smellthemosses
AuDHDer reading litfic, SFF, & leftist nonfiction | English & Korean | trying to prioritize marginalized authors & the Global Majority | they/them 🌈 | @smellthemosses on Storygraph
8195 points
September 2026
3.90 average · 181 reviews
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Another popular fantasy with good ideas and horrible execution.
The religion stuff was cool. If only there had been any actual thematic depth to "what if the world's religions represented different branches of interpretations and traditions rooted in a common history?" Or "Western dragons are scary fire monsters and Eastern dragons are wise water gods, interesting."
But she does not go any futher than what I just said, in all of this tome's 800? 900? pages. That's almost an achievement on its own.
My biggest complaint by far is the lazy, sloppy orientalism in the world building. Oh, the water dragon people of THE EAST have a closed-door foreign policy and address one another as "honourable so-and-so" and have names that vaguely sound Japanese? Nice. Great job. There is even a bigger empire (pseudo-China) and a little peninsula (oh is that us? pseudo-Korea!). The desert people of the SOUTH ride tiger-like animals and burn incense at mystical mosque places and sell spices at markets? Jesus f-cking Christ. What was her research, Aladdin? This is just a couple of notches above naming a Chinese girl "Cho Chang." And I need all the white people raving about this book to see that.
The author has a cowardly little disclaimer about how all the cultures and places in this book aren't real so please don't come for her little white British self! I bet she thought she was so woke because she challenges the authority of the obviously British/European religion through the obviously SWANA/Middle Eastern religion. The main white characters best friends were BOTH BLACK, OKAY?? SHE'S WOKE!! I bet she was fully patting herself on the back for including all the cultures, like a college brochure with dragons. But guess which culture gets all the political intrigue and nuances at least somewhat fleshed out? It's not the polite dragon worship people or the mysterious and dangerous spice people! It's the white feminist fever dream matrilineal Britain--I mean Inysh!
Whatever the white girls think is sad and literary cannot compete with the melancholy and uneasy introspection Isabella Hammad captures in Enter Ghost.
What I most enjoyed was the semi stream-of-consciousness first person narration. This isn't a book of dramatic plot twists or even a particularly in depth character study. The characters feel like real people with real complexities, but the point of the book is not to explore those complexities. The whole time, you're experiencing a slice of Sonia's life as a Palestinian British actress visiting her sister in Haifa and coming to terms with her politics and place in the world.
There is no big moment of character growth or a climactic conflict. It's the realism of Sonia's observations, real-time feelings, memories, reflections, realizations, and interpretations that draws you in. The ongoing violence of Israel hits differently because you feel it as a part of daily life, through the guilty conscience of a Palestinian woman sitting with her privileges and vulnerabilities.
It took me a long while to read because I had to be in the mood to just be in someone's head throughout their daily life. But whenever I did sit down with it, it was a beautiful time. A great case for literature-as-exercise-in-empathy-via-phenomenological description. If you're someone who complains about "slow pacing," this book is not for you! 🙂
I want to revisit this book after giving Hamlet a proper read, which will happen... at some point in my life. I feel that I missed some of the significance of the thespian elements (in substance and form) of the novel.
Even at a surface level, this is a cool book full of fun facts written in an accessible way. But this book is so much more than that. What makes this a five star book is that the author organically weaves in discussions about ecological responsibility, disability, pitfalls of human scientific research, and anthropocentrism.
My own forum posts demonstrate how many interesting, often philosophical topics came up throughout the book:
- Epistemic humility and empathy
- Human vision and a socialized response to “seeing” certain species
- Pain research and bioethics
- Hydrodynamic navigation is cool
- Dune sandworms are real?
- Female Frog Rage
- Anthropocentric design and disturbances to others’ Umwelten
Yong didn’t need to use big words like epistemology, or even much scientific jargon. He is so good at breaking down complex (and perceptually foreign) concepts for a general audience. The writing is not only clear and thoughtfully organized, but also often beautiful and poignant. I highly recommend the audiobook (narrated by the author)—the cadence and tone are perfect and has great synergy with the prose. The book is so well-written that I want to reread a physical copy and highlight various passages.
