Tag: 5 stars

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/18/23) – So Lucky

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I came upon this book after poring through the “further reading” section of Alice Wong’s incredible Disability Visibility anthology (which you should also go read!!), and I put it on hold at the library soon after I heard about it. I was completely unfamiliar with Nicola Griffith before reading this novella, but she delivered so much power and resonance in the span of only 180 pages. We’re barely halfway through the year, but I know that I’ve got another favorite read of this year.

Enjoy this week’s review!

So Lucky – Nicola Griffith

Mara Tagarelli has it all. Happily married and the head of a multimillion dollar AIDS foundation, she lives a life of contentment and security. But in the span of days, Mara is diagnosed with MS, and her wife leaves her soon after. Her colleagues now dismiss her needs, and she’s left without work, without the care she needs, and without any prospects for the future. But as she slowly begins to find a community, she realizes the power that she holds—to put those she values in danger, but to give them the justice that they deserve.

TW/CW: ableism, hate crimes, murder, medical mistreatment, misogyny

I finished this book several days ago, but I’m still positively reeling from the effect it had on me. I picked it up after seeing it included as a recommendation in the “further reading” section of Alice Wong’s Disability Visibility, thinking it would be something good to read during Disability Pride Month. What I found was something far more than just “something good to read”—it was wholly refreshing, resonant, and both heartbreaking and heartwarming. So Lucky wasn’t a novel that I expected to hit me so hard, but it did, and I am forever grateful for it.

I’ve never been more in love with such an angry character, to be honest. Griffith’s writing of Mara felt more than authentic, a character that climbed out of the page, demanding to have her voice heard. And although her anger is her primary character trait, it’s an anger that resonated with me like nothing has before; in a landscape where disabled women, both fictional and real, are expected to be demure and sadly accepting of their fate (but in a sexy way, of course, because they obviously only exist as objects of pleasure for men), having a character as fiery and determined as Mara very nearly made me cry. I don’t have MS, but I am a disabled reader, so watching Mara express her anger at her treatment, at her life, and at the world around her was more than I could have asked for. More disabled women who aren’t conventionally likable and are written authentically, please! Use this novella as a guide.

So Lucky is a hard read—it doesn’t pull any punches, and that’s exactly how it should have been. It displays a lot of some of the more harsh realities of being disabled, especially being physically disabled: dismissal by your colleagues, mistreatment at work (and eventually being fired because of said diagnosis), relationship turmoil, medical mistreatment, and disability-motivated hate crimes are all a part of the narrative that Griffith portrays. It’s visceral and heartbreaking, and it doesn’t hold back in the slightest. But never once did it feel amped up for tension, or unnecessarily exaggerated: this is the story of an angry woman, and the story of a system built on bringing her down, as well as others like her. It really represents a good portion of the spectrum of issues that disabled people, especially disabled women, face, and Nicola Griffith captured all of it with incredible aplomb.

Despite that, So Lucky never falls into hopelessness. Even though Mara faces hardships aplenty, it never portrays the disabled experience as defined solely by tragedy and suffering. In spite of it all, there is always hope: Mara finding an online community of other disabled people, taking care of her cat (shoutout to Rip), and coming to the realization that her anger was never from the MS itself: it was from the experience of living in a world that did not want her to succeed. At its heart, So Lucky is an incredibly raw story, but a fearlessly hopeful story, one where our protagonist knows that her anger doesn’t come from being disabled, but from existing in a world where disabled people are treated so poorly. And that anger only adds to her determination to continue to fight for a better, more accessible world. There is no disability to inspirationally overcome, only a system. I can’t think of much that’s more beautiful than that.

All in all, a short novella that packs a deeply impactful punch, and portrays disabled womanhood in a refreshing light. 5 stars!

So Lucky is a standalone, but Nicola Griffith is also the author of Ammonite, Hild, Cold Wind, Slow River, and many other books for adults spanning several genres.

Today’s song:

never in my life would I have anticipated liking a Weezer song THIS much, but you can blame Snail Mail for this one

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (5/16/23) – The Isles of the Gods

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

If my constant blabbing about Aurora Rising from the past four years should bring you to any conclusion, it’s probably that I’m a massive Amie Kaufman fan. So when I heard that she was making her solo YA debut this year, I was BEYOND excited!! I immediately preordered, and it came right when I’d just finished up my first year of college—the perfect present! And even though I’ll always pick sci-fi over fantasy, if anybody can make a fantasy that I’ll give 5 stars, it’s Amie Kaufman.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Isles of the Gods (The Isles of the Gods, #1) – Amie Kaufman

Selly has the ocean in her blood.

