Reviews by cozyfitz496 | The StoryGraph

78 reviews by:

cozyfitz496

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Alison Bechdel

3.5

dark reflective sad slow-paced

Spent

Alison Bechdel

5.0

funny inspiring reflective medium-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

Returning to the smart, snarky, and fun style of Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel graces us with a fictionalized memoir of her more recent years. She's running a goat rescue farm with her partner, Holly, trying to handle the existential crises of late stage capitalism and Trumpism, finding her place in a world where she has more social capital than she ever expected. Some of your favorite characters are back (Sparrow, Stuart, Ginger, and Lois), settling into old age, trying to stay true to their values as they lose touch with the youth (like an ace NB J.R.). They're still experimenting, they're learning humans have more in common than we often like to think - they're struggling to engage with Marx and learning more about the concept of mutual aid. It's a short work, so I don't want to say too much. But if you're hitting a point in your life where you're thinking about how capital and age changes our queer values in both theory and practice, read this.

Oh yeah. I got an advance digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

Content Warnings

One Love

Matt Cain

5.0

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Matt Cain!! He did it again. A bittersweet heart wrencher about the different ways to be queer, the ways you can love a person - and the ways our unresolved trauma can affect how we do both. Danny & Guy have been dancing around the truth hidden behind their friendship for decades; Danny's planned them a weekend at Manchester Pride to celebrate their 20 years of friendship - and he plans to finally tell Guy how he's felt since the day they met as first years in uni. The plot bounces around through the ebbs and flows of their history in a way that reveals every detail with perfect timing. I did quite a bit of gasping in the second half!! Truly a tale of “If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

I received an advanced digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warnings

Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities

Veronica O. Davis

3.0

The Road to Tender Hearts

Annie Hartnett

5.0

dark emotional funny hopeful 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

PJ's 63 years have been full of tragedy, and more stress might kill him - he's already had three heart attacks. He drinks away his lottery winnings, masking the grief of losing his eldest daughter in an accident, and then his marriage as a result. When he finds a stray cat who can predict death and then becomes the guardian of his estranged brother's very traumatized grandkids, PJ takes the oddball gang on the road to look for his old high school love, all of them kept in line by his resentful adult daughter. There's so much trauma surrounding this group, but PJ manages to be optimistic and find humor in the face of great tragedy. And there's a cat who serves as an agent of death! This title is irreverent and dark, but full of heart. I've never been so happy to watch things go so wrong.

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warnings

Direct Descendant

Tanya Huff

DID NOT FINISH: 32%

DNF. Maybe come back to this one. Not sure what was off for me. Mood?

Playing Flirty

Shameez Patel

5.0

Content Warnings

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise

Colleen Oakley

5.0

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Oh god, another really sweet, funny, twisty book! Eighty-four year old Louise’s daughter hired 21 year old Tanner to drive Louise to her hair and doctor’s appointments after Louise’s hip injury. Tanner’s had her own injury, and the two of them are miserable over all the ways their bodies are limiting them. But when they end up on the run, circumstances force them to work together. YAY! There’s TRAUMA, there’s walls breaking down, there’s unlikely friendships - a winner for me.

Content Warnings

The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective

Steven Johnson

DID NOT FINISH: 18%

Maybe it's the narration, maybe it's the pacing or the order of storytelling, but I didn't know where we were going and I got bored.

How Does that Make You Feel, Magda Eklund?

Anna Montague

DID NOT FINISH: 24%

I want to love this but the writing style and the sad dryness of every character is making me depressed.

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