My world feels richer and I feel more connected to other lives that roam the earth, all thanks to this book.
I keep trying romantasy and hating it, but I know there is good shit out there. Can you all help me?
While I am on the aroace spectrum, I know I can enjoy a good romance. One of my favorite series as a child was Anne of Green Gables, and I had Anne of the Island (the one where the romance plot thickens) basically memorized. My reading taste now leans more SFF and litfic, but I crave some good romance. Unfortunately, a lot of the popular choices have been a miss for me. Can you recommend me a romantasy or romantic SFF based on my reactions to these popular books? I'm sorry in advance for hating on some people's faves--it's just personal taste!!! It's my loss for not enjoying a thing!!
The key criteria are prose and character depth/development. I HATE tell-not-show writing or YA/fanfic-y language. "He growled" = Immediate DNF. No preference on spice or gender, but no dubious consent or shallow insta-love please.
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One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig: intensely disliked the stereotypical, brooding alpha male descriptions and self-insert FMC. Overall felt very juvenile, did not like the "poetry." I did like the worldbuilding and the foggy, dark forest vibes. Prose was 2.5/5.
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The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon: the worldbuilding was orientalistic, but more to the point the main romance was a snore. No chemistry, plays into racialized femme/butch dynamic. I could not tell you why they loved each other. Also there was an unnecessary SA plot at the end? Wtf. Prose was 3/5.
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Can't Spell Treason without Tea by Rebecca Thorne: a big, boring nothingburger. The relationship was just lesbians talking to each other in therapy speak (plz don't come for me cuz I do this as a queer femme). I did not care about what happened next. Prose was 3/5.
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Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree: It was cute for a while before it got too repetitive. The romance was okay but a little underdeveloped. Side note, I'm lowkey starting to think cozy fantasy is small business capitalism propaganda. Prose was 3.5/5.
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Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan: Promising world-building and excellent vibes, and was invested in romance for first half. Disliked execution of love triangle and felt like the MMC's character never quite developed enough complexity. I was more invested in the mom. Prose was 3.5/5? Harder to tell because I listened to the audiobook and the narrator's voice made everything sound better.
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Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett: Here is one I liked! The relationship felt believable, I liked the slow burn and liked getting to know each character as individuals. Prose was 4/5.
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This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone : This is where the prose was prosing too hard (too flowery) but the chemistry between two agents that don't even interact in real time was compelling. It got too saccharine towards the end, but overall enjoyed it. Prose was 4/5. (docked for purple prose).
Y'all, my taste can't be all that special. I LOVE immensely popular series like the Broken Earth Trilogy, The Realm of the Elderlings, and the Green Bone Saga. Please help me find the romance of my dreams! Where is the well-written tension and yearning? Where is the growth that accompanies a relationship journey?
I'm thinking a lot about how epistemic humility and curiosity are so essential to better understanding the world around us and other beings. Yet, our education systems and anthropocentric (and other -centric) ways of thinking are designed to convince us of the completeness of our own understandings and even superiority over others. I recall being shocked that the central message of my (elitist) law school education was "you are one of the smartest people in society and therefore you get to be the arbiters of rules." The professors routinely shut down students that challenged, based on their own lived experience, the assumptions and hypotethicals the professors set forth in class. Because the hierarchy of knowledge has been settled, and everything must be rendered knowable and fit into the knowledge system of the existing institution of law. They couldn't even get to standpoint epistemology at the human level let alone conceive of the myriad Umwelten outside the realm of human perception. But an ecological ethics or even basic human empathy requires a certain level of acceptance that each of our perceptions and knowledges and interpretations are limited.