She’s been tagging along with her father on the high seas since she was a baby, but now, he’s left Selly to her own devices in the port town of Kirkpool. Intent on tracking him down, she tries to set sail, only for her plans to go awry at the hands of Prince Leander, who wants to hitch a ride for his own gain—to seek out the storied Isles of the Gods, where the ruling deities of her world are fabled to be laying in a restless, dormant sleep. But when a disastrous assassination attempt leaves Selly and her crew stranded, she has no choice to trust Leander—and make it to the Isles no matter the cost.

isles ft. some rainy trees

TW/CW: murder, graphic violence, abandonment, assassination, fatal vehicle explosion

From what I can tell, The Isles of the Gods is a book around a decade in the making, a passion project that Amie Kaufman had been crafting relentlessly in between releasing some of her other collaborative novels. So there’s automatically 10 years of love in this novel—and boy, it really did show.

I’ve preferred sci-fi to fantasy for years, but leave it to Amie Kaufman to craft a fresh setting that kept me turning the page for hours! I’m already a sucker for pirates in fantasy, and that aspect was executed with just the right balance of campy fun and nail-biting stakes. And after parsing through all of the rich facets of the world that Kaufman created, it’s left me with one question: what’s keeping authors from creating more industrial/advanced fantasy settings? Consider me done with fantasies with automatically medieval settings, can we do more 1920’s-inspired fantasies that don’t just focus on the jazz age stuff? I didn’t know I could possibly yearn for the melding of magicians and old-timey cars quite this much, but I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: if anybody can do it, IT’S AMIE KAUFMAN.

Kaufman’s writing, as it always is, was the real star of the show in The Isles of the Gods. There’s something instantly transporting about her prose—from the first sentence, I felt dunked headfirst into this lush, rich world, from the gripping prologue to the delightfully suspenseful final sequence. Maybe this is just a consequence of me being so attached to her writing style, but she has such a way of drawing you into the story in record time. Every book is a little world in and of itself, but hers never cease to feel tangible. Reading fantasies with sea settings are always fun for me, being about as landlocked as you can get here in the U.S., but reading this reminded me of a passage from Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, about the protagonist imagining that the rain pattering against his window at night was waves on the hull of a ship. Good thing it was pouring rain when I was reading this book.

And speaking of Kaufman’s writing—now that I’ve seen her solo and collaborative works, I can say with certainty how clever of a writer she is. She sets up common conflicts that threaten to drag down the book, but whips them into cunningly-subverted left turns that kept me guessing all through the novel. A whole bunch of characters that you *can’t* quite tell apart, but are still personally relevant to the protagonist? Oh look, a botched assassination attempt that gets rid of them! Have a lovable but borderline one-note character who hasn’t had the chance to prove themself? Put that sorry little man in a Situation!™️ It may be diabolical, but it made my enjoyment of the book increase that much more—nothing like trope subversion and avoidance left and right to keep you on your toes.

As for the characters, I’m not quite as attached to them as I was with the squad of the Aurora Cycle, for example, but that’s way too high a bar, even if it’s still Amie Kaufman, but I did adore a lot of them! There was clearly so much love and care put into Selly, and it showed—she had a beautiful arc, and she was such a determined and lovable character to root for. Leander’s type of character—the charming, spoiled prince that the protagonist can’t help but fall for—has been done since time immemorial, but Kaufman’s take on the trope resulted in some lovely laughs and a slow-burn romance done right!

And…yes, I felt a little too called out by Keegan. The “bookworm who hasn’t seen the light of day in way too long” was already there, but…dude. I just shaved my head in January. DUDE. AMIE KAUFMAN, STOP PEEKING INTO MY BRAIN LIKE THAT. YOU COME INTO MY HOUSE, AND YOU MAKE A GENDER-SWAPPED CHARACTER OF ME?

Jude and Laskia (especially the former) didn’t get quite as much page time, but they were incredibly intriguing as not-quite-antagonists, but puppeteering each other and subsequently being puppets to political forces beyond their control. I kept getting hints that Laskia was going to turn to Selly/Leander/Keegan’s side, but now that we’ve seen ✨the cliffhanger,✨ the future is uncertain…hmm. I didn’t quite get the promised “squad” vibe that the blurb promised, but I have a feeling that the two camps are going to merge sooner than later…

Also, we love an absolutely Indiana Jones final sequence. NAILED the fantasy brand of campy.

One sidenote—Amie Kaufman said several times that Isles was going to have LGBTQ+ rep, and all we really got was the lesbian couple that appeared for a total of…maybe three pages? Which, yeah, that’s all well and good, but the question that many readers had about said rep was if any of the protagonists were going to be queer, and…so far, nothing? As much as I loved this book, I can’t help but be a little disappointed on that front.

