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daturas's reviews
17 reviews
Sadie by Courtney Summers
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Pedophilia, Grief, and Murder
The child abuse and pedophilia I added into my content warnings is a large part of the main plot, but the actual abuse is only alluded to in flashbacks or briefly in person. You are never witness to it.
Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
first 50 pages or so had trouble holding my attention but once i got going it was impossible to put down. it just keeps getting better and better. what surprised me the most was its beautifully universal & nuanced take on parenthood--the entire book is full of love letters from parents to their children (metaphorically). this book is an instant rec for anyone who loves any kind of horror--there's stuff for just about everyone in here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Suicide, and Murder
Moderate: Alcoholism
spoiler for the answer to the question you will want to know within the first 50 pages or so: yes, the dog does die. no, it is not fun, although it could be worse and it is technically "offscreen". more dogs die later. sorry. the book is still really good.
Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is a book about love.
The whole series tackles love. If you're here, you already know that. Gideon keeps it in its heart's basement, Harrow is a fucked up love letter. Nona looks you in your soul and says "love is the reason" in the simplest, most pure way imaginable. Love is everywhere and it drives everything. Sometimes it leads people home. Sometimes it drives people to make bad decisions, or at least morally questionable ones. Did you know that cows have complex social rituals? Now you do. Did you know that "like" is just "love" that hasn't been invited inside? Now you do. I could go on and on. I still may. It's one in the morning.
I have read this book three times since it came out and I don't think I'll stop reading it. I truly think it's my favorite in the series.
Nona was necessary because she loves you and everyone around her so strongly and fully that it forces you to look at the main theme of the series head on. Her narrative is necessary because it introduces & illustrates the affect the Cohort & John's reign has on everyday people from an unbiased narrator (instead of one who has grown up indoctrinated into it, like Gideon & Harrow).
Nona is a normal girl, except she's not at all. She's six months old and eighteen years old and billions of years old all at once. She's a young girl with a comic friend group who love to poke fun. She's got the one teacher she's become emotionally attached to (that every queer & neurodivergent kid will understand). She loves dogs. She dances in the kitchen with Pyhrra. She loves Cam & Pal. Gideon and Harrow were both great narrators, don't get me wrong. But they were distant--they were both very obviously scifi characters living in a scifi world. Nona brings the reader back down to Earth. She's relatable in a way Gideon and Harrow aren't, and thus she brings another element to the series we didn't know we needed until we had it: familiarity. Nona feels like home. And that's the genius of it, because she literally is home.The reveal throughout the Jod chapters & the end of the book that Nona is Alecto, in Harrow's body, without either character's memory. Oh my god. How beautiful. How stunning to establish this character that says "i love everything and everyone with my whole heart and chest", who cannot read but somehow knows every language, who can look at any living being and tell exactly what they are thinking without hesitation, who points at everyone including herself and thinks "she is beautiful", and say "this is Earth. this is your home. mother earth is a teenage girl." my green thing. my green and sprawling thing. what have they done to you? and, on top of that--the implications that alecto (and by extention nona, who is the same being just with a different memory) is a res. beast....wow. wow. wow. how stunning. how beautiful. how horrifying.)
Many people have been calling this book a filler. I see why--on the surface it does read differently to the other books. There's not as much action and certainly not as much necromancy. But it has its purpose, just like the other two. I encourage everyone to read these books at least two times when I rec them out. Nona the Ninth is no different. The beauty of TazMuir's Locked Tomb is that there's always more than what's on the surface.
Don't even get me started on the other characters. It's literally one in the morning.
Nona loves you. I love Nona. We're all at her birthday party right now. How crazy is that? I'm blowing one of those party popper things. You're throwing confetti. She's blowing out candles.
[if you would like to hear more of my thoughts, feel free to reach out @ amonotropauniflora.tumblr.com!]
The whole series tackles love. If you're here, you already know that. Gideon keeps it in its heart's basement, Harrow is a fucked up love letter. Nona looks you in your soul and says "love is the reason" in the simplest, most pure way imaginable. Love is everywhere and it drives everything. Sometimes it leads people home. Sometimes it drives people to make bad decisions, or at least morally questionable ones. Did you know that cows have complex social rituals? Now you do. Did you know that "like" is just "love" that hasn't been invited inside? Now you do. I could go on and on. I still may. It's one in the morning.
I have read this book three times since it came out and I don't think I'll stop reading it. I truly think it's my favorite in the series.
Nona was necessary because she loves you and everyone around her so strongly and fully that it forces you to look at the main theme of the series head on. Her narrative is necessary because it introduces & illustrates the affect the Cohort & John's reign has on everyday people from an unbiased narrator (instead of one who has grown up indoctrinated into it, like Gideon & Harrow).
