ocie's Reviews (413)

This took a bit to get into, but that's mostly because I kept getting the characters mixed up and it took me a few chapters to sort everyone out. 

Once I did, the main characters proved interesting and engaging. Andrew's emotional journey to try and figure out what happened go Eddie kept me hooked, stringing me along one reveal at a time. 

I enjoy stories with a good amount of internal monologue, which this book delivers in plenty. That combined with Andrew's many and vivid encounters with haunts and ghosts really helps  the southern Gothic horror vibes. 

As Gothic horror quickly becomes a favorite genre of mine, Southern Sons delivers in FULL. 

One of the most informative books i have ever read. 

I had a little knowledge of US history from an Indigenous perspective, but this book explained and expanded that history in a way that was engaging and easy to understand. 

As a side note: reading this book reminded me just how similar the colonizer US government treatment of Native populations was to Hitler's treatment of the Jewish populations. This is because Hitler was actually inspired by the US. This is something everyone should know. 

And incredibly real depiction of the horrors of the Holocaust. Everyone should read this. 

10 pages in and I was getting annoyed. Why does the writing style feel like an 8th grader's English assignment that they didn't want to do? Kristin Hannah has been writing for decades, I KNOW she can write better than this. This felt rushed, as if she shoved the book out as quickly as she could. 
The paragraph that immediately follows Rye telling Frankie that women can be heroes is just? I'm sorry, I know its supposed to be the 60s, but Kristin Hannah, writing in the 21st century, still puts a paragraph in her book about a woman not realizing she has worth until a man tells her she does (this could have been accomplished by a female nurse or other peer, but it had to be a man, and a romantic interest).
There is also a distinct sense of white woman racism that masquerades as anti-racism. Beginning with Frankie and Ethel both having family pictures to put up and Barb only having pictures of Civil Rights leaders, as if her own humanity and family don't matter. This continues with the white perspective of civil rights after Frankie and Co. come home. 
I also think the romances in this book would have bothered me more if I wasn't so bored with them. They were flat, 1-dimensional, and it felt like they were only there because romance is expected for a character like this. 
All in all, I struggled to get through this book. I had to force myself to read it, and if it weren't for the fact that I promised someone I would finish it  I would have DNF'd it. 

This is a slow to medium paced horror novel, one I would describe as creeping horror. I didn't feel a strong sense of suspense, but the sense that something is wrong, that sense of foreboding factors strongly in as the timeline jumps between now and 1902. 

I enjoyed the premise quite a lot, the dual timeline going between 1902 and a series of deaths/unpleasant happenings and the present, which follows the author of the book written about said events and the two lead actresses currently shooting the film based on the book. 

The cast of characters, especially our main 3 are lovable and relatable. I did think Audrey and Harper were a bit too similar in their histories and background relationships, but that's my only issue with them. 

I did love this book. It has a gothic horror vibe to it, and the foreboding creepiness is exactly my type of horror. 

Ahh Murderbot. 
What I like most about TMBD is murderbot's attitude and self awareness about said attitude. It's sarcastic, emotional, bit of a bitch, but it knows this.
 And it knows it likes it's humans, even if it doesn't necessarily like that fact. 

Getting to read about MB solving a murder when station security is passive aggressive to it at the best of times and downright hostile at the worst of times makes it even more of an interesting read. 

This is a collection of horror stories. Body horror, to be specific. It was quite challenging to read, but I found the exploration of this type of horror very interesting. 
The last two stories I don't think were as good as the first few, I just didn't enjoy their premise as much as the others. But the eponymous "the trees grew because I bled there" was definitely the best story out of the lot. 

This is an absolutely FASCINATING book about fungi. It's not challenging to read. I found myself blown away over and over again by the information in this book. 

I have in fact been forcing my friends to listen to me infodump to them every time I finished a chapter. 

I read the illustrated version of this book, which has some INCREDIBLE photos of mushrooms, mycelium, lichen, and other fungal subjects.

Wonderful book, I highly recommend checking it out. 

What really got me about this book, aside from the revolutionary fact that it's a lesbian romance in the 1950s, is the historical context. It's not historical fiction, but because of when it was written, we get some very interesting snapshots of what life was like before modern technology, especially modern communication tech.

On the queerness of this book, while the main characters do face forced heteronormativity, the fact that it's never in question that they are both women who love women is very refreshing. 

and while there are complications and backlash in the end, they get to be happy together. There's no death, Therese goes back to Carol, and they get to be together.

This was an adorable read. The kids are everything. 
I enjoyed the found family bit of this immensely. And it is a strong element in this story.
Honestly, this did seem like a children's book written from the adult perspective, but I'm not counting that as a flaw. It was an interesting experience.