All in all, a gripping, cinematic, and utterly lovable solo venture from one of my favorite authors. 4.75 stars, rounded up to 5!

bonus Hobbes content

The Isles of the Gods is the first in a planned duology, concluding with an unnamed final book slated for release in 2024. Amie Kaufman is also the co-author of the Illuminae Files, the Aurora Cycle (with Jay Kristoff), the Starbound trilogy, and the Other Side of the Sky duology (with Meagan Spooner). On her own, she is the author of the middle grade Elementals trilogy.

Today’s song:

loving this album hnnnnngh

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

April Wrap-Up 💻

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This monthly wrap-up was brought to you by the letter ‘S.’

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Well, here we are. It’s nice and warm outside, I’m only about a week and a half away from finishing my first year of college, and “Cool About It” is my most-listened-to song of the year so far, according to Apple Music. Yeah, I’m fine.

Somehow, I’m finally at the stage in the school year where everything is starting to wind down. My really stressful finals finals moment ended up happening…a good two weeks before I really should’ve been doing all that, but there’s something to be said for starting projects early and finishing them before everything is supposed to get stressful. (My secret? Overthinking and overestimating how close due dates are. Works like a charm.) Now that finals are right around the corner, I really don’t have a whole lot to do, blissfully. All is quiet. No stats tests to bomb at 7 am in a building I’ve never even set foot in before. I have achieved inner peace (becoming a humanities major).

That being said, working on all of these projects did eat up a good amount of time that I’d normally be reading, or blogging, and all of my other silly little activities, so my reading did take a relative hit. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t find some great books—I got to some anticipated releases, and I have another 5-star read to tick off the list! There were several non-review/Sunday Songs posts that I was eager to get to (see below), and I managed to get them all written, so I’m glad about that. Also, finally finished the Broken Earth trilogy…[incoherent, muffled screams intensify]

Other than that, I finished Dark (CORRECTION: IT FINISHED ME. GO WATCH DARK), watched Beau Is Afraid (forget Beau, dude, I’m afraid…also very overwhelmed…), had some fun on Easter, got a nasty cough (just now getting over it 😭), and started packing up my dorm. Time…time is a thing, huh?

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 16 books this month! I wasn’t able to read as much because of finals season, but it’s been a decent, if slightly more on the “miss” side of hit or miss, bunch. I did get a 5-star read, but said book was Thom Yorke’s lyrics and poetry combined with Stanley Donwood’s older Radiohead art, so that was bound to happen.

Also, I unintentionally read an abnormal amount of books that start with the letter ‘S’…do with that what you will.

2 – 2.75 stars:

Unseelie

3 – 3.75 stars:

Star Splitter

4 – 4.75 stars:

The Stone Sky

5 stars:

Fear Stalks the Land!

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Fear Stalks the Land! – 5 stars

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

this song has taken up far too much space in my brain but I’m not complaining at all
this song sounds so sparkly I love it
we love First Band on the Moon in this house
another favorite of mine from this album
I wish you could still make custom ringtones out of songs bc this would absolutely be my pick
what is April if not Dark and boygenius taking up all my brain space
no thoughts only the one happy Radiohead song in existence

Today’s song:

in which Peter Gabriel gets into those Danny Elfman shenanigans

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

March 2023 Wrap-Up 🌬

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

How is March already almost over?? Mentally I’m still in the first week…but it’s spring break, so that’s always good. And although I woke up sick this morning, at least I have boygenius, the cure for all that ails. Maybe their queer antibodies will help me fight this nastiness off before I have to go back to school.

[shaking the image file for the record on my iTunes library] c’mon, man, do your thing…

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

I still can’t bring myself to believe that I’m almost done with my first year of college. It feels like I should have at least 5 months left, or something…how? Either way, it’s been much easier on me taking mostly humanities classes, and even with midterms, I’ve been able to keep my head above the water. The weather’s slowly but surely starting to warm up—there were a few days were it felt like early summer, and then we got snow the very next day, and if that isn’t Colorado weather in a nutshell, then I don’t know what is. But I’ve savored the little moments—the bits of sunshine that come through the trees in the morning, the view from my dorm, and the day I had both my classes off, so I visited my friend at my dorm for next year and got coffee on the way back.

My reading’s been a little bit slower, I suppose since I’ve had several books to read for at least 3 classes, so I’ve had to read a lot of them in smaller chunks. They’ve been very different but all very good books—again, what I love about college (or at least being an English major) is that I’ve been reading books I’d never imagine reading in an academic setting—Annihilation and Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass were both on my reading list this month. I’ve managed to get some other great reads in as well, even though I had to slow down for midterms. It was harder to see since I slowed down more than usual, but it was a pretty solid reading month—only 2 books in the 2-star range, so that’s always a plus in my book (no pun intended).

Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, playing Minecraft over break (you have NO IDEA the absolute havoc some loose axolotls can do to an ocean ecosystem), watching Flight of the Conchords (as hilarious as I imagined it being), season 2 of Shadow & Bone, and Dark, and wishing for all this snow to melt. I swear that one pile of slush outside of the dining hall has been there since January…

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 18 books this month! Better than I thought I’d done, given midterms. I found my first 5-star read of the year, though, and I also participated in the #transreadathon for the week of March 20-27, and found some great reads as a result!

2 – 2.75 stars:

Spin

3 – 3.75 stars:

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester

4 – 4.75 stars:

The Thirty Names of Night

5 stars:

Story of Your Life

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Story of Your Life – 5 stars

Story of Your Life

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

DE LA SOUL IS ON STREAMING GO LISTEN GO LISTEN
John Lennon put everything into that inhale huh
the only musical jumpscare that I find myself actively seeking out
SUCH a good EP
the fact that this song only took a week to get to #3 on my most played songs on apple music should say something about it…or me
delightful song, gorgeous video, solid album!!

Today’s song:

TODAY’S THE DAAAAAAAAAAAY

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s 5-Star Reads of 2022

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

2022 was a strange, messy, and transitional year for me—graduating high school, starting college, and all of the chaos in between. It’s been an unusual reading year for me too—I haven’t been able to read as much, what with college and finals throwing me off of my reading rhythm for most of the second half of the year. I didn’t have as many 5-star reads as I have in previous years (not counting re-reads, for which there were many), and that might be a consequence of how weird this year has been, but that maybe the more I read, the more selective I get with my 5-star ratings. It’s not every day that a book changes your life, rocks your world, or shifts you in some other way. But there were still several books that deserved that rating this year, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t give these truly wonderful books all my love as the year reaches its end.

(NOTE: re-reads that I previously rated 5 stars will not appear on this list.)

Let’s begin, shall we?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S 5-STAR READS OF 2022⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Wide Starlight – Nicole Lesperance

My first 5-star read of the year, and an unexpected one as well; a beautiful story of northern lights, fairytales, and family.

Read my review here!

Art Matters – Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell

An essential read for anyone with creative aspirations of any kind. Neil Gaiman never misses.

Alone in Space: A Collection – Tillie Walden

A beautiful collection of vignettes and short comics from one of my favorite creators in recent years!

The Reckless Kind – Carly Heath

Another 5-star read from a new-to-me author, The Reckless Kind captured my heart with its tale of queer love and disabled identity.

Read my review here!

The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects – Mike Mignola

Another beautiful anthology from one of my favorite artists and storytellers. The Magician and the Snake always gets me choked up.

Call Us What We Carry – Amanda Gorman

At this point, Amanda Gorman is incapable of writing anything that doesn’t immediately awe me; Call Us What We Carry is filled to the brim with creativity, wisdom, and timely insight that will surely stand the test of time.

Honorable Mentions (4.5 stars):

Today’s song:

probably the last album I’ll listen to in 2022, and it was a great one!! this definitely my favorite track

That’s it for my favorite books of 2022! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (7/12/22) – The Reckless Kind

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

In my endless hunt for books with good disability rep, I found this one recommended in several places. I’m not usually one for historical fiction, but I was glad to see a disability book in a genre other than realistic fiction. To my surprise, it became a rare 5-star read for me—tender, heartfelt, and so unabashedly queer and disabled!

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Reckless Kind – Carly Heath

Norway, 1904. Even though marriage is what traditional society expects of her, Asta has no interest in marriage, and especially not in Nils, the rude boy her mother has set her up with. Her mother sees a life of domesticity as her only path, but Asta is determined to carve her own way. After Nils’ recklessness cements her wish to not marry, she runs away with her two friends, Gunnar and Erlend. They make a life caring for Gunnar’s family farm, but with the money running out and the rest of their village against them, it will take all of their strength to create their own destinies.

TW/CW (from Carly Heath, inside book): ableism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, suicidal ideations, violence, descriptions of injury, references to alcoholism, abuse, and self-harm

what if 😳 I melted down a priceless family heirloom 😳😳 and made it into a prosthetic arm for you 😳😳😳 (and we were both boys)

I picked up The Reckless Kind for the promise of queer and disabled rep, but I didn’t expect it to become a 2022 favorite of mine so quickly! It’s rare that I enjoy historical fiction this much, but this novel was a success on every front imaginable.

