skudiklier's Reviews (647)

Like a House on Fire

Lauren McBrayer

4.75

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I absolutely loved this book. I didn't know much going in, and because it's an ARC I really didn't know where it was going at all. I think that's the best way to read it, honestly, so if you're interested I wouldn't read any more of this review, and I'd just wait and experience it all with as few expectations as possible.

I couldn't put this book down; I read it in about a day and a half, and couldn't stop thinking about it. So much of it feels so real, and true, and well-written.

Vague spoilers ahead: I found myself surprised by the ending, and at this moment I desperately wish this book was already out so that I could find other people online talking about it. It's satisfying, but also leaves me wanting more discussion about it. (Less vague spoilers ahead:

Also this feels like a modern version of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, except with a happier ending.

)

I'm amazed this is a debut novel. I hope to have the chance to read more of McBrayer's work in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and G. P. Putnam's Sons for the chance to review this ARC.

Content Warnings

Since the Surrender

Julie Anne Long

4.5

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I'm really enjoying this series! Every time I start a new one I'm worried I won't like these protagonists in the same way, but I end up being won over by them all the same. I liked the mystery aspect of this one, and the somewhat more varied cast of characters.

Content Warnings

Rosewater

Tade Thompson

3.5

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was super interesting! I had a weird experience reading it because I did so very slowly and deliberately, which is unusual for me. It was somewhat dark and not entirely what I expected. But I hope to read the rest of the trilogy eventually!

Content Warnings

Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation

Kyo Maclear

4.5

emotional inspiring lighthearted reflective slow-paced

I enjoyed this book! I didn't find it engaging in the sense that I had a very strong urge to go back to reading it, but I did find a lot of it super interesting and thought-provoking. It made me notice birds around me far more over the last few weeks, and it's just a lovely gentle little read.

Content Warnings

You Better Be Lightning

Andrea Gibson

4.75

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Usually when I'm reading an ARC to review, I take a lot of notes while I read, so that no matter what I think of the book I'll have something to say after. While reading You Better Be Lightning, I took three notes during the first couple poems, and then absolutely forgot to take any more for the entire rest of the book. I was just so sucked into the poems that all I could do was read them. There were a couple footnotes I found hilarious that I took screenshots of, but just because I loved them so much, not for the review.

So many of the poems in this book took my breath away, and it was so hard not to share them with any of my friends. I can't wait for this book to come out so that I can tell them to read it.

I didn't love every poem, but I loved most of them, and I loved some of them a lot. I'm so glad I got the opportunity to read this book; thank you to Netgalley and Button Poetry for the chance to read and review this ARC.

Content Warnings

I Am Not Your Final Girl

Claire C. Holland

4.25

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

I'm not a horror fan, and I haven't seen almost any of the movies these poems are about, but I still really enjoyed this book. It's split into four sections, and I found I liked the last two sections far more than the first two.

I love feminist poetry, poetry about female rage, and overly indulgent destructive poetry. This book is all three wrapped up in the grief and frustration of both horror movies and what it felt like to be a woman in the US in 2016-2017.

Content Warnings

Like No Other Lover

Julie Anne Long

4.25

emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-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

This book was just as good as the first one! It felt very much like Pride and Prejudice (in a good way).

My only complaint is the casual racism/xenophobia; there are so many references to the "exotic cannibals" and slurs and stereotypes used to describe Romani people. I would love the book if it weren't for that.

Content Warnings

I Hope This Finds You Well

Kate Baer

5.0

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

I love Kate Baer's poetry, including her erasure poems, so I was really excited to be able to read this. I read it all in one sitting, and my only complaint is that I wish it were longer!

