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books_ergo_sum's reviews
759 reviews
Prince of Beasts by Lyonne Riley
adventurous
2.0
I’ve had so many excellent reads from this author. And two kingdoms, a marriage of convenience, a hint of fated mates, pining, plus a hero who was basically a Minotaur (complete with monster dong)—love all that.
But the thing holding this novella back: its single POV + our heroine being a too-boringly-perfect Mary Sue queen lady. Which shouldn’t necessarily = two stars, because the book was fiiine (and two stars is definitely more in the ‘bad’ zone)…
There was just a je ne sais quoi / this book took me four days to read even though it’s 82 pages?? thing. The book was putdownable in the extreme. For me, at least.
But the thing holding this novella back: its single POV + our heroine being a too-boringly-perfect Mary Sue queen lady. Which shouldn’t necessarily = two stars, because the book was fiiine (and two stars is definitely more in the ‘bad’ zone)…
There was just a je ne sais quoi / this book took me four days to read even though it’s 82 pages?? thing. The book was putdownable in the extreme. For me, at least.
Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire by Angela Y. Davis
reflective
4.0
A good introduction to Angela Davis—it gets 4 stars instead of 5 is because it was a transcribed interview and the interviewer didn’t always ask the best questions. But Angela Davis was awesome.
This was all about shifting your thinking about prisons:
✨ Away from the idea that prisons are the place bad people get sent for their crimes—towards the idea that prisons are the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ place we put the people that government institutions are failing, if not actively undermining.
And of course, who wants to use tax dollars for social programs that would decrease crime rates (by materially improving peoples lives)—when we could use those tax dollars to line the pockets of the private corporations that run prisons 🫠
Reading this, you can’t help but be struck with how… correct Angela Davis is. Just in the way she’s able to predict, in 2004, the problems we’d be dealing with in 2024.
✨ Like, the way she argued that homelessness gets targeted by police instead of dealing with housing. Meanwhile, in the past couple years all US states except two have introduced legislation criminalizing homelessness directly in the midst of a housing affordability crisis.
✨ Or, just last week—Baltimore announcing its most expensive state-funded project in history: a prison.
✨ Or, her worry that George W. Bush’s language was destroying political discourse, which seemed both quaint and poignant. Remember when our biggest problem was Bush talking about “evil doers” at the same time as “extraordinary rendition”?
But she’s right, prisoners are the canary in the coal mine. And you can’t do political activism without advocating for society’s first victims. Because,
“… the prison becomes a way of disappearing people in the false hope of disappearing the underlying social problems they represent.”
This was all about shifting your thinking about prisons:
✨ Away from the idea that prisons are the place bad people get sent for their crimes—towards the idea that prisons are the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ place we put the people that government institutions are failing, if not actively undermining.
And of course, who wants to use tax dollars for social programs that would decrease crime rates (by materially improving peoples lives)—when we could use those tax dollars to line the pockets of the private corporations that run prisons 🫠
Reading this, you can’t help but be struck with how… correct Angela Davis is. Just in the way she’s able to predict, in 2004, the problems we’d be dealing with in 2024.
✨ Like, the way she argued that homelessness gets targeted by police instead of dealing with housing. Meanwhile, in the past couple years all US states except two have introduced legislation criminalizing homelessness directly in the midst of a housing affordability crisis.
✨ Or, just last week—Baltimore announcing its most expensive state-funded project in history: a prison.
✨ Or, her worry that George W. Bush’s language was destroying political discourse, which seemed both quaint and poignant. Remember when our biggest problem was Bush talking about “evil doers” at the same time as “extraordinary rendition”?
But she’s right, prisoners are the canary in the coal mine. And you can’t do political activism without advocating for society’s first victims. Because,
“… the prison becomes a way of disappearing people in the false hope of disappearing the underlying social problems they represent.”
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
informative
reflective
5.0
It’s hard to put into words how shocking, chilling, and overwhelming this book was. And how amazing it was.
It was the zoomed-in account of events in Palestine in 1947-1948 (aka ethnic cleansing, aka the Nakba); as told by the meeting minutes, personal diaries, letters, and recorded speeches of the PERPETRATORS THEMSELVES. Oof.
