Nataweeee

#1. Hungerstone (Kat Dunn, 2024) Wanted to like this a lot more than I did. On paper there's a ton of appealing stuff about it, being a queer feminist reimagining of a classic vampire story with an anti-capitalist slant but unfortunately the anti-capitalism isn't much more than window dressing and the queerness is just used as a literary device. That's not really the problem though, the problem is that any time the book wants you to draw parallels or make connections or anything like that the character will just tell you and once I noticed this was becoming a trend I got pretty annoyed with it. It just gives you nothing to consider at any point aside from "what happen next?". Admittedly, this is ideal for an audiobook as I did have my focus split between this and work though and I definitely didn't feel like I missed anything lol. Another thing is that it overuses the word "hunger/hungry" to the point that it feels ridiculous. Like the conceit is comparing the vampiric hunger to a woman's need for freedom from the constraints of a shitty marriage/the patriarchal social structure which is clear and easy to follow and good but it touches on it a lot and then they also tie the character's eating disorder into this and maybe its just because I listened to the whole thing over two long nights but god you just end up hearing that word over and over and over again. That's a small gripe but it wouldn't have felt so ever-present if there were moments of profundity or emotional resonance and even though it does try these moments just don't hit. The closest we get to that is a good crowd-pleaser ending that even though it kind of feels like the only possible ending they do a good job of making you think they might go a different direction and there's some good catharsis in it. This probably sounds like an exceedingly negative review but I don't think this a bad book I think it just has different goals from what I want from it. Its focus is very much on being a functional, well-structured story where all the dots are connected and it succeeds in this for sure but its just not the type of writing that moves the needle for me. 6/10

This will (hopefully) be my first full year of dedicated reading and I have so much stuff I'm excited to check out! Hope its a good year for everyone ❤️ 01. Hungerstone (Kat Dunn, 2024) (audio) ★★★

starting the new year with Wuthering Heights (always wanted to read it but admittedly i'm reading it now because that new movie looks kinda hot lol) and Sea-Witch by Never Angeline Nørth. really enjoying both so far.

28. Speedboat (Renata Adler, 1976) Its like a story told through context-less anecdotes arranged in a near-random order and I think that's a really fun idea but tbh I just straight up don't have the brain power to connect all the threads and really get much out of it. Its certainly amusing at points in a "sensible chuckle" sort of way but I was mostly just lost. Probably would have dug it if the prose grabbed me more. 6/10

yeah, i'd be hesitant to recommend it but i totally see why its as beloved as it is. i'll have to check out the curious readers tho i have soooo much podcast time at work lol.

#27. Nevada (Imogen Binnie, 2013) I think I might be getting burnt out on trans novels a bit, which is shame since this is considered the transfemme novel but where even a few months ago I'd be like "wow, relatable!" I'm now more and more going "yes, I know". It was a bit hard to get into because the main character is pretty annoying and there's a lot of like queer theory info dumps that sometimes feel more regurgitated than actually from the character. This might be like the fastest reading book I've ever read though which is something but with the super short chapters that mostly pick up immediately where the last one ended you do get the feeling you're going nowhere fast, especially since it takes like half the book for anything to really happen. It does come together eventually though once other characters' perspectives start to be shown the intention with how the main character is written becomes a lot clearer and by the end you realize this is one of those books where there isn't going to be a climax or even really any resolution but the characters are gonna take a step in the right direction and I do really like that. The second half (maybe last third?) also switches focus to a new main character which breaks things up and I never really got that spinning tires feeling in this section. These characters don't always feel fully formed but that's because they're not. We're catching them at a turning point in their lives and not sticking around long enough to see them blossom. Definitely a book I like more in retrospect than I did while actually reading it and at the time it came out there was probably nothing quite like it. 7/10

#26. The City Changes Its Face (Eimear McBride, 2025) my second Eimear McBride novel and considering her debut is my favourite book I was stoked for this while trying to keep expectations reasonable and for the most part I got everything I wanted. I just love the way she writes so much you're just so there with the character with how she writes the indecision and unknowns of the inner monologue feels so real and something about her short, poetic sentences are so beautiful to me plus there's some really nice typographical choices like having extra spaces between words for feeling and having smaller font for like the little voice in the back of your head. The pacing is really strong as it bounces between the past at the start of the characters' relationship and now when the relationship is in a tumultuous place and slowly unveils how they got there but there's a stretch where she changes it up and presents the one character's backstory through them watching a work-print of an autobiographical film they're working on and its a great idea as we get the main character's reactions to this info but this section is definitely too long (maybe about a quarter of the book) and also the movie sounds like it kind of sucks lol. That's the only major complaint I had, otherwise I loved it. It's not the emotional sledgehammer A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing was but every sentence she writes has real feeling in it and I teared up a bit at the end. 8/10

