apollo0325's reviews
435 reviews

A really good sample of Madeline Miller’s writing, but I do miss some of the lyricism her full length novels usually have. Still, a solid and quick read.

What a fucking book. Incredible.

Wiswell’s writing was easy to follow and enjoyable while providing complex and interesting descriptions and comparisons. It was so easy to get into this story of Shesheshen and Homily, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them. That third act twist was SO GOOD and I was thankful we got to see the aftermath of everything with Shesheshen and Homily.

THIS WAS MADE FOR THE MONSTER LOVERS!!!!! +10 points for it being sapphic.

I love a good fungi horror, but this felt so lackluster and unfinished. I understand it’s a vignette, but the characters all fell flat for me. Hannah was the most interesting one, but she was basically reduced to hard ass slut insomniac and… idk, I’m tired of the hard ass, sarcastic woman archetype already. I think the novella would have worked better had it been from the perspective of only 1-2 characters.

There’s a lot of potential wasted on too much introspection for characters we ultimately won’t remember.

It was a pretty quick novella, definitely wuxia which I like, but I also felt lost with some of the in-world historical information like I was reading a 3rd book in a series rather than the standalone.

However, the characters were charming and I had a good time!

I’m struggling trying to find a comfortable rating for this book, but I can’t see it being above a 3 star for me for a lot of reasons.

I understand (I think) what the author was trying to convey with these parallel stories of two queer teens with how they both deal with their disenfranchisement differently, and I respect the very bold choice to have one of them be a white school shooter. However, I also felt that Sawyer was reduced to “he’s a closeted gay weirdo who gets bullied and abused” and that’s like… it. It also felt we were falling into a dangerous trope of “abused person becomes evil” which I highly dislike. I think we can have a complex villain without resorting to trauma making them a villain. Trauma can be a component, but it shouldn’t be the explanation and Sawyer was definitely the latter.

The characters fell so flat except for maybe Jake (and even then, his character felt so bland), especially the side characters, and for a story that centers us with these two characters, the pacing, writing, and world building do the story an absolute disservice.

The ghost realm fight scenes also felt incredibly cheesy. I nearly DNF’d this book at the first one, but I decided to push through and they simply do not get better. We start talking about energy swords and I was confused. What the hell are we doing here? What are the rules to any of this? We have this sagely character that helps Jake, but nothing is ever explained or explored outside of convenient things happening within the scenes for Jake.

The biggest problem with this book is the pacing. It’s horrific. There’s no tension being built up because things get figured out so quickly. There’s no real sense of urgency, even towards what is supposed to be the climatic end, and everything is just fine by the end. Despite the danger, it really felt like there were no stakes in the game. *Poe Dameron voice* Somehow, Sawyer is defeated. 

Anyway, points for something different within YA horror. I’m not the target audience here, but I think this could be valuable to some kids who want to see themselves represented and coming out alive despite a harrowing situation.

After reading Camp Damascus and wishing more from it, I was not necessarily looking forward to Bury Your Gays because while the concept was cool, I do find Tingle's writing lacking in the internal monologue category. While this book still struggles with having internal monologue that drags on for much too long sometimes, I did enjoy this one A LOT more than Camp Damascus. It still took me until my 3rd try to actually listen to the whole audiobook.

I do have to laugh at the reasoning for the entire conflict in this book because it feels so millennial to have it be

NANOBOTS. IT'S ALWAYS NANOMACHINES/NANOBOTS LOLLLL

Genuinely when the twist was revealed, I cackled out loud and facepalmed. I felt bamboozled, but it was different than a straightforward slasher, which was what I was expecting, so you got me there, Chuck.

Aside from the farcical plot twist, the hyper-exaggerated way the studio execs were droning on and on about queers not selling to queers selling was cringeworthy but in a good way! It made the central themes behind the book continue to be slammed over your body like a sledgehammer. (Too soon?)

I may have enjoyed this book more if I read it in tandem with the audiobook and a physical copy as some moments were jarring, specifically the 3rd person POV of Misha. The audiobook was enhanced by the multi-cast performance, but I don't think it was necessarily that impactful. Still, it was cool to see some big names (hi T. Kingfisher and Mara Wilson!)

Will I give Chuck Tingle another try? Sure. This one was a more fleshed out concept and story in my opinion, although I did find it strange that

Tara and Zeke could come out of the Ms. Why's funk before a lot of other people reportedly did? How does that work? Why them? The inconsistencies in the fictional world's fictional worldbuilding was rather shoddy, but I suppose with horror, there's always a suspension of disbelief for some things. Maybe I missed something, but it didn't seem like there was an explanation anywhere or even a "whoa, how are you guys okay and no one else that she's touched isn't okay??" Did y'all also find the solution to the problem almost... too easy? I was waiting for some sort of gut punch, but when I saw I only had about 10-15 minutes left of the audiobook, I was a bit annoyed.

Anyway, it wasn't bad. I just wasn't wowed.

A Odyssey inspired story with sapphics? That sounds amazing!

You know what we didn’t get? That.

Every character was one dimensional and mostly annoying or being a huge piss baby the entire time except for maybe the Prince which in a story advertising a focal point on sapphics is a disappointment.

I got this book through Illumicrate, and I attempted to physically read it. When I couldn’t, I tried borrowing the audiobook from Libby. I had to renew it FOUR TIMES to actually get through this bland, boring, uninspired book.

You know what’s even worse? The author admits to having not even read the Odyssey. I’m sorry, how are you going to write a book inspired by one of the OLDEST, most widely available texts in the world and NOT EVEN READ THE SOURCE MATERIAL??? What happened to research? Why are we doing this? Who was this made for? Because the bi rep was awful. The romances were as stale as cardboard. The Greek mythology was NOT Greek mythology-ing.

This was so painful because I WANTED to love this. I gave it so many tries and in the end… it doesn’t even matter. 😔

Absolutely incredible. It’s an incredible feat for an author to not only create a fleshed out world but to make us actually care about these characters in less than 150 pages. I am astonished by the craftsmanship and I so want to read the rest of this series.

holy shit.

While I love the tenderness of every story, I went in thinking this would be only about the two established MCs, Marcel and Gisel. I was very thrown off seeing that this is more of a collection of one shots rather than a singular story. I don’t have an issue with collections, but it wasn’t what I was expecting and looking over the synopsis on both the book and Storygraph (both being identical), there isn’t an indication that this is a collection. That’s less on the author’s part and more so on the publisher’s part.

Regardless, I liked the main story and Corrosion the most. Passage and Stalks felt very one note and not particularly interesting. Along the Way was… fine.

Incredibly informative and fun read. I love both Chii and Husband-kun, and I think their relationship dynamic feels so healthy and understanding. I also really enjoyed the informative bits in between Chii’s story and filling in gaps for people who may not know a lot about trans and queer identities. I would love a sequel about Chii and Husband-kun’s married life and/or the potential pursuit of expanding their family.