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lizshayne's reviews
2217 reviews
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book is doing an extraordinary amount even by 2020 standards and I’m very impressed it’s over 30 years old.
It’s…kind of Jane Eyre and interested in disability in a way that I, for obvious reasons, find to be super interesting and it’s for sure not perfect, but it’s honestly one of the best I’ve seen in romance even when it’s trying.
Also I read it straight through one night when I had horrible insomnia so I’m not sure what it’s like when you are not silently having a lot of feelings at the characters.
Anyway, shoutout to the My Word as Vorkosigan discord for recommending this one; I’m not entirely sure I can explain why this book works for Bujold fans (especially of her fantasy work), but I absolutely agree.
It’s…kind of Jane Eyre and interested in disability in a way that I, for obvious reasons, find to be super interesting and it’s for sure not perfect, but it’s honestly one of the best I’ve seen in romance even when it’s trying.
Also I read it straight through one night when I had horrible insomnia so I’m not sure what it’s like when you are not silently having a lot of feelings at the characters.
Anyway, shoutout to the My Word as Vorkosigan discord for recommending this one; I’m not entirely sure I can explain why this book works for Bujold fans (especially of her fantasy work), but I absolutely agree.
Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
tense
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
4.0
This was a "damnit!" book because, as I should have known from having read Brennan's other book, she enjoys being delightfully hilarious and then twisting the knife. But this was also so good and fun and such an excellent send-up of the portal fantasy in a way that feels like if Guy Gavriel Kay had a) read Game of Thrones and b) was an incredibly sarcastic millennial woman. But what she does with the idea of story and main character syndrome and the way we judge as readers/human beings is so fun to watch.
The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
dark
emotional
sad
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? No
3.5
Moreno-Garcia is one of those authors I will read no matter what, which is a bit inconvenient because she is also someone who bops around genres so I never entirely know what I'm getting.
This time I got historical fiction and also a crash course in second temple Jewish figures who I had already been introduced to in some podcasts lectures on the kings and queens of Israel.
This was definitely a Friday night book - trying to read it piecemeal over the week was, as the pokemon say, not very effective, but as soon as I had an evening, it just started to pull me in and gave me a real appreciation for the way that Moreno-Garcia pulls narratives together.
This time I got historical fiction and also a crash course in second temple Jewish figures who I had already been introduced to in some podcasts lectures on the kings and queens of Israel.
This was definitely a Friday night book - trying to read it piecemeal over the week was, as the pokemon say, not very effective, but as soon as I had an evening, it just started to pull me in and gave me a real appreciation for the way that Moreno-Garcia pulls narratives together.
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark
adventurous
dark
funny
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? No
3.0
Sometimes I wonder if it's the book or me - maybe I shouldn't be reading anything when it's the first week of school for half the people in this house (but none of the ones able to stay home by themselves). Maybe expecting anything from anything other than an old favorite is unfair.
Or maybe this book just took a while to actually catch my attention. Sometimes the "these people are murderers, please start caring about them" is a higher bar than I'm necessarily ready to clear.
Once the non-assassin parts of the plot got going, I was more into it, but I had a hard time getting into the mindset of the book's morality.
Audiobook was excellent, though.
Or maybe this book just took a while to actually catch my attention. Sometimes the "these people are murderers, please start caring about them" is a higher bar than I'm necessarily ready to clear.
Once the non-assassin parts of the plot got going, I was more into it, but I had a hard time getting into the mindset of the book's morality.
Audiobook was excellent, though.
A Marriage of Undead Inconvenience by Stephanie Burgis
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Academic main characters I have, in fact, met.
This was a classic Stephanie Burgis and exactly what it says on the tea tin. And, honestly, I will read basically any arranged marriage to "aww, they love each other" (at least unless it's too popular and then I refuse on principle, but that is a personal failing, I know, I'm sorry.)
This was a classic Stephanie Burgis and exactly what it says on the tea tin. And, honestly, I will read basically any arranged marriage to "aww, they love each other" (at least unless it's too popular and then I refuse on principle, but that is a personal failing, I know, I'm sorry.)
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I really like Acevedo's work in YA and this feels like it's on the same wavelength, just expanding the scope of what can be talked about and who is in the story.
This one braids together the thread of resilience that comes from the care that others take for you, the impossibility of a specific future with the certainty of a future, and the very real presence of what it's like to live among a community of women.
Which I think is so much of what Acevedo wants to capture, writing in the strong literary tradition of quiet magics.
This one braids together the thread of resilience that comes from the care that others take for you, the impossibility of a specific future with the certainty of a future, and the very real presence of what it's like to live among a community of women.
Which I think is so much of what Acevedo wants to capture, writing in the strong literary tradition of quiet magics.
Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life by Sutton Foster
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
I’m kind of a sucker for celebrity memoirs that I can at all relate to so the whole crafting for mental health thing is entirely up my alley.
Come for the art, stay for the complex conversation about parents with mental illness.
And, as usual, this is one of those that you should absolutely listen to because why not have Sutton Foster read her own story to you?
Come for the art, stay for the complex conversation about parents with mental illness.
And, as usual, this is one of those that you should absolutely listen to because why not have Sutton Foster read her own story to you?
Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
I wanted to like this book so much more than I did and it comes down to...3 things, I think.
1) The worldbuilding was way more interesting than the characters holding it. Teh whole corporate belief structure thing was fascinating and felt like there was so much there to dig into, but it's mostly just background to set up the plot and that annoys me.
2) I just had very little invested in the main characters. (The Incomparable review that touches on their nature as beings that prey on humans made a point, but I'm not sure that's it.) They also kind of felt like plot vehicles, maybe?
3) Right on the heels of of my "contemporary romance trope of seeing love as the reward for finding yourself, not the method by which one does" comment, this bookplays straight into the trope of romance as the thing that saves and, like, Talabi does kind of lampshade it, but it's still jarring. . Shigidi and Nneoma's relationship frustrated me, and reminded me of a conversation about a completely different author that the men fall fast because the women have so much more to lose. And Nneoma's resistance is written more as a trauma response rather than something that feels like a real and reasonable evaluation of her situation.
I don't know, this one took forever and I ended up switching to audiobook because I kept looking for excuses to read other things. But I appreciated so much of what was in there; it's just that everything I liked was kind of in the background. Can we talk about the belief and mythology thing?
1) The worldbuilding was way more interesting than the characters holding it. Teh whole corporate belief structure thing was fascinating and felt like there was so much there to dig into, but it's mostly just background to set up the plot and that annoys me.
2) I just had very little invested in the main characters. (The Incomparable review that touches on their nature as beings that prey on humans made a point, but I'm not sure that's it.) They also kind of felt like plot vehicles, maybe?
3) Right on the heels of of my "contemporary romance trope of seeing love as the reward for finding yourself, not the method by which one does" comment, this book
I don't know, this one took forever and I ended up switching to audiobook because I kept looking for excuses to read other things. But I appreciated so much of what was in there; it's just that everything I liked was kind of in the background. Can we talk about the belief and mythology thing?
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
emotional
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The thing about Casey McQuiston is that they can write basically any trope and even if I don't usually love it, I will absolutely buy it.
I'm not a huge second-chance romance person except apparently when I am. This was incredibly well done, in part because McQuiston let the characters grow on their own before bringing them back together and in part because the setting is one of those "of course anything can happen" settings. There's also this very "contemporary trends in romance" aspect to it, where love is not the things that offers you fulfillment, but love is—in some ways—the reward for finding yourself.By being able to live without it, you earn it and I'm totally on board with that and also fascinated by it in my larger "romance novels are extremely nuanced guides to a culture's values" theory.
Also I strongly recommend reading this book in the summer when there are foods that taste good available because the only part of this book when I wasn't salivating over the food and drinks was when I had a mild case of food poisoning.
I'm not a huge second-chance romance person except apparently when I am. This was incredibly well done, in part because McQuiston let the characters grow on their own before bringing them back together and in part because the setting is one of those "of course anything can happen" settings. There's also this very "contemporary trends in romance" aspect to it, where love is not the things that offers you fulfillment, but love is—in some ways—the reward for finding yourself.
Also I strongly recommend reading this book in the summer when there are foods that taste good available because the only part of this book when I wasn't salivating over the food and drinks was when I had a mild case of food poisoning.
The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
Having read When We Cease to Understand the World, this book was less of an overwhelmingly weird experience, but it was still very strange and preoccupied with similar questions about the moment when math (and so arguably science) stopped being being beautiful and became (only) terrifying.
It's interesting to meet characters I knew only through their research as people and it's another perspective on WWII and the holocaust because this is also, somehow, a Holocaust book. (I mean, it's the 20th century, there are Jews, they're in Europe, there's only so much it can be avoided.) But the premise of the book, the argument it does not so much advance as play with: at a certain point, an encounter with technology from a person who begins to grasp what is going on behind it will break.
Also, this book does answer the question of where autistic people were. In European science departments, apparently.
It's interesting to meet characters I knew only through their research as people and it's another perspective on WWII and the holocaust because this is also, somehow, a Holocaust book. (I mean, it's the 20th century, there are Jews, they're in Europe, there's only so much it can be avoided.) But the premise of the book, the argument it does not so much advance as play with: at a certain point, an encounter with technology from a person who begins to grasp what is going on behind it will break.
Also, this book does answer the question of where autistic people were. In European science departments, apparently.