coolfoolmoon's Reviews (357)

Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk

5.0

dark informative mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Unfortunately I get it. Just a couple guys and their humble homemade soapmaking business. It's so interesting that so many people have read this and thought "Wait a minute I should start taking notes." Made me think of the Pewdiepipeline and the current era of right wingers / fascism and how fanboys react to The Matrix despite it being written by two trans women. Me and someone completely on the opposite political spectrum both get it, but I see it as critique and they see it as a rule book. So good. Sad but good. My only complaint is that I wish Fight Club was capitalized throughout the book.

Content Warnings

Incantation of Frida K.

Kate Braverman

1.75

challenging informative reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

What a mess. Two hundred and thirty five fucking pages of metaphors. I started skimming paragraphs the same way I read textbooks in college, first and last sentence ONLY. Good news, it really feels like Braverman did her research on Kahlo; bad news, because of that I need to read Kahlo's diary because I have a copy and I didn't like this book or writign tstyle, so if this is modeled after Kahlo, I guess that means I don't like Kahlo. I really thought I did, obviously that's why I picked this book up. The writing tries to be romantic / poetic but I really didn't feel that. I just got annoyed. I've also read worse books so I was determined to finish this one. It doesn't seem fair that I would read something worst than this all the way through, but I really wanted to DNF.

Content Warnings

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Aimee Bender

2.75

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Over a decade ago I looked up books to read and made a long list from several articles of books to convince my mom to buy. She didn't buy a single one. I remember this being on the list. And now I'm like, why? Thank goodness I found this at a used bookstore shop in Pasadena. It was a cute read, very creative, very fun. Beautiful gowns. I have the opinion that white people can't / shouldn't write magical realism because they never quite get it right. This book is only more evidence toward my theory, but it was a good effort, Miss Bender. I'll give you that. I had fun but I wasn't blown away.

Content Warnings

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert

Bob the Drag Queen

3.0

funny informative 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: Yes

I kept thinking, who is this written for? Because it wasn't for me. This was written for some black gay who doesn't know their history and doesn't know their worth. I hope they find it and I hope it speaks to them.

How long until this gets made into a short film which gets made into a play which gets made into a feature film which gets made into a musical which gets made into a two part musical film?

Content Warnings

I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Madeline Pendleton

4.5

emotional hopeful informative tense medium-paced

Mx. Pendleton, I know you don't want to always be famous, but you will always be famous! I'm so glad I bought the book because it's full of advice we're all gonna need very... very soon...

Content Warnings

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck

3.75

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I can see why this is still studied in schools. It's beautiful, the most beautiful parts being the chapters in between. But also, it's sad that almost a hundred years later there's still things that I can relate to. I can see why they thought it was communist propaganda!

Content Warnings

Save the Date

Allison Raskin

3.75

funny lighthearted medium-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

The writing is very cute. If romance is your genre I think you'd give it 5 stars. Perfect premise, perfect concept. HOWEVER, romance is NOT my genre so even though I liked it a lot of the book felt like a horror story! If you like horror books you might give this 4 stars!

Content Warnings

Siren Queen

Nghi Vo

2.75

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

That was certainly something. I didn't like it. I didn't hate it either, it just wasn't for me. I just kept thinking "Where is this going?" and it didn't really go anywhere, so maybe that's my own fault for having expectations.

Content Warnings

Mooncakes

Loretta Seto, Renné Benoit

3.0

informative lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Cute perfect art. Does the moon symbolize eternal life in other cultures? I've been thinking about changing my name to Moon or something moon related and all the stories on this featured characters living eternal on the moon. Pretty interesting.

Kindred

Octavia E. Butler

4.75

dark funny informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

There's nothing I could say in my review that would give justice to the book. Just read it. Reread it! The only reason it's not 5 stars is I don't think Butler stuck the landing.

We open with Dana in the hospital, an ominous reason why her arm is missing, and then in the end it was just... like... of all the times going back and forth this time spacetime "conveniently" glitched to wrap up what we learned in the beginning, instead of an in story reason like Rufus in his dying moments tried to cut her arm off or something. Something!

But yeah the book is perfect no notes except that one lil note.

Content Warnings

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