Take a photo of a barcode or cover
1.26k reviews by:
inkandplasma
Initial thoughts: Coherent review of this to come up at some point but I'm sobbing rn soooo
Full review available 10th September 2020: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/09/10/ring-the-bell/
I signed up for an eARC of this short story without even reading the premise because I love Josie Jaffrey's work enough that I just had faith in this one. I'm so glad I decided to pick it up. This short story packs a punch hard enough that I felt a physical ache in my chest, and when I finished I just had to lay and stare at the ceiling for a few full minutes.
A dystopian story about a valley, the Unterstrom, that is struck by the Surge every 5 years. The first to reach the top of the race and ring the bell wins a reward: setting her family free of the valley altogether. But the faster she runs, the more people she condemns to death. I don't want to get into the specifics of it too much, as I don't want to spoil the emotional rollercoaster that I went into this with. The way this unfolds is achingly beautiful and heartbreaking. I want to read a novella based off the last few lines alone.
Ring the Bell was a quick read that's going to stick with me for a long, long time and will definitely be due a reread at some point because the depth of meaning in these 31 pages is so good I definitely want to read it again, slower, when my heart isn't racing with a need to find out what's happening.
Full review available 10th September 2020: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/09/10/ring-the-bell/
I signed up for an eARC of this short story without even reading the premise because I love Josie Jaffrey's work enough that I just had faith in this one. I'm so glad I decided to pick it up. This short story packs a punch hard enough that I felt a physical ache in my chest, and when I finished I just had to lay and stare at the ceiling for a few full minutes.
A dystopian story about a valley, the Unterstrom, that is struck by the Surge every 5 years. The first to reach the top of the race and ring the bell wins a reward: setting her family free of the valley altogether. But the faster she runs, the more people she condemns to death. I don't want to get into the specifics of it too much, as I don't want to spoil the emotional rollercoaster that I went into this with. The way this unfolds is achingly beautiful and heartbreaking. I want to read a novella based off the last few lines alone.
Ring the Bell was a quick read that's going to stick with me for a long, long time and will definitely be due a reread at some point because the depth of meaning in these 31 pages is so good I definitely want to read it again, slower, when my heart isn't racing with a need to find out what's happening.
This was a really sweet and fast read. They're individual comics rather than one over-arching story but honestly that worked well. It felt like we were getting snippet insights into their day to day life and relationship and I found it really heart-warming. I'm a sucker (ha!) for monster love stories, so a vampire/werewolf comic was always going to catch my eye and I thoroughly enjoyed this. The art style is clear and lovely to read, with bold designs that really catch the eye and the art supports the humour in a really subtle but excellent way.
Full review available on my blog on September 30th: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/09/30/when-life-gives-you-mangoes/
Thanks to Pushkin Press for the eARC of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
This book is something else. I wasn’t expecting the story that I got, honestly. I knew When Life Gives You Mangoes was a story about friendship and loss, but that didn’t prepare me for the absolutely beautiful middle-grade read that it was. The initial hook, knowing right away that Clara has lost her memories of last summer, but that we don’t know what she’s forgotten or why she forgot it, had me page-turning fast, desperate to have Clara recover her memories and desperate for me to find out what had happened and why she couldn’t set foot in the water.
It was fascinating to read, knowing that everyone around her knew what was wrong and what had happened, but that Clara was struggling to piece it together, and it made me really root for her from the start as she tried to navigate a world that knew more about her than she did. It’s Clara’s relationships with others, and the relationships she sees around her, that are the true treasure of this book. When Life Gives You Mangoes looks at friendships, and how they can guide you out of the past or bury you there. It also looks a lot at how trauma impacts relationships, how hard it can be to let go even when that’s the only option.
