mspilesofpaper's reviews
874 reviews

Cats and Other Calamities by Tarryn Thomas, Alex Wagner, Alex Wagner

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lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

3.0

A somewhat cosy murder mystery where a dog and a cat are the detectives. Despite the murders, it is rather light-hearted and quick to read. Not the greatest piece of literature in the world but it was fun to read and a nice break for my brain.

If you like books where the animal is the protagonist and the human is a side character, you will enjoy it. 
Taken by the Alien Next Door by Tiffany Roberts

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lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Taken by the Alien Next Door is Science Fiction Romance and the first of a series, which has three books so far.

To be honest: it is an utterly bland and generic SFR book. Yes, it is rather light-hearted at times (aside from the kidnapping and the fatphobic comments of the FMC by other men) but it is so generic.

✔️ kidnapping trope
✔️ humanoid alien that is conventionally attractive
✔️ lots of generic sex scenes
✔️ MMC and FMC have whimsical jobs that somehow make a lot of money (soap and candle making & whittling/woodwork)
✔️ male alien values and worships the FMC because his race has a 20:1 ratio for males/females
✔️ one-dimensional and wishy-washy characters

The kidnapping and the questionable consent (partly even the absence of it at all) in combination of the fatphobia is ... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. Seriously, it would have been better to write this as an overall cute, hallmark movie-esque book. It might have been stereotypical then but it wouldn't irk me so much with the dark elements of kidnapping, the dubious consent, the fatphobia, which got paired with the light-hearted elements. Even the comic-esque cover doesn't hint at the dark elements. The cuffs could have been part of a sex scene. 

Also, I don't know why we always have fatphobia in a novel where the FMC is a plus-size character. I don't want to read other male characters insulting the FMC or her own disturbed views on her body. I have reality for it, I don't need a romance novel doing it too. 
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White

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emotional lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Voyage of the Damned was one of those books where I was worried if I would like it (or even finish it) because the first part is rough. I think it mostly stems from the unusual writing style/narrative because it's a very sarcastic first-person narrative but once I got used to it, it was enjoyable to read. It is a fantasy version of "Death on the Nile" with a queer underdog protagonist who doesn't even want to be there. 

It's a closed-door murder mystery set on a magical boat that sails towards a (magical) mountain to fulfil some ancient tradition. All passengers aside from Ganymedes (Dee) have a magical ability called Blessing. And while some are rather open about it, most keep their Blessing a secret, which suits Dee due to his lack of it. And while he doesn't even want to be there, and plans to antagonise the others so much that he will lose his title, he didn't expect the murder of ... well, anyone. To survive, he teams up with a 6-year-old girl and a sickly boy to solve the murders. As the book progresses, the bodies start to pile up and Dee uncovers secrets and has to deal with the topic of castes (often within castes), societal and familial expectations, grief for loved ones and prejudices.

The world-building is a high fantasy with urban fantasy influences (e.g., hot dog as a dish, modern chess, ...) and the magic system seems very wild at first but is explained later in the novel why the magic (the Blessings) seems to be so unsorted. The only thing that I would criticise about the world-building is the map and the very different climates in each region, e.g. a desert region is right next to an ice-cold region where mammoths live. (I'm very picky when it comes to such things though.) It doesn't influence the story though as it's more background information for the Blessed who rules/will rule over the region. Plus points for the queerness in the novel though. We have a non-binary character (their entire region is very non-binary coded with their own terms for parents etc), two bisexual characters and one gay character. There's also one character in a wheelchair and while it's revealed that people tend to underestimate the character, no one uses a slur towards them. All arguments and tensions stem from other issues.

I have to say though that I find the "adult fantasy" label inaccurate because it is very YA-coded. Yes, you have adult characters in the book but the overall writing and the behaviour of the MC is very YA-esque. Every death is mentioned but not in-depth as it would happen with an adult novel but more in a "he was stabbed 17 times"/"the wounds were deep" kind of way, which is very fitting for a YA too. (I wouldn't categorise it as a thriller either. It's a YA with a murder mystery and that's it. There's no suspension in it that's typical for thrillers.)

