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skywhales's reviews
53 reviews
Acting the Part by Z.R. Ellor
huh! not sure how i feel about this guy writing a wlw/nblw focused story when he's consistently treated lesbians and trans women like shit in everything else he writes!* also, btw, nonbinary lesbians exist. i am one actually. you don't have to stop identifying as a lesbian just because you found out you're nonbinary. also, lesbians can be attracted to nonbinary people! so can gay men, straight people and literally every other identity in between! you don't Have to identify as a lesbian if you're a nonbinary person attracted to women and other nonbinary people, but talking about an issue like this requires nuance that i don't believe this book will portray adequately.
*jk i do know how i feel. i don't like it. also, newsflash, the world's most influential terfs are straight women, by a huge margin, not lesbians like you claim in your other book. ([b:May the Best Man Win|55540735|May the Best Man Win|Z.R. Ellor|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1618345635l/55540735._SY75_.jpg|73259399]) we're your allies, so maybe stop constantly painting us as the big bad lgbtq+ gatekeepers. thanks <3
*jk i do know how i feel. i don't like it. also, newsflash, the world's most influential terfs are straight women, by a huge margin, not lesbians like you claim in your other book. ([b:May the Best Man Win|55540735|May the Best Man Win|Z.R. Ellor|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1618345635l/55540735._SY75_.jpg|73259399]) we're your allies, so maybe stop constantly painting us as the big bad lgbtq+ gatekeepers. thanks <3
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
2.0
wowza! this was a disappointment and a half!
apparently i'm one of those rare few who read the night circus and enjoyed the night circus but did not enjoy this. the sad thing is, it started really good! i was hyped! i wanted to explore a magical underground library hidden behind thousands of secret doors! but it felt like this story never went anywhere. it wandered around confusingly while i struggled to understand any of it. sometimes i'll read a book and not Get It and it'll all come together in the end, or i'll be so invested in the story that i have to reread it to pick up little context clues and piece together the details of the story the author is telling. gideon the ninth and harrow the ninth are good examples of this for me. was i mindnumbingly confused half the time i read them? yep! were they an amazingly good time? oh hell yeah! but this book was just BORING. by the time i was halfway through it i was rushing to get to the end so i could be done with all of it.
i wasn't attached enough to the characters (zachary was close but even he was just okay) to care about their romances and it didn't help that i was given no reason to care about them. zachary and dorian had the stupidest, boringest insta-love plotline i'd ever seen given to two gay characters, so wow. representation, i guess. now a gay man can also be a boring brooding love interest i do not care about! equality!
also also, and maybe this is petty, but the misuse of commas in this book was EGREGIOUS. like holy shit ms. morgenstern, has no one ever taught you what a semicolon is? it got so bad that i thought it was a stylistic choice for a little while because i couldn't remember the night circus having nearly as many errors like that. maybe the editors were changed? free grammar fact for anyone reading who doesn't know: commas cannot be used in place of periods or semicolons, despite looking like half of a semicolon. there are also a lot of run-on sentences where a comma would have really improved the flow, but there were no commas to be found. maybe they all got used up being put in other places unnecessarily. i feel bad being so mean about this but this is a published novel!! i really expected better at least in terms of sentence structure!
an extra star for the potential of this book and how invested i was at the beginning. wish it could have lived up to that potential.
apparently i'm one of those rare few who read the night circus and enjoyed the night circus but did not enjoy this. the sad thing is, it started really good! i was hyped! i wanted to explore a magical underground library hidden behind thousands of secret doors! but it felt like this story never went anywhere. it wandered around confusingly while i struggled to understand any of it. sometimes i'll read a book and not Get It and it'll all come together in the end, or i'll be so invested in the story that i have to reread it to pick up little context clues and piece together the details of the story the author is telling. gideon the ninth and harrow the ninth are good examples of this for me. was i mindnumbingly confused half the time i read them? yep! were they an amazingly good time? oh hell yeah! but this book was just BORING. by the time i was halfway through it i was rushing to get to the end so i could be done with all of it.
i wasn't attached enough to the characters (zachary was close but even he was just okay) to care about their romances and it didn't help that i was given no reason to care about them. zachary and dorian had the stupidest, boringest insta-love plotline i'd ever seen given to two gay characters, so wow. representation, i guess. now a gay man can also be a boring brooding love interest i do not care about! equality!
