I was originally planning on giving this a 3.5, but this was so earnest that I upped my rating. (Especially because of the last few chapters. Those were beautiful.) I haven’t been familiar with how miscarriage affects the kids of a family, but Hazel gave me a lot of insight. The ways she would try to hide her stress or cope with it were heartbreaking but real for a kid around that age.

Becca got on my nerves, the fallout with her and Hazel was well-done but I think Hazel will have to realize later on in life that staying friends with her isn’t worth it. While I get that Becca didn’t want to be ostracized for her proximity to Hazel, and she worried about Hazel’s opinion for her liking “popular” things, I hated her excuses for being distant. Unfortunately, though, this kind of conflict is also pretty typical for kids just exiting middle school.

I enjoyed the other characters, though! Hazel’s mom and Mimi were great parents that still had their own stresses to deal with, I liked Rowan even if he worsened Hazel’s stress (tbh he was just dealing with the circumstances the best he could as a teen, and when Dinah was born, he was there for Hazel), and I liked Hazel’s friends, Yosh and Carina. (Carina especially!) A lot of the plot was emotional/interpersonal conflict, but Hazel’s school friends made the story a little more fun. (I also really enjoyed the Bernadette subplot.) 

I hope a lot of kids enjoy this! There was a lot said about unconventional families(+ a little bit the pressure to have biological children), the sometimes awkward and sad transitional period between middle and high school, and even some baby ace rep with Hazel. 

I can’t exactly say this was captivating from start to finish—the beginning was a bit slow, and the author’s writing style is sometimes dry—but I was speeding through the pages once I hit the 25% mark. The contemporary Malaysia setting was a great choice, not only was it a central part of the plot(both the interpersonal and external conflicts), but its culture and atmosphere was expertly woven in.  I don’t know how much of that can be owed to Zen Cho’s lived experiences (she was born and raised in the country), and how much of it was owed to diligent research.

Goodness, sometimes being inside Jess’s head and life was claustrophobic as a reader, but it made her stress all the more believable. (Her banter with Ah Ma was entertaining, when I wasn’t seething or biting my nails on Jess’s behalf lol.) I was proud of her growth. 

While using hauntings as a way to write about trauma isn’t a new storytelling device, the expectations thrust upon Jess as an immigrant (and showing a lot of that through her relationship with Ah Ma) made the narrative more personal. I also appreciate that in some parts, Zen Cho writes with room for subtext, rather than talking down to her readers. 

Of course, there’s also the generations of feuding and drama that Jess has to figure out (much to her annoyance), and how that ties into gangsters and eventually gods, which was fun to read about. Ah Ma and even the Black Water Sister were badasses, when it came to some of the possession stuff. There was also a layer of mystery throughout that, while occasionally complicated to keep up with, kept adding onto the characters. As a result, the main cast themselves didn’t feel one-dimensional.

I’ll check out more of Zen Cho’s fantasy writing. This had been an anticipated read for a while, and I’m glad to have finally got around to it.

this was so stinking cute and I loved the art!! Some of the miscommunication annoyed me but tbh it was understandable considering the kind of person Momo is (and how her previous crushes have treated her). Sometimes her and PG were awkward, but in a cute and authentic way, and the college setting was believable. I also loved the side characters and how they contributed to PG and Momo’s characterizations.

And it definitely helps that PG is a GORGEOUS love interest!! was teeheeing a couple of times

Thank you to PeachTree Teen and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review! All thoughts are my own. 

Despite this being a lengthy novel(over 400 pages total), this was fun, and easier to get through than I expected. The three POVs of Aleksey, Kazik and Gisela were appropriately distributed throughout the story, with their own memorable personalities and secrets embedded throughout their budding romance that sometimes made me nervous to turn the page. My favorite of those three main characters was definitely Gisela, with her endless snark and her thirst for life(and sometimes vengeance). I also appreciated that while this is marketed as a polyamorous romance, and this is definitely going to be a throuple(everyone involved is attracted to each other), it wasn’t a clear-cut route for most of the story. There was some back-and-forth and even moments of jealousy, the latter thing I never see addressed in any polyamorous romance.

Although parts of the romance can be labeled as straight-presenting, the main characters are all distinctly queer—bisexual, to be exact—and occasionally, there are moments to deconstruct some of the biphobia they face for being attracted to the opposite gender. Usually, queer romances are labeled as queer because they happen between two people of the same gender, and while I don’t know if there’s been any biphobic discourse to trickle over into queer books that don’t fit that formula, even outside of the book world, this was topical.

