So I thought this was awesome. Hilarious at parts, really poignant and moving at others, and really good at keeping that balance too! I didn't mind the repetition so much as other readers because I listened to this on audiobook (which imo was the superior way to read this -- this is maybe one of the THE most well-done audiobooks I've ever read). The animal motif did get muddled for me at points (like, why are certain animals the animals they are? why aren't the species also divided along ethnic or racial lines (I know this one, it's to avoid explicitly or implicitly stereotyping, but it was still strange to me that there would be discrimination along those lines and not those of species)? is everyone animals, or just the citizens of jidada (this one might have been specified, and got lost in the sauce bc of the listening)?) , but I still appreciated a lot of what Bulawayo was doing throughout. 

What a cute little book!! It’s short but sweet and just what I needed to break myself out of the reading slump I felt myself going into. Halim I love you I need a whole 5-to-10  500-pages-each book series following you

I mean it was cute! Again I always have this thing when I'm reviewing books written for people way younger than me where like... yes I as a grown adult probably would have enjoyed this more when I was 12. But I genuinely did appreciate a lot of the aspects of it -- I actually really like Alanna as a character, shes really easy to root for, and I liked the kind of slice-of-life vibe that a lot of the first ~80% of the book had. I think if I did have to critique this first 80% my only thing is that the world is, imo, comparatively bland when it comes to fantasy and *could* have used a little more whimsy? But that's also not the tone and a personal preference so I get it. Also George -- I can tell we're setting up a love interest and I don't like that he's 17 when he meets her at 11. And also I was worried (and still am for future books) the Bazhir are really quickly gonna swerve into orientalist territory? But I was like whatever these things don't matter so much / I can ignore or "fix" them in my head (I just started pretending George was the same age as like Jon and Gary and so on). However. The ending.

What the fuck do you mean the climax of the book takes place defeating people who's existence we learned about maybe 10-15 pages ago, using magical powers we didn't know Alanna & Jon had (YES i know they have the gift and YES i know it said they were both more advanced than what Roger is teaching them in class and YES Alanna healed Jon but I mean just in terms of fighting magic, I did not know they could do all that and I understand that they didn't either but it felt ?? as a reader ok), AND having Alanna outed to Jon rather than getting to tell him she's a girl on her own terms? And the book fully ends with no resolution to anything, just them chilling like yeah you'll be my squire :D wonder what consequences we'll face tomorrow?? Idk man the ending just brought it down so much for me because it was so damn random like why did any of that happen? Sorry to go off on a book for kids but I'd feel the same if I was 12, trust I knew what I liked and had media literacy back then

Still think it's funny that I read this for a college class

I actually want to keep reading this and it’s really well-written but i can feel it ACTIVELY putting me into a reading slump :( sorry but i might pick it back up at another point!!

Wasn't gonna drink tonight but man... I miss Sinéad O'Connor like a mf....

Ok but fr I feel weird rating someone's memoir, especially since

my favorite parts of the book were written before she had a very traumatic surgery and post-surgery, and she literally was not able to write the rest of it the same way. Like Jesus Christ??

But anyway even though I literally only know her from Nothing Compares 2 U I found this memoir just so affecting and emotional, and especially since she did the audiobook herself I felt like I was just sitting down to talk with her, which was awesome because I loved hearing her kinda chuckle at her own jokes and mimic voices and so on. And ohhh my god every time she mentioned plans for her future I would just tear up and get so emotional... I know I literally don't know her but when she died it was the first time I heard about everything she did and all her activism and I thought it was just so sad that I didn't know until after she left us. Anyway huge amounts of respect and yes I will be streaming her!

Ok so. This was cute but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting, which isn’t like the best way to be reviewing books but…. I got fed up pretty quickly with how this was mostly boy drama and not really an exploration of Jessie’s intersecting identities to the degree I was hoping it would be. Idk! Like some of the best parts were at the end when

she had that talk with her dad abt his immigration story - though it’s lowkey weird to me for him to be like “Palestine and Canada are both my homes, they’re my two loves because my family is there” and her takeaway from that was “hmmm maybe i should get myself out of the love triangle I’m in”

and also

as cheesy as it was, her understanding that she can do scary things and succeed, even though her announcing all that at the end of opening fucking night made me roll my eyes a little…. Like ok Disney channel… but ig it’s for the age group so i get it

. Levi actually made me so angry so many times so

I didn’t like that we spent most of the book with him as the love interest

, and while I don’t think Griffin is perfect for her either because he said some weird things throughout

im still glad she ended up with him because he’s ultimately much sweeter & nicer idk!

