saholst's reviews
93 reviews

A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

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

4.5

A joyful immersive fantasy that lets you believe in people. Everytime that in Game of Thrones something would have gone terribly, this book lets you maintain hope. It felt healing to read.

I like that it’s huge, but the plot was a little roller-coastery. A lot happened and all of the characters made that feel more disjointed. I do not feel like the resolution really stuck due to this.
Mossback: Ecology, Emancipation, and Foraging for Hope in Painful Places by David Michael Pritchett

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

5.0

David Pritchett is a humble and insightful guide in this gem of a collection of essays about becoming part of our places.

Populated by birds, coyotes, worms, metal-and-plastic-eating bacteria, these essays illuminate and entice living in erotic relationship to our watersheds.

I savored this book and will be returning to it again and again.
Lifeform by Jenny Slate

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funny inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

5.0

Woodsqueer: Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life by Gretchen Legler

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hopeful informative lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

5.0

The last chapter on tenderness is a special gem.
Sandwich by Catherine Newman

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

5.0

I made the mistake of looking at some reviews online when I started this book that had some strong things to say about the personality of the main character and how hard she was experiencing menopause and how possessive she was of her kids.

The whole time I was reading it, and loving it, I was thinking of those people and trying to understand how they missed that this book is about trauma.

This book is an excellent study of one person’s experience with motherhood, feeling emotionally alone and chronically misunderstood in her emotional experience, which was compounded by her experiences of pregnancy loss. The fact that people can read this book and their main takeaway was to be annoyed with her is a pretty direct mirror to how we treat people holding trauma similarly in our lives. And I think that needs to be examined.

I loved this book. I loved the aliveness of the characters. The modeling of a really open family and the good and the bad that comes with that. I felt really seen by certain passages. Overall, it’s another triumph from this author.
Loving Corrections by adrienne maree brown

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challenging hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

It is curious and amazing to me how many times the shift that this book is advocating for has arisen in conversation withe the people that flock nearest to me. I had recommended it many times and this is proof to me that amb has found a pulse of where we are collectively once again.

Amb is offering us her best thinking and feeling, helping us to once again find ourselves fortified and loving in how we go about making a better world.
Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

Alexis Pauline Gumbs rearranges my brain in ways that let in more light.

This book is stunning. Gumbs holds Lorde as a full person, holding her writing, dreams, and desires with equal credence as the facts of her life. The result is prismatic and activating: I want a world where all lives are held with such care.

This book is challenging in the ways that it needs to be and hugely inspiring. I am left desiring the kind of long-form friendships and thought and action partners that Audre cultivated, ready to live my own life of meaning, with nearly trembling gratitude that Audre left her footsteps, typewriter impressions, and penmarks as guideposts.
Heartstopper Volume 3 by Alice Oseman

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emotional lighthearted relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Heartstopper Volume 2 by Alice Oseman

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

5.0