avokaitotoast's reviews
18 reviews

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

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dark mysterious 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

3.0

If We Were Villains - M. L. Rio

☆ ☆ ☆

Short Review (TL;DR):

⤑ Need to not hate Shakespeare

⤑ Very similar to The Secret History, but not so much that it’s boring

⤑ Kind of predictable

Long Review:

I was a little nervous coming into this simply because it’s always recommended in those “If you loved The Secret History”, you’ll love this!” threads, and that has done me dirty many times.

In many ways this book is similar to TSH: the greek introduction of the tell all prologue, the flawed characters, the academic and eerie setting. Perhaps it seems like a rip off, but all of those are found in both greek tragedies and Shakespeare.

I don’t think you need an understanding of Shakespeare to enjoy this, but you can’t be put off gratuitous use of his works; and if you do know some Shakespeare that almost does you a disservice. I felt pretty confident in my theory about the end very early on simply because of how purposeful the use of Shakespeare was; who was assigned what part, who quotes who frequently, the characters names in general.

Because I figured out the twist so early I did experience some reading burnout half way through - it does drag a bit, but I can’t tell if that’s simply because I was no longer in suspense or if it was just written strangely.

All that being said - this is a nice book. It holds up against other dark academia thrillers, and I loved being immersed into Shakespeare’s works (it made me want to pick up some of my old copies). Is it phenomenal? No. But it’s a good read!

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

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informative reflective medium-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

5.0

Paul Takes The Form of a Mortal Girl - Andrea Lawlor

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

NSFW Content Warning: this book has (a lot of) graphic smut in it. You might already know that, but I always like to make that very clear at the start of my reviews in case that’s not your cup of tea. More details in my Content Warning if you’d like!

How to describe this book to someone asks “What are you reading?”:

A book of snapshots about gender and sexuality in the 90s.

Short Review (TL;DR):

a wonderful portrayal of how it can feel to be queer; and to feel an otherness even within the community
hidden gems of literary inspiration
if you cannot read smut at all this is not for you. if you’re on the fence about it just get through the first chapter. it’s worth it.

Long Review:

“We’re just what we are.”

This book is a gut wrenching showcase of the queer experience. It’s more of a catalogue of Paul’s adventures with sexuality and gender than a plot-based narrative. If you come in looking for a love story or a grande queer redemption in the face of 90s homophobia you will be disappointed.

There are so many thoughts that Paul experiences that I think queer readers will read and think “exactly!”; when he fantasises about being with a woman, he’s also a woman; the imposter syndrome he faces both as Paul and as Polly; his constant confusion about “what he is” and “why is he like this”.

The jump between raunchy encounters and incredibly intellectual discussions about queer culture should have been disjointed, yet Lawlor somehow manages to make the stark contrast work. In a way, it provides depth to Paul’s character: yes, he’s flamboyant and almost stereotypical in the way he appreciates fashion and flirts and loves, but he is filled with a deep confusion, rage, and fear that is constantly being affirmed by the anti-queer climate.

The “interludes” (as I’m choosing to call them; iykyk) were unexpected and brought a more literary approach to the story. They can seem so random and unimportant, but they really give you something to chew on which I found really nice. The fairy (the pun must be intended) tale nature of them lends itself to Paul’s constant dialogue of the inherent otherworldly-ness he feels.

You can tell that queer history and experiences are something incredibly important and deeply studied by Lawlor. The more scholarly exploration can be a bit like reading an essay (which may not be everyone’s favourite), but they add a great deal of intelligence and understanding to Paul.

All in all this is an expressive narrative about the magical but brutal queer experience. It’s truly excellent.

“He could stay here forever, and time would stop, and he wouldn’t have to choose anything.”

Content Warnings

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 82%.

These Violent Delights — Micah Nemerever

(DNF - 82% complete)

I thought this was just fine. I found out about it from one of those “What to read if you loved ‘The Secret History’” posts — and if you loved TSH for the plot and thriller-ish aspects then that makes sense; if you loved TSH for the prose/literary/philosophical aspects then this book is not like TSH at all.

I don’t have much to say about this book to be honest, because (as I said) it was simply fine. Nothing to really hate about it but nothing to love.