The diversity of The Reckless Kind is what drew me in, and it was such a central and beautiful aspect of this novel! This book focuses on not one, but four characters who are disabled—Asta has Waardenburg syndrome (includes single-sided deafness), Gunnar has Brown-Séquard syndrome and has a prosthetic arm, Erlend has an anxiety disorder, and Fred, one of the secondary characters, has Post-Concussion syndrome! On top of that, Asta is asexual, Gunnar and Erlend are in an mlm relationship, and the three of them are in a queerplatonic triad! Does it get any better than that? I think not. Just what I needed as a queer, disabled reader.

Each and every aspect of said diversity is handled so thoughtfully and lovingly; you can tell from the first page just how much love and care Heath put into writing this story. Even though their traditional society looks down upon them for a number of reasons, the journey these characters take to make their own way is heartwarming to read. Everything from the special modifications on Gunnar’s car to the life they carve out for themselves on the farm is filled with such palpable determination and love that only a bunch of outsiders making their own way can make me feel. Found family trope for the win, as always.

All of that would work fantastically on its own, but it’s Heath’s characters that made The Reckless Kind truly shine. Asta was an absolute DELIGHT. Just an absolute sweetheart. Even though the world has beaten her down so much, she has this consistent spunk and contagious kindness to her that she brings everywhere she goes. I loved the way she cared for all of the animals on the farm, and her story is sure to resonate with so many. Gunnar and Erlend were equally wonderful, and they balanced each other out perfectly, what with Erlend’s theatrical charm and Gunnar’s droll, self-deprecating humor. Their relationship made me giddy more than not; I loved how Heath depicted all the messiness of relationships, as well as two characters who did their best to work with each other’s problems. All three of them together made for the recipe for a near-perfect book.

Through it all, Heath presents a story of persistence despite the odds and the love it breeds between outsiders. All three of the characters faced parents, peers, and others who shunned them for parts of themselves, but this book was all about self-love and living in a world that doesn’t love you. It’s fiercely queer and disabled, and it’s the perfect story for anyone who has ever felt like the world is against them.

All in all, a tender, powerful, and heartwarming story of disability, queerness, and making your own way that quickly found its way to my 2022 favorites. 5 stars!

The Reckless Kind is a standalone and Carly Heath’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (3/22/22) – The Wide Starlight

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I think I saw The Wide Starlight on Edelweiss originally, but it’s been on my TBR for a good year and a half. I wasn’t able to go to the library last week, so I’ve been trawling the Kindle library for books to read, and came upon it again. To my surprise, it captured my heart—my first 5-star read of 2022!

Enjoy this week’s review!

The Wide Starlight – Nicole Lesperance

As a child, Eline Davis lived with her parents in Svalbard, raised on her mother’s fairytales. One of those tales cautioned to never whistle at the Northern Lights, lest they sweep you away to parts unknown. But Eline’s mother did just that, and she disappeared.

Ten years later, Eline and her father are living in Cape Cod. Now, the Northern Lights will be visible where she is, and she takes the opportunity to whistle and bring her mother back. Her mother returns, but vastly changed from the mother Eline knew and loved. Along with her return come strange, unexplainable occurrences—strange letters in the bushes, narwhals in the bay, and cloaked figures stalking her at every turn. The only way to make things right is to return to her old home in Svalbard, but what awaits her their may prove more dangerous than what the Northern Lights have in store.

TW/CW: loss of a loved one, emotional abuse, grief, animal death, depression, fire, near-death situations, description of a corpse

I am stunned. I am absolutely in awe. I picked this book up just because I needed a little fantasy to tide me over, but The Wide Starlight ended up being my first 5-star read of 2022!

The Wide Starlight is exactly what magical realism should be. It toes the line between reality and fairytale with the kind of ease I would have never expected from a debut novel. Lesperance’s writing is all-consuming and beautifully dreamlike, calling to mind the fairytale books that our parents told us as bedtime stories. And like an old fairytale, it balances raw reality with all things magical and cryptic. It’s the kind of book to get lost in.

On the subject of Lesperance’s writing, it’s also wonderfully immersive. With every word, I could see Eline’s green house at the top of the world and feel the chill of the Arctic wind at my cheeks. (Granted, it was chilly and snowing outside when I read this…nowhere near how freezing Svalbard is, I imagine) Every word paints a vivid picture, whether it’s of Eline’s harsh world or the stories she was raised on. Each character, from main characters like Eline to the minor characters that rarely appeared, had such an extensive degree of realism, and none of them felt like afterthoughts—everything was fleshed out.

For me, some of the best descriptions came through in Eline’s fairytale flashbacks. Not only did they tie up the loose ends within the world, the fairytales within gave new life to the story of Eline’s family. All of the stories are from Norwegian folklore, but I was particularly interested in the tale of Prince Lindworm—my dad mentioned a similar story recently, but the one he told me about was an Irish folktale. Archetypes are strange little beasts.

