justinlife's Reviews (916)

I think this is an important telling of US history that us Americans all need to read. 

We get to see our nation through the eyes of those who were most hurt by it's creation. History and who is telling the history always has a point of view and it's never neutral. What gets told and how that gets told matters. 

While this is an important book about our nation's history, it's also a book of military history and how much of our military tactics come from war with Indian Nations. There's a lot here to process and Dunbar-Ortiz does a stellar job of making the history palatable and accessible. 

One thing I appreciated was her word choices. How she frames history hasn't been framed in this way and it's eye opening. 

Highly recommend this one. 

Overall I liked this book. 

The story has some problems and some things I didn't understand the purpose of, but it was a fun adventure in New Orleans. It was an interesting take on urban fantasy. I do wonder if there will be more to this series. 

The story revolves around two different New Orleans. One is in our world and the other is a magical world. That world was fun and interesting. What's hard though is that the reader doesn't really know which is which until too far into the book. We follow Perilous Graves and his sister as they are trying to save their New Orleans. For some reason, they are young children like 10 and 6 I believe. I didn't see the point of having them that young. It didn't make sense to me as they felt they were in their teens. 

I appreciated their were trans characters whose story wasn't just their transness. They had full lives and it was interesting to read. 

I don't know if I would recommend this book. It was hard for me to follow and even though I enjoyed the magical world that was created, it took work. 

James Baldwin is an incredible writer. 

In Giovanni's Room, Balwin explores sexuality without the intersection of race. His protagonist is a white man in the 50s living in Paris, trying to find himself- or hiding from himself. He meets Giovanni and his world changes. 

Reading this and considering the history at the time, this book was considered salacious and scandalous even though that scandal doesn't translate as well. It's a good example of seeing progress. 

The story is told in first person narrative and the character, David, is working through his guilt as we find out that the next day Giovanni's set to be executed. David fell for Giovanni months earlier and left him as we get to experience through the novel. 

Baldwin does a great job exposing the burden of heterosexuality on people who don't want it. He's not necessarily kind to the queer people though. The elder gay men in the book come across as envious, manipulative, and rude- which, I mean... isn't far off, LOL. Maybe they come across this way because they've been ostracized by society and now it still hurts. The problem with being different in a world that wants conformity hits David and he struggles to find balance and acceptance. 

The novella is short and tragic, but it's written so beautifully. It's like you should be listening to a jazz record and relishing each sentence. Baldwin writing as a white man adds a layer where he can play with sexuality without having to worry about race. To me, it came across that it was important for him to have this time to work through his own issues with society's problem with queerness. 

It's a masterful work in concise storytelling.  

I really liked this book and that caught me off guard. Obviously I wasn’t prepared for picking up a second book in a series, but I was drawn to the cover and bought it. 

This is everything one wants from a cozy murder mystery. The stakes aren’t too high, there’s warm beverages and cold weather in a small Canadian town. 

I’m impressed there are nine books in this series cuz the town seems so small. Like how many people are dying? 

Former British spy settles down in a town in British Columbia and finds herself involved in a murder mystery. Much to my disappointment, this book is post WW2 and has some flashbacks to the war. As a reader, WW2 is not my favorite so I was annoyed. I was thankful the flashbacks weren’t overwhelming and offered more of the characters’ current actions. 

Overall this was a lovely read and if you’re looking to wrap up in a blanket and read a mystery that feels like it will be made on Masterpiece Theater, then I recommend it. 

This book is ridiculous. It’s camp. It’s over the top and I loved every bit of it. There are some lines in this novel that you know they just enjoyed writing. Like, when they were finished, looked at it and said “yeah, that was great.” 

There’s a lot to this novel that doesn’t make sense and feels non sensical but I think that’s misogyny though. The novel takes place in a futuristic mighty morphin power ranger/voltron world where women have few rights and are subjugated to men. It’s YA, so you know there’s going to be a poor heroine, a love triangle, and an uprooting of the system that only she can do. It’s like they read The Hunger Games and thought “why have a love triangle when we can have so much more.”

It’s hard to describe this without being extra. I am not the primary audience for this. I did put in some Olivia Rodrigo and read through and it was amazing. I felt petulant as hell. 

By the end of the book, you’re left with a twist, but also wondering if she’s the hero of her story or the villain. It’s hard to tell. It’s worth reading, but go in knowing this is pure YA and have a blast with it. I know they did writing it. It feels fun.

I’m giving this 4 stars not because I really liked it, but because it was well written. 

I found this book exhausting, sad, and focusing on the bleakness of urban native living. In the book club I was in, it was suggested that maybe we need hope b/c we’re white, and that may be true. 

Orange has a talent for writing well crafted characters. They felt lived in and alive. Their stories wrangle true to what the lives experience could be. It seemed so devoid of joy though that it was hard to get through. 

There’s a certain kind of violence that pervades American culture and it’s here in this novel too. Orange humanizes it and allows what could be a headline feel personal. 

My one beef that took me out of it was one newly sober person trying for sobriety didn’t have a sponsor or didn’t do 90/90. Someone who’s been in recovery would know that. 

When reading this book, I had a hard figuring out who this book was for. Is it for an audience who wants education on gender identity b/c if so, this isn’t it. Is it for people who are immersed in gender studies? If so, it feels redundant. The best I could come up with is that it’s for Butler to say what they needed to say and have it recorded. 

The conclusion offered more pieces to why they wrote it and I wished it would’ve been included in the intro. There’s a lot to gender and we wouldn’t think so, but the people want to restrict who can be a gender, their tests only restrict everyone. There’s a lot of hate and gender has become a catch all boogeyman of a word that means different things to different groups. Butler does what they can to show how damaging this discourse is not just for love living outside the binary, but for democracies and free thought. It’s a big leap, but I think she’s successful. 

If this is your first exposure to their work, I’d try something else. It was approachable but I felt like I was missing stuff. It made me miss Maggie Nelson. Also, if you play a drinking game every time they say phatasma, you’ll need a new liver.

Heartstopper is always sweet and lovely. Charlie and Nick continued to grow and Oseman’s art is delightful. Still a series people should try

Uuuuuuuuuuuuugggghhhhh

There’s a level of disbelief that goes in every book but the trauma in this one was on another level. The anxiety and stress the main character had was too much for me. 

Maybe cuz I didn’t read the first one I missed critical pieces but it just didn’t make me feel joy. I wanted to like it, I did. I wish her all the luck though.