The (openly stated) goal of the paramilitary activity of David Ben-Gurion (later the first Prime Minister of Israel) and his crew in the 1940s was solving the “population problem.” And Pappé demonstrated that they wanted the newly arrived European Jews to make up the majority of the population in the region. The debates weren’t about ‘if’ they should be the majority, it was about how much of a majority they should be, which is why Ben-Gurion said things like, “there can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%,” in 1947 (he wanted it to be 80%). What’s WILD is that, in 1947 Jews were 30% of the population in Palestine (up from 8% in 1917).
And what’s EVEN WILDER is that… mission accomplished? In just a few months, Muslim and Christian Palestinians went from being 70% of the population to 17% (living on 2% of the land).
There are no words for how horrible those few months were. It was death and destruction on a massive scale. Plus the outright looting of the property, bank accounts, and businesses of every Muslim and Christian Palestinian in the region. To the point where it was the exhaustion of the Israeli soldiers (and a dwindling supply of bullets and dynamite) that became the limiting factor.
Pappé completely destroys the classic narrative about 1948 (if it’s acknowledged at all), that 'it was all in self-defense'. But really, these guys told on themselves. The ethnic cleansing was openly acknowledged, even encouraged, because us Eurocentric westerners were still in our Colonialism Era™️ and people didn’t think they were doing anything wrong.
Also, the parts about the national parks particularly wrecked me.
It was the zoomed-in account of events in Palestine in 1947-1948 (aka ethnic cleansing, aka the Nakba); as told by the meeting minutes, personal diaries, letters, and recorded speeches of the PERPETRATORS THEMSELVES. Oof.
The (openly stated) goal of the paramilitary activity of David Ben-Gurion (later the first Prime Minister of Israel) and his crew in the 1940s was solving the “population problem.” And Pappé demonstrated that they wanted the newly arrived European Jews to make up the majority of the population in the region. The debates weren’t about ‘if’ they should be the majority, it was about how much of a majority they should be, which is why Ben-Gurion said things like, “there can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%,” in 1947 (he wanted it to be 80%). What’s WILD is that, in 1947 Jews were 30% of the population in Palestine (up from 8% in 1917).
And what’s EVEN WILDER is that… mission accomplished? In just a few months, Muslim and Christian Palestinians went from being 70% of the population to 17% (living on 2% of the land).
There are no words for how horrible those few months were. It was death and destruction on a massive scale. Plus the outright looting of the property, bank accounts, and businesses of every Muslim and Christian Palestinian in the region. To the point where it was the exhaustion of the Israeli soldiers (and a dwindling supply of bullets and dynamite) that became the limiting factor.
Pappé completely destroys the classic narrative about 1948 (if it’s acknowledged at all), that 'it was all in self-defense'. But really, these guys told on themselves. The ethnic cleansing was openly acknowledged, even encouraged, because us Eurocentric westerners were still in our Colonialism Era™️ and people didn’t think they were doing anything wrong.
Also, the parts about the national parks particularly wrecked me.
Melting the Troll's Heart by Lyonne Riley
adventurous
fast-paced
4.0
I was having a whole The Sound of Music moment, because these are a few of my favourite things:
♥️ MCs who are literally trying to kill each other
♥️ MCs who are getting turned on by how close the other person is getting to actually killing them?
♥️ The switch from trying to kill each other to working together to survive the elements, with all its cave-life and sharing body heat goodness
♥️ So much language barrier
♥️ An anti-war message
♥️ Breeding kink
♥️ Slightly terrifying size difference, human and troll style
So why not five stars? I just wish it had been longer! I felt robbed but also there were some plot things that I wish had been resolved on-page, rather than mentioned in the epilogue.
But I totally recommend it. A great slump buster. I read it in the free ‘My Monster Valentine’ anthology but you can also get it free on its own with the newsletter.
♥️ MCs who are literally trying to kill each other
♥️ MCs who are getting turned on by how close the other person is getting to actually killing them?
♥️ The switch from trying to kill each other to working together to survive the elements, with all its cave-life and sharing body heat goodness
♥️ So much language barrier
♥️ An anti-war message
♥️ Breeding kink
♥️ Slightly terrifying size difference, human and troll style
So why not five stars? I just wish it had been longer! I felt robbed but also there were some plot things that I wish had been resolved on-page, rather than mentioned in the epilogue.
But I totally recommend it. A great slump buster. I read it in the free ‘My Monster Valentine’ anthology but you can also get it free on its own with the newsletter.
