avokaitotoast's reviews
23 reviews

challenging mysterious reflective slow-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? Yes

5.0

Short Review (TL;DR):

Extra fun read it you have even the most basic knowledge of greek philosophy or tragedies
Made me think way too much of my old literature professors (can’t tell you if that’s in a good way or bad way, i have no idea)
really fucking good.

Long Review:

I could see how this might be a boring read for some. It’s slow, it’s not incredibly thrilling, it’s fairly predictable — and yet it’s incredibly thought provoking. It’s philosophical at the end of the day, rather than a riveting thriller. To me this book felt like if the concept of an epic poem or philosophical allegory had been applied to 20th century prose.

The characters are unlikeable, flawed to an extreme, and lack a sense of uniqueness that many of us look for in modern literature. They are very much caricatures of the over enthusiastic literature student — rejecting modernity, drinking whiskey, smoking excessive amounts of cigarettes. However, I think that works in its favor. These characters are so incredibly out of touch with the world, so isolated, and in turn are out of touch with themselves and their own morality.

There is a tension between the characters — in the first half — that mimics the academic rivalary between philosophical schools of thought: the stoic versus the epicuric, with the skeptic observing. The constant fight for what they think is higher knowledge (but in reality is a hopeless grapple for control and validation) turns catastrophic and it becomes a tale of shattering perspectives, crumbling realities, and the ever-present philosophical question of “what is good? and what is evil?”.

You don’t have to have interest or knowledge of greek philosophy to enjoy this at all (mine is Super Basic at best), however there’s a lot of really cool elements of classic greek philosophies and tragedies to be enjoyed if you do. I also really enjoyed how, despite being a chaos of greek stories, the entire story ends up almost Machiavellian in nature.

I honestly can’t wait to re-read this and analyse it more throughly. I think it will be fun to re-read some greek tragedies first though, for sure.

I’m also just rambling at this point. I quite literally just finished and trying to get out everything Ive thought while reading this succinctly is apparently impossible.

Content Warnings

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Formatting things: Dialogue is intentionally not in quotation marks or distinguished from the rest of the writing. It takes some getting used to but it’s a little off putting at first.

Animal Cruelty/Abuse Spoilers: page number and a tldr so you could skip if you want

pg. 48, 90, 116, 149, 235: minor warning, non graphic
pg. 152: graphic,
describes killing a cat in detail including talk about seeing its intestines

TLDR Review:

not just for mothers or aspiring mothers
loss of identity after a big life change
anger at the expectations of women
weird, but excellent

Full Review:

There is something in Nightbitch for every woman. Nightbitch is definitely about motherhood, but it’s also about womanhood and aging, it’s about female rage and the internal fight of societal expectations to do “what you should” and to do it with a smile, to put yourself second to others, to be domesticated and docile, about not wanting to be the „perfect“ woman — the „perfect“ mother, but being painfully aware that you’re not the perfect woman at the same time. It’s about shame and resentment and loss of identity during a life transition. You do not have to be a mother, or an aspiring mother to really feel this book.

It’s over the top, it’s absurd, it’s dark, it’s funny, it’s emotional.

I‘ve seen some reviews say that the prose feels like it’s trying to be to serious. So stop taking it seriously. That’s what I have to say about that. Embrace the absurdity and the over the top-ness.

Content Warnings

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.0

Short review:

over hyped
not horror at all
very disjointed narrative (not in a good way)
i have no idea what the plot was
felt like i was reading something on wattpad half the time

Long review:

Where is the horror??? Is it in the room with us?? This isn’t even bad horror, it’s just *not horror*. At all. Maybe it could be a thriller? But not a horror. It is So heavily advertised and reviewed as a horror, and to be honest, maybe if it hadn’t been I would have enjoyed it more.

I was so hyped for this book. I love queer fiction and I love horror so this book was right up my alley, not to mention the phenomenal reviews… It did not meet expectations

Gretchens prose about the trans experience is actually really nice. It’s refreshing reading an actual trans author write about it, and I really like the concept of using a zombie-esque virus as a metaphor for body dysmorphia.

The plot, however, was barely there. The setting was developed well, but the actual plot was so lost. I think for me it came down to how disorganised the whole book was.

The book follows perspectives of 5 people. However, instead of having a chapter devoted to each POV, it changes like 8 times a chapter. It makes it impossible to follow each characters subplot, not to mention the over all plot.

I wish I was kidding but I texted my friend when I was 3/4 through with the book and was like „I have no idea what the point of this book is“.

The „horror“ was lacking. If you could call it horror. I think if this was written as a black comedy and leaned into that angle then this could have been phenomenal. Unfortunately, it felt unintentionally hilarious.

All in all, it’s not a ~bad~ read, it’s just not what was promised by the marketing in my opinion. I‘ll always support queer authors and don’t regret buying this book, but I also think people can be hesitant to leave negative reviews for queer authors. I did finish it, so it was entertaining enough to read, but I do think half the time I was reading it just to try and get to the „amazing“ book I‘d heard about.

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a solid „good“ book. You won’t be clutching your seat in suspense, but it definitely was interesting and managed to do dark-academia without feeling like every other book I‘ve read.

One thing that was frustrating in this book is that the main character struggles with very severe depression. She’s very apathetic and that effects the narrative a lot (since it’s in first person). She doesn’t really care about what’s going on half the time and is a very unreliable narrator because of that.

Something that I think could be a love it or hate it thing is the pacing of this book — sometimes months will go by in one page and sometimes it takes a whole chapter to get through a day. It’s very disjointed, but for me it felt like a reflection of the main characters mental health and participation in the events: sometimes time moves incredibly slowly and sometimes she blinks and days have passed. It’s fitting, and kind of cool.

