illtakethenightshiftx's reviews
184 reviews

The Last Delivery by Evan Dahm

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fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.0

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in exchange for a review!

This was a quirky, fast-paced, kind of funny, and kind of bleak story about a guy who’s just trying to do his job. I LOVED the art style and how fleshed out the story felt for how fast paced it was. 
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

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emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Louise Erdrich is a master storyteller!! I love how she uses multiple points of view and blends elements of magical realism and things we can’t always see into the narrative. She creates a deep, rich setting which is highlighted by her characters. The characters she creates feel so real and I loved them all!! Every person I met in this book (and every other book I’ve read by her) felt like I could reach into the pages and shake their hand or run into them while getting coffee. 
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Instructions for Traveling West: Poems by Joy Sullivan

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emotional hopeful reflective

4.0

I loved this collection! There were some poems that missed for me, but I really liked it, overall. It feels like essential reading for anyone who feels like they’re at a transition point in their life.
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A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins

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dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is a strange little novel that really wasn’t for me. Usually I like a story about messy women, but Helen was just a bit too messy for me. I really didn’t like her at all (which is the point!) and truly didn’t care whether or not she came out the other side in the end. This story is like a train wreck, I could not look away, even though I considered not finishing it. The side characters are intriguing and I want to know more about them outside of Helen’s POV, especially the wives and Emma.

The lack of quotation marks made it difficult to follow at times, but added to the chaotic frenzy of Helen’s internal monologue. The overall feeling of the novel is bleak, although there are moments of dark humor that contrast moments of profound sadness that hit me right in the chest. Overall, I don’t think this was for me, but I know folks who would absolutely LOVE this!
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Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

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challenging emotional

5.0

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor

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informative

5.0

Beasts of Burden by Sunaura Taylor examines the interconnected, yet different, issues of disability rights and animal rights. Throughout the book, Taylor examines this while taking care to highlight their differences by using both historical, contemporary, and personal contexts. Throughout her analysis, Taylor pulls the curtain back on many of the historical and dominant views on both animal and disability rights which are rooted in white supremacy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, ableism, and capitalism.

There were many instances reading this where my jaw dropped and I marked, starred, and underlined passages multiple times because Taylor’s words helped me to articulate things I believe and try to convey to others, but somehow always come up short in my attempts. She dismantles the ideas of human exceptionalism, anthropocentrism, among others, and forces us to think critically about so much - including factory farming, treatment of disabled people, conscious and unconscious biases, language, and the historical and systemic reasons behind them. 

Taylor doesn't shy away from addressing gaps in her analysis and framing and poses thought-provoking questions that are left unanswered, which is something I appreciated. Some questions don’t have an answer, or have an uncomfortable answer, and that’s okay. She challenges us to sit in our discomfort and really think critically about what is being asked.

Beasts of Burden is an urgent call and a critical lens to reframe what it means to be vegan and an intersectional approach to understanding the connections between disability justice and animal rights. This book was published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I think it’s thesis and message need to be spread because the pandemic disproportionately affected the disabled community and is a disabling virus; long COVID is real and the full extent of the effects of the pandemic are yet to be realized.

All of this is to say - read! this! book! 
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Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 36%.
Will return to this eventually, but I really can’t listen to anybody talk about killing, preparing, and eating animals rn
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

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emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Absolutely loved this!!! I wish the ending wasn’t so quick, but besides that it was an fantastic read.
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Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

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funny reflective
I’ve been wanting to read this since I was a teenager and saw an episode of No Reservations.  I’m so glad I decided to listen to the audiobook instead of picking up the print. Memoirs read by the author, especially by an author who has an amazing voice, are so much more powerful. You can tell how much food meant to Bourdain, even during his early years.

(Rating memoirs feels weird so I’m not doing it)
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