I Hope This Finds You Well is made up of erasure poems Baer wrote using comments, messages, and quotes from people like Donald Trump and AOC. The comments and messages written to Baer range from harassment to heartfelt thanks, and Baer makes beautiful poetry and powerful statements out of all of them. I'm so impressed with the way she can see turns of phrase in hateful messages, and the way she can pull out the core of a statement in such a concise way.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes poetry, has been on the receiving end of rude messages from strangers, or is interested to know what it's like being a woman on the internet (though of course, as Baer notes, she's white and cis and thus doesn't experience the worse levels of harassment trans and POC folks do).

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Perennial for the chance to review this ARC.

Content Warnings

Paper Girl and the Knives that Made Her

Ari B. Cofer

5.0

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

I love all of Ari B. Cofer's work, and knew going in that I'd be glad I read Paper Girl, but wow—this book is stunning. She twists and turns through so many emotions, and writes so beautifully you just get lost in it. Ari can write jaw-dropping poems about anything from romantic love and growing older to suicide and racism. There are longer pieces and shorter ones, interspersed with lovely art with lines that will take your breath away.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves poetry, but also anyone struggling with mental health or past trauma. Paper Girl and the Knives that Made Her is not all feel-good or optimistic by any means, but you will come out of it being at least a little more sure of who you are, and a little more grateful to be alive.

Thank you to Netgalley, Central Avenue Publishing, and Ari B. Cofer for the chance to review this ARC.

Content Warnings

Devil House

John Darnielle

4.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book is about murder and a true crime author, to an extent, but it is more accurately about what happens when you tell a story that has real consequences for real people; it's about truth, and sensationalism, and voyeurism. It has horrifically graphic violence, which is not my thing at all, but I feel like it would be hard for any reader to come away from this book with an uncomplicated love for true crime.

Devil House is one of those books that's hard to really talk about without spoiling the ending. Every chapter complicates the story further, until the synopsis seems barely what the story is really about at all. It's made me think about the meaning of truth as some pure ideal, and about what the point of telling any story is. I'm a writer of poetry, not prose, but I think this book will still impact how I think about writing moving forward.

I don't like true crime, and if I didn't read everything John Darnielle writes, it's very likely I would never have been interested in this book. Some parts were indeed more gruesome than I would have liked, but overall I'm glad I read it.

It also is of course written well, in the same style as Darnielle's other novels. There's a lot of second-person narration, which I think works well in this context. I wrote down a lot of quotes that I really enjoyed (and the only reason I'm not sharing any is that this review is long enough already).

Mild spoilers ahead, in my central complaint of the book:

Update from a few months after I originally wrote this review: I took the below section out of my B&N review now that the book is out, because I think in the actual book this chapter may be less distracting. It has a different font to signal something weird is going on (which I didn't have in my eARC), and it does connect to things in the book of course, so I was just too caught up in how weird it was I guess. I'm leaving the below just in case, but feel free to ignore it.

Several chapters take place in different time periods, with different narrators and main characters, but nearly all of them are still obviously connected. However, there's one chapter in the middle that is about an entirely different thing, and written in a different style; it almost feels like a different book altogether. You could argue that there are minor things linking it to the rest of the text, but it still feels very odd. And to top it all off, that chapter ends in the middle of a sentence.

Because I was reading an ARC, I genuinely wondered if the chapter simply weren't finished, if no one noticed it wasn't complete before letting readers like me have access to the book. But near the end of the book, a character is reading the manuscript Chandler has for Devil House, and it ends in the middle of a sentence, confusing the reader. This led me to believe that perhaps this odd chapter in the middle of the book is actually meant to end that way, and the reader is supposed to be confused.

I can appreciate this on a stylistic level, and in hindsight I can see how this chapter may relate to the rest of the book. I also have a lot of respect for John Darnielle, and am generally inclined to think any weird stuff he does is genius. But I have to say that that chapter may lose some readers (it's not short and there's no payoff), and may frustrate more. I look forward to reading interviews with Darnielle about this book, in the hopes that he might explain this decision in a way that justifies the negative aspects.

(Again though, I'm still not 100% convinced it was intentional. Maybe it would feel different for a reader with a fully published copy.)

Content Warnings

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