clovetra's reviews
216 reviews

sometimes i ask myself “clover, why do you keep persisting in reading classics when you fucking hate the entire experience start to finish?” . because occasionally i find a diamond in the rough. that diamond is jane eyre.

usually i just…. Read… classics. like i actively never give a shit about the cast. viktor frankenstein? choke. dorian grey? indifferent. but JANE EYRE. MOTHER. 

i don’t think ive been that invested in a classic main character’s life for a hot minute. she’s fun, she breaks stereotypes of what a woman was in that period, she’s independent, witty, strong in her own right, and super interesting. even though it took me a while to get into this, the minute jane was put in that red room i was ready to throw down for my girl. and honestly thank god i liked jane because if i didn’t this book would be a SLOGGGG. not only does the plot not really exist due to it being a bildungsroman, but as do many classics, what could take a sentence to say instead takes up 47 pages. but because i loved pookie jane i kept coming back.

i think by far the most interesting passage of the book is her as mr rochester’s governess. seeing her go absolutely batshit crazy over this ugly ass 40 year old man, as well as being confused by weird shit happening in thornfield was so fun. i enjoyed jane’s life as a child, but tbh her story at moor house was BOOORINNGGG until st john reads jane the letter. i was actually so bored but then the book picks up again!!! yippee!!!! this book very much was a rollercoaster for me in terms of interest, as it would wain and then pick up.

my biggest gripe with this book tbh is rochester. he sucks. he sucks the life out of the book and jane and i hate him and his stupid face. i do kind of feel bad for him in the end…. but not enough to override my dislike for him. also i know it was a different time but him being 40 and jane being like 19…… VOMIT. he’s a dick to adele, a dick to bertha, a dick to jane, and overall an asshole. he can choke.

idk what else i can say! i defo had a decent time, but godddd i really hate when classics just drag on and on and on and on with the writing style. sadly at points jane eyre did this. me & this book have a love-hate relationship honestly

ouchouchouchouchouch. this book hurt.

god i don’t even know where to start with this review.

for one, this book was HARD. as in emotionally. having a dead dad and reading this……. Pain. literally started sobbing reading ivan talking to margaret on the phone about his dad. too relatable fuck you sally rooney (/j she ate this up). 

usually i’m not the biggest fan of character-driven novels, as i find there are no stakes and tension. and yeah i found that an issue here too i guess. but fuck can sally rooney write characters well. this is my first book of hers so my expectations were pretty all over the place, but i did not expect such superb character writing. like at some points i felt like i had been transported into someone else’s life, watching their days from their eyes. i don’t think in all my reading life i have read characters with such depth as ivan and peter. holy shit.

also side note but i feel like anyone reading this should know that the entire time reading this i imagined ivan as oliver quick from saltburn (obv before he starts licking bathtub water). if this was ever turned into a movie adaptation barry keoghan would devour the role (although ntm for hurting my girl sabrina).

this review has gotten away from me.

like this book.

usually i also often despise stream of consciousness books!!! but!!!! rooney yet again leaves no crumbs!!!! it is like watching a car crash happen right in front of you for 442 pages and you can’t look away because you are oddly mesmerised by the sheer magnitude of what is happening. Yeah. that’s intermezzo in a nutshell.

also how can i not shout out my three homegirls — margaret, sylvia & naomi. i’ll be real and say i didn’t like naomi, and even by the end she felt a bit one-note, but that could be some meta-commentary on how peter views the women in his life blah blah blah. sylvia had a bit more depth, what with her chronic pain (spoonies rise up!!!) and her life outside of peter, and was by far the most interesting out of the main female cast. margaret was… also a bit boring? she also felt quite repetitive with her dialogue and inner thoughts at times, especially surrounding her relationship with ivan. like yeah the age gap isn’t small but homegirl it’s not like ur 78 and ivan is 19 like. take a xanax like ol peter boy over here.

i don’t really know what else to add. this book is a fever dream. i honestly didn’t want to pick this up for dread of what i would encounter, but once i started reading i couldn’t peel my eyes away. the book had some issues for me personally, but they weren’t due to the actual writing being bad or anything, just preferences. like i didn’t mind the dialogue choice but what i did mind is the no plot no tension insanely philosophical thoughts appearing out of thin air. although if you asked me what my favourite parts of this book were i’d have to say the insanely philosophical thoughts appearing out of thin air.

this book is a paradox for me 

fuck. this hit close to home.

i don’t have many words for this because it was incredibly short. not only was this <100 pages, but it was poetry, so there were not too many words.

i did enjoy the actual premise, and the plot was interesting and gritty. however, i felt i couldn’t connect with the characters due to the shortness of the text, and many things were lost on me due to not grasping the subtext (that’s a skill issue on my behalf, but it did affect my personal experience with this book).

i also really liked how signs are used alongside the text, and i would love to see a full expansion of this into a short story. 

this was. ok. i remember i read this in 2018 and i liked it…. but now i have a bit more criticisms i guess. 90% of this review is going to be spoilers because my criticisms of this book focus on very specific plot elements or characterisations. 

the main issue i have with this book is its “climax” so to speak. the big rising tension is that

sana has kissed caleb as she fears jamie is cheating on her with kelsey.

