elementarymydear's Reviews (967)

 Allie is a young single mother, balancing work and co-parenting with her best friend, when she (literally) bumps into the love of her life, her ex-girlfriend of five years. As she and Eden begin to reconnect, she has to reconcile the past with the present while unable to ignore the ticking clock as Eden’s wedding day to her fiancée grows ever closer…

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This was a really fun contemporary read about family, friendship, and reuniting with lost love. Allie and Eden’s romance was really sweet, and it was great to see how it blossomed from when they were in high school together to when they’re in their mid-twenties. Allie’s family gave a really nice grounding to the novel, and it was really great to see her relationship with her son especially as a constant throughout.

The story jumps between timelines quite a lot, and while I did enjoy getting to see both the past and the present of Allie and Eden’s relationship, it felt quite confusing at times. There were some things it would have been nice to see develop in chronological order, such as when Allie starts dating someone new and we are introduced to him as her boyfriend before read about their first meeting and first date. Some of the writing felt a little bit repetitive, which made some passages a bit clunky, but overall it was a nice read.

If you’re looking for fun contemporary second-chance romance with great bi representation, I’d definitely recommend checking this one out!

Thank you to the author for providing me with a free copy for review. All views are my own. 

 I got to the end of this book and couldn’t help but wonder… what was the point of all this?

Two gods, Nature and Nurture, decide to have a competition to see who is more important. No reason, no exposition, just ‘let’s have a contest’. They are each going to pick a pair of twins to raise their own way, and those twins will be pitted against each other once they’re grown. (Side note: it’s not twins separated at birth, as you might expect. Just twins. They each get a set. No explanation.) And that’s… that’s it. That’s the plot.

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It’s an interesting premise, but that’s where the positives ended for me. First of all: perspectives. The gods had very little nuance or interest to their characters; they had a goal, and they just did it. It would have been much more interesting to read from the perspectives of the humans, who don’t know they are being manipulated by gods until the very end.

It felt like the sort of book with lots of Important IdeasTM, but I got to the end and I still don’t know what they were. It was clear the author was trying to explore ideas of gender, but we were stuck in circles for the whole story. Nature and Nurture are genderless, but take on male and female forms respectively when they come down to earth. In dialogue they agree that gender is a human construct, but in the narrative we see the male Nature being violent and uncaring while the female Nurture is – you guessed it – nurturing and caring, almost smothering. Nurture tells us she pays little attention to the exact human form she takes, then immediately tells us all about her womanly curves and says ‘I shook my very dainty feminine fist at the world at large’. The two female twins, one raised by Nature, one by Nurture, are both painfully “I’m not like other girls” types, and when they eventually meet they actually argue about the right way to be not-like-other-girls. Every statement made in the characters’ dialogue or thoughts was immediately negated by the action, and we went round and round in circles for the whole book.

As for the world-building, I don’t know where we are or when we are. It seems to be generic dark ages, I briefly thought it might be set around the Crusades but I’m not 100% sure. Some of it seemed to be set in the Middle East, some of it in Western Europe, some of it on a tropical island with lions. It didn’t feel at all rooted in a particular setting which doesn’t always bother me, but in this particular case the story just felt very unmoored.

Nothing came together at all for me in this book. I got to the end feeling like nothing had happened. It’s clear that there were a lot of ideas that went into this book, but none of them were explored in a satisfying way. 

I received a free copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own. 

 This book was such a delight to read – I was hooked from the very first page!

Darcy Phillips is a junior in high school and secretly runs a relationships advice service, where students send in their relationship problems and she anonymously responds. She’s incapable of telling her best friend Brooke about her true feelings for her, and everything starts to go wrong when a newly-single jock, Brougham, discovers her secret business and hires her to help him get back together with his ex-girlfriend.

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Darcy reminded me so much of myself at 17 (and at 19, and 21… and 23…) that I wanted to march into the book, sit her down and try to knock some sense into her, in the full knowledge that she wouldn’t change until she learnt from her mistakes the hard way. For the first two thirds of the book she is keeping a big secret from her best friend and the knowledge of what would happen if that came out was EXTREMELY stressful, even for me, just the reader! The friendship dynamic between Darcy and Brooke felt like a very universal sapphic experience, especially for young people/newly out people. The way the lines between friendship and relationship blur between two queer women, with hand-holding, kisses on the cheek, casual ‘love you’… the list goes on. It felt like a very true-to-life depiction of the way friendships can become confusing and complicated. When things started to develop with Darcy’s endgame love interest though, it was sweet and gentle, evolving at just the right pace.

