Hi! Welcome to my bookshelf! This is my current collection of books, the covers are accurate to which one I own!
Newest → Oldest
One day in middle school, around 3rd or 4th grade, we had a teacher absence that resulted in my class being divided and sent into other teachers classrooms for about a week. There was a lack of desks for the 6 or so extra kids in the class, so we all sat on the floor in the cubby hole reading area. In said cubby hole, instead of paying attention to the class, a copy of Life As We Knew It caught my eye (It is WAY squarer than most books and a very nice shade of purple) and the rest is history. After asking the teacher for it, I remember I took this book everywhere with me, I loved it so much. And in the 15? (oh god) years since then I have been thinking about this book and wondering just what about it I was so captivated with (I had forgotten almost the entire book by now). And since it was sitting high up on my TBR, when I finally got a copy of it, I read it all the same day. HOLY SHIT!!!!!! This book is literally some of the bleakest, saddest, most depressing stuff I have read in a "apocalyptic" setting- maybe ever. And it is YA! The story is set up like diary entries of a 16 year old girl named Miranda. We follow her life before and after an astroid hits the moon out of orbit and causes global catastophies. She is just a girl, and the world is ending. It is fantasic. I understand why I loved this book. I was a edgy emo kid with shitty parents in a world that felt like it wasn't for me. Of COURSE I would find solace in depressing apoclapytic YA, where a girl struggles with suicidal thoughts, starvation and her relationship with her mother. That is the most ME thing to ever happen. It was extremely theraputic to read, it felt like sending a tendril in time to past me. I think as a an adult this book is even more fucked up as I do not think I picked up on all the terrible things that happen in it as a kid. I feel like maybe kid me was more hooked on Miranda as a relfection of herself (very true). While adult me was more interested in how Miranda sees the world, how she struggles with coming to terms with things like not being able to go to prom or no more boys, or how she processes tragedy and anger, and how she describes her family through it all. It is so SO depressing. I cried at least 3 times. Maybe this is me projecting but her mother treats her SO poorly, and all she has is her mother so she keeps forgiving her (my heart hurts). One entry is about her mom verbally abusing her and the next is "I love my mom!" It is soul tearing shit. She is just a kid. (I was just a kid... damn). Not to fault the story, it does really try to build some form of hope but I think so much bad happens that the hopeful tone it attempts to end on is like going home after surviving a battlefield. We got CPTSD in this houseeeee. I also think it is really masterful to be able to write naivety in the way Susan Beth Pfeffer has (rest in peace, she passed away June of THIS YEAR?!). She gets into the mind of this girl, and it really does feel like experincing your messed up childhood again. Terribly awfully relatable. I think this book is somewhat forgotten about now a days, so it is a definite hidden gem in apocalptic fiction. Also there are 3 other books in this series, but I am less foaming at the mouth to read them as I had only read this one before. I will get there eventually! I do recommend this one!
7/29/2025
Big nothingburger. Waste of my time. Annoying. Deeply Stupid. Predictable. Boring. ETC. One of those things everyone seems to like, then I expereince it and am reminded general audeinces are dumb with bad taste. Sorry not sorry. Also it is racist? Like VERY racist. No one seems to mention that part when recommending it though... how curious! Geninuely why is this on every post-apocalyptic must read list? No idea. (I can only imagine its' because it is long, really long). Octavia Bulter does this 400 Billion ZILLION times better in half as much time. I enjoyed the first 200ish pages (the build up to the eotw) the rest of the book... lol. After spending so much time (4 days of my life) with Stephen King, I now understand what everyone is saying about his writing. Every single page has some form of pop culture refrence, and it does not matter if it doesn't make sense for the chracters to have Stephen King interests in mind. Every character around the half way point becomes one dimensional and a vessel for Stephen King to flex his nerd knowledge. Every character therefore comes across as Stepehen King. I