criticalgayze's reviews
196 reviews

Dark Days: The Road to Metal by Scott Snyder

adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

3.75

While a really cool work, I think this was a more challenging text for someone who is relatively unseasoned in the art of reading comics arcs. I vibe with the first two entries in this trade edition that are more true prefaces to the series to come, I struggled with fully comprehending all of the works that were appended to fill in some of the inspirational lore of what is to come. I had to do a lot of Google searching, which is completely on me as a novice, but it did have an impact on my reading experience.

How Should One Read a Book? by Virginia Woolf

hopeful inspiring medium-paced

4.0

While I have been counting books that I have read since December 20 as 2025 books, this is the first book that I truly finished in this new year, and I think I’m going to make that a new yearly reading practice.

While there are minor parts of Woolf’s argument here that I don’t necessarily agree with, namely, her request that readers give authors a more generous allowance than I think I will ever completely abide by, this was a sort of beautiful treatise on the joy of reading that I think could provide a meaningful reset to my reading year if made a regular practice.

The Island of Doctor Moreau and Other Stories by H.G. Wells

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.75

This is the second book that I read as a part of my project of pairing Edwin Frank’s Stranger Than Fiction with the 20th century works that he writes about in his book.

On the whole, I don’t have much to say about this book, it was largely void of impact. Reminiscent of the short story The Most Dangerous Game, this book had the same exciting yet problematized nature of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and I’m not completely sure of Frank’s thesis that this book had an impact that Frankenstein did not have decades prior. If anything, Frank’s essay on this book and Wells more broadly has me more interested in the author’s social fiction, which makes him sound like a sort of early 20th century Dickensian writer.

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

Having read and loved Li’s previous book Where Reason Ends a couple of years ago, I downloaded this one from Netgalley impulsively. First, what I did not realize because I requested without reading the synopsis were the ways in which this book were so completely tied to that earlier work in the kind of devastating subject matter that is being undertaken here. Because of the trauma that is being disclosed here, it can feel difficult to critique the book; however, the author is putting this out for consumption as a work to be interacted with. My criticism of the book is that it feels much too soon after the events Li is grappling with. The thesis of the book is that it is the work. She is dedicating this work to the loss of her second child in the way that she created art reflecting on the loss of her first child; however, this work still feels much more tied to the loss of her first child than that of her second. Some of this may be tied to the allowances she gives us about that child’s reticence to be acknowledged, but I can’t help, but feel that some of that is an understandable, temporal inability to completely grapple with her experience.

The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey
Did not finish book. Stopped at 81%.

DNF @ 81% 
I think this book wears as a point of pride that it lacks any kind of complete coherency or cohesion, but the actual impact of this for me as a reader was a book that lacked impact or impression.

The Watermark by Sam Mills
Did not finish book. Stopped at 41%.

The reason for the official DNF was that the formatting in the fourth of the book’s sections (Book Three) was unbearably bad, probably due to issues in formatting with alternating timelines; however, I was finding myself fairly mixed on my enjoyment of the book prior to that, which I think is due to a lack of energy in overlong sections and convoluted nesting.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Did not finish book. Stopped at 26%.

I will admire that I didn’t make it to the actual “On Writing” section; however, for a book I feel is often touted as “the book on writing,” I have been largely underinvested and put off by the tone, similar to my feelings on Writing as a Vocation by Murakami earlier this year 

All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess by Becca Rothfeld
Did not finish book. Stopped at 13%.

While I don’t necessarily mind the acerbic tone, I expected more joy for the subtitle. Also, I found myself more interested in the sources Rothfeld mentioned than in the work itself, and it was a bit irritating that, in a book about excess, she provides no notes or bibliography section.

The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America by Aaron Robertson
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.

Most of this is my fault cuz I didn’t read the description well enough I guess and thought this was gonna be more of a literary/cultural excavation; however, even for what it is, I think this book reads more for academics interested in the concepts Robertson is addressing and does little to draw in unaware audiences (like myself).

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
Did not finish book. Stopped at 29%.

Like if Eleanor Oliphant was the protagonist in Writers & Lovers if Writers & Lovers was written by Miranda July. These are all things I like or love independently, but, blended together, they feel like quirk for the sake of quirk