charl's reviews
379 reviews

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? N/A

4.75

Loved Station Eleven so went for this and I'm sooo glad. The writing is just as beautiful and the way the stories and timelines blend together is just ** chefs kiss **. Existential anxiety but only towards the end šŸ˜… 
Dancing the Tightrope: New Love Poems by Women by Barbara Burford

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emotional reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.0

I enjoyed this a lot - personal favourites:
Get your body off my mind - Berta Freistadt
Diary of Days for Adjoa - Jackie Kay
To the Woman in the Office - Kim
The Immaculate Conception - Lindsay MacRae
Kite-flying - Kath McKay
To the spider in the crevice behind the toilet door - Janet Sutherland
Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal by Lucy Cooke

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Did not finish book.
I will come back to this one day! Maybe as an audiobook
The Future Future by Adam Thirlwell

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 14%.
I couldn't get along with the writing style and vibes, annoying as I liked the sound of the premise. Maybe I'd understand and appreciate it more in audiobook form???
Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

this book is so beautiful, the writing just flows like a poem or a song and it takes you on such an emotional journey, this will stay with me 
Pod by Laline Paull

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

oh my god this book. it broke my heart but in the most tender way, who would have thought a story about a dolphin would emotionally impact me this much. brilliant and scary story about sea creatures, the climate crisis, but also grief, coming of age, abuse - but oh dear lord I need a comedy after this one.
the r*ping and SA was so fucking brutal to read it made me feel sick poor dolphins šŸ˜­
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Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages by Janina RamĆ­rez

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

Took me a while to get through because it's so densely informative, but the way the author immerses you in the context of each woman is really fun and makes you feel like you're watching a film of it playing out. Women are cool!!!!
The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This was a fun, fast-paced read. I nearly didn't get it from the library because I thought it sounded too similar to Allā€™s Well, however they're totally different. I enjoyed the Gothic vibes of the theatre world but overall I just found it a bit too predictable, the characters a bit too one-dimensional and
there was opportunity to go even weirder with the actor superstitions and creepy shit!
Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Wow. This should be required reading
Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.5

Well worth the read. Interesting reading different peopleā€™s reviews of it too. Definitely not a ā€œthis is how you should feel about this person/artworkā€ book and more of a dissection and exploration of the authorā€™s own feelings and experiences, which wasn't what I was expecting but actually I enjoyed that, the grey areas, the changing feeling and opinions, learning about some horrid people I didn't know about before and then thinking about my own principles - and any discourse on fandom I'm really interested in too so thumbs up for that