. however, this really annoyed me. for one,

sana is completely raked through the coals for kissing and leading caleb on and kissing him whilst she’s with jamie. ok sweet yes very much deserved. but why tf is jamie’s cheating brushed under the rug??? WHY DOES EVERYONE INCLUDING SANA AND JAMIE IGNORE THAT FACT?? the book makes it out to be that sana is horrible for what she’s done, but yet almost lets jamie get away with also cheating???? wtf???

. this actually annoyed me to no end, and even by the last page this point is never brought up.

another MAJOR ANNOYANCE was sana’s group of friends.

they say “we’re ok with u being gay xoxo” and then push caleb onto her to the point homegirl succumbs to the pressure.

like jesus fucking christ could they be anymore grating? and i’m ngl either every character in this book was actually the biggest asshole ever, or an idiot. or both. looking at you elaine. the characterisations in this book weren’t great, as honestly i didn’t care how jamie and sana’s “will they won’t they” saga ended because i found them, along with everyone else, incredibly mediocre, one dimensional, and downright unlikeable.

the plot itself…. didn’t exist. we follow sana in wisconsin bumming around, then we come to california, and at most she follows jamie like a puppy dog, sneaks out with her friends, and spies on her dad. there is no plot. there is no “oh no prom is coming up!” “oh no exams and ah i have a gf how will i balance it all?” nope! you literally just follow the characters as they vibe for 400 pages.

also, do you know that meme about the voltron fanfic with the bilingual character saying “que pasa? ah sorry it’s hard to switch back sometimes.” that was this book. i’m not saying characters cannot be bilingual and cannot speak in another language in dialogue. what i AM saying is that not only did it feel unnatural in its placement, but there was barely ever a translation offered, so i was just kind of guessing based on my high school knowledge of japanese. at one point a character speaks spanish and ill be honest i think i missed 80% of the conversation there. why oh why would you not offer a translation, or offer more context to what is being said in internal dialogue, context clues, etc.

so what did i actually like about this book, because i seem to be shitting on it to no end?

i really liked the way the social commentary was tackled in terms of racism and japanese cultural expectations. i liked that the author didn’t shy away from the fact that just because you are not white doesn’t mean you cannot be racist to other races. although it was incredibly hard to read about sana’s friends being racist towards latinos for the umpteenth time (not because it was badly written, but because i wanted to jump the characters), i do think it was necessary, and the conversations held in this book are very important, especially surrounding the situation at the 7/11.

i don’t really like that other than sana, no other “racist” gets their comeuppance, or hell even just…. stops being racist! that honestly did annoy me as well. why have them be such shit heads and then just…. only have sana be “redeemed”. like why wasnt caleb actually confronted for talking about how “asians are all the same”, or hanh about how latino students are “lazy”… why does sana go on the most racist rant known to mankind, then have jamie smooth it over, and wow race is forgotten about in the text.</spoiler). the theme of racism is important, but it wasn’t exactly resolved well. 

a theme that WAS resolved well was cultural expectations!!! i loved the continual religion of “gaman”, and where not only sana, but her entire family, change for the better. it was nice to not only see how sana’s family influenced her opinions & decisions, but to also see her recognise it in herself? great stuff.

umm what else can i say. this book was insanely predictable. characters felt flat. plot felt flat. really i only cared about finishing this to see the tea surrounding sana’s dad.

i wrote at 30% i thought he was gay and i was pleasantly surprised with what the text actually gave me!</spoilers>.

tldr; what was my taste in books at 14 yikes

look. i do think this is an important speech. i do think it tackles a subject that is quite important. but i think the conversation held in this book is very surface level. that may be because this book is now a decade old, but i did feel like this book barely grazed the surface of feminism is. i still think this is a good read though for those introducing themselves to feminism. 

i’m finding it very hard to describe how i feel about this book.

on the one hand, the prose is beautiful, i loved the fourth-wall breaks, and i loved how everything ended up tying together in the end, almost in an existential loop. the first part of the book’s horror was really strong, and had me hooked.

but on the other hand, the rest of the book felt weaker compared to the start, and i did not truly care what happened to our main character(s). also, the actual “bell chime” explanation felt disappointing to me, and the ending didn’t feel fully fleshed out.

i might check out kabbani’s other works in the future, but i defo did have a decent time with this! i mean im not expecting everything to be amazingly fleshed out for a novella. but i still wanted more.

