shane_the_reading_rat's Reviews (1.21k)

been on a little bit of a dnf’ing spree lately, and Immortal is no exception. I honestly just can’t make myself keep caring about Liyen and Zhangwei, Liyen is fine i guess but Zhangwei is basically everything in a love interest that i despise (possessiveness is really weird! i dont understand why it’s such a common trait in male love interests in fantasy!)

the ending of this book will haunt me forever in such a great way. such a wild (pun intended) book but yet so meaningful and impactful

i really made a mistake in not reading reviews before starting this, cause i walked into extreme horror without realizing.
im typically not squeamish, i like horror as a genre, and expected that this would be mainly a social horror with some american politics satire. and it certainly has satire! but it also has (don’t read past here if you don’t want some spoilers, DO read past here if you want to know trigger warnings)
-this book gets very! weirdly! sexual! extremely incest-y, even! very early on! (god that first big horror scene involving Noah went way too long, i was just chilling and then was like “uh. man is this scene ever going to stop? will this mom ever stop humping her adult son?) there is also so much masturbation! especially in basically any scene involving a woman! many mentions of semen!
-animal violence. they eat the family dog. for scale as to how much i hate this scene, it is on par with my most hated book scene ever, the “mom stomps pet dog to death on the carpet” scene in The Violence by Delilah S Dawson. i listened to the eating the dog scene several hours ago and still feel sick to my stomach.
-this is more specific to just me and stuff i can’t handle, but god i hate horror involving vomit or people nearly vomiting or having to eat disgusting things. and this has a lot of that.
god i hate this book! what the hell! i thought this would be social commentary with added horror and then i walked into extreme fucking horror unknowingly!

enjoyed this while reading, but overall i dont think the story will stick with me for a long time. where it really shines is the setting, feels incredibly lived-in and real. also the character dynamics were awesome (personal favorites were Lila & Kate and Bridget & Spartan Lee).

(shhh we’re not going to talk about the fact that i nearly forgot to read this for book club)
a bit dry, but pretty alright. it was awesome to learn some history that i very much didn’t know beforehand. the narration was not my jam (apparently i almost never listen to audiobooks narrated by deep-voiced men and i dont plan to change that, cause this guy’s voice made my ears hurt)

it feels like there are no teachers in the school in this book, because how does this intricate bullying system work??? do teachers never notice or care when students show up to class covered in bruises??? do no new teachers join and get freaked out??? how big is Liam’s fucking dorm room that he can host straight up fight club parties in it???
i didn’t like any of the characters (why do they never attend classes??? they are supposed to be at a school???), the world felt so flimsy and unrealistic, and i disliked the central mystery. too many POVs for such a short book. all in all disliked this immensely (which makes me quite sad, i love kacen callender’s other books that i have read).

i typically have to use autism resources directed at women due to being afab but genderqueer, but damn i am getting nothing out of all the “female autism” “this is what men are like this is women are like” talk

pretty confusing, but eventually comes together into an incredibly heartwarming ending. i think this definitely could have used a few more pages to explain the world and what was going on.
on the positive side, this has 1: awesome character design, 2: beautiful art, 3: creative panel design (one of my favorite things in any graphic novel)!!! definitely enjoyed this once i was able to sink into the story.  it’s also so cool to see a trans mc in a story where him being trans isn’t the focus :) very very nice 

Alligator Tears and High Risk Homosexual feel very much like two sides of the same coin (with Alligator Tears being the more hopeful half). both are great essay collections, but i'd definitely recommend reading HRH first because Alligator Tears definitely builds on what is discussed in HRH.

the description of this book truly does not do justice to the amount of shit, piss, vomit and penises discussed. i also seem to have a very different sense of humor from mary roach