abbie_'s Reviews (1.79k)

I’ve been terrible at slogging through books I’m not really enjoying in 2024, and I’ve decided this stops now. 

I thought I’d love this story focusing on two Mexican-American brothers in the 1970s, touching on queerness, abusive parents and AIDs, but it’s simply not working for me. The narrator of the first part has some bizarre voices for the boys that are also off-putting. Very bleak and just not holding my attention or making me want to reach for my audiobook. :-(

I’m not 100% sure what the point of this little novella was, but I do know that I devoured it. It’s one of those little slice of life stories, and the writing and translation were both excellent. So smooth, saying a lot while keeping it simple. If I hadn’t read it via Scribd/Everand (using a random number generator to pick my reads from there atm), I might have been mad at buying it full price, as there’s just not a lot of substance. Quiet, unassuming, beautifully written, but not a memorable read. 

If you’re looking for something quick and easy which centres a chaotic mother-daughter relationship, with a hefty dose of millennial humour, then consider Emma Jane Unsworth’s Grown Ups.

Jenny is a writer who lives most of her life online, obsessively curating Instagram captions and rationing out her likes so that she doesn’t come across the wrong way. She’s infatuated with lifestyle influencers, and of course unsatisfied with her own life in comparison. Everything goes even more to hell when she’s let go from her job and her mam rocks up to live with her. 

Unsworth includes things like texts and emails within the story, which I do always enjoy. Unfortunately I found Jenny a little too off-putting and selfish and the humour just too cringey at times. I preferred it when the book ventured into more serious places, though it didn’t happen too often.

Just a bit superficial, and lord knows how Jenny has any friends left.

I’m absolutely blasting through audiobooks at the moment as I tackle my garden, and this one kept me hooked through many hours of interminable weeding. The blurb calls it ‘part psychological thriller’, which is frankly a bit extreme, but it does have (at least in the first two thirds) that same pacy-ness of a thriller which keeps you wanting to read more.

Sarah Viren has had the misfortune of crossing paths with two men whose definition of the word ‘truth’ doesn’t align with most other people’s. She came up with the concept of this book after the 2016 US election, when words like post-truth and fake news filtered into people’s everyday vocabulary. This new era awakened memories of a high school teacher Viren had who would use conspiracy theories as teaching materials but who, after converting to Catholicism, seemed to unnervingly believe these theories himself. His lessons swayed some students to believe in some huge and damaging lies, including holocaust denialism. 

But midway through writing THAT book, something happened that disrupted Viren and her wife’s world. Her wife was falsely accused of sexual misconduct by several students. As Viren and her family grapple with that, her book shape-shifts along with her reality. There were some really fascinating insights into the ins and outs of writing memoir, of interrogating memory and our own truths. 

I admit that some of the later parts lost me a bit. Viren is a bit of a philosopher, and she begins to imagine conversations between the two lying men in her life and classic philosophers. A lot of that went over my head. I also think that sometimes the book had to work a little too hard to be cohesive. But I think even Viren was aware of that, given the book’s subtitle: ‘a memoir in two stories’.

Overall, a very compelling memoir which explores truth, memory and the dangers of conspiracy theories.

thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!
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Pitched as ‘a story of girl meets printer’, I think Hard Copy might end up suffering from heightened expectations. I think that tagline suggests a more a salacious vibe than what you get, which is more a hybrid of Convenience Store Woman and We Are Light. Contemporary Dutch novelists seem to enjoy narrating from the POVs of inanimate objects, and I’m here for it frankly.

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The main character of this book is working a tedious office job - her main duty is printing documents nobody reads - and she finds solace in talking to the printer she shares her tiny room with. When she is forced to go on leave after a colleague sets her up, her already-intense anxiety spirals and she struggles to cope without her inanimate pal. To be fair, he also seems lost without her - we get to hear from him in the middle of the book and that was probably my favourite part!

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I wasn’t entirely sold on the secret that’s revealed slowly about the protagonist’s past throughout the book. I’m not someone who needs a massive amount of resolution, but it seemed too flimsily tied to the present narrative.

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Overall a decent workplace novel with the critiques of capitalism you’d want from a novel with a corporate setting. It was funny, oddly heartwarming at times, and just a little bit different. Perhaps just a tad underdeveloped for me!

Rollicking, sensual, blood-thirsty, wry, self-aware, this book is quite unlike anything I’ve read before - although it did bring to mind Vagabonds! which I read last month, in its gloriously unapologetic queerness. No One Dies Yet is a difficult read, but rewarding. I wouldn’t recommend trying to read it on a sun lounger while surrounded by distractions - it demands focus from the reader, unrelenting in its pace and stopping to hold no one’s hand.

