ellaellaellaetc's Reviews (494)

this was a bit silly and imo a waste of time and money. I think sayaka murata was advised to capitalise on her current success by putting out something/anything and the result was her putting a bunch of random stuff together that she didn't really care for. sorry but it's true. some of these stories had such great potential like the titular "life ceremony", the first story "a first-rate material" and the final story "a clean marriage" were all quite good, I could see them being expanded on in a full novel or novella but they also work as short stories and give you a lot to ponder. a lot of the other stories on the other hand, did not feel the same. rather than being short stories, they felt like ideas that she couldn't be bothered to finish. most of the longer stories felt really fleshed out and interesting and I can see the point of, but all of the shorter works (some of these "short stories" were like 2 or 3 pages long) just seemed like her notes app od potential ideas rather than completed flash fiction/short stories. i wouldn't really recommend you purchasing this like I did but if you want to borrow my copy I can tab the stories actually worth reading because when the stories are good, they're very good. idk I guess I have to rate this. 2.75 cause that's like smack in the middle?? idk.

oh my this is just what I needed🥲🥲 what an excellent book! this is about nora who has just past the 5 year mark working as an assistant editor for a publisher that publishes nonfic business books. she's feeling very disillusioned with her life and career and her love for books is dwindling :(( this is basically just about a girl going through it and it was just so so real. I really saw myself in nora and I gotta hand it to my girl natasha who rarely misses with her recommendations! I can't even put into words why I loved this book but I just did ahhh!!! back in july last year I had a very big crisis on what to do with my life, I had officially dropped out of my chemistry degree but I couldn't decide what I was going to do after and I was considering studying englih/editing or something to that degree so that I could start working in the publishing industry. i spoke to natasha about it and she was like "sorry girl I don't know how to help you with that but I'll lend you some books about girlies who work in the publishing industry!!" I can't fully put into words how much a gesture like that meant to me and this is the last of the stack she gave me. reading this book just after I've begun my degree in writing and editing was perfect and I really needed a story like this🥺🥺 thank you natasha! 5 stars!!

okay idk if I'm just a silly girl with no reading comprehension but this book was meant to be about her writing to her son but i didn't really fully understand the situation? I feel like it would have been better as just a normal memoir instead of having it through the lens of talking to her son. despite that, i still did really get a lot from this book, it was written by a woman called Homeira and it documents her life growing up in Afghanistan during the soviet occupation and later her experience with the taliban + getting married and moving to Iran and getting an education. It was a really tough read and I really admire Homeira's courage from a young age, she taught girls and refugees despite the threat of the taliban and she had a very interesting perspective! I looked her up and I'm really happy to find out that she now has custody of her son and I really hope she's happy!

a rec from one of my main book girlies taylor! thanks for the recommendation! unfortunately i did not like this. sorry ily. my problem is what we discussed - i like books to be super exciting or so so boring but have great writing and no in between. this book was in between and i didn't like it. this is about a hypnotist named ellen who starts dating this widow single father who has a stalker ex girlfriend. i was very intrigued by the beginning but as it kept going i was like wondering when we were going to reach the point of the book but we never reached it.

i'm going to go into spoilers because i don't think i can properly explain what i didn't like without using them. okay so you also get saskia's (the stalker) perspective as well and the whole time she is justifying the thing in her head and she doesn't see herself as a stalker. i thought this was a really interesting thing to explore! the whole "crazy people don't believe they're crazy" thing but then at the end of the book she enters their house when they're sleeping and ends up getting pushed down the stairs. the main girl talks to her in the hospital and then she just has the realistion that she's been stalking? and fixes her life? and never bothers them every again? huh. what was the point of that then. there should have been more hints of her realising that this was not okay behaviour throughout OR she should have just kept stalking them. i see this as a sort of obsession/compulsive behaviour and i don't think that she could just have the realisation one day and then just stop and then that's just it???? like why did i just spend all that time reading this. oh well.

there was some stuff i did like though! i thought the stuff about being an older unmarried woman was interesting, i learnt a lot about hypnotherapy which was fun! and also it was set in sydney (where i grew up) and the climax of the story