I enjoyed the characters for the most part and had a fun time trying to determine who was truly the instigator. The middle dragged on a bit, but not so much that I couldn’t keep reading.

The Leopold and Loeb references were interesting. To me, Paul is incredibly Autistic-coded and it worked really well. The whole premise is supposedly about queer isolation, and Paul feels even further isolated because of how “weird” he is, how he doesn’t react to things “correctly”, or know what to say, or how to read social interactions

About DNF-ing: I rarely DNF a book, especially if I’ve read so much of it. I feel like that shows how I was feeling about it. I truly felt like I was pushing myself to read it. I’ve finished plenty of “bad” books before, and as I’ve said before I wouldn’t call this a bad book - I just truly couldn’t get invested, even being so close to the end.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

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challenging reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt

☆ ☆ ☆ (3/5)

How to describe this book to someone asks “What are you reading?”:

700 pages of visual-escapism so beautifully written that you don’t realise until you’re at the end how incredibly boring the last 600 pages were.

Short Review (TL;DR):

standard tartt : gorgeous prose, flawed-to the point of “is this problematic” characters, technically amazing writing
thematically a let down
grief and guilt themes could have been so much more gut wrenching
i have mixed thoughts on if this is a “good” book, but i DO think it’s worth a read

Before You Read:

Things to think about as you read this book.

how does your perception change with age and trauma
grief and guilt (specially survivors guilt)

Long Review:

This was a complicated review to complete. Normally by the middle of a book I can tell what my star rating is, what my general thoughts are about the writing - both on a technical and thematic standpoint - and what the author was trying to say with their work. However, by page 500 of The Goldfinch I couldn’t figure it out.

I couldn’t put the book down, I anticipated reading more, I got lost in her world — and yet I had a constant feeling of unease and confusion: I couldn’t put it down, so why do I not like it? Seems oxymoronic.

A Vox interview from when the film released describes my feelings perfectly. To summarise: this book is beautiful, you can get lost in the prose, you feel like you’re reading something special - until you try and pin point what that “special” is. You feel duped in a way.

The time between the releases of her previous novels and The Goldfinch brings a lot of questions to me. When I decided to pick up TG and realised how long it had been between her releases I had mixed feelings. Is this a cash grab or did Tartt feel like she finally had something worthwhile to say?

Tartt is objectively an incredible writer: her prose and her technique are lovely. But in the case of The Goldfinch it seems as though she hides her (let’s be honest) boring and overdone themes behind her technique.

It also felt like she was trying to appeal to a 2013 audience — manic pixie dream girls, euphoria-esque (well before euphoria) dramatic drug use, trauma galore — and it just didn’t feel natural. The intellect of the book seemed so much lower compared to The Secret History, which was a huge part of why I was drawn in by Tartt.

I hate to compare two books to each other (especially for review purposes), but after loving TSH so much, I can’t help it. While reading TSH I was constantly discovering subtle connections to philosophical works I had read in school (Hegel shout out), or retold themes from epic poems. I had tabs and tabs and tabs open of research to put together the connections I was making as I read. I found it less accessible, but a read that made me feel both accomplished and satisfied.

As I read the The Goldfinch I felt nothing. I was escaping - like Theo - into a world of beautiful words and leaving feeling empty. And if that was the intent, then this is the smartest book I’ve ever read. However, I don’t think that’s the case.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

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reflective relaxing fast-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

3.5

☆ ☆ ☆ (3.5/5)

Short Review (TL;DR):

Felt very guilty pleasure — not a lot of substance, but enjoyable
Hated everyone, but also loved to hate them
Sprinkle of female friendships and mother-daughter relationship analysis

Long Review:
Based on the cover I had expected something a little bit more intellectual or something with a bit more grit: this book was not that. It was, however, a very enjoyable read.

It has that “guilty pleasure” quality that reminded me of reading The Clique or Gossip Girl in middle school, but for adults: rich people having problems and really not doing anything but developing a pill popping problem about it.

I love an intentionally dislikable main character and this gave me exactly that. Like this girl is so privileged and out of touch with reality. But also, she’s living everyone’s “dream “ right? I don’t know how many times I’ve said something along the lines of “I wish I could sleep for a month” or “I wish I could pause life for a year and just do nothing”.

