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nerdinthelibrary's Reviews (926)
content warnings: murder, loss of a loved one, chronic illness
representation: bisexual protagonist, a-spec love interest, lesbian side character, bisexual side character, side characters of colour
I was on the fence about buying Amanda Foody's newest book Ace of Spades, but the masterpiece that was this book has convinced me to buy every single book she writes.
The mystery element to this book is genuinely good, something I can't say about most fantasies that try to pull it off. There are a lot of suspects, a biased narrator, and the conclusion is ultimately satisfying. The mystery does overshadow some of the political intrigue aspects of the book, which is unfortunate because those are equally interesting in my opinion and I wish they had been explored further.
The world that Amanda Foody has created is exquisite. It's explained sporadically, and by the end you still don't entirely understand how the magic of the world works, but in this story it doesn't matter. You're told everything you need to know and the rest is left to your imagination. The powers in particular were one of best elements of the story, and it's never quite explained how or why people get them, they just do and that's a good enough explanation.
As per usual with all of my favourite books, the characters were the stand-outs. Sorina was a great protagonist to follow, and the relationship that she had with her entire family (illusion or otherwise) was so beautiful to read about. I loved that she had a moment with each of them, in particular her moment with Tree towards the end.
Now, strap in, because I'm going to say something shocking: the main romance in this is m/f and I loved it. I know! I'm just as shocked as you are, but it was the perfect kind of dislike-to-friends-to-lovers. Luca and Sorina were so sweet together, and I don't think I've been this excited for a first kiss in a long time. I really liked the way that Luca asexuality was explored and explained, as well as the casual way Sorina's bisexuality was portrayed. All of the portrayals of sexuality in this book were done really well, to be honest.
Part of me now really wants HBO to get their hands on this to make a mini-series but I know how adaptations usually work so instead I'll just reread my favourite bits of this over and over.
representation: bisexual protagonist, a-spec love interest, lesbian side character, bisexual side character, side characters of colour
I was on the fence about buying Amanda Foody's newest book Ace of Spades, but the masterpiece that was this book has convinced me to buy every single book she writes.
The mystery element to this book is genuinely good, something I can't say about most fantasies that try to pull it off. There are a lot of suspects, a biased narrator, and the conclusion is ultimately satisfying. The mystery does overshadow some of the political intrigue aspects of the book, which is unfortunate because those are equally interesting in my opinion and I wish they had been explored further.
The world that Amanda Foody has created is exquisite. It's explained sporadically, and by the end you still don't entirely understand how the magic of the world works, but in this story it doesn't matter. You're told everything you need to know and the rest is left to your imagination. The powers in particular were one of best elements of the story, and it's never quite explained how or why people get them, they just do and that's a good enough explanation.
As per usual with all of my favourite books, the characters were the stand-outs. Sorina was a great protagonist to follow, and the relationship that she had with her entire family (illusion or otherwise) was so beautiful to read about. I loved that she had a moment with each of them, in particular her moment with Tree towards the end.
Now, strap in, because I'm going to say something shocking: the main romance in this is m/f and I loved it. I know! I'm just as shocked as you are, but it was the perfect kind of dislike-to-friends-to-lovers. Luca and Sorina were so sweet together, and I don't think I've been this excited for a first kiss in a long time. I really liked the way that Luca asexuality was explored and explained, as well as the casual way Sorina's bisexuality was portrayed. All of the portrayals of sexuality in this book were done really well, to be honest.
Part of me now really wants HBO to get their hands on this to make a mini-series but I know how adaptations usually work so instead I'll just reread my favourite bits of this over and over.
Review also found on my blog.
UnsolvedAThon Challenge #2: read a very well-known/famous book
content warnings: drug use, overdosing, alcoholism, alcohol abuse, infidelity, death, domestic violence, abortion
representation: black side character, gay side character
Taylor Jenkins Reid has done it again lads. I was kind of worried going into this one because I’ve seen some mixed reactions to it, but considering the fact that the other two TJR books I’ve read (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Maybe in Another Life) were both five stars, I was still generally optimistic. And god, I love this book so much.
