its_kievan's reviews
185 reviews

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

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

1.5

It just isn’t a very scary book, and the lacklustre central mystery  isn’t enough to make up for it. It seems like a lot of modern horror books - Hidden Pictures, Mister Magic, The Hollow Places - all follow the same pattern of one-dimensional characters fumbling their way through shoestring plots, littered with (and maybe this is just a me thing) endless brand name dropping. Dear writers, you do not need to specify that a character has a The LEGO Movie(TM) poster on his wall. You can just say poster. I promise it will make your prose better. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on Jason Rekulak here; it might just be because I was really hoping for something better. Then again, he did write a book where the twist is that
a rich liberal family kidnapped a child and forcibly changed their gender
so maybe I’m being too kind. Also the pictures were kinda shit. Anyway, don’t bother with this book. Go read The Only Good Indians instead.

EDIT: After reading some reviews on Goodreads (yes, boo Amazon, but StoryGraph doesn’t let me sort by popularity) it’s looking more and more like the transphobic undertones were on purpose. So I’m happy to announce that not only is this a poorly-written book, it’s also a bigoted one. Good stuff.
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How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century by Frank Dikötter

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informative medium-paced

2.5

While Dikötter clearly knows his history, for a book titled “How to Be a Dictator” there’s surprisingly little information about how exactly these cults of personality were developed. Dikötter’s summaries of each dictator make mention of statues, badges, and propaganda broadcasts, but read more like Wikipedia summaries than in-depth analyses. Crucially, he makes no real effort to compare his subjects to one another or to interrogate how and why they were able to seize and maintain power. Again, the summaries are well-written and well-researched, but they leave you with the impression that dictatorships are a naturally-occurring, cyclical event - like a monsoon season with a higher death toll.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

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

2.5

Even going into The Cruel Prince knowing that it wasn’t my kind of book, the first half draaaagged. Jude is a frustratingly passive character, which makes sense as someone living in a constant state of fear but also doesn’t make for a very compelling story. But when the plot finally kicks in, and Jude starts actually doing things instead of just talking about them, I was genuinely engaged in what was happening. Not enough smut, though (rest in peace ACOTAR).
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Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man by Susan Faludi

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challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

Incredibly confronting in a way that’s unlike any other book I’ve read. A lot of that comes down to Faludi’s careful balancing act, neither demonising male aggression as spontaneous hatred nor excusing it as the inevitable result of a troubled upbringing. Not only that, but she’s brilliant and drawing a massive array of case studies  together into a cohesive whole. Given how time- and space-specific her focus is, the book  itself is almost universally applicable. 20 years after it was published, and half a world away, Stiffed still hit me like a freight train.
Dune by Frank Herbert

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

2.5

For the “greatest science fiction novel of all time” it’s incredibly underwhelming. The pacing is bizarre, dedicating chapters to decorating a new palace then killing off central characters in a single sentence. The characters feel hollow, more archetypes than actual people. While much of this (I assume) is designed to give Dune a very “biblical” feel, there’s a reason people don’t read the Bible for fun. I will say, however, that the ideas - the desert planet, the spice, the glimpses at a larger history - are cool enough to get Herbert some brownie points. Just not cool enough to make me trudge through a sequel.
Mister Magic by Kiersten White

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dark emotional mysterious fast-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? It's complicated

2.5

Reading the afterword, it’s clear that Mister Magic comes from a deeply personal place. White’s experiences with Mormonism involved a lot of trauma and soul-searching, a lot of which she brings to this book. Unfortunately, while it gives the story a lot of emotional weight, it doesn’t disguise a weak plot, underdeveloped characters, and a mystery that is simultaneously over-explained (we get it, people on Reddit love the spooky kids show) and under-explained (no-one will tell Val, or the audience, anything). Ironically, it feels like White’s own success in escaping her abusive religion (which, again, is a very good thing and should be taken completely separately from what I think of her book) has made it much harder for her to portray a version of that religion in fiction. It’s an enjoyable enough book, but for a horror it isn’t very scary, and for a fictionalised version of the author’s own life it feels curiously distant and flat.
A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths by John Barton

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

2.5

Parts One and Two are a fascinating overview of how the Old and New Testaments were created, with an amazing in-depth focus on what was actually happening when they were written and how we know all this. Parts Three and Four are a painfully dry slog through centuries of biblical scholarship that took me more than a month to struggle through. So, to put it lightly, a bit of a mixed bag.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

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mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

it’s like if a vaguely racist live laugh love sign gained sentience and tried to write southern gothic
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The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

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adventurous dark emotional funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Manages to be both a flawless classic fantasy adventure and a genuinely unique and interesting new story but neither of those phrases properly express how much I love this book and how distraught I am that it doesn’t have a sequel. Possibly my favourite book of the year? Also the concept of the goblin wars is sick as hell?? And the worldbuilding feels so insanely organic and unique??? I have been well and truly Buehlmanpilled I fear.
The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett

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

4.0

I’m not proud to admit that I was completely lost for the first half of the book. As much as I love Hammett’s writing it’s borderline incomprehensible - or maybe I’m just not that smart. But then everything clicked and the ending hit at a thousand miles a second. Since the only other Hammett I’ve read is Red Harvest, it was interesting to see how Ned Beaumont spent the whole book trying to protect his friend (I say “friend”, but you could do a great queer analysis of this book). The way Hammett’s clinical prose copes with such a human protagonist (especially compared to the nihilistic Continental Op in Harvest) is fascinating and makes Beaumont the highlight of The Glass Key.
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