literarybear's reviews
438 reviews

The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt

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

3.75

I had never read DeWitt before, but this was an unexpected little gem. It’s literary, stabs playfully at the publishing industry, and requires a some reflection. I wouldn’t recommend it broadly, but found that reading these concise pages was fun intellectual engagement.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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? Yes

4.25

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

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emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The Unwritten Book: An Investigation by Samantha Hunt

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.25

By most measures this book shouldn’t work, and yet I quickly found myself drawn into its near-desperate investigations. The author finds chapters from her father‘s Unwritten Book after his death and so she begins outlining  life, death, and all the threads in between. The fixation with finding clues and meaning in the margins will likely put off a lot of readers but it felt familiar to me, as someone who’s experienced profound loss. There is something that ignites in your brain with loss, trying to make sense of the unfathomable absence. Although at times manic, I feel like Hunt captures that fractured infatuation well in this text.  
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

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adventurous tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

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

3.25

Orbital provides a stream-of-consciousness dive into space exploration and what it is to be human. There are staggeringly beautiful sentences in this book, but I didn’t love it collectively. I found the use of iteration growing wearisome by the halfway point. I wish the meditations could have been anchored in a tiny bit more story or development of the astronauts. I almost wish this were converted into a book of poetry.
A Fellowship of Games & Fables by J. Penner

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emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing 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? Yes

3.5

How to Fight Book Bans and Censorship by Book Riot

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challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

4.5

Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman by Patrick Hutchison

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adventurous funny lighthearted reflective slow-paced

3.25

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

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

4.0

Private Rites is an in-depth character study, wrapped in speculative climate fiction with a slow, simmering disquiet permeating throughout. In typical Armfield style, the prose is beautifully bleak and focuses more on interpersonal relationships than an action-filled plot. Private Rites feels like a much slower burn than Our Wives Under the Sea, but the pace mirrors the creep of a seemingly inevitable climate collapse that haunts the background of the novel. The portrayal of societal resignation in the face of unending rain parallels the emotions I think a lot of us felt during the pandemic, or maybe going into the next 4 years. It has elements of horror, but largely avoids fitting nicely into one genre. I’ll be thinking of this book a lot during the rainy season here in the PNW.