readingpicnic's Reviews (500)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Titan Books for providing me with a digital ARC of this book.

Firstly, the plant and mushroom descriptions in this book were so incredibly interesting. Seeing the way that the main character built a body with plants that react in different ways to touch was very cool. I love fungal horror books, and I think the premise of this story was very creative and interesting. Although I understand why this book is compared to Mexican Gothic, I think that their similarities end with them both including fungal horror due to some weird racialized comments that I mention later in my review. Mexican Gothic engages with race, eugenics, and colonialism in such a deep and interesting way, whereas this book…does not. 

I did have a lot of issues with this book, mainly with the characters’ actions not making sense to me, or their characters just being inconsistent with how they thought and acted. There were many times when Simon or Gregor would just take a complete 180 in how they view Chloe, and it never made sense to me why their minds had changed so suddenly. The characters also felt pretty flat to me unfortunately, so I felt a disconnect between myself and the story while I was reading, which definitely tamped down my enjoyment. I got the impression while reading that the author wasn’t taking the story that seriously while writing it because it felt so jokey most of the time while I was reading it, even in scenes where that didn’t seem appropriate for the moment. He was also noticeably overusing the word “queer” in a derogatory way, probably as a nod to the queerness in the story, but he did it too much to the point where I got annoyed. The scenes between Chloe and Jennifer were pretty great, and I liked their tension and chemistry, especially in that final scene with them! On the other hand, I sensed no chemistry between Simon and Gregor and their relationship didn’t make much sense to me (which was maybe the point?)

There were also some Orientalist undertones throughout this story with Gregor, a white guy, going to Sumatra to “discover” the magical/sentient fungus that he takes home by tricking a sultan into thinking it’s hallucinogenic (and implying that the sultan may have consumed it and died so that Gregor could steal it)?? He then goes on to exoticize the fungus and Chloe for the remainder of the story, referring to it as the “oriental fungus” and “grotesque arabesque.” There was also a scene where Chloe was trying to sing and he said “her notes were a long way away from Gregor’s Western diatonic major scale. Her warble was heavily ornamented with chromatic grace notes and weird resonances, more at home in an exotic call-to-prayer than in a bel canto singing lesson.” Like…huh? I couldn’t tell if this Orientalism and exoticization was intentional because Gregor is an unlikeable main character, or if the author was just unconsciously including weird colonialist attitudes. Either way, it felt gross to read these types of phrases as the story didn’t seem critical of their use.

I was gifted a digital ARC of this book from the publisher.
I decided to DNF this book at 12% because it was unfortunately not for me. The lack of quote marks with the dialogue was a choice...I ended up being very confused a lot of the time about whether someone was speaking or whether the text was the main character's thoughts. This confusion was really frustrating as I kept rereading passages and getting stuck trying to understand what was being said. The writing was also really throwing me off for some reason, and I couldn't get into it. It felt like the story was trying too hard to be weird with the main character's thoughts, and I usually love a weird and deranged main character, but it just felt a bit off with this book. I'm sad that I couldn't get into this because I was pretty excited for it and have heard good things from other people online. I think fans of Milk Fed, or just Melissa Broder in general, would like this.

I absolutely love these characters, and this is the transmasc t4t romance I needed in my life. This is possibly the most gorgeous graphic novel I have ever read, cover and golden pages included! The art is incredible, the characters are gay and silly, and the tension of what will happen with the fire god is ever present. I stumbled across the artist's twitter, and I'm so glad I did for the animations of scenes from this book! I just need to bask in this book for a while before I can move on; I'm obsessed with these guys.

I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher. 
This book was an emotional rollercoaster for me! The author perfectly captures what it’s like to grow up queer and trans in a small, conservative town, including the quintessential homoerotic best friendship with your girl best friend. The switches between the past and present were done in a very satisfying way that always kept me reading the present chapters in suspense to find out what happened in the past. I love the representations of different generations of trans and queer people in this story and how they interact, such as Max and Sylvia, Max and Dakota, and Max and his students. The present-day chapters have very good reflections and insights into what his family and friends must have been going through in the past that influenced how they treated others or reacted to certain situations, such as Jules and his mom, and this understanding was very refreshing to see, even if he didn’t forgive these people for their actions. Max looks back on his childhood while acknowledging its more problematic aspects or the language that was used, but still honestly depicts what happened and what was said, which I also appreciated. Overall, I just loved the depiction of a little kid being too weird and queer for a small town that can see their queerness before they can, as that’s how I look back on my own childhood with more clarity. The characters also felt incredibly real and complicated.
The present-day chapters introduced lots of interesting commentary on young queer people trying and struggling to interact with older queer people, or queer elders who may not be up to date on newer labels for gender identities and sexualities. I liked seeing Max’s growth in accepting that queer and trans youth are kind of doing their own thing that’s different from how he grew up as a bi trans boy and that he has more to learn, as he did seem too dismissive of newer queer and trans labels for some of the book. The ending was very satisfying, and I am happy with how everything wrapped up with Sylvia and Dakota because I was incredibly nervous for them both for most of the story. 

Very real and unfiltered account of being a late diagnosed autistic woman, with lots of humor throughout. Fern also points out lots of common autistic traits throughout to the reader, to which I realized that so many things I do are shared experiences in the autistic community that I thought were just applicable to me…very validating to read though. The commentary on autistic women becoming strippers and/or sex workers was so interesting and something I’ve never heard before, but it makes sense with how she laid it out coupled with her own experiences. I loved the audiobook narration.

I liked this a lot more than the movie honestly. Lots of gore and violence! I like that this doesn't shy away from getting super dark. Love the art style too.

I'm glad I got to hear about GamerGate from their point of view instead of only hearing about them as a victim of the movement. It was also nice that they actually provided advice on how to deal with and combat online hate, advocated for helping victims of abuse even if they were once abusers, and spoke to how getting off the internet is not a good solution for people for whom the internet is the only place they can find community and be open about their identities. It feels like other books about online hate don't offer real solutions and ways to navigate it, so it was refreshing to be more educated on what people can actually do. I didn't know anything about their victim advocacy group Crash Override, so I am glad I now know about it now.

The author's anxieties were wayyy too similar to my own for comfort. I liked the pages of reflection in between the transcripts between her and her psychiatrist, but I wasn't a big fan of the pages of reflection at the end of the book. I think they made sense in between a different format of writing, so it was a bit disorienting for these pages of her own writing to be back-to-back in the end. I've definitely never read anything quite like this book style-wise, and it was validating to see someone so honest about their mental illnesses and anxieties that people don't really talk about.

Interesting to see an unreliable narrator being held accountable for lying or misremembering the story. This was a very sad story filled with guilt and grief over the accidental death of a child when the two girls were four years old, which she never forgave herself for, so it was a little difficult to get through. The writing was very good though: "After they climbed out, clean again, her mother sprinkled talcum powder on the girl's body with such rich abundance that she felt like a special dessert." 
It was sad how doomed all the sapphic longings felt in this book, especially between Florence and Ruby, who were especially devastating in their inability to put a concrete name to their queer longing. The imagery of Florence unfolding and refolding her letter from Ruby for years made me physically ill. The story was a little disorienting at times when I would learn that a whole passage I had read never actually happened and was just imagined by Margaret. I would say that this book could fit into the weird girlhood genre.

I appreciate the mission and execution of this piece, and I wish I could have seen it performed. I liked that he included pictures of the play in the back so I could get a sense of it though. I can tell a lot of research and passion went into this piece, and he didn't do it in a cruel or undeserving way, but he tore Lin-Manuel Miranda apart! Absolutely to shreds (which was very entertaining honestly)! Showing his ignorance every step of the way, whether intentional or not, of creating the Hamilton musical, as well as its lasting consequences, such as impressionable people and schoolchildren possibly only seeing this version of history that romanticizes slave-owners...Ishmael not only educated Lin-Manuel Miranda (at least in the play) about the mistakes he made, but he also posited real reparations that could be made with the excessive profits from Hamilton. 
Also, love that Toni Morrison funded this play.