howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

In The Opposite of Innocent, we follow a story that’s painfully familiar for a lot of people: a girl being groomed by a sexual predator, and that grooming turning into a fully-blown abusive relationship. What sets this book apart, however, is both the fact that it’s a story told in prose, and the fact that our narrator is so incredibly young and naïve; she genuinely has no clue what’s coming until it’s too late.

I’ve always been in love with Luke. For as far back as I can remember.

Right from the beginning, we’re shown these memories of Lily’s, where she tells us how she’s always been in love with Luke, and how her entire life, he’s promised to wait for her. It’s the sort of scenario that feels uncomfortable anyways, but when you know what the book is about, watching everything piece together is like sitting in traffic and watching the distracted driver behind you wait too long to hit the brakes; you know what’s coming before they do, and sometimes, all you can do is grit your teeth and brace for impact.

He was my best friend, my hero, and my soul mate all rolled into one.

The most mortifying part of this tale is how young Lily is—and how naïve her narrative feels. There’s some inconsistency when she’s with her friends; sometimes, they’re all jokes and games, jumping on beds and goofing off, while other times, they’re talking about “going all the way” and Lily’s friends are tremendously concerned about this “older boyfriend” she alludes to. The biggest reason I gave this 3 stars, in fact, was simply because Lily felt very self-contradicting to me at times.

I don’t understand how a person can feel so awesome and so awful at the exact same time.

While the book does follow the standard formula for this plot—girl is groomed, girl is abused, girl begins to realize that she deserves more than this—it’s still heartbreaking to watch her grow up right before our eyes as she begins to miss the comforting ease she feels with boys her own age, rather than the man fifteen years older than her. I wish that Lily more openly understood the fact that she’s been groomed for this moment, because I think, with that small addition, this could become a great cautionary tale for young girls who might recognize behaviors in men in their own lives and realize what those motives truly are.

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to HarperTeen for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

DNF @ pg 90

I really, really wanted to like this book, but after two separate attempts and two DNFs, I'm letting this one go. It's not offensive or anything, and the writing isn't bad, but I can't connect to the story or the characters. I can't seem to get invested in anything that's happening, and when a book has been sitting on my desk, untouched, for a week and I have no desire at all to pick it back up, I know it's not for me. :(

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press for sending me this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

#1 Every Heart a Doorway ★★★★★
#2 Down Among the Sticks and Bones ★★★★★
#3 Beneath the Sugar Sky ★★★★★
#4 In An Absent Dream ★★★★★
#5 Come Tumbling Down ★★★★★
#6 Across the Green Grass Fields ★★★★★

I somehow lived a full 25 years of my life without experiencing Seanan McGuire’s writing, and now that I’ve seen how incredible her story-telling is, I can’t imagine ever letting it go. This book sucked me in so wholly in such a short number of pages – it made me laugh, cry, and my heart soared. I was so invested in these characters, so fearful for them and desperately wishing I could protect them, that by the end of the story, I felt stunned. How could Seanan possibly do, in 173 pages, what so many authors fail to do in 600?

Eleanor West spent her days giving them what she had never had, and hoped that someday, it would be enough to pay her passage back to the place where she belonged.

In a world where children stumble upon doorways leading to other worlds, sometimes, those children are sent back – and left without any way of coping with the “real world” that they’re expected to mold seamlessly into. They spend their lives suffering through parents and doctors insisting that everything was a dream or delusion, when all these children want is to find that door again, and to go back where they belong.

She was a woman with something to protect. That made her more dangerous than they could ever have suspected.

That’s where Eleanor West comes in: a woman who gave up her door, to give these children a safe place to continues their searches whilst living as peacefully as their minds will allow. She is fiercely protective and loving of her students, determined to offer them a home away from the worlds they so desperately wanted to return to. I loved her instantly.

“If anyone should be kind, understanding, accepting, loving to their fellow outcasts, it’s you. All of you. You are the guardians of the secrets of the universe, beloved of worlds that most will never dream of, much less see… can’t you see where you owe it to yourselves to be kind? To care for one another?”

Of course, not all of these children are returned unscathed, and that’s where our murder mystery comes in. Students at the school keep turning up dead, corpses brutalized. Nancy is new to the school, but having been a child of the Underworld, death doesn’t scare her, and she finds herself joining in a small team of students determined to track down the murderer by any means necessary. Seanan’s writing is dark and heavy – gruesome, at most – but the suspense isn’t even the best part (though the mystery is, in fact, fantastic).

“We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women.”

