ivylovesbirds's reviews
27 reviews

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted relaxing 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? It's complicated

5.0

Great book, but ugh, its exploration of speciesism and sentience fell short when they started casually eating animals. I’ve noticed this in other Becky Chambers books as well: all this wild technology and we’re still killing sentient beings! Why!?
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Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Essential reading for everyone in our society. 
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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? No

5.0

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Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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

5.0

It's illegal to eat animals in this world? Sign me up.
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

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tense 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? Yes

2.5

The “protagonist” has so many insights about existentialism and how it applies to her, other humans, and her pet. She realizes that she is an animal, and that aliens could see humans as animals and exploit them, and that animals experience deep emotion, and yet, the animals that she eats are purely inanimate objects to her that she continues to exploit nonchalantly. She thinks birds and pigs are magical and that animal lives matter in one thought and complains about how the dead bird she’s about to eat has veins in the next. It’s so uncomfortable reading about her cognitive dissonance. I was hoping her obsession with death and suffering would at least lead her to sympathize with non-human animals, but nope. She has to be the most annoying, hateable “protagonist” in any book I’ve ever read and I say this as someone who has struggled with similar mental health issues. This book felt way too millennial to me. 
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Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective 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? No

5.0

Easily one of my favorite books of all time. I cried multiple times and some stories had me on the edge of my seat. 

Could’ve done without the repetitive mentions of characters’ sizes. 
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Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis by Britt Wray

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

Stepping Off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life by Amy Gahran

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

The Great Plant-Based Con: Why eating a plants-only diet won't improve your health or save the planet by Jayne Buxton

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medium-paced

0.25

Packed full of misinformation and junk science, this reads like an industry propaganda piece, or someone’s desperate attempt to justify their blatant inaction in the face of the climate crisis. 
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“We Are Certain of Our Own Insanity”: Antipsychiatry and the Gay Liberation Movement, 1968–1980 by Abram J. Lewis

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fast-paced

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