wish I was exaggerating. It is insufferable. I think the major flaw of this book was that Stephen Kings' understanding of society is just dumb. He doesn't know anything, and what he does know makes no fucking sense, especially in the POST APOCALPYSE. There's a character in this that is supposed to be a sociologist and he is the stupidest sociologist on the planet because Stephen King doesn't know sociology. I feel like he should have taken maybe an anthropology class in college? Maybe two? That would not have hurt... or idk hung out with more people!!! Also yes it is the "battle of good and evil" but you have to do more than that? Like ok cool... god is real, the devil is real... sure yeah man. What ELSE????? Oh that's IT???? 1200 PAGES??? 500K WORDS??? HUH? I just think it's interesting to have everyone for so much of this book sitting around singing campfire (white guy blues) songs and voting on the consitution, when again this is THE POST APOCALYPSE. You have what is only understood as MAGIC or divine intervention- and you do not do anything with it. You would think that the dreams bringing everyone together would then go somewheres... and you would be mistaken as it goes no where!!! The end of the world is a free slate to do whatever you want and you chose to do literally nothing with it for like 900 pages. Please give me a break. Sue me, but the evil part of this book was the only interesting part beecause again... IT'S THE APOCALYPSE. You are writing a story were the big bad part IS the premise, so then you have to make the "fill you hope, people are good, love!!!!" COMPELLING if I am supposed to care about "good vs evil." He doesn't. He doesn't do anything. I think a good chunk of this book is just world builidng for his Dark Tower series. Which sure is a decision. Also I do not think that the survivors of a superflu that all KNOW and SAW that the US Government caused and covered it up, would be like "Let's keep everything the same. I loveeeee the USA!! YAYY DEMOCRACY! Cops 😍" Which is EXTRA stupid when the overall message is "Will we ever learn? The cycle continues. SMH."
It's peculiar because while I can talk about this for hours, I do not feel any strong emotion towards it. I read 500k words that I didn't like and I do not even care. It was that unmoving. So bad I cannout find the care to feel even hatred towards it. And this is coming from the #1 big fat hater herself. It was just annoying. I will however be judging everyone that recommends this as a must read. Read Parable of the Sower. Not this. At least I proved to myself I can read tomes without a sweat.
7/25/2025
This was my first Ballard (and his second novel). I found this book in a coffeeshop that has a tiny hidden bookstore in the back. They have a pretty impressive shelf of old SF paperbacks. I need to go back soon. The copy I have is quite literally falling apart and its condition only worsened as I tore through this book. They are not lying when they say J.G Ballard could WRITE. This is so well written. I think it could have been about anything and I would have still enjoyed reading it. The atmosphere! It is almost totally about setting. It feels like immersing yourself in the post-apocalyptic version of Jungle Cruise. Stowing away with the crew of Atlantis, Tarzan or some anthropological expedition to the horn of Africa or undiscovered South America... Set 100 years after a series of solar flares obliterated the Earth's atmosphere and left the planet overheated, oceans turned to sand, cities drowned by glacial silt, the surviving population of humanity exists in the now temperate north and south poles. We follow a biologist, Dr. Robert Kerans on a journey through dreams and waking nightmares, through the flooded ruins of London, devolved into a playground for overgrown iguanas, bats, and crocodiles- a feverish portrait of the Triassic. It's fantastically vivid. I do wish this book had more of a set purpose. It mainly presents a concept, and struggles to find a way to tell a proper "story." There's parts that feel groundbreaking and ethereal and yet a good chunk of the middle slogs itself with a comically written pirate king and his posse of dervish looters. I think the sense of timelessness would have worked better if some of the wording wasn't poorly set in the past. I still enjoyed the dreamy waltz backwards in time. I felt like I needed to read this with a cold glass of water. The part where he goes into the planetarium and contemplates the universe was stellar. A quick read worthy of a hot summers day, if you can find it for a good price!
