Reviews and Comments

briellebouquet

briellebouquet@books.theunseen.city

Joined 1 year, 9 months ago

prairie trans girl trying to read her way, however slowly, out of oblivion

on the wider fediverse using mastodon at: queer.party/@briellebouquet

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Dreamsnake (Paperback, 1994, Spectra) No rating

In a world devastated by nuclear holocaust, Snake is a healer. One of an elite …

her name is Snake and there's an offputting sexy picture of Snake, with a snake, wrapped around her naked body, as the cover page for this ebook copy i'm reading. and it's weird. but i won't hold it against the book lol. i'm excited to read this

Parable of the Sower (Paperback, 2000, Warner Books) 4 stars

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful …

so thoroughly depressing for the first bit, but weirdly hopeful even as the setting gets uglier and more frightening.

also eerily prescient in lots of ways. i hope butler was off about just how bad things will get, but. the whole make america great again thing with president donner. racist mobs. climate disaster and exodus. butler was a prophet

The Word for World Is Forest (Paperback, 1976, Berkley) 5 stars

Centuries in the future, Terrans have established a logging colony & military base named “New …

staggeringly good

No rating

brilliant take on colonialism, on change, on damage. it's really sad and frightening all the way through and it feels like a mudslide in that, once it's started, you know it won't stop. like, bad things will keep happening. there's no real happy ending.

but every word was worth reading.

Station Eternity (Paperback, 2022, Penguin Publishing Group) 4 stars

Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove …

i couldn't get all the way through this. it's a newer sci fi series and i wanted to like it really bad, but i couldn't sorta, internalize or connect with the writing style, and the story had some YA energy that i also struggled to get into. i kinda stalled and stopped reading for a number of months because i felt committed to finishing this, but i decided a bit ago to stop and try something else and it was the right decision

Summer of my amazing luck (2006, Counterpoint Press) 5 stars

i lived in this book for a while

5 stars

i immediately became best friends with all of the characters. even the ones who kinda made me roll my eyes a little. everyone was so warm and vibrant and alive that i connected to all of them in some way almost immediately, and so, i really felt it when their stories were recounted. or when times got tough.

there was commentary on the welfare system in the 90s. there was some moralizing, and there were some shots at a system that seems determined to hurt and kill people. but, rather than get bogged down in frustration, the novel expresses this angst and frustration through occasional outbursts from lish. little bits of an insane response while living through insane circumstances of poverty and life on the dole. which is great, because it's hard not to become frustrated or even angry about how cruel and absurd being on welfare is. but the …

Saving Our Own Lives (2022, Haymarket Books) 4 stars

Harm Reduction is one of the most important interventions of the 20th century, and yet …

origins and structures of harm reduction thought

4 stars

i feel like i have a better understanding of the roots and origins of harm reduction. especially the contributions of queer Black and Indigenous folk.

i found a sense of kinship in ethical considerations with shira hassan and many of the contributors who she interviewed for this work. it also gave me some hope. there are ways to push back against the cruelty of the society we live in, by choosing life, and without choosing violence.

Saving Our Own Lives (2022, Haymarket Books) 4 stars

Harm Reduction is one of the most important interventions of the 20th century, and yet …

looking to read up on harm reduction, in part due to personal interest, and in part due to wanting to find volunteer and/or paid work in practicing harm reduction. the rosario dawson afterword advertised on the cover kinda threw me off but i decided to start this one anyway and i'm glad, so far, that i did.