(the aforementioned stair incident)

happened the night of the 2009 dust storm. (swipe for pics) i remember this happening and guys it was actually wild, was a fun tidbit and is part of why i love reading aus fiction cause they'll mention something specific and I'll be like omggg so me!!! anyway, 2.75 stars

this is so weird and i can't decide if it's in a way that i like or not. this is a book about a woman called mona who is a cleaner who moves to LA after a break up with her bf (who she refers to as mr disgusting) and it's separated into four different stories each about a different client of hers. like i don't have any commentary on this book other than the fact that it is just so so strange. i really loved the dry tone but at the same time it was a pretty boring read if I'm being honest, it's one of those books where nothing really happens. this is technically a sequel to a book a read last year, "pretend I'm dead" and the title of that makes more sense now but you don't need to read that book to enjoy this one. i definitely enjoyed this one more than pretend I'm dead but i also didn't particularly like that one. idk i don't really have more to say tbh. 3.5 stars

okay??? i read this because i kind of enjoyed lola keeley's other book but i don't think I'll read anything else from her. this is a sapphic romance between a new ballerina and the head of the new york ballet and tbh i think i would have preferred if it was not a romance and instead was these two characters becoming closer in a mentor/mentee relationship. it's not that I'm against age gap romances (in fiction) but this one being in the work place and the fact that the older one (forgot both of their names already, i think one might be called grace and the other one is called clare or morgan or something i think) kept randomly promoting the main girl just so so strange? made it seem like the main girl wasn't really earning anything in my eyes even though the older one wasn't just giving her the good roles or whatever because she had a crush. like I'm serious it was really distracting. not too sure how much anyone knows about ballet but the main girl (we're gonna call her grace) becomes prima/gets the lead role after only just joining the company?? and everyone is rightly angry?? and assume they're sleeping together?? which they are?? i think this would have been a really impactful story for me if it was just about grace making it big in nyc and dealing with all the same problems but it's not negatively coloured for me by this boss/employee romance. I'm literally such a sucker for found family/accidental mentor/mentee relationships. so yeah not a terrible book but nothing I'll ever pick up again. also side note that makes the book get less points is that a hermès scarf is mentioned in the book and the audiobook narrator pronounced it the same way that you would pronounce hermes the god. very off-putting 2.5 stars

i heard from so many people that this series was a let down in comparison to the author's other series six of crows so i came in with low expectations but i think that's why i enjoyed it so much! this is a typical ya fantasy set in a world that's like magical europe. there's these people called grisha who can manipulate the elements, metal or people's bodies and the main girl finds out that she's a special type of grisha that can manipulate light! this was theorised but until the main girl comes along, they didn't realise it was possible. this is especially important as there's this massive black hole in the middle of the country that when you try to sail through it, demons attack you and everyone thinks that the main girl (sun summoner) can fix it and save the world! tbh i think this is a bit of a basic ya fantasy but in the sense that this did it first. all the other ya fantasies were trying to copy this book but in hindsight it wasn't that great. i still had a really fun time though! i think my experience was enhanced having watched the show and i enjoyed finding out more stuff that didn't get touched on in the show, namely, alina and genya's friendship! i didn't really get the sense that they were that close in the show (which - spoiler - makes her betrayal a lot more heartbreaking!). also, i felt like we spent a lot more time actually in the little palace in the book which I loved! the show did not really convey that she was there for like months😭😭. I'm eager to read the rest of this series and then rewatch the show with fresh eyes! so while i enjoyed it, this wasn't particularly special so i would probably recommend a different ya fantasy series if you're looking for one unless you're already a leigh bardugo fan and are already invested in the world. ps I know that a lot of people don't like book mal and I imagined mal as a girl throughout the whole series and i am lovinggg the sapphic relationship I built in my head🤩🤩 so cute!! 3.75 stars.

 sorry I don't even have a proper review for this. I'll just say this, if you're going to make something so so wildly problematic you have a duty to make it interesting/entertaining. the plot was not exciting however there were some wild lines that actually made me have to put the book down and giggle to. so yes I hated this but I did have fun and omgggg the movie is gonna slay so so hard I just know it. this is basically about a self insert main character who is the single mother of a 13 year old "august moon" fan (august moon is this world's equivalent of one direction). the daughter gets tickets to a meet and greet and hayes (harry styles) takes a liking to her and the rest of.the book is them going to various cities across the world and having sex. here are some notes (spoilers ahead)