There’s also a consistent suspense that never dies down; Lesperance expertly built and maintained tension throughout the novel. Although the plot itself had a relatively moderate pace, Lesperance continually kept me on my toes with obstacles both real and supernatural. Magical realism novels generally keep a slow to medium pace, and it’s difficult to keep the plot moving, but Nicole Lesperance did so with ease.

But what brings The Wide Starlight together, in the end, is its emotional weight. Grief, depression, and generational trauma are ever-present in this novel, but Lesperance handled them in a way that was deeply grounded in emotion but still conscious of its reality. Eline’s journey with grappling with who her mother and grandmother were was a powerful one, and the conclusion she came to was equally powerful—sometimes grief clouds our memories of the people we love. Alongside that, there’s a powerful message about generational trauma; Eline’s mother’s side of the family is fraught with emotional abuse and depression, but not all of it is as one-sided as she once perceived it to be. Ultimately, Eline’s journey leads to forging her own path, informed by her past but not too rooted in it. The Wide Starlight is a book that is certain to stick with you. Certainly still sticking with me.

All in all, a deeply powerful and emotional piece of magical realism that melds fairytales with the harsh realities of family and coping with grief. You don’t want to pass this one by. 5 stars!

The Wide Starlight is a standalone and Nicole Lesperance’s debut novel. She is also the author of the Nightmare Thief duology (The Nightmare Thief and The Dream Spies) and the forthcoming novel The Depths, which is slated for release this October.

Today’s song:

NEW ARCADE FIRE THIS IS NOT A DRILL

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Tags

The Best Books of 2021 Book Tag

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles!

Happy MLK Day as well; we are always indebted to the incredible work he has done for this country. But as the day goes on, it’s important to reflect on the fact that his definition of nonviolent protest was different than the one that most people remember him with. Look no further than his Letter from Birmingham Jail if you want to read more. And as always, the path to racial equality in America isn’t done—for those of you in the U.S., please click on this link to contact your senators about passing key voting rights legislations.

Although I’ve mostly stopped wrapping up 2021, I figured that I would participate in this wonderful original tag by Hundreds & Thousands of Books! She has a fantastic blog, so check it out when you can!

THE RULES:

  • Link back to the original creator, Hundreds and Thousands Of Books
  • Thank the blogger who tagged you
  • Share your favorite books of the year! And have a great new year 🙂

Let’s begin, shall we?

THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BOOK TAG

THE START (January-March)

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

It was a hard pick between this and The Punch, but Before the Fall was a masterpiece!

THE MIDDLE (April-June)

Amazon.com: The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country: 9780593465271: Gorman, Amanda, Winfrey, Oprah: Books

This period was hard because I had several 5-star reads in April, but I’d be making a grave mistake if The Hill We Climb didn’t make the cut on this post.

While you’re at it, watch this video of Amanda Gorman performing this poem at Biden’s inauguration last year. So incredibly moving.

THE MIDDLE, BUT WITH BETTER WEATHER (July-September)

Amazon.com: The Darkness Outside Us: 9780062888280: Schrefer, Eliot: Books

The Darkness Outside Us was an unexpected favorite for me—deeply moving and far more than the sum of its parts.

THE END (October-December)

Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle, #3) by Amie Kaufman

“I didn’t expect an Aurora Cycle book to appear on this tag,” said nobody ever…

Aurora’s End was an obvious pick here—the best ending I could have asked for to cap off my favorite series.

THE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

See above—Aurora’s End!

I made another post about my favorite books of 2021, so if you’d like to see more of my 5-star reads from last year, look no further!

I TAG:

New Year 2022 GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

Today’s song:

That’s it for this book tag! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

My 5-star Reads of 2021

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant
Image about love in ᵐᵒˢᵗˡʸ wholesome 🥺💗 by 𝐈 𝐧 𝐟 𝐢 𝐧 𝐢 𝐭 𝐲

Happy Friday, bibliophiles, and merry Christmas Eve for those who celebrate!

2021 was a tough year for me and for so many of us. But through every tough time, books are always there for us, and every once in a while, those special books come along and brighten our days or change our lives just that much more. Those are the only books that I bestow the 5-star rating upon—the ones that really, truly change something inside of me for the better.

So as this (sucky) year comes to a close, I decided to look back at the best of the best that I read this year. (Note: the books that I rated 4.75 stars and rounded up to 5 appear on here as well! However, I’m not including re-reads of books that I previously rated 5 stars.)

Let’s begin, shall we?