Told via two main perspectives, Kobby (named after the author and also a bookstagrammer - it gets meta and I was there for it) and Nana, the main thrust of the book is the two characters navigating Ghana’s Year of Return, and the group of queer Black Americans who hire their services. The group spend their days trying to experience Ghanaian culture, while venturing into Ghana’s underground queer scene at night, thanks to Kobby and his connections.

Author Kobby packs so much into this book - colonialism both past and present, white saviourism, slavery, queerness and homophobia, tourism, religion, and more. It was extremely interesting to consider Kobby’s position - dealing with hostility towards his queerness from his compatriots, while juggling the sense of entitlement the group of Americans bring. Add to that some bodies piling up and you’ve got yourself a wild ride of a read. 

Sometimes I was completely lost, but I’d recommend just pushing on through because the bigger picture does become clear. You’re left feeling a little dazed, a little confused, but definitely in awe of what Kobby Ben Ben has pulled off in terms of a debut novel. 

My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC!

Previous to 2024 I had read zero manga, but this year I’ve branched out and now read a grand total of 2, both of which focus on queer young people exploring their sexualities - love to see it! Unlike My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Is Love the Answer? is a fictional manga, although the author does mention afterwards that she’s going through something similar to Chika herself.

I liked the art a lot more than MLEWL - beautifully detailed, and then very occasional lapses into simpler drawings where an amusing expression was more noticeable. I particularly loved Chika’s asexual professor’s character - just the way she was drawn made her seem like such a wise, comforting, older queer presence. Plus, her queer platonic marriage?? Incredible, I wanted more of that.

My reaction to this book is similar to seemingly a lot of other reviewers - it’s sweet, but a little basic. It’d be a lovely intro to asexuality for someone getting to grips with the identity, or parents or teachers looking to learn more, but it doesn’t really delve into the nitty gritty and I didn’t feel like we trulyyyy got to know Chika or any of the other characters intimately. Like Ume - I literally couldn’t tell you if he’s a student or professor, and the bond that forms between him and Chika feels rushed.

Despite those criticisms, it is still a lovely piece of work, and I’m always happy to see more asexual stories being told in a world that’s so virulently sexualised. 

I’ve had this book in my Libro.fm library for nearly 4 years, one of the first ALCs I ever downloaded when I joined the programme. So it felt immensely satisfying to finally check it off my to-read list when its number came up in audiobook roulette! I can’t say it was a new favourite, but it was certainly a unique and addictive read. I was surprised at how easy it was to keep up with the time-leap concept via audio, but the chapters are kept super clear and structured. 

It’s such a unique concept - at the stroke of midnight on 1st January 1983, Oona’s 19th birthday, she leaps forward into 2014, waking up as a 19 year old in a 51 one year old’s body, and no recollection of a life she’s supposedly lived for 32 years. From then, she continues to live her life out of order, jumping between years, while remaining 20, then 21, then 22 etc in her mind. It’s not explained, and the more I think about the logistics, the more my brain hurts. But Margarita Montimore handles the complex idea with a nice levity. It’s not bogged down in the specifics of the time jumps, but rather the effects of living life non-chronologically on Oona and her personal relationships.

Oona is not always the most likeable character, but honestly I’d probably be a little unreasonable too in her situation. I loved her relationship with her mother and Kenzie, but I wish we had more of Dale, Peter - and less of Edward, jesus christ. I’m also a bit disappointed that we only got 5 or 6 years of Oona’s life - there was so much potential there! 

A fun, heartwarming read with a few hang ups, but great for getting immersed in while gardening - it made time go super quick!

This was a cute, wholesome, hopeful middle-grade read about a young person called B who’s just trying to figure themselves out with the help of their friends, foster parents and newfound furry best friend, Gooseberry. This book is filled with so many gorgeous characters disrupting heteronormative and neurotypical norms, and I just hope it helps a few kids who feel like their differences are a bad thing realise that differences are something to be celebrated.

I did find myself occasionally wishing for B to make different decisions, mainly around their training of Gooseberry. Gooseberry is a stray who’d been abused in a former home, and considering B wants to be a dog trainer and dogs are one of their special interests, they often get frustrated at Gooseberry’s reluctance to learn or make irresponsible choices. However, you have to remind yourself that B’s just a kid, and a kid who’s had an extremely tough time of it.

I loved their friendship circle, and it definitely reminded me of my own little circle of wonderful weirdos growing up. Gow does a marvellous job of depicting the ups and downs of school - spending all day with your pals, bullies, good teachers, teachers with good intentions but who still cause harm, all the frustrations and small joys of a school day. Jodie and Eri, B’s foster mothers, are also wonderful and show what a massive impact a bit of understanding and consideration for people’s differences and needs can have.

The writing was a little bit stilted at times though - too many likes and justs, which people definitely do use but to that extent? Unsure. But still, v heartwarming little book and who doesn’t love a wholesome story about dogs!

Beautiful, been having a mediocre month but this memoir has swooped in to save the day!