arieslofi's reviews
102 reviews

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

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

4.75


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On Rape by Germaine Greer

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fast-paced

2.0

it feels very muddled and surface level. there are instances of victim blaming that rubbed me the wrong way, there's a lot of "this is what a real victim is" bullshit too, that i loathe. i don't think greer has ever been assaulted by a family member, or she wouldn't be so adamant on victims exposing those who have hurt them.
i did enjoy some of it, it had good observations here and there: "Once upon a time everyone knew what rape was; it was the stealing of a woman from the man or men who owned her", "If a man punches you in the eye, you are not expected to have pleaded with him not to for the crime to be accepted as an assault. If you are sitting at your cash register and someone demands the cash in it, you will not be accused of consent if you simply hand it over.", and "Rape is not a sex crime, but a hate crime." specifically.
however, this particular part made me extremely uncomfortable and upset with it: "If the women who complained in 2002 and 2003 had stuck to their guns these two women might still be alive."
how poor of a feminist you have to be to imply it is their fault that two women were killed. only to talk about how men hate women so much after. they did not kill them by retracting their statement, the killer did by taking their lives. shameful shit. 

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As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

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

2.0

i really wanted to love this but the writing was juvenile and abrupt, with many short chapters and short sentences that don't allow yourself to be fully immersed in the story; the characters felt one dimensional (notably the side characters, but also salama and kenan); the plot twist fell flat and made me laugh from how just downright dumb it was; khawf made no sense at the end (you have ptsd induced psychosis, your hallucinations don't magically disappear); the romance aspect did absolutely nothing for me and felt extremely rushed (mentioning that they were supposed to get married felt such a cheap trick to excuse this); the studio ghibli references, the repetition of "a might life" as well as green eyes, smelling like lemons, and the pace being horrid proves that the editor failed at their most basic job.
there were parts i enjoyed and overall it is a story that should be told, but it is just not the book for me, ya hater and all.
also, as a the book thief lover, this book is nothing like it in any way, shape or form apart from the fact it takes place in the middle of a genocide. you expect me to believe that this ya written juvenile shit is even comparable to one of the most beautiful pieces of written fiction? fuck off.

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A Castle in the Clouds by Kerstin Gier

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.0

i'm going to start with a small preface: i do understand why others would like this book. i do understand why people think this is a nice, light, comforting read. it's a no brainer, it's virtually got no stakes whatsoever, it's a ya with a love triangle. it's mindless fun. i get it! i like mindless fun too! good mourning by mgk and mod sun is one of my favorite movies!
that being said: this book is utter shit.
for starters, it's got a larger ensemble than it can possibly handle. you're writing a book for tweens, not the next agatha christie novel! when we got to the twist, i genuinely couldn't care because, with such a big cast, these two characters are virtually meaningless. they hold nothing for me.
speaking of, the characters are all so two dimensional it's not even funny. the amount of internalized misogyny coming from our main character is utterly insane, especially considering this is a book for TEENS(!!!) and came out in 2017. were we not better then? did we genuinely think a good female character shits on others for no reason other than jealousy and insecurity? you guys talk shit about twilight and bella being a "mary sue" but at least she was a girl respecter! the ensemble in general just sucks, it's spread too thin and the silly nicknames for the two brothers just made me sigh. i know this isn't for adults, but it truly did not feel endearing, just childish.
the two love interests are the classic brooding and sarcastic older guy and the sweet and protective same aged friend, which is just boring. nothing about them seemed interesting to me, and their chemistry with sophie was nonexistent. the forced moments of jealous banter were also just cringeworthy, nothing new or even plausible.
the plot itself is... something. it starts as a completely nonthreatening book, then i guess they told the author it wasn't going to sell well, so she had to throw in thriller elements that are boring and uninteresting, and then a thriller ending that is boring and uninteresting.
this also might be because of the translation, but the writing itself was pure garbage. why are there constant cliffhanger endings to the chapters? this isn't goosebumps. why is there constant lampshading that convinces me the author shoehorned the thriller aspects after her editor told her to? why is some of the dialogue so forced and unrealistic? who the fuck is pierre? literally who is that? i never went back to check because that's not my fucking job! it's your job to make me remember a character if you're going to make him be in the twist ending! which was ass, by the way. you can tell it's coming from miles away, and i'm not even a big thriller/mystery reader anymore.
tl;dr: too big of an ensemble, characters that are too shallow, writing that is too juvenile and borderline childish, cringeworthy dialogue and interactions. simply put, a waste of a whole month and space in my phone!
but it wasn't red white and royal blue, so it gets a pass for that. it could be worse!

