justinlife's Reviews (916)

Ok let’s do do this! If I gave it zero stars, I don't think Goodreads would count add that to the total rating and I want this added.

There are so many negative things I want to say about this book but know this: I will never, ever recommend this book to anyone. It is insidious and cruel. It disguises itself as a “sad book about friends” when it’s really just trauma porn.

There is something sadistic about creating a fictional character (one could argue characters, but I’ll get into that later), giving them the most awful life, meticulously detailing their past trauma, and forcing the audience to relive it. It’s even more abhorrent and unforgivable that this creation is of a minority group that the author is not a part of. It felt exploitative and at times fetishistic for her to include the amount of trauma, to detail it so excruciatingly, and to pile it all on one character. This is the thought that stayed with me from about page 250 until the end. There are other reasons that this isn’t the masterpiece the internet thinks it is.

Characters
While the main plot of the book and even the book jacket describes it as a book about friendship, Yanagihara doesn’t keep to that. Yes, there are four friends (JB, Malcolm, Willem, and Jude) who we follow through their lives but around page 250 it becomes less about how those friendships are maintained and more about the extreme abuse of one of them. She takes focus from two of them and zeroes in solely on Jude and Willem’s perspectives. It’s rage inducing because Malcolm and JB’s stories could have been more interesting and fleshed out if explored. Making JB an addict was a choice but one that didn’t get explored beyond the beginning. Malcolm finding success and struggling with familial approval and sexuality also could have been an interesting sub plot, but nope, let’s blow past 20 years of friendship and have these characters show up here and there.

Trauma Porn
There was truly no need for the level of descriptions given to the various abuses. Any of the following would have made for enough but to have all of them… girl! If you read this novel, know going in there are heavy descriptions of self harm, suicide, child abuse, child sexual abuse, child prostitution, kidnapping, domestic abuse, rape, eating disorders. Typing all that out only made me angrier. There was no need for all of that. If you’re wanting to give the reader a reason that a character might be self loathing and hate themselves, YOU DON’T NEED MUCH. Romance novels do that better.

No cultural context
It is a choice to write a book about characters living in NYC and Boston and not mention any cultural milestones that might have affected those communities. Like COME ON! The audience gets to read these characters' lives for up to  40 years and you refuse to give them any cultural contexts? You don’t include anything about the NYC gay scene? None of the bombings? Nothing that shaped the cities and could have shaped the characters? Girl bye.

Queer representation
I don’t know if Yanagihara knows what the words bisexual and pansexual are or if she knows the history of bi-erasure. It’s ok for a character to sleep with both men and women; so why does no one in the book acknowledge that, potentially, some of them are bisexual? It’s so annoying. The characters who engage in primarily gay relationships and sexual experiences are either predators, abusers, and pedophiles. At one point, one of the characters doesn’t even know if he’s gay, it’s just that he’s been used by men so much that he thinks being attracted to women is something he can’t pursuer. WHAT THE HELL? WHY?? I can’t say that the main characters’ relationships are healthy either, which is fine. Bad relationships happen.

Mental Health
From my understanding from reading this book, Yanagihara is not ok with therapy as a tool for mental health, but is ok with suicide. There is a paragraph toward the end where one of the characters mentions how therapy is basically a joke. This is infuriating because the community she’s writing about, queer men and the LGBTQ experience need the option of therapy to help process the experience, particularly in today’s time. It’s adds to the cruelness that one writes about the community and then mocks the tools the community can access in order to process their existence. The amount of expletives I said at this point… girl. 

Here’s the kindest thing I can say about this book- she writes well. I will never ever read another of her books. I think had she removed the trauma porn and shaved off about 250 pages of it, this book would be the book people say it is. Instead we have cruelty and sadism designed as literature. I do not wish this person well.

I'm so glad books like this exist. Aiden Thomas does a great job creating a world of intrigue and mystery, folklore and religion, tradition and change set in east LA. They focus on Yadriel, a trans masc teen trying to be a part of his traditions and family but facing resistance. Thomas' point of view is refreshing and adds nuance that other writers would miss. There are little things that cis authors could miss, particularly around the conversations around binders and how to process when one is misgendered. There are a lot of topics and themes that are discussed but doesn't feel like a burden to read. 

