I may need five so eight business days to comprehend the atrocities Rin just committed wow 

This was quieter than I expected after reading the other books in this series but it did not stop the story from being very, very real. It follows Maverick in a very personal way, giving insight to all of his complicated and messy feelings about becoming a father and dealing drugs. The moral conflict is the main focus, and the author wrote it beautifully and made sure to take the reader with Mav. While it follows similar themes like the first books, the story is less action packed or with a big impact on many characters or plot lines in the world from the book. It instead focuses on the small(er) obstacles in the lives of a few but brings up bigger problems like police brutality and racism in general. 

In the end it’s a very hopeful and necessary read which is beautifully written. I really enjoyed spending time with Angie Thomas’ characters once more!

- I read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book given to me by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own -

This was both very different from typical YA literature and still felt all the same - the biggest surprise was probably that the main protagonist Alaia has OCD and the book both explores her and her condition really beautifully, making sure that people who not have OCD can understand her struggles and also see how strong she is when she learns how to work with her condition. While Alaia  is written quite well and in-depth, this makes all the other not so well characterised castaways seem less than actual people but more like walking two or thee word character descriptions. So it comes to no surprise that most of the personal conflict falls quite flat. 
Plot wise there is a lot to say. The book keeps comparing itself to ‘squid game’ and ‘Peter Pan’ and both are not really true. But it tries to follow the typical trope of „castaways surviving in a game-like environment with one big bad who has been controlling everything from the beginning” and is very predictable with it’s plot. Both the romance and th character developments, deaths and who is going to be the Lotus Flower Champion are quite easy to guess from the beginning. The myths are interesting by themselves but a quick look at the source material reveals that the book uses quite many without real depth or accuracy to the real stories to further the plot.

The writing style could use some work in parts but I overall enjoyed reading this book, even if it has its flaws and doesn’t work for me all the way through. 

This is a very interesting mix of an academic paper and a history book about not exactly forgotten but rather ignored genderqueer identities through different times and cultures - and everyone can learn something new. 
It gives a very broad insight into the topic and tries to balance the focus between historical accuracy and bringing forth proof while shifting the narrative from our modern standpoint towards something more suitable to the time period. The premise is something of a "we can't say that they were trans if they did not have the resources and vocabulary available that we now possess but neither can we say that they weren't and therefore we both need to broaden up the term trans* and need to see them in their historical contex to realize that they really were genderqueer".
Apart from specific people Kit Heyam also writes about the construction of gender and its stereotypes in different cultures.

While the explanations tend to get a bit repetitive, the tone is very inclusive and the author definitely wrote this for both academic and casual reades. Overall a really good book to broaden ones horizon and to learn about a few of the many(!) genderqueer/trans* people which have existed in history befoer us. I'd say it's more of an introduction to the discussion and there are definitely books which talk about specific parts more in depth - many of them are cited and recommended by the author in this book, too. 

- I read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book given to me by the  publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own -

A try at yet another feminist telling of spirituality set in a Celtic small town about thousands of years ago - and it’s quite good. While it definitely has its flaws (especially concerning the storytelling, which gets a bit dry when nothing of importance happens for quite some time and the protagonist Morag keeps on going on little side quests, but it feels more like a linear line of “to do lists” where she needs to face one obstacle to get to the next one and so on), the writing style is good and mirrors the dialect spoken at the time, which makes reading it really interesting. 
The magical realism makes the story feel more alive and interesting and the imagination of deities and their protectors is quite captivating. The whole novel tries to work with more modern labels to imply diversity and does an okay job with it. 

In the end it’s a captivating story about a strong woman trying to find her place in a world that is still too patriarchal to grant her the freedom and security she wishes for, and a story which imagines a reality where she does.

This is truly a retelling of the Illiad, because it shifts the focus. Not away from Achilles and his lover, Patroclus, but through the eyes of someone who is considered less than nothing - Briseis, a woman. 

She tells a story of loss, of war and the massacre it brings; the young men eager to kill and the women forced to comply and be used as sklaves. The author is quite descriptive when it comes to the various formes of abuse these women and girls face and whoever is looking for a love story has come to the wrong place - neither Briesis and Achilles nor Achilles and Patroclus nor Patroclus and Briseis are described as sharing an actual romantic bonding, but more of a forced attraction to each other, though it becomes apparent that the both men are way more than just friends and colleagues.  

While the writing style lacks quite a bit of depth and originality, it’s quite easy to read it very fast, but the characters could’ve been a bit more threedimensional instead of very easyly crafted personalities with just a few obvious characteristics. Still a good book, especially if one wants to read different perspectives (and while it’s set in ancient Troy, there are many more or less well hidden (feminist) standpoints on human rights and the abuse of power, which make it more than just a book one might read for entertainment. 

The horrors of forgetting - told by a young novelist in company of an old man and her editor, one of the few people which are not affected by the island-wide “forgetfulness”. Whenever things disappear, people burn them, let them flow into the ocean or simply bury them, controlled by the memory police. 

Drawing on themes of literary dystopia and actual parts of the human history, especially fascist eras, the story is told in very simple prose. The more disappeared objects, the more hauntingly tells Ogawa of the surreal story about people loosing everything, until the last remaining humanity is nothing more than a faint memory of the poor souls left behind. 

It draws on the very real problem - that humans forget too easily. They forget their history, their lives, what they stood for. This is a quiet, serene, personal apocalypse, where attempts at resistance are small and which ends in the very destruction of the self, showing a dark future for all of humankind. 

„I try not to romanticize catastrophe.“

An that is exactly what Travis is writing about - a catastrophic rise of anti-lgbtqia+ legislation and the mindset of hating those who are „other“.
In their book, they talk about everything which makes them „them“, from race, upbringing, social status to sexual orientation and gender identity, and they’ve managed to get all of those loose threads to connect and work out a book that is everything but hopeless.
They took seven quotes of thing said to them about being trans, some of which are affirming, some more destructive, and wrote the book in both a memorialized and intellectual/scientific way - handing the reader a lot of resources and ways to further learn about topics touched in this book. 

Many parts resonate with my experience of a trans person and very thoughtfully expresses the need to think about one’s own identity.

Even though it touches on some challenging aspects of being genderqueer and black, it is a very good and easy read with a gorgeous ending - to show that there is a space in the world for all of us, if we just travel the way our heart leads us.

I was given this book in a giveaway to review and I did not like it. 
There was too much running around getting kidnapped here and jumped there and kidnapped again without ever furthering the story, and none of the characters were relatable in any way, much less sympathetic. 
It was a quick read, so it’s not too bad if you need something to get your mind off of things, but there is no consistent or logical plot in here and sadly it shows.