Leaving this without a rating! I found a lot of value in it and I liked returning to Jacqueline Woodson’s work for the first time in eight years, but I also can’t bring myself to give it a high rating.

Impeccable writing that was easy to breeze through, even if there were some flaws in the pacing. The messiness of teenage identity was depicted with care. I liked Staggerlee as a character, and found her a believable teenage protagonist. But I can’t recommend this book because I can’t accept how the entire queer pining plot was between Staggerlee and her adoptive cousin. And with semi-frequent reminders of them being part of the same family tree! I’m sure if they were related by blood, more reviews would be talking about it, but there’s surprisingly little comment/criticism?

It’s kind of like how watching Sweet Blue Flowers was for me(carefully handled queer rep that was technically ahead of its time, I just can’t ethically recommend it), but instead of the cousin thing being at the beginning and the main character falls in love with a classmate of hers, the order was switched. 

I’m still checking out Jacqueline Woodson’s other works, but this one was weird for me.

Very glad to have read this for pride, super cute and I was embarrassingly invested in all of the drama lol. I loved all of the casual rep, and the (sometimes) sort of subtle way to introduce younger readers to different terms/identities)! Abigail and Kai were very accurately written, for characters of their age (12 and 13 years old). It unfortunately meant a lot of the conflict and “stakes” were immature, but things were still able to be resolved fairly quickly, and the occasional input from adult characters was nice. (That last part was moreso in the case of Abigail’s story. I liked how, in the end of the book, Lena was able to help her through her issues from both an age-typical awkwardness and “working through some internalized homophobia” perspective.)

As fun as I think the overall story and the characters were, though, I didn’t think many of them were rounded-out. There were some noticeable personality traits, yes, but nothing strong enough to really stick with me? I’m sure some of that has to do with how large the cast was.

If I’d had this available when I was around Kai and Abigail’s age, though, I definitely would have held it close to my heart. At that age I was out as lesbian, and just starting to question my gender, so the queer experiences of both POV characters would have definitely resonated with me! I‘ve had “This Is Our Rainbow” on my radar for a while now, but I’ll definitely check it out just to read a couple more pages about those two.

My overall feelings on this are a mixed bag, and I don’t know how else to express them, so I’m doing a list format different from what I usually do in my reviews!

What I liked: Most of the ending, which included the opera house fight scene! (Although, I think the reason for why

Coralie corrupted more than Laure did

was a little convoluted.) The imagery! The mix of external and internal conflict (

re: Laure and Coralie’s friendship

)! The bisexuality of it all.

I also felt there was finally sufficient payoff to the feelings of inadequacy and continued abuse within the Paris ballet in Laure’s story, since we’d gone the whole book seeing her gradually spiral, and it didn’t feel like the narrative had to fill you in on the reasons for why anymore.

The meh: The overall ballet backdrop? It wasn’t as immersive as I thought it would be and a lot of the themes explored were surface-level. There was more depth in the Acheron worldbuilding/exposition than the critique of the ballet world (which, by the way, there is so much material to work with).

Which brings me to this point—overall I thought the worldbuilding was unoriginal, mostly done through exposition. This made especially noticeable by the amount of information/speed held back for a sequel.

I can’t think of anything I thought was bad, but although the Laure x Andor romance was cool as a concept, it was subpar in execution. (Maybe it’s because Andor started IMMEDIATELY worshipping Laure. I like when fictional men are down bad for the women they love, but not when it’s so sudden.) I couldn’t see their chemistry and yet their relationship was in so much of the book. 

********

pre-review:
3.5 mostly because the final fight (and the part that used the title in a line) was sick as fuck. otherwise my feelings are mixed and I’ll review this later when I’ve made sense of them!!

Beautiful overall, made moreso by the narration, as I was listening on audio! (Hannah’s audiobook voice isn’t for the faint of heart though. She as a character is meant to be overly cheery. My poor ears.) While frequently anxiety and anger-inducing, there was still a hopeful tone to Valerie’s story. I mostly liked how the back-and-forth between confidence, self-doubt and confusion in her deconstruction journey was written through her thoughts.

While the romance was very mushy-gushy and sometimes corny, I’m giving it a pass because not only was it clear that these two girls needed the support they gave each other, but I also wouldn’t expect anything else from two sapphics with a very conservative and religious upbringing trying to flirt and have a relationship with each other lol. 

Also, all the references to queer books!! (Two of which being stuff Natalie Nautus has narrated! “The narration is fine, but the story is great” or however that line goes made me laugh.) A fun Easter Egg for general readers of queer fiction, but mostly fans of Natalie.

What held me back from rating this higher, though, was that certain parts were repetitive. It sometimes lessened the impact of a scene or made my audiobook feel like it was repeating.

Please check trigger warnings before reading, there’s very graphic depictions of religious bigotry, child abuse(spanking, but also emotional and religious abuse), homophobia, and the main character is outed

in chapters 25/26.

Despite the hopefulness and the sweet ending, this was heavy.

3.5 STARS!! (Since I feel reluctant about pulling out The Fun Rating.) That’s literally the same rating I gave to Forward March, but I liked this one more. Thank you to Laurel for doing a buddy read with me, even though I only made it into one last-minute!

I’ll get into my criticisms later, but I’ll first say that this was a lot of fun. Perhaps that was helped by me being in the middle of making a cosplay for a convention in the week I was reading this, since it made it easier for me to connect with and enjoy the parts where the main characters were assembling their outfits and ideas. (I’m with Selene on that drag is easier than cosplay! But in the words of my teacher, it depends on the person and cosplay.) I can tell the author has a lot of love for the subculture and the art behind it, and it definitely seeped into how drag is represented through the characters.

Laurel also pointed this out in their review, but the “characters are put into a situation” plot with a lack of different devices like foreshadowing definitely made this read like a fanfic. (Which was amusing, with the sparse references to fandom culture and fic writing sprinkled throughout.) Especially in the case of Selene/Spencer and Briar/Edgar’s romance!! Their often very queer rivalry and constant back-and-forth gave me flashbacks to a couple of modern AU fics I’ve read. 

(And I think the fic comparison makes more sense the more I think about it, considering that sometimes authors deal with mental health issues through characters, and based off the author’s note this was a personal story to write.)

But one of the factors that made me lower my rating was Selene’s constant switching. From Beau’s convoluted defenses, I gathered at some point that she’d be revealed to have some kind of personal insecurity and emotional struggle. (It’s also kind of a cliche for more brash/rude characters. Even if she was only like that sometimes.) In the last third, she from being rude to Briar and instigating arguments, to seemingly feeling bad for how she affected Briar and eventually becoming friendly enough to have an actual romance instead of homoerotic relationship. And there were a couple of things I thought she should’ve brought up in her apology, but never did. I feel the accountability of the main character’s social circle was handled better in Don’t Be A Drag than Forward March(thank god), however, Selene’s arc was still incomplete and rushed. 

The only character I didn’t really like was Beau, but he was unfortunately a very realistic kind of messy gay even if he MADDENED me sometimes. I think most of his accountability issues were handled by the end, though.

But talking about a character I LOVED, though: ACHILLES PATRICK!! I’m probably biased since I’m autistic, nonbinary and sometimes do drag(it’s been for pride events, though. I’ve yet to perform), but they were genuinely such a sweet character and I thought their friendship with Briar was one of the most organic relationships in the story. I also think they embodied a lot of the joy to be found in self-expression through drag. 

I don’t have many other thoughts besides I liked the mental illness rep(specifically the depression rep), and if I’d found this a year or so ago when I was struggling it would’ve hit me hard. Overall, I have a couple criticisms and complicated feelings, but I still liked it. 

After talking with my sibling (who really liked this story), I appreciated some aspects more, particularly in the case of the main character(Marcos)’s hypocrisy and self-justifying beliefs, but I still wanted more depth out of the writing. There isn’t much discussion on the societal structures and issues that go into what makes a human worthy of their humanity, and what makes them meat. The weirdly nonchalant, mundane recount of a brutal world actually works for the premise imo because it ties into the theme of how people become desensitized to atrocity(made especially noticeable by  how irredeemable the MC is). But at times, the translation makes it feel stiff and disconnected.

Still, I’m keeping my rating slightly above a 3 stars because I liked the writing, the zoo segments (the exposition in the puppy scene was very shoehorned in, though. That’s excluded from this), the bits of worldbuilding in how “the transition” affected other parts of the world(but that wasn’t explored in depth or often), and how Marcos was handled as an unreliable narrator.

all of these are great concepts, but the pacing and the writing makes them read like bad MLP creepypastas

I’ve had mixed feelings about Kacen Callendar’s books as I read them(depends on where in their published works I am), but I’m glad I’ve come back to their writing! “King And The Dragonflies” is an example of how kidlit can (sometimes) be some of the most profound stories I’ve ever read. While this wasn’t a perfect one-to-one replica of a kid’s mindset, I liked how King was flawed, sometimes struggling to make decisions if they involved people outside of himself, and learning to keep the other perspectives of his friends in mind. His self-discovery and grief were also carefully handled, and I liked how it tied into the closure to the magical realism elements. But I was a little surprised by the direction the magical realism parts went in! (Not to say it was without buildup, though. And that part of the story was closed in a straightforward way, which was refreshing to see.)

I also appreciated the intersectionality! I feel that the different ways Sandy and King are affected by homophobia and racism (and how they aren’t always separate, in the case of King) were discussed in a way that was both respectable and easy for kids to grasp. If this ends up on classroom shelves, I think this could be a great discussion starter.

The only real issues I have were the abrupt shift in attitude King’s parents had after he was outed—it didn’t have much buildup to that point and left me confused, and the ending wrapped things up a little too quickly. Most of the story was paced somewhat realistically, and that took me aback? But I know that last creative choice was made with the target demographic in mind(and I am too old to be part of that). I also would’ve liked for King’s friends to be more memorable, the only one that really stuck with me was Jasmine and that was mostly because I liked how some of the societal pressures amplified by middle school were shown in her relationship with King. (I did also think she was a sweet kid, though.)

I wish I’d cried more reading this, but this is definitely a solid grief-centered narrative. 

fineeee i liked the melodramatic doomed teenage lesbians and thought this was pretty beautiful overall what about it