coolfoolmoon's reviews
313 reviews

The World Began with Yes by Erica Jong

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emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

2.5

Poems are as cheery and chipper as you would expect seeing the title, but not many of them took my breath away. And only like 3 of them had rhymes!

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Judaism: A Very Short Introduction by Norman Solomon

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challenging hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

Indeed a very short introduction. Still for a moment I thought I should be taking notes. So much history I wasn't aware of. I appreciate the neutral perspective because of that.

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Even If It Kills Her by Kate White

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mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

First time I've listened to a book on 3x speed. The writing isn't bad, but I'm just not a fan of crime books. I'm not a fan of true crime in general. The book takes place in about two weeks and yet still feels slow, probably because of descriptions of things like "I get up ready for the day, I brush my hair thinking about who the murderer could be, I get in my car to drive to a person who might be the murderer," and so on. Just not very exciting, but that seems to be all crime books. But I didn't hate the book so I rated higher to account for my bias.

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Mama Black Widow by Iceberg Slim

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challenging dark sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

As fiction my rating would be much lower, but as nonfiction it's like well this is someone's real life story that really happened to them, and it's not like he's a bad storyteller, but if it were fiction it wouldn't be very good. There's no paragraph separations which really would've helped the tone of the stories being told. It's also listed as LGBTQ, but the overwhelming majority of the story is his childhood. That's part of the queer experience too of course but as a Black queer person I would argue this story is more about the struggles of Black life coming out of the South. He even spends a chapter or two denying his queerness. Also, the book is a lot more about his mom as the title shows. But I'm just being nitpicky now.

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Quince by Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner

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funny lighthearted 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? It's complicated

3.0

The writing is a little cringe, but only in the way that it dates the comic. Like, in 10 years people are gonna read it and be like "oh that was written by a millenial between 2015 and 2019." Obviously you can't make everything timeless but you can at least try. And especially with the ending,
it's very much of the time to write "every villain has a story and even the worse villain just needs a friend to be better" which is a great lesson for kids but it shouldn't be the brown girl's job to save the white boy.


Love the art. And it made me giggle here and there.

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Every Day We Get More Illegal by Juan Felipe Herrera

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emotional medium-paced

2.25

Usually in my notes I mark poems that I think are good enough for a reread or that I would add to my collection and I didn't do that for a single one of these, which is part of why the rating is so low. I don't really have anything more to say about that.

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The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

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emotional reflective tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

Ever since this book came out all I've heard is people wahwahwah about the incest when there is a MUCH LARGER, MORE IMPORTANT THEME AND PLOT POINT to the story. AND!!! Emezi says the two books that inspired this one in the acknowledgements!!! They did the work for you and people still didn't get it!!!! You people make me sick. You lack media literacy, reading comprehension, AND critical thinking skills.

Akwaeke Emezi, the person that you are. You've done it yet again. I can't wait to read all their books. They are truly amazing.

In my notes I put Vivek was her grandma reincarnated. The grandma the baby. This may have been intentional but if it's not I'm saying it as fact!

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Stranded: Finding Nature in Uncertain Times by Maddalena Bearzi

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adventurous informative reflective relaxing fast-paced

3.75

Very cool to be a marine biologist AND a good writer. This lady hit the lotto.

I loved the book and all but it's glaring that she didn't mention the Indigenous people of this area. She does mention white settler colonialism ruining / affecting wildlife and urban sprawl, and mentions how animals reclaimed a little bit of what their lives used to be during 2020 lockdowns, but again, NO mention of the Tongva people. Very weird. Treehugging white liberals seem to always miss that. It's also more than just forgetting people were in LA before us, because she does mention what this beautiful Mediterranean-esque landscape used to look like, and then in the end says people need to learn that we cannot be removed from nature, but never mentions the people who already knew that. For a researcher she's missing a huge part of history.

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Watercress by Andrea Wang

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reflective fast-paced

2.75

Great art. Beautiful art.

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Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book was mentioned by one of my film professors in our class about the Hollywood blacklist era and I'm so glad I remembered it. You can see why HUAC hated his ass he was a genius!

The audiobook was performed so well but also the intro from the mom really made me emotional. Then I was like fuck this book is gonna fuck me up too isn't it? And then it did. I didn't cry but you really feel every emotion. A book that can truly be universally understood.

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