lupetuple's reviews
1209 reviews

Witch King by Martha Wells

dark funny sad fast-paced

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

2.75

I had a lot of hopes for this book… between the confusing worldbuilding, which only left me more confused by the end of the book, and the lack of closure between most of the characters, Witch King was disappointing on several fronts. I wanted more meaningful character interactions; the pace was too quick to let anything sink in, which was awful for the worldbuilding as well.

Kai was so broken up about Bashasa but by the end, I couldn’t truly sympathize with the situation because nothing explicit was made about their relationship;

the betrayal would’ve hit harder if we had gotten more of a look into what went on between them after the rebellion.

I legit went “That’s it?” with the final line. It’s a shame because so many things intrigue me about this story and the world within it, and I adored the potential in so many of the characters like Tenes, Ziede, and Bashasa, but… it all fell flat. It direly needed a better editor, as well. There’s tons of funny moments but all in all, a disappointment.

Wrinkles in Time by George Smoot, Keay Davidson

funny informative inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.0

Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang

emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Absolutely incredible... Ms. Chang does it again!! She grows so much with every release and I'm dying to read her next work, every time I finish her latest.

From the rhythmical alliteration to uncanny figurative language--her choice of similes especially--her writing absorbed me entirely into the strange world she created that cannot decide on a strict "reality", as the literal becomes figurative and vice versa. Themes of intergenerational trauma, colonialism, and linguistic violence pervade the narrative in a way that I feel Bestiary flirted with but didn't come to fruition as it does here in Organ Meats. Then, of course, the questions around what "love" means and entails, regarding loyalty and (literal) bondage, are constantly asked of Rainie especially.

Speaking of Rainie... the characters are so bizarre, contradictory, and ultimately, desperate; my favorite point of view had to be that of Vivian in the penultimate chapter,

when she reveals that she somehow had the wrong estimation of Rainie, claiming that she "listens to everything". Meanwhile, earlier, Rainie deigns to finally see the world through Anita's perspective, and "listen" to the dogs, who she felt she could never really talk to without Anita.

It's a love story rife with fear, fear of losing oneself by submitting to being loved, and the indignation at being refused and abandoned, leading to violence and possession. There's ghosts, a blur of gods, women, and dogs, clever wordplay and imagery involving all three. Anita's family is a lineage of myth and dreams, while Rainie stubbornly clings to the physical and literal world. Of course, the relationships and events are also cyclical and interwoven throughout.

It's hard to express all my feelings toward this book. Some parts didn't stick the landing, but I always appreciate what Ms. Chang tries to evoke, and as a result, she's the least derivative contemporary author out there. Yes, she employs quite a bit of obscenity, sometimes too crude to be meaningful, but in all that shit, there's ingenuity and fascination. I have to say Organ Meats is now in my list of favorite books of all time and I'm itching to reread it already.

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

This is going to be a personal review but... this book gives meaning to the phrase "Don't die wondering" to me. The language Proulx uses is so intensely evocative; she situates the mood with imagery and dialect so perfectly that I can't help feeling the weight of each character and their passion. It gripped me from start to finish and I felt such overwhelming sadness at the end. Flipping back to the first page after finishing it decimated me--that the last sentence is the same one that Ennis says earlier in the book didn't do me any favors in the "I wanna eviscerate myself" department.

Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

challenging slow-paced

2.25

I've done it. I've read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and what an odyssey it was. I imagine the man loved to hear the sound of his own voice; the second half of the tome is especially repetitive, describing the same circular movements with different terms substituted, meanwhile I sit there wondering where all of these concepts reside and move. It must be a given, considering the final destination is the Spirit--but this is what I am confused about as well; if all is in constant dialectic movement, can there be a claim to a Spirit? It strikes me that Hegel points to the impossibility of a concrete or well-defined entity, concept, what have you... because in light of the idea that everything is composed of moments, can we ever locate anything in space?

His ideas of "universal good", his entire treatise on "morality", are lacking in an investigation of power and where the "status quo" originates. It all smacks of Western chauvinism, particularly his timeline of religions of the East leading finally to the "revealed religion" of Christianity. (Funnily enough, I now see why the Church saw him as a heathen--as he maintains that God and man are the same, essentially.)

Hegel's conviction that everything returns to itself, through its opposite, ran so trite when it eventually reached the domain of science. I know he was gunning so hard for the dignity of philosophy, but when he used concepts like gravity and acceleration as examples in his framework, it was embarrassing.

All is nothing, and thus nothing is in everything. As I read, I couldn't help comparing his ideas to Buddhist concepts, but I think the greatest difference is that Buddhism maintains that there is no "essence" to anything, and adopts a passive attitude toward "truth", that there is no singular "truth"--meanwhile Mr. Hegel is convinced that true Understanding can be reached, that things retain their "selfsameness" even as they go through the dialectic movement. I also rolled my eyes at his valorization of language, that it brings the Spirit into being--which language, if I may ask?

