takecoverbooks's reviews
211 reviews

Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr

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

4.0

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A Sunny Place for Shady People: Stories by Mariana Enríquez

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adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

Best short story collection I’ve read since Civilwarland. Seriously, check this out.
Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

This is the type of book that could have been 400 pages longer. But as it stands. It’s a pretty solid summary of American foreign policy and its contradictions.
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Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones by Torrey Peters

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dark emotional funny 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

3.5

A friend referred to this as the ur-text for the current slate of trans horror fiction, and it's easy to see why. I wish this was a bit longer, but for a polemic novella, this hits very hard. Torrey Peters went on to write with far more maturity and humane-ness in Detransition Baby, but I would definitely recommend this if you're into her work, or the work of Gretchen Felker-Martin and Alison Rumfitt.
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The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Hard to believe this was written in 1938. The story of the Haitian Revolution is remarkable, inspiring, and brutal. If you want a document that exhaustively documents the evil of imperialism and the tenacity of post colonial reaction, read this and be infuriated.
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By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A 100+ page paragraph that serves as the final confession of a priest and fascist collaborator in Santiago, Chile. If you're familiar with Bolano's work, By Night in Chile will be familiar in its subject matter, but it's an absolute stunner when it comes to style and tone. Furious, funny, and phantasmagorical, this is a difficult, but rewarding book.
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Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash

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dark emotional 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? Yes

5.0

This is the most engrossing and entertaining book I’ve read this year. It’s emotional, superbly paced, and endearingly woolly in parts. Highly recommend it.
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The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Your mileage may vary with this one, but Anderson hits on something powerful in The Unmothers. It’s creepy, unsettling, and a challenging rewrite of folk horror tropes. It’s a story about female bodily autonomy, self-control, and the ways in which men seek to domesticate what doesn’t belong to them. It can be slow and unfocused at times, but overall this book is poetically and packs a punch.
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A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

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4.5

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5