shane_the_reading_rat's Reviews (1.21k)

FUCK wow this book oh my god
i love books about all-consuming friendships and i live in texas so this was extremely up my alley
i have an extremely severe peanut allergy (same as tolly lmao) so emotionally that made several sections of this book a little too close to home hence why this isn’t quite 5 stars (

my heart was fucking pounding in a bad way after the scene where they tie him to the chair and force peanuts down him

)

definitely useful, but the writing was quite dry and did not touch on the topics i was most interested in (this focused heavily on appalachian history whereas i’d expected more about modern appalachia)

first of all there was definitely something up with this audiobooks recording, at several points the narrator sounded muffled and far away from the mic and it got a tad distracting 
other than that i definitely liked the book <3 it’s weird and crass and doesn’t have much plot if any but i really enjoyed it
pretty sure i enjoyed it for the pure vibes, this book feels like summer when youre a kid wanting to grow up quickly
it really fizzled out at the end though, with how Shit (no im not insulting the main character i promise, that’s the only thing she is called) begins to hate Isora (hopefully that is the correct spelling), i really thought the book might escalate but it just… ends. confusing but okay, definitely affected my enjoyment as otherwise it prob wouldve been 4 or 4.5 stars

honestly this was a little too short for me to have many opinions on it

art style reminds me of this magnus archives animatic https://youtu.be/tDNlSHq-APw?si=kdFW9OWBd92SA9aQ which is an incredible win in my book

finished two fantasies set in cairo in the same day and loved them both??? fuck yeah

absolute masterclass of a graphic novel. i’d give this 6 stars if i could
the worldbuilding is perfect (im a sucker for worldbuilding and little details in fantasy so i was vibing extremely hard with the intermission chapters in this)
the character work is impeccable. i genuinely dont even have a favorite character they were all so incredible. Shokry, Nour, Aziza, Hagga, the donkey,,,,, i love them all dearly
i dont even know what else to say just please read this it’s somehow both funny and a really poignant story about what happens when you can buy wishes/on life itself. would rank this up with On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden for how much i loved it and how much of an epic of a story it is

literally one of my favorite things of this year is actively making an effort to find queer stories translated into english
loved this !! some of the humor didn’t work with me (it was just a little too “online millennial” for my tastes”) though
art style feels like a mix of ND Stevenson and candy