mimi_reads

Free Palestine 🇵🇸 | she/her | 🇨🇦 feminist legal academic who loves dark academia, fantasy, and history

2040 points

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My Taste

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

Reading...

Domestic Violence in International Context (Routledge Studies in Crime and Society)

46%

Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction

23%

Short Stories in Russian for Beginners: Read for pleasure at your level, expand your vocabulary and learn Russian the fun way! (Readers)

mimi_reads commented on helli's update

helli finished a book

When We Lost Our Heads

Heather O'Neill

A spellbinding story about two girls whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the trajectory of history. Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At 12 years old, with her blond curls and her unparalleled sense of whimsey, she's the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, an affluent strip of 19th century Montreal. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly, and brilliant, moves to the neighborhood. Marie and Sadie are immediately united by their passion and intensity, and they attract and repel each other in ways that light each of them on fire. Marie with her bubbly charm sees the light and sweetness of the world, whereas Sadie's obsession with darkness is all consuming. Soon their childlike games take on a thrill of danger and then become deadly. Forced to separate, they spend their teenage years engaged in acts of alternating innocence and depravity--until a singular event unites them once more, with dizzying effects. And after Marie inherits her father's sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city's gritty underworld, a revolution of the working class begins to foment. Each of them will have unexpected roles to play in events that upend their city--the only question is whether they will find each other once more. Traveling from a repressive finishing school to a vibrant brothel, taking readers firsthand into the brutality of factory life and the opulent lives of Montreal's wealthy, When We Lost Our Heads dazzlingly explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying power of the human heart when it can't let someone go.

mimi_reads made progress on...

The Square of Sevens

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

46%

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Every Villain is a Hero in Their Own Eyes 🖤😈💀

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Morally grey or straight up baddies? A collection of books written from a villainous/morally grey POV. Only the first book from a series is included.

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Every Villain is a Hero

Silver: Finished 10 Main Quest books.

Post from the The Square of Sevens forum

16h

mimi_reads

Thoughts from 40% (page 304)

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mimi_reads TBR'd a book

17h

CODE & CODEX

Yoon Ha Lee

In the stars-spanning Censorate, all languages other than lingua rubra are forbidden. The Censorate’s ruling Peacock, Aurelia, wields the universal language to manipulate reality itself and to command the obedience of all who hear and understand her. Valentina was sold as a child to Aurelia to serve as her sworn companion, the Swan, responsible for extracting useful knowledge from foreign texts before destroying their languages wholesale. Until she delivers a book of forbidden verse to the Peacock, which proves to be the key to enslaving the Basilisk, a traitor imprisoned for a thousand years, whose gaze is so powerful that he once destroyed the Censorate’s entire fleet…

mimi_reads made progress on...

18h

The Square of Sevens

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

39%

mimi_reads commented on C.Margarita's review of Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter

18h

C.Margarita

May 13, 2026

3.5

Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 3.5Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.0

🐈

💫

🇫🇷

I think I would have enjoyed this better not on the heels of Emily Wilde. This is a perfectly adorable if slightly slow story. I didn’t really care for Havelock though. It was fun that the audiobook narrator had a French accent but it did occasionally make things difficult to understand if I was listening while doing something else.

mimi_reads started reading...

Domestic Violence in International Context (Routledge Studies in Crime and Society)

Diana Scharff Peterson

Domestic violence does not discriminate and is prevalent throughout the word regardless of race, age or socio-economic status. Why, then, do reactions and response differ so widely throughout the world? While some countries work diligently to address the matter through prevention and training, others take a ‘hands-off’ approach in their response. This book is one of the first to investigate domestic violence on a global scale and provides best practices gleaned from various countries around the world to paint a detailed picture of how police response to domestic violence is currently being conducted and provide training bodies with up-to-date information to enhance current curricula. Domestic Violence in International Context brings together expert scholars native to twelve different countries to examine the history and scope of domestic violence and how it is being addressed, repressed or ignored in their thirteen respective countries. Their specialised knowledge and unique data come together to create a series of snapshots that will guide nations, societies and communities worldwide in formulating effective strategies to prevent, intervene and combat this epidemic, and examine partnerships and programmes already in place. This book is essential reading for practitioners, policy makers, and human rights organisations, as well as students and scholars of criminology, social work, sociology and law.

mimi_reads made progress on...

The Square of Sevens

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

19%

mimi_reads wrote a review...