Phenomenology reads too nebulously, sometimes too pompously, to take seriously. I do find utility in a few sections--Lordship and Bondage, of course, and then while I disagreed with his conclusions, my favorite sections had to be Actualization of Self-Consciousness, Individuality Real In and For Itself, and The Ethical Order, because they gave me so much material to chew on regarding my thoughts on "morality" and the encounter with "the Other"--but I have to say, the second half was especially dreadful in how it seemed to flail about trying to locate the Spirit.

I can't say that it's wise to apply Hegelian dialectic to everything. I find it an interesting framework, but I don't think it can be used universally. If nothing else, I feel so much pride in finally conquering this legendary philosophical tome...

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 10 by Ryoko Kui

dark emotional funny sad 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

Delicious in Dungeon, Vol. 9 by Ryoko Kui

dark emotional funny 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

Much love for Izutsumi... she's such a wild card of a character and I love that she was given more depth in this volume. Then there's Kabru and Mithrun, dynamic duo of my heart... In general, this volume ramps up the intrigue and foreboding, particularly a few of the panels which quite possibly gave me nightmares. The feeling of "desire" is manipulated by demons and calls to question the place of "monsters" in this world, especially when Laios fantasizes their essential domestication, in tandem with inevitable issues like poverty that arise as he struggles to rule the dungeon in his dreamscape. I love how Kui draws the winged lion also, with such a look of innocence that it draws even Laios in.

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

adventurous dark emotional sad 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

4.25

What an adventure of a book... I can't say I remember much from Priory of the Orange Tree, though I recall loving it, but this was during my insufferable speed-reading days; A Day of Fallen Night most likely has a lot of throwbacks to Priory that I couldn't pick up on, particularly in the character of

Canthe

.

My favorite aspect of the book had to be the relationships between the characters, particularly between Esbar and Tunuva. They broke me so much, and while fantasy dialogue can strike me as incredibly cheesy, I melted reading their interactions--though I have to say that the most winning words of love were from

Nikeya to Dumai, when she says "I had a dream that you were still a godsinger, and I was your shrine." I wanted to die on the spot. Speaking of this relationship, though, it was the least believable to me, and Nikeya wasn't exactly my favorite character. Their water wedding was still a gorgeous scene. Dumai, herself, however... she was one of my favorite characters.

That said, though I loved the relationships, most of the other characters on their own don't stand out to me. The book has an extremely extensive cast, and suffers for it in terms of a lack of depth. I loved Wulf most in his dynamic with Glorian, Wulf being the weakest of the main characters in my opinion, which is a shame because I adore his backstory, but for some reason, I just didn't care about him as much as I wanted to.

I also don't like that the book ends

with the continuation of monarchy. There's inklings of democracy, in Carmentum, but it's torched to ashes early in the narrative. It strikes me as a fantasy series that doesn't want to let go of fantasy conventions, even when it subverts them with blatant interrogations of and scathing remarks on misogyny.

 I do like the ambiguity of Glorian's epilogue, though, and I do feel like she'd be one to eventually challenge the monarchy, with all her "blasphemous" and "traitorous" actions against it in this book. It's inevitable that she will learn the truth of the lie of the Saint; throughout her narrative, I kept agonizing over her staunch faith that her bloodline kept the Nameless One at bay, even though I adore her character in general. At the same time, I wish she had tossed aside family legacy and asserted her own identity; even at the end, she's proud to be both her mother and father's daughter, saying as much, even when lamenting that the world sees her only as a "womb".

The book also rarely has slow moments to allow the reader to process the events of the previous chapter... so much happens, in every chapter, which is both positive and negative, to me. While it rarely meanders, there's also just so much to absorb and keep track of, and the fact that there are so many characters and places don't help in orienting the reader.

It's ambitious and, while I have a few qualms with it, I had a satisfying time reading this book. I love Samantha Shannon's writing and intricate world-building; she pulls off the mysterious and ominous tones well, my favorite scenes being in the haithwood and those involving the Priory's magic. Esbar and Tuva are also just such a compelling couple, and characters by themselves. I fell in love with them instantly... definitely the standouts of this book.

The Dark by Lemony Snicket

5.0

Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker

funny fast-paced

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

2.25

The incessant pleas to burn the book grew tiresome. The concept of the Demonation, complete with families, eludes me with what little is explained of it. Jakabok can be funny, and his doomed romance with Quitoon was predictably the highlight of the book for me, but he's too one-dimensional for me overall. Barker can write some winning lines and he excels at gruesome details, but the plot was too thin, and not developed well or coherently enough to be satisfying in the end.

What I did love most, aside from the dramatic gay psuedo divorce between Jakabok and Quitoon, was the design of the pages, as if they were written in old parchment and

truly the first printed book. I had seen that twist coming from miles away when the name Gutenberg was first mentioned, by the way. I did think the "Angels and Demons are the same, actually" twist was delivered in too hammy of a way to be impactful also.