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elerireads's reviews
375 reviews
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Well that was disturbing, and it just got more and more disturbing as it went on. On the whole I think it was very good. Made lots of clever points about the bizarre way people are able to distance themselves from the suffering of animals they eat, and sort of extrapolates that to say 'what if we were still able to do that even with human beings?'. Anyone with any familiarity with the meat industry will recognise the use of strange clinical language - I can never see the word 'processing' now without linking it to animal slaughter - to avoid describing what they're actually doing. I wasn't entirely convinced by the premise and set-up. As in I'm guessing the author came up with this disturbing premise but then really struggled to come up with an explanation for how it came about - the government made up a virus and everyone just believed it??
I don't want to spoil it but the ending was a kicker and I really felt like we had been lulled into a false sense of security.
I don't want to spoil it but the ending was a kicker and I really felt like we had been lulled into a false sense of security.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Cannibalism, Murder, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Excrement, and Death of parent
A Three Dog Problem by S.J. Bennett
mysterious
sad
tense
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? No
2.5
Gah I can't put myself through any more of these I'm afraid. Far too many pompous twatty men taking credit for women's work. I know it's taking the piss out of how shit they are but honestly it's too much to bear. Quite a fun mystery though.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
reflective
slow-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
1.75
Hmm this was vaguely interesting to start with but as it went on it got kind of boring, and the annoying stupid things about the concept became more and more obvious and irritating. So by the end of it, all I could think about was how bad it was.
So first of all I think it's really stupid to suggest you can really experience what another life would be like if you were plonked into it without any of the knowledge that you would actually have in that life.(a) It just makes the experience of trying other lives incredibly stressful. That's where 90% of the tension in this book comes from - trivial stuff like trying to figure out where your house is. It's maybe interesting the first few times but there are so many lives Nora tries out and it felt like Haig was trying to get through every possible variant - "Oh no! I don't know where I work!", "Oh no! I have to give an inspirational speech with no preprepared slides!", "Oh no! I have to sing a song I supposedly wrote, in front of thousands of people!", "Oh no! I'm supposed to be a glaciologist but I know nothing about glaciers!". Seriously we got the point after the first few and it got old really quickly. Just became an annoying gimmick to me. And that stress is not at all representative of what it would be like to live that life with your memories intact! I understand it would be a much duller book without that stuff but honestly I think that just reflects the fact it's a bit of a naff concept. (b) Memories and knowledge make up an enormous part of your lived experience. I would bet that the proportion of our thoughts that are memories is really high. What if something really awful and traumatic had happened to you in the life you picked but you'd never told anyone about it? Or equally maybe you'd had some giant epiphany? The random other version of you would never know. I feel like it kind of does a disservice to the richness of people's inner lives.
Secondly, Nora is a moron. It's only in the final life she tries that it occurs to her that she might not be able to be satisfied with a life she didn't earn. That was the first thing I thought right near the beginning when the concept was explained - you'd always feel like a fraud and wouldn't be able to derive any of the self-esteem boosts that come from your achievements.
Thirdly, the version of Mrs Elm in the midnight library was an incredibly tedious character. She was supposed to be all mysterious and wise (albeit also only some kind of figment of Nora's imagination, so limited as to how wise she could be...), but nothing she ever said was even remotely interesting or valuable. By the second half I was just skipping over all the sections in the library because it was so annoying and not adding anything at all.
Fourthly, none of the characters were well-written. Including Nora. I didn't feel like I actually got to know any of them as people, so I didn't really get that invested in any of them.
Fifthly, a lot of this was just crap self-help psychobabble (badly) disguised as a novel with some plot filled with obvious holes. It was nowhere near as bad, but it did give me flashbacks to 'Ta deuxième vie commence quand tu comprends que tu n'en a qu'une', which I would say is actually the worst book I've ever read.
Random minor gripe: when Nora started to want to live again, it suddenly became a whole issue that if she died in one of the alternative lives she tried then she would actually die. It felt like that was conveniently sort of sidestepped earlier on when she was suicidal. Why didn't she just kill herself in one of the alternative lives? Seemed like a bit of a plothole to me.
