That you to Celadon books for this gifted copy in exchange for my honest opinions.

This book was fascinating. I don’t read a lot of non fiction, but this topic is one I was interested in prior to receiving this book. How often do you feel like you’re not really being listened to? How often do you find yourself in your head checking back into a conversation and wondering what you missed when you got distracted? You’re Not Listening touched on so many issues with listening such as how we have been conditioned to speak rather than to listen, how “active listening” is more of politely nodding and mmhmming while saying the proper responses and working on your reply while the other person is still speaking, and how technology has connected us and yet disconnected us on a huge scale.

Listening is important and there are so many factors that work against it on a daily basis. Hearing loss, not making eye contact (teachings for a device instead for example), being defensive, etc. On top of all the noise in the world we’ve got even more working against us and we need to work hard to regain control on what listening REALLY means. Deeper connections are formed when people feel like you have REALLY heard, understood and respected them.

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Poetry is difficult to review. It is so personal, it’s as though the writers soul is laid out bare and raw for us to see and pick apart. As a non indigenous, woman who was born into privilege I also don’t feel completely confident reviewing this as I can’t even begin to pretend I know what life is like in this world Tanya Tagaq has woven into existence, from a world that exists/existed thousands of miles from my front door.

I will say this book was beautiful. It gave glimpses of a world that exists in parallel to mine as well as completely set aside. The poetry, lore and coming of age story wound so tightly together it was difficult to unravel them and see where one ended and the other began. They all just coincided with one another so hauntingly beautifully.

There was hope and love coinciding with sadness and hate. The natural world was a huge and important part of this story and I loved how well everything was described in such small sections.

This story was sickening. The number of times I wanted to shut it, and throw it away had me so angry. The evil and vile hatred that seeped form it’s pages Was enough to make me gasp and tear up when I felt the betrayal, humiliation and betrayal the women and girls suffered through was described. To have beautiful words, written in a beautiful way end abruptly in pain, or rape, or violence confused and angered me. It was brilliant.

All together I would say this book worked. It made me think. It made me angry. It made me feel for this community and so many others like it that are tucked away and forgotten. The history (residential schools, massacres, etc) is one that we need to know. It is where we’ve been and healing can only being once we’ve accepted it, and we can move forward.

I am still attempting to deconstruct the symbolism and lore and understand it and I doubt I may ever fully comprehend its meaning.

TW;
Rape, domestic violence, child abuse, suicide

I had seen this book all over bookstagram for months. It was highly recommended by some friends and so I grabbed I from the library when I saw it there. I love Beauty and the Beast (Disney) and I was worried, with this being a retelling, that it wouldn’t live up to the hype. I was concerned that it would not be as incredible as everyone said it was. My worries were unfounded. This book was totally hype worthy.

I enjoyed the characters and their developments. It seems that everyone was holding back secrets and feelings and although it frustrates me often enough I still enjoyed it. Their journeying through the kingdom was fun and I loved how this magical kingdom exists along side our own.

I read a bunch of reviews stating that people didn’t like the unnecessary love triangle. I honestly didn’t get those vibes with Grey and Harper. I thought she was comfortable with him, but in a more good friend or brotherly way. Maybe I missed something but I wasn’t feeling any tense attracted to each other moments.

I loved that Harper was seen as this meek and disabled little girl by her brother and in spite of her Cerebral Palsy she is totally a strong badass woman. An entirely able human with her own strengths and abilities.

While the story was definitely VERY different than the Disney version in many scenes I could see where the scene matched to the Disney version. I liked that. I felt it kept it somewhat true to the story I grew up with and loved while still being it’s own story.

I have ready decided to pick up A Heart So Fierce and Broken and I hope that I enjoy it as much as this!

In the year 2099 when all men are long gone from the world from the Y-Fever we follow Athen as she navigates her way through a mystery about who stole the genome to bring men back.

This book was really cool to read. In between the chapters were Wikipedia definitions, children’s essays, profiles, advertisements, etc. It read like an episode of Black Mirror. Which I found really inventive.

I found my inner feminist rallying with the women of the future who were able to create a utopia without war, famine, and violence. On the other hand my heart broke every time I pictured a world without the men in my life. It was interesting that even in a utopian society where all the men were gone there was still conflict to be found between opposing views.

This book had so many creative ideas and still left me with so many unanswered questions. Small details that maybe seem insignificant, but I want to know desperately.

I will say that the editorial gave me chills. It made me angry. It made me sad. And it made me scared about the possibilities that are possible in our future.

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I got a first look at this book on bookishfirst and instantly NEEDED to read it. They don’t ship to Canada (sad face) so I had to wait to snag it from the library.

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ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ: Death, rape culture, rape, sexual assault, abusive relationship, physical violence, gore, gender-based violence, bullying, transphobia, suicide, substance abuse, vigilantism, revenge

Thank you to Wednesday books, Hanna Capin, and Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

I want to first point out and applaud the author. Every trigger warning I have listed is mentioned on her website about the book. Each one goes into more detail and explains why/how it is used. There is also a disclosure that the book is rather violent and encourages you to go to her website to check the content warnings at the beginning of the book. This should be common practice and I think is incredibly respectful and thoughtful to readers.

This story is a dark reimagining of Lady MacBeth. (A truly dark and twisted Mean Girls) Elle and her three best friends go to a party for her sweet sixteen. While she is there she is roofied, and raped. Elle leaves the party and reinvents herself as Jade. A badass girl with revenge on her mind. Her coven (her besties) support and drive her with whatever she needs.

This book was intense. I first of all had to do a Wikipedia search and reintroduce my brain to Macbeth. This reimagining does an incredible job bringing the rape culture society to the front and center, and making it pay. Rapist, instigators and those who turn a blind eye or ignore it.

While I didn’t like any of the characters I enjoyed the story. The characters were all rich, snobby, and generally cruel to anyone outside their circles. I could sympathize with characters and appreciate their personalities I just know I wouldn’t be friends with any of these kids back in the day. Also feel that with the modern day Macbeth their personalities make sense (seriously brush up on Macbeth to really appreciate this one lol)

This book is definitely grade 10 or higher reading, and absolutely mature reading. It is a book I would recommend be discussed with your teens to talk about the issues in the book and how they correlate to real life. The topic of rape culture may be uncomfortable to talk about but the characters in this book are teenagers, and in real life this exists.

This story is way over the top and very Shakespearean in a way that makes it poetic and dramatic.

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A beautifully depicted fiction based on the events of the kindertransport effort. Tante Truus (real life Geertruida Wijsmuller) a woman in the Dutch resistance aided in the effort to move 10,000 children out of Nazi occupied Germany to the other countries that would take them.
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This book was so intense. To see how children were treated by grown men was infuriating. We KNOW this happened but every time I read about it it makes my heart hurt. The journey these children took was so insane. Their parents risked everything to save their children. Many children never saw their families again. If they survived the train trip they could die from illness.
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The amount of people who risked their own lives to save these children is beautiful. That during this dark time in History there was still hope and kindness.
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This book made me cry...