lunabean's reviews
216 reviews

Watching Women & Girls by Danielle Pender

emotional inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

4.75

Was so excited to read this one, AND BOY DID IT NOT DISAPPOINT😭 Shy of 5 stars I think because of the way short stories usually are - fleeting and brief. Even so, even though the stories seemed mundane on the surface describing the ordinary lives of the average woman, each one (every single one!!) was so SUBLIME, so subtly powerful, I was always left having to pause after each story to sigh!!! 😮‍💨😮‍💨

From the title I’d expected stories of women and girls being watched from the eyes of men: being ogled at, not taken seriously, discriminated against. But what was intriguing was that these stories are also about how women look at each other, and at ourselves. There is a story of a mother at playgroup who feels out of place with the other white mothers; a story of a woman with OCD who navigates her daily routines whilst working at a cinema; a story of 3 sisters; of a woman who lost her best friend when she was a teenager; of a woman who has affairs. This collection explores female relationships, friendships, desire, grief, together with the intersectionality of race and class, using unadorned and lucid prose that is easy to understand. It is truly an ode to girlhood, womanhood, the many intricacies of being a girl and a woman in this world! 🥹

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

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adventurous challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I really wanted to love this one. A book about motherhood, selfhood, and female animalistic rage. The narrator is a woman who used to be an artist (although why the past tense? does the title only apply if one is *constantly* creating art? or creating art for profit?) but after having a child became a full-time stay at home mum. Gradually she finds herself growing hair in places (base of her neck, tailbone), and having animalistic dog-like urges - to hunt on all fours, chase, dig, eat raw meat. She calls this alter-ego Nightbitch.

I thought the play on words was very clever, a word used to both describe a dog and a “difficult” woman as the narrator struggles to bridge these dualities in her: artist vs mum, creating art vs creating her son, dog vs human. She goes back and forth between a) trying her best to be creative and artistic and *normal* by bringing her son to the library and b) acquiescing to her urges to run wild at the dog park, eat rabidly, and hunt squirrels with her son. I think the concept of this book is brilliant, using this alter-ego to describe what a lot of us women (and I presume mothers) feel: anger, rage, power, fierce loyalty sometimes to the point of being feral. Emotions that are deemed unbecoming of women/mothers. Eventually, the narrator reconciles these seemingly opposing dichotomies and fully embodies *Nightbitch*.

I started out really loving it, speeding through it, and I really do love the concept! But then I felt like the prose got more and more manic, crazed, line between real and imagined blurred, a lot of swimming in the metaphorical, until I could not understand the prose any longer and just wanted to finish it asap. Some paragraphs really hit the mark (see slide 3) but a lot of it I felt like was rambling. Still a very interesting book though!

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

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adventurous funny tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

Honestly disappointed with this one. There are a lot of books on mental illness out there, this one was saying a lot but saying so little. I think the main point is that even with mental illness you’re not entitled to act like a jerk, or to blame shitty behaviour on it, because it doesn’t just affect you - it makes ripples and currents in families and other people’s lives.

Something went off in Martha’s brain when she was 17, and since then, she’s had periods of despair and panic where she’ll lay in the corner of her bathroom unable to move, or hide under her desk for days, or find herself incomprehensibly enraged and violent. She flings things at her husband, puts the iron through the wall, not being able to decide how she reacts to minor things until she finds herself in the throes of already reacting. All her life she’s been prescribed concoctions of medications and been told by doctors to not get pregnant on them. Years later, after finding her diagnosis, she realises she’s always wanted to be a mother all along.

I felt like the story was going on and on and on and it was hard to empathise with the protagonist because honestly she treated everyone like crap and was so unlikeable, acting like everyone’s lives revolved around her and her mental health. All I did whilst reading was pity Patrick and everyone else that had to deal with Martha, and to refrain myself from yelling at Martha to god just shut up. Even with the “redemption arc” from the letter Martha’s mum wrote her acting as the writer’s voice of reason and morality, I felt like it still wasn’t enough to give me back the hours I spent reading about Martha’s narcissism. It wasn’t super awful, I just think it was so LONG.

Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

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funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The book starts off with Emira Tucker, a young black woman, accused of kidnapping the white toddler she is babysitting while at a grocery store. While race is not mentioned in the altercation, it is clear that this would not have happened if Emira were white. Kelley, a white man and a witness to the incident at the grocery store, eventually becomes Emira’s boyfriend.

Emira’s employer, Alix, feels desperately apologetic for the incident and wants to befriend Emira, treating her like “family”, unaware herself that her reasons for doing so are misled and very much coming from a “white saviour” complex. Alix tries to convince Emira that Kelley is using her, from his track record of only wanting to have black friends and only dating black women. Kelley in turn wants Emira to quit her job, claiming that Alix has always been blind to her privilege and that black people have always been collateral in her actions.

Throughout the book, the intentions of both Alix and Kelley seem good, and I found myself oscillating between supporting Alix and then Kelley. It is clear toward the end though that both characters have some ingrained racism that none are aware of: Alix feeling like she can provide for Emira, even though Emira never asked her to. And Kelley exclusively dating black women, which at first might come off as “progressive” but in fact really is racist.

This book conveys the idea that being “racist” doesn’t always mean hurling insults and being malicious. Racism can be embedded into society, and people can exhibit racist behaviour without them even knowing or intending to. A hard book to dissect, thoughtful read.

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Sad girl genre with a vampire twist… This isn’t a fantasy book though. In this book, Lyd is struggling to find her place in this world as a 23 year old vampire living on her own. She is caught between dualities in her identity: her human half vs her vampiric half, her Japanese half vs her Malaysian half, her desire to experience human food and the joy that comes with and traditions associated with eating vs her ability (or inability) to only digest blood. Lyd wants to live, even though she’s been told since young by her mother that what they are is dead, undeserving of anything nourishing - from food to friendships. The story tells of how Lyd eventually reconciles parts of her identity that in the beginning seem antagonistic. Kohda uses plain undecorated prose that is still rich and telling, so it’s easy to follow. I do think things could have been more exciting and attention-grabbing with such a clever story, but alas plot falls a little bit flat in the middle.

Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

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dark reflective tense medium-paced