le_lobey's reviews
344 reviews

Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

A beautiful nightmare. I found Khaw’s word choice a lot less distracting in this than in Nothing But Blackened Teeth. The rich descriptions built towards the Mermaid’s character and the overall project of juxtaposing the brutality of the story and beauty of the language.

I don’t think I’ve encountered this many new words in a while!

Bathyal -- a scientific term for the preabyssal zone of the sea, but in this context it was really like chthonic, but ocean
Sapidity -- having a good or pleasant taste
Exuviate -- to shed or molt, as a skin
Inimicality -- being hostile or unfriendly
Intaglioed -- artfully engraved
Vellicating -- touching softly to induce chills or tickling
Tunica -- organ mucus sheath
Paillette -- dangling shiny on clothing

Content Warnings

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A lovely story about art and artists — interesting to read after the rise of large language modeling tools like chatgpt. Hoid's narration was much more developed in this than Tress!

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I was more receptive to the feverish weirdness of this on my second read. I appreciated how well Pynchon wrote Oedipa as a woman navigating a world that seems intent on convincing her of her own insanity. Despite being a sealed labyrinth of historical and interpretive puzzles, I was moved by the characters' need for connection and desperate struggles against feeling and being isolated. The images of Oedipa crying at the Remedios Varo painting, and of imagining an old man's dirty mattress going up in flames like a "memory bank to a computer of the lost" will stick with me.

Content Warnings

The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories by Kamila Shamsie, Neil Gaiman, Jared Shurin, K.J. Parker, E.J. Swift, Mahvesh Murad, Kuzhali Manickavel, Kirsty Logan, Catherine King, Amal El-Mohtar, James Smythe, Claire North

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medium-paced

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

3.75

The Magnus Archives: Season 5 by Jonathan Sims, Alexander J. Newall

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced