coolfoolmoon's Reviews (357)

Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

4.25

emotional informative reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I liked the info in the back about how the story wasn’t inspired by the authors family, but by an amalgam of Korean Japanese people’s stories, because there are so so so many full sections of the book that feel so very American, speaking as a person who is African American. Despite not being set in America the type of discrimination is the same.

Content Warnings

Patsy

Nicole Dennis-Benn

4.25

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Along with all the other stuff going on in my life this book pushed me into a breakdown. It’s all despair. Not a single moment of happiness. Other than that it’s really good!

Content Warnings

Felix Ever After

Kacen Callender

4.0

emotional informative tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The exact book I needed as a teenager. It’s nice that I felt like I was reminiscing on something I didn’t experience, which is a testament to the good writing. Only thing I didn’t like:

I felt like the romance between the besties was rushed. I would’ve appreciatetd more of Felix having the thoughts and feelings for Ezra, instead it just felt like everyone told them they wanted to be together so Felix was like oh okay wait actually maybe I do like him. Kids / teens should know its okay for someone else to like you, it's very possible your best friend might be in love with you, but if everyone's mature about it you can still have a relationship with that person and not be IN a relationship.

Everything else was well done!

im so sick of harry potter being a feature in modern books. jk rowling has been openly transphobic for like 10 years now. sincerely a person who never read harry potter but thinks people need to actually develop their own personalities

Content Warnings

The Dos and Donuts of Love

Adiba Jaigirdar

4.0

inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Perfect puns. I love that messy lesbians are in every country,

and the moral of the story for queers of color is stay away from that white gay!

Content Warnings

Crying in H Mart

Michelle Zauner

4.0

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Are all POC experiences universal? Or just the ones in America? I relate so much to their relationship but me and my mom aren't immigrants and there's so many stories like that where I'm like damn are ALL moms of color just like that?

(The day I finished this book I was gonna take it back to the library and pick up Pachinko and someone was speeding and totaled my car and my mom yelled at me for getting mad at the guy who could've killed me. So. Even though I was very moved by this book, safe to say I won't be crying in H Mart whent hat day comes.)

Content Warnings

Girls That Never Die

Safia Elhillo

3.5

emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

Right when I was thinking "What an interesting perspective I don't know much about the experiences of Black Arabs, I see them as two cultures embodied in one people group but that's simplifying them and how beautiful is that-" and then BAM the next poem had good old fashion American / Western racism.

Content Warnings

Stop People Pleasing: And Find Your Power

Hailey Magee

4.25

hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

I need this book everyday through everything for the rest of my life. Every chapter made me emotional, not quite to the point of tears but still. And it gave me courage to say how I've been feeling about something after sitting on for months. I took notes!

Content Warnings

The Dallergut Dream Department Store

Miye Lee

4.25

hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Miye Lee you will always be famous! The only thing I didn't like about this book was

Santa laughed and didn't say ho ho ho!

So that better be fixed in the sequel! Everything else was perfect!

Content Warnings

The Deep

Rivers Solomon

3.25

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I’ll be honest, this book made me stop my 575 day reading streak. It's really heavy, a lot to deal with, so it's perfect technically. Despite this I didn't connect with it as much. It was too much sorrow and too much grief and forgetting and repeating those things, and honestly the ending took too long for everyone to realize which also took me out of it.

Content Warnings

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity

C. Riley Snorton

4.5

informative reflective medium-paced

A book worth buying. It's interesting that for a long while trans people are not even mentioned, because race is the prime marginalization that gender is only created because of. We already can't conform, so like Brockington or his family said, why would we add another marginalization on top of that? We can't help it. We're just born that way. We're just born into a system that tells us we're wrong, cis or trans, just because we're not white. I love the analysis not including trans people for a while, I love the analysis focusing on Black women and how Black women are already a different level of Other, and one of the quotes I pulled (or maybe I just wrote the note as a reminder) "To be a a Black man you must separate from the Black mother." There's just so many poignant observations... I gotta buy this book.

Content Warnings

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