bumblemee's Reviews (258)

This was so incredibly sweet! I’ve wanted to read this for a long time now and am happy I finally did. I’m not into fashion at all, but reading about Frances and Sebastian/Lady Crystallia made me feel the magic it can unfold. The characters and colors and story were so vibrant and heartfelt, I had a wonderful time with this graphic novel.

A very sweet book about how important Pride is and why it is so important. It was very heartwarming to read and manages to open up a lot of additional conversations like being afraid of talking to certain family members about politics and how letting people in on your identity should always happen on your own terms for example. I liked the main characters a lot, as well as Jakes parents. Jake immediately won my heart over playing his little farming sim, it was sooo relatable to me. I remember being a child and playing a lot of Harvest Moon DS, experiencing my first queer crush along the way (I was obsessed with Muffy). 

I think if I read this when I was younger some of the heavier scenes would’ve hit me harder, as an adult this was very okay to read. This book never gets really heavy though, don’t worry. There's also just the right amount of humor in there, especially within the friendships, it was nice to read :)

I'm also happy to report that I now think I'll read more by Phil stamper somewhen. I read The Gravity of Us a few years ago and while I really liked the story idea, the execution was only okay to me. But I think that one was his debut so that's totally fine.

Yet another wonderful installment in the Wayfarer series. The important elements are still the same: loveable characters (Tupo is so sweet, I can’t) and clever observations about humanity and our history told through non-human characters. 

I didn’t read the third book in this series yet, but compared to the first two, this one is even slower and less happens. No plot, just vibes in the best way. It never got boring, because we spend the time witnessing the interactions between these different species and them learning about and from another. Though I have to be honest here, the audio book probably helped. If I read this book physically I might have struggled. 

I would recommend this series and this book in particular to anyone who wants to think about humans from a little distance on a bigger and smaller scale (the smallest probably being a discussion around cheese, which understandably is a disturbing concept looking at it from the outside). Sometimes it’s easier to meaningfully think about something before having to translate it to real life. 

Taylor Jenkins Reid has done it again, I don't know if she's capable of writing something I won't eat right up. Yet again I fell completely in love with the characters she created. In the author's note it says that the author hopes that Joan can make us feel open to wonder and that is the perfect description. Joan is wonderful in more than one sense of the word. Like a few other characters before her she filled me with such a love for science and exploration, I loved it. Vanessa is endlessly cool and that mixture of tough and soft that just makes your heart swell for her. And don't get me started on Frances, such an amazing, bright child

and fuck Barbara - I get she was in a rough position, but her refusal to tune into Frances' needs, which would've probably made everything work out, was so upsetting, I teared up multiple times

. (Also: Being good with children is such a good trait to have and Joan and Vanessa are even more loveable when you see them interact with Frances.) 

This book a lot of emotions, I laughed, was a little scared, teared up, cried, got angry, fell in love with a love story ... can't say I missed anything. I honestly got a little taken aback by the start of the book though, it was so intense from the beginning, I wasn't prepared.

I don't know how happy I am with the ending in the sense that I'd like the answer to some questions, to see some of the things happening after. I'm also a little unsure if I'm completely happy with the amount of time we spent in both timelines, but I guess one wasn't suitable for more content within it.
However I think the emotional journey this book took me on made up for it, as one can see by the 5 star rating. Happy to report my second most anticipated book of the year didn't disappoint (at least not me, I have not read other people's reviews yet).

Oh also: That cover is so cool! I'm not the biggest fan of real people on covers, but TJR books do it right. And this one in particular is amazing to me. Every time I look at it I feel like adventure is waiting. 

Finally continued reading the Wayfarer Series an happy to report I loved it! <3

Becky Chambers is so good at exploring humanity through Sci-Fi it's amazing! She just knows how to put clever observations into words that make you think and feel.
Seeing the world through Peppers and Sidras eyes was great, two beings learning to exist in a world that didn't come natural to them, finding their way and purpose in it. Especially Sidras character development was wonderful and in some ways felt very relatable to me (omw to becoming a less people pleasing person and trying to find myself). 

I remember thinking the first book was great but struggling a bit with it due to it's slow pace. This one was also slow, but I feel like listening to it as an audio book helped me a lot. 

I love the setting! It's so full of wonder and curiosity <3 - I really like how much space there is for character and roleplaying focused moments and how much thought went into creating the colleges. I really want to explore Strixhaven as a DM as well as as a player.
The included campagne is okay I'd say. It relies too heavily on moments that don't reaaaally make sense, like helpful NPCs being too distracted by something else even though they could solve a problem instantly. I mean yeah, possible, but not really probable, I think? Also a lot of the moments piecing together the adventure's hints feel really similar. But still, I enjoy the story and would like to run it somewhen.

