howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

That cover is deceptively cute. I went into this graphic novel knowing almost nothing about it, and didn't realize it would be so sad! My heart hurts for Marj, and her little brother, and Wendell. I know Marj's dad is grieving, but what the heck, I spent 99% of the book wanting to punch him in the face and make him get his act together! No kid should have to go through what Marjorie goes through. :(

Overall, I enjoyed this story up until the last 20-30 pages, when everything suddenly became very rushed. A lot of loose stuff was left unfinished, too. I'd give this 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for GR's sake.

This was such a cute read. I picked it up on a whim after a twitter friend (thanks, Danielle!) recommended it and it was really sweet! Poor little Abbie Wu has a case of the "Middles" — it's her entrance to middle school, and she's absolutely wracked with anxiety and a feeling of not belonging anywhere. It's so relatable, especially to someone like me who also had legitimate anxiety issues as a kid; while Abbie never puts a name on her feelings, they surely stuck out as recognizable.

Abbie's narrative voice is funny, easy to empathize with, and lovable. The illustrations are absolutely adorable; the characters are all drawn in a simplistic chibi style that made me smile more than a few times, especially coupled with how classically melodramatic the little caricatures could be. I'll definitely be recommending this one to kiddos at work and I'll probably pick up more books by this author in the future!

3.5 stars

This has a lot of potential, and I think, with a few key changes, could honestly have been flawless. The tongue-in-cheek parallels to real-life sexist comments thrown at people on their periods is very on-the-nose and super amusing (if a little too real, if you think about it too much) and there's a lot of symbolism at play here, plus the art is adorable and colorful and everything I want from a graphic novel's art style.

That said, as some other reviewers have pointed out before me, it's an extremely cis-centered take on things... and the entire 4th issue (so, 1/4 of this volume) is nothing but fake advertisements, which would've been really fun sprinkled throughout here and there, one or two at a time, but quickly became overkill in this instance.

I'll definitely continue the series, but it sadly wasn't a perfect first volume for me.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful books I have ever read, and it completely and utterly wrecked me. In case you aren’t aware, major trigger warnings for suicide and mental illness in the book and this review—proceed with caution and take care of yourself. ♥

My mother is free in the sky. She doesn’t have the burden of a human body, is not made up of a single dot of gray. My mother is a bird.

First of all, the writing in this book is stunning. It’s got this beautifully magical, lyrical quality to it, and I tabbed so many passages just because the way Emily X. R. Pan weaves words together is breathtaking. I honestly could have compiled this entire review simply out of quotes (and I nearly did).

And maybe he could see how my mother had sliced up everything else. How even if he could wrench that arrow free, the rest of me was so punctured and torn that nothing would ever be able to suture me back together.

Leigh is such a great narrator for the story; she’s just unreliable enough that it can be hard at first to know if the things she’s seeing are actually happening to her, and it doesn’t help her any when her father refuses to believe a word she says about the bird she believes her mother has become. It’s a brilliant execution, as you’re frequently left to wonder, is the grief playing tricks on her, or is her mother, in fact, a bird?

This was my mother’s home for the first half of her life—can’t it feel a little bit like home to me, too?

Beyond her search for the truth about her mother’s life and death, there are two sub-plots running that I loved almost as much as the main theme: 1) Leigh’s time visiting her grandparents, where she feels so terribly out of place—having never been taught fluency in her mother’s native tongue, she struggles to communicate, and every time she steps outside, she is stared at and whispered about for being half white.

When did I last hear my mother play? I’m not sure; I guess that should’ve been a red flag.

There’s also a romantic undercurrent as Leigh dwells on what has happened to her friendship with her best friend, Axel, a biracial Puerto Rican/Filipino boy she’s grown up with and has suddenly found herself irrevocably in love with. I know a lot of readers wished the romantic aspect had been left out of the story, but for what it’s worth, I enjoyed it a lot, as it offered a lighter, more predictable reprieve here and there from the overwhelming heaviness of her mother’s suicide.

How crucial those little fragments are now; how great their absence. I should have saved them up, gathered them like drops of water in a desert. I’d always counted on having an oasis.

Of course, this isn’t a book written for the sole purpose of a love story or a trip to Taiwan; this is one of the saddest, most devastating stories I have ever read in my life. I’m going to get really personal (probably too much so) here, but this story hit every soft spot I’ve got.

Maybe it hit so close to home for me because my mother is one of my best friends in life, and to lose her so abruptly and with such little closure would undoubtedly fray away at the edges of everything I am, just as it did so for Leigh.

