barrettbooks's reviews
60 reviews

This is a really heavy book of poetry. It is moving and gorgeous but also features a lot of gasp out loud gut punch kind of moments where the pain is so raw that it's shocking. The poet is a survivor of both rape and disordered eating and many of the pieces in this collection deal with those topics explicitly and brutally. I loved this collection and I dog eared many pages but I would also recommend making sure you are in a good headspace to tackle it, and checking out the content warnings. That said, the book felt very powerful to me, in both its content that is specifically trauma related but also in its lighter content, such a lovely poem full of affirmations for star signs. If My Body Could Speak also explores the poet's queerness, a topic always appreciate writing on, and am particularly touched by the vulnerable and expansive medium of poetry. I do not know this poet, and I hope that this last part of my review doesn't sound patronizing, but I felt so proud of her while reading this book, which is so open and so loud about topics that people want you to stay silent about. This is a book about trauma but also about recovery, about asking your body for forgiveness for the harm you have done it and striving for peace from the harm others have done you, and the continual work of recovery and becoming and existing. I never have as much to say about poetry books but it is not because I love them less. I always finish good poetry books feeling honoured to have been allowed to have read them and that is how felt on finishing If My Body Could Speak.

Two nonbinary teens form a friendship that transcends lightyears as an ever-raging war threatens them and their very seperate worlds.
🌌
This was lovely. It was a fast-paced read that tackled some more complex issues (what makes a person a person, what sacrifices are acceptable to obtain victory, what is owed in terms of loyalty, duty, and resources, to name a few.) However, the overall tone of the book was hopeful. It never felt like it was being flippant about the serious topics at hand, but it still felt generally warm and light(ish.) I will admit that despite the younger intended audience, the science parts sometimes lost me, but never in a way that took away from my enjoyment. I just still do not understand how Lu and Fassen talked, like at all, because I am a himbo with an English degree and that is okay.

I enjoyed the art in this. It has a fun, almost animated style, and the colour pallets are very pleasing to me. The contrast of the various environments from sparse warship to socialist commune are made so apparent in both the writing and the art. I love the character design as well; every character is unique and so clear in their mannerisms and facial expressions. The diversity in gender expression, skin tone, and body size was a delight. I occasionally found some sequences a bit hard to follow but again, it was not a big enough problem to be a huge turnoff. Finally, I really love the characters themselves. I love the different relationships we see grow and play out: the familial ones, the friendships, the mentorships and hero worship. I like that we see nonbinary characters interact and exist with gender differently. The way that we see characters' environments shape them, even after they've been removed from that environment, felt very real and important to me. There were also moments where the adults interacted with the teens in ways that the teens did not necessarily agree with that still felt healthy and respectful on all sides, which was delightful.

All in all this was a quick, lovely read with lots of queerness and some deeper thoughts on identity and sacrifice. I enjoyed it!

Black Sun takes place in a fantasy world full of peoples and societies inspired by those of the pre-colonial "Americas." It's a gorgeous world. The cultures are rich and varied, revealed through exposition that doesn't feel bulky and keeps things intriguing without being too confusing. A lot of the book is political intrigue, with both tensions between different groups, and power struggles within. I'm on the edge of my seat wondering how those conflicts will continue in book 2.

The book is delightfully queer. Several of the societies that are mentioned in the book are queernorm (there's mention of homophobia in one of the other societies, but it is brief and the characters don't stay long.) There is a bi main character and a nonbinary secondary character who uses neopronouns (xe/xir.) There are also several minor characters who are queer. It's so refreshing, always, for queer people to just exist in epic fantasy. The only other work I've read by Roanhorse was a queer short story, and combined with the inspiration of pre-Columbian Americas, I'm not surprised that the book has queer people but I'm still very happy. :)

The characters are what really sell this book for me (as with most books I love.) We get to see (third person) POV from people with very different lives, backgrounds, and interests in the conflict. And care about all of them and just want them all to win. While the characters are all flawed (some...more so than others) they are still deeply compelling and I love them. A personal favourite is Xiala, the heavy drinking, brash, secretly-kind-of-soft bi sailor lady of my dreams, but tbh the only characters don't like are the ones I am clearly not supposed to.

This is mostly gushing, but I just really recommend this book. It boils down to that. :)

Secretly married soldiers from opposite sides of a protracted space war try to flee the forces from both sides that attempt to capture them and their newborn.

Y'all. This one is weird. It's so good, but absolutely weirder than I expected. It was hard to write a synopsis because so much is left out. Like, several of the people chasing them are major supporting characters with their own arcs happening.

Obviously I'm not breaking new ground saying Saga is good. In fact I'm late to the party. But despite hearing about it for years, including recommendations from friends, the weirdness is the part never fully grasped, and it is glorious. This is a space opera of a wide scope, with different cultures, tech, and magic for different worlds. I love a blend of magic and tech, and Saga threads the needle very well, mostly by sticking the landing on its Go Big Or Go Home mentality.