Nona is a normal girl, except she's not at all. She's six months old and eighteen years old and billions of years old all at once. She's a young girl with a comic friend group who love to poke fun. She's got the one teacher she's become emotionally attached to (that every queer & neurodivergent kid will understand). She loves dogs. She dances in the kitchen with Pyhrra. She loves Cam & Pal. Gideon and Harrow were both great narrators, don't get me wrong. But they were distant--they were both very obviously scifi characters living in a scifi world. Nona brings the reader back down to Earth. She's relatable in a way Gideon and Harrow aren't, and thus she brings another element to the series we didn't know we needed until we had it: familiarity. Nona feels like home. And that's the genius of it, because she literally is home.
Many people have been calling this book a filler. I see why--on the surface it does read differently to the other books. There's not as much action and certainly not as much necromancy. But it has its purpose, just like the other two. I encourage everyone to read these books at least two times when I rec them out. Nona the Ninth is no different. The beauty of TazMuir's Locked Tomb is that there's always more than what's on the surface.
Don't even get me started on the other characters. It's literally one in the morning.
Nona loves you. I love Nona. We're all at her birthday party right now. How crazy is that? I'm blowing one of those party popper things. You're throwing confetti. She's blowing out candles.
[if you would like to hear more of my thoughts, feel free to reach out @ amonotropauniflora.tumblr.com!]
These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
4.5
Oh man. Gay boys killing. Can't go wrong with that.
I'm a gentile (not Jewish, hope I'm using that word right?) so I'm not qualified to speak on the Jewish representation in the book. Nothing immediately stood out to me or gave me any red flags.
This book was a gut punch every time I picked it up. The lead character is deeply full of self-loathing in such a beautiful way. The book is written gorgeously--I annotated it and it's full to the brim of highlights. You know from the beginning how the book is going to end, or at least you think you do; it's the "how do we get here?" that hooks you, and the "where do we go next?" once it happens that keeps you held at knifepoint. Paul is a fascinating main character because he's so unreliable but so sure of himself that upon first glance you trust his narration without a second thought. Julian is seemingly full of contradictions and nearly impossible to get a clear read on for most of the book because of how unreliable Paul's narration is--that's part of the intrigue.
I was on the edge of my seat this whole read. I had the time of my life every time I had to pick it up, but I did have to balance it with a lighter book for my own sake. The only thing making this a 4.5 instead of a 5 is that sometimes Paul's self-doubt & self-loathing got to be overwhelming--for some readers it may be too much. I promise you, it's worth it to power through. Distance yourself and you will be just fine.
Thank you to Julien for reccing this book to me and changing my brain chemistry as a result. <3
I'm a gentile (not Jewish, hope I'm using that word right?) so I'm not qualified to speak on the Jewish representation in the book. Nothing immediately stood out to me or gave me any red flags.
This book was a gut punch every time I picked it up. The lead character is deeply full of self-loathing in such a beautiful way. The book is written gorgeously--I annotated it and it's full to the brim of highlights. You know from the beginning how the book is going to end, or at least you think you do; it's the "how do we get here?" that hooks you, and the "where do we go next?" once it happens that keeps you held at knifepoint. Paul is a fascinating main character because he's so unreliable but so sure of himself that upon first glance you trust his narration without a second thought. Julian is seemingly full of contradictions and nearly impossible to get a clear read on for most of the book because of how unreliable Paul's narration is--that's part of the intrigue.
I was on the edge of my seat this whole read. I had the time of my life every time I had to pick it up, but I did have to balance it with a lighter book for my own sake. The only thing making this a 4.5 instead of a 5 is that sometimes Paul's self-doubt & self-loathing got to be overwhelming--for some readers it may be too much. I promise you, it's worth it to power through. Distance yourself and you will be just fine.
Thank you to Julien for reccing this book to me and changing my brain chemistry as a result. <3
The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Baru, my beloved. Five stars because I've been sitting here trying to come up with a single thing I would change. I cannot find one.
Oh no, the consequences of my own actions......
First, as a heads up: there is less talk of graphic colonialism & the "cleanliness" rituals of the first book. It's definitely still there, don't get me wrong. The characters just spend most of the book away from the mainland so it's more of a constant background thing than something we actually have to witness. Still monitor your own mental health and safety when you read it.
Baru has to deal with the loss of the one she loves the most and prove herself to the people she trusts the least. We're introduced to a new cast of wonderfully terrible characters. Dickinson is a master at creating a truly morally grey character, and he finds new and exciting ways to do it over and over again. Every character he introduces has their own agenda. They all have sympathies and they all have points-of-no-return. When reading Baru, I find it easiest to get rid of the urge to pick who you're rooting for and just let things fall as they may. Everyone is entertaining and diverse in the most real sense--each character is different from the one standing next to them by leagues. It's actually a bit incredible, and definitely one of my favorite parts about reading the Masquerade series. I'd love to have a chat with him sometime to learn how he does it.
