elwirax's reviews
479 reviews

Among the thorns - 3/5
How to bring someone back from the dead- 3/5
Alice: a fantasia- 2/5
Phosphorus- 3/5
Ballroom Blitz- 1/5
Serpents- 2.5/5
Emma Goldman Takes Tea with the Baba Yaga- 3/5
Rats- 2/5
Lost in the Supermarket- 2.5/5
Swimming- 2/5
Lily Glass- 2/5
The Revenant- 1/5
Burning Girls- 4/5
 

I enjoyed the exploration of themes in these short stories (anti-semitism, revenge, capitalism and exploitation, mental illness, self-destruction, oppression and trauma). However, the execution of many just didn't interest me despite being well written. Burning Girls, Among Thorns, Phosphorus and Emma Goldman were by far my favourite short stories in this collection where I felt the themes were the strongest. Overall, an interesting collection based loosely on well know fairy-tales, perhaps just not for me.

Was this the most believable or well written novel I've ever read? Absolutely not. Was it fun, easy and a good escape? Indeed it was. 

It touched well on topics like homophobia (internal and external) in sports and toxic masculinity. There was strong communication in this book which is sometimes rare in romance books and the fact that hateful speech was always pointed out and held accountable was great. The side characters (while not as developed as they could've been) were wonderful. I also liked how the conversations/ information surrounding seizures, service dogs and anxiety disorders was introduced. 

However, I thought that Eli deserved better characterisation. It's mentioned that he's a figure skater but never speaks about his ambitions or shows any of his practices which makes him seem rather flat . I feel like a lot of his character was set up as a support for Alex's character and he was more of a secondary character rather than the main narrator. There's nothing wrong with pure fluff (in fact it's sometimes well needed) but I would've wanted just a bit more tension, angst and conflict so that the world/ character building weren't so flat/ insubstantial. While the romance was sweet and respectful, it happened rather fast ( in the first few pages type of fast) and reinforced the shallow worldbuilding due to it being the sole focus. The structure and pacing of this book was also a wee bit off as at times as it jumped from POV to POV without warning, yet this wasn't too jarring as a whole. 

Overall, I thought this was lovely, not perfect but sweet nonetheless.

An insightful collection of 3 essays on Fascism and Anti-fascism. While I do think that this was too short for a proper discussion on the topic and felt more like a gentle introduction, it was still very interesting and I will definitely pick more up from Eco. 

While I liked the whimsical writing and use of fabulism, I really don't think that it provided anything new. It didn't really stray from the original in any substantial way and in the ways it did such as through themes (racism, class exploitation and homophobia), they were never explored as well as they could've. The magic was perhaps the most original part of this tale, yet, it went largely unexplained and underutilised. I found all the characters extremely unlikeable which is a shame because they were somewhat tolerable in the original and so I was hoping to like them here. 

In terms of what did I liked, the author did a great job of naturally slotting in her original elements into the time period and the many whimsical descriptions of the original novel (e.g. demoniac (which I presume alludes to the prohibition, as it is also banned but still used among the rich) and Gatsby actually selling his soul which provides a justified fantasy explanation for his quick acquisition of wealth). I also liked that the author played into the queer elements of the original though I still thought it was very heteronormative as if the author was too scared to stray too far from the orginal and conversations around sexuality were very heavy handed (e.g when Jordan asks Gatsby whose cock he'd sucked...not only was that very out of character, there was also 0 nuance). 

Overall, I thought the literal representation
 of Fitzgerald's figures of speech/ the fantasy elements where perhaps the best parts of this novella. As a whole it was unfortunately a dissapointing read. While I wasn't in love with the original, I expected to enjoy this retelling more due to the influence of modern viewpoints. Admittedly, I liked this even less than Fitzgerald's. However, I still want to continue with Nghi Vo's past works as I did enjoy The Empress of Salt and Fortune.

 

I fear that as time has passed, I have started to outgrow YA and it's unfair of me to keep rating them so low especially when they discuss important societal issues and complex family dynamics like We Deserve Monuments did. Nevertheless, there was unfortunately very few things I actually liked about this book. 

I loved the family dynamics in this book and the discussions on generational trauma and emotional abuse, they were done in a very heartfelt way. I liked that Avery wanted to find out about her family history and wanted to strengthen the relationships in her family despite not always understanding the pain and suffering that her mum carried and that some things simply cannot be forgiven quickly. Her mum coming out as bisexual was also a very heartwarming scene especially as older people often had to suppress themselves (especially if they grew up in small, conservative towns). I thought the conversations on police brutality and racism were raw and devastating and really made me feel the hurt felt by each person who knew and loved Ray (even if it was through the memories of others). I think these discussions were the book's strengths. 

However, the mystery aspect of this book didn't really work out for me, it almost felt tacked on just for heightened drama and was mostly forgotten about until the end ( though I understand that it came from a place of great sorrow). I wasn't very convinced by Avery and Simone's relationship, it was too fast and not fully developed which is a shame because it brought up great conversations around being Black and queer. I also wanted Avery to be wee bit more sympathetic to Simone and her struggles surrounding coming out to a hyper-religious family. Lastly, I think that some of the characters' actions were far too immature for me to fully enjoy, although I do appreciate that the author presented teenagers authentically, messy and all.
 

