juushika

( List of book reviews for 2005 )

Year Long Total: 25 books



( List of book reviews for 2006 )

Year Long Total: 64 books



( List of book reviews for 2007 )

Year Long Total: 37 books



( List of book reviews for 2008 )

Year Long Total: 67 books



( List of book reviews for 2009 )

Year Long Total: 50 books



( List of book reviews for 2010 )

Year Long Total: 37 books



( List of book reviews for 2011 )

Year Long Total: 52 books



( List of book reviews for 2012 )

Year Long Total: 32 books



( List of book reviews for 2013 )

Year Long Total: 65 books



( List of book reviews for 2014 )

Year Long Total: 16 books



( List of book reviews for 2015 )

Year Long Total: 61 books



( List of book reviews for 2016 )

Year Long Total: 123 books



( List of book reviews for 2017 )

Year Long Total: 148 books



( List of book reviews for 2018 )

Year Long Total: 145 books



( List of book reviews for 2019 )

Year Long Total: 339 books



( List of book reviews for 2020 )

Year Long Total: 187 books



( List of book reviews for 2021 )

Year Long Total: 157 books



( List of book reviews for 2022 )

Year Long Total: 147 books



( List of book reviews for 2023 )


Year Long Total: 218 books



( List of book reviews for 2024 )

Year Long Total: 149 books



( List of book reviews for 2025 )

Year Long Total: 33 books


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Title: The Girl with the Silver Eyes
Author: Willo Davis Roberts
Published: Alladin, 2017 (1980)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 534,705
Text Number: 1958
Read Because: mentioned on rachelmanija's 100 books list, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Nine-year-old Katie has strange silver eyes and the stranger ability to move objects around with her mind. Seeing this title on a formative book list hit me with nostalgia, but upon (re?)reading ... I have zero memory of it! Go figure that; and I liked it without the benefit of nostalgia. Our strange, misunderstood, bright, awful protagonist is easy to identify with but, though the power of telekinesis and a burgeoning social group, also incredible wish-fulfillment, and her skeptical, limited PoV makes for an engaging little mystery plot which is more believable and authentically young than it is strained, with a satisfyingly nuanced ending.

Title: The Case Against Satan
Author: Ray Russell
Published: Penguin, 2015 (1962)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 534,170
Text Number: 1956
Read Because: saw this pop up in a Yuletide letter, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Immediately after being relocated to a new parish, a priest is confronted with an apparent possession. This is a brief, dense, directed book, contained and complete. As the priest wrestles with his belief in the existence of Satan, as a congregation looks suspiciously at the strange goings-on at the rectory, the possession and exorcism are seen from all angles, belief and doubt, spiritual and psychosomatic, clear or complicated. I didn't find this scary, but it's an engaging, lively metaphysical puzzlebox.

Title: Scott's Last Expedition, Volume I
Author: Robert Falcon Scott
Published: 1913
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 440
Total Page Count: 533,730
Text Number: 1954
Read Because: y'all we are so far down this rabbit hole I can't see sunlight, ebook via Project Gutenberg but also OpenLibrary has scans! of multiple publications! with all sorts of appendixes and Volume II if you happen to need that for Reasons
Review: Scott's diary as a follow-up to Cherry-Garrard's Worst Journey in the World (which is how I read it) is damned to be unsatisfying, because there are no answers here to lingering questions: Scott does not write of his position, particularly excluding the specificities of (and the crucial logic behind) the orders he gave. (Why five men, Scott. Why??) But what remains is not entirely private: the diary is a potential public document, either directly or in adaptation to travelogue, and as such this is both personal and edited: evocative impressions of daily life and the landscape, a sincere investment in the scientific aims of the expedition, and a fine tension between anxiety, determination, and hope that gives each setback a tragic cast. The polar run and particularly the return journey feel markedly different, aware and despairing of the potential future audience and yet painfully raw.

Title: Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series I & II Collection
Author: Matthew Mercer Jody Houser, Matthew Colville Illustrator: Olivia Samson, Chris Northrop
Published: Dark Horse Books, 2020 (2019-20)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 532,670
Text Number: 1950-1
Read Because: fan of Critical Role, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Rolling this far back means everyone is less likeable, less capable, less interconnected, which... There are stories to be told, but they lack almost everything I might like about/want from Vox Machina. The exceptions are usually preexisting-to-present-narrative connections (Vex & Vax, Pike & Grog, and honestly I just like seeing Percy because he has such a chunky backstory); but everyone meeting doesn't do a ton for me. And I love C1! I'll pick up the next volume eventually; art is fine, the bind-up itself is gorgeous.

Title: The Worst Journey in the World
Author: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Published: 1922
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 820
Total Page Count: 532,130
Text Number: 1947-8
Read Because: this fill in threesentenceficathon 2025, ebook via Project Gutenberg
Review:
A (rather complete) telling of the tragic 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition, compiled from the author's memories and journals as well as the journals of other men present. Rather complete, I say, because this begins with departure; the packing and sea voyage sections could probably be skimmed, but I've been itching to read about the close quarters & logistics of historical sailing so I appreciated them. The slow cascade from petty errors to great tragedy is more profound, more linear, in retrospect and/or knowing the hero worship/criticisms of Scott to which Cherry-Garrard is responding. But as that narrative builds:

Cherry-Garrard is unexpectedly adroit, moving through tone and time, the long slow trudge of sledging and setting up depots to living among fellow explorers to the overwinter journey to obtain emperor penguin eggs which, frankly, is the titular worst. He's funny, morbidly so, both intentionally and in the horror of hindsight; I took multiple pauses to independently research topics like historical British artic exploration gear (particularly clothing and sleeping bags), and, sincerely, this expedition was a hell of their own devising. The following summer's attempt at the pole reiterates some of the slow build of pacing and is a quiet, well-considered horror, a detailed account that avoids pure hero worship but also bitterness, that becomes something like a study of the stiff upper lip: persisting through suffering is not an accomplishment but a good way to elicit more of the same.

