Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

First off here's a list with trigger warnings, because trust me, this story is intense and at parts quite graphic and it's not something you'd ever expect from reading the summary: abusive relationship (manipulation, emotional abuse, graphic threats of murder), one quite graphic rape scene planned and assisted by partner in order to get other character pregnant, self harm, lesbophobic slurs (the d slur), drugging, cheating and a car accident.

Zoe, internet name wanderer, is a graphic artist. She is well-known and widely respected in the comic book scene. Her drawings enable Dion to "read" them, they are so beautiful, while Dion's writing feel to Zoe as if she's watching a movie, it's so intense. When they start talking, Zoe already gushing about Dion's art they soon leave the stage of pure admiration of the other person's art and become best friends. But Dion's wife, Kerry, is not happy with their relationship and will not stop at anything trying to keep Dion with her.

The story is incredible intense and nearly up until the last page you're left worrying about the characters. Sadly the character's are not very well-developed and you for example never get to know how Zoe looks like or her backstory, only a little bit about a cheating ex-girlfriend. Because of this the character sadly felt very flat and while I couldn't help worry for them with the terrifying depths they had to survive, I still didn't feel a big connection to them. All of the side-characters are very two-dimensional as well (the really evil villain, the protective brother, the lovely mother, the strict producer).

There was also some terrible kitsch and I hated the constant stream of "You're my best friend, no you're my best friend, we're best friends forever!", it felt quite repetitive after a while. There was also a really weird scene when our two mains find happiness in each other and just call each other babe in literally every sentence for at least a page. It was just too much too fast and nearly made me not want to finish the book.

There were also a lot of character's introduced, some for which we only got a small background story ages after they were first mentioned. That and a bunch of perspective changes made it somewhat hard to follow the story line, but it was still interesting.

I also have to say that I can understand why Dion stayed in that terrible relationship, even though it seemed at times as if she was quite stupid, but Kerry had a lot of power over her.

The ending was really unsatisfying as well, too smooth (SPOILER) and Kerry just got to walk away, after everything she did and suddenly decided she didn't want to follow through on any of her threats that she made? (SPOILER ENDING) It was super weird and while I like a happy ending, this one was too abrupt and didn't make a lot of sense.

I did like the idea of how the story was told with e-mails, blog entries, both personal ones and of the story Zoe and Dion are collaborating on and SMS files, this definitely added to the flair of the story.

All in all I really wanted to enjoy this story, but due to its unsatisfactory ending and the flat characters I sadly couldn't.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jordan is different from her classmates, not that she wants to be. As a poor Chinese-American girl, who only manages to go to school on a scholarship, she definitely does not have it as easy as other people. If all that wasn't enough she is also an Alto-2 and unable to get a role in the school musical because of that. Frustrated she decides to dress up as a boy, Jordan Sun, and try her luck. This position in the a cappella octet will change her life irreversibly.

Jordan is such a great main character. At times she's very self-assured, other times she's quite shy. She's really funny and if Jordan was real, I'd love to be her friend. She figures a lot of things out about herself in this novel and it was so great to read about her journey. Her past relationship with Michael and the blooming romance that happens in the end of the book give a lot of depth to the story, but the best thing is that it is not that much about romance and much more about Jordans life and I loved it!

The cover and the title made me expect a funny upbeat story, but that's not what this book was. Dealing with Jordan's feelings for her ex-boyfriend and her struggle to fit in, this book is quite melancholic, but without ever getting depression. It has some really funny scenes, but most of all it feels real.

It's a lovely coming-of-age story and it explores so many different angles, which was fascinating. There's the wonderful ownvoices representation of a Chinese-American character, her disabled dad, critique of the American health system and poverty as result of sickness and a health insurance system that let them down, but most of all it's a love story to a capella and college a capella groups.

There is some romance, but not that much, which I really enjoyed and the b-word is explicitly mentioned <3. There are also quite a few important non-white side-characters who play important roles in the story (I especially love Nihal, a gay Indian boy, he's so great and nice and cares so much, ahhh, he's probably one of my favorite side characters) and the diversity was just so great to see!!! And while the story is very much filled with male characters, most of them are really interesting and incredibly fleshed out. There's Isaac, japanese-american and really funny, there's Trav, whose very intense about a capella, Jon Cox, the typical rich private school boy except not really because he has a learning disability, Mama, whose really passionate about Haydn (he's also fat and never shamed for it, except by some assholes who are called out for it and I'm just #blessed), Marcus, a fourteen year old democrat (he's adorable) and socially awkward Erik. The friendships between the boys are really wonderful to read about (though my favorite was the one between Nihal and Jordan, honestly I loved it so much, when I read it I actually teared up a bit bc I had so many feelings!!!) and I just loved it a lot. At first I was a bit worried how such a big cast of characters would work, but it works wonderfully and I just love them all so much.

