April was an average reading month, while I read a fair amount of books (9 total), most of them were 3 stars or lower even though I had really high hopes for at least 4 of them, so hopefully May will be better in that regard, even if finals approaching means I don’t get to read much, I’d rather read a couple of books I love than a lot that were just ok.
White Oleander by Janet Fitch (4 stars)
White Oleander is a book that has been on my TBR for a while and it was also on my 5 star predictions list (though sadly it didn’t quite make it). The book is told from Astrid’s perspective, who at the start of the book is 12 years old. Ingrid, Astrid’s mother, was incarcerated after committing a crime, leaving Astrid in the hands of the foster care system. What I found to be the most interesting was Ingrid’s character, she is clearly flawed (probably an understatement) but it takes both Astrid and the reader almost the whole book to be able to understand her personality, actions and way of thinking. Astrid goes through several foster homes, each with very different characters and each making a clear contribution to Astrid’s development. Overall it was an interesting read, coming of age stories following characters through the years are definitely a favourite, but at some point in the book I started feeling like everything happening to Astrid stopped being believable even though I’m not entirely sure why; but at some point it started feeling like it was too much and it made me feel disconnected from the book, it wasn’t because of it being “dark” or anything, in fact I’ve read books that are way worse in that department (for example Ruby by Cynthia Bond) and not felt that way.
Circe by Madeline Miller (3.5 stars)
I’m pretty sure basically everyone and their mother has heard about this book by now, but if for whatever reason you managed to escape the massive hype and publicity basically all you need to know about it is that it’s a retelling of several Greek myths all sewn together by the direct or indirect involvement of Circe, a nymph, daughter of Helios and witch. The biggest disappointment to me is that after reading The Song of Achilles I was expecting some LGBTQ characters/themes at the centre of it but other than a mention of Achilles and his lover there was none of that in this book. I enjoyed Circe’s character development and some of the plot, though it felt like a lot of the plot points didn’t really fit into the story and could have been skipped, and I found myself having an urge to skim around halfway through the book. I’m glad I didn’t DNF it but it definitely didn’t live up to my expectations, and I might revise my star rating at some point (at the time of writing this review it’s only been around 20 min since I finished the book).
So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane (3 stars)
Yet another childhood re-read that is too middle grade for 19 year old me’s liking. So You Want to be a Wizard kicks off with Nita running away from bullies and hiding in the library, where she finds a book by the same title containing an oath which she decides to read out thinking it must be a joke and it turns out to not be a joke. It’s a nice story and a quick and easy read but the characters and plot were too straightforward for me to want to continue the series at the moment, though I’ll probably go back to it eventually.
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch (3 stars)
I was really looking forward to this book, so much that I got a hard cover copy which is something I never do unless it’s the only choice available (paperbacks and ebooks are much nicer in my opinion, if anything just based on price and portability). It’s a tough one for me to review because for the first time ever I felt like one perspective/story line in the book was a 4 star read while the other one was a 2 star read so I’ll talk about it as if it was two individual books rather than one. Half of the book focuses on Joan, who somehow gets a blue light and a song of creation and destruction in her head when she was a child and then follows her and her friend through the war and ultimate destruction of the sun/earth. While I found several elements of that side of the story confusing (basically everything I just mentioned) I enjoyed the character side of it and that alone would have made it a good book to me. On the other hand we have the story of Christine and Triniculo who live in a platform called CIEL which is governed by Jean de Men where people’s bodies turned white and all primary and secondary sexual characteristics disappeared and Joan is considered a terrorist who was supposedly murdered. That’s about as much as I got out of that entire section of the book, I felt incredibly disconnected from the plot and the characters and I honestly can’t tell you what the purpose of that side of the story was or anything about the characters beyond their names.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang (3 stars)
Despite both the title and the description not really catching my attention I decided to give this book a try after seeing several reviews of it on booktube, some of them making the plot sound like something I’d enjoy. The book is divided into 3 parts and all focus on their relationship to Yeong-hye. The first section is told from the husband’s perspective, who describes his wife as ordinary up until she decides to become a vegetarian, only giving “I had a dream” as an explanation, which was only the start of a bigger issue. The second section is told from her sister’s husband’s perspective and I personally found this section to be the weirdest and least enjoyable, though it’s hard to talk about it without spoiling it. Lastly, the third section is told from her sister’s perspective. Each of the sections follows the previous one chronologically with a time gap in between, which I found made it hard to follow exactly what was going on, as did the fact that we only see Yeong-hye through someone else’s perspective at all times but never multiple perspectives of the same events; I felt like the book was intentionally written to be confusing, but it was a bit too confusing for me to get much out of it.
