Reviews and Comments

avatar for Magneticcrow

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Magneticcrow@ramblingreaders.org

Joined 1 month, 1 week ago

I read a lot of SFF and horror, leaning toward the weird, and I adore a good translation (to English) and small press book. I’m queer and I like to read books about queer people and by queer and otherwise marginalized authors. I tend to avoid things that are marketed strongly as YA.

I’m a former bookseller and I’ve never been able to let go on being way too aware of what’s coming out, so my tbr list is a very active living document (and being realistic, highly aspirational).

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reviewed The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Nghi Vo: The Chosen and the Beautiful (2021, Tordotcom) 4 stars

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, …

Review of 'The Chosen and the Beautiful' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Vo does an incredible job of complementing the feeling and tone of Great Gatsby while adding magical flourishes and giving Jordan a unique backstory and voice of her own. 

reviewed The Memory Theater by Karin Tidbeck

Karin Tidbeck: The Memory Theater (2021, Pantheon) No rating

Review of 'The Memory Theater' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

I enjoyed this quite a bit! It feels like a mashup of Scandinavian folklore with Time Bandits. Be prepared for some of the darker, bloodier aspects of both of those...

reviewed Tender by Sofia Samatar

Sofia Samatar: Tender (2017, Small Beer Press) 5 stars

273 pages ; 23 cm

Review of 'Tender' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

It’s hard to give a single cohesive rating to an entire short story collection, but the one thing I can say conclusively is that every single story was absolutely gorgeous. Not a single off note. Every one of them gave me chills or left my heart racing. 

reviewed The Kingdom of Liars by Nick Martell

Nick Martell: The Kingdom of Liars (2020, Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers) No rating

Review of 'The Kingdom of Liars' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

Just didn’t vibe with the style. It has a blurb from Brandon Sanderson, and yeah - it reminds me a lot of Sanderson’s style, which is very much not for me. 

reviewed The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

No cover

Gertrude Stein: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

 5 stars

"The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ... is not an autobiography by Alice Toklas, …

Review of 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

If you, like me, absolutely adored Archivist Wasp and Latchkey, and were always niggled by the tantalizing fragments of a world almost like our own, where the ghost may have come from and how it all fell apart... here it is, and it’s glorious. What Kornher-Stace has done here, writing a post-apocalypse backwards to its origin, is like nothing I’ve read anywhere else.