sarahxify's Reviews (703)

adventurous dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging slow-paced
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No

Thanks to Netgalley and Solaris for this ARC!

This novel is a literary science fiction, set some time in the future when aliens walk among us. It is brimming with ideas, but overall, I unfortunately found that these ideas were let down by the execution of the novel. 

It's quite busy, with many characters and elements to the story, and there was little in this that drew me to it or engaged me. The writing, characters, plot, and structural choices all seemed to be there to serve the author's ideas, rather than create a coherent and cohesive story. I am fully prepared to concede that this novel just went straight over my head, but in general I was left bewildered by this. 
challenging dark funny medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I flew through this in one sitting. It has an absorbing and tight narrative, cleverly drawing you into the protagonist's strange and simple world.

For fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Eilieen by Otessa Moshfegh, although I thought this was better than both of those books. 

Discussed in episode 44 of the Bookcast Club podcast. Episode link:

https://www.thebookcastclub.com/podcast/episode/4ab9bc62/44-recent-favourite-author-discoveries
challenging informative reflective slow-paced

 This is a memoir about being an Asian American and how this puts you in a state of limbo when it comes to race discussions. You are not white, you are not black. You experience racism in a different way, that is not televised or covered in the media, and has no trending hashtag on twitter. It made me aware of how narrow our lense still is. 
challenging dark emotional slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Yaa Gyasi's second novel is one of the most incredible bits of fiction I have read for some time. It follows a neuroscientist named Gifty. Her Ghana-born parents immigrated to the USA when she was small, and the novel deals with the struggles that follow as her parents try to settle in to life as Americans. As she grows up and becomes a scientist, she starts to wrestle with how complicated questions of faith and culture intersect with her education.

I have never read a novel that so beautifully captures the wonders and shortcomings of science without sounding overly philosophical or preachy. Gyasi unpacks for the reader how questions of death and humanity are unsatisfactorily answered by science and faith alike as Gifty struggles with grief, addiction, and familial obligation. I found this novel deeply moving and engaging; I don't think I have cried so much reading a book since I read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.

If you enjoyed @brandonlgtaylor 's Real Life (which you should have it was bloody amazing), I strongly urge you to pick up this. It really is amazing - EASILY my book of the year so far.

Thanks to @penguinukbooks for the ARC. Transcendent Kingdom is out on 4 March in the UK (and I believe it's out most places already). 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

 From the backlist! This is one of Zadie Smith's older novels. It follows three families in London over several generations, as they nagivate difficulties in being immigrants, war trauma, family difficulties, and more. You read from several different perspectives as time goes on, and grow to understand each of the characters.

In general I liked it, although there were a few plot points where I found it hard to believe the characters would behave in the way that they did, and I found the plot points themselves to be kind of silly. The last 100 pages also really dragged, I'm not sure why it had to be that long. 
 
 So I would recommend this if you're already a big fan of Zadie Smith. If you're new to her novels, I would recomend picking up something else first (I loved Swing Time!) 
informative reflective slow-paced

 This is a collection of essays where Odell reflects on the nature of how we use social media, how we work, why careers matter, and many other topics. 

The essays are quite independent and aren't a series of problems and solutions to social media and work as the title might suggest. They're really just reflections from Odell as she ponders what is important. She also discusses the intersectionality between race and class in this context. 

A really thoughtful and interesting collection! 

If We Were Villains

M.L. Rio

DID NOT FINISH

I don't think this is a bad book, I just found the writing to be not to my taste. It's quite heavy-handed and obvious, and really lays out what is happening for the reader, which is just not what I'm looking for in my reading right now. 
adventurous mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This a tightly-paced mystery about a girl whose father goes missing. There are loads of women in this and it was nice to read something so female-driven. Overall though, I found there were just too many characters and too much going on with this. It raced to the end without much room for digestion, which is not something that particularly appeals to me as a reader.