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toadlett's reviews
93 reviews
A Restless Truth by Freya Marske
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Loved this so much! the firt in the series set a high bar but this one is maybe betterm it really feels like the writer is stepping into things she loves and writing characters she is excited about. can't wait for the next in the series!
A Spell in the Wild: A Year (and Six Centuries) of Magic by Alice Tarbuck
5.0
I don't know anything about modern witchcraft, but I write about magic a lot in my own work so this seemed an interesting and fun starting point to learn more. It was so much more than that. Tarbuck's brand of witchcraft, her ways of explaining how magic fits into her world and of relating that back to all kinds of areas of history and nature, was fascinating and deeply inolving. I chose to read it a month at a time, over the past year, and each chapter has inspired me one way or another - my copy is now covered in notes - and conversely, reading each chapter encouraged me to do things that expand my own ttempts to connect with nature more deeply. I made rosehip syrup from the scraggly buhes that grow in the part of glasgow where I live. I looked at the little rituals and traditions that mark my year with fresh eyes, and found them more significant, more plugged in to history than I realised. a fantastic book, well worth reading whether or not you consider yourself a witch.
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
dark
emotional
hopeful
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
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
This was so much fun! Kinda chaotic and messy in places - the way you'd expect from a first novel really - but in a way that felt well suited to the story and characters and the high drama mode of storytelling. I'd love to see more in this world, it felt like there was so much more to explore.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Murder, and War
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Confinement, Physical abuse, and Racism
Minor: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture
The Last Children of Tokyo by Yōko Tawada
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
One of the stranger books I've encountered in my exploration of the climate fiction in the library where I work. It is undoubtedly climate fiction - a story about a world where the land is increasingly unlivable, children are born strangely ill, and all the previous norms of day to day life are overturned - but without pulling its punches at all it refuses to languish in hopelessness or doomsaying. Everything is different un many very sad and strange ways, but people carry on as best they can. I find Tawada's device of having the elderly become stronger and more vital, seemingly doomed to immortality while their children wither away, sickly and fragile but peacefully stoic, a powerful note of anger at the injustice of younger people suffering climate disruption they did not cause. That she still portrays the elderly with empathy and nuance shows how good she is at blending the terrible tragedy the book is about with her own humour and feeling for people who did after all have very little choice. Without wanting to spoil the whole book, the way that the elderly keep trying to rely on the young to save the world feels like a vicious and prescient punchline.
Stages of Rot by Linnea Sterte
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
5.0
This book made me angry because it was so beautiful it felt like a personal attack. among the best comics I have read, full of the joy and grace and messiness of biological complexity, a feeling like watching insects crawl through tall grass but if you could see their inner lives, their romances and adventures as well.
The Betrayals by Bridget Collins
aptly titled, i learned the author is a terf like 20 pages from the end and couldn't really find the energy to finish it. :(
Smithers & Wing by Kirsty Hunter, Heather A Palmer
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-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? No
5.0
A really fun and refreshing story, the art is full of atmosphere and feeling (i love how they depict spells and magic) and i hope there's more from these characters to come!
Weather by Jenny Offill
emotional
hopeful
sad
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
woah! It's ben a while since a book sucked me in within a page but the voice and writing style in this was just so instantly involving. It helps that its written in these bite-size chunks that both echo the fragmented thoughts and lives of the protagonist, trying to live their life on so many fronts against so many obstacles, trying to save everyone and never able to do enough to really fix any one problem, and also of the panicky, frenetic/apathetic mode of attention associated with, for example, doomscrolling on social media. basically, it's very easy to devour this book and I got through it within 3 shifts at the library where i work. (which felt v fitting as the protagonist is a librarian!)
This is a book that will reward rereading, it feels like climate fiction for people who don't want to have to be worried about the world ending because they have lives to live, but who are worried nonetheless. It's full of beautifully observed moments of humanity, the characters you see three times for a sentence at a time feel as fully real and empathetic as the main character and her closest family. it feels weird to call a book hopeful when it almost pokes fun at itself for the hope it does offer, but it does find it, over and over, in the fact of people being worth loving, silly bastards as we are.
This is a book that will reward rereading, it feels like climate fiction for people who don't want to have to be worried about the world ending because they have lives to live, but who are worried nonetheless. It's full of beautifully observed moments of humanity, the characters you see three times for a sentence at a time feel as fully real and empathetic as the main character and her closest family. it feels weird to call a book hopeful when it almost pokes fun at itself for the hope it does offer, but it does find it, over and over, in the fact of people being worth loving, silly bastards as we are.
Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
A brilliant fantasy adventure full of big, difficult subjects like colonialism, the value of art, whether violent resistance is justified or effective. The setting, cultures, magic and mythology involved are full of life and Yoon Ha Lee handles them deftly, telling you so much about the world and the characters' relations to it but not crowding you with information. Also there is a talking mechanical dragon and so many queer characters. I loved it so much.