Okay, so a few things first: I'm a cis person so take everything I say with that in mind. Though I have a lot to criticize, I don't want that to invalidate any trans persons experience who did feel understood, seen and/or well represented in this book.

Now that that is out of the way, I must say that I was very irritated by a lot of things in this book. For example it would've been completely avoidable to mention Leos dead name. If you're reading this review before reading the book, I'm kind of sorry to not put this as a spoiler, but not really. Because Leo's identity shouldn't have been treated as a little bit of a plot twist that you could've picked up on, but didn't have to - it isn't any kind of twist, it's simply his identity. I'm also confused why the word transgender only comes up a few times during the whole book, even though Kate supposedly did a lot of research on the internet, which would lead me to think that it's a word she would identify with. (And keep her from wording her surprise about Leo being trans as: "You're a girl"?!) Leo as well, but idk it kinda made sense that he doesn't and the word doesn't come up in his POV since he's really not happy about being trans and probably doesn't like thinking about it/identifying with it. Instead, we get several instances of wordings like "wants to be a girl", which is inaccurate given that Kate simply is a girl.
We don't really get a lot of explanation how she and her friends Essie and Felix got to the way they handle her identity. Kate says in the beginning that her friends know that she "wants to be a girl", but her friends never call her by her chosen name (which we only get to know way into the story) or by she/her pronouns, not even in private. Leo also doesn't try to adjust his perception of her after knowing, which I found strange since he should know how important that would be for Kate. (I guess being trans doesn't change that you might have to actively adjust the way you think about someone, but not even trying? Wild.) In fact, Kate is only actively called "Kate" to her face once in the entire book (and Leo uses her actual name only a few times in the last chapter).  

Still, I can't rate this book that low, because Leo and Kate did warm my heart. I liked them a lot and empathized with them so I couldn't bring myself to be too harsh. I just wished they were handled differently by their author. The writing style was also enjoyable, it was fast to read. I think I might try something else by the author, something that doesn't involve identities that can so easily be misrepresented.

Lisa Williamson is - to my knowledge - a cis woman who worked with trans youth for three years and yeah, this books feels like it was written by someone from the outside trying to look in (as someone who also isn't trans). I get that she had good intentions writing this, but I fear she failed a little and could've done a way better job. A part of the issues with this book might be due to it being published in 2015 (like the wording "wants to be a girl/boy" that was used and sometimes is still used to describe a trans persons experience to cis people - mostly when other cis people explain it). Back then the education on trans issues was way worse and the representation relied a lot on pain and struggle and was in general a little wonky. At least that's how I remember it. It's also not surprising that trans stories written by cis people gained traction earlier than own voices ones. So yeah, a bit of the book might be a "product of its time" kind of thing, but even in 2015 a lot of things could've been done a lot better. I'm not saying there aren't any people out there who had a very similar experience to Kate, but Kate's life is fictional, so the author could've chosen to tell it differently. 
I bought this book probably in 2016 when the edition I own came out and only now came around to reading it - I'm glad I read better done representation in the meantime.

Ich bin ehrlich, ich bin verwirrt, was ich von diesem Buch halte. Ich hatte eine wirklich gute Zeit damit, kann aber nicht richtig erklären warum. 
Es ließ sich sehr schnell lesen. Die Sprache ist leicht, aber nicht einfallslos und geprägt von sehr vielen Wiederholungen. Mir ist bewusst, dass das ein bewusst eingesetztes Stilmittel ist, manchmal war es dennoch ein wenig viel. Die Geschichte wird in vielen kurzen, manchmal eher assoziativ zusammenhängenden Absätzen erzählt. Auch das gibt einem das Gefühl, durch das Buch zu fliegen.
Ich fand das Setting interessant, ebenso wie das Konzept, diese Mädchen in einem Kampf gegeneinander vorzustellen, während sie irgendwie jede auf ihre Weise für ihre "Daseinsberechtigung" kämpfen. 

Ich glaube, am Ende fand ich das Ganze einfach irgendwie interessant und mit nichts vergleichbar, was ich bisher gelesen habe. Ob ich verstehe, warum das Buch so viel Aufsehen erlangt hat, weiß ich jedoch nicht.

