bashsbooks's reviews
207 reviews

Blood & Nerve by Makari Clove, Pur Durance

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adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-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? No

4.5

Out of the four books in this series, this one was my favorite! Very unusual for a third book to be my fav, but here we are. I really enjoyed tangible fallout from 1) revealing magic to the unsuspecting nonmagical world and 2) the consequences for the specific individual who revealed it (especially because Kian did so unintentionally). It was really nice to see Rosemary unconsciously commit to protecting Kian. I also liked the introduction of Rowan and the development of Connor, and the subsequent banter between the two of them. 
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Things I Should Have Said by Jamie Lynn Spears

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reflective fast-paced

2.0

I only had a middling opinion of Britney Spears' memoir, and I came into the material with a more sympathetic opinion of her than Jamie Lynn. While I believe that Jamie Lynn Spears had struggles unique to being a child actress and the lack of privacy that comes with fame, I don't think she has much to say about this topic that isn't shallow and empty due to her lack of desire to beef with anyone about the truth. And in that vein, she's really catty and vague about things that others (especially her sister and her oldest child's father) have said about her. She undermines her repeated assertions that she doesn't want to get involved in these rumors by being passive aggressive around them. Also, her writing isn't that great; she repeats the same concept with different wording about three times per paragraph on average, meaning this book is actually only a third of its purported length by content.  

I did feel bad about her daughter's accident, though. I'm glad that little girl ended up being okay.
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Sunlight & Bone by Makari Clove, Pur Durance

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

3.5

I love a good urban fantasy with a dash of darkness and mystery. Kian is a charming fellow, and it's easy to like him even though he is objectively kind of an ass. Rosemary is an easy-to-like gal, but sometimes she is a little boring in her sticklierness. The two of them balance each other out well, I think. Also, the magical theories and ImplicationsTM of how magic works in this world after the whole dragons-tooth-warriors and skeleton dinosaurs thing (and honestly, after the microghost diseases) is going to live RENT FREE in my head for a long time. Oh, and the living skeleton is always cool.
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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.25

I buddy-read Braiding Sweetgrass with my dear and beloved friend @emakay... which means I've already commented on it extensively in a private setting. So I will do my best to summarize my thoughts, but apologies if this review reads a little more scattershot than some of my others.

All-in-all, Braiding Sweetgrass is a fantastic personal essay collection about nature, culture, and our interpersonal (person here including nonhumans!) connections. I can understand perfectly why it is so popular and widely recommended. My friend and I listened the audiobook, so we not only appreciated the descriptions as written, but also, Kimmerer's steady and soothing voice as she read through the text she so lovingly crafted. My favorite takeaways from Braiding Sweetgrass were: the obvious and unabashed love Kimmerer has for the natural world, her willingness to combine traditional wisdom and hard science, her gentle encouragement to consider the world from a different perspective (especially that of a plant or an animal), and her fierce love and appreciate for her Potawatomi culture and heritage.  I was also deeply compelled by her rumination on how to become indigenous to place and what obligations we have to others (both human and not). What I liked less was relatively minor by comparison; I thought she was a little uncomfortably committed to gender roles as 'natural' from time to time, and I wished that she came out and actually expanded on her issues with 'technology' rather than taking vague pot-shots at it here and there. Adjacently, my friend pointed out that the anecdote about an ex's attempted suicide in his car to make a point about human disconnectedness with nature was... messy, at best. But those were small moments, and with a book as long and expansive as this one, there were bound to be hangups here and there. Overall, fantastic book, and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook. 
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The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

The Will To Change is an important introduction to the place of men in feminist and gender equity movements. hooks' sympathy for the male experience under patriarchy is critical to the fight against it, as the obvious statement that men suffer under rigid and chaffing expectations and that men need support is a radical one in some supposedly feminist spaces. Additionally, hooks' writing style is very accessible; she expounds on complex topics in plain and straightforward language, which is a breath of fresh air when it comes to reading theory. That said, not all of her ideas still resonate (as this came out in 2004) - specifically, her conceptualization of gender and sexuality is a little too binary for my tastes, but overall, it was a good read, and extremely worthwhile. 
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How the Boogeyman Became a Poet by Tony Keith Jr.

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.
Would've liked this A LOT better as an audiobook. I think this poet's medium is a hard one to process in written form.
Borrasca by C.K. Walker

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

For non-book records, review text and ratings are hidden. Only mood, pace, and content warnings are visible.

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Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust

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informative lighthearted medium-paced

4.5

Stardust's renter-oriented repair guide fills a much-needed niche in the repair guide genre. Her guides and tips are written in easy-to-understand, common language, and the pictures help to illustrate the parts that are difficult to understand in writing. I also think it's pretty comprehensive for a beginner guide to all things home repair, and I appreciate the section that gets into tenants' rights at the end. I also think linking to videos is good, but I have some mixed feelings about putting QR codes in books. Still not sure what I think of that aspect. Anyway, Stardust herself is a really helpful creator, and I hope the trans Handy Ma'am writes more books in this vein!

(Note: I have already tried some of this book's tips, and all of them that I've tried so far work. I've got a couple door repairs and carpet repairs that I still have to do that I am going to use this book as a reference for, so I may update later with more details on how those projects go.)
The Headmaster's List by Melissa de la Cruz

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

2.25

This book really made me both sad and mad because I deeply enjoyed it for a good 80% of the text. I felt like it dealt with the topics of true crime podcasts and PTSD very well. I enjoyed Spencer a lot as a main character, and Ripley the service dog being clutch all the time was great rep. HOWEVER, this book is ultimately a mystery, and nothing irritates me more than when I can't figure out the mystery because the author gets their details confused -
one major plot twist is that Jackson Chen cut the breaks of Ethan's car to steal his spot on the Headmaster's List, but early in the book, it is confirmed that Jackson was already on this damn list (that's why he gets paired to help Spencer), making this clue seeded later in the book distracting and contradictory. De la Cruz is not an indie self-publisher, and I cannot believe her editors missed that. Also, the plot twist of the reckless rich kid actually being good and the guy with the criminal father being bad was not great either.
I'm so disappointed.
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Gods, Wasps and Stranglers: The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees by Mike Shanahan

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.25

Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers is a book of high highs and low lows. The highs were Shanahan's obvious love and respect for his primary subject, the fig tree, and the vivid quality of his sensory descriptions. The lows were the dense scientific language, the underdeveloped point about religious and localized plant wisdom, and the narrator of the audiobook, James Cameron Stewart. Stewart's voice almost turned me off completely - while it's a perfect voice for narrating Animal Planet segments, I found it extremely hard to focus on it without any visual accompaniment. 
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