There’s a moment most of the way through this book that honestly made my heart skip a beat. It was a gasp out loud moment, which doesn’t happen to me very often in middle-grade books. I loved the way it made all the pieces fall together, explaining everything that’s been going on and the reason that Clara doesn’t remember things. I honestly think this is going to be one that I reread, because I think there’s going to be so many poignant things that show up on the reread. The writing in this book is as lush and beautiful as the settings, and so vivid that it made island life that I’ve never experienced seem so real that I felt like I was running through the banana grove with Clara. I highly recommend this one, it’s a perfect read with so much depth packed into two hundred pages.
Thanks to Pushkin Press for the eARC of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
This book is something else. I wasn’t expecting the story that I got, honestly. I knew When Life Gives You Mangoes was a story about friendship and loss, but that didn’t prepare me for the absolutely beautiful middle-grade read that it was. The initial hook, knowing right away that Clara has lost her memories of last summer, but that we don’t know what she’s forgotten or why she forgot it, had me page-turning fast, desperate to have Clara recover her memories and desperate for me to find out what had happened and why she couldn’t set foot in the water.
It was fascinating to read, knowing that everyone around her knew what was wrong and what had happened, but that Clara was struggling to piece it together, and it made me really root for her from the start as she tried to navigate a world that knew more about her than she did. It’s Clara’s relationships with others, and the relationships she sees around her, that are the true treasure of this book. When Life Gives You Mangoes looks at friendships, and how they can guide you out of the past or bury you there. It also looks a lot at how trauma impacts relationships, how hard it can be to let go even when that’s the only option.
There’s a moment most of the way through this book that honestly made my heart skip a beat. It was a gasp out loud moment, which doesn’t happen to me very often in middle-grade books. I loved the way it made all the pieces fall together, explaining everything that’s been going on and the reason that Clara doesn’t remember things. I honestly think this is going to be one that I reread, because I think there’s going to be so many poignant things that show up on the reread. The writing in this book is as lush and beautiful as the settings, and so vivid that it made island life that I’ve never experienced seem so real that I felt like I was running through the banana grove with Clara. I highly recommend this one, it’s a perfect read with so much depth packed into two hundred pages.
Rating: 2.5 rounded up to 3
In hindsight the title is cute as hell for this, referencing one of the scenes I did find genuinely cute in this book. Overall, though, it didn't really work for me. But before I get into that, I want to say how much I *adored* the representation in this book, specifically the allosexual-aromantic rep. I've been fed excellently with aro-ace rep lately, but as an allo-aro myself I'm always missing that real connection with the characters. Jonah is pansexual aromantic and I love the way it's explained and the way that the main character handles both that explanation and the bisexual/pansexual discussion. It was so validating to read such easy acceptance and I loved the confidence with which Jonah was able to talk about it. The main character, Hallie, is Jewish and her thoughts about her faith play a large part of the book. I really enjoyed reading about it, and I actually spent some time between chapters googling Jewish traditions that were unfamiliar to me and learning more.
The rest of the story, unfortunately, just didn't quite click with me. In all honesty, it felt a lot like some of the trapped-in-the-woods, huddle-for-warmth fanfiction I've read, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That feeling is probably why I devoured the whole thing in one day, it was super easy to read. But while it focused a lot on dialogue and conversation, and the developing friendship between the two awkward near-strangers, I didn't have the kind of depth of character understanding to make me *really* care about Hallie and Jonah. I wanted to care deeply about seeing them become close, but I really didn't know either character well enough to care.
Right at the end there was more danger just kind of shoe-horned in, and I didn't feel like it was particularly necessary. There wasn't a huge emotional pay off and we were so close to the end I knew it would be fine. A lot of the sense of danger in this story actually distracted me from the developing friendship. I was getting so annoyed that they were having these moments of intimacy when their friends and family were injured and trapped and relying on them - I would have liked it a lot better if they'd been trapped alone and it was about them getting to know each other in their camp. Maybe it's just my under-treated anxiety, but the thought of being distracted by sex when my fourteen year old cousin is in mortal peril just didn't work for me.
All that being said, this *was* fun to read and I did read it all super fast so I'd still pick it up if you get a chance to, it's interesting and has great aro rep - I think I wanted a slightly different book, that's all.