Related to that, this book was completely predictable from the outset and (not to be a weird morbid person who's rooting for a main character to kill themselves or anything) I think it would have been a much more interesting book if she'd ended up deciding she still wanted to die. Also probably irresponsible and unpublishable, but still. In quite a few of the earlier lives she was more outwardly 'successful' but still miserable, on antidepressants, etc. And I thought for a second it might be making a point about predisposition towards mental illness mattering more than external circumstances. Not that I would necessarily have agreed, but it would have been a lot bolder and more interesting than the much more pedestrian point it ended up making about conventional ideas of success not being what actually makes people happy.
Finally, despite all the negativity in this review, from the giant essay I've accidentally just written it's clear that this book sparked a lot of thoughts so was interesting from that perspective if nothing else. So I'm still glad I read it. One thing I did like was that each Nora was clearly a different person with different tastes and habits, etc. Regret is, of course, a completely natural human emotion, but I've always felt there was no point dwelling on - and certainly not torturing yourself over - what might have happened if things had turned out differently. Our experiences shape us so much that it's impossible to imagine what your life would have been like because you would have to imagine yourself as a completely different person, which is incredibly difficult to do. You wouldn't necessarily feel the emotions that the true version of yourself would feel if suddenly plonked into that life.
So first of all I think it's really stupid to suggest you can really experience what another life would be like if you were plonked into it without any of the knowledge that you would actually have in that life.(a) It just makes the experience of trying other lives incredibly stressful. That's where 90% of the tension in this book comes from - trivial stuff like trying to figure out where your house is. It's maybe interesting the first few times but there are so many lives Nora tries out and it felt like Haig was trying to get through every possible variant - "Oh no! I don't know where I work!", "Oh no! I have to give an inspirational speech with no preprepared slides!", "Oh no! I have to sing a song I supposedly wrote, in front of thousands of people!", "Oh no! I'm supposed to be a glaciologist but I know nothing about glaciers!". Seriously we got the point after the first few and it got old really quickly. Just became an annoying gimmick to me. And that stress is not at all representative of what it would be like to live that life with your memories intact! I understand it would be a much duller book without that stuff but honestly I think that just reflects the fact it's a bit of a naff concept. (b) Memories and knowledge make up an enormous part of your lived experience. I would bet that the proportion of our thoughts that are memories is really high. What if something really awful and traumatic had happened to you in the life you picked but you'd never told anyone about it? Or equally maybe you'd had some giant epiphany? The random other version of you would never know. I feel like it kind of does a disservice to the richness of people's inner lives.
Secondly, Nora is a moron. It's only in the final life she tries that it occurs to her that she might not be able to be satisfied with a life she didn't earn. That was the first thing I thought right near the beginning when the concept was explained - you'd always feel like a fraud and wouldn't be able to derive any of the self-esteem boosts that come from your achievements.
Thirdly, the version of Mrs Elm in the midnight library was an incredibly tedious character. She was supposed to be all mysterious and wise (albeit also only some kind of figment of Nora's imagination, so limited as to how wise she could be...), but nothing she ever said was even remotely interesting or valuable. By the second half I was just skipping over all the sections in the library because it was so annoying and not adding anything at all.
Fourthly, none of the characters were well-written. Including Nora. I didn't feel like I actually got to know any of them as people, so I didn't really get that invested in any of them.
Fifthly, a lot of this was just crap self-help psychobabble (badly) disguised as a novel with some plot filled with obvious holes. It was nowhere near as bad, but it did give me flashbacks to 'Ta deuxième vie commence quand tu comprends que tu n'en a qu'une', which I would say is actually the worst book I've ever read.
Random minor gripe: when Nora started to want to live again, it suddenly became a whole issue that if she died in one of the alternative lives she tried then she would actually die. It felt like that was conveniently sort of sidestepped earlier on when she was suicidal. Why didn't she just kill herself in one of the alternative lives? Seemed like a bit of a plothole to me.
Related to that, this book was completely predictable from the outset and (not to be a weird morbid person who's rooting for a main character to kill themselves or anything) I think it would have been a much more interesting book if she'd ended up deciding she still wanted to die. Also probably irresponsible and unpublishable, but still. In quite a few of the earlier lives she was more outwardly 'successful' but still miserable, on antidepressants, etc. And I thought for a second it might be making a point about predisposition towards mental illness mattering more than external circumstances. Not that I would necessarily have agreed, but it would have been a lot bolder and more interesting than the much more pedestrian point it ended up making about conventional ideas of success not being what actually makes people happy.