While I thought the integration of Polish folklore was seamless, and appreciated the life breathed into the story by the creatures(ironically, some of them are undead), I felt that because of the vagueness of the setting, that was the only foundation it could have to sit on. Instead of the lack of a specified time period giving this story a timeless feel, it feels flimsy when it’s juxtaposed by occasional millennial slang. Sometimes, this can even make the tone feel unclear, as it draws more attention to the hijinks than some of the mystery, and it also took me out of the story. (The only indicator we have for a time period is that cars and cameras exist, and there is a single mention of “a war”, so I have to assume it takes place after one of the World Wars?)

Still, though, I loved the magic(especially the Water Nymphs and Wojcjech), the pacing of the romance, and the bits of fairytale influence. I’m interested to see how this story is continued, and how the love triangle will be affected by a couple of supernatural ethics… (Not elaborating, to avoid major spoilers!)

While I’m glad more polyamorous romance is being published, this was aggressively fine, even the steam irked me at some points. (I think I just really hate “nectar” being used as a euphemism.) I didn’t connect with any of the characters, and the first half didn’t have that much romance: it was really just Charlie getting to know Hayden and Buffy as people (but in a friendly, not romantic, way), and feeling some basic physical attraction for them as they occasionally flirt. I would’ve also liked to know both love interests more outside of the triad dynamic, there weren’t many differences in Hayden and Buffy’s relationships with Charlie. Especially because most of that (“)characterization(“) was done at the beginning, and once Hayden and Buffy established they were polyamorous, them and Charlie became more of a unit. I think seeing that, and waiting until later to see how all of them create their own relationship as a trio, would have been more satisfying.

I know that Charlie’s fan gushing was mostly done at the beginning, but I was uncomfortable with the sort-of-parasocial admiration they had towards Buffy. It doesn’t help that there’s one of those clichéd “the love interest isn’t just this one thing, I’m learning they’re all of these things and I love them all!!” moments but specifically with them thinking of Buffy.  

I thought some parts were cute, such as Charlie’s moments with Rainbow, but not much else. The story was light (and meta, for that one line said by Frances), but I couldn’t help attributing that to Charlie’s rose-tinted outlook on their new polyamorous relationship, and most of the other characters in the story. (Which is sort of funny, considering how most of their other internal monologues are dripping with millennial cynicism.)

Also, another reviewer pointed this out, but don’t let your boss in on your union-organizing meetings, “no matter how ‘cool’ or ‘chill’ they seem”. The last chapter made me cringe haha.

If I didn’t have a convoluted reason to be reading this, I would have DNF’ed it, or maybe never picked it up at all. (The summary’s already unbelievable, and the cover art…doesn’t exactly draw me in…)

Incredibly self-indulgent 4 stars, because this was very gender-affirming and very hot. Although the pacing was a bit rushed(and I would’ve liked some more backstory on the characters outside of their relationship), there were still a couple of sweet moments in-between the sex scenes, and I really liked the way gender was handled within the context of the romance. There’s also a bit about unlearning shame (in the context of internalized queerphobia) and that was dealt with tenderly.

I like the quaintness of the setting, too. E.E. Ottoman’s descriptions can be very pretty and add a positively mundane quality to the scenes the three main characters have together. The plot isn’t heavy in this novella, so there’s plenty of vibes throughout.

I did notice an influx of typos/grammar errors in the last 4-5 chapters though??? Second half could’ve done with another round of edits.

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pre-review:
surprised this doesn’t count as erotica tbh

Perhaps if I’m feeling generous (or like appeasing the people who rated this highly, because I can see the reasons why), I will give this a 3.5.

As my 3-star rating is now, though, that was a significantly higher rating than I thought I would give for this book, based on my reaction to the first 60-90 pages. Simone was unnecessarily icy about Ray—which was excruciating to be in the thoughts of, they hadn’t come out yet so there was the constant (unintentional) misgendering, Ray was teetering close to the edge of being overly cheery, and I couldn’t tell whether Luna was playing off Simone’s aversion/tenseness about Ray as a crush to fuck with her or if it was genuinely a “love at first sight” thing Simone was oblivious to. (If it’s actually the second thing, I’m throwing my phone.) But when the rest of the plot covered in the summary/blurb was actually happening, and the cooking videos Ray and Simone made were shown, that was a ton of fun to read about! They had some great banter, and the occasional input from the camera crew was just as fun. (Especially when that crew became Ray and Simone’s friend group, and there were these different moments where they would share a pie Simone made or bond in-between off-location video shoots.)