About the ending: I’ve seen a lot of reviews saying that it was unsatisfying and it didn’t answer a lot of the questions the readers had been asking. While I agree with that, I kind of liked it? The unsatisfying ending felt very fitting. I liked that there was neither a bad ending or a happy ending, just an ending.

I feel like people forget that with the main characters mind set there was no way we were going to get a nice cohesive ending u less there was a ~oh my god my depression is miraculously cured and my whole personality has changed~ moment, which would suck and ruin the whole book to be honest.

The only thing that I genuinely did not like about the book was that there was a little bit of a „chosen one“ trope with the main character. It’s implied heavily by the school director that the main character is special, that they picked *her* to join the school. HOWEVER — with the way the school is run, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what they tell all of the students. We only get one students perspective after all.

Content Warnings

Rouge by Mona Awad

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Another hit from Mona.

I was worried after reading and loving Bunny that this would disappoint or be too similar and feel like a reach to hold on to the hit that Bunny was. Thank god it wasn’t.

One thing I‘ll say — Mona Awad writes horror in an atypical way, so don’t expect crazy gore or shock horror or crazy suspense. She has a very elegant way of making beautiful things grotesque and absurd.

Another thing — this is marketed as a fairy tale re-telling. Don’t go into this book looking for that. There are elements of fairy tales but it’s so subtle (which imo is the best way to do a re-telling).

Go into this book thinking about mother-daughter relationships and how grief can drastically warp your sense of self and change how you think and feel about the people you thought you knew.

It did take me a while to get into the book (Awads writing style is veryyyyy slow burn), but once I was a few chapters in I couldn’t put it down.

Can’t wait to read her other books, and I’ll look forward to whatever she writes next!

Content Warnings Explained
Trafficking:

Plot involves people joining an exclusive skin care cult, some members seek it out themselves and some are recruited. Members are essentially brainwashed and it’s revealed that they are meant to be pseudo-cannibalised (if you read it you’ll get it) by the cult leaders

Psychosis:

Main character has massive memory gaps but slowly remembers through out the novel. She hallucinates heavily and is violent because of these hallucinations.

Content Warnings

Bunny by Mona Awad

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

this is the kind of book that when im reading in public and someone asks what i’m reading i never know what to say — normally just say „weird horror book“ and that’s kinda exactly what this is.

i feel like it’s hard to review this book so i agree with all of the „wtf was this — 5 star“ reviews, i think that’s the most accurate review for this 😭

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

short review: incredible book until the last 30 pages

long ish review: i really did love this book. the set up was so good. the unreliable narrator was so well done and really had you questioning what was going to happen next at all times. i feel like the build up was just so good that the climax ended up being pretty anticlimactic. it felt very rushed at the end and therefore a bit disappointing. that being said — i’d still rec it! it’s a really good read (more of a psychological thriller than a witchy-magical-book fyi!!)

Content Warnings

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i’m horrible at reviews but this one was incredible. it’s slow to start, i personally have a hard time with time jumps (this shifts between present day and the past every few chapters) and is very reflective so it takes a bit of effort to get into, but once you get about halfway you cannot put it down.

Content Warnings

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

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emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

just finished this and it is so so so good. i’ve heard a lot of people say it’s overhyped and say „guys this author has written other things!!!“ but i’ve read (well started) another of his books, and it’s good don’t get me wrong but there’s a reason this book gets so much hype!!!

premise is really cool — in this world you get notified by Death Cast around midnight of the day you’re going to die. society has integrated this so there’s special events for people living their last day and ways to find people to be with if you have no one.

it follows two boys on their last day but also shares the stories of a few others (not hard to keep track of tho!). it’s all about living your life to it’s fullest potential and how to not have regrets.

idk what else to say but as i got closer and closer to the end my heart was literally racing bc, like the title says „they both die at the end“.

Content Warnings

Jay's Gay Agenda by Jason June

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lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

my advice before you read this book:

go into it knowing that it is for teens (but also written by someone who doesn’t know what teens do now)
know that there will be lots of (often cringe) talk surrounding sex and virginity
embrace the cringe and let it come full circle into camp territory.
do not take a shot every time u see the word „gawd“, „frack“, or „VSB“
chapter 18/19 are fairly explicit
2 modern teen references are made in the entire book

don’t get me wrong — this book is a fine read. it kept me interested and id still recommend it to people looking for queer lit, there was just a cringy child-ness to the main character and his inner monologue. i’m also over reading (or watching) things strictly about teens and their sex lives.

jay sort of gave me kurt hummel from glee but in 2020 vibes (only out gay kid in a small town w a dad who works on cars? literally kurt) and i both loved and hated it. definitely a stereotype (which they are self aware of, it’s brought up how stereotypical jay is).

POS

easy read
enjoyable cringe to a certain point
fun to hate read

MAJOR NEGS

jay is supposed to be 17/18 but acts more like a 14/15 year old while discussing extremely adult topics (not a vibe)
discussion of the impacts of stereotypes is mentioned but when covering the topic of racial stereotypes it gets really weird… aka the only POC in the books essentially says „i used to hate that i’m asian and do xyz but now i embrace it“ and coming from a white author it feels very „i’m supposed to discuss race in my book bc it’s the PC thing to do“ but did not hit the mark at all

i don’t like giving negative reviews to queer lit (and i don’t think this is entirely negative — like i said, i did enjoy it a lot!!) because there is so little of it and i always want to support queer art. that being said, while it’s no great work of fiction, it’s a nice quick and enjoyable read if you don’t mind the extreme cringe and constant (i mean constant) dialogue surrounding sex and virginity.

Content Warnings

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avokaitotoast's reviews 23 reviews

avokaitotoast's reviews
23 reviews