This is great for middle grade young folx who are looking to understand how and when to react to injustices. I know a lot of people are going to suggest that middle grade is too young to be talking about this kind of thing, but the truth is that by middle school, many kids have already been heavily exposed to injustice. I think it is just as important for adults as for kids. It also handles issues better than some adult anti-racist books, too. (Specifically, it does a great job of pointing out that not all people from the middle east are Arab and that calling them that is racist in and of itself. Unlike other anti-racist workbooks I could name that literally used Arab as a catchall term for middle eastern.) I highly recommend it.

A lot happens in this book. Like a lot. And most of it doesn't wrap up at all. This would have great benefited from being significantly slowed down with less characters being thrown at us midway through the book. With the exception of Rags and Shining, every single romance felt entirely too fast and without much growth. It feels like they were trying to do a duology and so they crammed the first and second book together. I have no idea what to expect from a sequel which I probably won't read anyway. There just wasn't enough attention focused on growth beyond Rags I felt and I just didn't care for most of the rest of the cast. The world building was somewhat slapdash as well. I wanted to like this book, I started out liking this book, but it just didn't work for me.

WOOOOOW! Ok first of all I am in LOVE with JLH and this book confirms that. I'll probably write up a full review of this on my website later, though I feel bad about doing so because it turns out both this book and its sequel are out of print which is heartbreaking because 1) I love it and 2) I have to order the second book used online. If you CAN get ahold of this book, I suggest you do. It is so unique for the YA spec fic genre I am so into it!

 

Overall I think this Anthology is a really solid one with mostly fantastic stories. The few that didn’t hit for me notwithstanding, I highly recommend it. It is full of such unique and talented voices, most of whom you may know but some you might not. I’d check it out because if I didn’t already love 90% of these authors this book would convenience me.

 

This is, forgive the pun, a charming story. Very slow moving but very sweet. I like the characters though I wish some of the side characters got a bit more focus. I think it's a perfectly fun read with not a lot of meat to it ultimately. I do think that the romances were uhhh not awesome. The two female leads have more chemistry and this would have been almost five stars if it had been gay because these two would make such a lovely couple. The male lead's POV is easily the weakest.

This is a quick, uplifting read that is full of good reminders about the world as it is and the world as we hope it to be. It is, however, not the sort of book that I could see myself rereading which is I suspect more or less the point of this book. It boils down to the fact that the book is mostly too short and too lacking in detail to feel like must more than a series of greeting  cards. I can see why it would work well for some but it's not really for me.

This is a fun, not very deep paranormal romance that does some pretty new things with vampire lore. I love it focuses on a sexy lady vampire and not a sexy male vampire, I love the side characters a lot, I like how it wraps up though the lead character seems VERY slow to pick up on what is happening. It does do a lot of heavy info dumping and at times the plot moved very slowly only to suddenly pick up for about fifty pages. This isn't my favorite book but it was a fun, light hearted, vampire romance that knew what it was without trying to elevate the genre. Very good rainy day read if you like monster romance.

These have been a really great addition to the LoK series. I like the way this comic wraps up a lot of things, I also love the subtle way they allow Korra and Asami to be sexual without making it even a little bit ACTUALLY sexual. I know that LoK is not everyone's favorite in the Avatar world but these comics continue to prove to me that there is so much that is interesting to explore in the LoK world and that the characters are worth getting to know and explore.

This is just really heavily not for me. I'm no interested in these characters or in what happens to them. I think the romance makes no sense, I think the world building is slopping, I think the story is dull and I just... Do not.... get it. The hype for this series is so big and I don't understand why. I've read other speculative fiction romance with better chemistry and less toxic. The only thing I can think to cause this much hype is the fact that there is just an adult paranormal romance masquerading as a teen book. C.J. suggested that I try the second book and I might one day but it's.... not likely at this current point.

You can find the whole review here: https://bookedwithgrace.wordpress.com/2021/01/28/using-stories-to-kick-racist-butt-in-elatsoe/