My main issue with the book is the fatphobia and the MC's relationship with food. The male MC is a plus-size character (always described with a soft tummy, thick thighs, ...) who is often discarded due to it or reduced to his size. As someone who is plus-size, it made me very uncomfortable at times and I'm an adult in my 30s. Also, Ganymedes' relationship with food is close to an eating disorder. Here, I'm unsure if the author did it on purpose or if it happened accidentally but in combination with the fatphobic comments, I found it troublesome. I find this very troublesome in combination with the YA-esque vibe of the book because it would have influenced me a lot as a teenager. Yes, I grew up in the 90s/early 00s when diet culture was rampant and Kate Moss' was hyped for her "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels", which deeply influenced my relationship with my body and with food, but books tended to be a safe place to leave reality for a while. I think if I had read this book as an older teenager who was struggling with body image and a healthy relationship with food, I would have just cried or felt even worse. Yes, Ganymedes knows that he's fat and accepts himself completely but he's so often reduced to his looks (especially when everyone else in the novel is tall and destroyed as beautiful) that it just ... hurts. 
The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar

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emotional lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

The Henna Wars had been on my tbr for ages and I finally read it as last entry for Sapphic September.

I will keep the review relatively short and separate it into "the good" and "the bad".

The Good
- The representation in the form of a sapphic Muslim Bangladeshi girl (Nishat) and a bisexual Black Brazilian girl (Flávia who I think is bi-racial as her cousin on her father's side is white) who live in Ireland because I think both are relatively rare.
- The themes of cultural appropriation, homophobia (from family & friends but also classmates), Islamophobia and racism. Sometimes, the bullying is extreme but I think it's still an accurate representation and shows what BIPOC people have to deal with.
- The food. (I got hungry when the author wrote about the Bengali dishes.)

The Bad
- There is so much happening in this book, which makes it a very rushed reading experience. There's the issue of Flávia not understanding the cultural appropriation of Nishat's culture because "art is art", which is somewhat resolved but mostly glossed over. 
- Flávia's cousin bullied Nishat for years (since primary school when she realised that it isn't cool to be friends with a brown girl) gets away with a light slap on the wrist at the end, gives a pseudo apology and that's it. In a similar vein: the pseudo apology by one of Nishat's best friends. Girl, why are you friends with them?
- The entire conflict surrounding Nishat's unwanted outing at the Catholic Girls School! There's a bit shouting between two parties but that's it.
- The romance. Yes, parts of it are cute but the entire thing is so weird and out of nowhere. It has also a ton of conflict in it but in the end everyone is fine? Even Nishat's parents are getting around her oldest being gay.
- The writing style was sometimes ... eeh at times. It made everyone seem even younger than they are and gives it a Middle-Grade feeling instead of YA. Partly, the narration is also extremely overly dramatic for no reason in some scenes.
- Pop culture references. Sorry, I just hate them.


I think the idea behind the book is a good one but the execution falls extremely flat. 

 
D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins

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funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding was another read for Sapphic September and oh dear, did I struggle with it.

While it is relatively light-hearted, the reality TV aspect doesn't really work in a book setting. Or maybe just not in this book setting. All the reader gets is one welcome party, the constant "we have to film two hours content per week" message, a few chapters as 'jitter cam' where D'Vaughn or Kris just ramble, one cameraman who shoots several scenes (and then just vanishes lol) and the feeling that the production company messes a bit with the couple. There's no true sense of elimination or anything because they just find out by a postcard that they advance into the next week. There wasn't enough of the messiness and drama that are typical for reality TV shows, which makes it, with the overall feeling of low stakes, a rather cosy romance read. Even the reveal doesn't result in drama, instead their families and friends are on board and happy for them. The only bits of tension happen with a potential love interest for D'Vaughn and with an ex-girlfriend of Kris but their scenes get pushed away rather quickly. In addition to it, I did struggle with the language. It is due to the Spanish phrases (and I had French at school) and the American English slang that might be typical for Southern states. I learned Oxford English, so I had to re-read phrases to get them. 

If you want to read a cosy, fun sapphic romance with two black women (African-American and African-Latinx) and the fake dating trope: go for it. D'Vaughn is also a plus-size woman and loves her body, so there's an additional sprinkle of body positivity in it. 




The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis

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emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Thank You to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an eArc.

I had asked for The Palace of Eros because it is marketed as a queer retelling of the Eros and Psyche myth, which was a great selling hook to me. (I think I'm still deeply influenced by Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, which was part of my art lessons in the late 2000s.)

Unfortunately, the book isn't it. The myth of Eros and Psyche is considered as one of the greatest love stories/as one of the most beautiful love stories, and the author didn't manage it to keep the vibe. Instead, it is very a sex-heavy retelling with flowery prose. The prose is so flowery that it creates an entire garden and I wish someone told the author to use punctuation marks from time to time because they gifted us with phrases like this:

 "Over meals, on walks, as I sat at the loom weaving a tapestry out of finer thread than I'd ever used before - a simple design, two alternating colors, for fear of what would happen if I let my imagination merge with the motion of the threads, given the tumult inside my mind - I saw visions of what else I might ask for, what else might be 'your pleasure', things I should not think of and should not want: her hand in my hair as it had been the first night, her body near mine, her body on mine, her hands on me, her hands moving along me, would they be hard or supple, fast or slow or - her mouth on my neck - then what?" 

