Reviews and Comments

I held off on this one for a while due to the length, but I'm glad I finally gave it a go.

There are a LOT of character introductions throughout the book, and listening to this on audiobook, I had to frequently pause to try to remember who was who. I would probably recommend pairing with the book itself to help with tracking if that's usually an issue for you as well when listening. It got a lot easier once some of the characters started dying haha.

I'm not usually one for high fantasy just due to the overall reading time that is usually involved. But I really appreciated that you have the whole story wrapped up in this book. While it is a part of a trilogy, this is very much a standalone book. I think if I had realized that, I would have picked it up sooner. Definitely glad that I gave it a chance.

#SFFBookClub read for August 2025.

This is not a book I think I would have picked out for myself outside of the book club, but I found it to be a surprisingly good read. It was a little hard to see the overall picture at first due to each chapter occurring with completely different characters and situations. It made it difficult to track when you would see the names of previous characters brought up in later chapters.

Everything kind of came together in the end and for me, and even the disjointed stories made sense. For me, at least. I'm not sure if this is one that I would regularly recommend to others due to the overall vibes. I don't know a lot of people that really enjoy Japanese dystopian stories with this structure.

Going to try to finish the August #SSFBookclub book before the end of the month. We'll see.

Overall this was a pretty decent read. You read about the coup and the broadcasts that are going out from "the General", but other than a few moments, there's not much of an impact on the siblings from the coup. Bhumi gets out pretty early on in the book, and her character took a deep nosedive for me. The chapters focusing on her just started to drag on and I felt like I was slogging through them.

With the coup going on and the Indians being burned in their shops or shot in their cabs in the beginning of the book, I was expecting a little more grim reality to be going on. The family is impacted by the coup, of coarse, but none of it really hits them in a majorly negative way. Both siblings lose friends that they cared for deeply, Bhumi has to move to the USA to escape the uncertainty, and Jaipal has a few run-ins with the military while running his shop. It felt more like reading a slice-of-life novel with a coup happening in the background. Not really one that I would recommend, but it wasn't horrible. I did get to learn a bit about Indian culture due to Batsha not breaking everything down into English. That's why I ultimately am giving this a 3.5 rating.

This was a chonker of a book that I feel really didn't need to be so big. I appreciate that Verghese was giving detailed background to the characters, but when you're 3/4 of the way through the massive book and wondering how everything comes together still, it's a little much.

I was glad to get an actual explanation behind the water curse that wasn't just some mystical occurrence. It was nice to have the reference of science helping to explain mysterious happenings that we hadn't previously been able to understand.

Overall, I would say the storyline was at least enjoyable enough, but I won't ever feel compelled to revisit this one in the future.

This is one of those times that I actually appreciated the time jumps. It was satisfying to get to see what happened to Cora's mom and what was going through Caesar's mind when he picked Cora. Gruesome realities of slavery are on display throughout, so just be sure that you're up for the journey when you dive into this.

I did not feel like I had the ending figured out at all. After so much bad crazy stuff happening along the journey, I could not say that I was certain if Cora was going to survive in the end or not. Good execution on Whitehead's part through this book.

I would recommend this one for sure, but just be prepared with the Underground Railroad being a literal train under the ground. That threw me off quite a bit because the rest of the book is so heavily based in reality. So I think as long as you're prepared for that, you'll find this to be a good one to read.

The characters in this book were amazing and the scathing look at the American prison system is fantastic. It was great to get to know many of the characters, even if they were not the main ones being followed. I did have a little difficulty tracking who we were following at times while listening to the audiobook. Nothing major, just a few times I had to skip back.

Adjei-Brenyah really brought these characters to life and I definitely was a little sad in the end. This is a weird book because you're hopeful because you want to side with the characters, but you're also having to grapple with knowing how things will play out because of how messed up the prison system is and how America uses prisoners for their own gain. The real-life call outs on things that have actually happened in and through our prison systems was a great touch and really made you have to compare this fiction to reality.

The one thing that keeps me from giving this 4 stars is that while the main storyline was very cohesive and linear, a lot of the other chapters came across more as short stories and I had a hard time with them being randomly inserted through the book.

I liked this book, but I did not enjoy it.

I really enjoyed the overall storyline going on in this book. You're following Penny as she vies to get her dream job at The Dallergut Dream Department Store, and getting to see the customers that come to buy the dreams as well as the creators of the dreams. I had a really fun time seeing how Lee gave meaning to different types of dreams, even nightmares.

