Rat's Rants

book rants from a very totally verified and official rat

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This is a rant about The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. Mild spoilers ahead

God, I love this series sooooo much. I think everyone should experience it, because it is an experience. The language is just so delicious, it's thick and beautiful and god, I just love it so much. I can't properly express how much I love this series and the characters and the relationships. It just feels like me written down, my soul taken physical form. It's such a good series.

Edit: This book (the dream thieves specifically) makes me feel like I've swallowed fire. It's terrible and beautiful and horrible and it's all I've ever needed.

[rat-rants-official]

This is a rant about Ted Bundy: Conversations With A Killer: The Death Row Interviews by Hugh Aynesworth and Stephen G. Michaud. Warnings for discussion of serial killers and other related topics

This book was honestly really good, if a little slow to read. I really like more grounded recounts of crimes and criminals because they're often more truthful than the sensationalized versions told for entertainment. Some parts of this book, which was a transcript of interviews with Bundy, actually made me feel bad for him and like maybe he shouldn't be punished so harshly. It's crazy how, despite how much the media wants to make these people out to be madmen or monsters, they're also people, with feelings like everyone else. If someone had gone differently, you or I could have turned out just like them. This book really made me appreciate how much in common serial killers have with the general public. Bundy did lots of horrible things, but he certainly is very well spoken and he might even have some interesting points. I think too many people dismiss these kinds of people as crazy and stop listening to anything they have to say.

[rat-rants-official]

This is a general rant but includes talk of Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao and Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White. Mild spoilers ahead

I think there needs to be more depictions of some of the less accepted/more "demonized" sexualities and identities, specifically polyamorous relationships and aromantic characters. One of the only books I've read with an aromantic (and not aroace) character is Compound Fracture and I think he's written really well. Miles isn't portrayed as a "slut" or just looking to get laid or heartless despite being aromantic but not asexual, and I think that kind of depiction and representation is really important. I've read quite a few books with asexual or aroace characters but almost none with just aromantic ones. Another rare representation is polyamorous relationships and I think there should be more. My favourite example is Iron Widow due to how, despite not exactly having words for their relationship or explicitly saying "polyamorous", it shows how polyam isn't very different from a monogamous relationship and talks about how the love of one person doesn't limit the love available for another. It even says that the triangle is the strongest shape, saying their unconventional relationship just makes them stronger. It's very sweet and I wish there was more representation like that.

[rat-rants-official]

This is a rant about Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. Spoilers ahead

I love the relationships in Iron Widow because it's not like most books with a strong female character because typically, the female character swoons and acts weak around the love interest because he's usually meant to be a strong intimidating man and can't have his woman be stronger and more dominant than him. But this book doesn't do that. The male love interests don't infantilize Zetian for her trauma, or act like she needs taking care of. They actually respect her as an independent, very capable individual who doesn't need a man to protect her. I think part of this, especially on Li Shimin's part, is because he knows what it's like to be controlled, forced to do something he doesn't want to, and feel trapped. Though it's not the exact same as Zetian, he can empathize and doesn't want to make her feel the same way he feels so often. And Yizhi has always held respect for her, I feel, or else he wouldn't have let her study his notes in school when they first met and became friends. I just like seeing a strong female character who doesn't bow down and simper for the male love interests, and is in fact a little bit the other way around.

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This is a rant about The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo. Mild spoilers ahead.

God, I love Stevie so much, he's so beautiful and masculine even when he doesn't think he is. In one scene, he goes to church and storms out when the preacher indirectly, but very obviously, says that trans people and outsiders and stuff are evil or whatever (I don't exactly remember what happened). But he storms out and Leslie follows and finds him leaning against the church outside, smoking. It says he has his skirt tucked between his legs sort of to look like pants and he's smoking a cigarette and I can just imagine how beautiful he looks in that moment. Like, I know he'd probably look fairly feminine but it feels so obvious that he's a man and he feels so masculine. I love how some people just wear skirts so masculine, it's so beautiful.

[rat-rants-official]

This post is about The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo. Spoilers ahead.

The way this book handles gender is very interesting. The main character, Leslie, is a trans man but since this takes place in 1929, the language hasn't evolved to what it is today so he calls himself an invert, a woman turned man. One of the people he meets in this small town is another trans man, Stevie. However, Stevie sees himself as more of a man who's just in a different body, instead of as having ever been a woman. They're both the same from an outside view but feel very differently and probably have a different view of their own bodies and identities, which might have been influenced by their pasts and experiences, since one is older and from the city while the other is barely eighteen and has only ever lived in his small, extremely religious town. I think it gives a unique perspective to the different aspects and experiences of the trans community that might not be talked about as much. I highly recommend this book.

[rat-rants-official]

This post is about A Grim And Sunken Vow by Ashley Shuttleworth. Spoilers ahead

I love this series but the foreshadowing is so obvious it's almost funny. Part of it is because this is my second time reading the series so there's all these descriptions that I'm just like "yeah, I know why this is happening/being described like this/why they're like this". But there're also parts where you, the reader, know what something is but the character doesn't because it said it from a different character's perspective. Such as in this book, there's a temple that Aurelian and another faerie are patrolling that no one remembers who the temple was for, but there's a statue in it that has vivid green eyes. In the previous flashback to Lethe's past, it said his father was building a statue and temple for him that had vivid green eyes, making you immediately know who that temple was for. As well, it describes the Madam as moving like there's a larger weight to her than what it appears, which I know is because she's secretly a dragon, because dragons can shape shift. Then when you learn that Theodore is related to her, it's not exactly a surprise to find out he can turn into a dragon, which he does eventually. It's just very funny how obvious all the foreshadowing in these books are.