In hindsight the title is cute as hell for this, referencing one of the scenes I did find genuinely cute in this book. Overall, though, it didn't really work for me. But before I get into that, I want to say how much I *adored* the representation in this book, specifically the allosexual-aromantic rep. I've been fed excellently with aro-ace rep lately, but as an allo-aro myself I'm always missing that real connection with the characters. Jonah is pansexual aromantic and I love the way it's explained and the way that the main character handles both that explanation and the bisexual/pansexual discussion. It was so validating to read such easy acceptance and I loved the confidence with which Jonah was able to talk about it. The main character, Hallie, is Jewish and her thoughts about her faith play a large part of the book. I really enjoyed reading about it, and I actually spent some time between chapters googling Jewish traditions that were unfamiliar to me and learning more.
The rest of the story, unfortunately, just didn't quite click with me. In all honesty, it felt a lot like some of the trapped-in-the-woods, huddle-for-warmth fanfiction I've read, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That feeling is probably why I devoured the whole thing in one day, it was super easy to read. But while it focused a lot on dialogue and conversation, and the developing friendship between the two awkward near-strangers, I didn't have the kind of depth of character understanding to make me *really* care about Hallie and Jonah. I wanted to care deeply about seeing them become close, but I really didn't know either character well enough to care.
Right at the end there was more danger just kind of shoe-horned in, and I didn't feel like it was particularly necessary. There wasn't a huge emotional pay off and we were so close to the end I knew it would be fine. A lot of the sense of danger in this story actually distracted me from the developing friendship. I was getting so annoyed that they were having these moments of intimacy when their friends and family were injured and trapped and relying on them - I would have liked it a lot better if they'd been trapped alone and it was about them getting to know each other in their camp. Maybe it's just my under-treated anxiety, but the thought of being distracted by sex when my fourteen year old cousin is in mortal peril just didn't work for me.
All that being said, this *was* fun to read and I did read it all super fast so I'd still pick it up if you get a chance to, it's interesting and has great aro rep - I think I wanted a slightly different book, that's all.
Full review available on October 5th 2020: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/10/05/the-invisible-life-of-addie-larue/
Thanks to Titan Books for the eARC. It has not affected my honest opinions.
Trigger Warnings: grief, suicidal thoughts, misogyny.
This was actually my first Schwab book! Sounds impossible, I know, and I admit I actually have seven of her books on my physical TBR – they all sound so good and were so hyped, I couldn’t resist! After reading The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, I’m really excited to read more from Schwab, because there was a lot that I really loved about this book.
The way that the narrative split between timelines was really well done, it fed me pieces of the story without having to do a huge time skip in the middle of the book and more importantly, in my opinion, it showed me two Addie’s. There was Addie of 2014 and the Addie of the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. They’re very different characters, and I liked that a lot. It showed the development of her character and the ways that she’d had to become tougher and hardened to the world. Addie’s character is one of my favourite parts of this book, honestly. She’s pretty ‘dislikeable’, though I don’t really like to use that word this way. She’s disenfranchised with the world and selfish, but that’s because she’s been forced to survive in a world where she barely exists. I loved that. It felt like she’d wrapped her heart in broken glass to keep people away, and that choosing freedom meant she was free from consequences and free from the things the world expected of young women in the 1700s. It definitely gave Addie a feeling of etherealness, like her curse made her inherently powerful. Don’t get me wrong, I’d hate to have Addie’s curse, but I think she’s made it her own.
Addie develops even further when she meets a boy who remembers, and I don’t want to talk too much about that part of the story because I had absolutely no idea what was happening as it unfolded and I found that viscerally satisfying. I wanted to know so badly – so I’m going to make y’all suffer through the desire to read it faster too. To me, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue was hugely character driven. There is plot happening, and I really enjoyed the conflict and the resolution (yes, I’m being intentionally vague), but this felt like it was more about Addie herself and her life than it is about any daring plot. The book built up to an ending that I adored, and I genuinely had to stop before reading the final chapter because I could not see the page through my tears. And what an ending it is. I loved the openness of the ending, the way that we got a final glimpse at the power that Addie has gained over 300 years and most of all I adored that this wasn’t really a love story at all. This story was about Addie getting closure, getting peace and learning to come to terms with what her choice really means and I think that I will be gleefully imagining what comes next for a long time now. And I definitely won’t be making deals with any mysterious devils in the woods without reading the contract very, very carefully.
