galacticvampire's reviews
342 reviews

Whether you like this book or not, it will certainly be an unique experience.

This is pure gore and sex and body horror, which for me means it was great. A pandemic that evolves into a lovecraftian zombie apocalypse that was actually orchestrated by aliens with religious complexes? Absolutely wild. Every description is grotesque and tackles themes of sexuality, feminism, religion, capitalism and ecology.

The vibes are GREAT and so is the writing... The plot could be worked on. It's a very short book that tries to say a lot while also evolving a weird concept, so a lot felt superficial. The first two parts were very very interesting, but the final one felt a little too metaphorical and the pace suffered with a badly structured ending.

Still, I'm thrilled to read more from the author because this was a wild ride.

The Oleander Sword is absolutely a step up from the previous book, both in craft and in plot.

I absolutely love how much more the magic leaned into horror, and the overall feeling of it all being a tragedy only made the experience more interesting.

The characters' dynamics become way more interesting and the whole book carried this air of tenseness where you slowly realise that really no one is safe.

My only point is that the ending didn't make that much of a sense. I felt as if it only happened in such a way to create a specific conflict for the next book, which gave a silly aftertaste to an incredible book.

This was a very fun read. It definitely leans more towards sweet romcom than crazy rich asians, but whenever we got the latter it was wild.

It's a little forgettable but still a great way to spend the time and turn off your brain for a cute story.

I'm all in for a silly romance, but given that this was supposed to be a thriller it went a little overboard.

The ending is extremely bad. Like. If you care about anything other than the romance you will be disappointed. The resolution of the mystery is somehow both underwhelming and too over the top.

But the romance is cool. The characters don't really have the chance to be really fleshed out but their dynamic is nice, even if oftentimes cheesy. I'm definitely not reading the rest of the series though.

(PS: this book does that thing where the author takes a random paragraph mid-scene to show how woke he is, in one the the cases giving his wild take that bisexuality is valid in a very 2013-esque way. It completely took me out because it was very gratuitous in the context.)

This book is for everyone who thoroughly enjoys hours-long videos breaking down internet drama. So I ate it up.

June is so unbearable that it almost feels too on the nose. Her casual racism and how she justifies and rationalizes all the awful shit she does is almost cartoonish. And I say almost because I can't really fully criticise it when I could easily see people doing and thinking exactly the same.

Yellowface is clearly meant to be a satirical take on the racism and biases of the industry, and I think it achieves it really well. Overall, I think it doesn't really goes as deep on the issues as other Kuang's works do, so it sometimes can feels as if is not really SAYING as much as it could instead of just rehashing twitter threads because they annoyed the author. But I didn't mind it as much. Because it was fun.

It took me a long time to write this review because I couldn't decide myself on this book. 

On one hand, it has incredible emotional beats and really explores not only the force but the Jedi empathy. Burry connecting with a dying Drengir is probably one of my favourite scenes in the High Republic and all of his and Bell's chapters were high points for me. 

On the other one, I still don't care about Avar and Elzar as a couple, and their dynamic is the main plot of this book. While Elzar continues to be an extremely interesting and complex character, the last two books did nothing to fix my slight dislike of Avar since her comic days. 

Their relationship is more believable now and at least feels more substantial than a teenage attraction, and while the exploration on how Jedi can love was interesting, I'd rather have spent my time with literally any other plot point. 

Vernestra's inclusion had the potential to be really interesting considering how Defy the Storm ended, but she barely had a significant interaction with Elzar (tbh the whole "consequences of Elzar's choices in Starlight Beacon" deserved more significance, even if it's conclusion remained the same) and her presence felt shoved in because she wouldn't be in neither the MG or the YA book. 

Porter Engle's and Xylan and Cair's chapters made for great balance, adding tension to an otherwise more character-focused book, and  Marchion Ro keeps proving himself an incredible villain with moves that already foreshadow a thrilling climax for the series.

I picked this up because I really like the author but it was overall too juvenile for my taste.

Definitely the weakest Mike Bravo book so far. As much as I liked Atlas, Lemon was pretty average as far as characters go and I think having a civilian love interest really dulled the whole thing.

It was still fun, and has some really good scenes, but the plot overall wasn't really memorable.

I close my eyes to my anti-military anti-police ideals for this series. At the very least these books are very aware of it all and try to mitigate when possible.

Anyway, this one is specially fun and I really loved the dynamics going on here. The older characters with a past hook-up that ended up kinda antagonistic is gold, and I caught myself laughing out loud at some points.

In this book, bell hooks proves that you can educate and explain social activism to anyone. Academia is obviously important, but is not the only way to develop a social conscious.

Focusing on introducing the main struggles of feminism under a intersectional optics, bell hooks was, even decades ago, extremely aware of the harm that exclusionism presents. She pulls no punches critiquing the whiteness and class biases of the movement, while maintaining an informative perspective.