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seema

head in the clouds, nose in a book 🪱✨🌈 she/her

74390 points

0% overlap
Early UserReadalong Completionist 2025Pride 2025
Cozy Fantasy
Dark Academia
Pagebound Royalty
My Taste
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
Don't Let the Forest In
Palimpsest
The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
The Bear and the Nightingale (The Winternight Trilogy, #1)
Reading...
Dracula
13%
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
12%
A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry
0%
Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love
11%
The Once and Future Witches
45%

seema commented on seema's review of When We Lost Our Heads

5h
  • When We Lost Our Heads
    seema
    Jun 01, 2026
    5.0
    Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 4.5Characters: 5.0Plot: 4.5
    👯‍♀️
    🫀
    🧁

    What an ode to girlhood, unpalatability, selfishness, freedom, indecency, and taking up all the space in a room. The girls and women in these pages were by and large deeply unlikeable, hugely flawed, and certainly impressive in their sheer audacity. But damn if I didn't fall in love with them all and find them complex and compelling and even sympathetic. The relationships between them were also absolutely delicious with everyone locked in a twisted mirrored dance, I could honestly spend days talking about them (and sure took pages of notes about them) but for the sake of the review I'll just leave character commentary at this: I'm obsessed.

    As far as the more technical aspects, the structure of the book was so fun with quick chapters (with titles!) and snappy simple cadence that just made it extraordinarily readable. Also so much rich imagery, metaphors, and even a dip or two into something approaching magical realism that I adored. The narrative voice I also thought struck such a good balance of scathing critique and deadpan sarcastic comedy. There's a ton of social commentary through this book hitting at class and gender with absolutely zero attempt at subtlety, and that really worked for me. I think in general my most appreciated aspect of this book was how well it layered satire and sincerity, where there was so much terribly and laughably wrong and yet so much keenly right, and all of it on the nose. Several featured characters obviously took inspiration from historical figures, but unfortunately I'm not very well versed in them so I'm sure a lot went over my head, and I do wish there was an authors note or something to get to dig into that more.

    Finally, the plot itself was really solid too, for each thing I saw coming there were probably 3 others that had my jaw physically dropping. Especially the last 50 or so pages were exhilarating with tension that had me on the edge of my seat and twists and reveals that were both shocking and yet made complete sense once they happened, and which offered a totally new lens to the story. We end in a very different place we start, but I think I'm okay with that. In general everything was always looping back onto itself - reflections were a huge theme - so I feel like if I reread the book I'd get to find so many more parallels and passages in conversation with each other than I did on this first pass.

    Just a really rich and ambitious book; I thoroughly enjoyed it and will almost certainly be returning for another read. "I support women's rights and wrongs" may have feasibly been the mantra and guiding light for this book, and I'd very much recommend it to all others who appreciate that sentiment.

    38
    comments 9
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  • seema commented on a post

    5h
  • The God of the Woods
    Reading Update from 22% (page 99)

    Ugh such a pet peeve when authors do things like this: "It was then that a memory sprang forcefully to the front of his mind: something the boy had said once about his grandfather, in passing, that Carl had brushed aside. [Next chapter/section/topic involving the same character but that doesn't relate to that statement.]" Like just TELL ME!! In no natural world does someone in an intense moment remember something super relevant and then before the thought is fully formed go "okay, anyway, let's cut that thought off at the knees and just move on along 🤪" I quickly skimmed forward a few pages and since it doesn't appear the next sections involve this memory playing out in any way I'm big mad.

    10
    comments 9
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    5h
  • When We Lost Our Heads
    seema
    Edited
    Thoughts from 21% (page 89, end of Ch11) - smiling as performance
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    11
    comments 4
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    5h
  • The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)
    Series vs Movie vs Show

    For those that have consumed this story in multiple forms ... What do you think of the adaptations? I heard the movie was generally considered a poor one, and would love to know who shares that opinion and why! Is the show actually better given Riordian's involvement, and is it worth watching?

    8
    comments 13
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    5h
  • Palimpsest
    seema
    Edited
    Thoughts from 27% (page 91, end of Part I: Parimutuel Circle)
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    4
    comments 7
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    6h
  • When We Lost Our Heads
    evieeve
    Edited
    I'm questioning if it was truly 'love' (100%)
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    8
    comments 3
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    6h
  • Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love
    Thoughts from 9% (mid Ch2) - this is... not going well. Comments on narration & writing

    I'm so sorry for the things I'm about to say because they're quite critical. I also feel like I should preface with the context that other than seeing a couple episodes of queer eye I really don't know anything about JVN so I'm coming in with very little pre-existing knowledge or impressions or expectations. I guess I did know that this was a Goodreads choice winner one year, so maybe expectations were a bit higher. But, anyway, here's what's not working for me personally, and JVN fans please forgive me 😭

    First, I'm listening to this as an audiobook (which JVN narrates), and the narration is simply stressing me the hell out. I feel absolutely exhausted listening. I'm not sure how to describe this right but there is so much force/intensity/effort behind every single word that it feels a little bit like I'm being shouted at? Like rather than sitting and being told a life story I'm having it dramatically performed at me, which is keeping me from relaxing into it. The cadence is also a bit unnatural to my ear, with pauses and emphasis in unexpected places, like a text being read aloud for the first time by a reader that doesn't know where the rest of the sentence is going. It just has me so off kilter.

