hadia(?) i love you sm

jesse makes me irrationally angry like i get that the women you loved is now with another man but she literally thought you were dead for two years like it's fine for her to move on like 

very gorgeous art

okay it's a pretty decent book but 

GODDAMN they got married 0.2 seconds after rachel proposed??? like my lord give morgan at least a few days to process but no they went STRAIGHT to the venue

 

what a good debut!

okay so i applied for this arc on a whim? i’d added the book to my tbr a few days before, but i never thought i’d actually get it. and when i did get it…it languished away in my phone because i was too lazy to read it. major mistake on my part, because this book is good! it’s a great debut!

the book follows alice sun, a scholarship student at one of the top international schools in beijing as she helps students at her school with problems, because she found out she can go invisible. tbh i forgot about the supernatural part of this book when i started to read it so i was like ??? i do not remember this book being supernatural. the plot isn’t super intricate or too complicated, and i liked that! i also think that the author accurately captured the environment and the characterization of the rich prep school kids well, as well as exploring classism and the feeling of not fitting in and not feeling like enough. i did enjoy the plot, however it’s very strange that no one was suspicious of beijing ghost like no shade but if this happened at my school i’m sure the admin would’ve caught wind of it and shut it down immediately. 

i personally enjoyed the characters the most, i think! alice is a very strong narrator; you can really grasp her voice and her character from the first few pages. she’s determined and smart and willing to fight for her goal. i admire that. i also feel like the supporting characters(henry and chanel) were great as well! alice’s classmates were also well-characterized; they did give off rich prep school and sometimes asshole vibes.

the romance! henry is a very charming love interest and so i liked it! i also really liked that he never disparaged or demeaned alice. their banter even when they became friends was great, and the fact that he fell first? immaculate. 

overall, this was a very promising debut! i enjoyed this novel and i was hooked on it. i’ll definitely keep an eye out for whatever ann liang writes and publishes next. 

also…chanel what a woman

 

tjr is just really good at this writing thing because this is another book of her that i enjoyed immensely. carrie soto is bitchy, mean, dedicated to winning, and she is a fantastic mc. i loved loved loved her dynamic with nicki (bitchy frenemies), her relationships with javier, bowe, and gwen. the tennis scenes were vivid and actionable

the older gay chinese men!! loved them! but   

mr. regret dying...i died too

so good rf kuang's pen skills go crazy. a fascinating and heartbreaking look into the act of translation. it hits home personally. as a chinese american, i translate from chinese to english and vice versa almost every day, but there is a part of me that feels shame for not knowing my mother tongue (chinese) fluently. 

the character dynamics in this go crazy, and i really enjoyed ramy, robin, and victoire's relationships and robin's relationship with griffin. the ending is perfect; i don't think it could've ended any other way.

kinda became an instant favorite...i love the art style and story and characters. the art is so good gosh and i love the resolution 

a really interesting look into a world many people may be familiar with, but don't know the intricate details of. this just really confirmed my belief in not wanting to be a chef