audiobookish
I like books that leave me wondering: sci-fi, dystopian, magical realism, mythology, and anything sapphic. When I'm not reading, I'm playing Steam games and hanging out with my tuxedo cat. AuDHD.
2389 points
audiobookish is interested in reading...
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good
Adrienne Maree Brown
0audiobookish commented on acidicchaos's update
acidicchaos is interested in reading...
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good
Adrienne Maree Brown
2audiobookish finished a book
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Becky Chambers
0audiobookish commented on audiobookish's update
audiobookish started reading...
Death of the Author
Nnedi Okorafor
1audiobookish started reading...
Death of the Author
Nnedi Okorafor
1audiobookish commented on theSaphiricFutch's update
audiobookish is interested in reading...
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson
0audiobookish wrote a review...
”Sometimes the things we see do not make sense until many years have gone by. Sometimes it takes generations.”
It’s a short book about objects as keepers of memory, female solidarity, gender and expectations, quiet resistance, and power and political control.
The writing style is reminiscent of folklore, oral-history storytelling, and magical realism-adjacent. It had the capacity to be a dreamy, mesmerizing read but the overarching confusion took away from the reading experience.
With it being such a short story, there was really no world building, character building, or foundational lore. More challenging, the book kept constantly switching back and forth between the present and the past in such a way that left me stranded and unconnected to the characters. Overall, I finished the book feeling like my adhd was just incompatible with this story. I wanted to understand, but I couldn’t.
My favorite part, though, was having a nonbinary main character! I loved seeing the representation!
0audiobookish commented on bookishpancit's review of Pink Candy Kiss, Vol. 5
The Y in yuri stands for yearning
1audiobookish wrote a review...
”If you know it exists, it knows you exist. The more you know about it, the more it knows about you. If you can see it, it can see you.”
I’m holding this book in my hands. I must have read it. How, I’m not sure, as many chapters are blank. Creamy white parchment staring back at me that was once full of… what was it full of?
I’m holding this book in my hands. My stomach is queasy and I don’t know why. The pages are glued together, somehow.
I’m holding this book in my hands. The cover burns ideas into my palms. I had to drop the book, ashes crusted under my fingernails.
I’m holding… I thought I was holding a book in my hands. Maybe I was? There is something lurking in the book. Eating the pages. Shredding the words.
In my hands… hands? They’re used for… something. For… writing down things that will end the world. For weaving stories and not-stories. For screaming with no sound.
TL; DR — This book felt very smart. The plot twists were magnificent. The psychological horror of it all made my jaw drop on several occasions. It’s sci-fi and speculative fiction, it’s cosmic horror and it’s technological thriller, it’s uncanny/weird and reality-bending fiction. It explores themes of memory and forgetting, information as power, knowledge as a weapon, identity and free will, reality and perception, the fragility of the human condition, and evolution and posthumanism.
0audiobookish wrote a review...
View spoiler
0audiobookish commented on audiobookish's update
audiobookish is interested in reading...
Thrum
Meg Smitherman
0audiobookish commented on a post
audiobookish commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
content warning for mentions of stalking, manipulation, assault, rape, coercive control, abuse, and the romanticization of the aforementioned.
I'd like to start off by saying I am aromantic and not much of a romance reader myself (although I don't mind a romance subplot if it's done well), so I'm asking this as an outsider to the genre. I first remember hearing the term "dark romance" as a teenager, and at that point it seemed to refer to any romance book that featured and romanticized stalking, manipulation, assault, rape, coercive control, or other abuses between the protagonist and their (usually her) love interest. Books like Twilight, 50 Shades of Gray, and Throne of Glass come to mind for me first when I hear the term, although I know that they are probably a bit too out-of-date to meaningfully represent the genre today.
Lately, I've been seeing more and more conversation about dark romance, and in particular I've seen more and more people say that "real" dark romance does not involve any abuse or assault between the romantically-involved characters. If that is the case, then what distinguishes a dark romance from a regular romance? Is this a popular position among dark romance readers or a controversial one? Is there a different genre title for books that do feature abuse or rape (and to be clear, here I am referring to specifically abuse and rape, not impact play or consensual non-consent or any other kink) in a romanticized or eroticized way?
146audiobookish commented on grim.'s review of The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Cleric, so confusing
This book would have benefited from being an actual novel and giving some time to the world and character building. Trying to do high fantasy in such a short span was a bit too ambitious I fear. Giving two stars to the writing itself which I did enjoy! I listened to the audiobook and I don't recommend it as I'm under the impression it might be easier to understand a physical or ebook due to the formatting. So audiobook only if you're planning on immersive reading I guess? Some books don't work well as audiobooks but it's a shame and feels like a minus point when it comes to accessibility. Like many others I'll also link to 🔗the very thoughtful and thorough review by @ruiconteur which goes into how it mishandles Chinese culture, something very important to mention but that I don't have enough knowledge on to pin down in a review.
10audiobookish commented on a post
Week 4: Chapters 13-16 Monday, August 24 to Sunday, August 30
🍊 Political tensions are becoming more apparent. Which kingdom or faction do you currently sympathize with most? 🍊 Which character do you trust the most? Who are you still suspicious of? 🍊 Was there a scene that felt especially memorable or cinematic? 🍊 What's your biggest prediction heading into next week? 🍊 Share any favorite quotes, scenes, or little moments along the way.
As always: these are just some discussion prompts to get you started, but you do not need to answer all of these—or even use them at all! This isn’t homework. There are no grades here.
This is YOUR space to process this week’s reading with your fellow reading buddies. There’s no pressure here. Make it yours!
Quiet musings, reaction gifs, emotional damage reports, unhinged ramblings, little check-ins, and any ongoing theories or suspicions are always welcome.
🧡 Buddy readalong post with our shared reading schedule: Click here 🧡
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