Anyway. Attempting now to move beyond gushing and get into some specifics (though really don't want to spoil anything, this is a ride.) The art is gorgeous. Staples combines vibrant colours and expressive faces with a clear sense of movement and depth that keeps everything grounded and easy to follow. The character design is wonderful and there are several wtf laugh out loud moments in page turn character design alone. The lettering by Fonografiks also really complements the bold colour and character choices!

In terms of writing, despite all my previous words about how weird the world is, the motivations of the characters are very understandable and relatable. I was instantly rooting for the main protagonists, but also interested in (and sympathetic toward) the antagonists. All of the characters are navigating a war of huge scale and the effects of that war on people and planets is driven home again and again even in the first few issues. I am so invested. I will definitely be working to get my hands on more of this, I love it (obviously.)

In an alternate historical Asian setting, with an art deco style, a matriarchal power system, and a recent brutal war between humans and magical arcanics, Maika Halfwolf is a traumatized teenager trying to find answers about her past and the monster that she's begun to feel awaken in her.

I really enjoyed this! First of all, it is gorgeous. The art deco and steampunk style is so intricate and lucious. Takeda's art is beautiful and rich and detailed and also, at times, horrifying. This is a very violent book but in my opinion it never seems to be taking pleasure in its own violence, which is important to me. There is also a lot of really great panel layout that I love, but am unsure whether to credit Takeda or Rus Wooton, who is on lettering & design. (If anyone who is knowledgeable about comics wants to chime in on that, I would be grateful!) Either way, the lettering is also lovely, with the monster communication bubbles in particular being perfectly ominous. Visually, the book is spectacular.

The writing also really worked for me. I loved the twisty way information was slowly revealed throughout the issues and I am excited to read more in future volumes. I like how all the characters (in a fairly large cast) have their own motivations, fears, and sometimes complicated loyalties. A complicated magical world full of complicated people (some of whom are cats!) is delightful to me. There is a lot of past (and present) violence and trauma depicted that is not always my favourite, but although it is sometimes graphic it did not feel gratuitous and I respect the choices the team is making. I also really appreciate how the traumatized teenage girl protagonist gets to have agency, and gets to be truly angry as well as confused and scared. It does feel very different to me than when cishet men write traumatized teenage girls and it's super weird. Lastly, opinions may vary on this, but there is a lot of swearing and I love that personally. Just overall a great read for me and I will be picking up the subsequent volumes!

"Pixies are cute, but they will eat you alive if they feel like it. I was once incredibly fond of them. No wonder. That's called projection."
🧚‍♀️
I really enjoyed this! I read it entirely in one day. I am not at all surprised, since it came so highly recommended by so many trans bookstagrammers, but the trans rep was super on point. The author writes in their introduction that they put a lot of themselves into Wyatt and it absolutely shows. I sent photos of several moments of Trans Feelings to other trans friends because it was just so relatable. I was also very happy to see several other queer and marginalized identities appearing in the wider cast.

I particularly enjoyed the characters. It is nice to find books that focus on messy characters, and Wyatt is definitely messy. The anger and confusion that really drive him a lot of the time are at once totally valid and understandable but also not always healthy or properly directed. It is nice to watch Wyatt recognize and work through a lot of the causes of his emotions. The supporting characters are obviously not delved into as fully as the first person narration, but are also really lovable and have their own styles and surprises throughout.

The plot and writing had a few weak points, but nothing that seriously detracted from my experience or is unexpected from a debut novel. At times the spelling out of the metaphors is a bit on the nose and the pacing occasionally felt a bit off, but the chatty, somewhat vulgar writing style was generally really charming to me, and obviously it was fast enough paced that I finished it off in a single evening. Plus, my love of the characters is vast and I only want them to thrive and also kiss/cuddle where desired. I am really looking forward to the sequel that's coming out next year!

I have read a lot of Agatha Christie (whose early work was written in the same time period) but this is my first Dorothy Sayers book. Honestly kind of regretting putting it on my tbr so soon after I enjoyed that book where the queen solves mysteries because now I feel like a gentry stan. But I did enjoy it! There's an atmosphere to these earlyish detective stories that I haven't really been able to find in modern ones (though I am always looking for recs!) and I found Lord Peter very charming despite his many faults (i.e. being a Lord.) It's also very funny to me that he is out here being a full on amateur detective and his fancy and rich friends and family are just like "well, gotta have a hobby I guess. Don't mind Peter."

There are unfortunately a few moments of antisemitic/ national stereotypes (mostly about Italians to be honest) but otherwise I found the stories pretty enjoyable with a variety of mystery types and an entertaining trip to the solution. The wide cast of supporting characters in the various stories were fun, especially since Sayers writes out all their various British accents phonetically. If you don't mind stories about rich white men and servants who really love their jobs, it definitely has those between-Wars British vibes that I crave for some reason. I will probably be picking up more of Sayers' detective novels when I find them used.

Contains unflagged spoilers for Jane Eyre as well as Wide Sargasso Sea 

A classic retelling of Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 reshaping of the narrative which gives the mad woman in the attic a history and an inner life. I have been meaning to read this for years. I liked Jane Eyre, but by the time I read it in university, it was obvious that the perspective of Rochester's wife is a big gap, and the "happy" ending where she dies in a fire is more complex than is presented (even with the weird ableism with Rochester aside.)

This book takes place mainly in the Caribbean, where Antoinette, the white Creole woman doomed to become the woman in the attic, is raised on a former plantation shortly after the abolition of slavery. The narration is dreamy and yet tense, often hopping from vignette to vignette without drawing the connections between scenes. There is exploration of identity and otherness, as well as race and racism, mental illness and disability, and misogyny.

The misogyny aspect of the story is, in my opinion, very successful. The book absolutely captures the intentional and unintentional violence of men who have been empowered by patriarchal and colonial structures to control and abuse women, Black people, and anyone they view as lesser.

Wide Sargasso Sea is a complex book that touches on many aspects of power dynamics, identity, and "(in)sanity." I don't have the space or, frankly, qualifications to go over a fraction of it here but there is so much criticism available for it if you're interested, written but much smarter people. I honestly wouldn't say enjoyed reading it but I don't regret it and I understand why it is considered such an important work. Also, I would love to help burn down Thornfield.

I am adding this review to Storygraph significantly after I wrote it for Instagram. Normally I just copy and paste the review even if time has passed but in this case I want to note that I feel more negatively towards the book when I wrote the review. Almost nothing stuck with me about this finale other than the bad parts. The star rating reflects my current feelings and will probably seen overly negative for the text of my original review, which follows:

As a finale to the series, this was satisfying! It's almost twice the page count of the previous books, which gives space for the quickly expanding cast to breathe and for each character and couple to get their moments. I like basically all of the characters in the series (and hate the villains) and the final book gives them all challenges that feel real and endings that feel earned. The growth of the characters is sometimes a little simplistic, but that doesn't particularly bother me in an action-packed romp based on fairy tales. Every character being painfully straight bothers me some, but I do appreciate the romances despite the unfortunate heterosexuality of it all.

I also don't mind hand-wavey science, and deeply love a brilliant girl hacker teaming up with a brilliant girl mechanic and their badass fighter friends and fucking up a dictatorship. This was a fun read with so many moving parts that come together very nicely. A fitting ending for a series I enjoyed.

<Spoiler>One thing I didn't like was the treatment of Levana's appearance. Until this point, she has always kept her face hidden. It is used as a twist that her face is severely burnt, and the video of her true face is considered politically damaging. Multiple characters remark on how horrifying her appearance is. Eventually, Cinder learns that Levana was burnt as a child by Cinder's mother, and realises that this is not a character flaw (unlike Levana's actual massive character flaws.) However, this epiphany is brief (and no other character seems to realise that being a burn victim is not a problem) and the whole plot feels unnecessary and unearned. Neither I nor Cinder care about the mother she doesn't remember so it doesn't feel like a useful twist. There is another book adjacent to the series, Fairest, which is Levana's story and which assume this section is setting up, but within the confines of Winter specifically, I did not like the way this was handled. </Spoiler>(Also to be noted, another character who has severe hallucinations is called "crazy" like....a lot.)

Cw for mention of SA in this review. 
I read this in a single day spent mainly in a walk-in clinic. Period mystery is a comfort genre for me. However, my thoughts on this are deeply mixed. The tldr is that the historical aspects of the book worked for me, the sex aspects didn't, and the mystery was...fine?
The good: this takes place in 1885 Toronto. I'm from nearby so that was fun. I love historical details and there was lots of (as far as can tell, accurate) worldbuilding. I prefer the fun facts inserted into books actually of the time because it happens so naturally but this did a good job of providing rich detail without constant info dumping. The book has characters of different social/economic circumstances and touches on common hardships that medical innovation has made far less common in North America, such as tuberculosis.
The mediocre: I found the mystery itself dull. It tried to be kind of sensationalist with lots of sprinkles of sex-based plot (which I will get into) but ultimately the whole web of info and false info felt straightforward to me. I did like the detection process moments though.
The bad: (this section contains spoilers)

In the prologue, it's immeditely revealed that the teenage servant who becomes the murder victim has been raped, and her post mortem reveals that she was pregnant. The rich son is revealed to be gay, but only as a gotcha, and his fate is to marry a woman in the hopes that it "straightens him out." Two of ensemble cast are sex workers, who are living in poverty and judged harshly by the other characters; one is murdered and the other barely survives an attempt.

The author is presumably trying to make some kind of point about sexual and class violence and perhaps cast her devout Roman Catholic cop protagonist in a darker light, but I didn't find the point clear or convincing and instead found these parts of the book pretty gratuitous.
Overall, it was...okay, I guess? It was readable. I might pick up more of the series if I find them used/cheap for the next time I have to wait for five hours at a clinic.