There is one area that this book lost me, and it's still bothering me. There is a point in the story where the workers at The Dallergut are able to get dreams that they've been wanting to try out. It's the only time that life outside of The Dallergut bubble is really mentioned, and it sent me through a rabbit hole of wondering if that means that those that reside in the dream realm need to sleep and eat like their customers, is it a fun little thing that they're able to experience the dream without sleeping...and it never gets explained. Even after Penny gets her dream, it's never mentioned again. So that irked me a bit.

Overall, I still really enjoyed the book, though, so I'm still going to give it 3 stars and I would say I recommend it still. Just know that there's some parts where it appears the world is building up more, but there's no real conclusion to it.

You don't realize how much you see things through only your perspective until you get the opportunity to see through a different lens. As an "up-right", this book really opened my eyes and made me have to do some reflections on how I can still lean towards ableist tendencies.

Eddie has spent his life advocating for disabled rights while the world has been content to stagnate and not grow. As a gay, black, and disabled man, there is a LOT that we can learn from his perspectives, and I'm grateful that he's taken the time to share his struggles with just getting proper accommodations for him to succeed at a school that he was welcomed to.

While this book mainly focuses on Oxford and their inability to understand and accommodate what care Eddie would need to succeed (with Oxford being fully aware of what his disabilities would entail at the time that Eddie accepted the scholarship), it is an overall eye-opening and scathing reality check for those that don't have to rely on others to be able to meet their basic human needs. He covers the insane difficulty that he has dealt with to find a caregiver that can accept his autonomy and provide the care that is needed, the unwillingness of Oxford to ensure that he has the tools that are needed to have basic needs met like showers and even just being able to go to the bathroom, being told that he needed to crowdfund to cover said tools, and then having his fellow students saying that if Oxford paid for any of the tools that they were going to complain because THEY were not receiving extra money and "how is that fair!"

This is a book that I will be heavily recommending to everyone so we can all have a better of understanding what it's like to be disabled in a world still set towards ableism as a default. This is a perspective that I have sorely needed.

This book follows Hương (Guava) and her grandmother, Diêu Lan, as they navigate the chaos that is tearing through their home in Việt Nam due to the war. The 1970s timeline is told by Hương, and Diêu Lan tells her background from the 40s to the reader while sharing her history with her granddaughter. My one gripe is that it was sometimes hard to remember what timeline I was in because the storytelling from both ends was a little similar. This may have mostly been due to listening to the audiobook, so ymmv. Considering that this is Nguyễn’s first English book, I give her a pass.

This can be a tough read at times because of the events that occur to the characters due to the wars and Communist reform, and the overall nastiness of human nature. This is one that I would suggest checking trigger warnings on before beginning.

This was a very fresh perspective for me as I've never read anything based in the history of war-torn Việt Nam or the Communist reform that occurred. Even with the heavy topics, this was a surprisingly easy read and I became very invested in the characters. I felt like I was there witnessing what was happening and sharing their trials with them. I will be continuing to dive into the sides of the Việt Nam war that I have not been introduced to until now. Being able to start this journey by taking in the words of someone who experienced the effect of the wars first-hand is always a great thing. Definitely one that I recommend.

I'm not currently in the headspace to be able to take the information in. Saving for another time.

I adored Yumi's Cells when it was still releasing on Webtoons and I was recently reminded of it, so I wanted to give it another read through because why not?

With reading everything in quicker succession due to the series being completed, I was able to look at it from a different angle. I still enjoyed it and loved seeing how the creator was using the cells to give reasoning behind stupid things that we do as humans for no reason. That still stands strong.

Biggest complaint is that it seeming like the author was just ready to be done.

SPOILER WARNING:

We had so much time spent on Yumi's previous relationships, and when Rudolph comes along, it all just felt super rushed, which was frustrating because you really want to see Yumi being completely content in a relationship where she is getting as much as she's giving. So it was disappointing to have the ending relationship just get steamrolled into the end when so much time was spent on the previous guys.

END SPOILERS

The rushed feeling of the ending is the only reason that I knocked it down a star. Otherwise, it's a really great slice-of-life with some drama thrown into it, and the comedic relief of the Cells behaving in their own way. Honestly, probably one of my favorite web toons so far.