And despite Simone’s feelings being obvious after a couple chapters—this is a short book, clocking in at 308 pages—her relationship with Ray was still relatively slow-burn in that they didn’t actually get to do any kind of confession or have (purposefully) disgustingly domestic, romantic days together until the end. I appreciated that we actually got to witness their workplace friendship developing, too.

HOWEVER, there is a major reason why I gave this book a lower rating, despite finding parts of the romance cute and the story (mostly) fun. Yes, it is essentially just Simone. Her allyship flip-flopped between being meaningful and being flimsy. While I appreciate how the ending scenes handled Ray’s gender, and it felt like Simone was seeing them for who they were(phew), for most of the book, I would have intensely disliked being in a relationship with a cis person like her??? She made such an embarrassingly big deal about pronouns after Ray came out, and sometimes, it felt like she dwelled too much on what being nonbinary meant to Ray than actually seeing them. Even if she didn’t ask any of the invasive questions running through her head, I still had to read them because she thought them and I was still annoyed. And LORD do not get me started on how she treated Ray being uncomfortable with opening a discrimination lawsuit against their company!! I am so glad she realized her response was out-of-line, Ray had valid reasons for having to stay, and actually talked about that for a bit with them but that was infuriating.

Also, while I get that Simone’s wage was measly, she should have found some other way to compensate Luna for the emotional labor of being her only other source on trans things. You use Google for cooking stuff and, hell, even figuring out how to care for Ray after their top surgery!! Why couldn’t you use that for gender-related questions, too?!?! She just made this book feel like it was written for/by trans allies, despite this being written by a nonbinary author.

But aside from that. A reason I gave this a rating above 2 stars, besides the last third being great, was how the toxic workplace was written. It showed how performative corporations can be in their inclusion, and how they perpetuate harassment in their “handling” of it. I could definitely believe those HR emails are things shitty companies have sent their employees. (My experiences are limited, employment-wise. Forgive me.)

And, of course, Ray was a darling. I really loved them and I think the story could have benefitted from making this dual-POV. Not because I think they’re hot(but I do, just hear me out because I hate that art style on the cover. Also, where are their curls that are described a dozen times?!?), but because I think it could have avoided feeling like it was more about the hardships/pitfalls of being an ally.

Some parts of this were sweet, though, like how Simone cares for Ray post-top surgery, and the conversations she had with them about that surgery beforehand. I may or may not have squealed exactly one time. Sorry.

I think I’ll check out TJ Alexander’s other works. But ones that don’t have a cis MC. That didn’t go terribly well.

**************
pre-review:
STARTED THIS BOOK AT MIDNIGHT AND FINISHED IT AT ALMOST MIDNIGHT!!! ALMOST EXACTLY 24 HOURS! I’M A ROCKSTAR

Fluffy to a sometimes embarrassing degree, but the romance itself was super sweet, the banter was a treat to read and I adored how London’s nonbinary identity was represented. (I was a bit scared to read a traditionally-published sort-of-spicy romance with a nonbinary love interest because I wasn’t sure how it would be handled.) Dahlia was a believable disaster in her own right, but she was still a lovable protagonist and the chemistry she had with London was sizzling. London, as the other POV though, took a bit to grow on me because of the initial meetcute being incredibly awkward to read about. (The first two meetings, actually. So much oversharing…at least one of those instances can be sort of excused with the alcohol use?)

I genuinely did not care about the side and minor characters besides Barbara, though. For a majority of the book, the cooking show contestants were a blur of names and barely described personalities. It didn’t help that every time a character seemed to be given some level of depth, they were kicked off of the show. The reality show itself felt more like a backdrop, and it didn’t really feel like I was reading a story taking place in one until the last fourth or so. For the most part, the challenges didn’t feel super immersive, and while the sheer number of them is realistic for a TV show, at least a third of them began to feel pointless to dwell on.

And as many people have pointed out, missed opportunity to have different cultural foods made and talked about by the different contestants?!? Like, not all the cast was white(as was evident in some descriptors or names), but it felt like it sometimes, goddamn.

(I’m also surprised at how London and Dahlia never once felt like competitors. Not even a little bit of that conflict could’ve affected their relationship, until one of them got kicked off? Both of you mfs are yearning on set and still surprised the entire viewerbase clocked you had a thing for each other?? Okay.)

I didn’t quite like this as much as “Sing Anyway”(that was the first book by Anita Kelly that I read), but I still had a ton of fun reading this. It was so cheesy and so saccharine. Evidently, though, that doesn’t make it perfect haha. 

