The Power by Naomi Alderman
Man, this book is intense. I actually finished it a while ago, but I had to digest it a little before I could even start to think about writing up a review. I liked it? I mean, I did like it, but there are some parts that are a little tough to get through. I’m glad I did though. This is a story asking the question, what would happen if, all of a sudden, every girl on the planet around 16 years of age could […]
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
CBR11 Bingo Square: Listicle As found on the Book Riot list of “100 Must-Read Bisexual Books” https://bookriot.com/2017/09/21/100-must-read-bisexual-books/ I saw a lot of good reviews for this novel, and was excited to read it, given how it appeared to center on meaningful relationships (my favourite!), as well as the career of a filmmaker (something of great interest to me!). And yet, this is one of those cases where despite seeming like it has a lot of people who love it, I myself just don’t get it, […]
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
CBR11 Bingo Listicle- I’ve seen this on several best seller lists in addition to Pres. Obama’s summer reading list. This was a really brutal book. The author has written a fictional account of a reform school for boys, but based it on a real school that closed only a few years ago. It was discovered after the schools’ closure that there were a number of bodies buried on the school grounds that had not been accounted for. The men in charge of the […]
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
#CBR11 Bingo: Listicle (on a bunch of best of 2018 lists, including NPR, Bustle and Bookbub). Would also work for “Award Winner”, as it’s won a Locus Award, and ALA Award and an Audie, or “Remix”, as it’s a fairy tale retelling. Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish moneylenders, but her father is a dreadful one, who doesn’t have the heart to actually claim back the debts that the villagers owe, even when his daughter is starving and the long, cold winters are making his wife sicker and […]
The Incendiaries by R. O. Kwon
A university student who blames herself for her mother’s death becomes more and more involved in a dangerous cult’s activities that begin to veer ever closer towards terrorism. There are some big topics being tackled here, be it fanaticism, cults, the loss of faith, or the search for some greater purpose. Not one of those topics, however, is being handled with the care and precision they warrant, on the contrary, everything is just mixed together and treated in the most superficial way. The characters have […]
The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
Bingo Square: Listicle When I saw the Listicle category, I figured the easiest way to find a list with something I wanted to read would be to google “Best Books of 2019” or “Summer Reads for 2019,” and Cosmopolitan came through for me. It had a few novels I had already read and enjoyed, a few that were already on my to read list, and has given me a few more novels to keep an eye out for. The Bride Test fell into the second […]
