[Review] A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 5 March, 2019

Publisher: HarperCollins

Genre: Adult Fiction/Contemporary/Literary

ISBN: 9780062699763

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Hardback and eBook)

Rating:★☆☆☆☆ (1.5)

Review Written: 27 July, 2021
Warnings: Domestic abuse, Rape, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual assault, Suicide, Child abuse, Death, Sexual violence, Grief, Child death, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Abortion, Religious bigotry, Confinement, Self harm, Pregnancy, Xenophobia, Blood, Suicide attempt, Ableism, Body shaming, Bullying, Hate crime, Infertility, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Slavery, Islamophobia, Medical trauma, Gaslighting

Summary:  

This debut novel by an Arab-American voice,takes us inside the lives of conservative Arab women living in America.

In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past. As the narrative alternates between the lives of Deya and Isra, she begins to understand the dark, complex secrets behind her community.

See more by Etaf Rum on her goodreads page.

[Review] Will Save the Galaxy For Food by Yahtzee Croshaw

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Series or Stand Alone: Jacques McKeown #1

Release Date: 14 February, 2017

Publisher: Dark Horse Books

Genre: Space Opera/Science Fiction/Parody

ISBN: 9781506701653

Edition: Paperback (available in eBook, and audiobook)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 6 August, 2020
Warnings: Death, Violence, Sexual Tension

Summary:  

A not-quite epic science fiction adventure about a down-on-his luck galactic pilot caught in a cross-galaxy struggle for survival! Space travel just isn't what it used to be. With the invention of Quantum Teleportation, space heroes aren't needed anymore. When one particularly unlucky ex-adventurer masquerades as famous pilot and hate figure Jacques McKeown, he's sucked into an ever-deepening corporate and political intrigue. Between space pirates, adorable deadly creatures, and a missing fortune in royalties, saving the universe was never this difficult!

See more by Yahtzee Croshaw at his website.

[Review] Neuromancer by William Gibson

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Series or Stand Alone: Sprawl #1

Release Date: 11 June, 2011 (originally published in July of 1984)

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Genre: Science Fiction/Adult Fiction/Cyberpunk/Technothriller/High-Tech Science Fiction

ISBN: 9780307969941

Edition: Audiobook (available in paperback, ebook, and hard cover)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review Written: 2 March, 2020
Warnings: A lot of technobabble, scenes of torture, a lot of NSFW content

Summary:  

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards

Case was the sharpest data thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

See more by William Gibson at his Website.

[Review] Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: The Tales of Pell #1

Release Date: 17 July, 2018

Publisher: Random House/Random House Audio

Genre: Fantasy/Humor

ASIN: B079J5K13P

Edition: Audiobook

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 7 February, 2020
Warnings: Death, Rude Humor

Summary:  

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, a hero, the Chosen One, was born...and so begins every fairy tale ever told.

This is not that fairy tale.

There is a Chosen One, but he is unlike any One who has ever been Chosened.

And there is a faraway kingdom, but you have never been to a magical world quite like the land of Pell.

There, a plucky farm boy will find more than he’s bargained for on his quest to awaken the sleeping princess in her cursed tower. First there’s the Dark Lord, who wishes for the boy’s untimely death...and also very fine cheese. Then there’s a bard without a song in her heart but with a very adorable and fuzzy tail, an assassin who fears not the night but is terrified of chickens, and a mighty fighter more frightened of her sword than of her chain-mail bikini.

This journey will lead to sinister umlauts, a trash-talking goat, the Dread Necromancer Steve, and a strange and wondrous journey to the most peculiar “happily ever after” that ever once-upon-a-timed.

See more by authors at their websites.

[Review] The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore

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Series or Stand Alone: Pine Cove #3 (Not necessary to read other titles in this series)

Release Date: 28 October, 2008

Publisher: Harper Audio

Genre: Adult Fiction/Holiday Fiction/Horror/Humor/American Literature

ASIN: B0006IU4W0

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Hardback, Paperback, Kindle, and Audio CD)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 2 December, 2019
Warnings: Character Death, Magic, Rude Humor, Dark Humor

Summary:  

Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.

But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.

But hold on! There's an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It's none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel's not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle" he's botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.

See more by Christopher Moore at his Website.

[Review] The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

Series: N/A

Release Date: 22 November, 2016

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Genre: Adult / Memoir

ISBN: 9780399565557

Edition: audiobook

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Review Written: 13 March, 2018

Summary: 2018 GRAMMY® Winner for Best Spoken Word Album

The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher's intimate, hilarious and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie. *PEOPLE Magazine Best Book of Fall 2016 *New York Times Bestseller *

When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.