Trans Teen Survival Guide by Fox & Owl Fisher* (3 stars)
As a trans guy who spends a lot of time talking to trans youth and reading trans related books I decided to read this as soon as I saw it on edelweiss+. What I liked most about the book was the format, how it had lots of short chapters containing information on a specific topic followed by sharing several people’s stories relating to that topic. However, while I won’t discourage people from reading the book, I don’t think I’d actively recommend it to anyone. It’s nice to have so much information and perspectives all in the same place but the information provided is quite basic and there are several resources (both free online and other books) that are more trustworthy, recent and in-depth than what’s provided here. Also, some of the information provided was either incorrect or incomplete, most notably - when describing binding there was a section on binding using tape, which is incredibly dangerous, but no mentions of the dangers until way later in the book in one of the quotes on the perspectives sections, which I find to be incredibly irresponsible; yes not everyone can afford a binder but there’s free binder schemes (like the book mentioned) and if the risks aren’t mentioned out right (which, by the way, often are as bad as broken ribs and poor surgical results) a lot of people will ultimately end up going for that option and likely suffering the consequences. If you’re new to transition and looking for support and information then check out GIRES, gendered intelligence and mermaids, which both have plenty of resources. If you’re supporting a young trans person or interested in how to better support young trans people if you happen to encounter them then I recommend you read The Transgender Teen by Stephanie Brill.
Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite: The Science of Monsters by Matt Kaplan (3 stars)
This book is what you’d expect to find in a pop-sci book focusing on monsters, nothing else. I really enjoyed a few of the sections and found them to be incredibly interesting and full of things I didn’t know, but I found the book to be repetitive, unnecessarily long and often uninteresting. Additionally, I was hoping it would actually go into the actual stories the specific monsters come from and how those tales have evolved and differ in different locations and time periods but there wasn’t much of that beyond describing the monster’s characteristics.
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters** (3 stars)
Ever since moving to the UK I’ve been feeling like I’m the only person in this country who hasn’t read any Sarah Waters books. I’ve had Fingersmith on my TBR for a while, but I sometimes find that if I read an author’s later works and then go back to their first novel I tend to enjoy the reading experience less than if I do it the other way around, so when I saw Tipping the Velvet on netgalley I decided it was time to read some Sarah Waters. Tipping the Velvet follows Nancy, an oyster girl who moves to London to be Kitty Butler’s (a male impersonator in music halls) dresser. The book is divided into 3 sections, each of them having a main lesbian “romance” and culminating with all the characters finding themselves in the same place at once for reasons I still don’t understand. I didn’t like Nan’s character, and I felt more like erotica than a novel which it’s probably top on my list of things I don’t enjoy reading. That said, I did enjoy the start of the book and about half of the last section, which is the only reason I’m giving it a low 3 stars as opposed to 2.
Tin Man by Sarah Winman*** (2 stars)
I had really high hopes for this book but as much as it pains me to admit it and write this review, it was a big let down. I was expecting it would be a story I’d love with characters I’d love, even though I knew it was a sad story, instead I got a really short book with characters and plot that both felt distant and drowned by descriptions of the setting and when I finally started to care about the characters and the story it was all over. I feel like perhaps if the story had been longer, or if it had been written in such a way that I’d manage to feel a connection to the characters from the get go (perhaps even just pushing the last few chapters to the start, I feel like I would have enjoyed reading the book more if that had been the case, it’s not like I wasn’t already expecting the ending) it could have easily been a book I’d loved, but it wasn’t.
*I received an ARC of the book through edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review
** I received an ARC of the book through netgalley in exchange for an honest review
*** I received an ARC of the book through penguin first to read in exchange for an honest review
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