Vorab: Hätte ich das Buch gerade zum ersten Mal gelesen, wären es vermutlich keine 5 Sterne mehr (würde aber noch immer eine gute Wertung erhalten). Also ich habe es schon zum ersten Mal phsysisch gelesen, aber ich habe es als Jugendliche sehr, sehr oft als Hörbuch gehört und sehr, sehr doll geliebt.
Jetzt hatte ich es allerdings seit Jahren nicht mehr gehört und es war spannend, die Geschichte nochmal zu erleben und zu merken, wie sehr dieses Buch meine brain chemistry beeinflusst hat. Die Anziehung zwischen Lucian und Rebecca (

die Kapitel, in denen Rebecca ihn in der Wohnung besucht leben mietfrei in meinem Hirn, wirklich

), Geschichten die zwischen Hoffnung und Herzschmerz sind, aber eher auf der Herzschmerzseite landen, die Großartigkeit von casual queerness (früher hab ich noch nicht geschnellt, warum Janne und Spatz mich so abgeholt haben), Rebeccas komplizierte Beziehung zu Sebastian, die Freundschaft mit Suse - es gibt einige Elemente, die mich heute noch komplett fesseln, wenn sie in Büchern so vorkommen und ich kann mich nicht erinnern, vorher schonmal ein Buch gelesen zu haben, dass dieses spezifische Lesegefühl bei mir ausgelöst hat. Daher wie gesagt ist Lucian meines Wissens nach prägend für meine persönliche Lesegeschichte.

Allerdings merkt man auch sehr deutlich, dass dieses Buch 2009 veröffentlicht wurde. Es ist super viel ableistische Sprache darin zu finden, ebenso wie unnötig abfällige Sprache und Bodyshaming (beides v.a. gegenüber weilblichen Charakteren). Aber alles auf eine Weise, die eben authentisch ist für die Zeit, aus der dieses Buch kommt, daher kann ich diesen Minuspunkt mit Abstand betrachten.

Joa, war in Ordnung; ließ sich schnell hören und war unterhaltsam. Die Auflösung des Ganzen fand ich zwar nicht komplett befriedigend, aber schon interessant. Der Weg dahin ging mir allerdings, bedenkend dass das hier der dritte Teil war, zu langsam. In diesem Band ist proportional irgendwie zu viel passiert, dennoch war ich froh, dass endlich Schritte dahin unternommen werden, den Fluch zu brechen. Endlich finden sie mal tatsächliche Hinweise, auch wenn sich manche aus Plot Convenience wohl verspätet haben

der Flüsterer redet seit Langem von einem Buch, aber natürlich kann er erst kurz vor knapp sagen, welches er meint - und natrülich ist da auch vorher niemand anders drauf gekommen

. Wobei "finden" nicht so ganz richtig ist, häufig ist es eher ein "gesagt bekommen", was ich etwas schade fand, aber das war noch im Rahmen, finde ich, es gab dennoch genügend Adventure.
Ich hatte außerdem seit Band 1 einen Verdacht, der sich schließlich wirklich sehr spät als wahr herausgestellt hat. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich einfach gut im Muster-erkennen bin, aber irgendwie kam mir das super offensichtlich vor. Daher fand ich es schade, dass das nicht eher rausgekommen ist und eine der großen Überraschungen des Endes dementsprechend etwas anderes hätte sein können (

also dass Joy beiden Häusern angehört - sollte das ein Twist sein? Warum sonst sollte sie Eigenschaften beider Häuser haben?? Das wurde einfach nie hinterfragt, so komisch.

). Allerdings waren auch Elemente dabei, mit denen ich so nicht gerechnet hätte, was das Ganze etwas ausbalanciert hat (

z.B. die Auflösung des Flüsterers oder was der Unstern ist

).

Außerdem muss ich nochmal ganz kurz was loswerden zum Scheibstil, denn nach drei Teilen sind mir manche Formulierungen einfach zu doll ausfgefallen, sodass ich am liebsten leicht genervt eine Strichliste geführt hätte. Sehr oft "zupft ein Lächeln" an jemandes Mundwinkel oder irgendwas "lässt XY" irgendwas tun. Also eine Reaktion auf eine lustige Aussage wäre z.B. "das lässt mich auflachen". Gerade diese ganzen passiven Formulierungen haben mich irgendwie genervt, weil ich oft ein einfaches "ich muss lachen" im Sprachfluss unauffälliger und natürlicher gefunden hätte. Ist aber vermutlich sehr spezifisch für mich, weil ich solche sprachlichen Muster zu schnell bemerke und sie dann nicht pberlesen/überhören kann.

Insgesamt auf jeden Fall eine solide Reihe, die mir Spaß gemacht hat. Vermutlich auch einfach eine, die mir als Teenagerin besser gefallen hätte - diese ganze Intensität in allem und das Drama, da wäre ich damals wahrscheinlich mehr emotional mitgeschwungen und hätte weniger nachgedacht, ob das alles Sinn ergibt, was ich da lese. 

Außerdem: Als wenn die Raubkatzen und Tiere ihr Happy End in der Wildnis bekommen können, nachdem sie so eng mit Menschen gelebt haben ihr ganzes Leben lang? Und literally mit ihnen verbunden waren?