welcome to the inside of my writer brain

hi friends! i’m mich and here you’ll find a plethora of info dumps about how i feel about the books i’ve read. i’m not a credible book critic nor do i have any professional experience reviewing books but i’m here to do it anyway :) just for fun! feel free to interact and add on if i review a book you’ve liked/read! :)

[michyreadsthenwrites]

The Folk of the Air Trilogy (The Cruel Prince/The Wicked King/The Queen of Nothing) by Holly Black

Hi friends! Instead of writing a post for each individual book of this trilogy, I figured it would be better if I just reviewed it all in one go. So, without any further dilly-dallying, let’s go! (As always, spoilers aheaddddd) 

Friends, I LOVED this series. This was my first real dive into fantasy, and I could not have chosen a better trilogy to start with. I was sucked into buying The Cruel Prince by Book Tiktok, especially because of the enemies-to-lovers trope that the book came with. While reading, it became apparent that said trope was a sub-plot of the book, as all the romance in it was as well. The main plot of the book had been about Court politics and a young mortal woman proving herself to Faerie men and women who not only viewed her as inferior because of her mortality, as well as their belief that she would never be good enough to find a place in their kingdom, in their world. Boy, did she prove them wrong. 

The main plot put aside, the romance in this book was absolutely incredible. It was very slow-burn, which I normally would be put off of, but something about Jude and Cardan just kept pulling me in. Thank you, Holly Black, for your incredible writing and world-building. I don’t want to get into too much detail, because the books speak for themselves. Immerse yourselves in this series, friends. I promise it’s worth it. 

[michyreadsthenwrites]

The Maidens - Let Me Give You My Thoughts On This

**as always, spoilers ahead**

Hello, friends, welcome back to another chapter of my unsolicited thoughts and reviews on books I’ve read. Tonight’s review is on Alex Michaelides’ sophomore novel, The Maidens. This book came out on June 15th of this year, and was definitely highly anticipated by fans of Michaelides, especially those who had read his first novel, The Silent Patient. I know I was (somewhat patiently) waiting for this release, and I was delighted when I finally got my hands on it. I loved The Silent Patient and it’s shocking, twist ending. Michaelides has a knack for shocking twists that you never see coming, which I’m a huge fan of. I feel like there’s a specific way to deliver a shocking twist without making your audience feel like they’ve been tricked or making them feel stupid, and Michaelides is definitely a master of his craft. Moving on!

Friends, I’ll admit I had pretty high expectations for this book when I started reading it. The Silent Patient had blown me away, and I was ready for The Maidens to do the same. And while this book was good, genuinely good, it didn’t have that same wow-factor, that same punch in the gut that Michaelides’ first novel did. So, I had high hopes for this book, and while Michaelides definitely delivered, I did feel like it was lacking in some parts (although I am not qualified enough to exactly put my finger on what). But the plot was very compelling, and I found myself doubting both mine and the main character’s desperate belief that Professor Fosca was guilty. Unlike in The Silent Patient, Michaelides dropped subtle clues and foreshadowing details that alluded to the twist ending, but not so much that it became boring and predictable. In fact, it made me feel like a brilliant reader for guessing what could possibly have been the ending (don’t worry, I won’t spoil). That’s the best kind of ending, and the best kind of twist as well. Although I had a feeling I knew what the ending would be, or at least part of it, Michaelides put his signature twist on a few of the details and left me gasping in shock when I finally reached the ending. 

I really enjoyed this book, friends. I liked the brief allusion to the plot of The Silent Patient that was sprinkled in there; it was like an inside joke between the reader and the author. I’ll keep this conclusion short, friends; I really liked this book, and I think that other’s will, too. As always, happy readings! 

[michyreadsthenwrites]

Plain Bad Heroines - Let Me Give You My Thoughts On This (Character Analysis)

**major maaaaajor spoilers ahead**

(Here we begin with the handful of characters from Danforth’s sophomore novel that have found their way into my heart and apparently, this Word document. It didn’t hurt that they were all women that love women. And I mean, they really loved women.)