This book follows the rise and fall of one of the biggest rock bands throughout the ‘70s. It’s written as if it were the script for a documentary series, with the band members, their family members and other industry people all telling the oral history of the band, often with lots of contradictions and disagreements.
I can understand why that format might not work for some people, and at first I was worried that it was going to make it more difficult to become invested in the story but I found it really easy to get engrossed in the story of these characters.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that I liked any of the characters. They’re all deeply flawed, complicated people who are recounting a time in their lives when they were morally at their lowest, and yet I found myself invested in their lives. Not in the sense that I cared about them as people, more like I was just fascinated by who they were as people and their story.
Except for Eddie. Eddie’s a little bitch.
A thread that ran throughout this story that I loved was female power. There are several significant female characters - Daisy, Karen and Camila being the main ones, Simone to a lesser extent - and there are many moments where they reflect on being women in the ‘70s. Daisy and Karen in particular, both being famous rock stars, reflect on the ways they had to subtly manipulate the people around them in order to get anywhere.
There’s also lots of talk of women helping other women, especially at the end with a gut wrenching scene between Daisy and Camila. It was probably my favourite scene of the entire book and I wasn’t expecting it to have the emotional resonance that it did, but I was nearly sobbing throughout the whole scene.
I can understand why people that just give absolutely zero shits about rock and roll in ‘70s might not care about this, but I found it fascinating, inspiring and heartbreaking. I will never doubt Taylor Jenkins Reid ever again.
UnsolvedAThon Challenge #2: read a very well-known/famous book
content warnings: drug use, overdosing, alcoholism, alcohol abuse, infidelity, death, domestic violence, abortion
representation: black side character, gay side character
“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.
End of fucking story.”
Taylor Jenkins Reid has done it again lads. I was kind of worried going into this one because I’ve seen some mixed reactions to it, but considering the fact that the other two TJR books I’ve read (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Maybe in Another Life) were both five stars, I was still generally optimistic. And god, I love this book so much.
This book follows the rise and fall of one of the biggest rock bands throughout the ‘70s. It’s written as if it were the script for a documentary series, with the band members, their family members and other industry people all telling the oral history of the band, often with lots of contradictions and disagreements.
I can understand why that format might not work for some people, and at first I was worried that it was going to make it more difficult to become invested in the story but I found it really easy to get engrossed in the story of these characters.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that I liked any of the characters. They’re all deeply flawed, complicated people who are recounting a time in their lives when they were morally at their lowest, and yet I found myself invested in their lives. Not in the sense that I cared about them as people, more like I was just fascinated by who they were as people and their story.
Except for Eddie. Eddie’s a little bitch.
A thread that ran throughout this story that I loved was female power. There are several significant female characters - Daisy, Karen and Camila being the main ones, Simone to a lesser extent - and there are many moments where they reflect on being women in the ‘70s. Daisy and Karen in particular, both being famous rock stars, reflect on the ways they had to subtly manipulate the people around them in order to get anywhere.
There’s also lots of talk of women helping other women, especially at the end with a gut wrenching scene between Daisy and Camila. It was probably my favourite scene of the entire book and I wasn’t expecting it to have the emotional resonance that it did, but I was nearly sobbing throughout the whole scene.
I can understand why people that just give absolutely zero shits about rock and roll in ‘70s might not care about this, but I found it fascinating, inspiring and heartbreaking. I will never doubt Taylor Jenkins Reid ever again.
Review also posted to my blog.
Feminist Lit Feb: an #ownvoices book about an experience other than your own, a book by a female/non-binary/genderfluid black author
content warnings: abortion, parental abandonment, smoking weed, underage drinking, racism, slut-shaming, grey-area cheating
representation: black protagonist, black main and side characters, biracial main character, f/f minor relationship
“I don’t want you to become another statistic.”
