takecoverbooks's reviews
210 reviews

Theory of Everything Else feels, more than almost any other book I’ve read this year, like it was designed for people on toilet seats. Jam-packed with useless trivia that doesn’t amount to much more than a collection of curiosities, the book is entertaining, but fails to coalesce around its own stated goal of taking conspiracy theories and “batshit” (Schreiber’s catchall term for esoterica) seriously as modes of understanding the world.

Cicada Summer by Erica McKeen

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

This is a tough one. It’s described as a novel, but it’s more of a short story collection with intriguing connective tissue. A creative, if flawed, approach to rendering tragedy out of episodic material.

Content Warnings

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma by Claire Dederer

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

Monsters made my head spin a little bit. There were moments where I found it illuminating to the point of profundity, and other times where I was so frustrated with the book and its messaging that I was ready to stop reading altogether. I think the word “Dilemma” in the book’s subtitle does a lot of heavy lifting to see where Dederer is coming from. More philosophical treatise on how art lovers deal with the way art, selfishness, and cruelty often go hand-in-hand than a reckoning for the monster themselves, your mileage may vary, but I’m glad I read it.

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Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church by Gareth Gore

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dark informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

While there are some glaring shortcomings to Opus (its prosaic pacing, episodic structure, and overall lack of desire to go after the Catholic Church as a whole), Gore does an admirable job of showing the rot that currently exists in the Center of conservative Catholicism and, more specifically, in conservative America. The book ends in 2023, before Trump’s second election, but as a prelude for what the world may expect from his coterie of psychotic, wealthy zealots, it’s sobering.

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Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

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dark emotional tense 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

4.0

Prophet Song might be the most intense reading experience I’ve endured this year. As a dystopian all-too-near future told from the perspective of a middle class Irish family who doesn’t heed the warning signs of creeping fascism until it’s too late to flee.

What follows is a harrowing onslaught of disappearances, civil strife, threatening uncertainty, and state terrorism, all witnessed at ground level. Sad, unrelenting, and stylistically dense, the novel is not always easy to get through, but it is an overall rewarding read.

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takecoverbooks's reviews 210 reviews

takecoverbooks's reviews
210 reviews