allygator's reviews
333 reviews

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

trigger warning: this review (and book) talks about child sexual assault and its aftermath, suicide, and manipulation/gaslighting

it's hard to come up with words to describe how this book made me feel. out of all the books i've read in the past few years, this is arguably the one that gave me the most visceral reaction. there is a part of me that wants to read it a million more times and part of me that never wants to read it again. it's hard for me to remember a time i've been more upset about a book, its characters, and its plot.
vanessa's story broke my heart because her story, yes, is tragic, but so too is her view of it. her grooming is so complete that to this day she sees herself as the instigator of the abuse that she endured. i think that her unwillingness to see herself as a victim is on the surface level brave, but it originates from a place of blaming herself and seeing what happened between her and strane as consensual. this is what is so deeply upsetting to me. that in her refusal to see her 15 year old self as someone who could be manipulated she is allowing herself to be manipulated further.

and strane's decision to kill himself is his way of ensuring that he can manipulate her even when he's dead.

i can't think of a character i hate more than i hate strane. his way of ensuring that she has control in their "relationship" but pressuring her to move faster and faster until she is a 15 year old being coerced into having sex with her 42 year old teacher. it's fucking disgusting and i hope that all people like strane burn in hell.
but strane isn't who this book is about. it's about vanessa. vanessa who is such a tragic character because of how much she loved and still loves strane and how willing she is to push others away in order to maintain her image of him.

i hate how she pushes aside the fact that he wasn't attracted to her once she became a grown woman and blames herself for letting herself go.

she's tragic because in her attempts to keep herself from being viewed as a victim she falls into the same language used by abusers to invalidate the experiences of other women who went through the same thing as her.
this is a 5 star book, yes, but not because i enjoyed reading it. it's a 5 star book because i was so upset and angry that i couldn't stop reading until it was done.

Well Met by Jen DeLuca

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i love a silly little romance novel concept and this series immediately called to me because what's more romantic than a renaissance fair? i was drawn to the characters right off the bat, especially emily because of how willing she is to help out her family. watching her initial hesitance to take part in the ren faire but doing so out of a feeling of duty turn into a genuine love of the faire and the people in it (even beyond her relationship with simon). it's very much a concept that brings me so much joy -- an outsider in a small town becoming familiar and learning to love everything that that town brings to the table. tying this trope into the ren faire, which definitely is overwhelming the first time you go, is such a natural thing and is a plot point that is really well-navigated by deluca. 
unfortunately, where the blood and found family relationships thrive, sometimes the actual romance falls flat. i feel like there wasn't enough of a conversation/apology about why simon was so mean to emily and that the actual pacing of their rivals-to-lovers arc was a bit off. i still really liked them, and by the end i was sold by their relationship, but i don't think that them falling in love is the actual draw of the story.
tldr? this is a great book about falling in love with a community and found family but perhaps not the greatest romance novel. definitely worth reading though!

This Little Light by Lori Lansens

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i picked this up immediately after reading The Mountain Story, and i was a little underwhelmed. after seeing what lansens can do with a story and characters, rory is a bit of a disappointment. i found her so pretentious and annoying, which i know is the point, but i feel strongly that even the most pretentious of main characters should be tolerable if you're going to be in their head for 300 pages. but i was constantly upset by rory's unwillingness to accept the fact that she is incredibly privileged and quite often did things wrong. she was so holier-than-thou at times that it made me wish the book was over.
beyond that, though, i do think that the story written is fascinating and incredibly timely. the way lansens approaches religion and purity culture and pro-life mentality is very cool and at times reads like a horror novel. sometimes the community that rory and fee live in seems like a precursor to margaret atwood's gilead. the use of a blog to tell the story is a good choice, even if i don't love rory as a character. 
tldr? i think that this isn't a bad book, but i think that it's full of missed opportunity. i'm not mad i read it, but i wish that it lived up to my expectations a little bit more.