. So like this wasn’t exactly for me as it was wayyy more lighthearted than I assumed but I would very happily give this to like… a 12-14 year old

So here's the thing: Every time I read YA I remember that I've fully aged out of the age group (not helped by me reading 2 YA books at the same time rn, counting this one), and since I rate based on my own enjoyment, it makes it look like the books were bad... which literally isn't true, because this was great and I'd very happily put it in the hands of any kid ages like 12-17, especially if they were interested in history & racial justice. 

HOWEVER a lot of the structuring bothered me: focusing on FOUR different romances in, like, a normal length book made it so I didn't feel like I spent enough time with any of the couples, making them underdeveloped. ESPECIALLY the love interests --- the girls all had good character development and learned a lot throughout (some more than others......) but the guys? Kind of boring gonna be so real.  Including JOHN aka a DAVENPORT but I kept forgetting he was around until I got to a new Amy-Rose chapter. And why would you

end the book WITHOUT a single Happily Ever After (though I think an implied Happy For Now), and sequel-bait so heavily??

Again there's a reason why romance series are not normally structured this way. Obviously for some plots (Jacob Lawrence) to work you kinda need the stories to be running parallel, but like, I think you could keep similar stakes if you structured it w/ one romance a book.

Like Book 1 you have Olivia & Washington and her arc is just like exactly the same but she breaks her engagement out of love for Washington rather than bc of Helen & Jacob's relationship, though you still have Helen & Jacob interacting some to get readers hype for their sequel. Book 2 Helen & Jacob ofc, you have the tension of "but you just got un-engaged to my sister" and then his being broke is like an early 3rd act conflict. Next Book 3 you probably do Amy-Rose and John after like having them exchange flirty banter throughout Books 1 & 2, and hell you can even have Ruby be there in kind of a rival role. Book 4 You follow Olivia getting over her heartbreak with Barton. Boom. AND when you sequence it out the storylines are less likely to blur together.

Also not one of these characters is queer? Lol. I know its literally 1910 but come on like statistically..........

Feels blasphemous rating Morrison this low but. While I find the concept of the jazz-like, improvised-feeling narration and perspective shifts to be awesome, the book lost me at several points - I always came back because the narrative would shift again, but still, I just couldn't help but be confused for large chunks of the book. The prose was still beautiful and the characters still vivid but like I just wasn't following!

Oh this was INSANE. The entire first part was very slow but I adoored the second, so its like really crazy to me that they only ever adapt part 1? Though I guess relationship drama is an easier sell than manipulation and intergenerational trauma. Anyway very slay and CONCEPTUALLY like as a character i am Obsessed with Heathcliff. Terrible horrible guy worst ever but god he is INSANE as a literary creation. There is something so deeply wrong with him, but like, same with everyone else! Big Cathy I'm talking about you!! And also while we're at it lets talk about how crazy it was of Bronte to be like

well Hareton and Little Cathy are in love and her love saves him from his degradation of being abused and exploited by Heathcliff when Hindley did the same to Heathcliff but Big Cathy literally didn't marry him BECAUSE of that, and she just kinda tossed him aside and went with the Consolation Prize (Linton) and in that process created the most toxic evil man ever out of a man who was already SO toxic... BECAUSE her family (Hindley) abused the fuuuck out of him. And there he is doing the same to HIndley's son (very self-aware mind you) but Hareton gets out <3 . thats insane

Anyway Oliver Saltburn WISHES he were Heathcliff Wutheringheights. Now I'm gonna go on tumblr and read all the stuff in the wuthering heights tag.

This was fun! It had the potential to be my favorite Ali Hazelwood because of the academia political intrigue, which was about as morally grey as you can get for a traditional published (non-dark) romcom. But they way Jack kind of had to mommy Elsie out of being a people pleaser…. Kind of exhausting to be so very very real. 

The smut was maybe about as good as Ali’s smut has ever been, which isn’t that high of a bar but still! I do think it could have been waaaay smuttier - if I can listen to it while baking cookies in the same room as my family (on noise cancelling headphones, but still) it’s not smutty enough!!

Ok now something small that bothered me: there is no way this girl hates ALL auteur movies, and there’s no way her (annoying) letterboxd ass friend didn’t show her anything directed by a woman?  Also her grudge abt Nolan made me laugh every time it came up because do we think Elsie Jack and their extended friend group went to Barbrnheimer and got into a suuuuper heated argument about which was better? (Team Barbie: Elsie, Olive, Dora, Greg, maybe George, Team Oppenheimer: Cece, Jack, Adam)