I really liked how the story dealt with Darcy’s feelings around her sexuality. She is openly bisexual from the start of the book, but during the story has her first crush on a boy since coming out and is hit with anxiety about no longer being seen as queer. While this storyline felt very grounded and is something many bi people go through, the way it was resolved was a bit heavy-handed, as various students in the school’s Queer and Questioning club take their turns on a soapbox. That being said, I can’t help but wonder how I would have felt if late-teens-me had read that; I might feel differently if I was still in the process of coming out to myself.

I did feel slightly let down at the ending; I won’t spoil anything here, but it just felt slightly like some of Darcy’s character development didn’t quite stick right through to the end. It would have been nice to see her dwell a bit more on the decision she makes in the final chapter.

Overall, this was such a fun, engaging read, that I highly recommend!
 

 Norse mythology has always interested me, but the vast majority of my knowledge comes from either Wagner or from the MCU so when I came across this book I was really excited to read it.

The story follows Sigyn, daughter of Odin and wife of Loki, and centres her in the great drama of Asgard. We witness the legends of Loki and Ragnarok through her eyes, where she is caught between her father and her husband.

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Particularly in Loki’s story, there are some slightly weirder elements (Loki giving birth to an eight-legged horse, for example) and Cat Rector doesn’t shy away from them, including some very gruesome parts of the story. I was impressed at how seamlessly she wove them into the narrative, without feeling too jarring to our modern sensibilities and preconceptions of mythology.

I absolutely loved how as well as embracing Loki’s gender fluidity, she made it a central part of his relationship with the gods of Asgard. He is mocked and rejected for not conforming to their standards of masculinity. Sigyn is the only one who sees and accepts him – and sometimes her – for who they are. Sigyn’s own queerness is part of the reason why she has been so neglected by her own family, and there was a fantastic tenderness to they way they created a queer relationship in a marriage that was perceived as straight.

Unfortunately, in some regards the book didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I didn’t feel particularly drawn into the world – there were a few too many modern-isms and inconsistencies and the story didn’t really grab my attention until the final third of the novel. The double-edged sword of very short chapters meant that I was more likely to read the next chapter because it was short, but it was very hard to get stuck into the story, and it wasn’t until the very end that I felt much emotional connection to the characters.

Overall, this was a book with lots of interesting themes and storylines, but ultimately didn’t grab my attention. 

I received a free copy of this book for review. All opinions are my own.

 After a disastrous break-up, Laren takes a room at Harrington House, notorious for being haunted. At first she doesn’t believe it, but even though the house is kept in top condition mysterious things keep happening. On top of dealing with actual ghosts, she has to deal with her ever-increasing feelings towards her room-mate and landlord Casey…

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This was such a fun read, and perfect for this time of year! It’s quite a short novella, coming in at about 50 pages, so is perfect for an evening curled up while it’s raining outside. This book has its own complete story while still setting up a series and I’m very excited to see where it’s going to go next.

J.P. Noether found the perfect balance of light-hearted and spooky, with plenty of atmosphere without it feeling too heavy. Even the chapter headings felt very true to life, capturing what the average person would actually think if they lived in a haunted house – for example, “Chapter 6: believe me, I know it sounds weird". Laren is a great character to read from, and the way the author set up her relationship Casey was really interesting – just enough to get us invested, without giving too much away! It’s clear that this romance is going to be a slow-burn across several books, and that’s a really nice contrast to the shorter, episodic ghost story in this first volume. I think it’s going to be a great story-arc to span across the future instalments.

If you’re looking for a cosy, spooky read, complete with great sapphic and non-binary representation, this is the book for you!

Thank you to the author for providing me with a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.
 

 Things I loved:

📚Instead of a 'find your inner strength' story, this was about a young girl who is sure in her strength, her intelligence, and her potential, and the story was about her finding the support and resources she needs to achieve what she wants to

📚There were a lot of very dark themes and topics in this book, and they were written with sensitivity and weight but without overwhelming the main story which I think is rare!

📚The emphasis on the importance of education all the way through this book was *chef's kiss*

📚The narrative was written in the main character's own dialect rather than in standard English

Things that didn't quite do it for me:

📚This book didn't really hold my attention, it was hard for me to stay focused on it for long

📚(This is a very minor thing) but there were some moments that felt a bit on-the-nose, including the classic "it's not history, it's her-story"

Overall:

A very good read, filled with important and interesting ideas. It reminded me of the sort of thing we would read in Carnegie club back in school - I know if I'd read this back in KS3 I would have absolutely loved it. There should be a copy of this in every school library! Overall rating of 4.5⭐ 

 Lady Jane Grey is often a footnote in our stories of the Tudors, so it was a pleasant change to read her own story, and from Alison Weir no less!

I went into this expecting to read Lady Jane Grey’s life story and while that was the case, I wasn’t expecting the amount of political intrigue and scheming that her life was inevitably caught up in. It hadn’t occurred to me that, as Henry VIII’s niece, she would be in and around court and aware of all of the drama from Anne of Cleves onwards, and aside from Jane’s own story it was really interesting to read royal soap opera from her peripheral perspective.

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I really liked the characterisation of Jane; she had very little agency in her life but she had a quiet strength to her, and when she did have the opportunity to make her own decisions (that is, in her brief stint as queen) she was firm in her decisions and intentions. I also really like the quite complex portrayals of characters like Henry VIII, Thomas Seymour and Catherine Parr, figures who we tend to have a two-dimensional view of.

That being said, some of the characters – particularly Jane’s parents, and the Duke of Northumberland – felt almost comically evil, with no redeeming features. This may be true to life, and they certainly don’t have reputations as particularly kind people, but it would have been nice to have a bit more depth to them.

Although it was really good to have a broader depiction of the goings on in Tudor court during Jane’s life, it did sometimes feel like it was spread a little thin. The whole book was in first person from multiple perspectives – I didn’t count but it must have been at least eight or nine, perhaps more with even the executioner being thrown in there at the end. I would have preferred to have fewer perspectives, or read in third person, especially when new perspectives were being added even in the final pages.

Overall, this was a very absorbing, enjoyable and interesting look at the least-known and shortest-lived Tudor monarch, and felt like a fresh perspective on life in the Tudor court. 

 This book is going to be the next big thing. If it isn’t, it should be. 

Across seven chapters, Shon Faye covers enormous ground in discussing transgender rights or, as she puts it, transgender liberation. It’s no secret that trans rights have become a hot button topic and a political bargaining chip worldwide, but especially in the UK. In this book, Faye discusses the systemic ways society and the state are failing trans people, what needs to be done about it, and why transgender rights are an inherently feminist cause. 

The amount that Faye covers in 300 pages is astounding. For the first few chapters, she focuses on how and why trans people are among the most marginalised in our society. From gendered homeless shelters, to the bureaucratic nightmare of getting an NHS appointment, to violence in prisons and more. As well as giving a thorough but clear explanation as to why things are the way they are, she explains in no uncertain terms why and, more importantly, how they need to change. It becomes clearer and clearer as the book progresses that what is needed is not just a few legislative adjustments or special allowances here and there, but a radical overhaul of our perception of gender and of the relationship between the state and the individual. 

For the last section, Faye focuses on the relationship of trans people with the LGB community, and of feminist attitudes towards trans rights. For most people picking up this book the complexities of these relationships will be known but not necessarily understood. Faye has a remarkable ability to lay out clearly the history of what is now called the LGBTQ+ community in a way that not only makes perfect sense but gets you to rethink your own understanding of LGBTQ+ history. As for trans rights and feminism, you could write a whole library on the intricacies of British anti-trans ‘feminism’, but instead you could read a few paragraphs of Shon Faye. In a few pages she succinctly explains not just why trans people (and other marginalised groups such as people of colour and migrants) are often excluded from British feminism, but why the very existence of trans people should be celebrated by all feminists. 

All we hear about via the media is the ‘conversation’ or ‘debate’ of trans rights in the UK. This book is a call for the end of the conversation and the start of action. As much as it’s a book of the moment, I have no doubt that it will become one of the books of the decade if not longer in reshaping how we think about transgender rights. 

Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.