nerdyprettythings's Reviews (515)

Omg this is delightful?! The basic outline is: two humans tell a story/myth from their history to some tigers, and they get schooled on human perspective/get the story from the tiger perspective. But it's also a (queer) love story that I ended up very invested in?! I had no idea what it was about, I just wanted to read more Nghi Vo, and I'm so happy I picked it up. Also very happy it's a series and I can read more!

I had so much fun with this. It’s not more or less than it promises - it follows a bunch of bad people through their summer, and there’s a bit of a mystery that imo isn’t all that important but is fun to wonder about through the book. Everyone is the worsttt but in a pretty fun way. I do think the book is a little harsh on the unmarried woman character in a way I didn’t appreciate a few times, but she’s the worst too, so it doesn’t feel totally inappropriate. 
cw: if infidelity is a no for you, definitely don’t pick up this book. The majority of the bad behavior is from cheating on spouses.

I really enjoyed this! If you’re a fan of classic mysteries and also meta-commentary, this one will do it for you. Definitely makes sense that the publisher compares it to Knives Out in that way and because (obviously) the book surrounds a complicated family dynamic. Some of the relationships are messy messy and that is fun too. The narrator reads sort of try-hard, but in a way that gave a fun spin on a first-person detective. 

Unfortunately I wasn’t a fan of this one. From the setup (outing a random girl Hani doesn’t actually know is queer) to the cartoonish villain “friends” of hers who have no traits that suggest how they actually were ever friends, I felt like the story just didn’t work. We spend the whole time in the girls’ heads, but Hani’s motive is to prove something to these girls you’re screaming at her to ditch, and it’s clear Ishu doesn’t actually want what she’s getting out of this fake dating setup. I know this book may work for young readers who want a story about a queer religious character experiencing acceptance, and I’m just not that audience. For me, by the end I felt quite a bit like I was being preached at about religion ✨totally being cool and fine actually✨ (Hani convinces her dad to become more religious and she and Ishu find acceptance at the mosque and nowhere else).

Samantha Irby is absolutely hilarious, and her newest book was at the top of my list for 2023. Buy it in print if you must, but listening to the audiobook is a top-notch experience. I cackled, I chuckled, I laugh-cried. Poop jokes? Old lady porn? Tragic backstory? Samantha Irby will make you feel something while you laugh about it. As with all of her other books, highly recommend this new one.

I liked this! It was a very quick read, it's short and the tension keeps building as the past and present versions of the story unfold. The MC (Mia) in the present day reminded me a bit of Jade from My Heart is a Chainsaw. She's so lonely and just living her life is a horror story. This
should also be marked LGBT fyi! Mia gets a manic pixie dream girl gf (ironically named Jade). Mia's mom is a vampire, and since Mia's childhood has literally been sucking the life out of her. The disease is just
as much or more a family dynamics metaphor as it is an
external pressing concern. Definitely check the CWs on this, it's a really insidious toxic relationship, and being in Mia's head as she experiences every manipulation and attempt to isolate her was tough to read at times.

Whether it’s shady politicians, conspiracy theories, religious tactics, or MLM salespeople, charlatans and hucksters are using the same tactics to get us to believe we’re “post-truth.” This book pushes back on all of that (there was a lot of it from 2020 to chew on) and encourages readers to reconsider where their own biases are preventing them from seeing the bullshit they accept.
I really enjoyed this book from cohosts of my favorite podcast (@citation_needed_podcast )
Definitely recommend the audio for that reason too, Tom narrates the book and is great on the mic.

Happy pub day to this one that I finished right on time! And thank you to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the ALC. I had a great time with this domestic/psychological thriller. I especially loved the setting, the Eden Test takes place at a remote cabin outside a small wooded town, and the couple is both secluded and finding themselves tangling with the locals. Both of them have secrets, and they all come out. I think the blurb is perfect, you’ll be shocked to find yourself rooting for these people. And the audio narrator was fantastic, she did a great job capturing the tone of the book.

I really enjoyed this! It's being rereleased on audio after being published as an ebook 8 years ago, and I think the narrator did a great job with it. There's a lot of back and forth between a mysterious, dank space and the bright sunlight of an amusement park-centered town, and those moods are both handled really well by the narrator. I kind of wish the author had taken a swing at some edits before this re-release, but I still had a good time with it. Maybe horror-y thrillers set in amusement parks are my new thing? This book could definitely have used more time in the park imo. I kept hoping for flashbacks to the park in the old days, because it was noted several times that the MC worked there as a kid. I did love the way this book leaned into that "is everyone who works here creepy?" feeling and how unsettling the uncanny nature of an amusement park can be, even to those who love them. 

This book is well-written, but it’s an absolutely infuriating read. Lucia is a well-regarded artist, but the biggest thing in her life, before her art, her well-being, or her children, is being a wife to her (unsuccessful) artist husband. She develops cancer, discovers her husband has been cheating, begins an affair with a female MP, but none of this leads anywhere. Lucia will always be berated by her husband (Ray) and turn down opportunities because of his professional jealousy.
All of Lucia’s children are also emotionally abused by their father in some way, and they carry this submissive dynamic into relationships with their partners. 
The book sort of took a comical route, every character is so over the top. But I couldn’t lean into the hilarity of the situation (missing that your wife is cheating because you think she’s conspiring to ruin your non-existent career) because Ray is just so abusive constantly.