“Why do people never say anything about statistics to white kids. [...] Black kids don’t even get a chance to think about doing something wrong before everyone’s telling us how vital it is that we don’t mess up.”
I’m really surprised that this book isn’t getting very much hype?? Because guys, it should be! I read what is probably Brandy Colbert’s most popular book, Little & Lion, last year and I enjoyed it, though not as much as a lot of other people. This one though, I loved this one.
The synopsis is a bit misleading, so I would recommend if you’re interested just don’t read it. The most you need to know is that this is about Yvonne, a black girl in her senior year who has fallen out of love with the violin, the only thing she is good at. She is also caught in a love triangle between Warren, the guy who works at her father’s restaurant who she’s known for ages, and Omar, a street performer who she instantly has a connection with.
I absolutely loved Yvonne as a protagonist. There are a lot of people who won’t because she definitely makes some iffy decisions and justifies it to herself, and I completely understand not supporting her decisions, but for some reason I really connected with her. I feel like majority of YA contemporaries focus on teenagers who are a few years out from graduation, and I really appreciated a book that highlights the struggles of essentially decided your entire future at age eighteen.
The core theme of this book is passion. Yvonne has lost all her passion for playing the violin; she plays because that’s what she’s always done as opposed to her actually enjoying playing it. Her entire life she’s been working towards becoming a violin player because what else would she do? I love the journey that she goes on as she realises what she can do with her skill for the violin, as well as her developing another passion with baking.
I also loved Yvonne’s relationship with her dad. Her mum abandoned them when Yvonne was young, and it’s been her and her dad for most of her life. She barely sees him, though, because he’s a successful restaurant owner who needs to always be high to get through the day. Their relationship is, as you would imagine, a very distant one, but as the book goes on things happen that lead to them reaching out to each other more, and I really enjoyed seeing their slow development towards having a closer relationship.
The other characters, honestly, did very little for me. While I didn’t actively hate it, I also wasn’t very invested in Yvonne’s love life. I appreciated her relationship with her best friend, especially the discussions of sex and sex positivity that came from it, but similarly, I just didn’t feel much for it. I did, however, like that Brandy Colbert portrayed how messy relationships can be. Yvonne isn’t dating either of the guys she’s with and none of them have said they can’t be with other people, but there are grey areas there, and it only gets more complicated in the latter third of the book.
Finally, I loved the discussions of being black in this book. It discusses the fact that black person don’t really have any room to screw up without getting a negative label slapped on them forever, how much harder black people have to work to achieve things that white people don’t have to work for at all, and, particularly with Warren, it discusses being biracial. There’s a part where a piece is written about Warren and his career, and he’s angry that there was never any mention of him being black. He’s white-passing and has grown up with his mum, who’s black, after his dad, who’s white, left when he was young. The book looks at the complexities of identities and living with certain assumptions placed on you, and I loved it.
My biggest complaint would be how short it is. I listened to this on audiobook and it was only just 6 hours long, which made it easy to read but also made it feel like there was so much left to be explored. I like that the ending is somewhat open-ended (some things are resolved, some things aren’t) but some parts of the book felt somewhat lackluster.
If you enjoy a YA contemporary that focuses on some deeper issues, such as race, the future, messy relationships, and the complexities of sex, or if you’re a fan of other books by Brandy Colbert, then I would recommend you check this out.
Feminist Lit Feb: an #ownvoices book about an experience other than your own, a book by a female/non-binary/genderfluid black author
content warnings: abortion, parental abandonment, smoking weed, underage drinking, racism, slut-shaming, grey-area cheating
representation: black protagonist, black main and side characters, biracial main character, f/f minor relationship
“I don’t want you to become another statistic.”
“Why do people never say anything about statistics to white kids. [...] Black kids don’t even get a chance to think about doing something wrong before everyone’s telling us how vital it is that we don’t mess up.”
