Reviews
Browse all reviews by date posted or filter by rating, year read, or tag on the right to find something specific like a juicy memoir or a particularly unhinged review.
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- American author 77
- 2019 59
- 200-299 pages 54
- female author 35
- Asian author 34
- 4-stars 33
- non-fiction 33
- 5-stars 30
- 2018 29
- 300-399 pages 28
- 3-stars 26
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- 100-199 pages 17
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- review type: heart eyes 17
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- 2-stars 15
- 400-499 pages 15
- review type: scathing 14
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- 10 out of 10 would recommend 11
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- five-stars 10
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- LGBTQ 8
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- review type: unhinged 7
- ATLA 6
I Kissed Shara Wheeler
★★★★★ Gorgeous could-not-put-it-down senior year YA queer rom-com. Like a beautiful, extra gay blend between Booksmart and Paper Towns. Casey McQuiston does it again!
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
★★★★★ My top read of 2021. A sweeping multi-generational medical and business drama about the Sackler family and the opioid epidemic from the family's humble beginnings as a band of immigrant Jewish brothers in New York to the shady marketing tactics that spawned the opioid crisis.
The Plague
★★★★★ This book pre-dated and predicted the pandemic, manipulating the ruptures and revelations of a fictional plague event to comment on contemporary life and society. This book is set in my hometown of Vancouver and is deliciously local.
The Memory Police
This book is kind of a nesting doll of allegories and allegorical literature. The main character is a novelist who starts off writing a romance between a typing teacher and student that sharply turns in the middle of her writing into a magical realist horror.
Know My Name
★★★★★ TLDR: this is the best memoir I have ever read and you must read it, I cried in anger, in joy, in catharsis, I learned, I was moved, shocked, proud - Chanel Miller is a phenomenal writer and immensely talented, smart, sharp, emotionally mature person whose writings and experience on trauma and rape culture and justice you absolutely need to read.
Gods of Jade and Shadow
★★★★★ This might be the best book I’ve read all year, and certainly the best and smoothest reading experience I’ve had in MONTHS. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an adventure fantasy/myth retelling set in Mexico in the 1920s Jazz Age.
The Rift (Avatar: The Last Airbender Comics #3)
★★★★★ I’ve given every one of the ATLA graphic novels 5 stars but this one is probably my favorite. Made me cry in the subway. Too good.
The Search (Avatar: The Last Airbender Comics #2)
★★★★★ JUST SO FUCKING GOOD IN EVERY WAY I’M SO FUCKIN SHOOKK MAN. Like there’s beautiful art, so wonderful and charming and concise and smartly designed panels for maximal fun storytelling and pay-off.
The Promise (Avatar: The Last Airbender Comics #1)
★★★★★ PURE MASTERY in storytelling through text and image, makes concepts of colonialism, industrialisation, sovereignty, geopolitics, and cultural heritage somehow SUPER accessible for kids
American Born Chinese
★★★★★ Three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant and action-packed. American Born Chinese is an amazing rise, all the way up to the astonishing climax--and confirms what a growing number of readers already know: Gene Yang is a major talent.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
★★★★★ The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer - from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.
Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes, Pranks
★★★★★ A phenomenally thought-provoking collection of essays, musings, and one or two more formalized reporting pieces on queerness and diasporic Asian identity.
Chemistry
★★★★★ So beautifully true to first gen Chinese immigrant experience. Many coincidental similarities to my life, but above all so wonderfully cerebrally chemically reflexive on what it is to be the child of Chinese immigrants, how it feels to navigate that relationship in adulthood and face the impossibility of their meteoric achievements.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)
★★★★★ It’s 2019 and I honestly forget sometimes that Mindy Kaling was one of the people who literally created The Office.