The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i am so glad that i was sent this! there was no part of me that expected to love this book as much as i did but i'm so glad i was surprised. i was so attached to the characters and drawn in by the plot that i couldn't put it down. the non-stop pacing of the writing takes you for a ride and doesn't let you go until the book is finished. 
i love books that are framed as a story being told, so when i realized that this whole book is a letter written from wolf to his son i was immediately obsessed. it made the words feel so intimate and personal, like i was getting a look into the inner workings of someone's mind at their worst moments. 
one of the worst things that can happen to a survival book is when it becomes too clear what is going to happen and that everything is going to be okay. knowing that this is written as a letter from wolf, we know that he makes it out alive, but lansens is an expert at keeping the fate of everyone else on the mountain a well-kept secret. at no point did i guess what the twists were going to be and how the story was going to end, which is a testament to how well they are crafted. 

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

as a theatre major and huge fan of the secret history, this is quite literally the perfect book for me. i'm obsessed with the whole idea of this shakespeare conservatory and the toxic environment it creates and how one little shake up is quite literally deadly. i'm obsessed with oliver's unreliable narration and ambiguous queerness (

he's 100% in love with james, right? i can't be alone in this thought.

). i'm obsessed with the twists and the fact that i couldn't guess them. i'm obsessed with the fact that every character is kind of a terrible person and they all enable each other to be even worse. i'm OBSESSED with the ending. (

james is alive?? and oliver is gonna find him and they're gonna be in love and happy and terrible together

)
quite frankly i couldn't care less if this is a rip-off of the secret history (i don't think it is, but it certainly is a popular opinion) because i would read a million rip-offs of the secret history because something about that story and that way of telling it has me hooked. thank you donna tartt for your contributions to dark academia and thank you m.l. rio for your contributions as well. where tsh is for liguists and historians, if we were villains is for actors who want to live out their secret deepest dreams to achieve a dream role by literally killing for it.
anyways i'm gonna go think about this book for a few hours while i get ready for rehearsal :)

The King's Men by Nora Sakavic

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

boy howdy was this a book. tumblr darling all for the game continues to get more bonkers with every installment and this finale (kind of! now there's the sunshine court!) is no exception. if i had a nickel for every time i opened a conversation with one of my roommates with "you'll never guess what happened in the book today" i would have so many nickels. i would be wealthy. every time i thought that we had reached peak bonkers it showed itself up. and it kept showing itself up until 3 PAGES until the end. wild shit, truly.
but seriously i am shocked by how much i loved this series, and this book in particular. the king's men finally allows us to see into andrew's mind a little bit and it just cemented him as my favorite character. he's so complicated and secretly caring and violent that i ate up every scene he was in as if it was my last meal. he's starting to break down his walls just a little bit to let people in and i hope with everything in me that he heals the way he deserves. and neil! sweet sweet neil. terror of the press neil. he's precious to me because he gets put through the ringer in this book but he still is so in love with his friends. the only times he lets himself be selfish is when he allows himself to bond with the foxes and if that isn't found family at its peak i don't know what is.
the foxes really truly become a family in this and it's exactly what i needed. like give me 500 more pages of nicky dragging an oblivious kevin out of their dorm so that neil and andrew can hook up. give me allison calling up the travel agent she isn't supposed to be in contact with so that the foxes can have a nice vacation. give me the team going to late night practices together for the first time. give me matt caring so deeply for neil because they've become brothers. give me aaron and katelyn finally getting to be together in front of all their friends. give me everything and then some because you know i'll read every bit of it. the joy i felt when

the foxes won the championship

was so all-consuming that i was giggling and kicking my feet in my place of work and i wasn't even embarrassed by it. this terrible new adult sports drama somehow is my new favorite thing.
the only thing that keeps this from perfection is the pacing. it's a little off compared to the other two books, probably because it's longer but it still made it drag in some places and run at full speed in others. not the biggest problem, but still.
tldr: the foxes are everything to me no pacing issues can keep me from eating this book up

