poisonenvy's reviews
849 reviews

Gotta say, darker than I was expecting. I will admit that I did not expect a bit of light eye gouging haha. 

Anyway, this was fun. 

A decent look that gives a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses (though mostly the weaknesses, it seemed) of a variety of different modes of academic critiques to Shakespeare. 

Not bad overall. Quite informative. I don't have a lot to say about this; I had to read it for class and probably wouldn't have otherwise, but it wasn't as though it were a slough. 

Whelp, this is my favourite book in this quarter, and not only because Briar is my fav. The other three books really run on more of an epic scale, while this one is much more personal, filled with emotional, gut punch moments.  There were hints of a romance that I was stoked about that was then confirmed for me that it becomes canon. And man, this book just hits different in a post-COVID world.  It's a little more mature than the other three books while still clearly being a middle grade novel. 

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this today and look forward to starting the next quartet (even if I can't start it immediately, sob)

Another super fun entry into the Circle of Magic/Emelan books, with some really great moments of character triumph.

Rated as an average of all stories

What better way to spend spooky month than by reading an anthology of spooky stories?  I read one story a night, just before bed (except actually Halloween night, when I intended to finish the collection and instead just fell right asleep). 

Not all of these stories were horror stories in the traditional sense of how we might think about them.  But they all brought something chilling to the table.

(Any misspellings that follow are because I can't read my own handwriting; my apologies)

Kushtuka by Mathilda Zeller 3.5*
This story was good and action-packed, but something about the ending just didn't quite work for me.

White Hills by Rebecca Roan Horse 5*
Roan Horse's prose is phenomenal, and in this story she utilizes it to very effectively create an absolutely chilling atmosphere throughout. Every word helped build the tension, right up until the ending. 

Navajos Don't Wear Elk Teeth by Conley Lyons 5*
Lyon's story is nearly anxiety inducing, and manages to very effectively personify colonization.

Wingless by Maracie R. Rendon 4*
Okay, so I apparently wrote this review when I had mistakenly read the title of this anthology as "Dark fantasy" rather than "Dark fiction" so it's pretty useless as a review, which is: "I do not recall anything especially fantastic in this story, but it's a very effective horror story regardless." 

Quantum by Nick Medina 3*
This story made me angry, and made me consider as well.  We don't have Blood Quantum in Canada (at least, not in the same way that they use it in the USA), and so it's not something I've put much thought into overall, but this story just made me mad (which I think was probably the author's intention.  I'm not mad because the story was bad, but because of the topic).

Hunger by Phoenix Boudreau 4.5*
This was more actiony than it was horror-y, but I really, really enjoyed it and I would absolutely read a series based on this short story of Boudreau ever chose to write one. 

Tick Talk by Cherie Dimaline 5*
I want to give this story a one-star review, I really do, but if we're rating stories on how badly they scared us, then this one gets a 5.  There are only two things on this world that I'd consider myself phobic of, and ticks are definitely one of them.

The Ones Who Killed us by Brandon Hobson 2.5*
I will admit that I could probably do a reread for this one, but I don't think I got it on my first read.  There also seemed to be a lot of unnecessary $100 words when a $10 word would've worked just as well and probably more effectively. 

Snakes are Born in the Dark by D.H. Trujillo 3*
Karmic justice can be sweet, but I"ll confess that I think the ending went over my head.

Before I Go by Norris Black 3.5*
It's only been a couple days since I read it, but I've already forgotten most of it.  I don't think this is the fault of the story though, and I enjoyed it. 

Behind Colin's Eyes by Shane Hawk 3.5*
I feel like I"m missing some essential lore to really understand this one, but it's effective at its goals regardless. 

Heart-Shaped Clock by Kelli Jo Ford 3.5*
This story did a really good job with the family horror. 

Scariest. Story. Ever. by Richard Van Camp 5*
It's hard to tell a moralizing story that is also good, one with a lot of building tension and one that hooks you.  It's a mark of a very good storyteller to be able to do it well.  So it's a good thing Van Camp is a very good storyteller.

Human Eaters by Royce K. Young Wolf 3*
Another morality tale, and a folk tale, and I found both of them very interesting, though it's one that I read a week and a half before I wrote a review for it and I had forgotten most of it and needed to do a very quick skim over it for my review.

The Longest Street in the World by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr 2.5*
This story took me a bit to get into, partly because it also uses the longest sentences in the world.  But it was kind of funny and kind of irreverent, and I mostly enjoyed it even if I did struggle a little with the prose.

Dead Owls by Mona Susan Power 3.5*
This story is both very sad and very sweet.  I enjoyed it.

The Prepper by Morgan Talty 4*
A story more tragic than it is scary, about mental illness.  It's definitely one of the more memorable stories in this collection. 

Uncle Robert Rides the Lightning by Kate Hart 2.5*
I don't know what, but something about this story just didn't work for me.

