DNF’ed at 31%. I really wanted to enjoy the banter and the tropiness (although, yeah, some parts can be immature): the author clearly cares a lot about art and writing characters who love to make it, there were some very fun discussions around the creative process and representation because of that. Unfortunately, the narration was so fucking awful that it completely ruined my enjoyment of it. Why does Noah sound like that in Sage’s POV? It legitimately sounds like the narrator saw her name, thought it belonged to a guy, and kept going with the same very forced voice. (But I don’t like how Sage sounded in Noah’s POV either, even if it wasn’t as memorably bad.) The line delivery uncannily lingered between being cartoony and robotic, it was obvious it was meant to be engaging but it had the opposite effect for me. I don’t remember the names of the narrators, and I won’t look them up because I’m not going to directly target them— that would be shitty— but they know who they are, I guess. 

I plan on eventually reading this without the audio, at some point. I think I’ll enjoy the text much better. 

DNF at 65%. On a technical standpoint, I liked this book, and I’ll admit that the Quebec-inspired queernorm setting was both unique and fun, but I found the plot repetitive and the characters far too standard. There also wasn’t much chemistry in the enemies to “lovers” arc, I was really looking forward to reading about that but was gradually more disappointed. 

Like other books I’ve read with super powered characters, the inclusion of the abilities themself was very cheesy. I’m pretty sure the tone of this is meant to be fun, but even so, some of the dialogue was giving me CW Arrowverse vibes… and not in a good way.

I enjoyed the queer rep, though. Claude’s genderfluidity was interesting to read about, especially the effects of suppressing one part of his gender in order to maintain his “disguise” as Claire. I was expecting more from a vigilante POV, though. A lot of the feelings and ethics in this book felt simplified, and his chapters were no exception.

I appreciated the issues being tackled, especially the realism of the teens’ (abusive) wilderness “therapy”, but the pacing was slow, the horror basic, and I found out through spoilers that there’s an enemies-to-lovers romance with a character I cannot stand. The writing was good, though. 

Was reading too many books and lost track of how much time I had on my loan, I can’t finish 300+ pages before 5pm tomorrow, my QLL account wasn’t working and neither was the verification link so I can’t even read it if I tried, and I’m about to cry. this seemed fun :(

Cute, but I’m all Christmas’ed out, and while I’m sure the exposition is there to make the story accessible to those reading the books out of order (🙋) it just feels like infodumping. Perhaps I’ll get around to finishing it next December.

DNF at 44%. Nothing against the author: I think the story has a lot of heart, and shows middle school insecurities well. But the secondhand embarrassment was excruciating, the bullying (and some internalized homophobia) was more graphic than I expected it to be, and within 2 examples of Rahul testing out things to see if he was good at them and failing, I was starting to sense a formula/repetition for the book. It was difficult to get through, even with the lighthearted tone and the humor. (To Maulik Pancholy’s credit, though, some of the jokes made me laugh.)

Also, it was surprising to see OCD rep in this book! But from what I read, most of it was shown through compulsions and while the thought process behind those was on-page, I wonder if it was revealed to have bled into Rahul’s other anxieties as well.  (For instance, his entire “I have to be the best at something” mindset.) I kinda hope it did for accuracy’s sake, well-done OCD rep is so rare, especially in kidlit. 

Maybe I’ll pick this up at another time. The ending might make me cry, and I wonder how Rahul’s story and crisis will be resolved. But for now, I’m just not in the headspace for it.

DNF at 37%. Hei was interesting, but not much else was. Sohmeng was an annoying protagonist (I don’t care to stick around for her growth, if there is any), there’s very little worldbuilding—you get more explanations on different places and terms in the 2-sentence glossary definitions than the story, and I just thought the story was bland. I was thinking of sticking it out(I never DNF books, no matter the quality), but when I realized I dreaded coming back to this book in-between my other reads, I called it quits so I wouldn’t waste any more time.

A shame, because I really enjoyed “Pluralities”, a book by the same author.