The books lags in the middle some, and teens make decisions the way teens do, but overall it's a good and fun read. 

If you're removed from queer theory or philosophy in an academic setting, this book will be harder to get a handle on. There's a lot to like about it. I appreciated her use of second person narrative. It felt like the reader was getting to witness an intimate conversation with her and her partner. I enjoyed her ending of the book with the comparison of birthing and death. Felt very "Lightning Crashes" of her. 

The references and concepts were harder to get. Intermingled with her very intimate experiences were some reflections on queer and feminist theory. There were some moments where I just couldn't understand or maybe I thought people were over thinking things. It's hard to say. I remember it being difficult to maintain focus after reading about 40 pages at a time. 

I really enjoyed this book. I could see myself picking this up again, which I don’t say often. 

Track team superstar Bash the Flash and Field captain Sandro fall for each other their senior year. Battling family, loss, identity issues, this book adds to the canon of YA gay romance. The book has tense moments, but not too tense. It has angst, but not too angsty. 

Told in dual first person narrative, we get to see both characters process their growing friendship, understand their past and present, and figure out how to keep up with it all. Both characters are likable with flaws. By the end of the book you’re rooting for them and can see how people will make 1,000 different fan fictions after it. 

I would say this is in the vein of Ari and Dante series, but with more honest conversations about sex.

This is a fun sequel to Boyfriend Material. You can tell pretty quickly that Halls uses the plot of Four Weddings and Funeral and makes it gay. While I don't care for the narrator as much, Hall writes characters that are fun to read and you want to experience their life. He also writes with a great wit and a sense of camp that boosts the plot and takes a familiar plot and makes it queer. 

Amidst the weddings and funerals are thoughtful conversations about what it means to be queer, how we define our relationships and what it feels like when you're not represented by the community that seems to get the most attention.

If you're a fan of 90s rom coms, pick this up and enjoy it. If you've read the first one, you'll enjoy this one more. 

Finally, I love love love love love that there are so many queer romance novels that are getting more mainstream attention. Younger me would be thrilled by this. 

I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. I liked it. It was inventive and interesting. It had pros and cons and it was well written.

That's about it. Overall it's a good read and I think people will enjoy it. 

Overall a lovely memoir by someone figuring emselves out as terminology changes, pronouns shift, and eir body morphs. 

Not sure why this is on the book banning lists but that’s usually how it goes for the books that are on those lists. Kobabe does a great job describing eir gender journey. The book is beautifully drawn and colored. If graphic novel memoirs are your thing and you want a first person account of someone’s gender journey, then give this a shot. 

A solid, fun, campy fake boyfriend trope romance. My biggest pet peeve is self deprecating narrators with low self esteem. Hall is able to make this bearable with ridiculous side characters and corny situations. He makes these side characters that are interesting and sweet with B and C plots that make curious how book 2 is going to go. 

There’s wit, there’s references, and while the characters didn’t used the word “therapy” there was definitely healing and boundaries. Would recommend and would read the sequel 

This is a solid history and maybe beginning of capturing the various histories of Asian Americans. Choy does great work connecting modern day prejudices and issues with their roots. In a nation that in 2023 continues to want to deny or not discuss other histories books like these are important. It’s important to see the struggles and the successes. 

Choy also writes really well and describes pictures that I wish she had included them. The book is short and felt like an overview but never felt incomplete. I hope more books like these get published.

I was not prepared. 

I bought this book b/c the cover was giving me m/m romance, space adventure, enemies to lovers, low stakes vibes. 

While it is most of those things, this is not low stakes. This is intense, dark, and excellent sci-fi. 

It made me ask so many questions and consider the ethics of things I would’ve have before. Just when I thought I had all of the ethical questions down, MORE PRESENTED THEMSELVES! It was a lot! 

This book is a ride. It starts YA enemies to lovers and then just throws curve ball after curve ball. I was genuinely surprised and impressed. I’ll be thinking about this book for awhile. I might even beg you to read it so we can discuss it. I NEED to discuss it! 

Highly recommend!