The vibes were good, but what was I even reading? What happened? What was going to happen, nothing?

This is probably a great book, I just couldn't get into it. I picked it up for the queer representation. This is a YA book and it revolves around kids doing things in and around their high school. I typically don't mind reading YA because that's where most of the diverse queer books are, but I think I'm just getting too old to relate to or want to read characters that are physically at school for the majority of the story.

This book is good, but it was hard to read. I’m not saying the content was too hard. It’s the way it was written. It feels like it was written for a college paper. All the big fluffy words and concepts made this hard to digest.

There’s nothing wrong with this book. I think others probably would like it. It revolves heavily around gaming. I’m not a gamer and it was hard to get into that storyline 

I forced myself to get through the first 40 pages and it was horrible. I spent the whole time scribbling notes, about some of the horrible comments, in the margins because I thought I was gonna have my spouse read it too. It wasn’t worth continuing.

Please read Ijeoma Olou’s book instead. https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/a9b9d368-867c-45d2-8809-a0e41281dc08

Here’s a play-by-play of my thoughts
—-
10 pages into White Fagility, thoughts:

-more about white people being averse to accepting their unintended racism
-seems like a good starter read
-written in the pov of a white lady
—-
20 pages into White Fragility, thoughts: 
-def uses kid gloves, but it’s on purpose
-breaks things down in a way that is easy to understand

good starter read:
-if you think you can’t be racist
-if you have no clue what systemic racism is
-if you don’t believe in white privilege
—-
40 pages into White Fragility, thoughts:

I’m mad that this book is written the way it is, though not because of the author. I’m mad there are people that need a book that hand holds so much.
 
Similarly, I’m happy the book exists for the people who need this type of guidance.
—-
The more I read White Fragility, I think more about how much $$ this white author makes on book sales, speaking, and workshops.

It would’ve been better if she’d co-authored so she could give the white perspective. 

24 pages in, this book is rough and not in a good way. I’m probably not going to finish this and I wish I thought it was worth giving to someone else. 

It’s mostly dialogue. Sometimes it doesn’t even say who is talking. It flips between 4 characters and it really doesn’t tell you the perspective changed. On top of that, biphobia and lots of stereotypes.

The characters all talk like they’re reading a script for a play. There’s no feeling, personality, or vernacular in the dialogue. It feels more like a choppy school skit to talk about LGBT things.

A little bit in defense of the book, it was published in 2011. Maybe things have changed to much for me to feel good reading all these blatant gross stereotypes and fetishizing cultures

Also, there are things that contextually don’t make sense. There is a sentence, on page 20, that’s says

”he bent over again to kiss her again.” and yet neither of these things had been mentioned before.