#25. Bluestar's Prophecy (Erin Hunter, 2009) The Warriors series has become sort of my guilty pleasure now after listening to so many of these audiobooks now and this is the second "super edition" which is a longer standalone story to the six book arcs chronicling the main storyline. This one definitely works better than the first super edition (which absolutely did not justify the extra length) as it tells the whole story of one cat's life instead of one little padded out side-adventure. I wasn't really feeling it at first though tbh as there was a different narrator which threw me and these books have a ton of characters at all times and its hard enough to keep track of the one's we've known for generations at this point let alone being dropped into a prequel where we know so few of them and also these books can be a bit samey and any character who we've followed through their childhood and warrior training has basically the same arc and they always spend ample time on this. Fortunately as time passes basically all those issues resolve as slowly more cat's we remember from the early books are being introduced and as we start to get to events we've heard about in the early books the pacing picks up big time and it also never runs into the prequel problem of awkwardly forcing this new story into what we already know, it comes together naturally and those moments we already knew about actually hit really hard in the moment as opposed to just hearing them in retrospect. Even though we've seen the Romeo and Juliet lovers from different warring clans thing multiple times in this series the brief time we get with Bluestar and Oakheart is maybe the sweetest its ever been presented and one particular event that we knew must have been extremely painful for her has a wrinkle added that makes it outright devastating. Like I knew these books could get dark but sheeeeesh! So yeah, even though its a bit business as usual for awhile the last third or so of it is maybe the best its ever been. 7/10

A Better World Is Possible - Thotcrime

#24. Magica Riot (Kate Buchanan, 2024) Another night-shift audiobook and wow this is some shameless wish fulfillment slop and the fact that its wish fulfillment I get and could (at least at a point in my life) relate to makes it both more endearing and also more transparent. Like, I was smiling and cringing in equal amounts lol but to be fair I did smile quite a bit, especially in the first half before it has to start focusing on the plot more heavily. The mahou shoujo girl band thing its got going on is a fun enough premise and the narrator performed it with an infectious amount of enthusiasm so it was a pretty good time even if the action sequences aren't particularly riveting and the story is extremely safe and by the numbers. Definitely would have rolled my eyes at it a lot more if I was spending my free time reading it as opposed to passively listening to it while at work. 6/10

just started Eimear Mcbride's new book "The City Changes its Face" and gosh i just love the way she writes.

Funny Man - Chat Pile

(Kill) Your Self-Help Book - Janie Danger

#23. Moonflow (Bitter Karella, 2025) This was my book for this quarter's BCF book club. I've read a number of horror books now this year and have enjoyed all of them a lot and while this maybe doesn't have the highs of those other one's it might be the most consistent of the bunch which is impressive given how out-there it gets at points. Everything feels really well considered, like not only does every silly seeming choice fit the tone they turn out to be integral to the story. I dug the setting a lot, its mostly set at a lesbian hippie commune/cult in the middle of a seemingly mystical forest with members of the cult having fun names like Virginia Dentata and The Hell Slut, and the characters are what really make it. Every character we spend a significant amount of time with is well developed and likeable (or at least enjoyable to read) and as they are characters in a horror novel, they do some very stupid things but the book always makes sure you get the rationale or lack thereof. As for the horror, the closest it gets to being actually creepy is probably in the first act when two of the characters are lost in the forest while looking for a specific type of mushroom but generally its going more for splatter and gore and body horror stuff and yeah it gets pretty goopy and grimy when it needs too and while I'm not typically too into horror that gets really idk, big, for lack of a better word at the end its done in a way here that feels very natural. I wish I had a better way of saying "its fun" but its really just a ton of fun and a very fast-paced read. 7/10

just finished Moonflow by Bitter Karella. its pretty out-there but it was a blast to read. had a ton of fun with it.