mgdoherty's reviews
327 reviews

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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? Yes
Ok full review to come but this book is fascinating esp when contrasted with the tv adaptation. Camille resists understanding and actively scorns compassion, and yet by the end, I love her character so much, and by the end, Camille is learning to accept love, and it’s just really beautiful. 
Penance by Eliza Clark

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Fascinating book. Functions as both a critique of true crime and a horrifically entergaining novel. Makes the reader complicit. Does a tremendous job of balancing its many ambitions. It’s surprisingly meta about the true crime industry; it’s really interesting that the fictional author ended up being guilty of the same things he chastises the true crime industry for. 

I applaud Eliza Clark for writing in the persona of a fictionalized author, because i think it allows them to explore the material without any confusion around fictional author vs real author. 

Generally stuck the landing but I felt it wrapped up its critique a little too quickly — for most of the book, Clarke slowly holds up the mirror to a readers face and says we’re complicit, but at the end rather pointedly lays out the vulture-y nature of true crime and tidily gives us the answer if we haven’t figured it out already. 

Imagine if that final chapter had been a objective neutral-toned informative article about how Carelli’s #1 New York Times bestseller of several months is now being threatened by a class action lawsuit by the victims and families involved. Maybe a few of their claims laid out — Amanda Black claims her conversation was supposed to be off the record, Jayde Spencer claims he harassed her in the weeks leading up to the interview, Heather claims Carelli promised he wouldn’t include their conversation in the book, etc. And the Crown Court is now bringing forth charges of illegal possession of evidence against Carelli in a separate case. Final line would be something about it’s been a week since the cases have gone public, and book sales have actually picked up. It remains unclear if and when the book will be removed from print. 



My Immortal by Tara Gilesbie

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funny inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

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Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I loved The Wolf and The Woodsman and have been meaning to check out Ava Reid’s other works, but this one was not for me. I enjoyed the read, but as a huge fan of the original play and its version of Lady MacBeth, this felt very different. Lady Roscille lacks the agency that  Shakespeare’s version has, and so I latched onto the moments where Roscille embraced her own ferocity and bloodthirstiness and I wish we’d seen more of that. I do like that this gave her a name and a backstory, and I think this felt like a very natural backstory given what we see in the play, but the two version diverged more and more as the book went on. The play fascinates me from a gender perspective, and it’s clear Reid shares this fascination, though she is clearly drawn to a different interpretation than I am. The original play fits into the “Good For Her” genre, imo, and I would loved a tale which played with that toxicity. That is not this book, and that’s fine; it just means I’m not the target audience. It does make me wonder if this might’ve worked better as a standalone work, however, and less a retelling. 

Reid’s prose is gorgeous as always. The mystery surrounded the King’s eldest son was very compelling, and the supernatural elements were interesting, though I would’ve appreciated more solid worldbuilding on how the magic actually functions in this world. The final scene between MacBeth and Roscille felt like it needed more build-up, as it hinged on Roscille’s powers, which weren’t very clearly established. 
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Comrade by Daniel Liu

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challenging reflective fast-paced

5.0

A study in masculinity, father/son dynamics, memory, sexuality, nature. A really gorgeous book. Truly transcendent. It feels like Liu has reached between the seams of our reality and pulled out truth. 
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
The first half of the book really slowly and I’m not sure how I feel about it, especially in relation to the fact that this is the first book in a trilogy. Related to that the ending feels like we got to the climax and then it ended like 10 pages later without anything for you being resolved. Like a surface level initial problem is solved, but none of the bigger issues are dealt with, and I feel like we need to read the next two books in order to see that real emotional resolution and see how the characters are going to deal with the fallout of what was done at the end of this book.  If you’re going into this because you really liked the movie, expect the pacing to be very different. This can be read as a standalone, but I don’t think it is a satisfying standalone, and I think is probably intended to be read as part one of the trilogy . Other than that, I enjoyed the book for the most part although there are a couple funny parts that really place its cultural context firmly in the late 2000s and early 2010. 
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The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

A book of absolutely wonder. Schlanger’s passion for plants comes through so clearly that it’s impossible not feel moved, and her prose, too, stands out as particularly lyrical. Her goal is to introduce people to the awe inspiring world of plants, and she has achieved her goal. 
How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found by Sara Nickerson

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emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This was one of my childhood favorites, and to my surprise it holds up as an adult. The themes in it are as old as time, like a child missing their dead parent, wondering if they committed suicide and no one has been brave enough to tell them. That’s a subplot that completely went over my kid as a kid, but surprisingly, is one that resonates with me as an adult in surprising ways. I love that Margaret and Boyd get something they’ve each been lacking: Margaret gets answers and she gets her family back together again, even if it’s a little broken and glued together in jagged ways; Boyd gets to the cool indie guy who discovered Ratt’s comics before they were cool and gains some friends; both Margaret and Boyd find someone who supported them on the darkest night of their lives, a best friend. 
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House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I tore through this in four days — could not put it down. For anyone who loves Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, Elizabeth Gaskell, and old gothic lit, this is the modern gothic horror for you. 
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

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emotional funny lighthearted tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

As it turns out, Ali Hazelwood’s style really works for me. I love her take on demi rep, and that’s consistently one of the strongest parts of her work to me. 

 The dynamic between Elsie and Jack is perfection. I’m especially in love with the friendship between Cece and Elsie — love it when girls are weird.  

Smaller thing that fell flat for me: Elsie’s traumatic backstory re: her ex. In both The Love Hypothesis and Love, Theorectically, Olive and Elsie’s big life-altering traumas are SO CONSPICUOUSLY HIDDEN from the reader, and then by the time they’re revealed, whatever I’ve dreamed up is so much juicier than whatever the real backstory is. …this might be a “me” problem, actually. 

The final act feels a bit rushed, which iirc, is the same way I felt about The Love Hypothesis. It’s not that I want the third act breakup to last longer, but in both books, all the external conflicts felt SO BIG that it feels jarring when they’re wrapped up so quickly and SO EASILY.