Beautiful Wreck by Larissa Brown
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
5.0
Here’s my nomination for best microtrope of all time:
✨ time travel, where the heroine has a specific bit of historical knowledge (in this case, she reconstructed 10th century Norse languages) that lets her go to the past—without the author having to sacrifice on the richness of the setting.
Our heroine (who was actually from the future) time travelled back to a 10th century Icelandic Viking village. Where she fell in love—not just with a virgin Viking guy—with a Viking guy who Had. Never. Been. Touched.
Ohhh baby. I was living. It was super slow burn. And it was fairly fade to black. BUT IT WAS SO EMOTIONAL oh my gawd
This book did so many things right but the biggest one was the way it didn’t shy away from unsettling me with this culture clash. The worldbuilding was top-tier. The culture, the religion, the longhouse setting—I was happy for our heroine. But I was also so scared for our heroine.
It also did this thing, that’s kind of hard to explain… but the book kept making me reflect on scenes. Like, the meaning of scenes wasn’t static. Because as the heroine learned the double meaning of words or the cultural symbolism of gestures (or even flowers), scenes took on whole different meanings. It was really cool.
Also that ending was epic (there’s an HEA, no worries!)
✨ time travel, where the heroine has a specific bit of historical knowledge (in this case, she reconstructed 10th century Norse languages) that lets her go to the past—without the author having to sacrifice on the richness of the setting.
Our heroine (who was actually from the future) time travelled back to a 10th century Icelandic Viking village. Where she fell in love—not just with a virgin Viking guy—with a Viking guy who Had. Never. Been. Touched.
Ohhh baby. I was living. It was super slow burn. And it was fairly fade to black. BUT IT WAS SO EMOTIONAL oh my gawd
This book did so many things right but the biggest one was the way it didn’t shy away from unsettling me with this culture clash. The worldbuilding was top-tier. The culture, the religion, the longhouse setting—I was happy for our heroine. But I was also so scared for our heroine.
It also did this thing, that’s kind of hard to explain… but the book kept making me reflect on scenes. Like, the meaning of scenes wasn’t static. Because as the heroine learned the double meaning of words or the cultural symbolism of gestures (or even flowers), scenes took on whole different meanings. It was really cool.
Also that ending was epic (there’s an HEA, no worries!)
War Is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier by Smedley D. Butler
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I highly recommend this little book—it was just a 40min audiobook.
It’s from 1935, but we need to this information now more than ever. Because yeah, war is 100% a racket.
👉 politicians who’ve been heavily lobbied by corporations decide if a country goes to war (even when the war is massively unpopular with voters), taxes are collected from regular people (even people getting paid peanuts to risk their lives in the war), and those taxes buy war-stuff from the corporations who did the lobbying in the first place.
Such that the US government spent 52 Billion dollars in WWI and corporations selling everything from steel, to food, to boots, to ammunition made up to 1,800% increases in their wartime profits. WHICH IS INSANE.
And there were two things that made this book really special:
▪️ the fact that the author was the most decorated US Marine at the time
▪️ the way that in 1935 corporations hadn’t figured out they needed to hide all these wartime profits—they were just hanging out with their wang out.
And by wang I mean 1930s federal business tax statements 😆
It’s from 1935, but we need to this information now more than ever. Because yeah, war is 100% a racket.
👉 politicians who’ve been heavily lobbied by corporations decide if a country goes to war (even when the war is massively unpopular with voters), taxes are collected from regular people (even people getting paid peanuts to risk their lives in the war), and those taxes buy war-stuff from the corporations who did the lobbying in the first place.
Such that the US government spent 52 Billion dollars in WWI and corporations selling everything from steel, to food, to boots, to ammunition made up to 1,800% increases in their wartime profits. WHICH IS INSANE.
And there were two things that made this book really special:
▪️ the fact that the author was the most decorated US Marine at the time
▪️ the way that in 1935 corporations hadn’t figured out they needed to hide all these wartime profits—they were just hanging out with their wang out.
And by wang I mean 1930s federal business tax statements 😆
The Force of Nonviolence: The Ethical in the Political by Judith Butler
relaxing
5.0
There is nothing more satisfying to me than reading a philosophy book that this accurately explains the messy thoughts I’m trying to grapple with.
And this one was all about explaining: what exactly is happening when something violent happens and my heart screams that it’s wrong but others disagree.