- at the start of the story hayes (harry styles) is 20 and solene is 39😅😅
- we later find out that hayes has been into older women since he lost his virginity at 14 to the 19 year old sister of the louis equivalent bandmate in the story, oliver 😅😅😅 um😅😅 look 20 and 39 is wildly problematic but 14 and 19 is just fully illegal. this is not condemned by the story btw. I thought they brought this up as like a terrible backstory thing that hayes has to.work through or whatever but no?? solene meets the girl and thinks "wow she's so hot I want to high five 14 year old hayes, I bet he was so happy when this happened" um no this is a crime??????????
- why is there a mention that solene and her ex husband discuss the conflict in gaza when they're having their dinner to discuss their kid. why is that included😭😭
- it is revealed like 75% into the story that the first thought that hayes has when he meets the main girl is "I want to fuck her mouth"🤩😚 and then later on in the story the THIRTEEN year old daughter gets her braces off and hayes goes "wow you guys have the same mouth"😳😳😳😳😳😳 um😳😳😳😳 what was the reason for this
- to my understanding the author is not french and this is very clearly an author insert novel so this author definitely wants to be french sooo bad and probably had/has a paris obsession 🤭🤭
- so we all know that this is basically 1D fanfic but one of the funniest things is that the names.are changed to hayes (the author's irl husband last name🤭🤭), oliver, rory, simon and LIAM. hahhahahahahah not important enough to change his name ig😭😭
- also this book misgenders sam smith😭😭 it was published before they came out so like obviously it's fine but it feels weird to not mention it😭😭
- also for a book that has so much sex there is surprisingly little sex in this😭😭 like they talk about fucking quite a lot but the actual scenes are either skipped over/summarised after they say what they're going to do to each other or they're very very short. like why are we here. there is not really a plot so why are we skipping over this stuff.
- also hayes implies that maybe he and louis/oliver has a thing???? ugh I can't with this
- this book is very firmly set in 2014 which I find to be an odd choice. like sure it can vaguely be set in 2014 but why did you have to say that you watched the netherlands vs. chile match?? stuff like his happened a lot and I was quite perplexed by this choice. it dates the book but in such a strange way cause like these are not important landmarks of time.
- a complication brought on by this is that isabelle (daughter) finds out about their relationship towards the end of 2014 and it is mentioned that she listens to taylor swift's new album to drown out the pain because taylor is the only person that understands her (real). however I think this is hilarious because august moon is the only real big boy band in this universe, which implies that one direction is not a thing but 1989 (released in october 2014) is primarily about harry styles, member of one direction so I want to know what this universe's late 2014 taylor release sounds like. anyway this is the problem with dating your books so specifically especially if you're talking about celebrities 😭😭
- also speaking of isabelle finding out, she's upset that they're together but like, cause she loves hayes?? and she's like you took him?? huh?? like I feel like she'd be upset cause that's fucked up and it will be embarrassing for her but like?? huh???
- my last point which seems obvious is that this is very very obviously author insert fanfiction, not from the parallels between one direction and august moon or whatever but in it's structure. for those who are not fanfiction connessiours, in a lot of romance stories particularly on wattpad, you'll have the couple meet and then instantly be attracted to each other and get together in the first 25ish percent of the story. then the rest of the book of the couple going through various things. this works in fanfiction because the reader goes in already caring about the couple and you don't need to convince them to root for these two together. in "original" fiction, these format doesn't work as well. I'm not going into this as a massive "hayes campell" fan (or even a harry styles fan tbh) and the book doesn't do a lot to convince that this pair should be together. 

 
this book was also just so incredibly "not like other girls-y" which you know I just loathe. so interesting that book that should be celebrating pop and teenage girlhood manages to put down all those things and get still the main character gets to experience it all. I hate it. anyway j could talk about this forever but that's all the thoughts that I could be bothered to write down. if you want to have a conversation about the ethics of real person fanfiction please lmk and we can do that in our own time🤩🤩 1 star p.s. i august moon sounds way too similar to austin moon

ngl guys this was a bit of a nothing burger. this is about a guy who lives in a smallish town in india and his brother has a sex tape leaked. it's kind of a domestic drama as you can see how this affects the whole family. I liked the sentiment and thought it was about something interesting but it was just wasn't written in a very captivating way. really boring prose and if you're gonna have a slow moving plot you need to have something else that draws me in. anyway not bad but I wouldn't necessarily recommend nor dissuade anyone from picking it up. solid 2.75 

 oh! shout out to my friend james, this is the fourth book I've read on recommendation and finally we have one that I've liked🤩🤩🤩🤩 so happy!! this is about a rich guy called jojo and just this insane guy who becomes his adoptive-ish brother who literally tries to ruin his life in increasingly horrible ways😭😭 this was my first manga! definitely not my sort of thing but despite that I still did enjoy this story and many parts of it had me audibly gasping!! definitely not something I would have picked myself but not bad. 3.75 stars