The paragraph is 13 lines long on my Kindle and technically isn't even a sentence as it ends with a question mark, which makes it a question.

Another example of "The author never learned to use punctuation marks and the editor failed at their job as well" is this:

 "She came here on some winged creature through the night sky, she is a woman free to roam the sky, a woman with a palace, a woman whose days are hidden from you, a woman who can do outrageous things to another woman’s body, a woman whose power is mountainous, whose strength is vast, whose charm is boundless, you’d never imagined such a woman could be, yet here she is, and far be it from you to anger her when she’s already given you so much, how could you ask for more, when she has chosen you for this adventure for some inscrutable reason you’ll never understand, just as it’s impossible to understand how this adventure can exist or what the scope of it will be, but there it is, the need to clasp it close and not let go because you want this life she’s offered you, want it with every fiber of your being, yet also want to hold on to your own knowing, however tiny it may be compared to hers." 

It's a lot of words to say nothing and reminds me of my essays at university where I would have added non-necessary bullshit to reach the word limit.

As for plot, there's not a lot of it. Of course, the original myth isn't rich with plot either but de Robertis' retelling is mostly sex. Either Psyche and Eros fucking at night or Psyche masturbating during the day (when she doesn't weave, paint or eat). It's pretty half just sex for half of the book and it's ... a lot. Psyche is borderline obsessed with sex and Eros uses it as a tool to avoid questions, which makes it yucky. At the point when something could happen (the trials), the author just told the reader what happened instead of showing it. In the end, the trials are skimped on, so the author can squeeze some dialogue between Eros and Aphrodite into the book, which results in an "everything is wrapped up offscreen" situation. 

In addition, to the very flowery prose: Psyche's chapters are written in the first person while Eros' are written in the third person, which is a weird decision and always irritated me while reading. It's a sharp contrast and Psyche feels like an unreliable narrator due to it at some points.

An interesting aspect of the novel is Eros' exploration of gender dynamics but I think it would have been better to discuss this as an academic essay instead of squeezing it into the novel. 
You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

You're Not Supposed To Die Tonight is a YA hommage of the slasher movies of the 80s and 90s. I'm not always one for horror movies and novels because I'm easily scared and I do like to sleep through the night without having weird nightmares. (A psychological thriller though? HIT ME UP!) So, I thought that a YA horror novel would be a somewhat better choice for me. Spoiler: It didn't work out as well as I thought.

Well, to start with the book, I have to mention that it feels like the author wrote it at two different points in time and planned to use one part for another book because they are just ... weird.
The first part is slow-paced and builds up the setting. The reader gets introduced to the characters and the entire camp setting with its horror/terror game. It also starts to have the typical creepy elements of a horror movie, e.g. a humanoid shadow at the shoreline, bumps in the night, flickering lights, ..., before it turns into the "leave the campgrounds" and overall, I would have given it 4.5 ⭐. There's an actual sense of fear and foreboding, which made it close the book at night as I do value my sleep. Of course, it could have been faster-paced but it worked well as a set-up.
The second part though? That's the actual horror/mystery part of the book and it really just fell flat for me. So, I would give it 1.5 ⭐, which results in a 3 ⭐ rating as an overall rating. There's a weird cult involved (which still doesn't make sense), there's an occult/paranormal aspect to it, it's very predictable in terms of who is the actual villain, and the ending/epilogue is just ... something. This part feels heavy-handed and stereotypical of horror movies where the characters always do the dumb shit. Splitting up? Yes, of course! Investigating something in the night in a forest? Hell yes! All the things where anyone with a brain would be like "no, we just leave now!" instead of going through with investigating something creepy at night.

TL;DR: A YA horror novel (that's surprisingly gory for the age group) that takes a weird turn after the halfway point of the story, which results in a loss of tension and horror. Instead, I just got left with a lot of question marks and eye-rolling.

On a personal note, I think I will stay away from the author by now because I wasn't happy with Cinderella Is Dead either. 
Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings

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lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

Late Bloomer was another read for Sapphic September but oh dear, it was such a disappointment. (Though after checking out other books by the author, I realised that it wasn't my first book from the author and I was disappointed by the other book as well.)

