hfjarmer's Reviews (394)

#

*Brave New World* depicts a dystopian society where the breeding and raising of human beings is reduced to an exact "science." Through a combination of gestational bottles and sleep conditioning, each person's caste is predetermined by the conditioning - a tale of nature vs nurture. Lower caste members, for example, are bred to be smaller and less intelligent, supposedly to perform the more menial tasks required to "keep society afloat" without raising any objections. Everyone is conditioned to fulfill a specific role in society, from gardener and trash collector to psychologist and physicist.

Another key pillar of this society is the belief that "everyone belongs to everyone else." Every member is encouraged to act on their most basic instincts, behaving in an "infantile" manner. Eat what you want, play what you want, sleep with whom you want. There is no monogamy, no individualism. The society thrives on capitalism and conditioning everyone to desire nothing more than sex, drugs, and consumerism. This dystopian world is both fascinating and disturbing. Children are encouraged to engage in sexual play with one another, while intellectualism is discouraged in favor of blind consumerism.

All that being said, I rated it 3 stars purely based on my enjoyment level of the book rather than its importance or social commentary. While I believe I understood the book fairly well (though I am certainly no literary critic), it simply wasn’t a novel I particularly enjoyed. The absurdity of it all gripped me at the beginning and made me eager to learn more about their world, but I gradually began to drift off and lose interest. At first I was intrigued to see how Bernard and Lenina’s stories played out, but I felt the book lost steam after they visited the Native reservation. There are very obvious themes of misogyny and racism in this book, among other things, so reader beware, I suppose. This book is definitely worth reading if you enjoy dystopian novels that draw eerie parallels to modern society, and I’d recommend it to others despite my personal mid-level enjoyment.

2.5⭐️

I had very different expectations for this book, and to be completely honest, I was let down. I anticipated more of a social commentary on the roles women play in society and relationships. While Smith does touch on these themes, she does so through the very specific lens of her own (seemingly very fresh) divorce, and so I feel we kind of lost the forest for the trees.

Smith’s writing is raw and lyrical, certainly a reflection of her background as a successful poet. I enjoyed the vignette-style story telling, as I often do, and I believe if this book was written in any other format it might have been entirely unreadable.

After reading several reviews since finishing Smith’s memoir, it’s clear that many of us who weren’t captivated by the book share similar grievances, though our reasons vary. The book is undeniably repetitive. While this worked on an "artistic-choice" level for some readers, for me, it just felt like endless repetition. The metaphorical horse couldn’t be beaten any further.

At times, it felt like Smith wasn’t ready to write this book. It read like a woman frantically trying to make sense of what happened to her marriage, but that clarity never really came. She frequently reminds the reader that this isn’t a "tell-all" or even a "tell-some," but rather a "tell-mine." While it’s understood that any memoir offers only the writer’s perspective, this artistic choice came across as taunting and judgmental toward the reader. Smith gives half of a detail, only to then say, "No reader, I won’t give that to you, that’s for me only. Why would you even want to know that?" Instead of being a clever literary device, it felt belittling. For example, she often says things like, "But I won’t use that word here" (after alluding to, say, the word "gaslight") or mentions that she won’t give a detailed description of her children’s reaction to her divorce. It’s confusing—she’s the one who brought it up, so why make the reader feel bad for something they didn’t even ask for? It’s as though she forgot that she’s the writer and has the power to choose what goes into the book, and choose she certainly did.

Her ex-husband certainly sounds like a terrible person. I can’t imagine how I would’ve felt if, after my parents’ divorce, one of them moved hundreds of miles away from me. The inequitable division of labor in heteronormative relationships is a burden many women face, and I’m hopeful that my generation will see a reduction in this issue. The emotional labor of womanhood is undeniable, making it difficult to critique a book about such a specific life event without sounding anti-feminist or victim-blaming. But that’s not my intention. Rather, I feel this book is meant for a very specific audience. As someone whose parents divorced when I was roughly the same age as the author’s children, I expected to gain some interesting insights. Instead, the narrative came across as self-serving and a bit whiny (I’m sorry). I acknowledge that going through a massive life shift like divorce is challenging, yet people do it every day. Smith, however, has the privilege of being a published author with a platform to air her "tell-mine."

Overall, this just didn’t work for me. I’m willing to admit that I might not be in the right place in my life for this book to resonate with me.

3.5 stars --

Ne'er Duke Well follows Selina and Peter in a charming historical romance. Selina, the sister of a Duke, secretly owns a library with a scandalous little twist—it houses the Venus Catalog, which discreetly provides sexual education to the women of the ton through a wide range of materials, including personal accounts, erotic novels, anatomy books, and more. Peter, recently thrust into his role as Duke after the death of his grandfather, is a charming, Louisiana-raised man determined to gain custody of his much younger half-siblings, Lu and Freddie. However, Peter's abolitionist views don't exactly endear him to the high society of the time. Together, Peter and Selina hatch a plan to help him secure custody of his siblings.

This was a delightful historical romance, a bit of a departure from my usual reads, but a good, relatively mindless break from the norm. I found Peter incredibly charming, and the writing was much less cheesy than the only other historical romance I read a few months ago. I appreciated that the characters were actual adults, not just twenty-somethings as is so common in the genre. The spicier scenes were well-written and refreshing, offering a nice change from the usual, as I often find that romance scenes can feel repetitive.

