Scan barcode
skywhales's reviews
53 reviews
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
well! maybe i need to pick up more random books from the library because this was very very pleasantly surprising!
i've been really into the 1920s as of late for reasons (reasons are mostly tracy butler's lackadaisy, thanks for that) which was the main reason i picked this up but it wasn't exactly normally something i'd go for so part of me worried it'd be boring. but honestly? i was hooked. within the two categories of "books that i read to finish them" and "books that i read to find out what happens next" this fell largely in the latter category.
carter was very likable actually, i was kind of expecting him to be arrogant and a bit of an asshole but he was genuinely sweet, and i love characters who have a driving passion the way he does. i like that he's nice to kids and animals. i really loved his relationship with james. i am SUCH a sucker for loving yet realistic sibling relationships and their scenes together were so wonderful. also there's gay people in this book! i didn't even go in expecting that! just drawn to them i guess. the red necktie bit made me chuckle out loud (this book got like 3 audible laughs out of me which is pretty good tbh). i wish there were more women who weren't just someone's love interest but the women we got weren't too bad even if i do think they were kind of the weak spot of the book. rip annabelle, gone too soon. she'd be so disappointed to be the fridged wife. i liked her relationship with carter though. honestly i didn't like phoebe as much as annabelle and i couldn't really get a distinct read on her personality but the romance aspect of this book wasn't unbearable, it was sweet at times, which, you know, i'll accept.
this is relatively progressive for a book about the 1920s written in 2001? i mean they use the g slur a lot and "oriental" a couple times but the character who uses natives as props and cardboard villains in his act is the main antagonist and there are actual native characters who call him out for being a shithead which is. more than i'd expect from certain things today, tbh. and they were delightfully normal about the gay people.
i don't know a Lot about stage magic though i've read a good few books about it at this point and the technical mechanics flew over my head at certain times but i actually really enjoy reading fiction about stuff i don't know a lot about from the perspective of characters who do know a lot about it. i liked following carter's rise to glory and genuinely almost teared up at the ending which is like. WHAT! that alone is usually a certificate of quality from me.
genuinely might seek out this book to own it which is Nottt what i expected to come out of this reading experience! but it was honestly a delightful palate cleanser after the daughter of dr. moreau and just fucking fun to be honest! is this a romp? could i call this a romp?
i've been really into the 1920s as of late for reasons (reasons are mostly tracy butler's lackadaisy, thanks for that) which was the main reason i picked this up but it wasn't exactly normally something i'd go for so part of me worried it'd be boring. but honestly? i was hooked. within the two categories of "books that i read to finish them" and "books that i read to find out what happens next" this fell largely in the latter category.
carter was very likable actually, i was kind of expecting him to be arrogant and a bit of an asshole but he was genuinely sweet, and i love characters who have a driving passion the way he does. i like that he's nice to kids and animals. i really loved his relationship with james. i am SUCH a sucker for loving yet realistic sibling relationships and their scenes together were so wonderful. also there's gay people in this book! i didn't even go in expecting that! just drawn to them i guess. the red necktie bit made me chuckle out loud (this book got like 3 audible laughs out of me which is pretty good tbh). i wish there were more women who weren't just someone's love interest but the women we got weren't too bad even if i do think they were kind of the weak spot of the book.
this is relatively progressive for a book about the 1920s written in 2001? i mean they use the g slur a lot and "oriental" a couple times but the character who uses natives as props and cardboard villains in his act is the main antagonist and there are actual native characters who call him out for being a shithead which is. more than i'd expect from certain things today, tbh. and they were delightfully normal about the gay people.
i don't know a Lot about stage magic though i've read a good few books about it at this point and the technical mechanics flew over my head at certain times but i actually really enjoy reading fiction about stuff i don't know a lot about from the perspective of characters who do know a lot about it. i liked following carter's rise to glory and genuinely almost teared up at the ending which is like. WHAT! that alone is usually a certificate of quality from me.
genuinely might seek out this book to own it which is Nottt what i expected to come out of this reading experience! but it was honestly a delightful palate cleanser after the daughter of dr. moreau and just fucking fun to be honest! is this a romp? could i call this a romp?
Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes
4.0
OOOOH that was FUN. with some minor questionable aspects but mostly...kind of all my favorite aspects of a book, lmao. mostly.
when i was a kid i was SOOO into secret schools for special kids. magic schools (yeah including that one unfortunately), superhero schools, supervillain schools, whatever you can think of. i feel like this is the adult successor to that, which i really enjoyed. it felt like a morbid throwback to those kinds of books, even with a lot of the same character archetypes. unfortunately the romance also felt about as juvenile as something from a children's book, and so did the dumb "rivalry" between cliff and helkampf, who i really hated because of his lack of any character other than being a generic shitty weirdo who likes killing. even the main characters' targets were evil in kind of an enjoyable, more realistically hateable sense, but helkampf was just. eyeroll.
mixed feelings on the other characters. cliff was okay, i enjoyed him even if he was kind of a plain everyman (guess that could be the point of him). sadly i liked gemma the least out of the main characters. her romance with cliff was boring and the conclusion of her storyline was not very satisfying. her backstory was at least a little genuinely sad though. i LOVEDDD doria to the surprise of literally no one. best character by far i love stuck up divas with questionable morals who are way smarter than they seem. she was so so much fun.
i know the book was set in the fifties but i really didn't love people repeatedly bringing up how weird and strange a man dressing in women's clothes would be and how immediately people would realize that
look i will say, i LOVEDDDD the latter half of the book. my Favorite part of so much stuff i read is when a plan comes together perfectly or a character has to perfectly pretend to be someone else and they get away with it or the villain falls right into a trap that was set for them and the latter half of the book was just THAT, on EVERY SINGLE PAGE. so devious so awesome i am grinning like crazy.
i didn't mind switching perspectives between the stories, but it did confuse me how gemma and cliff were seemingly so intertwined and doria had next to no interaction with either of them. i was expecting them to become some sort of little murder trio or for their targets to have secret history with each other or something but she barely ever crossed paths with them? it was kind of confusing.
really entertaining book except for the parts i winced a little at. but it was a lot of fun honestly and god that latter half was delicious.
also this author wrote the pina colada song?????
when i was a kid i was SOOO into secret schools for special kids. magic schools (yeah including that one unfortunately), superhero schools, supervillain schools, whatever you can think of. i feel like this is the adult successor to that, which i really enjoyed. it felt like a morbid throwback to those kinds of books, even with a lot of the same character archetypes. unfortunately the romance also felt about as juvenile as something from a children's book, and so did the dumb "rivalry" between cliff and helkampf, who i really hated because of his lack of any character other than being a generic shitty weirdo who likes killing. even the main characters' targets were evil in kind of an enjoyable, more realistically hateable sense, but helkampf was just. eyeroll.
mixed feelings on the other characters. cliff was okay, i enjoyed him even if he was kind of a plain everyman (guess that could be the point of him). sadly i liked gemma the least out of the main characters. her romance with cliff was boring and the conclusion of her storyline was not very satisfying. her backstory was at least a little genuinely sad though. i LOVEDDD doria to the surprise of literally no one. best character by far i love stuck up divas with questionable morals who are way smarter than they seem. she was so so much fun.
i know the book was set in the fifties but i really didn't love people repeatedly bringing up how weird and strange a man dressing in women's clothes would be and how immediately people would realize that
Spoiler
(though idk if they were trying to satirize that by actually having a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman but it didn't fully come through. also like. korta being humiliated posthumously forever because he sleeps with Men Dressed As Women!!! what a sick pervert!!!! was also not. um. not great.)look i will say, i LOVEDDDD the latter half of the book. my Favorite part of so much stuff i read is when a plan comes together perfectly or a character has to perfectly pretend to be someone else and they get away with it or the villain falls right into a trap that was set for them and the latter half of the book was just THAT, on EVERY SINGLE PAGE. so devious so awesome i am grinning like crazy.
Spoiler
and me who doesn't really enjoy mysteries figured out (most of) how cliff was gonna get rid of fiedler before he even did so. THAT BIT WITH THE TWO PAGE CONFESSIONAL THOUGH???? I SERIOUSLY GOT A FUCKING DUMBASS EVIL GRIN. AND CLIFF'S SPONSOR REVEAL...i got sad gemma didn't end up using the bolton strid though. i knew about it from a tumblr post and when they namedropped it i went OOHOOHOOHOOi didn't mind switching perspectives between the stories, but it did confuse me how gemma and cliff were seemingly so intertwined and doria had next to no interaction with either of them. i was expecting them to become some sort of little murder trio or for their targets to have secret history with each other or something but she barely ever crossed paths with them? it was kind of confusing.
really entertaining book except for the parts i winced a little at. but it was a lot of fun honestly and god that latter half was delicious.
also this author wrote the pina colada song?????
Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White
3.5
hmmmm okay the thing is i do think for its target audience, this book would be Very good. the thing is, i fall juuuust short of the target audience for this book and i think that's the reason i didn't like it even more, technically through no fault of the book itself. this is written for young queer teens with religious trauma, and i am slightly older than the majority of characters in this book, grew up culturally christian but pretty much agnostic and have set foot in a christian church maybe twice in my life, and i am gay and trans but not queer. (i have no issue with people who identify as queer. i just don't. i have many friends who do, and i respect their usage of the word as much as they respect my non-usage of it.) the queer thing is something i can deal with in most books because i know not everyone has the same hangups i do, but it is always the tiniest bit exhausting to see that word treated as an ultimate symbol of resistance and rebellion with a bite that other words just don't have. cool. thanks for that. whatever. like i said, this book isn't exactly written for me. it almost is, but it isn't.
the writing was good on a technical level. it didn't, like, do anything with language that i'd never seen before, or have a voice that i would distinctly associate with the author if i read future books from him, but not every book needs to do things like that. there was a ton of religious stuff, and a LOT of body horror, but i mean i can't say i wasn't expecting those things. all of the promotional material was very clear this would have those in it. can't walk into the ocean and complain that there are fish in there or whatever. again, religious imagery kind of does nothing for me. i can really enjoy books that have it (see: gideon the ninth) but it's not something that compels me to read a book. but again i was not a religious trauma kid so my feelings on this are different from most.
i didn't feel particularly connected to the characters. i didn't feel like i really got to know any of them--even with benji we didn't really get to hear about anything he enjoyed, any hobbies he had, pretty much anything. i know he was raised in a cult but you don't grow up to be a Fully Formed Being and have no specific quirks or anything like that. (also the asshole trans guy who debates if others are "trans enough" being named calvin was a little on the nose but i'll let it slide.) this honestly isn't an issue i just see with this book. so many ya novels with a Found Family of Teen Rebels Who Save The World basically give each person one character trait and leave it at that and expect us to just kind of feel out their unbreakable bond from there. to be fair it is hard to manage a big cast of characters when you only have one book for us to get to know all of them, but like. i just don't know. we could have used more.
okay god i talk forever about bad stuff. this book was genuinely not that bad. like i said, there will be kids who adore this book with their whole heart. it was very original, and i did want to constantly keep reading to see what happened next. Spoileri do wish benji got more cool seraph powers. yes there is something very primal about just ripping people apart with your teeth and claws but i kind of thought he was going to be able to breathe fire or spit acid or something by the end there. anyway. i liked that the ending was happy. yeah this situation is fucked up but maybe we will be okay. i like that.
a good book that many people absolutely adore. it wasn't a favorite for me but i can see why people like it.
the writing was good on a technical level. it didn't, like, do anything with language that i'd never seen before, or have a voice that i would distinctly associate with the author if i read future books from him, but not every book needs to do things like that. there was a ton of religious stuff, and a LOT of body horror, but i mean i can't say i wasn't expecting those things. all of the promotional material was very clear this would have those in it. can't walk into the ocean and complain that there are fish in there or whatever. again, religious imagery kind of does nothing for me. i can really enjoy books that have it (see: gideon the ninth) but it's not something that compels me to read a book. but again i was not a religious trauma kid so my feelings on this are different from most.
i didn't feel particularly connected to the characters. i didn't feel like i really got to know any of them--even with benji we didn't really get to hear about anything he enjoyed, any hobbies he had, pretty much anything. i know he was raised in a cult but you don't grow up to be a Fully Formed Being and have no specific quirks or anything like that. (also the asshole trans guy who debates if others are "trans enough" being named calvin was a little on the nose but i'll let it slide.) this honestly isn't an issue i just see with this book. so many ya novels with a Found Family of Teen Rebels Who Save The World basically give each person one character trait and leave it at that and expect us to just kind of feel out their unbreakable bond from there. to be fair it is hard to manage a big cast of characters when you only have one book for us to get to know all of them, but like. i just don't know. we could have used more.
okay god i talk forever about bad stuff. this book was genuinely not that bad. like i said, there will be kids who adore this book with their whole heart. it was very original, and i did want to constantly keep reading to see what happened next. Spoileri do wish benji got more cool seraph powers. yes there is something very primal about just ripping people apart with your teeth and claws but i kind of thought he was going to be able to breathe fire or spit acid or something by the end there. anyway. i liked that the ending was happy. yeah this situation is fucked up but maybe we will be okay. i like that.
a good book that many people absolutely adore. it wasn't a favorite for me but i can see why people like it.