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

emotional funny lighthearted fast-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

4.5

boy howdy do i love a romance novel that isn't just about cookie cutter white people. i'm trying to diversify the romance that i read (even though i still love emily henry and christina lauren, their characters all look the same lol) and this is such a great rom com to get started on that journey. i adored the representation in this book -- it felt so genuine and authentic and not forced at all. in particular, the chronic illness rep here was miles beyond what i've read recently. it didn't shy away from the hard parts of living with chronic pain, but it also showed the joy that can be found on good days. chloe was relatable because she felt everything that real people feel, the good and the bad. red is a perfect partner for her because he doesn't expect her to push away her pain for him, he just meets her where she's at. he's so sympathetic and soft and i hate him for making dating artists seem like a great idea (lol). 
the only thing that holds this back from a perfect 5 stars for me is the conflict that leads to the inevitable third act breakup. my biggest pet peeve in romance novels is when the central conflict is something that could have been solved with literally one minute of communication, and this one was the epitome of that. i was so frustrated with the way that chloe refused to explain herself and how quick red jumped to conclusions. i forgive them, because their responses are based in their past relationship traumas, but it was an upsettingly simple issue that was drawn out to have chapters of breakup-related drama.
that aside, though, i adored this book and i cannot wait to pick up the rest of the brown sisters trilogy

The Raven King by Nora Sakavic

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

what can i say, it's a tumblr darling for a reason. that being said, the trigger warnings in this are batshit crazy please please please do not read this series (but like this book even more than the last one) without knowing what they are. 
zoo wee mama this was a sequel. unlike most 2nd books in trilogies, this somehow managed to be more insane than the last one? which i guess shouldn't have surprised me given the reputation these books have but still. zoo wee mama. the plot is bonkers but somehow makes sense? like of course neil does what he does because he's a nineteen-year-old fight-loving flight risk who has very quickly formed extremely codependent relationships with his teammates.
i continue to be the biggest andrew apologist of all time, but if i'm being honest all the foxes are so special to me like they're giving found family they're giving trauma bonding they're giving everything. yes they've all done objectively terrible things but do i care? not usually. i love that both sides of the team are finally getting to be friends with each other, and i can't wait to see how they react to

neil coming home from evermore manor beat to shit with all of his disguises removed.

bring on the third book, i can't wait for it to be even crazier than this one was.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

anthony doerr has been that bitch when it comes to stories that span generations and types of people, but this is a new scale even for him. where all the light we cannot see looked at largely two characters as they grew up, cloud cuckoo land follows five people in three vastly different time periods: ancient constantinople, modern day (1950s-2020s), and the future. and yet, despite the huge time jumps between chapters, all the characters feel very authentic and human. the choice to use the consumption and preservation of one story as the connection between all the different time lines was a smart one, especially in a book as literary as this one. and the end of the day, this is a book about the love of literature, the importance of story-telling, and the impact and importance of libraries. the mystery that unfolds in regards to those three things, especially in the future sections, is enthralling.
the only downside to this is that with so many different perspectives, a few were bound to be a little less interesting to me. i loved konstance and zeno, seymour intrigued me, but anna and omeir didn't quite draw my attention (until the end -- their ending devastated me). if you can get over the hefty page count and are willing to sit through some chapters that are more entertaining than others, this is 100% worth a read, if only for the humanity embedded in each and every word.

The Way of Natural History by

informative slow-paced

4.25

while i don't agree with every essay in this collection, it is generally a really insightful look into how we view the natural world and what we can do to learn and grow in our awareness of our environment. i'm always a fan of critiquing academia, and this does it in a way that understands the point of formal education while also pointing out that what it focuses on is not always what's actually important. unlike most environmental science-based essay collections, this one makes a point to include artists, poets, musicians, and other creatives, which allows for a more well-rounded view of how various forms of environmental awareness fit into one larger education.
my fav essay: Robin Wall Kimmerer's, but that shouldn't surprise anyone, i adore her writing