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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- fiction 83
- 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
- 2020 25
- books with adaptations 23
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- memoir 22
- Asian diaspora author 21
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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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- review type: unhinged 7
- ATLA 6
Mexican Gothic
★★★☆☆ A well-worn Gothic premise in the novel setting of 1950s Mexican countryside. This book hits all the best Gothic cliches, i.e. a young woman is sent to a creepy remote mansion with prickly secretive inhabitants and uncovers a terrible mystery…
Blue Horses
☆☆☆☆☆ I never know how to rate books of poetry so I don’t. Themes/motifs of nature, animism, trees, birds, rocks, water.
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!
I’m Glad My Mom Died
★★★☆☆ This was good but not as good as everyone says it is? Well-written insofar as it’s a riveting tale, but can’t compare to the memoirs I’ve read by more seasoned writers.
Crying in H Mart
I listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by the author herself, and remember I did in fact cry in a grocery store (not H Mart).
One Last Stop
An incredibly cute magical realist WLW romance between a college student and a mysterious rugged girl trapped on a subway and…in time…
The Woo-Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, and My Crazy Chinese Family
★★★☆☆ Unpleasant to read. Wong’s paints her recollections in lurid, sensational, and vindictive grotesqueness.
Molly's Game: From Hollywood's Elite to Wall Street's Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker
★★★★☆ Devoured this in a day after re-watching the movie recently, because I was interested in Molly Bloom and also wanted the dirt on the celebs she names. Not quite as self-critical as I personally would’ve preferred and more than a little self-congratulatory/self-absolving in the end.
The Marrow Thieves
★★★★☆ The idea of extracting the bone marrow of Indigenous people is so chilling. But Indigenous people having the unique ability to dream in this post-apocalyptic future is a beautiful counterpoint, and something that is given several incredibly evocative narrative moments.
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.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon
★★☆☆☆ I am definitely too old for this book (which skews on the young end of middle grade) and found it pretty boring with no stakes or real character development.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
★★★☆☆ DARK COTTAGECORE FEATURING CURMUDGEONLY ASTROLOGY-WITCH IN THE REMOTE FRIGID POLISH COUNTRYSIDE AND STRANGE ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR AND TOWN DEATHS. Ok but seriously though this was wicked good. Beautifully written. A dark feminist, animal rights, anti-ageism manifesto.
Confessions
★★☆☆☆ A book recounting a series of crimes and insidious acts committed by a middle-school teacher and her students against one another. Story begins with the apparent drowning of the teacher's four-year-old daughter, and each character gets their own POV section recounting what happened and what happened next in their perspective.
Still Life with Tornado
★★☆☆☆ I really loved Dig, the first A.S. King book I ever read, but this one was really very mediocre. I’m not really sure why but it just dragged, I didn’t care about any of the characters, and the contemplative bits on what is art and originality got more and more irritating.