 ·   Merritt Emmons is easily my favorite character. She’s got that dry, sarcastic humor and air around her that makes it really easy to love her and hate her guts all at the same time. (If she were here, she’d tell us that this was a talent, not a flaw.) I felt personally affronted when characters in PBH didn’t like Merritt, like they were overlooking the diamond in the rough right in front of their faces. Then, like most things, it became pretty clear: Merritt Emmons could be one hell of a bitch at times. But it really only made me love her more. I realized that I identified with her. Yes, about being a queer woman that really fucking loves other women, but also because she was a writer that wanted her writing to stay true to how she wrote it, especially with so many people traipsing all over it and trying to make it into something it’s not. That was where I realized I loved her early on; when she pitched a genuine fit over who was to play Clara Broward. It was something so petty and childish, something so very me to throw a fit in a packed room of professionals when you have no idea about that kind of world and what it demands. But she fought for what she believed in, alright. Until she didn’t. This made me love her some more, incidentally. We got to see Merritt’s character development throughout the novel, and more specifically, we got to watch her bounce back and forth between the person she was too scared to be but wanted more than she could ever admit, and the person she spent twenty long years being; the person she was oh-so-tired of introducing to people. This constant shift between new-Merritt and old, crabby, prickly-Merritt was a very raw and vulnerable thing for us to experience as an audience. Merritt was certainly a lot more refreshing than every one of the overdone-Hollywood-types we became acquainted with within the book. She was mean and arrogant and wildly insecure, yet somehow confident and sure of herself, when it came to her work or her knowledge or anything that had to do with any book written, ever. A walking paradox, that one. Merritt was a good way to remember that real people, not built-and-put-together-by-Hollywood-people don’t always have their shit together, and they can’t always get it together by the end of a novel, albeit a long, six-hundred-page one. I think I’ll cut myself off here, friends. Not that I want to, but I feel we have a lot to get to in these pages, and Merritt Emmons can’t be the star of all of them (lord knows I’d let her, though). To sum it up: Merritt Emmons was the star of this book, for me at least. And I hope for you too. (This means go get your ass over to your closest B&N and buy the damn thing).

  ·   Harper Harper is somewhat of a mystery to me. She was a major character in the story, as well as one of our three protagonists, our three heroines, and yet I have trouble finding her as authentic and outlandish as she tries to come across. What I’m still having trouble deciphering is if this is an intentional character flaw created by our Miss Danforth, or if Harper Harper really has nothing to her besides being completely reinvented and marketed by Hollywood. Even in saying this, I know I have to give Harper credit where it’s due. She’s a proud queer woman in the movie industry, as well as openly queer online and really with just anyone and everyone she meets. She’s known for various flings and love-interests of the week, which is still a gross misrepresentation and stereotype of (masc?) lesbians and how they’re emotionally unavailable and unfaithful, which again is a possibility of the author’s intentional writing, something that we can leave for further discussion. We do get a bit of a glimpse into Harper’s life – her real-life – about how her mother is struggling with her sobriety, how her little brother seems to be caught in the middle of her mother’s messy relationships, and how she really has mixed feelings about how she fits into her new movie-star life. That’s about all we get from Harper, though. And it really is almost enough realness to take away from the fact that everyone else in the world sees Harper as the face of Hollywood, as this thing of beauty and money and badassery instead of a real person. But still not enough. And I could be wrong, friends. I could be pulling all of this out of my ass because Harper Harper is a badass queer woman that took over the movie industry with barely any experience under her belt. Harper Harper took every room she walked into by storm, and she made everybody pay attention to her, and she became the character we had a little crush on, simply because she was that big of a deal. But nothing of substance, not really. Not ever. But perhaps she had been her most real self with Merritt Emmons, in between the quiet pages that we didn’t get to read entirely. Merritt, our dry and arrogant and favorite heroine, had been Harper’s favorite, too. The most credit that I find myself giving Harper is her aid in Merritt’s character development. She brought Merritt out of her shell in a massive way, though at times she did have a hand in driving her back into the said shell. It was flawed, their relationship, which is another authentic Harper Harper insight we saw, as little of it there was. They were hot and cold, on and off, but always so enthralled with each other. And while Harper seemed to have had an impact on Merritt (among other factors), it doesn’t seem like Merritt had the same effect on Harper. I could be wrong and do feel free to correct me, friends, but Harper Harper did not come out the other end of PBH a changed woman. She was not burdened with the weight of a life-changing revelation. She was Harper Harper, as she always was, floating and untouchable, the kind of woman you wished to know, maybe to be, but also the kind you see right through. They’re transparent, friends, that’s what I’m trying to get at here. And they tend to stay that way. And I realize as I’m nearing the end of this, that I sound harsh in my critiques and analysis of Harper. I don’t mean to come off that way, friends, I really don’t. The truth is I love Harper, she’s everything we wish we could be. She’s gorgeous and sought after, can land any girl she wants with the bat of her eyelashes and a lazy smile. But you have to remember, she’s everything we’re not. I can only speak for myself, friends, and I encourage you to speak for yourselves if you find you have anything to add. I never related with Harper the way I did with Merritt’s character, but that doesn’t mean that Harper isn’t a beautiful enigma waiting to be unwrapped. I just don’t happen to be the kind of reader that would know where to begin unwrapping her, if that makes sense. And because I’m afraid it doesn’t, I do believe it’s time to stop with the metaphors and wrap this up nicely for you, friends: Harper Harper is number two on my list of favorite characters from PBH, and that is not something done lightly or by accident. She was one of our three heroines, after all. And a proper heroine she was, friends. Don’t you ever forget it.

