bisexualwentworth's reviews
752 reviews

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

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

4.5

Excellent look at religious homophobia and the horrors of conversion therapy that centers a character at a surprising point in her relationship to her queerness. Some of the lore didn't quite make sense, but that was okay. I loved how Rose's autism came through in the writing style. It was very friendly to me as an autistic reader. 

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Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

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  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Fun and gay and silly.
So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow

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  • 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

4.5

Really excellent remix of Little Women. I loved almost all of the choices. I just wish it had been longer.

More complete thoughts are in the So Many Beginnings Episode of the It's Super Important! podcast. 
Mooncakes Collector's Edition by Suzanne Walker

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  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Very cute and gay and seasonal. Would recommend.
Mort by Terry Pratchett

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  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Honestly, I get why people recommend Mort as an intro book to the Discworld. Here, for the first time, the world feels fully-fledged. Things are going on that are unrelated to the main characters, the main plot, or anything we have seen before, and at the same time, the elements we've already seen are twining together with the new ones. The world has started to have a true identity with rules and lore and history outside of satire or one-off stories. All of that is excellent.

Unfortunately, I cannot stand Mort. He might be my least favorite Discworld POV character. He annoys and bores me by turn. And the plot of this book is only fine. Fortunately, Death mostly manages to make up for it, and it's still a fun read despite some unfortunate moments of misogyny etc.

Favorite quotes:

  •  "Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten." 
  •  "[Priests are always telling folk how much better it's going to be when they're dead. We tell them it could be pretty good right here if only they'd put their minds to it." 
  •  "Mort had imagined that Death's handwriting would either be gothic or else tombstone angular, but Death had in fact studied a classic work on graphology before selecting a style and had adopted a hand that indicated a balanced, well-adjusted personality." 
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 6%.
Returned to library. Hopefully I'll have the stamina to read the rest of it at some point soon.
See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Violence by Jess Hill

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3.0

Incredibly well-researched, and a lot of the information was useful. Unfortunately, the analytical framework was incredibly lacking, and I felt like the author could have done a much better job of putting the threads together and reaching new conclusions based on them. The very best chapter, Chapter 10, focuses on violence against indigenous women and on the legacy of colonialism in Australia and the United States. If this lens had been extended to the rest of the book, it would have benefitted hugely. Unfortunately, the author just didn't quite go far enough in terms of critiquing the police and discussing white supremacy's role in domestic violence across the board. There was also a lot of weird anti-China bias? Still a useful, if difficult, book that I would recommend to a lot of people. Just lacking in some areas for me.
A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chencia C. Higgins

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

3.0

I wish I’d liked this book more. I LOVED D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding. This one just seemed kind of… incomplete?

What I liked:
  • The characters were fun and vivid.
  • The diversity was great. I was especially thrilled to have an actually butch main character. 
  • The dialogue was snappy.
  • I loved the opening chapter and the lens it lent to Cyn’s character.
  • The discussions about community were really lovely.
  • The sex scenes were many and varied and all of them were enjoyable.
What I didn’t like:
  • We didn’t see anything of the characters’ friendship before they got the hots for each other, and the inciting incident for the mutual attraction felt very random, so I kept asking, why now?
  • SO MUCH TELLING and very little showing of any kind, especially when it came to Jucee and Cyn’s friendship.
  • The drama with Jackie was resolved off page and that was incredibly dissatisfying for me.
  • I have a limit for how much miscommunication I can handle, and this book more than hit it. The leads’ inability to communicate drove me up the wall and made it really hard to root for them.

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Wrath of the Triple Goddess by Rick Riordan

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3.0

It was fine. I had fun. Not much in the way of character development, but there was some for Grover. Also random Sally backstory? That was fun. And lots of wild Hecuba lore. Otherwise just a silly adventure featuring familiar characters and a ton of timeline inconsistencies. Honestly, I would think the book was ghostwritten were it not for the fact that a ghostwriter probably would have kept better track of which characters were alive/had which weapons/etc at this point in the timeline. Or at least would have done some cursory research. Definitely not Rick Riordan's best but I did have fun.