torts's reviews
1699 reviews

Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous dark funny sad
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

By the Book by Jasmine Guillory

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hopeful lighthearted
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

Disney romance, complete with copious references to the movie (the yellow dress on the stairwell, the library, the bookstore ladder, the delicious gray stuff, the talking furniture...). I liked the publishing industry backdrop (especially when it acknowledged editorial assistants being underpaid, the industry in general being very white, and the whole working-on-books-potentially-sapping-the-joy-out-of-reading-for-pleasure thing). The non-whiteness and non-skinniness of the main characters was integrated into the plot fairly well, and it had the requisite happily ever after that incorporated career success along with romantic success, which was a nice way of modernizing the ick around a story about Stockholm-syndrome/inappropriate-relationship-between-author-and-editor. Ultimately not my jam, but probably exactly what book-nerd Disney adults (who are fine with very PG romance novels that include kissing and suggestions of sharing a bed but nothing more explixit) will enjoy.
Juice Like Wounds by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous dark sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous emotional
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous dark funny tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

I kept waiting for it to stop being a prequel and start being a sequel, but
was pleasantly surprised that instead it just started being a gay romance.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

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adventurous dark mysterious
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Intimations by Zadie Smith

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reflective

4.25

A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

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adventurous hopeful

3.75

Fun fairytale fracturing, a nice blend of unserious and realistic.
The ones who walk away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

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challenging dark hopeful

4.5

Apparently Le Guin has boasted of how this story "has a long and happy career of being used by teachers to upset students and make them argue fiercely about morality." (In the intro to the second volume of The Unreal and the Real.) It definitely has left its mark on some of my favorite writers. (Most notably, N.K. Jemisin's direct response in the form of "The Ones Who Stay and Fight"--which I think initially inspired me to read a summary of the story, when I probably should have just read the whole thing since it's all of five pages. Less obviously--and more spoilerily--Naomi Novik's
Scholomance trilogy, particularly The Golden Enclaves with the whole protecting-magical-people-with-a-spell-that-crushes-an-innocent-to-death-and-creates-a-mawmouth thing
.)