lindsaylhunter's reviews
165 reviews

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes

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

3.5

"At a certain age... everything
we've done is no longer enough. It was useful only in making us what we are. And just as we are, now that we're truly ourselves, what we've wanted to be or could be, we'd like to start to live again, consciously, according to our current tastes. Instead, we have to continue to live the life we chose when we were someone else."

A journey into the mind of a discontented middle-aged woman who wages an internal war against the constructs that have shaped her life up until now. Timeless, and so beautifully written - just a little slow to get into initially.
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Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

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funny informative medium-paced

4.0

If you want to insult a woman, call her a prostitute. If you want to insult a man, call him a woman.

A bit heavy on the millennial humour here and there, but a really enjoyable and informative read. Montell's next book is already on my radar.
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Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

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challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Nicey written (ignoring, you know, the graphic descriptions of excrement and vomit). I feel like a lot of it went over my head what with me not being much of a movie buff, but I don't think it's fair to criticise the book for that. Anyone who's film literate and into dark tales would get a real kick out of this one!
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The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura

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dark mysterious

1.5

I would describe this book as irreverent, offbeat and unsettling, though I can describe it in a single word as 'boring'.
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Penance by Eliza Clark

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challenging dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Felt a bit like reading an adult Jacqueline Wilson novel (which I'm not mad about). Definitely not as good as Boy Parts but still enjoyable and very bingeable.
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The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

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dark reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Tough one to get into initially - 100 pages in and I finally got used to the author's writing style. Nice mix of tension and gore. The author seems to really like basketball...?

But I'll not lie,
I was kind of pissed at the ending. I spent the whole book (as soon as the author clues us into what's going on) rooting for the elk cow, so for her not to exact full vengeance on Denorah was a bit anticlimactic.
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The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

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dark funny tense 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? Yes

2.5

A funnier, cruder book than I was expecting. Not unenjoyable, but a bit hit and miss.
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I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

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

4.5

I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct. Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence.

Such a frustrating book! Not a single question is answered and we're left wondering from start to finish. And yet the bleakness of everything translates into a real affection for the characters, even the minor ones. These women were left abandoned to a world which was unable nor willing enough to care for them, and even they knew from the very start that they never stood a chance against it.
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Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

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dark funny reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I don't know. Normally I love weird books and if the prominent themes are ones relating to feminism and the female struggle then all the better, but this one fell flat for me. Mona Awad and Ottessa Moshfegh do weird better.
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The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
Someone needs to tell Tartt that pretention does not equal well-written. I don't think I've ever read anyone who blathers on as much as this lady does without actually saying anything (with maybe the exception of Franzen). I'll pay her her dues for The Secret History, but that's apparently where my enjoyment for Tartt novels both begins and ends.
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