⭐️THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S 5-STAR READS OF 2021⭐️

Among the Beasts & Briars – Ashley Poston

Among the Beasts & Briars by Ashley Poston

Technically, I read this one on New Year’s Eve 2020, but I didn’t include it in my 5-star list from last year, so it gets the honor of making the list this year. Among the Beasts & Briars is solid proof that no matter the genre, Ashley Poston never misses.

Read my review here!

Zero Repeat Forever – Gabrielle S. Prendergast

Amazon.com: Zero Repeat Forever (1) (The Nahx Invasions): 9781481481854: Prendergast, G. S.: Books

This one had been on my TBR for ages, and I’m so glad that I picked it up! A beautiful and tender story of love in the darkest of times.

Read my review here!

Before the Fall – Noah Hawley

Amazon.com: Before the Fall eBook : Hawley, Noah: Books

I got into Noah Hawley as an author this year after loving Fargo and Legion. I’m glad to say that this book is a masterpiece as well, and this is coming from somebody who reads hardly any crime thrillers!

Read my review here!

The Punch – Noah Hawley

Amazon.com: The Punch: 9781538746530: Hawley, Noah: Books

Very different from Before the Fall, but just as good. I think this book has my favorite opening scene in any book, period.

Read my review here!

The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country – Amanda Gorman

Amazon.com: The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country: 9780593465271: Gorman, Amanda, Winfrey, Oprah: Books

This one needs no explanation. Amanda Gorman is such an inspiring woman.

Internment – Samira Ahmed

Amazon.com: Internment: 9780316522694: Ahmed, Samira: Books

Samira Ahmed is another fantastic author that I discovered this year! I’m glad I read this one post-Trump, but it’s such a gut-wrenching call to action. This needs to be required reading.

(an aside—Samira Ahmed is writing the next run of Ms. Marvel soon, and I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED SOMETHING LIKE THIS IN MY LIFE. I can’t wait to see how she handles it!)

Sword in the Stars (Once & Future, #2) – A.R. Capetta and Cori McCarthy

Amazon.com: Sword in the Stars: A Once & Future Novel (Once & Future, 2): 9780316449298: Cory McCarthy, Capetta, A. R.: Books

I finally got to read this sequel after waiting a year to try and find it, and I was not disappointed! Just as off-the-walls and lovable as book 1.

Read my review here!

Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2) – Leigh Bardugo

Rule of Wolves - Leigh Bardugo | Author

The King of Scars duology is Leigh Bardugo at her very best. Feelings were had.

Mike Mignola: The Quarantine Sketchbook – Mike Mignola

Amazon.com: Mike Mignola: The Quarantine Sketchbook: 9781506724270: Mignola, Mike, Mignola, Christine: Books

It’s a collection of quanrantine-era sketches from one of my favorite comic writers/artists, why wouldn’t I rate it 5 stars?

The Darkness Outside Us – Eliot Schrefer

Amazon.com: The Darkness Outside Us eBook : Schrefer, Eliot: Kindle Store

This one was an unexpected favorite! It started out like any other sci-fi thriller, but it soon morphed into a beautiful meditation on mortality and love. Highly recommended!

Read my review here!

Aurora’s End (Aurora Cycle, #3) – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Amazon.com: Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle): 9781524720889: Kaufman, Amie, Kristoff, Jay: Books

It’s poetically fitting that the last book in this post is my favorite of these favorites, as well as the closer to my favorite trilogy. This was such a transcendental and resonant ending to a series like no other. Squad 312 forever. 💫

Read my review here!

HONORABLE MENTIONS (4.5 stars):

Today’s song:

That’s it for my favorite reads of 2021! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (11/16/21) – Aurora’s End (Aurora Cycle, #3)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Wow. The day has finally come, folks. 1 and a half years of waiting, and now I have answers. My favorite series has come to a close, and yet it doesn’t feel like the end. It’s surreal to think that this may be it—the series that changed the course of my life, finally capping off. But if this really is the end, then Aurora’s End is the best conclusion that I could have ever asked for, and a book that I will no doubt cherish just as fervently as the first two books.

Now, TREAD LIGHTLY! If you haven’t read Aurora Rising or Aurora Burning and intend to, beware of spoilers! If you want to read my previous reviews, look no further:

Enjoy this week’s review!

Aurora's End by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff | Penguin Random House Canada
F I N

Aurora’s End (Aurora Cycle, #3) – Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

my copy ft. Aurora Burning and Aurora Rising, plus a cool filter and some crystals (not Eshvaren crystals oop)
last picture, I promise—here’s Finny boy with Hobbes, one of my cats

For all intents and purposes, the Battle of Terra was the end for Squad 312. They failed to stop the Starslayer from harnessing the Eshvaren’s Weapon, and intergalactic war is imminent. Meanwhile, the Ra’Haam slips in through the chaos, threatening to cover the entire universe in its spores.

