gxuosi's Reviews (390)

Sunrise on the Reaping

Suzanne Collins

5.0

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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: No

what the helllllll !!! once again suzanne does the impossible and manages to surprise us all with a story we already know the ending of. it can’t be an easy task to be an author with a universally loved trilogy and then a over decade later try to add on to it—but suzanne fucking nails it like it’s easy as walking. this so easily could have turned into fan service (given how bad we all wanted to read haymitch’s games) with all the cameos of characters from both ballad of songbirds and snakes and the hunger games trilogy. but it doesn’t !!! everyone who is there should be there, they have purpose and reason. it’s disgusting, gory, emotionally terrorizing. it’s just a good ass book, man

Content Warnings

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017

Rashid Khalidi

2.0

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

khalidi, like a true academic, has written written a book for other academics which is lacking the through-line and penetrable language the average reader would need to actually understand the history he wants to share. the first 150 pages of the book are built near entirely on cited data points that trace the history of palestinian-israeli relations in what khalidi claims to be an unbiased history. however, it’s next to impossible to write an ethnographic historical piece on palestine that lacks bias; especially when Khalid’s frame of reference for first hand accounts is a mixture of his family’s journals from the period. so it's particularly biased and highlights or conveniently misses events that help promote a specific perspective (which is to be expected for an ethnography or history book written by someone who is part of the subject culture). ultimately, all of this ends with an incomplete history of palestine, written from the perspective of a descendant of a bygone ruling class in mostly impenetrable language. khalidi's personal stances on the solution, entities like hamas, and where to lay the blame—leave a bad taste in the mouth with lacking contextualization and a heavy dose of victim blaming. overall it’s acceptable reference material, but not comprehensive or a good place to start if you want to learn about palestine and the genocide palestinians have endured.

Content Warnings

Here After

Amy Lin

5.0

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

bro i am bawling my fucking eyes out. this is one of those books that makes me nasty cry. that wretched painful sobbing where you can’t stop and that makes you cry more; a cathartic release that you didn’t plan on having

Content Warnings

Gaza Writes Back

Refaat Alareer

3.5

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

for refaat alareer (sept 23 1979-dec 6 2023). language is the weapon of a people and our greatest gift. thank you for sharing yours with us and collecting the voices of young palestinians so that they could be heard. overall the collection is cohesive and soul crushing as it threads the lives of the authors together in stories about today, tomorrow, and yesterday. the importance of this collection outreaches the general quality of the writing when removed from historical or social context. but the true value of this book is that it was written at all.

Content Warnings

Forest of Noise: Poems

Mosab Abu Toha

4.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

by far a more impactful and cohesive collection than the previous work i read, "things you may find hidden in my ear: poems from gaza." supremely distressing and poignant.

Content Warnings

The Seventh Day

Yu Hua

DID NOT FINISH: 48%

dnf at 48%. yu hua attempted to write a surrealist critique of modern capitalist china and the degraded value of human life. instead we got a shallow surrealist stroll through stunted half plots with the continued vilification of people with HIV and other STDs as well as queer people and sex workers. it’s just not worth my time to read a humanities fiction that’s totally lacking in compassion.

Conclave

Robert Harris

5.0

emotional reflective 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

this book and film have filled my brain with unending rot; an obsession. the movie handles the plot with far more grace and nuance and adds more characterization to the cast than the book which is really often the reverse for adaptations. vivat innocentia.

Content Warnings

Pew

Catherine Lacey

4.0

mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

a southern gothic cathartic exploration of identity and the complexity of where kindness, forcefulness, forgiveness, and forgetting all mix in a tangled up middle space. i really couldn't write a review for this book if i tried, but i would recommend it if you liked russell bank's "the sweet hereafter" or jacqueline harpman's "i who have never known men."

Content Warnings

TEETH TALON TONGUE

Lee Eirinn

2.5

dark emotional fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

mkay…. it was extremely short, decently gruesome, and first person pov. i just wish it was longer than 22 pages so that it could have been better developed.

Content Warnings

First Creation

mars adler

5.0

dark emotional reflective sad 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

oooh gore filled yearning and the reckless abandon of carnal sin. thank you very much

Content Warnings

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