Finally, despite all the negativity in this review, from the giant essay I've accidentally just written it's clear that this book sparked a lot of thoughts so was interesting from that perspective if nothing else. So I'm still glad I read it. One thing I did like was that each Nora was clearly a different person with different tastes and habits, etc. Regret is, of course, a completely natural human emotion, but I've always felt there was no point dwelling on - and certainly not torturing yourself over - what might have happened if things had turned out differently. Our experiences shape us so much that it's impossible to imagine what your life would have been like because you would have to imagine yourself as a completely different person, which is incredibly difficult to do. You wouldn't necessarily feel the emotions that the true version of yourself would feel if suddenly plonked into that life.
Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Strange little book. Not a huge amount plot really but it packed a punch. Managed to achieve an incredibly sinister atmosphere with very straightforward simple language. An unflinching examination of the grotesque brutality of the meat industry in Brazil, both in terms of the cruelty inflicted on the animals and the violence of the lives of the workers.
There was no need for any kind of moralistic pontificating - the author just bluntly lays bare the world as it is and the point makes itself. In fact, I felt that the scene with the students visiting was a little on the trite side compared to the rest of the book, although it was very effective at communicating the absurd hypocrisy of meat eaters accusing people who work in the meat industry of cruelty. That line when he looks at the woman's *leather* shoes was superb.
Edgar was also a phenomenal character. His belief that cows have souls means he's under no illusion that he's anything other than a murderer but knows that the animals will continue to be killed whether or not it's him doing the killing. He sees it as a kind of sacred duty to make their deaths as humane as possible, and to make the sign of the cross on their foreheads first to save their souls.
A deeply uncomfortable read.
How to Be a Normal Person by TJ Klune
funny
lighthearted
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? It's complicated
4.0
Ok my main impression of this book was that TJ Klune must have been high when he wrote it. Many, many thinks were completely ludicrous and it just kept getting weirder. To the point where I just just don't believe Gus could be a real person. But aside from my skepticism, I really enjoyed it and laughed out loud a fair bit whilst reading it. I'm not very good at cringey stuff so there were parts that I sort of had to skip over because it was so unbelievably embarrassing for Gus. But yeah I loved the cast of quirky characters and the story was very sweet and heartwarming.
I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver
emotional
hopeful
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? No
3.0
Sweet and enjoyable - I read it really quickly - but the plot was a bit nothing-ey. I'm sure this will be important to a lot of people because of the representation, and I'm very glad it exists. But honestly I'm wracking my brain for anything specific to say about it in a review and coming up empty which isn't a brilliant sign. I liked that the people with good intentions slipped up on pronouns and stuff occasionally - it felt realistic whereas I have seen sometimes in media where the "good" characters immediately get the hang of it and it just seems more than a little bit unrealistic. Anyway it was a relatively light (apart from that beginning), easy read which was what I needed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Child abuse, Mental illness, and Islamophobia
The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett
funny
lighthearted
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? No
3.5
Enjoyed a lot! Not much to say about it though. It was a light-hearted and silly. Infinitely better than Thursday Murder Club though. Main gripe is that I will never be able to get behind a woman letting a man take credit for her work, even if said woman is the Queen and therefore not exactly in need of any more praise...
Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli
emotional
lighthearted
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? Yes
3.75
This was YA in a way that really felt like YA, meaning at certain points I thought "I am too old to be reading this book", but mostly I really enjoyed it. There were a lot of loveable and well-written characters and I felt a strong connection to the main character (Imogen, obviously). Kind of the main plot is Imogen working out that she's bisexual so there's quite a lot of fairly repetitive inner monologue as she goes back and forth about it in her head. But honestly it was pretty funny the insane knots she tied herself up in to argue that it wasn't real, so mostly those bits didn't get too boring 😂. Interesting in that she wasn't at all homophobic and was super immersed in the queer community, so it was quite an effective illustration of just how difficult it can sometimes be to know yourself, rather than it just being about denial. There was also a lot of internalised biphobia in there - she talks about herself in a way she would never ever talk about someone else and keeps comparing herself to a massive list of bi stereotypes.
