife nearly incriminated him to the police over the phone and in French. The lack of oversight and excess of power afforded to law enforcement are just fundamentally busted in such an astounding and entertaining way.
The author handles the description of the deaths with tact, making sure to acknowledge their humanity, rather than just discussing them and their deaths as spectacle.
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The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

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funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A book within a book within a book made for a wild and very engaging read. I finished it in a day.
the novel ending with Leo, whose storyline seemed to be constantly unfinished, waiting for Winifred and Marigold made the whole thing more meta. For Freddie to be seemingly stalked by the Leo that Leo the murderer praises Hannah the author for creating was such an interesting way to fold the layered universes in on themselves! Leo the murderer stalking the author who then wrote a Leo the character stalking Winifred the author character who was friends with Marigold, the stalker of Whit, who had done an unsettlingly large volume of research on Cain to try to exploit his mom's shoddy lawyering into a pullitzer makes for a very interesting web of morally gray people. I did want Leo the character's story to be tied up more. He's still characterized as helpful, which I think ads an interesting tilt to the story being told about Leo the murderer and Hannah the author and the impact of what he gave her on her writing. But I want to know more about the reasoning behind the cupcakes and the groceries. Is it flirting, stalking, or friendship? I wasn't expecting for Leo the murderer to be a racist, but using that racism and vitriol to show his descent into delusion was interesting, especially in how that morphed from what could be perceived as advice on US perceptions of race and how it impacts jnteracrjoms with the police.
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The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

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dark funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! The setting, in particular, was really strong and the transitions between 1982 and 2017 were really tangible. Some of the characters were so pleasantly strange in a very human way. The juxtaposing of Nick, the former delinquent Carly meets as an under the table resident of a run down motel with Callum, the library volunteer who's way too invested in her search for what happened to her aunt is really well done.

This book was really fucking weird in a highly consumable way.

there was some things that felt like compulsory heterosexuality on my first read through, but to be honest, I think I've just been reading a lot of queer stuff recently, and all this book did was clearly characterize Carly as straight. Vic's cancer coming back at the end of the book, so close to her saying she's cancer free and learning her sister also died of cancer felt a bit out of place to me, but it's also real life and real life issues that do happen being presented within the frame of a thriller. I'm not a fan of the pro-cop rhetoric, but at the same time, I did like Alma as a character.
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Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

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dark emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0

The pacing of this book made it engaging despite the gravity of the information being discussed. Farrow is straightforward with his explanation of his own history with the issue of sexual assault, growing up in the shadow of what Woody Allen, their father, did to his sister Dylan, and the media shit storm that ensued. Intwining his own story, growing as a person and apologizing to his sister for the role he played in the covering up of her own trauma, kept this story grounded and away from the sensationalized scandalous text it could have become. In 2024, it is especially interesting and upsetting to see the intentional disruption of American news news to destroy information and skew political outcomes as done by Israel's government-backed Black Cube.
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