This was reeeeeeeealy close to being a five star read for me. The writing is brilliant. There is a very slow patch in the middle that lost my attention, but the ending was pretty decent. This is really philosophical horror--the plot is mainly a vehicle to explore big ideas like motherhood, womanhood, misogyny, and more. The plot is kind of secondary to exploring those concepts, at least through the middle. 

This is such a wonderful contemporary middle grade about a Chinese-American family that runs a hotel. It addresses important topics such as racism, immigration, forced labor, and classism. It also explores what it means to be a friend, the power of persistence, and self-awareness. The characters were layered and this book made me feel things. Loved it! Wouldn't change a thing.

This was a great read to start the year. An unreliable protagonist leads the creepfest and you don't really know if what is happening is her hallucinating, someone gaslighting her, or something supernatural. The twist at the end made my jaw drop and it built so skillfully to an intense end. Loved it and will definitely read more of Leno's work. I dropped a star just because I wanted a bit more, like, gore, but it's YA so it does what it needs to for that audience. 

 4 stars because the writing was beautiful and I love a toxic romance. If you are a person romantically interested in men though, the bar is in hell in this book. There wasn't a single decent dude in the story, not even the love interest. 

 This was headed to being a 3-star read and then the fatphobia hit and I was out. This book isn't literary fiction. It reads more like a contemporary romance that tries to cram a lot of social commentary into the story. I thought the social commentary was also a bit surface level and stereotypical but I really can't speak to that in any reliable way as a white person. The fatphobia really ticked me off. This book was trying to be all inclusive and then basically said "if you're fat you're not worth loving." eff that.