Sundays by David Heska Wenbli Weiden 3.5*
Trigger warning for the sexual assault of children.  A tough story to read, with a satisfying ending (and a very frustrating middle. Content wise, not writing-wise).

Eulogy for a Brother, Resurrected by Carson Faust 3*
Lol that last name for this story.  But okay.  This story gave me so many FMA vibes.  I enjoyed it, even if I don't think I understood the ending. 

Night Moves by Andrea L. Rogers 3*
I can't complain about a good werewolf tale, even if the story didn't feel especially memorable to me otherwise.

Capgras 3*
I did not write down the author's name for this one and that's a shame.  It was very well written, but it just wasn't my kind of story. 

The Scientist's Horror Story by Darcie Little Badger 4.5*
Not your traditional sort of scary story, but one that I found very effective.  The ending really gut-punched me. 

Collections by Amber Blaeser-Wardzalla 5*
I loved this a lot.  The rising tension and the atmosphere were both very well done, and that ending was excellent. 

Limbs by Waubgeshig Rice 3*
I think it was the pacing that didn't do it for me.  This story could have been a good deal longer, with more rising tension.  Every shift just felt very abrupt to me.  The metaphor was very clear, however.  

Two-Spirit people is a collection of essays from a variety of two-spirit indigenous scholars (mostly, not all of them are scholars, and in one case, not all of them are two-spirit/indigenous). This book examines indigenous sexuality and gender in a variety of different ways. 

This book was written and published in the late 90s, and so a lot of the concepts they're working on articulating, especially around gender, have become a little more mainstream.  Reading this collection, I have to wonder now how much of our understanding of non-binary gender identities are able to be articulated now, even in Caucasian communities, because of the work that two-spirit scholars put in.  

One of the essays written by a white woman made me go "Wow, this person has read way too much Castaneda books, and then she went on to mention the book by name which I guess proved my point, but other than that one all of these essays were very thoughtful and well put together.  

I especially enjoyed Sabine Lane's "Various Kinds of Two Spirit People: Gender Variance and Homosexuality in Native American Communities", "Traditional Influences on a Contemporary Gay-Identified Sisseton Dakota" by Michael Red Earth, and "I Ask You to Listen To Who I Am" by Doyle V. Robertson, but I found the entire collection well worth the read.

I think it's important to note, first and foremost, that Gregory Smithers is not Indigenous. He is forthright in the fact that he is, in fact, a white man from Australia. But in this book, he does centre Indigenous voices, having spoken with two-spirit people from nations all over North America, and claims that his whiteness may have been a boon in some regards: no one he spoke to assumed he had culture knowledge, and so they were careful to explain specific nuances that they may have taken for granted that he understood otherwise. I can't say for sure how accurate this assessment might be, but I'll roll with it until I have evidence to the contrary. 

This book begins with colonial and pre-colonial history, examining written colonial accounts of, to use an anachronist term, queer indigenous people and then taking those colonial accounts (which were beyond degrading) and attempting to filter them through indigenous cultural knowledge and beliefs. He discusses how quickly homophobia spread across North America in the 19th/20th centuries, and discusses too how Two-Sprited people have worked to reclaim this part of their culture and history. 

The Two-Spirit movement is a pan-tribal movement -- queer Indigenous folks have worked across nations to bring it to what it is -- but Smithers doesn't fall into the trap of thinking that means that it's a universal experience across nations. He makes sure to talk with people from a variety of different nations to gather their individual experiences as people, and also to discuss the specific terms used in their own languages and the traditions in their own nations. He speaks with a great deal of people, and had those conversations help shape the book he wrote. He speaks about queer and Two-Spirit indigenous leaders, and the people who helped bring the movement to where it is now, and how they have been working to decolonize their identities. 

Overall, this seems to be a very well-researched and thoughtful book. 

I listened to at least part of this book on audio, and the audiobook was very listenable.

I'll be blunt: I'm not a big fan when books lecture me. And that is what this book does? Not in the setting or the premise, I think those both really worked. But that every single conversation between adults in this book was a soapbox speech/exposition.  What twists there were really foreshadowed badly, and what foreshadowing there was was more like a forecast, though I will admit that the very end was satisfyingly unexpected. The action was confused and muddled and impossible to follow. In one or two scenes Harry seemed to have fusion problems, but this was literally never expanded on it confirmed.  

This book had something specific it really wanted to say, and unfortunately, the story itself suffered for it. 

I listened to about 2/3rds of the story on audiobook, and I will say that the story worked for me a little better in audio.  

I don't know if you've ever watched Pirates of the Caribbean, where the first three movies are really good and then the fourth movie is all about Jack Sparrow, who, as it turns out, works out really well as supporting cast but cannot carry a movie on his own? 

Same vibes.