Maybe it threw an extra punch because I first began struggling with severe depression as a child, and it has never gone away, and there were too many days that I was almost a person-shaped hole in the hearts of my loved ones, too.

Maybe, as a mother who suffers with mental illness, this book was exactly the kind of reminder I needed to always keep fighting, because I couldn’t bear for my son to ever wonder if he failed at loving me the way Leigh wonders if she failed at loving her mother.

Whatever it was, I am so incredibly grateful to Emily X. R. Pan for this gift—and for never, for even a second, resorting to suicide-shaming, but for recognizing that it isn’t a selfish act of cruelty to one’s family, but a side effect of mental illness that cannot be blamed upon the victim.

If you are suffering from suicidal thoughts, please seek help. Please don’t let your illness take you away from the world, because I promise, it’s a better place with you in it. My inbox is always open, or you can contact any of these organizations if you’d like to remain anonymous:
• USA: National Suicide Prevention Lifelife: 1-800-273-8255
• USA: The Trevor Project (for queer youth): 1-866-488-7386
• USA/CA: The Trans Lifeline (for trans individuals): 1-877-565-8860
• UK: Samaritans: 116 123
• INTL: click here for a list of lifeline numbers and websites

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

Okay, first of all, Lenore is dark. I don't mean it's going to terrify you, I mean it features stuff like kids dying, fluffy little animals being abused/killed, a little girl torturing living creatures with or without meaning to... It's a whole mess and if you're easily bothered, sickened, or upset, you might want to steel yourself (or avoid Dirge's work altogether). That said, I've gotta be honest: I loved this weird, fucked-up little collection of comics.

Lenore is so twisted, and her little companions are just as disturbing, though even they get a little creeped out by her nightmarish tendencies at times. That said, the horror is presented in such an absurd — and, at times, cheerful — way, I couldn't help but laugh my head off. What can I say? I grew up on Invader ZIM and Jhonen's other works, and always loved Roman's writing on the show, so finally reading his most famous comics feels like coming full-circle. If you (like me) grew up an ~edgy~ little goth kid in the 2000s, I'd love to hear if this felt as much like coming home to you as it did to me.

love is not cruel
we are cruel
love is not a game
we have made a game
out of love

I can't believe it took me so long to finally read this poetry collection, after shivering over so much of Rupi's online poetry snippets over the years, but here we are, and it was... captivating? Painful? Beautiful? Perfect?

what i miss most is how you loved me. but what i didn't know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person i was. it was a reflection of everything i gave to you.

how cruel i was to myself. giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it.

I feel that this is a poetry collection that will be different things for different people, but for me, it was a love story written for those of us who have survived abusive relationships, who have moved on and learned to love ourselves despite the lies we were fed. If you've ever left a toxic relationship, friendship, situation, whatever - do you remember the first time you realized things weren't your fault? How it felt like the first breath of air after far too long underwater? That's what this collection felt like for me. It reminded me of how far I've come, and how strong I really am.

the next time he
points out the
hair on your legs is
growing back remind
that boy your body
is not his home
he is a guest
warn him to
never outstep
his welcome
again

Even better, this collection is so shamelessly, wholly feminist in nature and I cannot imagine not feeling empowered by the words Rupi writes. She is so proud of her womanhood and it's a contagious feeling.

our backs
tell stories
no books have
the spine to
carry

- women of color

Finally, this poetry is an ode to people of color everywhere, and the ways their beauty, their experiences, and their livelihoods should not - and can not - ever be taken away by prejudices of an ugly, bleak world.

Content warnings: abuse, sexual assault, depression, loneliness.

“The Hate U—the letter U—Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. T-H-U-G L-I-F-E.”

I feel like I should have typed up a review for this book the moment I put it down. I feel like I should have torn through this story the moment my pre-order arrived, instead of setting it on a shelf to look pretty. I feel like I should have plugged this book through all of 2017, encouraged everyone I met to read it - Goodreads friends, twitter followers, strangers in the street. But I didn't do any of those things. I let it sit, and I read it slow, and I waited a month to review it, because I was scared of the heartbreak I knew these 464 pages would offer me.

Is this story heartbreaking? Yes. As a white woman living in America, in the south, knowing that my privileges (and even things that I have done and said in my past) hurt innocent people of color every day, this book was one of the most devastating I have ever read. It was one of the most important books I have ever read.