also also, and maybe this is petty, but the misuse of commas in this book was EGREGIOUS. like holy shit ms. morgenstern, has no one ever taught you what a semicolon is? it got so bad that i thought it was a stylistic choice for a little while because i couldn't remember the night circus having nearly as many errors like that. maybe the editors were changed? free grammar fact for anyone reading who doesn't know: commas cannot be used in place of periods or semicolons, despite looking like half of a semicolon. there are also a lot of run-on sentences where a comma would have really improved the flow, but there were no commas to be found. maybe they all got used up being put in other places unnecessarily. i feel bad being so mean about this but this is a published novel!! i really expected better at least in terms of sentence structure!
an extra star for the potential of this book and how invested i was at the beginning. wish it could have lived up to that potential.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
4.0
admittedly i have become a bit cynical about books that everyone hypes up as The Most Fantastic Thing To Happen To Representation In Fantasy Ever because well. i have been disappointed in the past. i started this immediately after finishing the starless sea, which was, you know, one of those disappointments.
this did not disappoint me. which isn't to say it didn't have some Problems which i will list here (all books have them so it's not that big a deal).
the length, as others have stated, was one of my biggest gripes--stuff happened and people had to move on asap. it felt like we couldn't sit with anything for very long because there was so little book and so much going on. almost none of the characters talked like you'd expect modern day teens to, especially sumi, but i can forgive this one considering they spent the equivalent of years in various fantasy realms. my major issue, and the thing that stops me from giving this five stars, is that it's a little Weird to have your two non-white characters be someone who and a latino character who went to a stereotypically day-of-the-dead-themed world. that gives me the ick a bit. however, because despite my caustic exterior i am a hopeful person at heart, i am willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt on this one. this is the beginning of a series of moderate length and i'd like to think she's improved on this front since this book.
but as for the Good things...the worldbuilding is delicious. i am a slut for worldbuilding every day of my life. i am also a slut for organizing and classifying magic of different types and we got that too, baby!! sorry i'll stop saying i'm a slut for things now. the representation was nice! it's nothing super groundbreaking because i've read a lot of lgbt+ stuff at this point, but an ace character and a trans character are not BAD things by any means. most of the characters were a mix of things i liked and things i didn't. i wouldn't say there was a character i flat-out couldn't stand, which is good, and there was a character i adored with all my heart and soul, which is even better. you'll never guess who that was.
it's jack it's obviously jack. this girl was introduced wearing a BOW TIE WITH TINY BIOHAZARD SYMBOLS!! how did you expect me NOT to love her!!! i love mean girls i love mad scientists i love necromancers i love smart people who are mean about it but also a little pathetic i LOVE PEOPLE WHO jack could not have been a character more perfectly designed to my tastes if i literally created her myself. and i mean, i DO have an oc who is a lesbian mad scientist who raises the dead so i was almost there already. anyway jack is worth like two stars just by herself.
good book! hyped to read the others when i get a chance!
this did not disappoint me. which isn't to say it didn't have some Problems which i will list here (all books have them so it's not that big a deal).
the length, as others have stated, was one of my biggest gripes--stuff happened and people had to move on asap. it felt like we couldn't sit with anything for very long because there was so little book and so much going on. almost none of the characters talked like you'd expect modern day teens to, especially sumi, but i can forgive this one considering they spent the equivalent of years in various fantasy realms. my major issue, and the thing that stops me from giving this five stars, is that it's a little Weird to have your two non-white characters be someone who
Spoiler
gets killed in a very gruesome way relatively early on, even if i hear she's later resurrected,but as for the Good things...the worldbuilding is delicious. i am a slut for worldbuilding every day of my life. i am also a slut for organizing and classifying magic of different types and we got that too, baby!! sorry i'll stop saying i'm a slut for things now. the representation was nice! it's nothing super groundbreaking because i've read a lot of lgbt+ stuff at this point, but an ace character and a trans character are not BAD things by any means. most of the characters were a mix of things i liked and things i didn't. i wouldn't say there was a character i flat-out couldn't stand, which is good, and there was a character i adored with all my heart and soul, which is even better. you'll never guess who that was.
it's jack it's obviously jack. this girl was introduced wearing a BOW TIE WITH TINY BIOHAZARD SYMBOLS!! how did you expect me NOT to love her!!! i love mean girls i love mad scientists i love necromancers i love smart people who are mean about it but also a little pathetic i LOVE PEOPLE WHO
Spoiler
SAY "I SEEM TO NEED ASSISTANCE" WHEN THEY ARE GRAVELY WOUNDED!good book! hyped to read the others when i get a chance!
