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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Book review: Neuromancer, by William Gibson #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Neuromancer
by William Gibson

I could not stand this book. I understand it's a groundbreaking cyberpunk novel, but it was incoherent almost to the point of readability, and the characters were one-dimensionally boring. It also did not pass the sexy lamppost test. Not even close.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Book review: The Death of Vivek Oji, by Akwaeke Emezi #booksky #bookreview #fiction

The Death of Vivek Oji
by Akwaeke Emezi

A beautiful, moving novel that tells the story of the death of Vivek Oji, a gender nonconforming youth and young adult in Nigeria. To sum: "I'm not what anyone thinks I am. I never was. [...] [T]he real me was invisible to them. It didn't even exist to them. So: If nobody sees you, are you still there?”

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Book review: Thank You For Listening, by Julia Whelan #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Thank You for Listening
by Julia Whelan

This is a delightful little romance novel that gives a look into the lives of audiobook narrators. The book was written and narrated by Julia Whelan, a prolifically award-winning audiobook narrator. The characters were sweet and very funny.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Book review: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin #booksky #bookreview #nonfiction

American Prometheus
by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

This book took me a couple of months to read, but was super worth it. I read it before I allowed myself to watch the film, and I'm glad I did; I found it easier to track all of the characters once I did watch the film. This biography was written by reporters rather than by typical biographers, so I found the style to be much more easily consumable than other biographical tomes.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Book review: Broughtupsy, by Christina Cooke #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Broughtupsy
by Christina Cooke

I found myself confused by the plot of this book. The first half was about the protagonist's relationships with her siblings and her experience in cross-cultural moves (Jamaica to US/Canada), but this plot seemed to be entirely abandoned in the latter parts of the book for a fairly shallow romance/ rebellion/self-discovery plot? There seemed to be little character development, even though the plot arc suggested that there should be one coming (especially for her older sister). There was a lot going on in this book, but it felt hollow and scattered, so I'm not really sure exactly what it was ultimately really going for. Stylistically, however, it was quite good.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Book review: The Dead Romantics, by Ashley Poston #booksky #bookreview #fiction

The Dead Romantics
by Ashley Poston

The first 75% of this paranormal romance was really good. I loved it. I loved the premise and the characters and the writing. The storytelling was excellent. The ending made me actively mad; I realize that that’s what needed to happen, but I felt that it really changed the tone of the rest of the whole book. It was otherwise *so close* to being a favourite.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Book review: In Blood Sister Scribe, by Emma Törzs #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Ink Blood Sister Scribe
by Emma Törzs

This book came highly recommended, but it fell really flat for me. The premise was very creative. The execution was.. not. It meandered through its plot and even the climax felt muted. It took me some time to get into, but the pace never quite picked up for me as much as I wanted it to.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Book review: This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub #booksky #bookreview #fiction

This Time Tomorrow
by Emma Straub

This is a time-travel-life-do-over book. I really did not enjoy it. It wasn't particularly compelling, and somehow had the world's oldest cat? In a way, it was like 13 Going on 30 but without the fun dancing.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Book review: Banal Nightmare, by Halle Butler #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Banal Nightmare
by Halle Butler

Deeply unhappy white millennials are living their banal, miserable lives in a small town, thinking their narcissistic thoughts about how much they actually hate each other. Bitingly funny but also uncomfortable in that on-the-nose liberal millennial zeitgeist type of way. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it (so many paragraph walls), but I'll definitely keep thinking about it.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Book review: Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo was good, but also very confusing to listen to as an audiobook. It had a cast of 166 people, so you sort of had to remember who was who when they were talking, and I wish I had listened to this while reading the book itself.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Book review: Nothing But Blackened Teeth, by Cassandra Khaw #booksky #bookreview #fiction #horror

Nothing But Blackened Teeth
by Cassandra Khaw

Five “friends” hung out in a haunted house and bad things happened. At 125 pages, there wasn’t much time to give background on why these people were even friends, but the relationships in this story made so little sense that it distracted from the rest of the book. It also appeared to be some sort of horror satire à la Cabin in the Woods, but a lot less clever.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Book review: Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Parable of the Sower
by Octavia E. Butler

