matmatmatty's Reviews (128)

So firstly, I picked this up thinking this was a queer history book. This is actually the history of queer theory. Still interesting but not what I was expecting at all, and kind of changes my experience of it.

This is a fairly academic book - not super dense though. This is an interesting introduction, and I think if you were looking for that, this would suit you well.

To me, this felt quite dry and since I wasn't expecting this, I struggled with this. I found things interesting for sure but wasn't excited about reading this.

I was disappointed by this, so I'm rating this kinda low but that doesn't mean that this is a bad book, or doesn't do what it was aiming to. It is important to know that this isn't a book about queer history, and if you want that, don't pick this up.

What a breath of fresh air!!!!!

This story follows a mother of two boys, looking after her boys while her husband works away. She has a suspicion that her eldest son is gay but isn't ready to tell her, so she tries her best to support him.

This is a comedy, but none of the jokes are at the expense of our characters. This is such a sweet story about acceptance and unconditional love - since this is a story from a mother's POV, this is a really good story for an adult, but also works for teens.

Honestly, this made me so happy, so if the premise interests you, I would definitely recommend this one.

Quite an epic story - took me a while to finish. A really interesting story, but does finish with a lot of open questions (ready for the sequel)

An emotional read. Well written.

What can I say about this? As a kids' book, this is done well. If i had read this as a kid, I think I would have really enjoyed this.

But as an adult, I can see a lot of flaws with this. I am still a bit confused on the talents and the magic - not because it doesn't make sense, but it just seems like the Nevers' talents were actual magic abilities, but the Evers' talents were just talents (singing, dancing or whatever). Like some were clearly magically enhanced at least but still.

I do agree with some of the comments that this book is a little too 'evil is ugly, good is beauty'. There was one point where I felt 'oh this book is going to combat this idea' but then it didn't (or didn't do it enough at least).

There is a point at the end where good does evil and evil does good and evil become pretty and good become ugly and it just felt that they tried so hard to stick to this when it could have been broken down.

There is also some oversexualisations of mostly the girls that just kinda made me uncomfortable a bit.

When they mogrify, they don't keep their clothes, so there are scenes were our ELEVEN-ish year old protagonists are naked for what feels like no reason. Its magic, you can make them keep their clothes.

 

Finally, I do have to note, for a book written by a PoC, this is extremely white. Okay yes this is based on european fairytales. Do you know what else is? Cinderella is Dead - a book with a black main character, and a story that isn't about her being black. They easily could have had darker skinned characters and either made a statement with it (had all the darker characters be evil because 'they must be' AND have that shown to be wrong) or just had one or two characters who were darker and have it not mean that much. Either would have been better.

Also final question:

are Agatha and Sophie gay? Their kiss at the end and Sophie saying 'who needs a prince?' makes me think that this story was supposed to be them discovering they love each other, but if it was, man that was bad. Like I would have loved that to have been the story but if this was it, then what a fail.

After saying all that, am I at least tempted to read the next one? Yes. Will I? Who knows. Maybe if its at my library.

Also Sophie is just the worst.

Same rating I gave the first one - if you really liked the first one, then you'll probably love this one too.

This story gave us a little more insight into the lore, and I think it was done well. though I'm still not a huge fan on the reliance of prophecy, because if you work it out, then it becomes too easy. I want to work for my mystery, not just solve a riddle.

Spoilers:

I have very few words to explain how I felt about this. I will say that I struggled to get into this book at first. It felt very slow and the prologue really drew me in and it felt that it drew me into nothing and I was confused. But after picking it up again, I could not put it down. I read like 50% in one day. Genuinely.

It is difficult to explain what this is about without either feeling like I'm playing it down or exaggerating. But what this story is about is the friendship between two girls growing up in Naples in the 1950s. This book covers things that young and teen girls would be thinking about and would be discussing. But also covers more than that.

I will end by saying that never have I had a book have me SCREAMING because of a pair of shoes.

This was fantastic.

Following on from the events of the first book, Pip isn't happy with how her findings are being portrayed in the media, so she starts a podcast to ensure that the truth is being told. Her podcast gets super popular and so she decides to stop investigating - she's done for now. Until her friend's brother goes missing and Pip feels like she is forced into investigating and using her massive platform to help find him.

Okay so first, I want to start by saying just how great it was to see 'consequences' to what happened in the previous book. I'm not just talking about people goingto prison etc, but how all the media attention affected Pip and her life. Not just how people know about her, but how strangers interact with her (

especially being a woman online and getting death threats etc

). And how this affected not only her decision to look for Jamie, but how she looked into his disappearance. There's a Netflix mockumentary that covered something similar and had a section where the main character gets confronted by a person of interest because they revealed too much about their life with no consideration. I'm really glad that this book takes that into account.

Okay everything else! I really enjoyed this, the mystery was a lot more intense that the previous one because Jamie was missing NOW, rather than multple years before. I really wanted to know what happened to him and that really kept me hooked. The final reveal made total sense, but one thing I will say is that there wasn't a lot of opportunity to guess what was happening beforehand. Not the worst thing, but something to note for sure.

I won't go into spoilers too much here, but I really enjoyed this one and I am really looking forward to the next one!

The first one was meh at best and this one felt worse. Wouldn't get past chapter 2.

*I received an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review*

This is written as an almost 'sequel' to Pride and Prejudice, but focuses on Charlotte Lucas (or Collins now) and Mary Bennet.

The story starts with Mr Collins' death, and Charlotte facing widowhood after four years of marriage. This story is about Charlotte coming to terms with her place in life, and after reuniting with Mary Bennet, finding her own passions and whether she will choose to follow society's expectations, or live her life the way she wants.

I really liked a lot of parts of this story - the way Charlotte speaks of Mr Collins as being a kind man but how she did not love him

(and how she begins to understand that it isn't just Mr Collins she doesn't like)

, the discussion of flowers and their meanings (and how that was incorporated into the story), and seeing Mary a little more grown up and matured. I am not a fan of coming out stories, but I do enjoy 'late bloomer' coming out stories - adults coming out, especially in historical settings.

Seeing Charlotte begin to understand her own feelings and finding out that she isn't alone - it was really well done.

There isn't much that I disliked about this, but I will say that I felt the ending was a little rushed, and it felt that all the pieces were tied up a little too quickly. That being said, I was really happy with the ending and I think this is a must-read for Austen lovers, especially those that enjoy sapphic stories or are looking to expand their reading horizons.