gxuosi's reviews
318 reviews

Independent Study, Volume 2: The Testing, Book 2 by Joelle Charbonneau

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emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

hi again, it's me chronic middle book lover. boy this whole book sure is just a bridge from book 1 to the finale. but by GOD is the characterization we get out of cia worth it. middle books are always full of transient plans, despondent pining, and inner turmoil and i LOVE THAT SHIT.

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The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

bro i just love this series soooo bad. i know it got so much shit a whole decade ago cause complaints of it being a rip off of a bunch of other series, but those series were inspired and based on other things too. everything inspired by something else and i’ve always felt that this story had enough unique elements that the complaints were unfounded—especially now in an era of mass produced romantasy lmfaooooo

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House of Cotton by Monica Brashears

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 70%.
dnf at 70%. between the raucous rancid sex in the mulch with strange men, the rotting haunting grandmother begging magnolia to meet her aborted baby in some weird pro-life guilt fest, and now magnolia coming up with compliments and positive things to say about her rapist—i’m done with this god awful book. the book description did this book a million favors by leaving out 80% of the plot and not warning the reader at all about any of the content of the book. i beg you to read a comprehensive list of trigger warnings over on storygraph before you read this damned book. 

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Dreaming of You by Melissa Lozada-Oliva

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emotional funny mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

melissa lozada-oliva i love your work but this was just not it. it didn’t crest the summersault into surrealist horror or stick the landing back into poetry.

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Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

thank you to tin house and natalia theodoridou from who i received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“sour cherry” is a surrealist descent through the branches of a family tree that evokes a true gothic horror from the prose-like lines to the atmospheric weight of a ghost filled mansion. theodoridou, through women that go unnamed and our all knowing narrator telling a fairy tale, maps the lives of the men in a lordly family and the pestilence that clings to their bones, leeches out into the world around them. the men seemingly carry an unnatural curse that springs up decay from their very existence down to birthing stones, festering hardwood floors, throats full of forests, and women wasting away into nothingness. “sour cherry” uses allegory and symbolism to seek to answer what makes a man a man and what makes men monsters? built around the ever cyclic nature of domestic violence, theodoridou opens the discussion of the entrapment the unnamed women experience at the hands of the man who manages to make them stay.

this book was captivating and all consuming. the atmospheric setting and format drew me in and didn’t let go. the format and narrator’s voice were also unique and i haven’t read another book formatted like this before. i felt that the pacing was at times a bit too stunted or whip-quick, with seemingly pointless diversions into subplots for which there are no answers—but this did not decrease my enjoyment or understanding of the story. “sour cherry” nestles neatly alongside the similarly surrealist generational trauma stories “the invisible hotel”by yeji y. ham and “woodworm” by layla martínez—if you liked those, read this and if you like this read those!

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The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

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dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

i dig up the company owners’s corpses, reanimate them, and beat them to death.

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Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

this book was a struggle for me to finish. there was nothing really wrong with it either. i just could not get through this. the 4 povs were tough and none of them were written in a unique voice so i felt lost in the rambling inner turmoil. genuinely pissed at how it ended.

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I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

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challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

*plays the beginning of hide and seek by imogen heap*

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Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson

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dark funny inspiring fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i love when the plot is just: am i more than you bargained for yet 

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Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 46%.
dnf at 46%. i was genuinely so conflicted over dnf'ing this book that it took an hour to decide if this was the right thing to do. i was so frustrated with having to make this choice that i quite frankly felt like i could cry. the problem i'm having is i just hated this book. i tried to explain away why i wasn't vibing with it, that i was fine till part 3, that it's one of nnedi's oldest novels. but at the end of the day- if i finished this book i'd being giving it 1/5 and by dnf'ing it... i can avoid rating it.