Riley also points about struggles of the transgender community, even though she's only crossdressing and it was refreshing and wonderful to find this in the book as I was not expecting such a nuanced description of transmen's struggle in a book whose main focus is a girl dressing as a boy. It was really great.

The ending is also so great and I just loved it, it was such a wonderful ending for the book and it honestly made me very happy.

Sadly the book started quite slow, a bit too slow for my taste, but it picks up around 100 pages when the stakes for Jordan are raised and after that I struggled to put the book down (which I had to a few times, since I had to study for an exam, but it was just too good to stop!!)

All in all this book was wonderfully diverse and great, I loved it a lot.

4.5 Stars actually.

I honestly don't know where to start? I loved this story. A lot. I actually loved it so much I made a picspam for it, just so I could spread some love for it.

First off I will tell you about the stuff I loved, loved, loved in this book. It is so cute and fluffy. It's just really sweet, but just enough, it doesn't go overboard and becomes teeth-rotting or anything like that. I needed a story like this and I can assure you, you probably do too.

We have the main character Chris, a pansexual girl, who works in a bookstore. Her pansexuality was mentioned quite a few times and it was wonderful. Sadly there is no explanation of pansexuality in the book itself, which might make it hard for people who've never heard of it to understand, but this is just a very minor thing. There's also another multiple-gender-attracted side character (Mayte, Chris' roommate, she's also black) and a short mention of bi- and pansexual not being the same, but I would have wished for some more about it. Anyway, Chris is quite lost. She dropped out of University a while ago, leaving the course of Computer Science she actually just studied so she had something to study, and broke up with her girlfriend of three years. Now she just drifts and she has no idea what she wants to do in the future. Her mother's constant calls don't help her figure this out and she pulls further and further away from her family, which leaves her even more isolated. She felt so real and I loved that she was a 20-something MC, who didn't have her life figured out, her commentary on the fact that as soon as you turn 18 you're supposed to know exactly what you want from life and also take it, when it's something that not that many people already know.

Josie is a Filipino lesbian, who does ballet and reads a lot. I adored the scene where Chris visits her and admires all books by Filipino authors Josie owns. Josie is really wonderful, she is nice and she supports Chris with her life, even in the end indirectly helping her figure out what she wants to do with her future.

There is also talk about female masturbation and the stigma around it, dismissal of the "we can't date if you're not out" trope, which was so great and about how a breakup from a toxic relationship can be freeing, especially if you don't talk afterward. I also loved the scene where Josie calls out her sister for saying she always knew she was a lesbian "bc she never dated boys": "There are lesbians who date boys before understanding the roles that heteronormativity tries to force them into." I cried a bit when I read that sentence.

The only thing that bothered me a bit was that there was a time skip of six months just after the girls met. During that time they developed a bit of a friendship and Chris developed a crush, but sadly it was not explored and I felt a bit sad about that. Other than that I adored this novella and even now, a day after reading it, I can't stop smiling when I think of it.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

An engaging memoir about a family's escape from South Vietnam in 1978 after it's fall. It tells the story of Thi Bui's parents and their vastly different upbringings and how they late met and started a family together, right before the Vietnam war starts and they are forced to flee the country with three little children and her mother pregnant again.

The story begins with Bui right during childbirth. When she gets to rest and sleeps in the same room with her son, she begins to see her parent's in a different light. In an attempt to close the gap between their lives she decides to take up the idea of telling her family's story again, which she started researching shortly after visiting Vietnam as a teenager.

At first, she reflects on the bad moments in her own childhood, on her father telling the children gruesome stories to teach them an important lesson and his bouts of rage, on her mother's emotional and due to her working a long job often also physical absence. She decides to look further into their past to find explanations of their behavior way back in Vietnam. It shows the terrors of war that wrecked the country and the suffering of the people. It shows the horror refugees feel during their escape and how the fear of being forced to get up in the middle of the night again and run, never really leaves you.

It shows a family history and the upbringing of whole generations. It gives us insight into Bô's childhood in North Vietnam as the son of a poor man in a country shaken by violence under a communist regime and Má's relatively safe childhood in a wealthy household in South Vietnam. It shows the terrors of war that wrecked the country and the suffering of the people. It shows the horror refugees feel during their escape and how the fear of being forced to get up in the middle of the night again and run, never really leaves you. It features some of the troubles and prejudice they faced as an immigrant family in America, in a country so vastly different from Vietnam.