“Brave doesn't mean you're not scared. It means you go on even though you're scared.”

→ Starr Carter ←
Starr, the teen girl telling the story, is one of the most lovable characters I have ever read in YA contemporary. Her narrative feels so genuine that, when she laughs, you laugh; when she cries, you cry. When she rages, you're there, too. I adored her authenticity, from her slang to her geeky references and love for Harry Potter, from her obsession with sneakers to her terror of being outed as "a girl from the ghetto" to her ritzy, white classmates. The fears that come with her being a black teen in America are portrayed in a way that made me take everything I thought I knew about white privilege, and shove it over to the corner to make room for aaaaall the new wisdom Angie Thomas was offering.

Even in the lighter moments, though, Starr is incredible: she loves her family beyond measure, and her jokes with them are hilarious. The way she views her parents and their love for one another, as well as the immense respect and fondness she holds for them, was such a breath of fresh air in a genre that tends to be saturated with estranged familial relationships. I could read hundreds of pages of simple banter and sarcasm between Starr and her family.

“Funny how it works with white kids though. It’s dope to be black until it’s hard to be black.”

Something that I didn't really expect to see, but loved, was Starr's constant internal conflicts regarding how she should act at school. She struggles tremendously with the fear that, if she shows anger, or slips up and uses the "wrong" slang, or even mentions her hometown, her classmates will immediately label her as "a ghetto black girl" and treat her poorly. This was incredibly eye-opening for me; I'd thought about the fact before that many people of color feel that they have to "act white" around white people to be taken seriously, but I had never really let it sink in, nor had I looked at myself and wondered if I have made my own loved ones feel inadequate or like they have to play a charade. It broke my heart.

“That's the hate they're giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That's Thug Life.”

→ Maverick Carter ←
No matter how much I love Starr, and so many of the other characters in this book, too, I can't deny that the star of the whole damn show for me was Starr's father, Big Mav. If he isn't defending his family and his home with everything in him, he's dropping incredible truth-bombs, or making everyone laugh (me included). He is the single greatest father portrayal I've ever seen in a book, ever. Ever. I have never loved a fictional dad as hard as I love Big Mav.

Not only is Big Mav ceaselessly there to support Starr and the rest of the Carter family, he's just a really damn good guy. He values his community despite its flaws, and wants desperately to raise up others and to help them pursue betters lives for themselves. As a former drug lord and gang leader, he knows the brutal side of gangs, but he also perfectly explains what systemic racism does to support the existence of gangs and drug dealing, as well as offering insight into the reasons people find themselves in predicaments they never thought they would be in, and why they should be helped, not judged and cast aside.

“Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug.”

→ police brutality, racism, & #blacklivesmatter ←
There aren't enough words that I could say, that would explain how badly I wish this book wasn't so relevant to our time, but the timing could not have been better. According to The Guardian's news reporting in 2016, young black men (ages 15-34) were nine times more likely to be killed by police than any other demographic of Americans. We've all heard the stories: a shocking number of these victims were unarmed, and many of them, like Starr's friend Khalil, were accused of having weapons where there were none.

“A hairbrush is not a gun.”

Not only do we see the terrifying outcome of police brutality, we also get to see how important it is that the good cops (because of course they do exist, and this book doesn't pretend they don't) SPEAK UP about injustices, unnecessary force, violence, and racial profiling. We get to watch Starr's uncle, who works as a detective, struggle with his own conflict between taking the side of his colleagues or taking the side of the teen who was shot dead in the street.

“To every kid in Georgetown and in all “the Gardens” of the world: your voices matter, your dreams matter, your lives matter. Be roses that grow in the concrete.”

→ final thoughts ←
I feel like there are a million more things I could say about this incredible book, and these wonderfully lovable characters, but we'd be here all day, and honestly, my voice isn't one that needs to be lifted up right now. Please, if you haven't picked this book up, read it. If you're white like me, go into it with an open heart and try to learn from it. Angie has so much knowledge packed between these pages, if you're willing to listen. And then, go out there and apply it.

NOTE: This entire review is coming from a white woman's perspective. I can't speak for other readers, and I certainly cannot speak for those whose struggles are nothing I've ever known, but what I can do is try my best to help boost voices of minority readers and reviewers. If you have an own-voice review for this book, feel free to send it my way and I will be more than happy to boost you as much as I can. ❤

#1 The Raven Boys ★★★★★
#2 The Dream Thieves ★★★★★
#3 Blue Lily, Lily Blue ★★★★★
#4 The Raven King ★★★★★
#4.5 Opal ★★★★★

Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn’t all-encompassing, that wasn’t blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she’d had this kind, she didn’t want the other.