I particularly loved the element of women's education. It felt like a blend of Bridgerton and Lady Whistledown, but with a focus on sex education—a fun and clever twist for a novel set in this time period.

It has been a while since I’ve enjoyed a fiction book this much, and I’m so glad I finally picked it up.

**Big Swiss** follows Greta, a woman in her mid-40s who, after ending a ten-year relationship, finds herself in the very small, very hipster Hudson, NY. There, she takes a job as a transcriptionist for a local sex therapist. Greta, with her history of trauma and attachment issues, becomes deeply connected and oddly obsessed with one patient in particular, setting the whole book in motion.

I found **Big Swiss** to be that perfect combination of irreverent and hilarious, which I love so much. Greta and Flavia have a deeply troubled, yet intense, relationship that, on the surface, doesn’t make much sense. However, we eventually realize it is likely the product of their respective traumas. It is a story about Sapphic love, craving, obsession, and how trauma can affect every facet of our lives, should we let it. Beagin doesn’t just let her characters be problematic and faultless, though. The idea of not letting our past control our lives and taking accountability for our actions is a major message here.

I loved how Greta says whatever is on her mind at any given moment; she is the definition of no-filter, to a point where I think some readers might find her off-putting and gross. But I love a weird, gross, unlikable main character, and here we get two!

My only qualm with **Big Swiss** is the ending. With a plot like this, the climax is quite predictable. Despite this, the writing was funny and interesting enough that I remained invested in the story. However, the climax came and went, and I found myself most disappointed by the “resolution” phase. The ending felt a bit rushed and incomplete, leaving much to be desired. I’ve noticed this is a common theme in my reviews of similar books; I’ll have to reflect on why that is. There were also a handful of moments where I thought “wait what are we talking about here? how does this apply?”

I really hope to read more from Beagin in the future. Her writing style is genuinely funny; I found myself laughing out loud at several points. The characters were weird and problematic, and the plot was perfectly unique.

This book came highly recommended by my lukewarm acquaintance Kate.

If you are looking for a mindless fantasy read to cure your SJM hangover, this just might be the one. The characters are lovable, and it’s a classic enemies-to-lovers situation that you can fully dissociate into. The nickname ‘bird’ had me giggling and kicking my feet throughout this book.

A Dawn of Onyx is definitely more romance-focused than fantasy-focused, so if you like your fantasy with a side of romance, this may not be your #1 pick, but it is still a good read nonetheless. Kate Golden’s writing is descriptive and romantic but not cheesy or cliché, which is my biggest issue with much of the writing in the “Romantasy” genre.

While most of the fantasy books I’ve read follow that classic format of heavy worldbuilding at the beginning and by the end all the pieces come together, this book is not very heavy on worldbuilding. I do, however, think it could have used a bit more of the worldbuilding element, as the plot is really just a romance set in a fantasy realm. I’ve heard, however, that the fantasy and worldbuilding element is stronger in her second book. Because of the lack of building, I kind of felt like not much was happening besides flirting and tension building for the first 75% of the book, and then it all kind of comes crashing in the last 25%, leaving you with a lot of questions. Hopefully, those are answered in book 2.

I will definitely be continuing with this series and am eager to read more of Arwen and Kane.

Sula offers poignant insights into friendship, sexuality, womanhood, and blackness in a small town in Ohio in the early 20th century. Sula herself is an intriguing, if not beguiling, character, and she alone drove me to persist in this novel.

It is always incredibly hard for me to read a classic from a renowned novelist and feel as though I am missing something critical. This is the second book by Morrison I have read (the first being The Bluest Eye), and what I've found is that while I have immense appreciation for the themes and messages of Morrison's work, ultimately I am just not a fan of her storytelling style. Morrison is able to write vivid, lively characters, which I love, but at the end of the day, I always feel as though I am trying to put the pieces together in a story to the point where it detracts from my reading experience.

This is all to say that I truly believe Toni Morrison is receiving all the love and respect her writing deserves, but ultimately her writing is just not for me.

I have a fondness for books from this time period as they often exude whimsical and playful tones, providing a refreshing change of pace from my usual modern reads. While I hesitate to draw direct comparisons, I couldn't help but notice vague similarities in writing style and storytelling between this book and Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence," despite their very different plots.

"The Comforters" was presented to me as a story where a woman gradually realizes she is a character in a novel. Intrigued by this premise, I must admit I was somewhat underwhelmed as I had hoped for a more substantial execution.

Instead, the narrative unfolds as a mystery involving Laurence who suspects his grandmother's involvement in a gang, leading us through a series of intertwined storylines until the mystery is unraveled. The aspect of the woman realizing she's in a novel plays a minor role, leaving me feeling that the book could have maintained its essence even without this angle, resembling a chaotic rendition of the "it was all a dream" trope.

There is some pretty blatant homophobia in this novel as well, I suppose more a product of the time period in which it was written. The portrayal of homosexual characters borders on caricature, almost comically exaggerated and I feel like those of you that know my heart can guess what I mean by that.

Despite its convoluted narrative, "The Comforters" remains an entertaining and silly read. I am intrigued to explore more of Muriel Spark's works, as her unique voice shines through despite the disjointed storytelling.