Also having a separate thought about how even among human beings, there is wide variation in our sensory worlds. I'm really curious, for example, about what a loud, crowded room "feels" like to someone who is not AuDHD and highly sensitive to auditory stimuli at the frequencies of human voices and music. I also wonder what it feels like to seamlessly pick up on social cues and almost reflexively deploy nonverbal cues in the same wavelength.
A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)
Robert Jackson Bennett
smellthemosses commented...
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. What a slog, and I was aggressively uninterested in the characters. Then I learned about the author's racism in The Goldfinch & happily DNFed around 2/3. Idk why dark academia fans will defend her by saying "it's suPosEd to bE a CRitIqUe of acADeMiA" and then tell me that the beauty is in the atmosphere of the book... so you still wanna romanticize the vibes, but I can't say the characters are unlikable in a boring way?
no judgement zone here! i’m always curious about this and what made the book so bad to someone
mine is between if he had been with me and a thousand boy kisses. these books i was so excited to read but when i did, i absolutely hated them. i cringed way too hard during both of them. i know they are supposed to be heartbreaking, but it’s hard to be hurt by a book that made me want to chuck it across the room because of how bad it was
smellthemosses commented...
Apart from the obviously problematic picks (SJM, CoHo, JKR, etc.), it's SFF favorites like Blood Over Bright Haven, and A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. I'm so down for anti-imperialism and found family and queer and disabled rep. But you have to do it well. Obviously a very subjective standard, but if those books made it to a person's taste profile I know our standards will differ a lot!
I also think The Priory of the Orange Tree and The House in the Cerulean Sea are problematic, just not at the level of the Zionist racist TERFs mentioned above.
Final category: sad white girl literature that is actually so racist. Anything by Sylvia Plath, the Big Swiss, etc.
Just to be clear, I'm not judging anyone who reads them. Everyone has their own taste and that's wonderful.
For me it would be: Red rising, Persépolis and Throne of glass🤔
smellthemosses commented...
(Korean Lisa See hater has entered the chat)
I learned about that book because it was on alllllll the white people's AAPI History Month reading lists 😮💨. I have not read it but I think it's so transparent how, after YEARS of orientalizing China for profit, Miss Lisa has suddenly taken an interest in the exotic culture of sea women. She's honestly hopping on white anthropologists of Korea, whose favorite topics are Korean shamans and sea women. Lol. I wish cultural appropriation were more creative, for once!
Thanks for summoning me 🙏🏻
There are not enough reviews from Chinese people and boy, is that clear. Just look through them and you'll see the difference in ratings when someone is Chinese vs not.
The story follows one woman in quaint 1400s China from like 9 years old to 90+. She's a laaady doctooorrrrr. As a whole, this book is dreadfully long-winded and repetitive. I don't need to hear a hundred times about what makes a good and proper wife, what the foot binding process is, how important it is to have a son, etc. It gets old. We get it, the characters already know, everyone gets it. There is no need to remind the reader again how important sons are.
In terms of details. Jfc. I despise the way See just directly translates the different characters that make up a word. The uterus, "Zi-gong" or 子宫, is just uterus. No one calls it a "child palace," what the fuck is that. The main character refers to her mother as "Respectable Lady" and idk what tf that's supposed to be in Chinese. It would be like if you called Coca-Cola "quench thirst, happy" （可口可乐）mmmm NO. As one of the other reviewers mentioned, German, would've never been translated like that. Imagine a whole book where German medical terms like uterus Gebärmutter was constantly called the "give birth mother". Who thought this was a good idea??? It's so cringey. Why are you directly translating characters sometimes and then not doing it other times? Who was the Chinese person who OK'd this because I doubt it was Lisa See who is happy to let people believe she's Asian because her great great grandfather or something was from mainland China.
I would love to hear the perspective of an actual TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) practitioner on this book. Because while in SURE this book was meticulously researched, I don't know if it was laid out or displayed well or if like with "child-palace," Lisa See just directly translated everything and made it weird.