Overall, a fantastic book about intergenerational trauma, racism and queerness and I would highly recommend it for those aspects. Everything else sadly didn't work out for me and I'm ashamed for rating this book so low. 
 

I don't know what it was about this book that I didn't fully click with. Perhaps it was the excessively flowery writing that obscured my understanding for parts of the book or the underdeveloped world building that could have been so great. Ultimately, it was somewhat of a disappointing read. 

The majority of this novella was written in an understandable manner and one which I quite enjoyed the pace of. The rest, however, read like words were just thrown together for the sake of ambiguity. While I still really enjoyed much of the lyricism, I also found it exhausting to get through at times and begged for simplicity. Nevertheless, I liked the way letter sending and reading was portrayed in this book (written in seeds that when ingested projected imagery and words in the head and in tea leaves). It was really imaginative and interesting to see what Red and Blue would come up with next and the snarkiness in what they wrote to each other. 

I quite liked the characterisation of both Red and Blue where the former is a product of a machinery/ cyberpunk type of world and the latter is "grown" in a type of ecosystem. The contrasting nature of these 2 characters really helped me better understand the divisions in the world created. Also, Red looking up a guide on letter writing was slightly amusing. That being said, I did not see their romance as developed enough for me to be invested. I think it came out of nowhere and had no natural progression, although I understand that this is most likely due to how short the story was. 

Plot wise I think it was good, it got a bit convoluted with all the time travelling and jumping about but by the end it made more sense. 

Overall, I'm a wee bit dissapointed with this book but it was a solid read.

 

I like how these poems explored very mundane things like buying blueberries and how each one had a deeper message about the connection between nature and the self. I like Oliver's straightforward style of writing where I didn't have to sit and guess what she meant. Would definitely give her other poetry a go.

 

As this is a memoir my rating is not based on Machado's experience but rather the way it was structured and written as a whole. Please do not take this as direct criticism of how the author has chosen to cope and portray her trauma (despite how contradictory that sounds).

I don't really have any profound criticism of In the Dream House just minor personal dislikes. Something I couldn't really click with was the writing style particularly when it switched between first person and second person. I understand that this was used as a way to put the reader in the author's shoes and while I appreciate that, I also didn't feel connected due to the lack of internal monologues and in depth look into emotions. Another thing were the constant footnotes and references to media. There were clear parallels in say, Stranger by the Lake and Gaslight but I couldn't always connect them with the context of the author's experiences (although, maybe that was just me not looking deep enough into their significance). It's definitely an interesting addition to a memoir but sometimes the book didn't know whether it wanted to me a memoir or a critical analysis/ dissertation on how same sex relationships and violence have been portrayed in media. This resulted in choppy writing that ranged from really formal to rather simple and took away from the flow of the text. I think that while the references added a bit of nuance to the text and supported the author's experience, they also took away from it through the pages and pages of description that sometimes felt like filler. As a side note,  what was that mouse stomping scene about and the narcissism after finding out friend's roommate died in a fire?! A bit weird to me. 

Nevertheless, writing about her experience with an abusive, queer relationship must not have been easy. Hats of to Machado for writing about a topic that deserves more recognition than it recieves in the media. I also really liked the choose your own adventure part, though that is obviously not as important as the subject matter.

 

The semi-autobiographical nature of No Longer Human and the use of first person meant that I found it almost wrong to rate this knowing that it was definitely not going to be a 5 star book for me. The prologue was great which is why I hate to say that there wasn't much I actually enjoyed about this book irrespective of the subject matter. I found it hard to feel anything other than the ocassinal disgust which is astonishing given its raw exploration of mental illness and isolation. I'm led to believe that maybe this is due to the translation and its inability to convey the original meanings or emotions. Another factor that contributed to my dislike was the deplorable misogyny (yes, yes I am aware when and where this was written. I'm tired of reading about it). 

Yozo's flawed disposition left very little room to like him as a character. That being said, I also couldn't entirely fault him for succumbing to things like morphine addiction. Building a fulfilling life while trying to survive with Yozo's attitude towards life and society is hard. While I don't encourage such self destructive actions, I can empathise to an extent with his need need to grasp some sense of meaning and value in life whether it be false or not. The book attempted to show that despite being isolated a person can still try to build connections with others. However, this was mostly shown by mutual suffering which only added more gloom to an already gloomy book. I suppose that's maybe part of the complexity of Yozo's character, no matter how hard he tries he can't reconcile himself with society. I found his pursuit of self expression through art admirable but other than that he didn’t really have any redeeming qualities. 

Undoubtedly, the book is an interesting exploration of how mental illness progresses from adolescence to adulthood and the effects of alienation from society. While it was a good that mental illness wasn't glamourised and was allowed to show its true face, It was also hard to truly "like" the book. Definitely requires a re-read in the future.