oh ava reid. i was hoping that lady macbeth was a fluke, where the issues with the text were an issue confined to that novel alone. sadly i was proved wrong with this. i find that a lot of the issues i had with this novel are issues i had with lady macbeth.
for one, marlinchen has almost no discernible personality, and the same goes for every other character. they are stripped down to a few defining traits. undine? mean. the father? mean. sevas? wants more in life. marlinchen? obedient. really nothing else about them existed, which meant i couldn’t care less about what was affecting them.
the plot twists were incredibly predictable, and not fleshed out properly. not only did we have the main story about marlinchen and the ballet, but then we had all the murders, and the minute the first death was introduced i already knew who was behind it. i certainly didn’t guess why, but even then the explanation was weak. at times it felt like the text completely forgot it introduced the murder plot line, where the book would go pages without bringing it up. that plot point felt like it only had a beginning and an ending; it popped up when necessary and was resolved incredibly quickly. the plot point surrounding marlinchen at the end felt like it came out of left field, and made no sense within the text. it almost felt like it was introduced to have a revenge plot for marlinchen, but instead it felt out of place in the text. sure this is a story about witches and the magic used at this point felt like it fit in universe, but to me it didn’t feel like it fit tonally. marlinchen’s character growth also feels like it literally happens within the blink of an eye, and one moment she is an obedient daughter, and i blinked and now she’s almost done a complete 180 with her character.
the book also repeats itself so often with its dialogue. it feels like i was running in circles reading the same thing — her father is hungry, she goes to the ballet, sevas’ handler is angry, her father is angry, she’s never going to go back home, she goes back home, she’s leaving home forever, she returns home, on and on and on. every time a topic was brought back up again nothing was added to further the story, so instead i felt like i’d made no progress in the book and was over reading the same passage just worded slightly differently.
i’ll say i did enjoy reading this. i did want to know what happened next. but i won’t say i was particularly gripped or worried for the characters, because i wasn’t. honestly i just wanted to see what was going to happen, if the book would improve. i will say though, i was invested in finding out the “why” of the murders, and how sevas & marlinchen’s relationship progressed, and that was enough for me to have a decent time reading this. 
i think ill try and read two more reid novels, but after that i think i will move on, as im not particularly live laugh loving. 

this was one of my most anticipated reads for 2024 and i was…. disappointed.

the entire book feels like it is a book trying so hard to be weird girl fiction, to the point where it feels like a parody with no further depth. weird girl lit isn’t just a book where the female mc goes fucking bananas and murder and death and eeeee crazy lady! no. there is more to a weird girl book. and although this book addresses the fundamentals of weird girl literature, it fails to expand on that and grow. it stays stagnant for most pages. i am a firm believer in meta-commentary is very fun and interesting, but it only works if the book itself is fun. i understand that the repetition of certain phrases, events, days, etc. for the mother is essential to the plot, as it exists as a mirror to her life — a repetition of her days exists due to being a stay at home mother, where every day is full of nappies, naps, cartoons, trains, and no time for her art. i get that. but in order to pull that off your book still has to be interesting. and this didn’t feel like that. it felt like it wanted all the glory of weird girl lit without the work.

every character in this book felt flat. the husband being flat? sure i get that one, meta-commentary her husband is useless blah blah blah. the other mothers? sure i get it, meta-commentary, she lacks friendships beyond the surface level small talk mhm. but the mother should have had more depth as the plot progressed, as she grew. and the son seemed to only exist as a plot device, where his change felt… random? unnecessary? odd in the context of the book? 

where was the plot. i was waiting for some tension. something to drive the story. surely there would be something! i told myself. the answer? not really. by the end sure, we had the performance driving the narrative. but even then, that felt incredibly unexplored, and the rest of the story felt untethered and almost pointless.

additionally, there are just too many god damn unanswered questions.

for example, was jen actually the golden retriever? is nightbitch actually turning into a dog or is it metaphorical? why does nobody blink a fucking eye at a grown woman acting like a dog to the degree she does? why does the husband just accept it?

. i feel like these were left unanswered to add to the “mystery” of nightbitch, but instead it just made me feel like the writing was lazy.

although i’ve dunked on this book, beyond actual writing issues, i enjoyed myself. i had a good time. the mother’s internal dialogue was incredibly funny, and reading about her becoming more and more unhinged was enjoyable. even though i am not a mother (and will never be), i enjoyed the themes of motherhood, contrasting with the themes of being wild and animalistic, as well as the anger surrounding motherhood. i liked reading about the grittier sides of motherhood, where even the most open of people may shy away from expressing their feelings. 

i felt like everyone hyped this up way too much. this book was fine. this book was not, in fact, the best feminine rage book to exist. hell it wouldn’t even be in my top 10, and i don’t even think ive read more than 10 weird girl books. but im not annoyed that ive “wasted my time” on this book — on the contrary, i had fun! i was just very disappointed when people were hyping this up. first bunny and now this 😕 yall need to rlly learn what weird girl lit is. go read maeve fly by cj leede.

anyways im having steak for dinner and ngl i almost want to eat it like nightbitch just for shits and giggles 

i’m in spain but the s is silent