And idk. Butler’s book just blew my mind. Because their argument wasn’t that some people are pacifists and some people are basically Thrasymachus from Plato’s Republic…
The starting premise was that pretty much everyone agrees—violence is wrong. ✨Except in self-defense✨ And it’s this teeny tiny exception that legitimizes all violence. Because of who gets included in that self and what counts as defense.
And the arguments in here were just excellent. So clear, so pointed, so philosophical. We had:
▪️ god-tier critiques of liberal individualism and the “self” we’ve inherited from different European Enlightenment philosophers (I could listen to arguments that the liberal subject is gendered male all day long)
▪️ Freud and Lacan on the death drive and unconscious judgments that we don’t even realize we’re making about self-defense
▪️ Foucault and Fanon on the structures of power that permanently Other certain groups and exclude them from the in-group being defended
And the book had an actual solution! (you know how rare that is in philosophy? 😆) And it was linked to some of my favourite Butler-ideas: their stuff on grievability and equality.
And this one was all about explaining: what exactly is happening when something violent happens and my heart screams that it’s wrong but others disagree.
And idk. Butler’s book just blew my mind. Because their argument wasn’t that some people are pacifists and some people are basically Thrasymachus from Plato’s Republic…
The starting premise was that pretty much everyone agrees—violence is wrong. ✨Except in self-defense✨ And it’s this teeny tiny exception that legitimizes all violence. Because of who gets included in that self and what counts as defense.
And the arguments in here were just excellent. So clear, so pointed, so philosophical. We had:
▪️ god-tier critiques of liberal individualism and the “self” we’ve inherited from different European Enlightenment philosophers (I could listen to arguments that the liberal subject is gendered male all day long)
▪️ Freud and Lacan on the death drive and unconscious judgments that we don’t even realize we’re making about self-defense
▪️ Foucault and Fanon on the structures of power that permanently Other certain groups and exclude them from the in-group being defended
And the book had an actual solution! (you know how rare that is in philosophy? 😆) And it was linked to some of my favourite Butler-ideas: their stuff on grievability and equality.
Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall
emotional
funny
4.0
Fake dating + secret pining? Always slaps.
There were some things about the book that were god-tier:
❤️ I love how intimately and emotionally this author writes MM relationships
❤️ The dialogue in here was genuinely funny
❤️ This audiobook was everything. It was a whole one-man show. I kept looking up if this narrator moonlights as a Peppa Pig voice actor because that Welsh coworker voice? Mr. Rabbit. And that pirate joke voice? Tell me that wasn’t Danny Dog’s absentee father, Captain Dog 😆
It was fade to black, which I personally don’t mind. And it was single POV, which can go either way for me.
But it ended up being the single POV that knocked it down to a four. It was going along fine until, kinda abruptly, the non-POV MC had a bunch of character arc things going on at the end? And I just felt disconnected from it in a way that made the ending drag.
There were some things about the book that were god-tier:
❤️ I love how intimately and emotionally this author writes MM relationships
❤️ The dialogue in here was genuinely funny
❤️ This audiobook was everything. It was a whole one-man show. I kept looking up if this narrator moonlights as a Peppa Pig voice actor because that Welsh coworker voice? Mr. Rabbit. And that pirate joke voice? Tell me that wasn’t Danny Dog’s absentee father, Captain Dog 😆
It was fade to black, which I personally don’t mind. And it was single POV, which can go either way for me.
But it ended up being the single POV that knocked it down to a four. It was going along fine until, kinda abruptly, the non-POV MC had a bunch of character arc things going on at the end? And I just felt disconnected from it in a way that made the ending drag.
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
reflective
5.0
Welcome to my TED talk: Minor Detail is an existential philosophy masterpiece.
This dual timeline book set in occupied Palestine gave me ANXIETY, in the existential sense. I swear this was a The Stranger by Camus retelling—but better. For the following reasons:
First, because the two timelines perfectly described what existential angst is, and what it isn’t. It’s not fear of your own death (a common misconception), existential angst is fear of your own freedom in a world that is Absurd (existentially). And the MC of one timeline had one, the MC of the other timeline had the other.
With this added bit of mind F-ery: the MC who feared their own death but didn’t have existential angst GAVE THE READER EXISTENTIAL ANGST—the world was so Absurd and their choices/freedom so anxiety-inducing that that section read like horror.