Where do I even begin? This review took me six weeks to write, and it's literally only because I loved it so much that I don't know how to describe it. I went through three sleeves of page tabs on this book, and if that doesn't tell you something... I swear, Maggie has created the single most lovable set of characters I have ever met in my entire life. They're all incredible in their own wholly unique way, and their story is just... perfection.

Spoilers for books 1 & 2 ahead. And, yes, I am going to gush through this entire review. This is your last warning.

"I'm glad you misdialed."

"Well. Easy mistake to make," she said. "Might do it again."

→ Blue Sargent ←
I have met so many people who wholly dislike Blue as a character, and I don't know if I'll ever live long enough to understand why. I adore her. She's smart, and brave, and angry, and sad, and flawed, and snarky, and more than anything, she loves with her entire being. Despite her odd upbringing and the way her life differs so greatly from that of most of the Aglionby boys, I feel that she would ultimately give anything to keep them and her family safe.

Ronan had not seen; Adam was still sleeping. The only casualty was his pulse.

→ Richard "Dick" Gansey, III ←
Where do I even start with Gansey? He's been my favorite Raven Boy from the beginning, and it remains the same; he is so well-intended, so caring and doting, so desperate for something more than the falsehoods and politics of his family. He puts his foot in his mouth constantly, but this book has the best examples so far of how much he loves his friends and the lengths he would happily go to for them, whether it's terror-filled drives in the countryside, looking for Blue, or going against Adam's wishes to protect him one more time from his father. Through it all, he just feels so human and genuine, and I swear I would read endless pages, filled with nothing more than Gansey's inner musings on his loved ones.

The only thing more pleasing than seeing Ronan singled out was seeing him singled out and forced to repeatedly sing an Irish jig. “Piss up a rope,” Ronan said. Gansey, unoffended, waited. Ronan shook his head, but then, with a wicked smile, he began to sing, “Squash one, squash two, s—”

→ Ronan Lynch ←
Regarding the last paragraph, if there is one character in this series who can rival my love for Gansey, it's Ronan Lynch. God, I love everything about his angry, moody, fierce little tattooed self. I love how incredibly torn he is between hating himself or hating the world. I love his quiet kindnesses for Adam, and the hints he uses to let his feelings shine through the rage. I love his dedication to Gansey. I love how alike he and Blue are, despite how much they might want to deny it. And I love his stupid squash one, squash two ridiculousness.

As they moved through the old barn, Adam felt Ronan’s eyes glance off him and away, his disinterest practiced but incomplete. Adam wondered if anyone else noticed. Part of him wished they did and immediately felt bad, because it was vanity, really:

'See, Adam Parrish is wantable, worthy of a crush, not just by anyone, someone like Ronan, who could want Gansey or anyone else and chose Adam for his hungry eyes.'

→ Adam Parrish ←
Oh, sweet, tortured little Adam. I loved him in The Raven Boys, yet found myself endless frustrated by him in The Dream Thieves. This book, though, brought him rushing back into my heart. I felt like I was seeing his true self again, and more than anything, I adored his moments with Ronan, in which he slowly came to realize and accept the feelings that Ronan was presenting him with through this little acts of generosity and emotional connection.

“We are going so slow,” Noah said, craning his neck to observe the inevitable queue behind them. “I think I just saw a tricycle pass us.”

→ Noah Czerny ←
Noah is, as always, precious, pitiable, and lovable all the same, but this book was the first time that he came across as what he is: a dead, mysterious, and slightly scary thing. I felt so sorry for him as he was subjected to the horrors of possession, and for the first time since midway through book 1, I found myself worried that we were going to lose him before the series ends. I love his friendship with Blue and how comforting his presence is for her, even without the physicality of it.

“I think it's crazy how you're in love with all those raven boys.”

→ relationships ←
I felt like I was going to literally experience spontaneous combustion during this book, because I am so ridiculously hooked on these two blooming romances, and how they contrast each other. On the one hand, you have Ronan and Adam, who have every opportunity in the world to be together, but don't know how to put their feelings into words; on the other hand, you have Gansey and Blue, baring their souls to each other in late night phone calls and car drives, desperately trying not to reach for the forbidden fruit. I don't know if my heart can take much more. ❤

Adam understood, then, that Gansey and Blue’s awe changed this place. Ronan and Adam may have seen this place as magical, but Gansey and Blue’s wonder made it holy.