Thanks to Titan Books for the eARC. It has not affected my honest opinions.
Trigger Warnings: grief, suicidal thoughts, misogyny.
This was actually my first Schwab book! Sounds impossible, I know, and I admit I actually have seven of her books on my physical TBR – they all sound so good and were so hyped, I couldn’t resist! After reading The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, I’m really excited to read more from Schwab, because there was a lot that I really loved about this book.
The way that the narrative split between timelines was really well done, it fed me pieces of the story without having to do a huge time skip in the middle of the book and more importantly, in my opinion, it showed me two Addie’s. There was Addie of 2014 and the Addie of the late 1600’s and early 1700’s. They’re very different characters, and I liked that a lot. It showed the development of her character and the ways that she’d had to become tougher and hardened to the world. Addie’s character is one of my favourite parts of this book, honestly. She’s pretty ‘dislikeable’, though I don’t really like to use that word this way. She’s disenfranchised with the world and selfish, but that’s because she’s been forced to survive in a world where she barely exists. I loved that. It felt like she’d wrapped her heart in broken glass to keep people away, and that choosing freedom meant she was free from consequences and free from the things the world expected of young women in the 1700s. It definitely gave Addie a feeling of etherealness, like her curse made her inherently powerful. Don’t get me wrong, I’d hate to have Addie’s curse, but I think she’s made it her own.
Addie develops even further when she meets a boy who remembers, and I don’t want to talk too much about that part of the story because I had absolutely no idea what was happening as it unfolded and I found that viscerally satisfying. I wanted to know so badly – so I’m going to make y’all suffer through the desire to read it faster too. To me, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue was hugely character driven. There is plot happening, and I really enjoyed the conflict and the resolution (yes, I’m being intentionally vague), but this felt like it was more about Addie herself and her life than it is about any daring plot. The book built up to an ending that I adored, and I genuinely had to stop before reading the final chapter because I could not see the page through my tears. And what an ending it is. I loved the openness of the ending, the way that we got a final glimpse at the power that Addie has gained over 300 years and most of all I adored that this wasn’t really a love story at all. This story was about Addie getting closure, getting peace and learning to come to terms with what her choice really means and I think that I will be gleefully imagining what comes next for a long time now. And I definitely won’t be making deals with any mysterious devils in the woods without reading the contract very, very carefully.
Full review will be live on my blog on October 22: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/10/22/the-girl-and-the-goddess/
Rating: 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
Trigger warnings, taken from the front of the book: anxiety, bigotry, biphobia, body shaming, bullying, child abuse, depression, guilt, homophobia, internalised misogyny, misogyny/sexism, poverty, racism, sexual assault, terrorism, violence, war.
Thanks to Ebury Press for the eARC of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
I honestly have never requested anything so fast. I love Nikita Gill's work so much and I always wait impatiently for the next thing she produces. I saw this one and instantly requested, and the second my review copy came through I abandoned what I was already reading so I could dig in. The Girl and the Goddess is a little different than Nikita's previous work, as it's actually a full novel told in verse. Still I devoured it just as quickly as ever, because Nikita's storytelling is as lyrical and beautiful in a full length novel as it is in instagram snippets and the poetry anthologies.
The Girl and the Goddess is packed with stories within a story. Paro is told the stories of her gods and goddesses throughout her life, the deities appearing to her when she most needs the lesson that they have to offer her. I don't know much at all about Hindu deities and mythology, or, in all honesty, much about the partition of India other than what I've learned this year through a little online reading. While that's not the focus of this book by any means, I found it both accessible and intriguing. I got enough information that I didn't feel lost at all in the story, but I've still finished the book with a strong desire to raid my library for books on Hindu mythology. Each of the deities stories were heartwarming and distinct in tone, and I liked the way that they knitted into Paro's story neatly to show Paro relating to her faith at different times of difficulty in her life. I also liked that the deities addressed inconsistencies in their stories, and how myths can reflect the intentions and biases of the storyteller.
While there's a lot of ways that I obviously can't relate to Paro personally (as an extremely white British reviewer), I felt the queerness and self-discovery in this book vividly. The struggle of a loving, but not understanding, family is one I identify with in a lot of ways and I loved the way that Paro learned to empower herself but was still tied to her family closely. I also got excellent found family vibes from the friendship group, and we all know that I'll do literally anything for a group of queer women supporting each other. Paro's story was wonderful and beautiful, even in the painfully raw parts, and I loved the whole thing fiercely. It has all the magic of Nikita Gill's usual retellings, plus an interesting and vivid story of self-discovery, and I wish I could have had a copy of this in my hands when I was a confused and worried queer teenage girl. The illustrations are particularly gorgeous and I can't wait to see a finished copy of this book so I can see them properly on the page.
Rating: 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
Trigger warnings, taken from the front of the book: anxiety, bigotry, biphobia, body shaming, bullying, child abuse, depression, guilt, homophobia, internalised misogyny, misogyny/sexism, poverty, racism, sexual assault, terrorism, violence, war.
Thanks to Ebury Press for the eARC of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
I honestly have never requested anything so fast. I love Nikita Gill's work so much and I always wait impatiently for the next thing she produces. I saw this one and instantly requested, and the second my review copy came through I abandoned what I was already reading so I could dig in. The Girl and the Goddess is a little different than Nikita's previous work, as it's actually a full novel told in verse. Still I devoured it just as quickly as ever, because Nikita's storytelling is as lyrical and beautiful in a full length novel as it is in instagram snippets and the poetry anthologies.
The Girl and the Goddess is packed with stories within a story. Paro is told the stories of her gods and goddesses throughout her life, the deities appearing to her when she most needs the lesson that they have to offer her. I don't know much at all about Hindu deities and mythology, or, in all honesty, much about the partition of India other than what I've learned this year through a little online reading. While that's not the focus of this book by any means, I found it both accessible and intriguing. I got enough information that I didn't feel lost at all in the story, but I've still finished the book with a strong desire to raid my library for books on Hindu mythology. Each of the deities stories were heartwarming and distinct in tone, and I liked the way that they knitted into Paro's story neatly to show Paro relating to her faith at different times of difficulty in her life. I also liked that the deities addressed inconsistencies in their stories, and how myths can reflect the intentions and biases of the storyteller.
While there's a lot of ways that I obviously can't relate to Paro personally (as an extremely white British reviewer), I felt the queerness and self-discovery in this book vividly. The struggle of a loving, but not understanding, family is one I identify with in a lot of ways and I loved the way that Paro learned to empower herself but was still tied to her family closely. I also got excellent found family vibes from the friendship group, and we all know that I'll do literally anything for a group of queer women supporting each other. Paro's story was wonderful and beautiful, even in the painfully raw parts, and I loved the whole thing fiercely. It has all the magic of Nikita Gill's usual retellings, plus an interesting and vivid story of self-discovery, and I wish I could have had a copy of this in my hands when I was a confused and worried queer teenage girl. The illustrations are particularly gorgeous and I can't wait to see a finished copy of this book so I can see them properly on the page.
Full review available on my blog on October 12th: https://inkandplasma.com/2020/10/12/the-ghost-tree/
Trigger Warnings: racism, slurs, murder, gore, violence, underage sex (incl. off-page sex between a minor and an adult presented as consensual), 18 year old dating a 14 year old presented as consensual, fatphobia, slutshaming.
