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meadhbh's reviews
196 reviews
The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
4.0
Ji-won's life is slowly falling apart. Her father has left, she doesn't have any friends, and she's started to have these weird dreams about eyes...
Part revenge fantasy, part body horror, part racism-sexism intersectional tale, The Eyes Are The Best Part was a highly compelling read. The descriptions are visceral and evocative, from the descriptions of eyes popping between teeth to the skin-crawling fetishization Ji-won experiences.
Stay away if you're squeamish!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Part revenge fantasy, part body horror, part racism-sexism intersectional tale, The Eyes Are The Best Part was a highly compelling read. The descriptions are visceral and evocative, from the descriptions of eyes popping between teeth to the skin-crawling fetishization Ji-won experiences.
Stay away if you're squeamish!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
3.5
A little slow to start, and then almost rushed at the end, but a whole lot of fun in between
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell
2.5
This was fine, and maybe it's a factor of this book having been out for a while, but I didn't feel like it taught me a ton I didn't already know. It felt a bit pop sciencey tbh. Also, the suggestion that people didn't like Margaret Thatcher or Theresa May because they were women who spoke like men is bizarre.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
5.0
This made me feel a shivery sense of anxiety and tension that is so, so fun. Truly, barely a moment to relax throughout the whole thing.
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
5.0
Love the unreliable narrator, the self-justification, the insight into the publishing industry. Excellent
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
2.0
You can really tell Paolini was a fantasy writer first by the names used in this. The superweapon is called the Staff of Blue, and the alien lifeform refers to itself as the Soft Blade? Sure thing, buddy.
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
4.5
Lauren is happily single. That is, until she returns home one night, to her husband Michael. All evidence points to the fact that she's always been married to him, in fact, from the lock screen on her phone to her friends' memories of them.
Lauren thinks she's going crazy, or maybe someone is playing a prank on her, until Michael goes into the attic and after a flash of light, another husband appears in his place. In fact, every time a husband goes into the attic, a new one appears, and the world rewrites itself around the fact that of their marriage. But with the ability to change husbands and rewrite her life as easily as changing a lightbulb, Lauren must decide which life - and which husband - is the one she wants.
I adored this book. Fast-paced and funny with heart, I read it in two days. Each new situation Lauren finds herself faced with is intriguing, and I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next. At times tense, sad, and thought-provoking, this is so much more than the light-hearted romance I took it for at first.
I would recommend this for anyone looking for a compelling and engaging read that explores the idea of lives not taken, and the different ways we can fall in love.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Lauren thinks she's going crazy, or maybe someone is playing a prank on her, until Michael goes into the attic and after a flash of light, another husband appears in his place. In fact, every time a husband goes into the attic, a new one appears, and the world rewrites itself around the fact that of their marriage. But with the ability to change husbands and rewrite her life as easily as changing a lightbulb, Lauren must decide which life - and which husband - is the one she wants.
I adored this book. Fast-paced and funny with heart, I read it in two days. Each new situation Lauren finds herself faced with is intriguing, and I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next. At times tense, sad, and thought-provoking, this is so much more than the light-hearted romance I took it for at first.
I would recommend this for anyone looking for a compelling and engaging read that explores the idea of lives not taken, and the different ways we can fall in love.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
5.0
Too often, reflective sci-fi like this has an unsatisfying ending. Wilder Girls, To Be Taught If Fortunate, The Immortal King Rao, Everything You Ever Wanted - these books are all great, but none of them quite managed to stick the landing for me.
Station Eleven does not fall into this trap. Across multiple decades and a global, world-ending pandemic, the lives of the book's cast of characters intersect in many different ways. All of it is connected to the incident right at the start of the book, the same day the pandemic comes to the US, when famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage.
This book came out in 2014. It's hard to say exactly how living through an actual global pandemic affected my reaction to this book, but I'm sure it did. Combined with the onset of sudden awareness of my own mortality that comes with being in your mid twenties, I think this was also the perfect time for me personally to read this book, and I will be thinking about it for a very long time.
Station Eleven does not fall into this trap. Across multiple decades and a global, world-ending pandemic, the lives of the book's cast of characters intersect in many different ways. All of it is connected to the incident right at the start of the book, the same day the pandemic comes to the US, when famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage.
This book came out in 2014. It's hard to say exactly how living through an actual global pandemic affected my reaction to this book, but I'm sure it did. Combined with the onset of sudden awareness of my own mortality that comes with being in your mid twenties, I think this was also the perfect time for me personally to read this book, and I will be thinking about it for a very long time.