Tag: book review
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The Bride was a Boy by Chii
Rating: 3/5, average This book is in the same vein as My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, in fact, Amazon recommended it to me right after I added that book to my cart, so I got this as well. My spouse is undergoing gender transition right now and I thought it might have some helpful tips…
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My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi
Rating: 4/5 Warning: This review contains spoilers. Warning: This book may trigger those with depression and other mental illnesses. My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is a graphic novel memoir about a woman in her late 20s whose life is stymied by clinical depression, sexual repression, and her parents’ and society’s expectations. Driven to the end…
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Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Rating: 4/5, good I saw the movie version of Annihilation before I read the book, and I really liked it. The movie does a great job of balancing its horror and science fiction aspects, and has a lot of great terrifying and surreal moments. The book is more Lovecraftian than the movie. It has more…
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Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh
Rating: 4/5, good This book surprised me more than anything I’ve read in a long time. I came in expecting a grim, feminist narrative about a girl growing up in a small town, overcoming adversity, and coming into her own, and what I got was an extremely dark, gritty story about a young girl’s depressing…
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Work: Capitalism, Economics, Resistance by Crimethinc
Rating: 3/5, average This is a decent, accessible primer to anti-capitalist thought (with lots of pictures!). It’s main failing, which is common to a lot of anti-capitalist stuff, is that it goes into detail about the evils of capitalism and gives very little attention to solutions, improvements, or alternatives to capitalism. It starts off with…
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Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Rating: 2/5, bad If Red Rising were food, it would be a bloody steak. Partly because much of its appeal is in the prolific and clever violence, but also because it’s left a little undercooked. Red Rising is about a young man named Darrow, a Red miner, who is tasked with becoming a Gold elite…
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Who Fears Death By Nnedi Okorafor
Rating: 3/5, average Who Fears Death is a science fantasy novel by Nnedi Okorafor, PhD, a Nigerian-American writer and creative writing instructor. Who Fears Death has been optioned for an HBO show directed by George R.R. Martin. I’ve been hearing a lot of hype about this book. I’ve been following Nnedi Okorafor on Twitter since…
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Born That Way: Genes, Behavior, Personality by William Wright
Rating: 4/5, good I picked this book up thinking it would be about the science of genes, behavior, and personality, but it’s really more about the history and politics of the field called behavioral genetics. It doesn’t answer the question, “How much are we controlled by genes, how much by environment, and how much by…
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I Hate the Internet by Jarett Kobek
Rating: 4/5, good “A useful novel against men, money, and the filth of Instagram” I Hate the Internet is a very strange book. It’s half novel and half anti-tech industry diatribe. Jarett Kobek beats his breast to social justice precepts while railing against call-out culture and slacktivism. There are characters, but they take a backseat…