matmatmatty's Reviews (128)

This is one of the best things I read this year.

This gives a lot of background and information about racism and how we can monitor and help reduce racism. 

I don't want to give too much information because I think this is a book that everyone should read, but I will say that you should go into this book with a little expectations as possible. West goes through the scientific method to explain the best ways to do things, and I think it helps with minimal expectations.

I personally think that this is really good as an audiobook - West narrates it himself and so it sounds like a conversation with a really knowledgable friend, rather than a non-fiction book.

This was fairly cute - a YA romance about a D&D group.

There were some interesting topics covered that I was not expecting from a YA.

Our MC's grandma basically has her own subplot about growing old and though it wasn't the focus or even really discussed too deeply, I think it is an important thing to bring up.

I appreciate that out teenage characters had a lot of maturity without it seeming like they were unrealistic - they were very accepting of Quinn and what happened in her previous group and it was nice to see that. 

If you like cute no-spice romances, with a great cast of side characters and teens being teens and having fun, then definitely try this one out!

*I received a copy of this arc in exchange for an honest review*

So I am a fan of Mimi Matthews' previous work - I think her Belles of London series is absolutely fantastic and I will rave about it to everyone. So when I heard that she was writing a new series, and that series was going to focus on feminist academy, teaching girls to fight to patriarchy, I knew this was something I wanted to read.

And I was not disappointed.

I was a little bit sceptical at first, since a story featuring an academy feels like the lead will be young, but Effie is a strong, independent woman with a stronger sense of justice. She doesn't feel like a cookie-cutter young heroine, but rather a woman with a lot of depth to her character, and a lot of things pushing her actions. And it’s really refreshing to see a victorian romance novel where the character's main motivation isn't getting married!

The romance itself is a bit of a slow burn, enemies-to-lovers (enemies in the sense that they are on opposite sides to begin with, not that they hate each other or want to kill each other).  I think our love interests compliment each other quite well - they are similar in a lot of ways but also have some key differences (which is where most of the conflict comes from). As Gabriel put it so well, "Like recognises like." 

Also I won't go into too much detail here, but I really applaud the diversity in this book. Not just in opinions at the time, but also in class. Having a working class hero in a victorian novel that isn't a farmer (or a secret prince or something ridiculous) was really lovely to see, and seeing that he was a bit morally grey, but still with a clear sense of justice and doing the right thing - that was great. This isn't the first of Mimi's stories to have a diverse bunch of characters, but it is still appreciated!

As always, love the historical accuracies and the opportunity to learn more about Victorian Britain. 

Really enjoyed this one - if you are interested in a victorian setting that focuses on women's rights in that time, with two characters fighting to improve the lives of those they feel are downtrodden, then absolutely pick this up. SImilarly, if you enjoy reading strong female characters, then definitely give this one a try!

This is a fairly cute story. I have never read any of the other Comfort Food Cafe series but I enjoyed this one.

It felt like there were a lot of references to previous stories (in a kind of 'look how they're doing now' way) which kinda went over my head but overall i thought this was cute. 

Enjoyed this one more than the Pumpkin Spice Cafe at least!

This was such a touching family story, focusing on the lives of two black women, over a hundred years apart, and yet still linked.

This is a dual timeline narrative, focusing on Temi (a woman in Victorian England who ran away from her home in West Africa) and Landri (a woman in the present day who leaves her partner and goes to the house she inherited to give herself some space). This story talks about the expectations of women, and how so many of us have to rely on men, hoping that they will be good and have our best interests at heart. This talks about historical blackness and how people have had to FIGHT to get recognition, especially black women.

I don't want to spoil anything here, so I won't go into to much detail but I found this story to be incredibly compelling - I loved listening to it and would wake up wanting to listen to more. I wanted to understand how Landri and Temi were connected (this isn't a massive mystery and pretty clear after a while) but also wanted to know what happened to Temi and how this all ended. And I am really happy with how it ended for sure.

This is a lovely story and I would recommend anyone who would enjoy some of the themes I've mentioned above.

If anyone has read this and enjoyed it, I would recommend Now She Is Witch by Kirsty Logan, which also covers similar themes (but not racial ones).

This is a beautiful collection of essays on the topic of black womanhood from Kenya Hunt (and a few others). Kenya talks about her experiences as a black woman, as a black american, as an american living in the UK, as a black mother, and a black editor. 

I came into this wanting to see the best, but I have read books on Black womanhood that left me feeling that I didn't get much out of it. However this collection gave me so much to think about and I really am glad that I read this one.

The different aspects of being a Black woman that is discussed in the book are really interesting - there are some really interesting points made and hearing from Black women talking about their experiences in their roles and talking about areas of their expertise whilst also talking about the experience of being black throughout that was genuinely really interesting to read and I feel like I have learned a lot about myself from this.

Would recommend this to everyone honestly, but especially anyone who is interested in hearing more about the black female experience. I think young black women like me can get a lot out of this as well.

This whole series is cute - this volume had another story that wasn't in the anime which was really fun. BUT also had a story (that was in the anime) that was not fun. I really question why Yamai is a character because this story would be better without her.

If I ignore that story, this was still really cute and I really enjoyed it.

Really loved this one - I found it really compelling, especially with our new characters and a new setting.

If you enjoy bad-ass women or pirates, or bad-ass female pirates, then you'll enjoy this one!

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this early!

This story is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but with a few twists. I'm not going into too much detail here since some of those twists weren't in the blurb and I actually really enjoyed finding them out (even if it was very early on in the story). But overall, I found this story enjoyable but lacking.

The overall story was enjoyable - I wanted to know how this was going to end and whether our characters would be triumphant and that did keep me reading. It isn't a mystery exactly, but the nature of this kind of story has you thinking of ways the curse might be broken and hoping that things go well for our characters.

I really enjoyed the character of Selhah - I wish we had had more time with her, and explored her character (and her backstory) more. Meredyth was also a really interesting character and I feel like with her input we didn't really need a POV from the queen, as she gave us a lot of insight into court life and what was going on in the castle. I wish we got a little more from Talia - she seemed like a really interesting character but we got so little of her as a character that it felt like a shame.

The pacing of the story skips a lot of time. When our princess gets cursed, we go from the day of her birth to around a year or so later, and then keep skipping years at a time (with characters being mentioned/introduced and then dying or not being consequential to the plot). It does make sense within the story (especially since we are spanning across 17 years) but at times it felt a little jarring, when I just got used to being in that time and then we skip ahead.

The ending was a little lackluster in my opinion - I think it makes sense how it ended like that, since our characters have been dealing with this for 17 years, and things wouldn't just magically go back to normal immediately. But I do wish we had gotten a little more at the end.

I think this had a lot of potential and fell a little flat for me, but if the idea of reading a retelling of a fairytale intrigues you, then give this a shot. I found the writing style quite good (and I will give props for appropriate use of stays, and also no 'i hate corsets' scene - very happy for that!).

I really enjoyed this one - literally read most of it in a single sitting.

In this world, each region represents an animal and has a Dux in charge who is Blessed - has magic powers. Our MC (Dee) is meant to be the new Dux for his region but does not have any powers and needs to pretend that he does. When all the new heirs go on pilgrimage to take up their new role, suddenly people start dying, and Dee needs to find out what is going on, so he can save himself and the ones he loves.

Its a magical murder mystery on a boat. And it is great.

WOuld recommend this one if any of what I said interests you. Dee was a little annoying at first but grew on me a lot as a character.

Really loved reading this one!