    I also feel like the structure is just completely baffling. At no point have I understood or been able to expect the transition from one topic to another, and the timeline is all over the place. Last chapter we end on regurgitated internal family systems theory. Then get into this one spending several minutes talking about snacks and sports and JVNs commentary on who should have won various Olympic games. Why?? Then in under TWO MINUTES (I double checked) we go from JVN describing eating food with grandma, to saying how those days were a removal from his challenging everyday (which he didn't even really talk about beforehand in order for us to naturally understand that ourselves), to mentioning his relationship with his mom and that they were apparently spending that time together too, to throwing in that he'd buy guinea pigs 6 years later, saying when one of the pigs died, rewinding back to what their names were in the first place, and then hitting us with "which brings me to fall-" WHEN ARE WE. WHAT'S HAPPENING.

    I have some killer ADHD and feel like I can follow topic jumps pretty damn well because of it, but I'm genuinely struggling to keep up. I keep doubting myself and thinking that maybe it's my own issue because I struggle with listening to audiobooks more than I do reading written words, so I've honestly tried my damndest to correct for that and am giving it my full attention, listening on 1.0x speed (tried others too), and have rewound multiple times when I find myself confused. And yet I STILL can't track it. I'm going to give it a bit more time and see if it hits its stride and gets to some kind of meat of it (which I'm really hoping it does), but I am strongly considering a DNF.

    6
    comments 5
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    14h
  • Palimpsest
    Thoughts from 67% (page 247) Seriatim and Deshabille
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    3
    comments 2
    Reply
  • Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love
    Thoughts from 9% (mid Ch2) - this is... not going well. Comments on narration & writing

    I'm so sorry for the things I'm about to say because they're quite critical. I also feel like I should preface with the context that other than seeing a couple episodes of queer eye I really don't know anything about JVN so I'm coming in with very little pre-existing knowledge or impressions or expectations. I guess I did know that this was a Goodreads choice winner one year, so maybe expectations were a bit higher. But, anyway, here's what's not working for me personally, and JVN fans please forgive me 😭

    First, I'm listening to this as an audiobook (which JVN narrates), and the narration is simply stressing me the hell out. I feel absolutely exhausted listening. I'm not sure how to describe this right but there is so much force/intensity/effort behind every single word that it feels a little bit like I'm being shouted at? Like rather than sitting and being told a life story I'm having it dramatically performed at me, which is keeping me from relaxing into it. The cadence is also a bit unnatural to my ear, with pauses and emphasis in unexpected places, like a text being read aloud for the first time by a reader that doesn't know where the rest of the sentence is going. It just has me so off kilter.

    I also feel like the structure is just completely baffling. At no point have I understood or been able to expect the transition from one topic to another, and the timeline is all over the place. Last chapter we end on regurgitated internal family systems theory. Then get into this one spending several minutes talking about snacks and sports and JVNs commentary on who should have won various Olympic games. Why?? Then in under TWO MINUTES (I double checked) we go from JVN describing eating food with grandma, to saying how those days were a removal from his challenging everyday (which he didn't even really talk about beforehand in order for us to naturally understand that ourselves), to mentioning his relationship with his mom and that they were apparently spending that time together too, to throwing in that he'd buy guinea pigs 6 years later, saying when one of the pigs died, rewinding back to what their names were in the first place, and then hitting us with "which brings me to fall-" WHEN ARE WE. WHAT'S HAPPENING.

    I have some killer ADHD and feel like I can follow topic jumps pretty damn well because of it, but I'm genuinely struggling to keep up. I keep doubting myself and thinking that maybe it's my own issue because I struggle with listening to audiobooks more than I do reading written words, so I've honestly tried my damndest to correct for that and am giving it my full attention, listening on 1.0x speed (tried others too), and have rewound multiple times when I find myself confused. And yet I STILL can't track it. I'm going to give it a bit more time and see if it hits its stride and gets to some kind of meat of it (which I'm really hoping it does), but I am strongly considering a DNF.

    6
    comments 5
    Reply
  • seema commented on seema's update

    seema made progress on...

    15h
    Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

    Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

    Jonathan Van Ness

    11%
    14
    7
    Reply

    seema made progress on...

    15h
    Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

    Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

    Jonathan Van Ness

    11%
    14
    7
    Reply

    seema commented on a post

    16h
  • A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
    Thoughts from 5%
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    24
    comments 11
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    16h
  • A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
    Thoughts from 5% (end of chapter 1)

    That line about the spell burrowing into the earth definitely felt like subtle foreshadowing. I’m already bracing myself.

    15
    comments 1
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    16h
  • A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
    Thoughts from 5%

    Just started and already invested, I really enjoy Sangu Mandanna’s writing style, she’s so good at creating endearing characters.

    16
    comments 2
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    16h
  • A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
    Thoughts from 4%
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    35
    comments 7
    Reply
  • seema commented on a post

    16h
  • A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping
    Thoughts from 4% (page 12)
    spoilers

    View spoiler

    12
    comments 5
    Reply
  • seema commented on seema's update

    seema commented on KatieV's update

    KatieV made progress on...

    1d
    Palimpsest

    Palimpsest

    Catherynne M. Valente

    67%
    20
    2
    Reply

    seema made progress on...

    1d
    Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

    Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

    Jonathan Van Ness

    5%
    18
    0
    Reply