The cute little romance was lovely. Well-paced (in terms of the book) and satisfying to read. It did seem a bit bonkers fast in terms of the amount of time that was actually supposed to have passed, but not completely implausible and it's fiction after all 🤷
The plotline with Gretchen was MADDENING. Also pretty well done - started off with the impression of her as a wonderful friend who was really well tuned into how Imogen was feeling. But it slowly becomes apparent that she's actually a gatekeeping, discoursey arsehole. She's not one-dimensional though; we can totally see where it's coming from, but even so, by the end of it I absolutely loathed her and had to keep stopping reading because I needed a break from how awful she was.
Upside Down by N.R. Walker
emotional
informative
lighthearted
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? No
2.75
Ok this was definitely not a good book. One of those where I have a list a mile long of issues I had with it, but actually did enjoy reading despite all that, so decided to be generous with my rating.
Maybe I should start by saying this is mainly a cutesy, fluffy romance. I didn't feel like it was actually aspiring to any great literary heights - it was just telling a fairly simple story in quite straightforward language. So whilst I didn't think it was super well-written, there wasn't anything in the writing style that irritated me. The content however...
Ok so the "asexual support meetings" were by far the worst bits of the whole book. As far as I could tell, they were included for two reasons: (1) as a plot device to get the two protagonists to meet each other properly, and (2) so that the author could insert a bunch of long, preachy, holier-than-thou, "educational" speeches about asexuality and how hard done by asexuals are. I could be wrong, but I couldn't find any indication online that Walker identifies on the ace spectrum at all and I got strong vibes that these scenes were just ways to show off all the research she'd done. The meetings were sort of presented like group therapy sessions for some kind of deep trauma, or like AA meetings or something? Treated with this deep, somber reverence where the person leading the meeting stand up and gives a long impassioned speech (tirade) and other attendees start crying. It was so melodramatic it was kind of hilarious. But it did feel like an irritating misrepresentation. My experience of ace meetups has been that yes ok there's space for emotional DMCs but mostly it's all about connection and building a sense of community through having some fun - drinks, museum trips, karaoke, pub quizzes, etc. and many long earnest conversations about transport trivia 😅.
I also felt like it was a bit on the nose that one of the characters first heard about asexuality from his DOCTOR. Obviously it's entirely plausible, but given the ongoing battle against pathologisation of asexuality, and the fact that in general asexuals have to educate medical professionals rather than the other way round, it just felt a little insensitive and tactless.
For someone who claimed to be really good at googling, it was baffling to me that Jordan didn't try googling asexuality. I'm assuming the only reason he didn't was so the author could engineer the Big Misunderstanding. I also felt that the resolution of that situation was dreadful - it was presented as this sweeping romantic gesture but was actually multiple layers of betrayal of confidence about extremely personal things, first from Merry to Hennessy and then Hennessey talking about it in front of the whole bloody support group. I would have been mortified and furious.
In fact I thought Jordan was generally just a really juvenile character. I'll admit I was actually quite amused by his obsession with the word 'motherfucker' but I'm not sure myself why it didn't irritate the hell out of me. And the whole 'is cereal soup?' bit was so stupid and tedious.
What I did enjoy was the initial relationship development through 5 min conversations on the bus, eavesdropped on by a crowd of nosey but well-meaning busybodies. I would really have liked for all those characters to be fleshed out properly though, rather than just being a funny concept. I also quite enjoyed the twist at the end.
Random side point: when the flatmate is described as a painter I totally interpreted that as meaning an artist and it took me till the last 10% of the book to figure out it meant painter as in a decorator.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
adventurous
mysterious
tense
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
2.75
Ok clearly I enjoyed this a fair bit because it was quite long and I got through it pretty quickly, so I was at least gripped and it was easy reading. But I didn't actually think it was that good and I didn't love it.
Firstly, I found the premise and her curse so incredibly bleak and miserable that I couldn't for the life of me understand why she didn't just give in, surrender and die. Sure I can see defiance keeping you going for a while but motivation for hundreds of years of torture? No way. So fundamentally I just couldn't identify with Addie at all or understand what was really driving her.
Secondly, the premise for Henry being immune to her curse made no sense to me whatsoever. His curse altered the way other people perceived him; it didn't actually alter him. The whole realisation of how depressing it was centred on the fact that people weren't actually seeing him clearly and were just seeing what they wanted to see. So for it to be the reason that he is fundamentally different from everyone else because that's what Addie wants was nonsensical to me.
Thirdly, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is not a symphony.