  ·   Libbie Packard broke my heart more times than I count, friends. You’ll notice I have kept her maiden name, then. This is intentional, friends, for our Libbie never wanted to be a Brookhants, not really. It wasn’t towards the end of PBH that we learned much of what we now know about Libbie, and how it came about that she had been married (to a man no less!), as well as the very young principal of an all-girls school. Throughout their chapters in the book, Libbie and Alex, her Alex, were seemingly at each other’s throats constantly. There seemed to be a mysterious tension that we as an audience weren’t privy to – but it didn’t stop us from speculating. I found myself drawn to Libbie more than I did her counterpart, and I still can’t point my finger as to why. Libbie seemed sad, right from our first introduction, and Alex always seemed angry and cynical (as a queer woman in 1902, is there any other way to seem?). This might serve as a dual character analysis yet, friends. I’m not sure how much I’ll have to say about our Alexandra Trills, but Libbie Packard deserves a long sentence, or two. You know when something finally clicks into place and you can’t help but just let out a long “ooohhhhhhh”? That’s a recreation of how I looked when I read the explanation of how Libbie Packard became Libbie Brookhants. Learning that she had become pregnant with a baby she didn’t want was mind-blowing enough, and it filled in the blanks of how young, gorgeous Libbie had become the wife of a rich, old, old man. Libbie gave up her child was because she didn’t want to be a mother, and she had originally rejected Harold Brookhants offer of marriage because she didn’t want to be a wife, regardless of false the marriage was. And for a while, Libbie’s new life was amazing; she got to live with her Alex in a beautiful house and became the principal of a promising school. This was the life she’d always wanted. Or was that just what we wanted to believe, friends? Only at the end did we learn that Libbie had rejected Harold Brookhants offer (to live a quiet, queer life with her lover and without the child she clearly didn’t want) because she didn’t want to be tied down; not to Harold, not to anyone. If you think about it, friends, this was exactly the life that she had been living for years to come now. The tension with Alex had much to do with the circumstances surrounding them at Brookhants and the evil that was unfolding before them, but it seemingly had even more to do with the fact that Libbie Packard felt smothered. She was hiding secrets from Alex, secrets that she felt could destroy this already fragile relationship that they had between them. How vastly different it was to read and experience their relationship at the beginning of their love; playful and full of joy, both women giddy with the promise of something new and exciting. To compare that kind of love to the broken, tight-lipped, empty vessel of the relationship they now pretend to have is heartbreaking. And yet, completely understandable. Alex had fallen in love with the Libbie she wanted her to be, not the Libbie she was. Our Libbie wanted to be eternally young; playful and happy, bouncing from city to city with Sara Dahlgren in a sea of eligible bachelors (and bachelorettes!). It was almost a shock to discover that this life Libbie tried so hard to defend and protect was not a life she had ever wanted for herself. Despite this, she loved her Alex and her students, and devoted her life to them. There was that whole business with cheating on Alex with Adelaide the housemaid (don’t even get me started on that broad) but I’d like to extend to you, friends, the fact that I won’t comment on this. Queer relationships in 1902 are definitely not what they are now, complete with century-old curses and dead schoolgirls. Libbie Packard became the 1902-lesbian-headmistress version of our stereotypical bored housewife, stuck in a marriage that she secretly wishes she could be free from. And my heart broke for her, friends, it really did. But she was a heroine all on her own. A deeply intelligent and remarkable woman. Make no mistake, friends. Libbie Packard and Libbie Brookhants differ by more than just a surname. Our young, vivacious Libbie disappeared the moment she accepted Harold Brookhants’ offer, and this is indeed the sad truth of it, friends: Libbie Packard was gone before she could ever find herself. But Libbie Brookhants was our gorgeous, brilliant, queer heroine that never got what she deserved. So, friends, let’s all have a moment of silence for our dearly departed Libbie Brookhants… wherever she is.

·   Alexandra Trills is a character that I don’t know where to begin with. Her end is not one that I saw coming, at least not in the gruesome and deranged circumstances that came to surround it. Or maybe, friends, I just didn’t want to acknowledge the clear downwards spiral that our Miss Trills had seemed to be heading towards. Her steadfast and growing obsession with the death of Florence Hartshorn and Clara Broward was apparent in every page we turned, and the following death of Eleanor Faderman did not aid in absolving Alex of her obsession with the one, single copy of a book they had all possessed at one point: The Story of Mary McLane. Alex grew hysterical in her investigation of the novel and whatever evil she believed it had brought to the students of her school. I remember feeling a bit hysterical myself at times, following along with Alex’s scrambled train of thought that never seemed to find a place to stop. She was right, you know, my friends. And now what does she have to show for it? A gruesome death and an eternity of haunting the same grounds, day in and day out? I may not have liked her, and felt like she had been the reason Libbie was so unhappy and stuck in a life that she did not want, but the way Alex’s story had ended really did take me by surprise and break my heart. She deserved a better ending than what she got; she deserved to reconcile and fix her strained relationship with Libbie. Damn it, they deserved to live quiet, happy lives with each other. Neither of them got the endings that they deserved, and God, did they deserve plenty. This, friends, is the hill I choose to die on tonight.