Also I just enjoy any book that explore female friendships and/or mother-daughter relationships and this gave me a little if that which was nice!

On the ending: The second Reva

got the job at the world trade center

I knew what would happen and I’m so mad about it.

Reva deserved so much more.

Content Warnings

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

Short Review (TL;DR):

Extra fun read it you have even the most basic knowledge of greek philosophy or tragedies
Made me think way too much of my old literature professors (can’t tell you if that’s in a good way or bad way, i have no idea)
really fucking good.

Long Review:

I could see how this might be a boring read for some. It’s slow, it’s not incredibly thrilling, it’s fairly predictable — and yet it’s incredibly thought provoking. It’s philosophical at the end of the day, rather than a riveting thriller. To me this book felt like if the concept of an epic poem or philosophical allegory had been applied to 20th century prose.

The characters are unlikeable, flawed to an extreme, and lack a sense of uniqueness that many of us look for in modern literature. They are very much caricatures of the over enthusiastic literature student — rejecting modernity, drinking whiskey, smoking excessive amounts of cigarettes. However, I think that works in its favor. These characters are so incredibly out of touch with the world, so isolated, and in turn are out of touch with themselves and their own morality.

There is a tension between the characters — in the first half — that mimics the academic rivalary between philosophical schools of thought: the stoic versus the epicuric, with the skeptic observing. The constant fight for what they think is higher knowledge (but in reality is a hopeless grapple for control and validation) turns catastrophic and it becomes a tale of shattering perspectives, crumbling realities, and the ever-present philosophical question of “what is good? and what is evil?”.

You don’t have to have interest or knowledge of greek philosophy to enjoy this at all (mine is Super Basic at best), however there’s a lot of really cool elements of classic greek philosophies and tragedies to be enjoyed if you do. I also really enjoyed how, despite being a chaos of greek stories, the entire story ends up almost Machiavellian in nature.

I honestly can’t wait to re-read this and analyse it more throughly. I think it will be fun to re-read some greek tragedies first though, for sure.

I’m also just rambling at this point. I quite literally just finished and trying to get out everything Ive thought while reading this succinctly is apparently impossible.

Content Warnings

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-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

5.0

Formatting things: Dialogue is intentionally not in quotation marks or distinguished from the rest of the writing. It takes some getting used to but it’s a little off putting at first.

Animal Cruelty/Abuse Spoilers: page number and a tldr so you could skip if you want

pg. 48, 90, 116, 149, 235: minor warning, non graphic
pg. 152: graphic,
describes killing a cat in detail including talk about seeing its intestines

TLDR Review:

not just for mothers or aspiring mothers
loss of identity after a big life change
anger at the expectations of women
weird, but excellent

Full Review:

There is something in Nightbitch for every woman. Nightbitch is definitely about motherhood, but it’s also about womanhood and aging, it’s about female rage and the internal fight of societal expectations to do “what you should” and to do it with a smile, to put yourself second to others, to be domesticated and docile, about not wanting to be the „perfect“ woman — the „perfect“ mother, but being painfully aware that you’re not the perfect woman at the same time. It’s about shame and resentment and loss of identity during a life transition. You do not have to be a mother, or an aspiring mother to really feel this book.

It’s over the top, it’s absurd, it’s dark, it’s funny, it’s emotional.

I‘ve seen some reviews say that the prose feels like it’s trying to be to serious. So stop taking it seriously. That’s what I have to say about that. Embrace the absurdity and the over the top-ness.

Content Warnings

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

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adventurous fast-paced

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

1.0

Short review:

over hyped
not horror at all
very disjointed narrative (not in a good way)
i have no idea what the plot was
felt like i was reading something on wattpad half the time

Long review:

Where is the horror??? Is it in the room with us?? This isn’t even bad horror, it’s just *not horror*. At all. Maybe it could be a thriller? But not a horror. It is So heavily advertised and reviewed as a horror, and to be honest, maybe if it hadn’t been I would have enjoyed it more.