I’m really surprised that this book isn’t getting very much hype?? Because guys, it should be! I read what is probably Brandy Colbert’s most popular book, Little & Lion, last year and I enjoyed it, though not as much as a lot of other people. This one though, I loved this one.
The synopsis is a bit misleading, so I would recommend if you’re interested just don’t read it. The most you need to know is that this is about Yvonne, a black girl in her senior year who has fallen out of love with the violin, the only thing she is good at. She is also caught in a love triangle between Warren, the guy who works at her father’s restaurant who she’s known for ages, and Omar, a street performer who she instantly has a connection with.
I absolutely loved Yvonne as a protagonist. There are a lot of people who won’t because she definitely makes some iffy decisions and justifies it to herself, and I completely understand not supporting her decisions, but for some reason I really connected with her. I feel like majority of YA contemporaries focus on teenagers who are a few years out from graduation, and I really appreciated a book that highlights the struggles of essentially decided your entire future at age eighteen.
The core theme of this book is passion. Yvonne has lost all her passion for playing the violin; she plays because that’s what she’s always done as opposed to her actually enjoying playing it. Her entire life she’s been working towards becoming a violin player because what else would she do? I love the journey that she goes on as she realises what she can do with her skill for the violin, as well as her developing another passion with baking.
I also loved Yvonne’s relationship with her dad. Her mum abandoned them when Yvonne was young, and it’s been her and her dad for most of her life. She barely sees him, though, because he’s a successful restaurant owner who needs to always be high to get through the day. Their relationship is, as you would imagine, a very distant one, but as the book goes on things happen that lead to them reaching out to each other more, and I really enjoyed seeing their slow development towards having a closer relationship.
The other characters, honestly, did very little for me. While I didn’t actively hate it, I also wasn’t very invested in Yvonne’s love life. I appreciated her relationship with her best friend, especially the discussions of sex and sex positivity that came from it, but similarly, I just didn’t feel much for it. I did, however, like that Brandy Colbert portrayed how messy relationships can be. Yvonne isn’t dating either of the guys she’s with and none of them have said they can’t be with other people, but there are grey areas there, and it only gets more complicated in the latter third of the book.
Finally, I loved the discussions of being black in this book. It discusses the fact that black person don’t really have any room to screw up without getting a negative label slapped on them forever, how much harder black people have to work to achieve things that white people don’t have to work for at all, and, particularly with Warren, it discusses being biracial. There’s a part where a piece is written about Warren and his career, and he’s angry that there was never any mention of him being black. He’s white-passing and has grown up with his mum, who’s black, after his dad, who’s white, left when he was young. The book looks at the complexities of identities and living with certain assumptions placed on you, and I loved it.
My biggest complaint would be how short it is. I listened to this on audiobook and it was only just 6 hours long, which made it easy to read but also made it feel like there was so much left to be explored. I like that the ending is somewhat open-ended (some things are resolved, some things aren’t) but some parts of the book felt somewhat lackluster.
If you enjoy a YA contemporary that focuses on some deeper issues, such as race, the future, messy relationships, and the complexities of sex, or if you’re a fan of other books by Brandy Colbert, then I would recommend you check this out.
1) Off Base ★★★★½
content warnings: death, loss of a loved one, grief
representation: main m/m relationships, gay main characters, side f/f relationship, side trans character, side gay characters, side asexual coded character
Just to get this out the way, things I loved that are the same as the first book: the soap opera-esque angst and the smut was great (this one also had mirror sex 👌).
I'm a complete idiot because I didn't realise until Pike and Zack showed up that Apollo was a character from Off Base. And yes, I literally felt my heart seize when my boys showed up.
Apollo and Dylan were both great characters that I almost immediately fell in love with, and I loved how they brought a level of maturity to this book that the last was lacking. The exploration of Apollo's grief especially was done extremely well and I loved the way that the other characters approached it. Not gonna lie though, Apollo's daughters completely stole the show for me. They were so adorable and that epilogue, no lie, nearly made me fuckin cry.