Very intense climate disaster speculative sci-fi. It was very good, but you need a bit of a stomach for it -- Octavia E Butler does not pull any punches when she writes. Written in 1993 and set in 2024, it was alarming to read it in 2024. Philosophical dystopian writing at its best.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Book review: Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Salvage the Bones
by Jesmyn Ward

A climate disaster book based on a real cataclysmic event -- Katrina. This one requires a bit of a stomach. It covers an impoverished family's 12 days up to and including Hurricane Katrina. Gut-wrenching, violent, emotional, visceral, and beautiful. Worth a read.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Book review: Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates #booksky #bookreview #nonfiction

Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This is a letter from a father to his son about the historical and current experience of Blackness in the United States. It is passionate, profound, heartbreaking, and real. This book is now ten years old, and is certainly no less poignant now. The audiobook is read by Coates himself, and I strongly recommend this version.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Book review: The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley #booksky #bookreview #fiction

The Ministry of Time
by Kaliane Bradley

This is a strange one. It's a romance, sci-fi, mystery thriller written with historical flashbacks about a real person, with a highly metaphorical narrative style. Add in contemporary commentary on race, class, gender, colonialism, and you have yourself a very full 339 pages. I enjoyed the story, but felt the conclusion felt a bit flat.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Book review: How to Sell a Haunted House, by Grady Hendrix #booksky #bookreview #fiction

How to Sell a Haunted House
by Grady Hendrix

This book was fine. Puppet horror, right at a time when my kids decided to get into playing with puppets, which sucked. Probably my least favourite Grady Hendrix to date, though.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Book review: The Armor of Light, by Ken Follett #booksky #bookreview #fiction

The Armor of Light
by Ken Follett

The fifth instalment of the Kingsbridge series is the least memorable for me, to date. The 18th/19th century characters did not feel nearly as developed and the story was less inspired. It seemed much more focused on historical context-building than story-building.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Book review: The Evening and the Morning, by Ken Follett #booksky #bookreview #fiction

The Evening and the Morning
by Ken Follett

The fourth Kingsbridge instalment goes back in time to the 10th century, Saxon-English and Viking raid era. Predictable in terms of Follet style, but that's ok; I was still engrossed.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Book review: A Column of Fire, by Ken Follett #booksky #bookreview #fiction

A Column of Fire
by Ken Follett

Column moves the Kingsbridge descendants to 16th/17th century Europe through the Protestant Reformation and the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean. It continues on in this series themes of being absorbing and fast-paced historical fiction.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Book review: World Without End, by Ken Follett #booksky #bookreview #fiction

World Without End
by Ken Follett

Not as good of a book as Pillars, and felt a bit more of a slog ("Book Without End," according to my mother) about the Kingsbridge descendants. However, still a solid read about 14th century Europe with Follet's stereotypical bad thing-good thing-bad thing plotlines.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Book review: The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett #booksky #bookreview #fiction

The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett

This book will always hold a special place in my heart. It was probably the first piece of adult historical fiction I ever read and made me love the genre. Multiple perspectives, solid research with good cause-and-effect explanations, intertwined storylines. Teenage me was hooked.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Book review: Shrines of Gaiety, by Kate Atkinson #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Shrines of Gaiety
by Kate Atkinson

This book took me nearly an entire month to get into. The first half was a slog. The second half was good (mostly). The ending was meh. I've heard Life After Life is better, so I still want to give that one a try one day.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Book review: Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Romantic Comedy
by Curtis Sittenfeld

What is it not: A slow burn/will they/won't they romance novel. What it is: The development of two people slowly getting to know each other while in the setting of totally-not-SNL which means there's a lot of clever writing. Anyway, I loved it.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

Book review: Strong Female Character, by Fern Brady #booksky #bookreview #memoir

Strong Female Character
by Fern Brady

I love Fern Brady's comedy style and this did not disappoint. Her humour is frank, dry, and honest. This is a really good autobiography that talks a lot about the joys and complications of being neurodiverse in a world that's frankly bad at recognizing and appreciating its existence. Or, more recently, denying autistic people agency and individuality completely.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Book review: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin

