This was a good enough romance read. Very light hearted and fun, but heavy on tropes of friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, secret families, etc. I enjoyed the characters enough, but for some reason the story did not seem real to me. The characters failed to grasp my heart and pull me into their world. Their adventure seemed misty and a bit distant from the readers point of view. Overall, a fun read, but not extremely engaging. 

This book was a deeply troubling but amazing read, especially now during the COVID pandemic. The novel follows a young Chinese-American woman through her journey of safety, self-actualization, and understanding of the world. Taking place during a fungal epidemic, the dystopian environment eerily matches our own, complete with N-95 masks and locked-down cities. Themes of womanhood and perseverance guide this narrative through explorative travels and self-reflection. This is a great book to understand the immigrant struggle from a nuanced lens and an altered perspective of our current pandemic. However, with its closeness to reality, I would emphasize that Severance is not for the weak of heart. 

This was a really touching book that delves into the complexities of girlhood and a life that could have been. There are common tropes of extramarital affairs and the strains of divorced parents, but these issues are viewed from the nuanced perspective of a child stagnated in her bloom. Themes of insecurity, heartbreak, and loss of self plague even the happiest passages, and I would not recommend this as a light read. While I learned from this deeply troubling narrative, I was ultimately left unsatisfied by the seemingly rushed and plain ending of it all. 

This was a really interesting perspective of the trans journey from both an individual who has transitioned and an individual who detransitioned. There are discussions of class, race, and LGBTQ issues artfully interwoven into a heartfelt story of womanhood. I really enjoyed the characters and their internal explorations. These parts highlighted many of the challenges experienced by trans people as they discover themselves and take action to rectify injustice. 

This was a great book in concept, but I think the poor writing style and the quickness of the plot created some major pitfalls. The main components of this story revolve around real life horrors of gentrification, corrupt policing, and the oppression of BIPOC communities. However, reading this book sometimes felt like reading a newspaper rather than reading an artfully crafted work of fiction. Scenes were peppered in to show different type of racism, like the fetishization of black women and the appropriation of black beauty standards; however, these scenes seemed forced and out of place. It almost felt like reading a twitter thread, instead of reading a narrative. There was a lot of "telling" and not "showing" which made this book fall flat. 

This was such an emotional and impactful story. The majority of the book is told from multiple perspectives between an old Indian widower and a young high school student struggling to take care of her family. This story was beautiful and emphasized the power that books have in the lives of both readers and nonreaders.