This isn't five stars in the sense of perfect; Cherry-Garrard, for all his care, still gives Scott too much credit and is absolutely a product of the echo chamber of his time; and, yes, the text occasionally drags. But in the sense of laughed, cried, would not stop talking about this with anybody in hearing range for a month--I'm obsessed. Exceeds expectation, surprisingly quotable, full of crunchy details but also honest in its character sketches and psychological focus, and, I agree: the worst journey in the world, remarkably evoked.

CW for animal abuse because, while the humans could by and large consent to suffer, the same was not true of the ill-husbanded dogs and horses of the expedition. Absolutely bonkers decision-making and self-justifications where the animals were concerned.

Title: Voice Of The Blood (Voice of Blood Book 1)
Author: Jemiah Jefferson
Published: Leisure Books, 2001
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 521,100
Text Number: 1896
Read Because: personal enjoyment, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: How I became a vampire by falling in love with four disparately sexy guys and having a lot of crazy sex: the novel. I've been an avid reader of idfic since, oh, forever, and never landed such a motherlode in trad publishing. Is it too much of a good thing? Absolutely. This is fanfic rules applied to OCs, ridiculous and masturbatory; it feels like it could have posted on LJ in serial installments. And it's great. The total commitment is eminently satisfying: love, bound up in weird psychic vampire mind control powers, examined in depth from radically different angles via multiple overlapping relationships. File this between Lost Souls and paranormal romance: not as gritty or amoral as Brite, but sharing Brite's aesthetics, plenty thorny as questions of vampire morality/mortality ought to be, and glossed by an indulgence of sex. I plowed through this and will probably try the sequels.

( Wounds (Voice of Blood Book 2) )

( Fiend (Voice of Blood Book 3) )

( A Drop of Scarlet (Voice of the Blood Book 4) )

Title: Garlic and the Witch (Garlic Book 2)
Author: Bree Paulsen
Published: Quill Tree Books, 2022
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 529,540
Text Number: 1940
Read Because: continuing the series, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Garlic is slowly changing into a human. I didn't like this as much as the first book, more for themes than execution. The art remains sweet and softly vibrant, the setting charming, the intentions heartfelt and graceful, particularly in the uncomplicated insistence on queer characters. But becoming-human feels weird in retrospect (so many questions: why make so many, why make them to be servants, why not tell them they were proto-people?), and, while I understand the parallels to adolescence for a middle grade audience, atypical characters becoming increasingly typical isn't a trope that speaks to me. Does this sweet little graphic novel warrant such nitpicking? Not really. I still breezed through it happily, and the character redesigns are fun. But I'd stick to just the first book.

Title: Garlic and the Vampire (Garlic Book 1)
Author: Bree Paulsen
Published: Quill Tree Books, 2021
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 528,610
Text Number: 1936
Read Because: browsing graphic novels shelf at..., hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: When a vampire moves back into the local castle, Garlic is volunteered to scare him off because ... she's garlic. This is adorable. Of course, middle grade defangs (haha) the danger, although picture books and MG can be weird and unsettling when they want to and I wish that were moreso; it's not even spoopy. But that's balanced by the characters: Celery is mean, and that meanness doesn't have a neat heel-face turn; relationships and character arcs have movement without easy resolution, they're nuanced, and I appreciate that. This is cozy, quirky, sentient garden-grown garden-helpers and a vampire that drinks V8; I would have enjoyed weirder, but am more than sufficiently charmed to read the sequel.

Finally caught up with (most of) my backlog. Finally, theoretically, will stop flooding reading lists with old book reviews. I'd like to endeavor to stay on top of crossposting these, post per book instead of in roundups (with exceptions) for tagging reasons, and also a dozen other resolutions I'm sure, but those two at least seem reasonable.


Title: Daughters of Snow and Cinders (La louve boréale)
Author: Núria Tamarit
Translator: Jenna Allen
Published: Fantagraphics Books, 2023 (2022)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 215
Total Page Count: 526,815
Text Number: 1928
Read Because: browsing graphic novels shelf at..., paperback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A young woman follows a goldrush expedition after they leave without her, journeying into distant woods. This is breathtaking: rich colors with such depth, vibrant royal purples and blues, textured shadows and pale snows and the vivid warm tones of blood and fire. It's one of the most beautiful graphic novels I've ever read. Tamarit gives her characters distinguishing injuries and birthmarks that combat same face syndrome and introduce a lot of, well, character.

It's narrative that struggles, here. The overland journey is slow and contemplative and shadowed by danger; it's a compelling tone. But the themes of environmentalism and anticolonialism, however well-intended, have no nuance, offering only repetitive, unproductive messaging: all men are dangerous, humans are a blight on the land, etc. Such a letdown in such a gorgeous work.