3/5 stars.
I liked this a lot, but even with the audio book, I found the writing a tad bland and easy. Not sure yet if I'll read the next in the series (if there will be one) - think I'll have to read the synopsis first.

ok, so obviously I really enjoyed this. I love that this book will make young queer folk aware of the impact that lesbian pulp fiction had on lesbian life, then, and now. I have the privilege of already knowing about lesbian pulp fiction through women's studies courses I took in my undergrad, but this novel is so much more accessible to people, no matter their age, than a $20,000 university degree.
This could be a possible spoiler, but I feel like it's more of an assurance, so I'm not gonna mark it, but there is something to be said for a book by, about, and for queer women. A lot of the novel talks about how lesbian pulp fiction had to end in tragedy, because of the times. I'm not sure what the timeline is on this, but lesbian pulp fictions are a huge example of what we now call "bury your gays." This changes, not just because it's 2019 and (some) stigma has changed, but also because it's a novel by, about, and for, queer women/folk.
Why haven't I rated it 5/5? This is purely personal/aesthetic choices. The writing was good, but nothing to get excited about. And the characters were good, and I cried, but I never connect in ways that I'd like to when there is a duel-timeline/perspective. This together, despite the third person POV throughout, it didn't smooth the transitions, and it often took me out-of-story when I would pick the book down and pick it back up the next day.
I still highly recommend this book. There still aren't enough lesbian books out there compared to all the books about gay men. It also might teach you something.

this poetry collection hit me, punched me, made me cry, and made me uncomfortable, and those are all really great things, because I think that that is what this collection is supposed to do.

I can't not love this. I'm having so much fun re-experiencing the Balance arc with the graphic novels. Plus, Murder on the Rockport Limited was my fav quest.

go fucking read this

I really liked this, but especially after JUST reading The Hating Game, I felt a tad underwhelmed.
Still super fun (and drama-filled), though!

TW: eating disorder, body/fat shame, substance abuse

I've had this sitting around for quite some time. So long, in fact, that I deleted from my goodreads shelves, intending to get rid of it. But it always intrigued me. Overall, I feel half and half about this.
On one hand, I felt everything so viscerally; the kind of violence you feel towards your own body when you're fat, the one where you think "Later on I'm going to be really fucking beautiful. I'm going to grow into that nose and develop an eating disorder. I'll be hungry and angry all my life but I'll also have a hell of a time" (pg 7). I felt that. a lot.
But then the narrative kind went stagnant. Our main character diets and diets and exercises until she looses weight, but then she's totally and completely unhappy. And she still doesn't fit into *that* dress. And by the end, she doesn't really seem to learn anything. She continues to belittle women with larger and smaller bodies. Yeah, she's kind of an asshole through the whole book, but that doesn't change at all. She spend her whole life pleasing other people, and punishing herself when she dares to please herself. Her unlikability isn't what turns me off, it was her inability to grow from that. I think, at the end of the day, this also says a lot about society and fat girls and how fat girls treat themselves and others because of society.
Overall, I felt this was missing something. It was simply surface level. And while I enjoyed that first bit, I wish it could've dove a little deeper.
3/5 stars.

I'm currently listening to the epilogue of this on audio, of which I didn't start the first 172 pages with. I can't help but feel disappointed with this, even though I think it's an important addition to the true crime genre. Although I think Jolly did a good job expressing what happened to Tina Fontaine, the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women (mamiw) in Canada, and I do still think that it's important colonizers read books like this, I hated how much it focused on the lead detective assigned to her case. It really painted O'Donavan as a white saviour; the only person who spoke about how tragic Tina's death was, and how his efforts to find her killer went so unnoticed. It was kind of infuriating! Honestly, did O'Donavan learn nothing working on the case? Did he not realize that yeah, sure, he cared, but this isn't about him, it's about the explicit racism of police officers to Indigenous peoples, primarily women, in Canada? It's about the trauma they've faced and the zero effort Canada has done to rectify that, and how that zero effort filters down into the justice system and law-enforcement, and the explicit bias they use towards Indigenous peoples, finding any excuse to arrest them or ignore them. And, ultimately, this filters down to every day citizens.
Even though I think Jolly made an effort, I think it was shadowed by the bias towards O'Donavan and his dominant narrative throughout the book.
After chatting with a friend, too, she let me know a lot of true crime is like this, as this is really the first true crime book I've read. I definitely want to branch out and keep reading true crime, but I'm disappointed that this is really what the genre looks like.