youreawizardjerry's reviews
113 reviews

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
esthers biggest mental illness is actually her being a racist *ptooey* yet its the one she doesnt care to work on, go figure
there is a testament to it still being relatable and technically well-written (again, aside from the hitler greenwood moments).... but even accepting it as a product of its time (which some of y'all are leaning enthusiastically heavy on as rebuttal) i still found it lukewarm at best and mostly at worst. a few hahaha-I-do-that moments don’t change that fact for me. im not one of the girlies that this is for, and I’m clearly in the minority here, which i think is fine (but esther would not) 
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

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

4.75

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

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just let my good sis stock the items, damn
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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emotional reflective sad 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

4.5

Engrossing. 
A family that can mirror many of ours "post"-colonialism. These lives touched me in extremely familiar ways, yet preserved a distinct quality while exploring their ethnic plights and experiences that read as uniquely moving and eye-opening. A complexity was captured here that I cannot praise enough. Beautiful, immersive, and heartbreaking. Shoutout to my Grandmother, my Sunja, my matriarch, who is the bedrock of all of us come after. I will have to recommend this to her <3
Berserk, Vol. 4 by Kentaro Miura

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4.75

no I’m obsessed
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 12%.
zZZZZZZ not 4 me atm, the writing is on the bland side maybe ill try the audio version in the future
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

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

5.0

The first half was far stronger than the second (got a tad too cliche at times), but it was a great pleasure all the same. How thankful I am for my queer elders and this story for allowing me to sit more intentionally with them in my thoughts-- while I was reading and certainly moving forward. What a bittersweet transcendant experience. And oh so funny. Truly funny. Thank you, John Boyne.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

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

4.0

powerful concept. About halfway through it seemed to lose much of the  initial strength in the prose that the beginning had and never regained it. 
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

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

3.75

some of these chapters were amongst the most poignant and satisfying short stories ive ever read. genuinely it was such a pleasure to get so immersed in this world. bro did kinda ruin it though by giving us chapter after chapter after chapter (after chapter!) of the fledgling dude™  yearning for the complex woman "but they're different characters this time cause they have ~different names~ and live in a ~different city~ !!!" ... it got tiring by the end and truthfully added a one-dimensionality in the last third of the book that really undermined the beauty of the first two. the repeated themes we're introduced to are especially powerful with the understanding that they are reoccuring for such a large swathe of time and space and to so many lives, so i need to see that reflected in the lives they affect. we are 8+ billion people and the book (though about many characters) can really be boiled down to being about one generic guy and in a couple chapters a generic girl* when the same tropes are genderswapped (there are a few exceptions tbf). I just dont think you can do a story about "the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe" justice with such a bland roster of characters. I'm going to stick with an overall 4 for now because i really loved the prose but the last few chapters dip it to a 3.75.

* 
primeval immortal god with all knowledge of civilization and humanity and her personality is just lady who likes stars? couldn't give her more depth but you could tell me she fucked every famous western mind? weird way to make what i assume was meant to be a nod to the behind every man is a great woman saying but was just strange considering how soon we learn this about her and then absolutely nothing else.
 
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5