mcrespo's reviews
27 reviews

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 9 by Gege Akutami

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adventurous emotional funny tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth

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dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

after reading and five star-ing Motherthing, i was so eager to jump into Hogarth's body of work. this one was a little bit of a let down for me unfortunately. i'm still such a lover of Hogarth's writing style, but the plot of this novel is what lost me. the plot seemed like everything and nothing all at once. while Hogarth does bring up some really compelling points -that of which call into question how we value "a woman's work" which Hogarth emphasizes includes both sex work and motherhood- the ending just kind of obscured the message that Hogarth is trying to make. it seemed unclear what Hogarth's overall messaging on gentrification, sex work, and "woman's work" was. in all, this book seemed like a worse version of Ari Aster's Midsommar, and i couldn't help but feel disappointed after coming off the heels of Motherthing, which i very much so recommend. this one is a pass, but i haven't counted Hogarth out just yet. 
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Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

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

4.5

for the love of god, please heed the trigger warnings on this one before going into it. while it was hard to overlook the fatphobia and eating disorder at the beginning of the book, the witty humor and incredible relatability of the main character had me hooked. i loved the way the main character navigated her alienation from the jewish community, her rocky relationship with her mom, her queerness, and the terrible relationship she has with food and eating. all of these themes were so incredibly explored, and the only thing that kept this from being 5 stars was how incredibly fast the ending went. i would have loved 50 more pages of resolution because i yearned for a deep sense of character development, but unfortunately, rachel's character development was far more understated than i had hoped for. had this book just been perhaps a chapter longer, it would have easily been a 5 star read, but it is a book i could not recommend enough (just be sure you are in the right head space to read this, and don't feel bad about not reading a book that is heavily triggering for those with calorie counting, restrictive eating disordered <3). 
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Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

i really loved the way that córdova explored themes of loss and love in this novel. the desperate attempts to cling on to something that is no longer there, and the way that the grieving party and the person that they've projected their grief onto all suffer as a consequence of not being able to let go was really moving and emotional. this book felt less like a horror novel, and more emotional and heavy. unfortunately, i thought that with the narration changes, there were such huge jumps in the novel that felt understated or perhaps not as well fleshed out as i would have liked. overall, i just wanted more from this novel. i craved more character development, more accountability, more communication, and much more healing, and i left not completely satisfied. i just yearned for more, but perhaps the meaning lies in the absence of all of this. i still think that this book is a wonderful pick, but it could have been so much stronger if there was more character development and reflection.  
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A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

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

3.5

despite the main character being insufferably hypocritical, arrogant, smug, and a truly evil white woman down to her core, i thought that this novel so wonderfully described the complexities of feminine rage, love, and female friendships. summers' prose is rich and a sensory delight, however, i found that at times, the descriptions and literary devices summers employed detracted from the storyline. the repetition became tedious, and the descriptions dragged on for paragraphs at a time. i found myself frequently fighting the urge to skip over a large chunk of text that went into great detail on the process of preparing and consuming duck confit or baked alaska. i can appreciate the way that food tied into this novel, and i understand the importance of creating this idiosyncratic description of food to immerse the reader, but at times, it definitely detracted from the real meat of the story. overall, i was happy to have read this, and i loved the way that themes of love and female relationships were explored, even through this really unlikable character. 
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Y/N by Esther Yi

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challenging dark mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

one of the greatest stand outs of this novel is yi's prose. it's sophisticated and decadent. truly, it feels like yi does not waste a single word. the writing itself is beyond excellent. however, i found that this novel dipped so far into the surreal that it became almost too abstract for me to grasp. i won't blame the novel for my lack of understanding, but it definitely is a book that requires you to turn your mind on rather than off. other than that, yi writes a parasocial relationship soooo poignantly, and she offers some incredible insight on the ugly source of these celebrity obsessions. i thought it was such a pleasure to read yi's words, and i think this will be a book i think about a lot and could potentially revisit to get more out of it. 
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A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

while i really enjoyed Reid's ability to world build with a passage or quote at the beginning of each chapter, i found that overall this novel lacked something remarkable to set it apart from any standard fantasy (with a dash of romance) novel. it felt truly that this novel relied on some of the most predictable tropes from both fantasy novels and romance novels (enemies to lovers .... yawn). early on in the novel, the sea and water metaphors seemed overstated and repetitive. in addition to this, all of the points that Reid was making regarding sexism and misogyny in academia were stated forthright rather than implied. it seems that this is a novel that lays out very plainly the plot and main themes, and because of this, it became predictable. i also think that Effy, as a "strong female lead," really does center her male counterpart and love interest far too much. at some points, it seems that Effy only makes it through to be with Preston, and at some points, Effy does seemingly have a lot of grace and empathy for men like Ianto who was violently misogynistic. considering this is a YA novel, it does make sense why the messages and themes of this novel are so blatantly obvious, and at the end of the day, this is such an easy read for anyone just needing a quick fantasy fix. unfortunately, i'm not the target audience for this one (´• ᴗ •̥`✿)
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Come Closer by Sara Gran

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dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

i thought this novella was a really fun, quick read. gran incorporated some of my favorite demon possession horror tropes in this novella, and in doing so, she also probes the topic of love and how far one woman can derail her life in the pursuit of a never-leaving love. i loved the way gran toyed with formatting in this novella, and i thought it was brilliant to have centered this story around an "are you possessed by a demon?" quiz. it was such a strong story with only very minor setbacks, which is that amanda, the main character, uses homophobic language, and has this very weird sexual tension with a german shepherd. the dog storyline in the novella was perhaps the hardest to follow and deduce any meaning from. i found it ill-fitting, underdeveloped, and overall just super weird. the most redeeming aspects of this novella, that make it still a high star book for me, are the poignant final sentences from amanda and the postscript note from the editors. confusing relationship with a dog aside, this book is fantastic for a rainy day where you want to spend 2-3 hours reading a bite sized, captivating horror story.  
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My Husband by Maud Ventura

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

5.0

truly, this novel was such an ode to all the girls who are yearnmaxxing, and not quite sure if it's the person you love but love itself. essentially, this novel is Ventura telling all of the nana komatsu-coded, love sick girls to stop orbiting around men like they're the sun. in this novel, you see just how the main character’s strange worshipper/god-like relationship with her husband chips away at her own well-being and self-identity. she is funny, relatable, deeply flawed, hypocritical, misogynistic, and insufferably privileged in a way some readers can find very annoying. however, Ventura seems to do the most wonderful job rooting us all back to the true issue in the epilogue of this novel. it was amusing, frighteningly relatable, and a good check in for the girls to remember that centering men is the destruction of a woman, and to stop viewing other women as competition. this novel has made me eager to read more of Ventura's work in the future. 
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Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

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

4.0

so irina female raged too close to the sun, and ended up being a
  rapist/murderer
, and unfortunately, no matter how funny she is and how much i relate to her proclivity for pretty men she can boss around, i cannot “support women's rights and wrongs" into liking irina, but she is such a well written character. clark knows how to write a complex female character, and i'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator. clark is funny and witty throughout this novel, however, this book won't be fun unless you are very mindful of the trigger warnings, so keep it cute and check those before you read. this novel also can be definitely insufferable if you can’t get past irina's white woman bullshit loaded with manipulation and forced tears. she's not a likable character, but she sure does go through a lot of the worst parts of the girl experience, and clark does an incredible job touching on important topics such as relationships of abuse, power dynamics differences amongst the sexes, and how social structures shape every aspect of human life down to sexual desire. 
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