At its core, this story and the characters within it are so inherently feminist and inclusive, and I love Seanan so much for that. Despite it being a fantasy tale, a tremendous amount of the advice given and commentary made was incredibly relevant to our own world and society.

She’d known girls on diet her entire life. Most of them had been looking for smaller waists, clearer complexions, and richer boyfriends, spurred on by a deeply ingrained self-loathing that had been manufactured for them before they were old enough to understand the kind of quicksand they were sinking in.

There’s not only a great deal of talk about toxic masculinity and how our culture accepts terrible crimes from men, simply because they are men, but there’s also commentary on the unfair standards women are scrutinized under. It felt incredibly important to me that one of the characters even points out that there are so few boys at the school, and is answered with an explanation that, as men are typically allowed to do as they please, they don’t suffer the same fine-toothed combing that a woman’s every move and word is passed under. When they go away to the other worlds, their disappearance is viewed as less of a shock, and when they come back changed, their newfound behaviors don’t deem them a problem child in the same ways.

She could have flirted forever. It was just the things that came after flirting that she had no interest in.

Of course, the feminism in the writing isn’t the only delightfully inclusive aspect to it; it’s also a book with wonderfully diverse representation throughout the cast, including both an asexual protagonist and a trans friend/love interest. Their sexual orientations and gender identities aren’t merely hinted at; they are displayed proudly on the page, which isn’t something we see often in fantasy novels, much less little novellas like this one. It was evident from the start that Seanan cares enough about representation to find room for it no matter how small the page count may be, and I appreciated that so much.

This was always the difficult part, back when she’d been at her old school: explaining that “asexual” and “aromantic” were different things.

Not only does she offer such wonderful rep, but she also takes the time to dismantle a few myths, tropes, and assumptions. We have an asexual character, explaining that ace does not equal aro, and that she’s capable of romantic interest and physical affections, regardless of her views on sex itself. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with such prominent ace rep, and while I’m not on the ace spectrum myself, I thought that it came across as fantastically positive rep.

“You’re nobody’s doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.”

I could honestly ramble forever about this little story, but the bottom line is that it is an incredible tale of acceptance, healing, friendship, trauma, and finding yourself – be it in this world, or another. I cannot recommend this series highly enough, and I am so eager to continue it and see what else Seanan has in store.

DNF @ 35%

I had read this once before and remember enjoying it (maybe in my late teens or early twenties?), but I couldn't get into it this time around. It isn't a bad book by any means - in fact, I think it offers an incredibly unique twist on zombies, by throwing in a supernatural/demonic quality to the "virus". It's clearly evident how Brian Keene affected the zombie story genre tremendously with the innovative perspective he offered, and the switches in perspectives give a unique insight into how different types of people would be affected by the same apocalyptic nightmare.

That said, I think my problem is just that I have a hard time rereading horror novels (one of the few genres where knowing the ending of the story tends to hinder my interests), and I'm not the biggest fan of zombie books in general thanks to burning myself out on them years ago.

I'm leaving off the star rating because I don't remember what I would have rated this as, based on my first reading years ago.

DNF @ 68%

I'm counting this one as "read" since I got through most of it, but I'll leave off the rating because this feels very much like an "it's not you, it's me" sort of situation. I can really easily see why so many people love this book, and I might even continue the series to see if the next couple works better for me, but I spent two months trying as hard as I could to care about these characters or this story and it just wasn't happening.

DNF @ 29%

I am so appreciative of the author sending me an eARC of this for an honest review, but unfortunately, this book and I are just not clicking. It's not an issue of poor writing by any means, I think I'm just the wrong reader for this story. I tend to struggle with fantasy novels that drop you right into the action without much explanation beforehand of what's going on, and I'm not enjoying the narrator very much in the way she interacts with the other characters. That said, I actually think this is a really well-written story that is going to make a LOT of readers very happy! If the plot interests you, I think you should, by all means, give it a try. ♥

Content warnings: violence, animal abuse, ableism, homophobia, necrophilia, sexual assault.

My Friend Dahmer is a nonfiction graphic novel about the author's time growing up as a junior high/high school classmate of the infamous serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. He explains how pitiable of a teen Dahmer was, and the home life that plagued him, as well as going into some of the mental health struggles the killer faced from a young age, such as his obsession with corpses and their insides, or his desperate fantasies of having relations with them.

