bone_empress's reviews
92 reviews

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Happy Place by Emily Henry

medium-paced

3.5

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism

Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Classism

Minor: Incest and Cultural appropriation

Ableism: there's an adult character that may have a developmental disability. People talk down to him and use disparaging words to describe him, and he is portrayed as being unintelligent. It's also heavily implied that he may have also been emotionally abused in the past and threatened with being institutionalized. The character is not present for most of the book. Bullying and emotional abuse: one character is intentionally hurtful to the narrator, playing upon the narrator's fears and insecurities. The narrator's husband stonewalls her sometimes and the narrator is impacted negatively. Cultural appropriation: Characters dress up in appropriated attire at an event. One is in brown face. Incest: a secondary character had a consensual relationship with a non-immediate family member in the past. Not described in detail. Suicide: a character is theorized to have successfully ended their life and the method is generally described but does not give violent details. Suicidal thoughts (very mild spoiler, no names):

a character tries to convince another character to jump out a window from which they would not survive the fall. No attempt is made.

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

"Red rarely sleeps, but when she does, she lies still, eyes closed in the dark, and lets herself see lapis, taste iris petals and ice, hear a blue jay's shriek. She collects blues and keeps them.

When she is sure no one is watching she rereads the letters she's carved into herself."

This story is achingly and devastatingly gorgeous. The writing is elegant and poignant and at times, startlingly funny. Much of the world feels abstract and complex, and I didn't need to fully understand it to get lost in Red and Blue's story. Love itself is both abstract and complex, and lives between strands- ephemeral and yet transcending time. 

The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated

3.5

Gallant by V.E. Schwab

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Suicide