The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand
4.0
merry christmas in july, here's a present.
ack. every time i reread this book it surprises me twice. once at how fucking insufferable it is to get through for a large portion of it, and twice when i remember how embarrassingly heart melting the ending is. i have a reputation to maintain, i can't be FEELING like this over a book that isn't even that good!! the thing is, i know i am very very harsh on books that don't mesh with my Vibe, and normally this book would not mesh with my Vibe, but i forgive it. and that takes some power. so i respect it for that.
i love mean girls. this is a well documented fact about me. i loved holly as a narrator, even the selfish, materialistic holly we got early on. my kingdom for more funny, flawed, bitchy narrators instead of quirky shy nerd girl #4959219. (i say this as a quirky shy nerd ""girl,"" quotation marks heavy around the last bit. at least i don't advertise it. much.) i liked the side characters. boz especially. and dave. funny old guys are another weak point of mine.
ethan i didn't like so much. maybe it's because i am very much not straight, but everything surrounding ethan and holly's romance is so PAINFULLY heterosexual i actually have to skim some of it. i promise i'm not someone who stops reading books that even hint at a m/f romance. some of my favorite books have straight people in them! i'm an accepting lesbian! but holy SHIT, man. it felt like we were constantly being reminded that He Is A Boy, She Is A Girl, Instant Chemistry. and urrgghhh, maybe i'm too much of a leftist, but ethan seemed just a little too into patting himself on the back for being a rich kid. like, if this guy did run for president, i'm willing to bet he'd be running republican. (but honestly, at this point, saying a character is future president material is a red flag in itself.) ethan did nothing for me. whatever that gaybaiting situation with ro was just made him more of a glaring story weakness. (holly, you are really into your best friend's looks. and the people she dates. she's constantly referred to as your lost love--but platonic! it's platonic! it's fine!--and honestly you have more chemistry with her than Poor Little Rich Boy. the ending being open to interpretation lets me imagine that you worked some things out down the line and the two of you are happily married.)
so that was a lot of complaining. honestly, the romance was so gag-worthy a lesser book would be like two stars. but the last two chapters, man. the last two chapters. living up to my love of happy endings despite the everything else about me because i am a sucker for that sweet, sweet sappy shit. it is impossible for me to end this book without smiling like a doofus.
so, yeah. not everyone who comes into this book will like it. most people who have similar taste to me will not like it as much as i do. but hey, even the pickiest of reviewers gotta have their comfort reads. this is mine. at least it's not twilight.
ack. every time i reread this book it surprises me twice. once at how fucking insufferable it is to get through for a large portion of it, and twice when i remember how embarrassingly heart melting the ending is. i have a reputation to maintain, i can't be FEELING like this over a book that isn't even that good!! the thing is, i know i am very very harsh on books that don't mesh with my Vibe, and normally this book would not mesh with my Vibe, but i forgive it. and that takes some power. so i respect it for that.
i love mean girls. this is a well documented fact about me. i loved holly as a narrator, even the selfish, materialistic holly we got early on. my kingdom for more funny, flawed, bitchy narrators instead of quirky shy nerd girl #4959219. (i say this as a quirky shy nerd ""girl,"" quotation marks heavy around the last bit. at least i don't advertise it. much.) i liked the side characters. boz especially. and dave. funny old guys are another weak point of mine.
ethan i didn't like so much. maybe it's because i am very much not straight, but everything surrounding ethan and holly's romance is so PAINFULLY heterosexual i actually have to skim some of it. i promise i'm not someone who stops reading books that even hint at a m/f romance. some of my favorite books have straight people in them! i'm an accepting lesbian! but holy SHIT, man. it felt like we were constantly being reminded that He Is A Boy, She Is A Girl, Instant Chemistry. and urrgghhh, maybe i'm too much of a leftist, but ethan seemed just a little too into patting himself on the back for being a rich kid. like, if this guy did run for president, i'm willing to bet he'd be running republican. (but honestly, at this point, saying a character is future president material is a red flag in itself.) ethan did nothing for me. whatever that gaybaiting situation with ro was just made him more of a glaring story weakness. (holly, you are really into your best friend's looks. and the people she dates. she's constantly referred to as your lost love--but platonic! it's platonic! it's fine!--and honestly you have more chemistry with her than Poor Little Rich Boy. the ending being open to interpretation lets me imagine that you worked some things out down the line and the two of you are happily married.)
so that was a lot of complaining. honestly, the romance was so gag-worthy a lesser book would be like two stars. but the last two chapters, man. the last two chapters. living up to my love of happy endings despite the everything else about me because i am a sucker for that sweet, sweet sappy shit. it is impossible for me to end this book without smiling like a doofus.
Spoiler
the fact that she doesn't end up with ethan is just a bonus for me. no, holly, i am not disappointed that the girl does not end up with the hot guy. i, for one, am overjoyed.so, yeah. not everyone who comes into this book will like it. most people who have similar taste to me will not like it as much as i do. but hey, even the pickiest of reviewers gotta have their comfort reads. this is mine. at least it's not twilight.