The romance between Apollo and Dylan was also amazing, in part because it combined some of my favourite tropes which are age differences and single parents. But also because it was so damn sweet and their chemistry was incredible. Them watching TV throughout the book was so darn adorable and literally anytime they were lying in bed together and just being Soft I could feel my heart literally melting within my chest.
Annabeth Albert also continues to add a lot of great LGBTQ+ rep. Aside from Apollo and Dylan, there are a ton of side gay characters such as Pike, Zack, Maddox and Ben (and even though he's not out in this, the fourth book in the series focuses on Dustin who you then find out is bisexual). Apollo's parents-in-law are an f/f couple, one who is a trans woman which was dealt with in a casual but respectful way (keeping in mind I come from a cis viewpoint). While it is only subtext, Annabeth Albert has also confirmed that she wrote Apollo's mother to be on the asexual spectrum.
This book was incredible, and after being Maddox and Ben I'm so excited to continue to the next book.
content warnings: death, loss of a loved one, grief
representation: main m/m relationships, gay main characters, side f/f relationship, side trans character, side gay characters, side asexual coded character
Just to get this out the way, things I loved that are the same as the first book: the soap opera-esque angst and the smut was great (this one also had mirror sex 👌).
I'm a complete idiot because I didn't realise until Pike and Zack showed up that Apollo was a character from Off Base. And yes, I literally felt my heart seize when my boys showed up.
Apollo and Dylan were both great characters that I almost immediately fell in love with, and I loved how they brought a level of maturity to this book that the last was lacking. The exploration of Apollo's grief especially was done extremely well and I loved the way that the other characters approached it. Not gonna lie though, Apollo's daughters completely stole the show for me. They were so adorable and that epilogue, no lie, nearly made me fuckin cry.
The romance between Apollo and Dylan was also amazing, in part because it combined some of my favourite tropes which are age differences and single parents. But also because it was so damn sweet and their chemistry was incredible. Them watching TV throughout the book was so darn adorable and literally anytime they were lying in bed together and just being Soft I could feel my heart literally melting within my chest.
Annabeth Albert also continues to add a lot of great LGBTQ+ rep. Aside from Apollo and Dylan, there are a ton of side gay characters such as Pike, Zack, Maddox and Ben (and even though he's not out in this, the fourth book in the series focuses on Dustin who you then find out is bisexual). Apollo's parents-in-law are an f/f couple, one who is a trans woman which was dealt with in a casual but respectful way (keeping in mind I come from a cis viewpoint). While it is only subtext, Annabeth Albert has also confirmed that she wrote Apollo's mother to be on the asexual spectrum.
This book was incredible, and after being Maddox and Ben I'm so excited to continue to the next book.
Review also posted to my blog.
content warnings: mentions of death, seizures, injury
representation: bisexual protagonist, chinese half-deaf main character, chinese main characters, bi/pan main character, trans main character
This is exactly the sort of sci-fi I love, and I desperately need a movie made of it (yes, I know that the concept is similar to Children of Men, but I still need this specific book adapted!)
From what I’ve heard, Lauren James’ books always fall into the category of “soft sci-fi” and this is no different. Set years after a virus swept the world and left humans infertile, the book follows the two youngest people alive, Lowrie and Shen, as they live among a community of a few hundred elderly people in London. They spend their time exploring and being taught by their parents, until secrets about the world and their existence start to come out.
I absolutely fell in love with Lowrie as a protagonist, as well as everyone else who inhabited her world. The characters are so endlessly endearing and lovable that I would argue it’s impossible to not fall in love with them. Something that’s even more impressive though is that Lauren James made me fall in love with characters who are long dead.
