So cute! Loved the use of color to show when we were in the present versus the past versus in a fairytale. Very lovely art.

I really don't know how to feel about this one. It was very interesting. Very surreal. Very emotional. I don't think I understood all of it. Definitely the sort of odd coming-of-age story that I don't tend to encounter often and usually find interesting when I do, and this was no exception. I'm just not sure I liked it.

If you have more religious trauma than me you might connect to it more than I did.

The chunk from just after the opening until about halfway through was probably my favorite. Ironically the gay parts were not super interesting to me. Poor Melanie though.

Ocean Vuong uses the English language in a more lyrical way that pretty much any other writer I can think of. His prose in this book is just as gorgeous as his poetry that I've read, and the way he connects concepts and images is breathtaking and heartbreaking by turns. 

The use of the second person was striking and affecting. The novel is written as a letter from Little Dog to his mother, Rose, but the overall effect is basically a dual narrator situation. It works beautifully. 

The content is difficult. I knew it would be. It's very much a mommy issues book, which is what I expected from Vuong based on his poetry collections. 

It would be wrong to say that I enjoyed this. I didn't. I appreciate Vuong's craft. I was deeply moved by many aspects of the story. I was triggered and brought to tears. I thought a lot about family and identity. But it's not an enjoyable book. It's deeply harrowing.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is also autobiographical enough that I would feel weird about giving it a star rating, so I'm simply not going to at this time. 

NOTE: This book does contain sexual scenes between teenagers. These scenes are not written for the titillation of readers and are instead in service to the characters' development, but I still think it's wise to warn readers of this going in.

An excellent collection of short stories by one of the greatest science fiction writers. Octavia E. Butler really had a knack for writing an incredibly disturbing concept but giving the story an optimistic ending. 

The mpreg was interesting.

General content warning for gore, body horror, violence, and medical content in this collection, as well as incest, terminal illness, and general bigotry in certain stories. 

Cute! Gay! Family friendly!

This shouldn't even really count as a book. Beautiful writing but it's literally fifteen pages of Nezha angst and nothing else.

I love Josephine Baker, and I was also really interested in the special agent stuff, but this book really did not work for me. It's really long and wordy. It extrapolates the thoughts and feelings of people involved more than feels reasonable. And it's not really about Josephine Baker. It's certainly not from her perspective. It's the story of her involvement in WW2 as told by the white men around her, and I'm not super interested in that. I'll find a different Josephine Baker biography to read and just accept that I'm not going to be learning much about French special agents in WW2 right now.

Uhauling with extra steps.

It was cute.

I did NOT like Astrid in Delilah Green Doesn't Care, so I was definitely a bit wary of this book, which is focused on her finding love and figuring herself out. Fortunately, Astrid comes to life as a very complex and sympathetic character in this book, and I loved it.

Some more things I loved:

Things that I did not like:

Misc thoughts:

Anyway, if you like antagonists to lovers sapphics with a small-town renovation show setting and a large dose of self-exploration, you should definitely pick up Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Well, Sophie Gonzales has done it again. She's made me care about an admittedly pretty bland YA contemporary story full of privileged characters simply because she is THAT good of a writer and particularly because she writes bisexual teenagers VERY well. 

Eighteen-year-old Maya and Skye go on a brand-new reality TV show called Second Chance Romance, supposedly to win back their ex, Jordy, who is now somewhat famous because his sister married a prince. Skye has fond memories of Jordy and actually thinks this might work. Maya is still furious at Jordy for cheating on her (with Skye, no less) and plans to reject and humiliate him on TV. Nothing goes quite the way anyone expects after Maya and Skye are forced to sleep in the same room and start bonding.

If you enjoy reality TV show stories, sapphics getting revenge on their horrible exes, and well-written bisexual teenagers on the upper end of YA, I definitely recommend this one.

I do wish some of the side characters had been more developed and that Maya and Skye had been given more distinct aesthetics. I'm really sick of how many sapphic couples are two thin feminine cis white women with different hair colors. Sophie Gonzales please write some trans and/or gender nonconforming sapphics! 

Also, the premise truly makes no sense in a YA context. No second-chance romance reality dating show would ever cast people this young.