carleesi's reviews
746 reviews

This particular brand of YA is not for me. The writing felt clumsy in that manic pixie dream girl kinda way, and everyone felt like a caricature. I had no urge to keep trying, just not for me!

I wasn’t very entertained by the book and never sought to listen to it. I think the vignettes were too small, it felt like I just started to understand someone and we’d moved onto the next.

Such important stories in these pages. 

100 page rule. I didn’t understand the narrative, like what the key plot was to keep me reading. Plus I don’t care about “classics” so reading her moon over old men that were sexist was getting old fast.

I really loved the world building and the lore of this book. The sea is a character was magnificent and the fluidity with gender and sexuality was delicious.

I REALLY struggled with the SA. It was only alluded to, but it was done in a really horrific way that was used to further a different character’s story than the victim of the SA. Those references were almost unreadably bad for me. The silencing, infantilising and ongoing dismissal of the victim was horrible to have to repeatedly and continually encounter with no growth, development, justice or even care shown to the victim. Reaaaaally badly done.

Being a fat woman and reading the experiences and perspectives of fat women is so fucking magical.

I was getting a bit of a white savior vibe from this book and found reviews that confirmed it so I decided I was done. I’m interested in own voices, not voices of white people who have brown friends.

Truth telling is integral to understanding Australian history. I learnt so much about the Stolen Generations and Aboriginal history in WA from this story, while also feeling the story of Stephen’s family weave into that history. 

Beautifully written, the very personal account of intergenerational trauma was emotionally difficult to accept sometimes, but another very important aspect of understanding colonization. 

My favorite quotes:

“Together, they are the bureaucratic manifestation of the wall of silence that limits real dialogue about Aboriginal history in this country. These are not the voices of Aboriginal history, but they hold clues to our history. They are double-edged.”

“Reunions are seldom the wonderful and satisfying affairs that novelists and television producers like to portray.”

“The silence that comes with death is eventually lifted by the world that continues around us, but that part of our lives that has been left behind tugs at us, leaving us with a constant sense that there is something that we have forgotten, until it reminds us, and the world slows again where we exist.”

I loved the way Samantha Shannon weaved the foundational events that explained The Priory of the Orange Tree throughout this book. 

As with TPOT it was a really well built world with normalized queerness and a depth of character that embraced flaws and weakness without making that the totality of the story. 

Definitely one of my fav fantasy series!

Too many Harry Potter references. Can’t enjoy listening to mythology while having the TERF’s work referenced so frequently.