At the start of the novel, Lowrie finds a purse with ID for a woman named Maya. She goes into the social media archives and starts going through what is probably Maya’s Facebook and Twitter, reading decades-worth of posts. You get to see Maya despairing at how hot everyone on a dating show is, fall in love with her husband, be terrified at the new infertile world, be outraged, be ecstatic, be scared. And I didn’t only fall in love with her, but also all the other people that inhabit her world, like her future husband and friends.
The worldbuilding is also amazingly done. Lowrie lives in the middle of London, more or less, and everything outside of the small pocket of the world she lives in is slowly crumbling. Not just the physical setting but also the new little society that has formed. The fact that in this new society there isn’t any crime just because of how few people there are, the way that news works, the town meetings they’ll have, the roles that everyone is expected to fill. The descriptions of the past and how we ended up where we did also never felt too info-dumpy, largely because it’s not dwelled on too much. A lot of information comes from Maya’s posts, which means that the worldbuilding feels extremely organic.
There’s a big twist towards the end of this book which worked really well for me. I didn’t see it coming, but in retrospect it was so well planted before being revealed that I now want to reread it so I can pick up on the little clues. This twist meant that the last third of the book is a bit more action-packed than the rest of the book, but I think it was built up in a way that meant it worked.
I just loved everything about this book. If you want a soft, quiet take on a post-apocalyptic world that has a great twist and solution to said apocalypse, I would definitely recommend giving this a read.
content warnings: mentions of death, seizures, injury
representation: bisexual protagonist, chinese half-deaf main character, chinese main characters, bi/pan main character, trans main character
“Don’t worry about making your ancestors proud. You don’t need to be perfect, just on the off chance you’re the last of your kind. Life is whatever you want it to be With whoever you want to be with. Life is the people around you, the ones you love. You just need to be happy. That’s all that matters.”
This is exactly the sort of sci-fi I love, and I desperately need a movie made of it (yes, I know that the concept is similar to Children of Men, but I still need this specific book adapted!)
From what I’ve heard, Lauren James’ books always fall into the category of “soft sci-fi” and this is no different. Set years after a virus swept the world and left humans infertile, the book follows the two youngest people alive, Lowrie and Shen, as they live among a community of a few hundred elderly people in London. They spend their time exploring and being taught by their parents, until secrets about the world and their existence start to come out.
I absolutely fell in love with Lowrie as a protagonist, as well as everyone else who inhabited her world. The characters are so endlessly endearing and lovable that I would argue it’s impossible to not fall in love with them. Something that’s even more impressive though is that Lauren James made me fall in love with characters who are long dead.
At the start of the novel, Lowrie finds a purse with ID for a woman named Maya. She goes into the social media archives and starts going through what is probably Maya’s Facebook and Twitter, reading decades-worth of posts. You get to see Maya despairing at how hot everyone on a dating show is, fall in love with her husband, be terrified at the new infertile world, be outraged, be ecstatic, be scared. And I didn’t only fall in love with her, but also all the other people that inhabit her world, like her future husband and friends.
The worldbuilding is also amazingly done. Lowrie lives in the middle of London, more or less, and everything outside of the small pocket of the world she lives in is slowly crumbling. Not just the physical setting but also the new little society that has formed. The fact that in this new society there isn’t any crime just because of how few people there are, the way that news works, the town meetings they’ll have, the roles that everyone is expected to fill. The descriptions of the past and how we ended up where we did also never felt too info-dumpy, largely because it’s not dwelled on too much. A lot of information comes from Maya’s posts, which means that the worldbuilding feels extremely organic.
There’s a big twist towards the end of this book which worked really well for me. I didn’t see it coming, but in retrospect it was so well planted before being revealed that I now want to reread it so I can pick up on the little clues. This twist meant that the last third of the book is a bit more action-packed than the rest of the book, but I think it was built up in a way that meant it worked.
