justinlife's Reviews (916)

Sometimes ordinary is lovely. 

Here is a collection of vignettes in graphic novel form that shows young men in love. I mean, it's right there in the title. What I appreciated about this was that it was romantic love, but it's also friendship. It's was different types in different settings from the ordinary couple on the couch to the pirate adventures. 

Another thing I appreciated was that there were all types of guys here from sizes to colors, it felt very inclusive. In today's times with the war on DEI, a book like this is a reminder why it's important to build a big table have space for those stories. It's a lot of fun and worth reading. 

This book is incredible. 

Ferrer makes history come alive in a "no stone unturned" history of Cuba. I'm not gonna lie, it's a lot. The font size feels rude and might need a magnifying glass to read. The audiobook, though- Superb! 

What we see here is the history of the island with the resources we have available. Spain really should get more shit for what they did in the Americas.  There wasn't as much precolonial history but that, I'm sure, is due to Spain. We see how often the United States intervened and how at almost every turn, they made the worst possible decision. History is hindsight so they didn't know, but damn, damn, damn. 

Ferrer isn't easy on anyone. Her point of view is clear and what she writes is important. She lays the groundwork down for how the history unfolds. You can see how Fidel came into power, how Batista did. You can see U.S. meddling and the problems with it. You can see the pain and heartache caused by the slave owners, colonial powers, and dictators. 

She is very thorough but it never felt overwhelming or boring. She kept it interesting. 

I think this is a must read for history lovers. 

This book was a lot, I'm not gonna lie. It's thick and leans more academic in tone than I expected. That being said, there's a lot of great lessons to be learned here, even you're not the intended audience. 

Using Tarot as a base and showing how it can work in these times and how it can inform not only your practice but your point of view will only add depth to your readings and your perspective about society. 

I'm not sure if this is a book that needs to be read straight through or used a resource. It can go either way. There are a lot of ten cent words here, which... love, but distracted me from the point a couple of times. 

Overall, I'd recommend taking time with each card and feeling it and moving on. Take this slow and steady 

I enjoyed this book. Written in 2015, I felt that some of themes don’t hold up as well, mainly the conflicts revolving around homophobia and being outed. It feels like the genre has shifted out of that. 

Still though, this book is camp. It’s cute. It’s fun. The authors write these thoughts that the men have in ways where I was like “what? That’s interesting”. Overall, it was a fun read. 

It’s not that this book isn’t good or  doesn’t have good information. It’s just I don’t think the way the information was presented was for me. Maybe it was because this was the 10th anniversary and there were  too many testimonials. Maybe it was his tone which at times could be read as playful and light while at other times felt mean. 

The advice is solid and his approach is smart. If you’re under 40, I’d recommend giving it a shot. There’s a lot of good information and the last chapter around big purchases felt helpful. There’s a lot I liked about this. The author’s voice though made it difficult for me to want to finish. In a world where there thousands of financial books, this one stands tall and feels useful. Maybe not do the kindle one though. 

Ok, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. YA books are a bit overwrought and I thought I was going to get more of that. I’m rating it so high because towards the end of the book you get to see a couple having silly moments and being silly together. I don’t see that often in m/m romance. It felt familiar and it made want to go back and read that part of the story again. 

The story of having a crush on someone unavailable is so relatable that it’s almost cringe worthy seeing it play out. The characters are young so you already know they think they know everything and they make some great mistakes. Fortunately, Brown’s voice keeps the story level and is just wrought enough. 

This was low stakes and overall a fun read. I enjoyed the world Brown created and if he were to revisit it, id read it. 

This was adorable and felt like a love letter to The Kai’s younger self. It’s sweet and a story we don’t typically see. I enjoyed this for what it was. I think it struggles in print form as some of the text bubbles feel confusing.

The last of the series that was mostly enjoyable. I do love a small town series and this was cute. I mostly liked it. While it was (surprise) another age gap romance, this one focused on the grumpy/happy trope. While this works for the majority of the book, toward the end it felt like the separate characters became one and it was harder to tell apart. 

Overall though I liked it. It was cute and cozy. One of the better ones of the series. I appreciated there were more characters from previous books here 

I’ll give credit where credit is due- this book is well written. Her writing kept me interested, but the subject matter wasn’t something I wanted to read about. 

This book about surviving the 80s AIDS epidemic and shifts from present day to the past. We follow Fiona in present day as she’s trying to find her daughter and in the 80s chapters we follow Yale, a friend of her brother who died at the beginning. We see Yale work at opening an art exhibit while managing the loss and fear of the time. 

As someone who grew up slightly after the main loss and dealt with decades of queer media focusing on this, I am not the audience for this book. This book is meant for someone who hasn’t seen the movies, watched the documentaries, or read books about it. It’s to expose people about a sad part of our past and offer a glimpse into the ignorance, fear, bigotry and what people did to survive and how they helped those that couldn’t. It’s about how that trauma lingers. 

Her writing is great and I’ll give props to her research. While some scenes felt like a way to show that research rather than tell the story, I think she accomplished the goal of presenting the world. 

I will never read this book again and if it opens people’s eyes to the horrors of that time then the book is a success.