I was so hyped for this book. I love queer fiction and I love horror so this book was right up my alley, not to mention the phenomenal reviews… It did not meet expectations

Gretchens prose about the trans experience is actually really nice. It’s refreshing reading an actual trans author write about it, and I really like the concept of using a zombie-esque virus as a metaphor for body dysmorphia.

The plot, however, was barely there. The setting was developed well, but the actual plot was so lost. I think for me it came down to how disorganised the whole book was.

The book follows perspectives of 5 people. However, instead of having a chapter devoted to each POV, it changes like 8 times a chapter. It makes it impossible to follow each characters subplot, not to mention the over all plot.

I wish I was kidding but I texted my friend when I was 3/4 through with the book and was like „I have no idea what the point of this book is“.

The „horror“ was lacking. If you could call it horror. I think if this was written as a black comedy and leaned into that angle then this could have been phenomenal. Unfortunately, it felt unintentionally hilarious.

All in all, it’s not a ~bad~ read, it’s just not what was promised by the marketing in my opinion. I‘ll always support queer authors and don’t regret buying this book, but I also think people can be hesitant to leave negative reviews for queer authors. I did finish it, so it was entertaining enough to read, but I do think half the time I was reading it just to try and get to the „amazing“ book I‘d heard about.

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

This is a solid „good“ book. You won’t be clutching your seat in suspense, but it definitely was interesting and managed to do dark-academia without feeling like every other book I‘ve read.

One thing that was frustrating in this book is that the main character struggles with very severe depression. She’s very apathetic and that effects the narrative a lot (since it’s in first person). She doesn’t really care about what’s going on half the time and is a very unreliable narrator because of that.

Something that I think could be a love it or hate it thing is the pacing of this book — sometimes months will go by in one page and sometimes it takes a whole chapter to get through a day. It’s very disjointed, but for me it felt like a reflection of the main characters mental health and participation in the events: sometimes time moves incredibly slowly and sometimes she blinks and days have passed. It’s fitting, and kind of cool.

About the ending: I’ve seen a lot of reviews saying that it was unsatisfying and it didn’t answer a lot of the questions the readers had been asking. While I agree with that, I kind of liked it? The unsatisfying ending felt very fitting. I liked that there was neither a bad ending or a happy ending, just an ending.

I feel like people forget that with the main characters mind set there was no way we were going to get a nice cohesive ending u less there was a ~oh my god my depression is miraculously cured and my whole personality has changed~ moment, which would suck and ruin the whole book to be honest.

The only thing that I genuinely did not like about the book was that there was a little bit of a „chosen one“ trope with the main character. It’s implied heavily by the school director that the main character is special, that they picked *her* to join the school. HOWEVER — with the way the school is run, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what they tell all of the students. We only get one students perspective after all.

Content Warnings

Rouge by Mona Awad

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Another hit from Mona.

I was worried after reading and loving Bunny that this would disappoint or be too similar and feel like a reach to hold on to the hit that Bunny was. Thank god it wasn’t.

One thing I‘ll say — Mona Awad writes horror in an atypical way, so don’t expect crazy gore or shock horror or crazy suspense. She has a very elegant way of making beautiful things grotesque and absurd.

Another thing — this is marketed as a fairy tale re-telling. Don’t go into this book looking for that. There are elements of fairy tales but it’s so subtle (which imo is the best way to do a re-telling).

Go into this book thinking about mother-daughter relationships and how grief can drastically warp your sense of self and change how you think and feel about the people you thought you knew.

It did take me a while to get into the book (Awads writing style is veryyyyy slow burn), but once I was a few chapters in I couldn’t put it down.

Can’t wait to read her other books, and I’ll look forward to whatever she writes next!

Content Warnings Explained
Trafficking:

Plot involves people joining an exclusive skin care cult, some members seek it out themselves and some are recruited. Members are essentially brainwashed and it’s revealed that they are meant to be pseudo-cannibalised (if you read it you’ll get it) by the cult leaders

Psychosis:

Main character has massive memory gaps but slowly remembers through out the novel. She hallucinates heavily and is violent because of these hallucinations.

Content Warnings

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avokaitotoast's reviews 18 reviews

avokaitotoast's reviews
18 reviews