But by a cosmic twist of fate, Tyler, Auri, Kal, Zila, Scarlett, and Finian are unscathed. They’ve been separated by time, and the only chance they have at thwarting the Ra’Haam is turning history itself inside out. Time is not on their side, though, and it may not be enough to save civilization itself from being wiped out.

karlmordo - This is how things are now! You and me. Trapped in...
Aurora’s End without context

TW/CW: graphic violence, mild sexual content, blood, near-death situations, severe allergic reaction, emergency medical procedures, loss of loved ones, death, descriptions of injury, body horror

[WARNING: this review may contain spoilers for Aurora Rising and Aurora Burning!]

I still haven’t come to grips with the fact that this is really the end of the Aurora Cycle. But as someone whose life was permanently altered for the better by this trilogy, I can say with certainty that this is the best end to the series that I could have ever asked for. My heart is so, so, so full of love.

There were so many factors that went into the separate situations that Squad 312 got themselves into, but Kaufman and Kristoff have once again proved that nothing is impossible. Time is distorted, there are future selves to be dealt with, technology and ancient aliens races are as complicated as ever, and of course, Past Pete is here to kill Future Pete. Lucky for us, Kaufman & Kristoff have been rapid-firing Chekhov’s gun, and every detail from the past two books comes full circle. After how mind-boggling the plot and cliffhanger of Aurora Burning were, Aurora’s End brings everything back in superbly clever and surprising ways, making for a trilogy that’s more cohesive than ever before.

And my emotions…MY EMOTIONS! After so long apart, reuniting with Squad 312 felt like reuniting with long-lost friends. Despite this being the last book, the development that many characters got was such a beautiful way to bring them all the way back and display the enormous growth many of them have had over the course of the series. Out of all of them, though, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to see Finian and Scarlett’s relationship develop; they’re such an unlikely couple, but the love they have for each other is so consistently tender and heartwarming. Plus, a) NORMALIZE BI PEOPLE IN STRAIGHT PASSING RELATIONSHIPS! STRAIGHT-PASSING RELATIONSHIPS ARE SO VERY VALID!, and b) DISABLED PEOPLE!! IN LOVING RELATIONSHIPS!! WE NEED MORE OF THOSE!! Nothing can top Kalauri, but Fin and Scar come very, very close. I LOVE those two. Power couple. Finian is the once and future disaster bisexual.

Also, Tyler trying to be all “space pirate”-y after an entire lifetime of being Captain America was a train wreck…comedy gold

One aspect of Kaufman and Kristoff’s writing that I haven’t often touched on is how they build tension. Their skill at developing heart-pounding tension is especially evident in Aurora’s End; they did such a masterful job of raising the stakes over the course of these three books, and bringing it all to a nail-biting cataclysm towards the end. The last 100 pages of Aurora’s End had me stressed out to no end, but…in a good way? It made me genuinely worried for everybody involved. Look, I’ve gotten way to attached to my space misfits over the past two years. Let me off the hook this once.

Along with all that, Kaufman and Kristoff once again more than delivered with everything that made the first two books so strong. The universe was expanded upon in surprising ways, the characters were more fleshed out and lovable than ever, the chemistry was impeccable, the action sequences had me clutching the book in a vice grip, and the dialogue hit the perfect balance of levity, tenderness, and solemnity. The found family of Squad 312 is stronger than ever, and my heart is still bursting with love for all of them.

It’s hard to end this review. It isn’t every day that a series changes my life, but the Aurora Cycle truly did. These books taught me so much about moving through this world as an outsider; Auri taught me that I didn’t have to be brave or strong to be a hero, and that people with the fate of the world on their shoulders can have their big feels too. She was the first time I’d really seen a mixed-race hero, and having a character like her means the world to me. I’ve come to see myself in Finian, and he’s taught me that I deserve love just as I am. And Squad 312 has taught me that no matter who you are, there will always be a home for the outsiders. It cemented, more than ever, that even if you think that you are alone in the world, somebody out there loves you, and will give you a home.

All in all, the perfect ending for a series that changed my life for the better. 5 stars for the sake of Goodreads, but realistically, however many stars there are in the known universe.

Squad 312 forever. 💗

never again shall we submit

Aurora’s End is the final book in the Aurora Cycle, preceded by Aurora Rising (#1) and Aurora Burning (#2). Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff have also written the Illuminae Files together; Amie Kaufman is also the author of the Starbound trilogy (co-written with Meagan Spooner) and the Elementals series, and Jay Kristoff is also the author of the LIFEL1K3 trilogy and Empire of the Vampire.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!