While the story blurb sounded like a fun and cute sapphic read, the actual read was ... well, something. If I have to describe it briefly, it would be basically "someone mixed tons of pop culture references, even more Taylor Swift references, with modern slang and a romance idea that could come from TikTok".

The summary highlights already some of my main issues with the book: there are tons of pop culture references (mostly Taylor Swift related but not limited to it) and modern slang (e.g., "noice"). If social media teaches us anything, it is that pop culture references do not age well and are utterly limited to a certain generation or time period. I might put myself as older here but there used to be a time when there were references to the American Pie movies everywhere ... You might guess it already but if you use those nowadays, only a few people would get it. It will be the same issue for this book. 

Aside from the pop culture references and the modern slang, the relationship between the two young women has no chemistry. It goes from "I do not like and trust you" to "I want to bone you"/"I like you"/"I love you" extremely quickly with no actual scenes where the reader sees why they start to like each other. It is instant attraction, lust and love in one package. Aside from it, both characters have zero characteristics aside from their neurodivergence. Pepper is autistic and Opal has ADHD/autism (undiagnosed) and that's their entire defining character trait. Their hobbies are their jobs and are directly based on their neurodivergence. They don't have another hobby or anything aside from it. Pepper deals with a bit of grief as she lost her grandmother but that's it. In all honesty: both should just go to therapy instead of hurling themselves into this situationship/relationship. If you care about sex scenes: you can find plenty of them in the book. By far too many for the measly amount of plot to be honest. They were also boring, repetitive and a virgin is apparently a sex goddess at oral sex and fingering. I skipped over them at one point because just ... bleugh. 

As for the ADHD & autism representation: books like this one are the reason why I would rather have no representation than such a horrible one. It's such a stereotypical representation and brushed over most of the time unless it could be used as a device to create some tension. If you want an example: Opal doesn't get a diagnosis because "I know who I am" but basically medicates herself with alcohol and drugs to feel "normal". Yes, people with ADHD have addiction issues (Hello sugar, you are the bane of my ADHD existence.) but the author implies that it's ok not to get a diagnosis and professional help because "I know who I am". 
As for the bisexual representation (because Opal is bisexual): it is so stereotypical and she is a caricature of a bisexual character as she incorporates the three traits of every stereotypical bisexual character: messy commitment issues, loves to dye their hair in unusual colours (pink, green, ...) and loves casual sex. I hate it. And Pepper ... I feel like the author also put all stereotypes about lesbians into her and called it a day. (Although she doesn't get labelled because "What if I like a man one day!?". Bitch, please.) To be honest: the entire book reads as if it is a sapphic romance written through the male gaze. 

(And please, for everything that is holy, do not ever get me started on the author's note. The book's working title was "Lavender Haze" because the author is a Swiftie.) 
Party Animal by Ali K. Mulford

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funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Party Animal is the third book in an ongoing series and while it might be beneficial to read the previous books, I can say that you don't need to do it. There were more than enough points about the two previous couples to understand their relationships without having to read those books.

It is a fun contemporary sapphic romance in a zoo setting (on an island somewhere on the US East Coast) but the zoo part (and the island part) is a background thing. I think the only places within the zoo that play a larger part are the vet clinic and the restaurant/café as the couple is a zoo vet and a chef. In the book, we follow Goldfinch "Finch" Lachlan, who works as a vet at her family's zoo and lives for her work while avoiding any long-term relationships like the devil avoids a church, and Francesca "Frankie" Benedetti who is a (pastry) chef who got out of a long-term relationship with Jake who cheated on her. They both get into a fake relationship with each other for different reasons but as they continue with their "play of pretend", the lines begin to blur with each display of commitment.

My only issues with the book were:
- Frankie thought that she is a bisexual woman who just had never been able to explore relationships with women. I wish the author would have let her continue to be bisexual and just get her into a relationship with a woman instead of having her very short "aha" moment where she realises that she isn't bisexual but a lesbian. There aren't many books with bisexual characters in general, so this erase of a bi character irks me.

- The end. The author has a love for epilogue weddings. Unfortunately, she utterly spoils the upcoming book with it and the developments of Hawk's and Lark's relationships (the two siblings from the first two books).

- The fucking third act breakup. God, I hate those. All because of miscommunication in this case. 
Lavendelregenküsse - Sommer in Astonien by Astrid May

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 15%.
Man wird mitten ins Buch geworfen und weiß nicht wirklich wer wer ist. Es heißt, dass man es unabhängig vom ersten Teil lesen kann, aber es bezieht sich immer wieder auf den ersten Teil, so dass das nicht stimmt.

Erinnert mich auch mal wieder daran warum ich so gut wie nie auf Deutsch lese. 
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