valzsc's Reviews (93)

Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego

Mariana Enríquez

5.0

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Yellowface

R.F. Kuang

2.75

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I picked this one up bc I was seeing all the hype on booktok and several bookstores I visited the past month had it on display as well. But I am somehow disappointed.

I tried to be empathetic with the narrator whom btw is very very unreliable and twists and bends truth to make it fit a narrative that really isn’t there. So the rest of the book was basically me hate-reading it just to see what would actually happen to her and how would she reach her boiling point.

I think I finished this in a week bc I was expecting something big to happen but in reality it never happened. It was all a vicious cycle of “look they are taking about me 🤭🫶🏻” and “look they are taking about me ☹️😭😢🫠”. Felt repetitive.

The Maid

Nita Prose

3.75

mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Don't Call It a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM

Sarah Berman

3.75

dark informative tense medium-paced

After listening to a few podcasts through the years, I thought I knew some things about NXIVM but I was wrong.

I love the way the story was told by the author. The fact that it is not written chronologically made it a lot more engaging, letting you know a little bit by bit until you get to the full story of each individual she interviewed or had context of.

As this story is really sad and dark, I don’t think it’s a book I would go back to (nor sooner, nor later). It is dark, twisted, and I feel bad for all the things these women went through. Really bad.

Overall, storytelling is great, it is engaging and entertaining and the story is heartbreaking. If you want to add to the mix you can also watch the show, it’s called The Vow, so you get the audiovisual experience (also getting to know more of Nancy Salzman’s side of the story, whom I think is not mentioned a lot on this book)

Content Warnings

Going Dark

Melissa de la Cruz

4.25

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Horrorstör

Grady Hendrix

3.75

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Daisy Jones & The Six

Taylor Jenkins Reid

3.0

emotional fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

To be honest it took me some time to get in ‘the groove’ of this book. I was pretty excited bc I started watching the show and it seemed like something else.

It’s hard for me to like Camila in any way, as a character I didn’t seem to understand this love Billy felt for her in any way and I was obviously rooting for Daisy even though she makes quite a lot of bad decisions.

I think, in the end, Karen didn’t deserve what she got and it pissed me off a little since I understood she was pregnant as if Graham never loved her the way she was but the ideal he had about a future together they never even talked about.

I would not read this again or recommend this to anyone as it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.