Thanks to Titan Books for the eARC of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
This one started a little slower than other Christina Henry books I've read, but there was a particular chapter that took it from zero to 100 and after that I was hooked. There was something kind of thriller-like about this book, and I really enjoyed the way that I knew more than the characters did and could piece things together from each POV. This was far more thriller-horror than it was scary-horror, which I really enjoyed. I was watching things unfold slowly and with only a little extreme fear that something horrible was going to happen to Lauren, our wonderful fourteen year old protagonist who has a penchant for wandering into the woods to try and solve gory murders.
I really loved Lauren. She wasn't our only POV, there were chapters from several different characters including: Alex, a cop who hasn't been in town very long; Lauren's mother; Miranda; the mayor and other supporting characters. It gave an interesting and fleshed out view of what was happening, which made the plot so much clearer than it would have been from Lauren's limited perspective. I think that worked really well, but Lauren and David were absolutely my favourites. The balance of maturity and childishness was done really well and between her crises on her appearance, her period and her development in comparison to other girls her age, I genuinely felt like she read like a fourteen year old going through trauma.
How*ever* I refuse to not comment on the romance in this book. It's not much of a romance, because Lauren is a few weeks away from her fifteenth birthday and far too busy trying not to get murdered, but the fact that a fourteen year old girl went on a date with an eighteen year old man in this book and that *wasn't* presented as a problem truly grossed me out. I hated it. She's a child, he's an adult. It didn't play any role in the story that couldn't have been done by him being, for example, sixteen, and it would have been significantly less icky. There is actually a different instance of a grown adult and a child having "consensual" sex in this book (using quotation marks because it's NOT consensual, she is a CHILD), but while that's identified as being a problem, everyone is just fine with Lauren going on a date with a grown man. I really hated it.
Overall though, this was a great book with a really interesting cast of characters and a plot that genuinely had me guessing on how the hell it was ever going to be resolved. Christina Henry definitely stays on my insta-buy author list.
Trigger Warnings: racism, slurs, murder, gore, violence, underage sex (incl. off-page sex between a minor and an adult presented as consensual), 18 year old dating a 14 year old presented as consensual, fatphobia, slutshaming.
Thanks to Titan Books for the eARC of this book, it has not affected my honest review.
This one started a little slower than other Christina Henry books I've read, but there was a particular chapter that took it from zero to 100 and after that I was hooked. There was something kind of thriller-like about this book, and I really enjoyed the way that I knew more than the characters did and could piece things together from each POV. This was far more thriller-horror than it was scary-horror, which I really enjoyed. I was watching things unfold slowly and with only a little extreme fear that something horrible was going to happen to Lauren, our wonderful fourteen year old protagonist who has a penchant for wandering into the woods to try and solve gory murders.
I really loved Lauren. She wasn't our only POV, there were chapters from several different characters including: Alex, a cop who hasn't been in town very long; Lauren's mother; Miranda; the mayor and other supporting characters. It gave an interesting and fleshed out view of what was happening, which made the plot so much clearer than it would have been from Lauren's limited perspective. I think that worked really well, but Lauren and David were absolutely my favourites. The balance of maturity and childishness was done really well and between her crises on her appearance, her period and her development in comparison to other girls her age, I genuinely felt like she read like a fourteen year old going through trauma.
How*ever* I refuse to not comment on the romance in this book. It's not much of a romance, because Lauren is a few weeks away from her fifteenth birthday and far too busy trying not to get murdered, but the fact that a fourteen year old girl went on a date with an eighteen year old man in this book and that *wasn't* presented as a problem truly grossed me out. I hated it. She's a child, he's an adult. It didn't play any role in the story that couldn't have been done by him being, for example, sixteen, and it would have been significantly less icky. There is actually a different instance of a grown adult and a child having "consensual" sex in this book (using quotation marks because it's NOT consensual, she is a CHILD), but while that's identified as being a problem, everyone is just fine with Lauren going on a date with a grown man. I really hated it.
Overall though, this was a great book with a really interesting cast of characters and a plot that genuinely had me guessing on how the hell it was ever going to be resolved. Christina Henry definitely stays on my insta-buy author list.