It's less like "there are no villains because everyone has reasons" and much more "everyone is a villain except for Tau-Indi, who has never done anything wrong in their entire life. peace and love". The characters sometimes will excuse their actions, and Baru is no exception, but the narrative itself never does.
That being said, I'm rooting for Tau-Indi.
No spoilers. I'm so excited to see where the third books picks up.
Oh no, the consequences of my own actions......
First, as a heads up: there is less talk of graphic colonialism & the "cleanliness" rituals of the first book. It's definitely still there, don't get me wrong. The characters just spend most of the book away from the mainland so it's more of a constant background thing than something we actually have to witness. Still monitor your own mental health and safety when you read it.
Baru has to deal with the loss of the one she loves the most and prove herself to the people she trusts the least. We're introduced to a new cast of wonderfully terrible characters. Dickinson is a master at creating a truly morally grey character, and he finds new and exciting ways to do it over and over again. Every character he introduces has their own agenda. They all have sympathies and they all have points-of-no-return. When reading Baru, I find it easiest to get rid of the urge to pick who you're rooting for and just let things fall as they may. Everyone is entertaining and diverse in the most real sense--each character is different from the one standing next to them by leagues. It's actually a bit incredible, and definitely one of my favorite parts about reading the Masquerade series. I'd love to have a chat with him sometime to learn how he does it.
It's less like "there are no villains because everyone has reasons" and much more "everyone is a villain except for Tau-Indi, who has never done anything wrong in their entire life. peace and love". The characters sometimes will excuse their actions, and Baru is no exception, but the narrative itself never does.
That being said, I'm rooting for Tau-Indi.
No spoilers. I'm so excited to see where the third books picks up.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Racism, Lesbophobia, and Colonisation
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
4.0
I picked up this book on a whim and it's ended up being one of my favorites, aesthetics-wise. I read it cover-to-cover and finished it in a little over four hours. I've already bought the second book and I'm so excited to read it! I would consider Annihilation to be a gothic novel; even though it doesn't have your standard "haunted house" most gothics have it's got just about everything else. Area X is beautiful and fascinating in the same way you watch a time lapse of fungi decomposing a body. It's horrifying and beautiful. That's truly the best way to describe it.
The characters are far more of a plot device than anything else as far as I'm concerned--they're used primarily as avatars for the reader, to help them explore this completely wild world. Our main character is the most fleshed out, but even she felt pretty two-dimensional to me (I still love her though!). Without spoilers, she was given a sort-of flashback B-plot that didn't really add much to the main story. Her motivations and mindsets don't really change much from the beginning to the end--she's just reacting to different stimuli at the end than she was at the beginning. I'm a reader that typically prefers character-driven books, so I was expecting the (imo) weaker characterization to be a lot more bothersome than it actually was. It's also possible that the characterization (or lack thereof) was actually intentional, now that I think about it. All four characters were only referred to by their occupations and not allowed to share any personal details about themselves, which I actually found really interesting--unfortunately we didn't get much of a chance to see how that affected them or their relationships with one another. I think my characterization thoughts will be more set in stone once I read the next book.
Like I said, I still had a blast reading this book cover-to-cover. Don't let my only qualm deter you from picking this up. You will read it, you will enjoy it, you will go to your nearest local bookstore and buy the next book, and you will google "how to become a biologist" as soon as you get home. Have fun. You'll come out changed, if you come out at all. If you even want to come out.
The characters are far more of a plot device than anything else as far as I'm concerned--they're used primarily as avatars for the reader, to help them explore this completely wild world. Our main character is the most fleshed out, but even she felt pretty two-dimensional to me (I still love her though!). Without spoilers, she was given a sort-of flashback B-plot that didn't really add much to the main story. Her motivations and mindsets don't really change much from the beginning to the end--she's just reacting to different stimuli at the end than she was at the beginning. I'm a reader that typically prefers character-driven books, so I was expecting the (imo) weaker characterization to be a lot more bothersome than it actually was. It's also possible that the characterization (or lack thereof) was actually intentional, now that I think about it. All four characters were only referred to by their occupations and not allowed to share any personal details about themselves, which I actually found really interesting--unfortunately we didn't get much of a chance to see how that affected them or their relationships with one another. I think my characterization thoughts will be more set in stone once I read the next book.
Like I said, I still had a blast reading this book cover-to-cover. Don't let my only qualm deter you from picking this up. You will read it, you will enjoy it, you will go to your nearest local bookstore and buy the next book, and you will google "how to become a biologist" as soon as you get home. Have fun. You'll come out changed, if you come out at all. If you even want to come out.