coolfoolmoon's Reviews (357)

emotional reflective 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

Could've been 150 pages shorter if you cut out the amount of times characters repeat themselves or each other. Obviously written by someone who's Gen X in the way that the dialogue is kinda cringe but the way that movies trying to make a quick buck are. (That's a bad explanation, I really can't capture what I mean but the writing's not good. People are randomly dramatic for the "sake" of tension and these situations wouldn't make sense in person. And I know what you're thinking: "This is a book, not real life!" Fair. But I trusted you to suspend my disbelief and you failed! I'm back to thinking of reality!)

Not a complaint for the author but for the illustrator of the cover: Hope is supposed to be dark skinned. Like, based on the story she is uncomfortably dark for this Southern town. And yet there are no darkskins on the cover. All them ladies are medium brown tones. It's a beautiful cover absolutely, but I was lied to!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional fast-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

I bought this because I thought it was a poetry book. I was wrong. Anyway.

I really related to / understood the emotions of the character so it got some extra points. Other than that it's just okay.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

A Psalm for Us

Reyna Biddy

DID NOT FINISH: 20%

This is so boring :/ Straight people just have crystal clear minds with absolutely no substance. Good for them I guess but I can barely hold a conversation with this kind of person. There's just NOTHING there, no weight or meat or flavor. I'm glad you're finding your way but I was waiting for a good poem and couldn't find one. I skimmed the other sections and nothing. Not wasting the rest of my time.

If you like this book, you'll love r.h Sin.
adventurous dark hopeful reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Something must've been in the book publishing water in the 2010s because this is the second book I've read dealing with the multiverse. Now there's so many multiverse movies! Or maybe this is nothing because I don't have enough evidence but still !!!

At first I thought this was just like that episode of Rick and Morty, then I realized it was like a different episode of Rick and Morty, kinda, then I realized none of these other medias will ever be EEAAO. So.

Negative points for being written by a man. When he said "Spanish eyes" I went oh lord here we go but also the action scenes made me think aww boys having fun playing with their toys so he kinda got the points back there. I really liked the ending.
I like when things can't go back to how they were. Even though, after we learn there's multiple other Jasons, that means there are universes with no Jasons at all and he could've just went to one of those... But also loving your wife so much you'd kill multiverse versions of yourself? That's so real. This one's for the yearners.


Last note, nothing to do with the book, it must be really acclaimed because when I placed the audiobook hold I started off in 57th place. Had it on hold almost 3 months.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Bethany C. Morrow, you MUST be a good writer, because I hated this girl so much, I really did, and I still kept reading! Miss Morrow MUST be TALENTED because there are real life people like Naema who I'd have no problem humbling, I don't care for their perspective for how bad or disrespectful of a person they are, and yet I had to finish this one! Props to Morrow!

I am being dramatic; I love me a story from the villain's perspective (although it is weird to call a kid a villain, even if it's true). In fact I couldn't go 5 pages without leaving a note about something that made me laugh or made me angry or a comment about something happening in the world. Usually if something is so bad it's good I'll comment that but this book and series are just good. Like okay good not excellent or superb. Like a pleasant okay good.

I had similar issues for this book as I did the first one (the world building isn't fleshed out (although I do understand it more the second time round now), the back half of the book hooked me a lot more than the first half then it was over so quick). I think it's a good message for the youths to be aware of though, and my teenage self would've ate this up.

For the third book, let Naema say fuck. She needs it, PLEASE. Let her express herself!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Raw. Emotional. Very personal. Very close to home for me on a lot of issues. I can't really sum up my feelings for this one. It was really heavy but VERY good, very well done, and gave me hope for the future.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Amazing. Excellent. Superb.

Historical nonfiction, in my experience, is very repetitive, but here it works. It also works that the books begins (in either the foreword or the preface, idk, 68 pages before we get to the meat of the text is crazy) with whichever writer mentioning that critics of the book have complained that the book doesn't give a good enough blueprint on what revolutionary actions they should take nexts. You fools. You spineless clowns. Fanon literally says over and over here's how the colonizer distracts you and the way forward is not gonna be the same for everyone. The repetition is to show that while every story and its circumstances are different, the root of all their problems come from the same source.

It's depressing that this book published when my grandmother was born (and has since passed) is still relevant to today. I hope it is not relevant by the end of my life time. I hope that people look back at this book as a cautionary tale, a reminder of our history we cannot forget and always, constantly relearn to remember what not to do and how to move forward. 

Also kinda fucked up his parents named him Frantz. Sounds like France. Is / Was that a common name?

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional reflective fast-paced

Of the two zines I picked up at the Little Free Library in Hayward, this was the better one. Once again, poems that are just okay, but also a few of these were good. Not good enough that I'll keep the zine or reread it but good enough to be passed on. Hopefully some angsty teen in my area picks up the zine and resonates with this book and feels inspired to write their own angsty poems!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I read Evil Eye last month and gave it 5 stars, and it's near impossible for me to give things 5 stars, so I figured this woman must be amazing I gotta read what else she has. Only one other book?! How heartbreaking! I need more! Etaf Rum the woman that you are!!!

I do feel that if I had read this book first and Evil Eye second, I still would've given Evil Eye 5 stars. These books were written for the culture. Not my culture, but the importance of them, the weight of them, were not just to represent Palestinians and Arabs, but to show other Arabs "this is who we are, we have stories to tell, and we have to be honest with ourselves" and I love that SO much. Etaf Rum you will always be famous!!!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
informative reflective fast-paced

Poems that are just okay. Only two stood out to me: One about how we are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn and the other about how capitalism / fascism is bad. That one was interesting since the zine was made in 2009 and things keep getting worse.

I found this (and another) zine in Hayward, CA, and it must have lived quite the life to travel from one coast to the other. I thought that was worth saying.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings