The Review Marina

Marina. Americanized Russian. Book Dragon. Taco Addict. I am a conscientious reader and reviewer. I will criticize books I read, pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. Known to get salty.

[bookphile]

Welcome to Bookphile’s Blog!

Hello! My name’s Marina aka Bookphile or also sometimes known as The Review Marina elsewhere. I’ve gotten a lot of new followers lately and I wanted to introduce myself to you. I’m not always posting, but I do check in once in awhile to at least scroll through my dash. Though an influx of followers has prompted me to post more often! 

I post only about books here, or try to, occasionally I do post about current issues or world news. Mostly because this is specially a book blog and I’d like to keep it this way - I have not very active side blogs for other interests. 

Some of my favorite books include: 

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden 

Deathless by Catherine M. Valente

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

The Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

The Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett 

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Under the Painted Skies by Stacey Lee 

Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness

There are many more, but please refer to the following for more:

Favorite Authors (meaning I’ll read anything they print or their backlog):

Kate Quinn, N.K Jemisin, Stacey Lee, Terry Pratchett, Martha Wells, Emily Henry, Marie Lu, Seanan McGuirre, Silvia Mareno-Garcia, Ruta Sepetus, Madelline Miller, Lindsey Miller... and many more! 

Authors I avoid for various reasons: SJM, Jay Krisstoff, JKR, Rainbow Rowell, C. Clare. 

Feel free to send me messages or reply to my posts. I don’t mind, but it might take me awhile to respond because I’m easily distracted. I can also be reached on my twitter, dumping hot takes into the void: @thereviewmarina.

[stivaktis]

An oldie, but a favourite.

Happy Glorious 25th of May.

[bookphile]

I've been... going through one mini-crisis after another in the last three years, and my depression has been present through it all, often making things... much worse. One of the biggest things that has happened is that I stopped reading. I'll pick up a book, read a little, abandon, or else it takes me awhile to finish it. So far this year I'd read 2 books. A personal low. However, one interesting side affect of that is that I'm able to de-clutter my books and more specifically my TBR a lot easier. Not easy -- mind you, just easier. I've run out of space, and yes there's is such a thing as too many books when instead of making you feel good, the piles give you anxiety. The TBR specifically tends to be anxiety inducing because they just sit there, waiting. I also don't have the time or the patience to sell them one by one, so I'd taken them to a local used book store, and then used the credit to buy books I'd definitely interested in (famous last words).

[kettle-bird]

As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

Little cover design doodle from like a week ago that I never posted :') more to come. Maybe. Eventually. We'll see.

[bookphile]

not me just discovering that Patrick Ness started a new series continuation of the Chaos Walking trilogy, first book published a month ago.

[softbutchcowboi]

I think the key to a happy life as an adult woman is to channel your inner weird little girl and make her happy

[the-bookshop]

Source.

[calmdowngorgeous]

Destroy the myth that libraries are no longer relevant. If you use your library, please reblog.

[reave-and-rowdy]

I get more books than I can possibly read many many times a month I have a problem

[helenvaughans]

[itsmistybitch-deactivated202605]

These posts are sisters

[bookphile]

not to be boomer on main, but why does every book have ten special editions these days? Special editions used to be rare... which is what made them special, now every other book -- especially from a popular or anticipated author, gets a special edition from the first printing. But at least first printing I get, but why does six of crows get a new special edition every year? also now that hardcovers are over 30 dolhairs, special editions that just have foiled pages and art on the inside cover and cost 50 dollars seem especially insulting

[sauzzart]

“The beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite”

[johntherobotwanderer]

Discworld book where the auditors hear about the phrase "it's not over till the fat lady sings" and hire someone to kidnap all the fat ladies in the world to find the One who will end the world when she sings.

Lady Sybil Vimes is one of the ladies, so Sam Vimes is on the warpath until he can find her, while the watch desperately try to keep all infrastructure from falling apart without all the fat ladies who keep it together on a daily basis

It ends when Sybil leads a hoard of fat ladies into battle, which ends up being so glorious an unrelated time traveler who witnesses it goes back to his native time starts the myth of the Valkyries

[limpurtikles]

Sorry @mypunkpansexualtwin but you ain't leaving this one in the tags boss

[versenkt]

nothing feels as good as starting to read again when you haven't held a book in your hand for such a long time and now the setting sun is in your room and there's paper under your fingers and you feel so good about letting the words float into you again

[fangirlsovertoomanythings]

The way that most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880’s, compels me.

