The setup for this book was more interesting to me than those for Adiba Jaigirdar's previous contemporary novels that I read and enjoyed. Unfortunately, I just sort of got nothing out of this book. The characters were flat and underdeveloped, and the plot wasn't nearly as interesting/gripping as it should have been. Maybe the plot would have picked up more as the story progressed, but I just didn't CARE, and after looking at other reviews I don't think I'm going to end up caring any more than I currently do. 

Also, Violet is SO RACIST to Emilie and the book doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that that's the situation there? Very weird.

Read this as research for a rockerboy character I'm playing in a Cyberpunk RED campaign. It was a lot of fun if you're interested in cyberpunk at all.

Without a doubt one of the most chilling and true-to-life dystopias I've ever encountered. Octavia E. Butler understood American culture in ways that very few writers have I think, and so many of her predictions of the future still feel scarily possible. 

However, I think that reading this book only one year out from when the beginning of it is set means that I also saw all of the ways in which this is NOT entirely the current trajectory of this country, or at least not one we're going to reach as quickly as Butler thought (thank goodness for small mercies or something I suppose?). 

I love the journal entry format. I loved Lauren as a narrator. She's so intelligent and observant and sensitive and yet still so young, and that combination of factors means that she is very frank about the state of the world in a way that does a great service to us as readers.

This book broke my heart and made me angry. It made me get attached to characters without even realizing it and then ripped them away from me--and what a familiar feeling that is.

The cast does get quite bloated toward the end, and I almost feel like the book might have benefitted from a couple more chapters.

I think this is the first dystopian book I've read that mentioned tampons. And the gun presence was oh so very American.

The way this book handles race and gender is so sensitive and so REAL. God Octavia E. Butler was amazing.

I will definitely be reading the sequel soon.

About a year and a half ago, I embarked on a quest to find good gay dragon books, and Shatter the Sky was one of the first recommendations I got.

This book's setup feels very familiar: a teenage girl leaves her small mountain town to rescue her girlfriend from a magical organization that serves the emperor whose empire is occupying their lands. In the process, she makes new friends, learns new skills, and experiences personal growth. Dragons are involved.

I predicted every major plot twist in this book because it's following such a familiar formula, but I wasn't mad about it at all. I love this formula. It's one of my favorites. It's exactly what I was looking for when I said I wanted gay dragon books.

The dragon stuff gets more interesting as the book progresses, which makes me very excited to hopefully learn more dragon lore in book two. I'm very interested in where the essential oil stuff came from. Not sure if we're going to get more information about that, but I hope we are.

The queer aspects are very much what I wanted, as well, which I know is going to be a controversial opinion. Maren and Kaia love each other, but they're also teenagers with teenage issues, and their dynamic is very unequal. If Kaia had not been taken, I probably would have wanted them to break up. And I love that Sev is someone who actually sees Maren and pushes her and encourages her to grow. So no, I'm not mad at the bisexual love triangle. In fact, this is some of the best casual bisexual representation I've ever encountered. I really don't care who Maren ends up with (one, both, or neither all seem like valid options at this point) so long as the characters talk through their various issues first.

Additionally, this book is set in a queer-normative world, which is a choice that I really respect and appreciate in YA fantasy in particular. Sometimes it's valuable and important and interesting to explore issues of homophobia and transphobia, but sometimes I just want to enjoy a fun queer story without dealing with those issues (and of course the characters have all sorts of other issues to deal with, not least imperialism). Kaia has two moms, and there's also a nonbinary side character near the end of the book.

Honestly, the only reason I see why anyone would have an issue with the queer aspects of this book is if you're biphobic and you think that Maren should be a lesbian. If that's you, maybe think about that for a minute.

Was this a good book? I don't know. Objectively, I think it was fine. It didn't blow me away, and it probably won't blow you away either. But I liked it, and if you enjoy dragon books and want one where the main character is in a bisexual love triangle on top of all of the usual tropes, then you'll probably like it too.

Marosa Di Giorgio’s poetry is bizarre, surreal, fantastical. I wouldn’t really call it nonfiction. Semi-autobiographical magic realism, maybe? It’s good. 

This book is really good and interesting so far, but I am extremely burnt out on AI at the moment and therefore not in a headspace to fully enjoy or appreciate this story. I'm also just reading far too many books right now and need to prune. Will return to it at a later date.

THIS BOOK!!!

If you've ever been a closeted teen, if you grew up in a religious family or an immigrant family, if you've ever been worried about your financial situation to the point of that anxiety starting to run your life, if you went to private school and have complicated feelings about that, if you have really conflicted feelings about certain family members, or if you just want a really adorable yet heartfelt queer coming-of-age story, this novel is for you.

Yamilet is such a hilarious and relatable and heartbreaking protagonist and narrator. I loved her relationship with her brother and how important that relationship was to the plot. I loved Bo as a love interest and how Yami and Bo found similarities and differences in their experiences as two of the only queer people of color at their Catholic high school. 

Honestly one of the most accurate representations of being a queer teenager that I've ever read.

It's hard to describe how lovely this book is. Just read it if you think it sounds interesting. 

Please check the content warnings, as this book handles a lot of heavy topics, but it handles them all sensitively and delicately.

Cat Sebastian has, as far as I can tell, written more queer historical romance than anyone else. And yet, this is, as of my writing this review, her only sapphic book. It also appears to be her shortest book, or at least one of the shorter ones. I really don't like that. I don't like that this author, who has done an amazing job at filling the historical romance genre with queer stories, seems so reluctant to showcase love stories without men in them.

I am not accusing Cat Sebastian of anything. I'm just frustrated.

Now on to my thoughts about this novella.

A Little Light Mischief is cute. It's fun. It fits a lot of characterization and backstory into a very short book. All it's missing to be a full-length novel are a couple subplots and one or two additional sex scenes. 

The heisting was fun. I enjoyed the characters. It just wasn't long enough to be super satisfying.

This is only sort of a short story. It's more of a philosophical thought experiment. I highly recommend reading it if you're at all interested in the idea of utopias for any reason (literary, political, philosophical, etc.). I'm excited to read some of the other stories inspired by this one.

There were parts of this book that I enjoyed, but it was SO SLOOOOOOW. It's very much a book about marriage and about the role of women in society, and that stuff was interesting for a while, but I admit I got sick of it. Same with the bees. And the romance really was not the main thing here, which normally would be fine, but since this book is marketed as historical romance rather than historical fiction with romance in it, it felt odd. I cared more about the young straight-seeming side couple than I did about the main sapphic main couple, and that was very disappointing for me.

I'll still probably read The Hellion's Waltz because there just isn't that much sapphic historical romance out there, but this was definitely disappointing after The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics.