Pretty much every one of the characters was immediately dislikable. Faye's point of view was an enjoyable, to a point, as a lens through which to watch the plot unfold though she, too was similarly flawed to her peers with her voluntary isolation and her unacted upon longing for friends. The plot and interpersonal conflict was engaging enough that I continued on reading despite the unlikable nature of the characters. Jurczyk has a way of exploring vulnerability and desperation in her characters, their grisly deaths and injuries, and their mourning rituals. The twist ending was very unexpected, but made sense given what we are shown of Kip.
No one in this book is innocent, and there are questions of guilt left unanswered in such a way that no one is absolved.

Faye imagines a life for herself with Umu as her best friend, replacing Ro so quickly after his death at her hands, because she's read so much about bonds that form over shared trauma. It's unclear whether or not Davey killed Soraya because she got the permanent job over him. He decapitates Mary and Faye doesn't intercede when the fight between Mary and Davey leads to Umu's death. The two survivors are killers by the end of the night and while neither is in trouble with the law when they're taken out of the bloodbath that is the basement, readers are left hanging whether or not they will be held accountable for the carnage. Kip having licked one of the green books for a meme, honestly makes sense given his entitlement and lack of care for the work others are doing beyond what his name can give him access to. My only issue with this is that Kip goes from zero to sixty in his cruelty before disappearing. It seems like something he's kept under wraps, with the exception of his entitlement, throughout the flashbacks later in the novel, as opposed to being a side of himself he'd share with five other people. I wasn't able to find anywhere whether erratic behavior, delusions of grandeur, etc. are symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning. Depression, anxiety, and cognitive impairment are symptoms of ongoing arsenic exposure. Maybe he was just a dick. Faye climbing into the collapsed shelving and hiding near Soraya's corpse to keep away from Davey after he kills Mary is such a sad, memorable scene.

This was a sweet Christmas story, detailing the first year the elves realized that Santa never got to celebrate Christmas. Mac Barnett does a fantastic job illustrating the scenery and characters with a smudgy, dreamlike quality, while still expressing complex emotion on the faces and movement of the characters. I really enjoyed the bear dressed up to deliver presents, and Santa's joy at the gifts the elves gave him.

Dan Matthews writes near identically to Augusten Burroughs. At points throughout this memoir, I wasn't sure how to feel about it because of that comparison. However, by the conclusion, I found that I really enjoyed Dan and his family's perspective on their mother, her life, and her death.
I still hold dislike in my heart for PETA and the horrific actions its taken to kill captive animals rather than leave them in captivity. Their all or nothing stance on animal freedom and their equation of pets to slaves is one of my many gripes with the organization, but Dan's part in PETA's activism and his dedication to veganism seem, at the very least, to be affiliated with the good works PETA has done.
Overall, an enjoyable, fast, strange read.

This was a great way to present the Dracula novel in audio form. I started with a good chunk to catch up on and finished in just about real time. Really well done audio, and some awesome, often corny original songs added into the mix - I say corny with the utmost love.
I do have critiques of the novel itself, like how the doctors consider Lucy's receiving a blood transfusion from more than one man as polyandry/as a slight to her reputation, marking her as a whore. The male main characters also fall into the exact same pitfalls as Victor Frankenstein when he destroys his creation's half made wife and fully disregards the possibility of revenge harming anyone beside himself, leading to the death of his betrothed. In them killing and redeeming Lucy after Dracula had made her a part of his harem in his slow killing of her, how could they not suspect Mina would be in danger of the same fate as her best friend while living next door to the vampire? I did enjoy the "dracula polycule" moments in the book, as is related to the sexualization of Lucy Westenra, especially since John, Quincey, and Arthur remained close and devoted to each other even after Lucy's death. 
Overall, wild book from start to finish, while also somehow managing to be boring often.
I need to read this again, in its book form.

Anxiety inducing in an actively un fun way

This book was really sweet! It's definitely meant for a younger audience, but I really enjoyed the use of the found family trope in a book written with a younger audience in mind. There's a lot of creative problem solving in this of a type often missing from books written for adult audiences.

This was an interesting look into the lives of the average North Korean of a decade and a half ago. The fear mongering of Western media and the violent escalation of North Korean threats against enemy nations and against its own people has made the country into something larger than life in the eyes of the general public. The people of North Korea having to just barely scrape by while their leader lives in luxury and hides the poverty of the average citizen even while seeking aid is horrifying. It's sad to see how little has changed in the last fifteen years.
This book is well written and the firsthand accounts of life in North Korea add weight to the input of what Demick has to add as a foreign journalist.

This was a really interesting look back on trans history and how it intersects with the history of other identities, past and present. I appreciate how the author made sure to define the shape of where they understand their boundaries and empathy to stop, and where the voices of others must take over in order to be fully understood. Overall, this was a good introduction/overview to a variety of identities that we, in western communities, would understand as queer and/or trans.

There were some aspects of this book that I really enjoyed and others I did not. Aspects of this novel relied heavily on romance tropes and scenes very familiar to digital natives and those who've spent any significant stretch of time familiarizing themself with Tumblr in the 2010s - this is most overtly recognizable in the tattoo scene in which Lottie calls Marigold a good girl. That scene and dialogue is taken almost word for word from a Tumblr post inspired by a tweet from Twitter user @FloralSappho (https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/p8w33h/r_tattoo/?rdt=62663). I think in some ways this is an ingenious move, especially in new, sapphic romance, to bring in new and more relevant tropes than what is used in straight romance novels and romance novels aimed at an older audience. However, the pacing of the novel and Marigold's characterization are wildly inconsistent. It remains hard to track the movement of time as events in the novel progress, and throughout the events of the novel, Marigold oscillates rapidly between being a highly sympathetic character to being insufferably entitled and in some cases actively unkind.

The introduction to the novel sets up an interesting magic system and mysteries with a lot of promise, only to throw those away the moment Marigold leaves with her grandmother. The curse is explained in the beginning of the novel in a way that is quite different from the actuality of what the curse means for Marigold. Initially, it's explained as if Marigold is unable to fall in love, admit it, and give into it without sacrificing her powers. However, as the novel progresses

the actual impact of the curse is to cause immediate, and in some cases fatal harm to her true love. People can love her and she can love them, but they cannot act on it. This isn't how the curse is explained to Marigold at the start of the novel, and Marigold spends the whole novel believing that she's literally unlovable because of the curse, only for Lottie to be stupidly devoted and ready to kill herself to sleep with Marigold

The foreshadowing for the uses of different types of honey is very heavy handed. The writing does get better as the novel progresses, but do be warned that the last quarter takes a hard left turn away from cottage core romance into explicit description of torture, kidnapping and severe fire injury.

Overall, I don't regret reading this book, but the poor structuring and inconsistencies of the magic system were disappointing for me. The formality of the language was also striving for the beauty of something like Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, but ended up mostly just being in dire need of some contractions to make the dialogue sound like something real people would say.

These books are so comforting and so easy to read. I didn't realize this was the last one currently out in this series. I almost definitely plan on rereading this series soon. Murderbot is a fantastic narrator and I really enjoy its journey towards learning to accept that it is loved and loves others in return. This book expanded in really interesting ways on the variances in human culture in corporate systems vs places of refuge like the Preservation Alliance and ART's university. Great world building and engaging storytelling to bring ART's crew further into the fold.