[gardnerhill]

There’s a whole subset of Sherlock Holmes stories that could be labeled Asshole Guys Try to Control Women’s Money.

[three--rings]

Yup, there’s a huge number of times where Sherlock Holmes is the ONLY person to take a young woman’s complaint or worry seriously and finds out someone is up to some serious evil.  Holmes also shows a lot of compassion and empathy with the victims over and over again.  (This is why I find “Secretly a woman” or “Trans” Holmes headcanons much more convincing than “sociopath” Holmes.)

[waterhobbit]

I am never going to shut up about how much I specifically love The Adventure of The Copper Beeches because it is literally Sherlock Holmes listening to a young lady he does not know except as a potential client, agreeing with her that a potential job she has interviewed for that she thinks is SUPER SKETCHY is, indeed, sketchy as fuck and when she says she’s probably gonna take the job anyways because the money is good and she needs it going “OKAY I GUESS but for the love of god please write to us so we know you’re okay we will literally drop everything and jump on a train if you want us to”.

The job turns out to indeed be sketchy as fuck, she writes to them, Holmes and Watson drop everything and jump on a train when she asks them to. I read this story for the first time when I was twelve and it made a HUGE impression.

[three--rings]

This is also the basis for a lot of speculation about Holmes’ family life.  The idea that he has been a victim of abuse, or his mother was abused (or even murdered by his father.)  There’s definitely SOMETHING that makes him very aware of how dangerous isolated families can be, and the dark things that can happen behind closed doors.  Plus, of course, the motivation to devote himself to stopping crime.  And yes, so much of it is of the personal type. 

[volkswagonblues]

dude see this is one aspect of the original books i NEVER understand why modern remakes (cough cough) don’t go all in on. Like, in the 21th c we HAVE all the dumb forensic shit that made Victorian Holmes stand out, but we STILL DON’T HAVE uh….you know, compassion for women and minorities, or the willingness to believe them, adequate community support for domestic violence or hate crimes, etc. etc. which you’d think is exactly where a renegade consulting detective would come in handy. A good modern day Sherlock Holmes remake, instead of trying to convince us that Holmes is some super genius for being better than fingerprint analysis or whatever, could have him just be…a good person who helps out people the police can’t and won’t help. There you go. That’s how to write a relevant modern Holmes.

[fahbee]

One thing that annoys me is how much the BBC version of Sherlock (and the fandom around it) focus on police cases or cold cases.  In the stories, Holmes’ bread and butter cases had fuck-all to do with the police and in a few stories, he actively works around/against them, or outright lies to them.  Of the many, many things I wish that show had done differently, this is one is particularly obnoxious since it’s such a gimme.

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

There were very few actual murder cases in the Canon, and Holmes handled them either one of two ways:

Option one: The murder victim was innocent while the killer was an abusive bastard, see Speckled Band. Conclusion, arrest and have the killer charged (Or in the case of Speckled Band, indirectly murder him yourself then shrug and go home)

Option two: The victim was murdered to protect someone that the victim was abusing, or for vengeance, see Boscombe Valley, Devil’s Foot, Abbey Grange. Conclusion, Oops, I don’t know who the killer is, I am suddenly incompetent, oh look a pheasant.

[faejilly]

#my favorite murder in holmes canon#is when they straight up witness a lady murder her blackmailer#do nothing except destroy his other blackmail material#and then straight up lie to lestrade about it#sherlock holmes#more of this in modern adaptations pls (via @cactusspatz )

[muffinworry]

Let’s not forget the time Holmes helps a young woman who’s being catfished by her own stepfather to steal her inheritance, and when the villain sneers that the law can’t touch him, Holmes grabs a horsewhip out of sheerest chivalry.

[smokingtigerhiddengun]

So, the most canon-accurate iteration of Sherlock Holmes in the last few decades is actually Benoit Blanc….

[bookphile]

x book butts x

[sarahluann]

Growing up Mormon AND with long hair that I didn’t cut because of pressure from my mom, to me the metaphor here is pretty obvious… you can read it how you want though.

[redlipstickresurrected]

Hosio Hirotta aka ニコ (Nico) aka Hirotta Hosio (Japanese, based Tama, Tokyo, Japan) - 知りたいんだ。 (I want to know), 2025, Drawings: Pen + Ink