7/21/2025
I kinda hated this book with every fiber of my being. THIS is what gets the 'best of sf' sticker for the rest of time? As if. The most overhyped brain dead misogynistic book I've read in a minute. It's funny because I thought this about Mote in Gods Eye, only less so. Larry Niven I think I might just hate you. Get a GRIP. This book is so total in its hatred of women. Insufferable. The two women that are in this story are treated SO poorly. The first being Teela Brown whose entire character is being "a good luck charm" and the fuck-buddy to the main character. She is the major plot device. Her entire personality is to be young, dumb, and naïve. Every bad or good situation they get in isn't because of random circumstance, it's written to be because of HER. ANNOYING. The way every interaction is written is so JAJDKDKKFKGKF. Louis (the 200 year old main guy whose better than thou) knows he is being cruel to her. She even knows she's being mistreated, and the writer knows damn well about it all too. He doesn't care. She is LITERALLY written so that Louis can do whatever he pleases to her and she would forgive him, every time. Every other page is something along the lines of "oooo you're so young, stupid, and smooth, so smooth- let's have sex." Instead of anything of actual substance, we get sex. They have sex so much I know more about that than the actual Ringworld. Teela gets a new "primitive" man at the end of the story and she has to be sold to him so that he's convinced Louis doesn't own her. Eye roll. The second woman, Phrill, who is introduced much later in the story is quite literally a whore. Her entire character is that she was "a ship whore." She's really good at sex, and she's again sooooo unintelligent- but hey we need her help to get off this stupid ring! A major part of the ending of the story that she is conditioned to being subservient by this brain pleasure device. Mind numbing shit. It all reads like an incel loser who never felt the touch of a woman wrote it. I think I hate you Larry Niven. Keep your goddamn man power fantasies out of my science fiction. Don't get me wrong I don't mind horny books, it's a major part of the genre, this just was all sex and no Sci-Fi, and where there was Sci-Fi it was STUPID. Women can be written as sexy, but when it is all they are? DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also I know that the 70s were just like this, and it's definitely not the first time this has happened lol. It is just so annoying having THIS be shoved in your face as one of the pinnacles of the genre- A MUST READ. Finally reading it- and it's this asinine. THIS???? won the Nebula and Hugo! Sure, whatever. I stay under the impression that all those dudes did back then was hype each other up because no body else would talk to them. Typical. It's not even good, that's the worst part. IGNORING 85% of it (sexism), it's still really bad. (3 years later, Arthur C Clarke steals this same idea, and actually makes it intelligent, interesting and digestible. Thank god for that. I found myself wishing I was rereading Rendezvous with Rama). This book has literally ONE good concept, a world that is a ring, and it is so poorly thought out I can't believe this keeps getting any praise- FOR 55 YEARS? The pacing is all over the place, the plot is barely there, and all the dialogue is for literal idiots. The actual history of the Ringworld is also poorly put together. We barely interact with its current inhabitants beyond a like 2 scenes, because they are "primitive" and too dumb to think of the crew as anything but gods. That's the main theme of this book (besides sex), playing god- which would have been interesting if it was written well. Annoying, hated it, don't bother- if anything read a summary, look at a drawing of the ring, then move on. I have one more book from Larry Niven on my Wishlist. I will give you one more try sir, but holy shit go to therapy or hell!
7/13/2025
Not too sure what to say about this besides that it is a very solid read. And I think you should read it if biology, body horror and esoteric scifi is your sorta thing. It is for me! Somehow I was made to thread the line of squeamish and hyper focused. I also think I can say that I have never read something so specific to its time. 1985. A very hot Cold War, rapid advances in all fields of technology... a very prominent World Trade Center. Pretty scathing in its commentary towards Russia and an interesting choice to make North America the sole subject of experimentation. I enjoyed it. Suzy and Virgil I think were the most interesting characters. Bernard and his doctor buddies just felt bland and maybe misogynistic to me, in the "it's ingrained into society" way. (If that makes any sense). I think where it goes in the end is so unexpected I should have expected it. I wish there was more. I would say Blood Music, to put it simple, is about what makes up the human soul and the existential horror of being conscious in such an unfathomable universe. I do not even wanna tell you what exactly it's about detail wise, that would ruin some of the discovery. This book is among the first to get into the concept it purposes. One of those weird reads so strange you can't explain half of it. As expected, it was a very good. I can feel the ideas singing in my veins.
