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Catship

catship@books.theunseen.city

Joined 2 years, 12 months ago

We're a plural system who loves queer & anarchist scifi.

But recently we just read a few randomly picked up mystery books in a row, in German, and we tend to review books in the language we read them in. That or similar may happen again, be warned.

No reading goals, just feelings.

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Catship's books

Currently Reading (View all 6)

Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Velvet Was the Night (Paperback, 2021, Random House Large Print) No rating

Yes!! I'm aware that "It's just like Certain Dark Things, only without vampires" doesn't sound like praise, but it is. I loved Certain Dark Things. I liked Mexican Gothic too, but quit halfway through because I wasn't feeling up to an All Abuse All The Time story. So I was uncertain whether this one would be right for me, and yes it is. It feels very soft to me although there's a lot of violence, and I like the unusual energy of the characters and the way everything is connected in a way that's neither too subtle nor too blunt. And how the plot goes on in a pretty steady way, keeping me interested without the exciting events getting overwhelming.

K. A. Linde, Stephanie Németh-Parker (Narrator): The Wren in the Holly Library (AudiobookFormat, 2024, Recorded Books, Inc.) No rating

Thirteen years ago, monsters emerged from the shadows and plunged Kierse's world into a cataclysmic …

This was... fun. It's like teenie fantasy with teenie fantasy tropes, and toxic relationships as the norm and consent being discussed in a way that I have my issues with. But everyone is a bit older, so it's not as awkward. I actually enjoyed large parts of the main relationship despite it being quite horrible in a few ways. The erotic tension worked great for me, although I was underwhelmed by The Sex Scene. The world mostly convinced me (with some "ok ok fine") and the friendships are great.

finished reading The Wager by David Grann

David Grann, Dion Graham: The Wager (AudiobookFormat, 2023, Random House Audio) 4 stars

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on …

It's not as good as the book about the Erebus & Terror that I just read. I say that because it tries to tell a dramatic story rather than give me an idea of how likely which facts are to be true. But I came to appreciate it for not omitting colonialist racist bullshit, and for writing about it critically.

So my main points of frustration are actually the historical facts (of whichever level of facticity, shrug, ok we can call it the story, I don't care). I find the Erebus/Terror expeditions relatable because, while also being colonialist bullshit, they are about exploring areas unknown to the people doing the expeditions, about drawing maps and uuuuh collecting (cough eating cough) new-to-them species. I get why someone would want to do that. But this? This was some war bullshit, people were literally forced to go, and gosh "capturing the treasures from …

avatar for catship Catship boosted
Brenda Peynado: Time's Agent (2024, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Pocket World–a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down …

Time's Agent

4 stars

This book was a potential book for the #SFFBookClub poll for a while, but I ended up reading anyway because it looked intriguing.

As a reader, it seems like a novella is a hard length to hit; it's hard to have the space for both pacing and sufficient worldbuilding, and it's also hard to have enough runway for the resolution to resonate and feel satisfying. The short of it is that I feel like this novella nailed it for me.

The worldbuilding here is brutal. The book kicks off with idyllic introduction of Raquel working for the Global Institute for the Scientific and Humanistic Study of Pocket Worlds. Pocket worlds are small offshoots of reality, much smaller than our own universe--maybe the size of a meadow or a room or a bag even--and they can run at different time rates to our own universe.

After the protagonist Raquel falls into …

reviewed Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

Rachel Hawkins: Reckless Girls (Hardcover, 2022, St. Martin's Press) No rating

Yeah no

No rating

Not my kind of book. I can appreciate a revenge story, and I like locked room situations, deserted islands and places that feel creepily off. But this didn't convince me at all. There was no building suspense for me, just single tense moments. The character motivations felt kind of random, it just didn't come together for me. And the whole story felt very long winded, the entire second half made me think "this takes too long". I finished it because the story still had all those elements that I like, and I was curious how it'd go. But yeah, no, this was not for me.

I did however have frustrated fun researching some of the things around this book.

I think the island is fictional (there is a Meroe Island, but it's somewhere else), and I didn't find a clear equivalent for it either. I think it might be partly …

Rachel Hawkins: Reckless Girls (Hardcover, 2022, St. Martin's Press) No rating

This is very frustrating to read after a non-fiction book about a ship! With the non-fiction one about the Erebus, I kept looking up all the little islands that were mentioned, and I found all of them. But this island is fictional! There is a Meroe Island, but it's at a very different place in the world. So I keep looking for islands of different names in the right place that might be this one! But yeah it might just not exist.