The first thing I noticed about this book is that there seemed to be a pretty liberal use of a thesaurus. It also felt very, very long and covered too much ground. That said, I enjoyed the prose and storytelling, which was almost enough to distract from the book being somewhat directionless. I did think about this book for a while after I finished it.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Book review: Doubter's Hymnal, by Laura Cok #booksky #bookreview #poetry

Doubter's Hymnal
by Laura Cok

This book is a beautiful collection of poetry. Deeply thoughtful and emotion-inducing poems on family, faith, loss, love, religion, and trauma. Particularly poignant for those who grew up in a Protestant setting.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Book review: The Bandit Queens, by Parini Shroff #booksky #bookreview #fiction

The Bandit Queens
by Parini Shroff

This book is fantastic. The women in this book band together to deal with their no-good husbands in their village, consulting Geeta for guidance. Written with dark humour, it covers the issues of love, abuse, childlessness, and women’s rights. Title inspired by real-life Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Book review: Tangled Up In You, by Christina Lauren #booksky #bookreview #romance

Tangled Up In You
by Christina Lauren

I fully understand this was based on Disney's Tangled, so there it is expected that this story would be fantastical and somewhat unbelievable, but it was too silly for my taste. I also felt viscerally uncomfortable with the parents, so mission accomplished there, I guess.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Book review: Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens, by David Mitchell #booksky #bookreview #nonfiction #comedy

Unruly
by David Mitchell

"History" is a bit of a stretch here, but if you're a David Mitchell fan (as in the comedian, not the Cloud Atlas author) and fond of sarcastic interpretations of British history, this book is for you. At least, it was for me. A+ audiobook.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Criterion Challenge 2025 Film #12: McCabe and Mrs. Miller #filmsky #criterionchallenge #cc25

$Film #12: McCabe and Mrs. Miller is an anti-Western that’s a commentary on the inaccessibility of the American Dream, solitude when surrounded by others, and the downfall of the machismo. McCabe’s blustering town dominance is quickly and easily outmanoeuvred by Mrs. Miller when her business acumen runs circles around his abilities, and together they find success in their enterprise. However, their success is fractured when the Big Men come to town, and no one is there to save them.$

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Criterion Challenge 2025 Film #11: A Fish Called Wanda #filmsky #criterionchallenge #cc25

A Fish Called Wanda. Film #11: Although technically not a Criterion film, it was on the Channel, so I’m counting it. A Fish Called Wanda was the most I’ve laughed in a movie in a long time. The improv dialogue was incredible, and the cast looked like they were genuinely having a ball. Every scene with Kevin Kline shone. I’ve rarely seen a film incorporate American-style humour with dry British humour together and it slapped.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Book review: My Oxford Year, by Julia Whelan #booksky #bookreview #fiction

My Oxford Year
by Julia Whelan

There was a lot going on in this book, but it somehow also felt empty. The MC is a young Rhodes scholar, who is also remotely working to politically campaign for a president, but the majority of the story doesn't talk about those things *at all* and instead focuses on her romantic relationship. Plus, the ending was disappointing for a few reasons. I also wanted more of her friends, who seemed like checkboxes to move the plot rather than being believable human beings.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Book review: Now is Not the Time to Panic, by Kevin Wilson #booksky #bookreview #fiction

Now Is Not the Time to Panic
by Kevin Wilson

This book was fun; it's about a teenage girl who made sneaky posters that went viral pre-internet. I like Kevin Wilson's writing style. I think I still prefer Nothing to See Here, but overall a pretty interesting/weird story.

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TogeReads @togereads.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

Book review: The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans #booksky #bookreview #shorstories

The Office of Historical Corrections
by Danielle Evans

I picked this book simply because I loved the title. I was rewarded with an excellent novella and collection of short stories that looks at who gets to tell stories and the cost of setting the truth. A brilliant collection that's worth the time.

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