→ plot twists & turns ←
Okay, I'm done gushing about the characters. Moving on to the plot, I thought this book has the most captivating story line of all three so far. It was incredibly suspenseful with Blue's missing mother, and there were some side character moments that broke my heart so much more thoroughly than I thought they ever could have, but anyone who found themselves frustrated with the focus on characters in previous installments would probably be delighted by the non-stop action and scheming in this one.

Mornings like this one were made for memories.

→ final thoughts ←
My final thoughts for this book are the same as they were for the last two: if you haven't read this series, you're missing out on an amazing experience. These characters are so wonderful, and the world of Henrietta and Cabeswater is a phenomenon that everyone should witness. I cannot recommend this series enough. It has so quickly become one of my all-time favorites, and I am only sad to know that it's almost over.

#1 Six of Crows ★★★★★
#2 Crooked Kingdom ★★★★★

I have this weird thing about writing reviews for series finales: it always takes me some time, because in a sense, it feels like saying goodbye to the series, and I am not ready to say goodbye to this one. I actually made a joke while reading this, that I thought I loved the idea of duologies for how short and compact they are, but when I started this book, I realized I needed at least seven more novels to fall in love with Kaz’s passion, Inej’s grace, Nina’s vivacity, Matthias’ stoicism, Jesper’s laugh, and Wylan’s innocence.

“Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.”

I haven’t loved a set of characters this much in a long, long time; I thought I could pick clear favorites, but by the end of it all, I just cherished each and every one of these little heist-runners so much that the lines in my favoritism were beginning to blur. I laughed, I cried, I gasped, I cringed, and most of all, I mourned the end of their story, because there are books that take you in for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, and then there are books that you know you will always carry in your heart, and this duology is most assuredly the latter.

“I would have come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together—knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.”

→ Kaz Brekker / Inej Ghafa ←
I’d heard countless people tell me Kaz and Inej were their #1 OTP of all time, and I felt like I could empathize pretty well with that after the first book, but this one takes it above and beyond in the most subtle, tense, incredible ways. Watching the relationship between the two of them further is constantly riding the line between swoon-worthy and heartbreaking, especially as Kaz comes to terms with how desperately he wants to see Inej safe, above all else. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that their final scene together is now one of my favorite chapters that has ever been written in the history of literature, and I can’t imagine it having been any more perfect. ♥

“You aren’t a flower, you’re every blossom in the wood blooming at once. You are a tidal wave. You’re a stampede. You are overwhelming.”

→ Nina Zenik / Matthias Helvar ←
Nina and Matthias were a couple that took a little warming up to for me, with Matthias’ past, but he progresses so tremendously throughout the duology. In the first book, we saw him start to overcome the brainwashing and blind prejudices of his upbringing, and in this one, that furthers still as he realizes that the Grisha are not demons, but miracles. While Nina is fairly “what you see is what you get”, and we don’t see as much development from her, I still loved her character tremendously and am so beyond ecstatic that we’ll be spending more time with her in the King of Scars serious beginning in 2019. I would also like to go on the record that, of all of the characters that Leigh has written, Matthias probably has my favorite romantic lines, and he made me cry a million times.

“Jes, I’ve thought about this—”
“Thought of me? Late at night? What was I wearing?”

→ Wylan Van Eck / Jesper Fahey ←
Wylan and Jesper were still, to be honest, probably my third favorite couple by the end (I refuse to say “least favorite” because that implies that I didn’t love them almost as much as I loved the others!), but their flirty banter towards the end was absolutely adorable. Jesper progresses so much as a person while he faces his gambling addiction and reunites with his father, and we learn so much about Wylan that is utterly heartbreaking and just makes me want to protect him at all costs. They’re so lovable together, and frankly, much like Kaz and Inej, if I don’t get at least a few brief cameos or references to them in King of Scars, I’m going to riot/cry/set things on fire.

“This action will have no echo.”

Altogether, this was an absolutely wondrous conclusion to one of the singular best series I have ever read in my life. Leigh Bardugo has a way of crafting these worlds and characters that you can’t help but connect with on a practically cellular level, and saying goodbye to their adventures together was more bitter than sweet, as I genuinely never wanted this book to end. I can only hope that the next series will at least bring us some small comforts that they are as happy and healthy as can be expected, and I positively cannot wait to see what Leigh has in store for us all next in the world of the Grisha.

Buddy read with Julie!