The art and the text flow together perfectly. You need one to explain the other and it weaves a truly remarkable story. It meditates on what it means to belong somewhere, to people or to a place. I adored the art style, it was rather simplistic (only a handful of colors were used, the characters were only outlined) and yet there was a lot going on in the pages. It fit nicely and looked really good.

The Best We Could Do is a stunning graphic novel which sucked me into the story from the start. It tells the story of a family, which gives us little information about the start of the Vietnam war or anything else, but it was incredibly heartfelt.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Clara is excited to have moved to New Orleans, or Sodom and Gomorrah as she calls it sometimes. Her preacher warned her about this city, so when she was outed she moves there and makes a living working in a night club. Her neighbor, a catholic woman, worries about her chastity but Clara does not want to be with men anyway. Vaughn is the prettiest girl Clara has ever seen and when she finally dares to approach her, their relationship blooms fast. But when Clara discovers Vaughn's secret, she has to decide if she is truly ready for their relationship.

Clara is terribly hypocritical sometimes and I disliked her because of that quite a bit. I give her some leeway due to her upbringing and she does develop towards the end, but her constant complaining about how terrible other LGBT people are (two gay men??? kissing?? true sinners & obviously terrible people!!!) was annoying. She does get better in the end, but it feels too rushed and not explored enough for me to truly like her when I finished the book.

I also wish Clara's and Vaughn's relationship had been developed further. While there are no big time skips, there's also not much of a build up between them. I did enjoy their dynamic and they were adorable together, but the book simply felt too short for me to get really attached to the character's and their relationship.

Personally, I hated how Vaughn's secret aka the fact that she's a transwoman, was found out. There's a lot of books out there where trans characters are forcibly outed/found out due to being caught naked, forced to undress or in another way unable to come out themselves. In Vaughn's case, she was unconscious after being assaulted by homo-/transphobes. I just dislike storylines like these as it takes the transpersons consent to their outing away. However what I liked was that even after Clara found out Vaughn's secret, she decided not to missgender her, even though she felt quite weirded out at first.

There are some really cute and fluffy scenes in the story, but also some really tough to read ones. First of there's the assault scene, where Vaughn gets attacked, plus homo- and transphobic speech (the f slur is also used once) on page 31-33, there is one scene where a men sexually harasses Vaughn on page 53, talk about underage prostitution on page 54 (while no age is specifically mentioned it is implied that the characters were really young when they started this and it definitely made me a bit queasy) , Clara uses the n slur on page 9 and she also constantly frets and worries about everything LGBT related being sinful.

Other than that I quite liked the story and it could have been great, but it's too short for me to really love it and not quite as well-developed as I would have liked. The world building f.e. is barely existent and the story could have been way more developed than it was. But it still was a nice, though short, story and I really liked Vaughn.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

While John doesn't "become" Joyce until late in the book, I will use she/her pronouns in this review, as this is what she identifies with at the end.

Joyce was born as John, but soon realized that she didn't feel comfortable as a boy. She was always different than the other boys and heavily bullied for it. She hates having to undress and can't even look at herself in the mirror. And while becoming friends with Aureus helps her a bit, she still has a hard time.

The story is separated into High School (the time were the bullying was worst, Joyce had no idea who she is), College (Joyce slowly starts to figure herself out), After (Joyce comes out and it's awesome) and Ever After (so great!!!!!). I really liked this. It showed Joyce's development well.

I disliked the intense focus that was set on how ladylike you had to be to become a real woman TM. Joyce calls that out but it still continues and it's a bit exhausting to read.

I absolutely despised J.P. He's a bully and an all around terrible person. He also uses a lot of slurs, it's disgusting. I did love how Joyce's family stood up for her though. Especially her brother he was great, even though he had some scenes that made me uncomfortable as well (he punches his sister for daring to think that her being a girl might not make him love her anymore... there are better ways to get that sentiment across, surely?) Other than that I adored Aureus after she stopped using slurs. She actually was quite a loveable character and the ending is adorable.

Trigger warning for two attempted rape scenes, one in chapter 11, and one in chapter 22. There are also a lot of slurs used. Some are just misdirected and there's no hatred behind, but others are used in a hateful way (the f slur in chapter 4 & chapter 7, the d slur in chapter 22). Joyce also thinks about killing herself at one point in chapter 15 and self-harm is again referenced in chapter 31.

