lauraglovestoread's reviews
419 reviews
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Murder, Violence, Misogyny, Gore, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Cannibalism, Torture, and Sexual assault
5.0
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
"Seven of Infinities" follows Vân, a tutor with a secret that would cost her her job, and The Wild Orchid In The Sunless Woods, a mindship who isn't who she appears to be. When Uyên, the young woman Vân tutors, receives a mysterious visitor who promptly dies on her floor, the characters must investigate to find out who might be targetting one or more of them and why.
I really like the Xuya universe as a setting. I liked the character development in this story, which felt thorough despite the novella's short length. What didn't work for me was the romance, which felt very abrupt.
Moderate: Murder and Death
Minor: Gore
5.0
Absolutely fantastic. In this wide ranging, ambitious book, "the Davids" pick apart deep seated presumptions underlying much of anthropology and history and demonstrate that not only are these assumptions not aligned with facts, but that they are rooted in ideological commitments that refuse to allow the possibility that ancient ways of organizing societies were the result of deliberation and decision-making. Dismantling assumptions like 'cities that are complex need hierarchies' and 'social development is determined by technology,' the Davids discuss examples of early societies from all over the world as experimenting with how best to live and organize themselves and ask how it is that unlike our ancestors, many of whom lived in societies that oscillated between different political systems seasonally, many of us can barely even imagine alternate forms of social, political, and economic life.
Minor: Confinement, Xenophobia, Sexism, War, Antisemitism, Slavery, Torture, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, and Murder
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Xenophobia, Gun violence, Sexism, and Religious bigotry
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
This collection of short stories is best read after (re)watching Dirty Computer, as the text is set in the world of Dirty Computer and includes the characters therein. I appreciate this collection as a hopeful visioning, in many cases focused on the carving out of utopian, pleasurable spaces amidst struggles for liberation from totalitarianism. I like the inclusion of a short essay and some discussion questions at the end of the book, well suited to a book club. With each short story featuring a different co-author, I did find the collection read a bit unevenly, with some stories more compelling than others. The book is best at its most subtle; in a few instances, the analysis felt a bit heavy. Monáe is tremendously talented and I'm not at all surprised her first work of written fiction is solid; I'll happily pick up her next one.
Graphic: Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, and Transphobia
Moderate: Gaslighting, Forced institutionalization, and Police brutality
Did not finish book. Stopped at 49%.
3.0
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
This novel does a lot of things that I love: multiple timelines used effectively, political intrigue that isn't predictable, wonderful relationship dynamics between characters. It is worth noting that this is not entry-level fantasy - Wells throws the reader into the world with a list of characters and not much else to go on, and the reader must navigate a ton of new terminology (for peoples, organizations, forms of magic, etc.) without any real guidance. The benefit of this is that there is zero 'info-dumping' here. The drawback, I think, is that it can feel a bit hard to get into at the beginning. It's worth it: when it comes together, it's wonderful.
While not the focus of the book, there are ways that gender is addressed that are worth paying attention to -- demons (at least all the ones we meet throughout the book) seem to have fixed gender identities (Kaiisteron is unambiguously 'he' throughout) but may of course occupy any and all kinds of bodies, and the different cultures in this fantasy world do (or don't) distinguish gender in different ways (ex. sometimes dress is a distinguishing factor, sometimes it isn't).
This novel is, as I understand it, written as a standalone and it absolutely works as one: it is self-contained. I will say, though, that given the depth of this world-building, I'd love to see more works by Wells set in this series, whether with this same cast of characters or otherwise.
Content warnings: violence, murder, death, injury detail, war, colonization, forcible confinement, blood, torture
Graphic: Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Violence, War, Murder, Blood, and Torture
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
Content warnings: blood, gore, violence, death, murder, gun violence, body horror, grief, sexual assault (off page / clearly implied but not detailed)
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Gun violence, Violence, Body horror, Blood, and Gore
Minor: Sexual assault