thebakersbooks's reviews
278 reviews

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

adventurous mysterious tense slow-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

All the Dead Lie Down by Kyrie McCauley

emotional hopeful mysterious 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

4.5

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

The Dark We Know by Wen-yi Lee

emotional mysterious reflective slow-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

4.5

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

challenging emotional sad fast-paced

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

4.0

Brutal, but I'm glad I read it and would recommend it with a full list of content warnings. I liked the exploration of male grief around the loss of a child and male emotionality in general, both in short  supply in fiction for characters like Marcos. This book would have felt incomplete without mention of the real-life taking of "human trophies," white European men hunting Black people for sport, so it's good that was included. Same for the way white doctors have always experimented on the disenfranchised, especially people of color. I enjoyed the layered social commentary and hope I can make myself read this again at some point because I suspect stuff went over my head.

Still Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism by Maude Barlow

hopeful informative inspiring

4.0

This book is like a Wikipedia article on activism, and I mean that as a sincere compliment and recommendation. 

Here's what I mean. It provides a helpful framework of history, some specifics that are maybe not relevant to everyone's needs but are close enough to spark interest in new directions, and lots of sources (in this case quotes from other activists) to prompt the expansion of research. It didn't quite provide me with next steps or concrete goals beyond more reading, but it did motivate me to get out there and try harder, and I appreciate the injection of hope on environmentalism particularly.

The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter by Zoë Schiffer

informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

This felt more like low-hanging fruit than incisive reporting, but the topic still deserved coverage and Schiffer got the job done in a way that acknowledged the harms of Musk's takeover, not just the spectacle. I will say that some terms needed to be defined better/at all; my wife works in tech and I was confused in a couple of places despite a passing familiarity with some of the lingo and topics.

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley

slow-paced

2.0

Some things seem off to me about how this was written. Not just some clumsy sentence-level stuff and and least one plot hole. I don't recommend it, or the first book.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

funny informative reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

Honestly, the most brilliant part of this is Kuang laying bare for everyone how the whole machine of publishing is complicit when something bigoted gets through the stages of the process to end up as a printed book on shelves. This must have been so challenging and so fun to write—that's how it is to read, which I mean as high praise. I hope I learned some stuff.