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Go by Kazuki Kaneshiro

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emotional funny informative sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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Babel by R.F. Kuang

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adventurous dark emotional informative reflective tense 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? It's complicated

4.5

i don't have a lot of thoughts right now, i'm a little exhausted because this book does mean a lot to me as just a person in general, and i hadn't felt this attached to characters in a long while. the only real complaint i have is towards the end of the book: the pacing feels off, there's a lot of rushed action and i do wish the book was 100 pages longer if it meant it was as natural feeling as the rest of it. (i suppose the beginning could be read as sped-up too, but i didn't feel like that at all!)
the ending isn't my exact favorite, but i did enjoy a lot of it and the glimpse into victoire's past.
anyway griffin PLEAAAAAASE return my fucking calls 

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Idol, Burning by Rin Usami

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dark informative sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

i think i understand why a lot of people dislike it, or just didn't find it their thing, but i really connected with the themes of loneliness, rejection, inability to be and live like other people and the whole dedicating your entire existence to someone who does not know you (i'm not off the deep end anymore, but i've been there as a preteen). it's just a very light and easy read that, despite that, still managed to weigh heavily on my heart at certain points. it reminded me of the movie "tamako in moratorium" a little, which i really like.
i really enjoyed a lot of the translation, it felt super breezy and fluid (a lot of japanese translations feel extremely stilted and awkward), but i think it should have cut out on the usage of oshi? it didn't bother me a lot, but just enough to be distracting, given how much the word is used (151 times, no joke).

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Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 29%.
this is just genuinely one of the worst books i've read in a long while. i'm happy a lot of you enjoy this for the "fluff" and the "escapism" it brings you, i cannot read this without being reminded the white author is writing from a latino pov, making white people jokes that they've seen on twitter and tumblr, leaving horrid implications as the book goes on, such as the latino character excusing america and its colonial past because "at least" they don't have a monarchy. casey mcquiston's writing is insanely juvenile, making the sex scene (that i skipped to read out of curiosity like a teenager) read like someone who's afraid of sex wrote it—it's all just making out in detail and then being too scared of writing the word cock, or dick, or even penis, and instead using extremely vague language that left me wondering what the fuck they even did, since no one is said to be coming anyway, you just are supposed to know that from the moans and the "implications". they make usage of "tell, don't show" an insane amount of times (seriously, quit telling me alex deals with horrid shit for being half mexican, you never show it happening). they wrote a main character that is so annoying and unlikeable, mostly because this is a white author writing from their pov (genuinely, it sucks, they cannot pull this off), that it genuinely made me stop reading.
it pissed me off that alex didn't know he was bisexual. how do you write 28% of your book in the way you do, with the flirting and etc, and then suddenly give us three whole pages about how he never knew because he was a son of DEMOCRATS so he thought that was normal and he never questioned it, because he's the son of DEMOCRATS.
the overusage of american politics is annoying in and of itself, but when paired up with this fairytale about how democrats are the good ones (they're not, they're fucking centrists), it becomes a headache inducing paradox.
you can have a latino main character, but the president of the united states is a white woman! also the prince has an indian man serving him! that's not weird!!!
tl;dr.: congratulations, you managed to join nightbitch in books that make me violently angry. at least nightbitch was short and wasn't afraid of writing about sex.
Quarto de despejo by Carolina Maria de Jesus

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dark informative fast-paced

4.0

vi alguém aqui a dizer que este livro é importante por ser um documento histórico, não tanto uma obra literária, e concordo plenamente.
é-me um pouco difícil fazer resenha de um livro assim já que é tão pessoal, mais até que uma memória, na minha opinião. uma memória é um livro escrito após o facto, um diário não; vemos a repetição e a dor enquanto ela acontece, não numa lembrança.
também vi alguém a dar 2 estrelas porque a autora é hipócrita, que odeia a favela e os favelados sendo ela mesmo uma — deve ter sido ou falta de contexto ou tradução impessoal, porque não achei nada disso na versão original. não acho que seja hipocrisia, uma vez que as pessoas tratavam-na mal só porque sim, apesar dela os tratar com o mínimo de respeito em primeiras interações.
por isso, fica a 4 estrelas porque sim, é importante, mas sendo algo tão pessoal deixa-me meio desconfortável dar mais ou menos que isso, lol. também porque admito que havia partes em que eu não aguentei e dei umas risadas, como "cala a boca, tuberculosa" e uma das mulheres a dizer que já não se ia suicidar porque d--s a vinha salvar...
enfim, é uma leitura um pouco difícil devido ao facto de ser real, mas ao mesmo tempo lê-se bastante bem e rápido. 

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Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

true to its title, it's a very sweet book. it's kind and cozy, and it feels like a very warm hug, or a gentle breeze in a summer day. with a plot as simple as this, it's easy to dismiss it as "boring", though it's anything but. it's kind of just perfect, and you can tell sukegawa listened to his words and his characters as he was crafting this book. an instant favorite of mine, and i'll have to revist the movie soon.

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