7/5/2025
I'm a big ol sucker for this kinda thing so biases be warned. I kinda loved this book. The first half? INCREDIBLE. On the edge of my seat. Saying out loud "oh my god." The second half? Admittedly did lose me a bit, but was still good enough to speed read through. I have never felt so stressed anticipating something I knew was coming in a book before. Just really great. There is a play by play, hour by hour, till it happens. It just builds and builds and when it's here... boy it comes out of no where. And when it hits it HITS. He doesn't hold back. It just spitballs. These people are dumb, ignorant, and grossly underprepared for survival. It's really horrific and annoying to read, I loved it. Up to about Chapter 7? every section ended with an even bigger mic drop moment. What a great time. I will say that while totally lacking by todays standards this had at least something to say about race and the south for 1959. (I would hope so). It doesn't do it in a way I think is very compelling or honest but I suppose it's something? (There's a black family vital to the survival of literally everyone, friendships formed and racial boundaries broken... sure. Moments are very clearly intended to bring up the tensions of segregation and the very obvious idea how none of that shit matters or makes any fucking sense especially at the end of the world. But even so, I thought that it continued to keep them in a weird stereotype, and still placed them below the white people in the story. Like the perspective of someone not fully understanding what makes racism... racism. I don't have the brain cap on rn to explain this better... ugh imagine I typed something genius ok thanks). I would say the later half of this book lost me when survival and hardship sortaaa took the back seat. Things start to just magically falling out of the sky and everything seems to work out (which doesn't tonally match the first part so I'm wondering if there was some executive publisher fuckery). It is all VERY 1950s. Down to marriages, housewives, and god bless the USA. Eye roll. I will give that a pass, the first half is really spectacular. If you ignore it and squint, into perhaps unindented messaging, there iss a lot here. The part that follows the banker during the first day, CHEFS KISS!! This book was one of the first to ever depict nuclear war and the aftermath of it. For that I have it to thank. (There is a part in this that involves a band of highwaymen and it took every fiber of my being not to imagine it was gonna turn into Mad Max). ((It was dangerously close to doing so and then they added any other coat of 1959. UGH!!!)). Tbh it was kinda therapeutic to read about Florida getting destroyed... considering the news. Ron De Santis would have been obliterated!!!! Basically Utopia!!!
Anywho- Alas, Babylon follows the Florida river town of Fort Repose before and after nuclear warfare. I would read it if you like military business, nuclear destruction descriptions and chronologies of survival. Be warned of extremely dated depictions of gender, race, death and all that jazz. (PS. The cover of this that I have is soooo frickin sick).
7/1/2025
After the brain food that was my last read I needed something unserious and possibly deeply stupid. This book marked all those boxes. I am probably the only person on the earth to have read this, and that is totally understandable. All around really dumb, it is exactly what I expected and it did nothing more than poorly tell a very outrageous story. An evil scientist who calls himself Satan has created a planet full of evil robotic creatures. His son, Vlad M. Paler (dead serious) is a vampire robot who takes the reign of thing once Satan is killed. Vlad wants everyone to be a real vampire, so he creates a vampire virus and gets to work. There is a jabberwocky, a homunculus named Hampton and a bunch of other weird creatures who serve him in this mission. Our main guy, normal lad 5000, Oliver Dolan is on a mission to stop all of this- or is he? Literally nothing happens, it is rather sexist (1981 babyyyy) and terrible jokes are made on every other page. It was easy to read if anything. I also have a first edition copy of this terrible book, laugh out loud.
6/22/2025
Where do I even begin with The Left Hand of Darkness? This is one of those books you absolutely need to experience for yourself. I am gobsmacked at how skilled a writer Ursula is. She made me feel like an alien!!!!!!! That is the best way to put it into words. An all around total alienation of being, it was phenomenal. I loved how this story builds. I loved the scale of everything. I loved how detailed and warm everything felt while also filling me with utter despair and chilling my insides. (seriously I need a hug) It made me feel essentially all stages of grief (IT IS GENIUS!!!!!!!). Light, darkness and shadows layered so wonderfully with culture, mythology, and metaphors I think she had to have been a little insane to come up with it all. There is so much here, I feel like I just skimmed the surface. I love love love how this breaks down gender and builds it into something completely unique (ESP for 1969). A planet full of androgynous beings who only determine gender during a monthly hormone cycle for reproduction. And our main character is an extremely misogynistic man (which is never truly acknowledged flat out) from another planet. We read an account of his mission to bring the planet (Winter) into an established greater union of other planets. What could happen? Whose to say? Life, death and everything in between. Phenomenal. You should read it. I should read it again. 6/17/2025
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