Domestic Violence as State Crime (Crimes of the Powerful)

mimi_reads

May 12, 2026

4.0

Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 4.0Characters: Plot:

Super useful for my thesis! Weird to give stars to such a book lol

mimi_reads finished a book

Domestic Violence as State Crime (Crimes of the Powerful)

Evelyn Rose

Domestic Violence as State Crime presents a provocative challenge to the way that domestic violence is understood and addressed. Underpinned by a radical feminist perspective, the central argument of this book is that domestic violence against women constitutes a patriarchal state crime. By analysing the international, collective, structural, and institutional dimensions of this harm, the author outlines a spectrum of state complicity ranging from passive bystander to active producer, participant, and perpetrator. The wide-ranging analysis in this book draws on data from comparable liberal-democratic contexts including Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, in order to comprehensively show how domestic violence state criminality functions in practice – even in the present and in supposedly progressive contexts. This analysis provides valuable insight into why this epidemic-scale crime is ever resistant to a diversity of contemporary interventions. Drawing its concepts into a cohesive whole, the book then posits an overarching feminist typological theory of domestic violence as state crime. It also considers how domestic violence might be addressed if we confront its state crime dimensions and adopt a more holistic and transformative approach to remedy, redress, prevention, and justice. An accessible and compelling read, Domestic Violence as State Crime offers an innovative scholarly and activist contribution to the study of violence against women, feminism, criminology, and the broader critical study of law, politics, and society. It will appeal to anyone who is interested in thinking differently about domestic violence and the state.

mimi_reads commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

PinkAttack

Ireland

I’m traveling to Ireland in October (my first trip overseas) and would love to find some historical fiction reads focusing around Ireland 🇮🇪 history. Any recommendations? I read Angela’s Ashes years ago and have considered rereading but would love more recommendations!

mimi_reads commented on mimi_reads's update

mimi_reads started reading...

The Square of Sevens

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

An orphaned fortune teller in 18th-century England searches for answers about her long-dead mother and uncovers shocking secrets in this immersive and atmospheric saga perfect for fans of Sarah Waters and Sarah Perry. Cornwall, 1730: A young girl known only as Red travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient Cornish method of the Square of Sevens. Shortly before he dies, her father entrusts Red’s care to a gentleman scholar, along with a document containing the secret of the Square of Sevens technique. Raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendor of Bath, Red’s fortune-telling delights in high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him? The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholomew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red’s quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads to grave danger. Laura Shepherd-Robinson, “the queen of modern Georgian literature” (Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora), has written a dazzling and Dickensian story of mystery and intrigue, with audacious twists and turns.

mimi_reads started reading...

The Square of Sevens

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

mimi_reads wrote a review...

mimi_reads

May 12, 2026

2.5

Enjoyment: 2.0Quality: 3.5Characters: 2.5Plot: 3.5

This is a book that has lived on my TBR for years and I should have just removed it, but it was available at my library so I gave it a chance. I honestly don’t get the hype at all. The characters felt very one-dimensional to me (especially the protagonist) and I felt like Emma Cline was just trying to be as sensational as possible. The child sexual assault/rape did not need to be as graphic as it was.

mimi_reads paused reading...

I Who Have Never Known Men

Jacqueline Harpman

‘For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed’ Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.

mimi_reads finished a book

The Girls

Emma Cline

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong.

mimi_reads commented on a post

catsano

Thoughts on "Intro Text"

Hey y'all - I am perceiving a trend and I wonder if it is my own selection bias/imagination or maybe there's something to it, figured this would be a good place to ask. I feel that I've seen quite a few books in this quest/genre referred to as 'introductory texts' or 'launching pad' or 'accessible' or 'great place to start.' Has anyone else noticed this, and if so do you think those descriptors are generally accurate? Also please note that I have definitely used this vocab in posts/reviews and I am not suggesting it's a bad thing to say.

I may actually be reading a lot of introductory texts and/or my perception is inflating the frequency of this categorization. I just finished Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, and there was a section about forgiving ourselves for not having read every book. It got me thinking and I would love to hear your thoughts as well:

is this common language in non-fiction reviews across genres? I am a recent nonfic convert so my experience is limited.
is this an instinct we have as readers to try and get more engagement with these books, like 'we promise it's readable'?
are these 'intro if you are a scholar on the topic' or truly 'intro for your average reader,' and if so what are some not-introductory books (from this quest or otherwise) that you would suggest?
is there an element of setting the bar unreasonably high for ourselves (and/or the authors) to dive really deep? my perception of 'intro/accessible' categorization includes a twinge of needing to get beyond that level to be legit, whatever that means.

xoxo, catsano

mimi_reads made progress on...

The Girls

Emma Cline

63%

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