There were some grammar mistakes in the story and the story dragged quite a bit at times.

I also disliked the poem at the begin of the story. It implies that a "female transsexual" who loves another woman can't be "homosexual" as it's something different than a ~normal~ woman loving another woman. While I'm sure that's not really the intention, it feels off and I immediately felt wary about the story. Thankfully this was not a problem afterward and I really liked it.

All in all this was a nice story about Joyce coming of age and her realization that she was a girl and her subsequent transition. It was great to get a happy, (mostly) feel-good story about transsexuality in which the character is allowed a HEA.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This story was nice. I liked it. Featuring a romance between a straight black transman and an English biromantic ace girl, this story is quite diverse. There's also a nonbinary side-character who uses they/them pronouns and a gay side-character.

Evie is excited to fly to Canada and visit her friend Sarah, who she met on tumblr. They plan to go to pride together and to meet some other aces. Before Evie knows it she has signed up for a dance competition, that is supposed to happen during pride. While their start is bumpy due to misunderstandings, Evie and Tyler, her dancing partner, soon realize that they fit together as more than just good dancers. This, however, brings up some demons from Tyler's past, who had an emotionally abusive & transphobic relationship with another dancing partner in the past.

Warnings for those of you who expect Evie to be not interested in sex like I did. She is a sex-positive ace, maybe demisexual, has had sex in the past and does some sexual teasing with Tyler, but there's no sex scene in the book. Now being a sex-positive ace or demisexual is not a bad thing, but it's not what I was expecting and I would have loved if there had been a bit more explenation how sexual attraction differs for many aces. There is some great ace pride in the book though, which I really liked.

However, there's also some stuff that bothers me. There's a lot of fatphobic comments in this book. Some are directed towards a guy who used to be fat in an attempt to say that being fat and gay and bullied for that couldn't ever be as hard as being black and having gender dysphoria. Neither is easy and I disliked that this was never brought up afterward. What I found way worse however, is the way Evie's mom constantly comments on her daughter's weight. In the story, we are told that Evie is thin enough for her dance partner to easily lift her, but trained enough to lift him as well. She does a lot of sports. And even if she didn't, she's a grown up and her mother has no right to say that stuff. It is never discussed, at all and this really bothered me. I also hated how one of the characters is supposed to forgive his high-school bully bc ~he changed~ and now truly loves him. Everybody pressures him into it and doesn't seem to realize how much the character is hurting. This really made me uncomfortable. (and not to mention the fact that Evie self-describes herself as fujoshi and has some fangirl attacks about shipping slash and/or fetishizing gay/bi men, which was kind of gross).

I also found the writing to be underwhelming and there is some conflict that feels really contrived. Not to mention the fact that they fall in love in less than a week. Ugh, I know they don't have much time, but I hate insta-love. Other than that the story was really sweet and I liked it.

I enjoyed this book and the characters were great, especially The Feisty Five. I was also fascinated by all the supernatural creatures that were introduced in this book, they were really amazing. The lore was definitely one of the most interesting parts of the book and the world building is solid.
There was some great humor (thought it felt overdone for me at times) and like I said the characters are amazing and I really liked them.
However, I couldn't really connect to the writing and I felt like the plot was dragging a lot, especially in the beginning as there's a lot of info dumps.
All in all, I'm sure that the book will be enjoyable for children who enjoy stories about magic and fantastic beasts.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When Hannah turned 14, something happened to her. As a result, she ended up locked up in the Institute. Mya, her friend, wants to escape from there, but for that, she needs her help. And Hannah can't help but be afraid. Afraid of her own darkness, afraid of the screams of the Howlers that ring through the institute every night, afraid of staying in the institute and afraid of getting out. After all, if they ever succeed there is no one who can help Hannah keep her darkness in check, not even Mya.

This story was quite interesting, a kind of zombie apocalypse but with a twist. The disease is also transmitted by bites, but more often in other ways and I really liked how this zombie story was different from some others I've read. The bad way the government dealt with the infected and the background story of the zombie disease was fascinating as was Hannah's background story (we sadly didn't get that much from Mya.)

I liked the relationship between Hannah and Mya, but I would have liked some more exploration of their shared history in the Institute, because like this their story felt a bit unrealistic to me. You could see that they were attracted to each other and even good friends, but I had a hard time buying the Best Friends part because of that.

I found the ending interesting, but unsatisfactory, even though it made sense. It's a HFN with not much hope for a HEA, which is not really something I enjoy. But all in all this story was nice and I liked it.