While this was a really insightful graphic novel, it was definitely an uncomfortable read, though I'm not sure how any nonfiction book about a killer-in-the-making wouldn't be. While there's not actually much talk at all about Dahmer as a murderer of humans, there is a lot of commentary surrounding the animals he abused and killed, as well as his terrible actions towards other human beings. There's an incredibly long-running shtick in the story about Dahmer's crude imitations of disabled individuals, and the length to which the "joke" goes is shocking and distasteful. I don't feel like it was at all necessary to saturate the story so heavily with this one particular aspect, and probably would have given this book 4 stars if it weren't for how incredibly heavy the ableism is.

#1 Captive Prince ★★★★★
#2 Prince's Gambit ★★★★★
#3 King's Rising ★★★★★

3rd read update, june 2019: I love this series more and more every single time I read it. ♥

original review, december 2017:
Let me begin this review by saying that these are just my opinions and I am, in no way, about to glorify rape or abuse. I am a survivor myself, and I'm fully aware that this book bothered a lot of people. I would never question another reader's rating of this book, though, and I'm just going to ask you guys to extend the same courtesy. ❤

This book is NOT for everyone. It involves a lot of rape, sexual violence and slavery, abuse, pedophilia, and various other incredibly uncomfortable topics. I can fully understand why someone would NOT enjoy this book, but I loved it.

A golden prince was easy to love if you did not have to watch him picking wings off flies.

I had no idea that it would be able to pack so much character- and world-building into such a short little story, or that it would be so political! Betrayal stories are some of my absolute favorites, so this was solid for me in that aspect, too.

Not only did I enjoy the story line, but Damen/Damianos is such an enjoyable narrator and I felt so sorry for him, constantly. He makes some really poor choices at times, but he's genuinely got a heart of gold. He comes from a country where "slaves" are treated less like property and more like what we would consider sugar babies in our society, so watching adjust to the terrible ways the Veretians view their slaves and "pets" is a tough journey. I loved how true to himself he stayed, regardless of how miserable his circumstances were.

This place sickened him. Anywhere else, you simply killed your enemy with a sword. Or poisoned him, if you had the honourless instincts of an assassin. Here, it was layer upon layer of constructed double-dealing, dark, polished, and unpleasant.

Of course, Damen is the only genuinely likable main character in this story, and all other prominent figures are raging douchebags, but there are a few lovable side characters (like sweet little Erasmus), or minor characters that are terrible but pitiable (looking at you, Nicaise). Honestly, the complexity and terrible nature of most of the characters reminded me of GRRM's writing, where almost everyone is just totally despicable.

"I'm not surprised you've driven three men to kill you, I'm only surprised there weren't more," said Damen, bluntly.

All in all, please know what you're going into before picking this book up, and if you're triggered by rape descriptions and abuse scenarios in books, please, do not pick this up unless you know you're in the right head space for it. If you think you can handle it, though, and enjoy stories of political intrigue/royalty/betrayal etc., I highly recommend this series.

I love a good poetry collection, but I haven't found one in a while that could make me feel as much as Erin's writing did.

Just remember, when the pain rises to the surface, don't forget to breathe.

These poems and short stories are not for the faint of heart. The poetry comes from a very raw place in Erin's history, and you can feel her bleeding on the pages as she writes, but as someone who's been there, too? The catharsis and sisterhood I felt here was powerful. I alternated between wanting to hug her and wanting someone to hug me. There's a lot of talk about abuse here, in varying methods, and there's a lot of rage and hopelessness, but there are bright spots, too.

Until one night, the fireflies blink in unison, like small beacons.

Though so much of Erin's writing resonated with me, one poem in particular that just grabbed my heart and squeezed so tightly was The Society of the Fireflies, which she says she wrote for her daughter, Emma. It starts off in a dark, painful place, but gradually brightens as the misery is washed away. I don't know if I'm projecting here, but I'll tell anyone, any time, that my son's entry into the world made all the hurt that came before him fuzzy and grey. It sounds dramatic, I know, but it's true; there's so much love in my heart now, it doesn't seem like there's as much room for hate and hurt as there once was, and as Erin wrote about those fireflies, I couldn't help but feel like she was saying she understood me, mother to mother.

Breathing is not as simple as you think.

After the poetry, there are a few short stories, and my favorite of these was the episodic collection of tales that take place on Valhalla Lane, where abuse victims gradually bubble over with rage and hurt until they lash out. I know the author's note at the end ensured the reader that Erin doesn't condone repaying violence with violence, and I'm with her, but I won't pretend I don't enjoy watching a survivor take karma into their own hands every now and then.

Altogether, Breathe. Breathe. is a fantastic collection of poems and stories, and—at risk of sounding cheesy—is a real breath of fresh air. Erin shows a natural talent for writing, and I am so appreciative of the way she bared her soul to the world in her work here.