 Alright, friends, this is it for my character analysis of Emily Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines! I have a special place in my heart for book characters that you can relate with (or characters that just really make you love them). The way that Emily Danforth brought our heroines to life was remarkable and highly impressive (I say this because it’s decidedly been a while since any book character(s) have weaseled their fictional way into my little heart). It’s rare that I give a book five stars (check out my Goodreads reviews) (oh god, please don’t), and yet halfway through PBH, I knew that this book deserved it. Good book characters are the ones that stick with you long after you’ve closed the book on them, and our heroines are stuck with me. And believe me, friends, I’m certainly not complaining. 

[michyreadsthenwrites]

Plain Bad Heroines - Let Me Give You My Thoughts On This

**minor spoilers ahead**

Testing, testing… that’s not a thing anymore, is it? 

Hi, friends, and welcome to the first chapter/episode/whatever this is of this brand new ‘thing’ I’m doing on my brand-new Tumblr called ‘Let Me Give You My Thoughts on This’. It’s perfectly blunt and to the point – let me tell you what I thought about this shit. It’s not shit, of course, friends, but you know what I mean. Or you’ll learn soon enough. 

And now since this introduction has been (God)awfully long enough, here’s what I thought about Emily Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines. 

I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m never generous with good reviews or giving five stars to anything I’ve read. Despite having absolutely no real expertise in reviewing books professionally, I know what I like in a book and I know what makes my little writer’s heart sing, both with appreciation and envy (I mean seriously, why can’t I write like that?). Now, having gotten that out of the way, I’ll say this: Plain Bad Heroines gets a goddamn five out of five stars from me. 

I have never read anything like this book before. I’ll admit it took my brain a few chapters to understand what was going on, the constant back-and-forth shift between timelines and perspectives. Once I got the hang of it, I couldn’t get enough. I think it took me three or four days in total to finish this 600-page beast, and that’s only because sleep and showers are a thing. I just couldn’t put it down. Danforth created a compelling storyline, then wove ten more storylines in between, finishing nicely with every one of them wrapped up in a neat, queer little bow. And if the compelling and intricate plot wasn’t enough, Danforth went ahead and gave us some of the best and easy-to-love characters that I have ever encountered in a book. I found myself rooting for fictional characters that seemed more real than they should have; but after all, isn’t that the magic of good writing? I felt Merritt’s butterflies in my own stomach on her date with Harper, and I experienced Libbie’s grief and heartbreak when her Alex died. I felt all the angst and tension, all the fear and misery, felt every emotion that each of Danforth’s characters felt because it was all so well written, so raw and emotional. Yes, friends, I do realize that I’m a bit of a broken record about this. But it’s rare to find a book that not only has a good, even great, plot, as well as characters that you can’t help but love – and even better, characters you can relate to. 

I don’t usually seek out books that fall under the LGBTQ+ criteria, mainly because I’m always drawn to horror or thrillers. I hadn’t known that this book was chock-full of queer women, and when I found out I felt the love for this book grow ten times in size. This was a book about queer women, written by a queer woman, and it made my lady-loving heart so happy. And if any of you are wlw, friends, I would sprint to get this book. Maybe even a light jog. 

Let me know if I’m crazy, friends, but I judge how much I loved a book based on the ‘book hangover’ I get after I’m done reading it. You know, that little ache in your heart because it’s over, or because the ending broke your heart or any other reason in between? No? Just me? Well, I’m sticking to my guns on that one. Book hangovers are real, and while this one wasn’t horrible (read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller if you want a heartbreaker), I was still sad it was over. I could have easily read six hundred more pages of this beautiful world that Danforth had created, and it saddened me to turn that final page to the end. But it was such a good end, friends, and I think that’s what matters most. There were no dull moments – a real page-turner if I’ve ever read one. Fantastic and thrilling from the beginning, middle, to end. 

Well, friends. That’s as much as I’m willing to say without spoiling this masterpiece to you (if anyone of you has bothered to read this far). I say get this book and run (do not walk) to your nearest bookstore. I swear you won’t regret it. Hopefully, I’ve convinced you, but I have a feeling this review was more for me than it was for you. After all, we all need a place to word-vomit somewhere, right?