It took a bit for me to get invested in the story, but this was my first time reading a sapphic monster romance, and this was interesting. It borrows a couple elements from Beauty And The Beast, which is how I found out about it(I love queer retellings), but it seems to be only inspired by that story: The world of magical, ravaging diseases, architecture so impossible it’s like illusions to a human’s eyes and mind, and villages ruled by the fear of being “disposable”(ableism connotation) is something specific to Aliette De Bodard’s writing. 

While the story is written in English, Vietnamese language is often important to both the plot itself, and how the characters are gendered. I don’t know if I’d consider this to be a “queernorm” world, but there was casual non-binary representation in not one but two of the characters, and I liked how that was represented with both how they were described as referring to themselves, and the cultural clothing they’d wear. (Also, while this is a slightly different topic, honorifics are used to show the progression of Vu Côn and Yên’s relationship, and I liked that.)

Unfortunately, one of the reasons it took a while for me to start liking this was because I felt detached from the main character—although Vu Côn’s POV was alright, I don’t think a third-person POV worked for Yên. Some of this could also be attributed to the writing style, which while there are some beautiful passages, a lot of it was confusingly dreamlike. The story is already surreal because of its impossible setting(I mean this in a matter-of-fact way), but some of that seeped into the character writing and worldbuilding. My experience reading was notably strange, as a result. (Also, none of the village characters stuck with me except for her mother, Kim Ngoc?)

I definitely feel like the twins had the strongest characterization of all the cast, which isn’t exactly a hot take among the reviewers(they seem to be a crowd favorite). Their motivations were the easiest to grasp, and I liked them as characters, too. Their mother-child relationships with Vu Côn were a little complex but also sweet. 

Can’t think of anything else to say except for that while I liked how the different ethics and implications of Yên and Vu Côn’s romance were addressed, Yên running away whenever there was tension(the bad kind, not the other kind) got repetitive. Some of the explanation on the Vanishers was also confusing to me, but I don’t know if that’s because I zoned out in the first third or so?

Not sure if I’d read any other books by this author. There were elements of “In The Vanisher’s Palace” that I liked, but not enough to recommend it?

I enjoyed this a lot more than I anticipated, which is great, since this has been on my TBR for a couple years. Though, the 3.75 instead of a 4.0 comes from the side characters not being as strong(and this is a character-focused contemporary with little plot), along with some of the dialogue feeling long-winded(it’s a little too accurate to actual conversation, probably due to this story’s original play format).

(And to those noticing the character’s name is slightly different than the one on the cover, there’s a really great explanation for it! Don’t worry.)

But Alonda felt like an actual teenager, and her friend group was fun. If you’re reading this and expecting the actual sport of wrestling, you’re not getting that—the RIZE troupe focuses a lot on the theatrics part of mainstream wrestling, with their own characters and (sometimes) even gimmicks. Admittedly, that could get a little ridiculous, but considering half of the group didn’t exactly know what to do with their lives and careers and just wanted a hand in creating something fun for the Brooklyn locals, I’m partially dismissing it. (But also, I think narratives about kids/teens playing are adorable.)

I also liked how Alonda’s wrestling persona tied into both how she dealt with her grief, and her own queer self-discovery. Typically, in stories like this where you have a queer awakening and a more serious plot, it’s hard to balance them out, but I felt they were given an equal amount of attention. (And regarding the grief but not the wrestling persona part, I especially appreciated how Alonda’s subplot of finding her mom’s diary was handled unexpectedly realistic, and although one part of it was important to a bonding moment with Theresa at the end, the diary wasn’t the source of her catharsis.) I will say, though, that although parts of the romances/love triangle were cute, I didn’t feel a particular attachment to them. (And the foreshadowing for who Alonda would go with was painfully obvious.)

And also, Theresa and Alonda’s mother/aunt figure-daughter relationship was multifaceted and sweet. There were times where it shifted slightly differently than an ordinary mother-daughter bond, and I thought the realistic-sounding dialogue worked in favor of that particular element.

The ending is open-ended in a bittersweet way, but I liked how the overall story captured the spirit of summer friendship, and the kinds of bonds that, although it’s uncertain how long they’ll last(or maintain that strength), they stick with everyone involved.

I’m kind of disappointed I don’t see many people talking about this, to be honest. I liked the more visual writing style that persisted even in novel format, and this was a solid summer read. But I can understand other readers having mixed feelings on this.

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pre-review:
3.75! To quote one of my notes: “god they’re all so embarrassing but also i love their whimsy”