Second, the absurdity of the world leapt off the page in a way that existential texts typically struggle with. Existentialism is a child of the way WWI shattered our faith in the Enlightenment project. But despite this foundation, existential novels aren’t typically set in wars or occupations, to their detriment. Not so with this book—the absurdity of its occupied Palestine setting (in 1949 and present day) was perfectly portrayed.
And third, my favourite part, existentialism has an Achilles heel. Or, I should say “had”—because if you’d have asked me before, I would’ve said existentialism is so rooted in Enlightenment philosophy (even though it reacts against it) that it never escapes liberal individualism. Yet now, I think Minor Detail does escape liberal individualism—maybe it was never rooted there in the first place. Because, while a philosopher/writer like Camus’s characters are so individualistic they feel like they have personality disorders, Shibli’s characters feel so human that she must be tapping into a richer ontology of humanity.
The book was excellent, completely recommend. The symbolism alone was so powerful I’ll never smell gasoline or hear thunder the same way again.
This dual timeline book set in occupied Palestine gave me ANXIETY, in the existential sense. I swear this was a The Stranger by Camus retelling—but better. For the following reasons:
First, because the two timelines perfectly described what existential angst is, and what it isn’t. It’s not fear of your own death (a common misconception), existential angst is fear of your own freedom in a world that is Absurd (existentially). And the MC of one timeline had one, the MC of the other timeline had the other.
With this added bit of mind F-ery: the MC who feared their own death but didn’t have existential angst GAVE THE READER EXISTENTIAL ANGST—the world was so Absurd and their choices/freedom so anxiety-inducing that that section read like horror.
Second, the absurdity of the world leapt off the page in a way that existential texts typically struggle with. Existentialism is a child of the way WWI shattered our faith in the Enlightenment project. But despite this foundation, existential novels aren’t typically set in wars or occupations, to their detriment. Not so with this book—the absurdity of its occupied Palestine setting (in 1949 and present day) was perfectly portrayed.
And third, my favourite part, existentialism has an Achilles heel. Or, I should say “had”—because if you’d have asked me before, I would’ve said existentialism is so rooted in Enlightenment philosophy (even though it reacts against it) that it never escapes liberal individualism. Yet now, I think Minor Detail does escape liberal individualism—maybe it was never rooted there in the first place. Because, while a philosopher/writer like Camus’s characters are so individualistic they feel like they have personality disorders, Shibli’s characters feel so human that she must be tapping into a richer ontology of humanity.
The book was excellent, completely recommend. The symbolism alone was so powerful I’ll never smell gasoline or hear thunder the same way again.
When She's Common by Ruby Dixon
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
2.0
A 544 page Risdaverse book? Idk guys.
It was originally written as a serial and… I felt that.
The premise started out so fun. Our human lady wanted a cat, but she got an exiled cat-alien royal instead. Our cat-alien wanted to hide out at a resort with a bevy of servants, but he woke up on Risda and our heroine was definitely not interested in doing what he said. It was all really funny.
But then…
▪️ our hero’s personality wasn’t the most consistent;
▪️ our heroine had no character arc in sight (though her manipulative + chatty personality was fun);
▪️ the romance plot was more ‘we’re married and hot, might as well bang’ than on-page falling in love-y; and
▪️ Risda III is boring. It’s what makes all the novellas in this series comfy as heck, but it made this book feel loonnng.
Ruby Dixon writes campy alien romances like no other. The chapters, taken individually, were so fun. But the overall story is where I struggled. Maybe I should have read this as a serial as the chapters were being released last year.
It was originally written as a serial and… I felt that.
The premise started out so fun. Our human lady wanted a cat, but she got an exiled cat-alien royal instead. Our cat-alien wanted to hide out at a resort with a bevy of servants, but he woke up on Risda and our heroine was definitely not interested in doing what he said. It was all really funny.
But then…
▪️ our hero’s personality wasn’t the most consistent;
▪️ our heroine had no character arc in sight (though her manipulative + chatty personality was fun);
▪️ the romance plot was more ‘we’re married and hot, might as well bang’ than on-page falling in love-y; and
▪️ Risda III is boring. It’s what makes all the novellas in this series comfy as heck, but it made this book feel loonnng.
Ruby Dixon writes campy alien romances like no other. The chapters, taken individually, were so fun. But the overall story is where I struggled. Maybe I should have read this as a serial as the chapters were being released last year.