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Are You Happy Now by Hanna Jameson
βThat this was the trade-off. The price of happiness. In order to feel happy he had to feel everything.β A quietly crushing yet devastatingly tender work scintillating with insight and emotional intelligence. With acuity and empathy Hanna Jameson presents her readers with a captivating narrative chronicling four peopleβs attempts at happiness despite a looming health…
3rd pov, 4.5 STARS, Adult, adulthood, age gap, ALIENATION, ambivalent mood, America, anxiety, Are You Happy Now, atmospheric, bad love, beautiful prose, belonging, BISEXUAL/PANSEXUAL, British author, contemporary malaise, dancers, DEATH, DEPRESSION, desire, divorce/separations, ennui, female authors, first love, gay, Hanna Jameson, heartbreak/breakups, i donβt think happiness is for me, identity, illness, introspective, it’s about the *yearning*, jealousy, journalism, lgbtq+, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, Longing, m/m, male friendships, melancholy, mental health, musicians, near future/alternate reality, NEW YORK, pandemic, psychological, published in 2023, queer, read in 2022, restrained prose, right person wrong time, ROMANCE, self-destructive, SEXUALITY, SPECULATIVE FICTION, strong sense of place, suicide, trauma, unrequited love, wedding drama, work culture -
Lakewood by Megan Giddings
βAmerica is only routinely good to women, especially Black women, when it wants something from them.β Having recently read Megan Giddings’ intriguing sophomore novel, The Women Could Fly, I decided to revisit Lakewood, a book that I have picked up and put back down on and off since August 2020. Each reading attempt saw me…
3 STARS, 3rd pov, abuse, Adult, America, AMERICAN AUTHOR, Black & Black heritage authors, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, creepy setting, doctors, female authors, feverish, graphic content, HORROR, illness, Lakewood, Megan Giddings, Michigan, morality, MYSTERY, near future/alternate reality, Poverty, psychological, published in 2020, RACE, read in 2022, reading, social issues, SPECULATIVE FICTION, subject over characters/story, surreal, SUSPENSE, violence -
Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao
Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor is an engaging start to an action-driven fantasy series that is written in a winsome prose that is guaranteed to appeal to fans of Rick Riordan. Like Riordanβs books, Zhao combines an action-driven quest with a coming of age tale exploring the highs and lows of being a 12yr…
3.5 STARS, 3rd pov, action, adventure, asian american, battles, belonging, BOOK REVIEW, Booklr, bullying, China, chinese canadian author, coming of age, Contemporary, FANTASY, gaming, history, HUMOR, identity, KIDS WITH POWERS, lgbtq+, LGBTQ+ Author, middle grade, middle school, Muslim rep, myths, near future/alternate reality, playful style, published in 2022, queer, quests, read in 2022, reading, social issues, technology, travel, URBAN FANTASY, Xiran Jay Zhao, Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor -
The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings
βThis is the story of the witch who refused to burn. Some people said that there was power in her blood, a gift from her ancestors that she could endure.β Megan Giddingsβs sophomore novel is highly evocative of those The Handmaidβs Tale inspired dystopias where readers are presented with a near-future where womenβsometimes menβlive in…
1st pov, 3.25 stars, Adult, America, AMERICAN AUTHOR, ART/CREATIVITY, atmospheric, beautiful prose, BISEXUAL/PANSEXUAL, Black & Black heritage authors, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, dystopia, FANTASY, female authors, female friendships, feminism, forgiveness, GRIEF, HORROR, identity, ISLAND, lesbian side characters, lgbtq+, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, MAGIC, Megan Giddings, Michigan, missing moms, missing persons, missing women, mothers & daughters, My reviews, MYSTERY, near future/alternate reality, PARANORMAL, published in 2022, queer, read in 2022, reading, social issues, SPECULATIVE FICTION, SUPERNATURAL, the female malaise, The Women Could Fly, trauma, witchcraft, WITCHES -
Terminal Boredom: Stories by Izumi Suzuki
Perhaps I should be more lenient towards these stories as they were written in the 1970s but alas I did find them rather dated.Most of these stories are set in near-futures. The first portrays an all-female society in which men are seen as less than human. Other stories present readers with different shades of bleak…
1970s, 2 STARS, ALIENATION, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, dystopia, ennui, existentialism, feminism, futuristic, Izumi Suzuki, japan, JAPANESE AUTHOR, Kafkaesque, lesbian side characters, lgbtq+, loneliness, My reviews, navel gazing, near future/alternate reality, published in 2021, queer, read in 2021, reading, SCI-FI, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, SPECULATIVE FICTION, terminal boredom, Terminal Boredom: stories, TRANSLATED FICTION, weird -
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Β Klara and the Sun presents its readers with a quiet yet touching meditation on life. In a similar fashion as Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro’s foray into the speculative realm is deeply grounded in the mundane. Yet, in spite of its ordinary trappings, Klara and the Sun is a work that is brimming…
1st pov, 4 STARS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, atmospheric, beautiful prose, British author, environmental, existentialism, favourite authors, friendships, identity, introspective, Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun, LITERARY FICTION, male authors, near future/alternate reality, parenting, psychological, published in 2021, re-reads, read in 2021, read in 2022, SCI-FI, SLICE OF LIFE, SPECULATIVE FICTION, technology, unnamed country, what ifs -
Version Control by Dexter Palmer
Version Control is going to be tough to review as I have never felt so conflicted about a book. There were some scenes in Part I that were pure genius. But once I delved into Part II I was forced to reevaluate my first impressions of this book.Imagine walking into some art gallery and coming…
2 STARS, 3rd pov, Adult, affairs, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, big books, Black & Black heritage authors, Dexter Palmer, existentialism, family, labs, male authors, MARRIAGE, men who do not seem to know how to write women, mothers & sons, near future/alternate reality, new jersey, parallel universes, philosophical, published in 2016, RACE, read in 2020, SCI-FI, science, scientists & co, social issues, SPECULATIVE FICTION, time travel, Version Control, what ifs -
Severance by Ling Ma
βTo live in a city is to take part in and to propagate its impossible systems. To wake up. To go to work in the morning. It is also to take pleasure in those systems because, otherwise, who could repeat the same routines, year in, year out?β Severance is an engrossing and, given the…
1st pov, 4 STARS, Adult, ALIENATION, America, American, apocalyptic, asian american, China, chinese american author, Contemporary, contemporary malaise, cultural dissonance, dark humor, ennui, female authors, illness, Ling Ma, LITERARY FICTION, migration/immigration, millennial, mumblecore, near future/alternate reality, NEW YORK, no quotations marks, office, pandemic, post-apocalyptic, pregnancy, published in 2018, re-reads, read in 2020, read in 2022, sardonic humor, satire, Severance, SPECULATIVE FICTION, surreal, survival, the female malaise, work culture -
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro β book review
Never Let Me Go is a bleak novel, that is made ever bleaker by the way in which our narrator normalises her horrifying reality. Although this is a work of speculative fiction, Kathy’s world does not seem all that different from our own one (there were many moments which struck me as quintessentially British). Although…
4 STARS, academia, Adult, boarding/private school, BOOK REVIEW, Booklr, British author, coming of age, england, friendships, horrible friends, identity, introspective, Kazuo Ishiguro, LITERARY FICTION, MEMORY, modern classics, near future/alternate reality, Never Let Me Go, read in 2020, relationships, SPECULATIVE FICTION
luce [is reading] 