2025 reads
Pet Semetary - Stephen King
★★★★★
This one really got me on the edge of my seat. My first horror book, starting
off really strong with what I've been told is one of King's best and scariest. The
slow build-up makes the payoff at the end really hit hard. Every time I experience a
story where the main themes are grief and loss, they're always really good, and this
is no exception. The story goes in quite an extreme direction, and at the end the
suspense was so intense I had to hold myself back from skipping forward and reading
as fast as possible to see what would happen next. It's incredibly fun to get that
into a book, and I appreciate that this book could give me that.
Babel - R.F. Kuang
★★★☆☆
I had hoped to like this more than I did. In my opinion, this one should be labeled
YA. In the last third of the book the story loses it's groundedness that made me
like the first 2/3rds. [Spoilers ahead] After Robin kills
professor Lovell, the
story goes more and more into a ridiculous YA style. I understand the message
about revolution, but I disagree with the idea that revolution can be done by
about 6 really dedicated people, instead of a big group banding together.
The ending also bothers me a lot, it sends the message that giving up your life
for your cause is a good idea and a noble thing to do. But you can't make a good
change without being alive to fight for it, and unless you have people to take
over your work and to continue the fight in your stead, it's kind of
useless. Robin does not have a successor, he dies to make a statement but we
never see the result of that statement, of that extreme action in the hopes to
make a change. All we get is a bit about how Victoire leaves to go to America,
which doesn't tell us anything except that Robin has nobody to continue his
fight.
This ending really kind of ruined the book for me. I still gave it 3 stars because I
really enjoyed the first parts of the book a lot.
Dune - Frank Herbert
★★★★★
I finally did it, I finally read Dune. After owning a copy for almost 4 years and
telling myself "i'll get to it eventually," I actually finally did it. This book was
very intimidating, I gave it a shot once and gave up because the first 100 pages are
quite tough to get through, in my opinion. I understand it's necessary to set a
foundation of the story, and it's not even bad, it's just a lot to tackle.
After I got into a sort of flow with this book though, I read through it at a decent
pace. The prose is so-so, which sometimes made it a bit tough, but the story itself
was incredible. The book explores so many different themes extremely well. Religion,
politics, how we affect and destroy the environment, to name a few. I might read the
second book in the future, but it's again, very intimidating to get that started.
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
★★★★★
I think this book changed me as a person, and that's no exaggeration. It's genuinely
a masterpiece that I just cannot describe in words. Le Guin's prose is, as always,
absolutely incredible. The themes of understanding one another, and being
understood, of finding oneself, these all struck a chord with me. The fact that this
was published in '69 and touches on the complicated nuances of gender and sex is
absolutely mind blowing to me. This might be one of my all-time favourite books I
have ever read, and I know for a fact that I will be coming back to it for a reread
in the future.
Prince of the Sorrows - Kellen Graves
★★★★☆
I picked this book up on a whim at a book stall at a queer market, and I'm very glad
I did. I don't often read romance, and I tend to be quite picky with it as well.
This book was just a fun time, the world is interesting, and of course I really
appreciated the queer representation being done in a very tasteful way. It was a
relaxing read, and I might pick up the second book of the series in the future if I
want to take a break from the heavier stuff.
The Ministry for the Future - Kim Stanley Robinson
★★★★★
This one was long. It took me half a year of on and off reading to finish it,
maybe because some parts could be very dry. Robinson tends to infodump about things
like economics quite often, and I had a hard time grasping these concepts and ideas,
especially since English isn't my native language.
Despite that, I still really, really enjoyed this book. The things it has to say
about the world we live in, and our circumstances regarding climate change and our
economy, were all really striking. Though the story seems to paint a gloomy picture
of the way our planet is headed, It's ultimately a story with a "good" ending, and
sends a hopeful message.
Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo
★★★☆☆
This book was fine, there were few points that I found were bad, yet I still
didn't enjoy this as much as I could have. Initially I really enjoyed the
world and premise, but I grew very tired of it very fast. I think maybe that's
because I just don't like heist stories all that much, and I don't tend to enjoy YA
as much as I used to, it's something I've just really outgrown, I think.
Currently Reading
Pageboy
Elliot Page
Published: June 6, 2023
271 pages
Tags: #Nonfiction #Memoir #LGBT
Summary (Goodreads):
"With Juno's massive success, Elliot became one of the world's most beloved actors.
His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was
forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin
crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and
into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. As he navigated criticism and
abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his
heels and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed
silent, unsure of what to do. Until enough was enough."