I just loved everything about this book. If you want a soft, quiet take on a post-apocalyptic world that has a great twist and solution to said apocalypse, I would definitely recommend giving this a read.
content warnings: misogyny, slut shaming, sexual harassment, violence, parental verbal abuse
representation: fat dominican main character, gay dominican side character, dominican side characters, latinx/hispanic side characters, jamaican side character
“Burn it! Burn it.
This is where the poems are,” I say,
thumping a fist against my chest.
“Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too?
You would burn me, wouldn't you, if you could?”
Literally the only thing I didn't like about this book is that I read it in physical format because my stupid library doesn't have the audiobook. Other than that, I loved everything.
Elizabeth Acevedo's debut novel is a beautiful exploration of sexism, faith, feeling alone, being unheard, and finding your people. The protagonist, Xiomara, spends the entire novel battling with the fact that she wants to take up more space than she does; she wants to be heard, wants to be respected, wants to be her own person. But her religious mother has other ideas of what her daughter should be and because of that Xiomara feels like she can't breathe.
So she turns to slam poetry, which is the form the book is written in. I was worried that that aspect would make it difficult to read, as someone who isn't really into reading poetry, but it didn't take long for me to get into it. The poems aren't fragments in the way that poetry collections are; these are poems that are telling a complete story. Again, I wish I had listened to the audiobook because Elizabeth Acevedo, who is herself a renowned slam poet, narrates it and everyone who's read this book talks about how fantastic it is.
Something you need to know about me is that I love a good, complicated mother-daughter relationship, and this book has that in spades. In fact, this book is just full of incredible, complex, messy relationships: Xiomara and her mother, Xiomara and Twin, Xiomara and Aman, Xiomara and Caridad, Xiomara and Ms. Galiano, Xiomara and religion, Xiomara and slam poetry, Xiomara and her sexuality.
Everything about this book is messy and raw and beautiful, and I absolutely loved it.
representation: fat dominican main character, gay dominican side character, dominican side characters, latinx/hispanic side characters, jamaican side character
“Burn it! Burn it.
This is where the poems are,” I say,
thumping a fist against my chest.
“Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too?
You would burn me, wouldn't you, if you could?”
Literally the only thing I didn't like about this book is that I read it in physical format because my stupid library doesn't have the audiobook. Other than that, I loved everything.
Elizabeth Acevedo's debut novel is a beautiful exploration of sexism, faith, feeling alone, being unheard, and finding your people. The protagonist, Xiomara, spends the entire novel battling with the fact that she wants to take up more space than she does; she wants to be heard, wants to be respected, wants to be her own person. But her religious mother has other ideas of what her daughter should be and because of that Xiomara feels like she can't breathe.
So she turns to slam poetry, which is the form the book is written in. I was worried that that aspect would make it difficult to read, as someone who isn't really into reading poetry, but it didn't take long for me to get into it. The poems aren't fragments in the way that poetry collections are; these are poems that are telling a complete story. Again, I wish I had listened to the audiobook because Elizabeth Acevedo, who is herself a renowned slam poet, narrates it and everyone who's read this book talks about how fantastic it is.
Something you need to know about me is that I love a good, complicated mother-daughter relationship, and this book has that in spades. In fact, this book is just full of incredible, complex, messy relationships: Xiomara and her mother, Xiomara and Twin, Xiomara and Aman, Xiomara and Caridad, Xiomara and Ms. Galiano, Xiomara and religion, Xiomara and slam poetry, Xiomara and her sexuality.
Everything about this book is messy and raw and beautiful, and I absolutely loved it.
1) Off Base ★★★★½
2) At Attention ★★★★★
3) On Point ★★★★
content warnings: family member with a heart condition
representation: main m/m relationship, main gay character, main bi character, side gay characters
I wasn't expecting this one to be a contender for my favourite book of the series, but here we are folks. Apparently the Strauss boys will steal my heart every time.
I already really enjoyed Dustin in At Attention, but this book gave him so much more depth. It feeds into one of my favourite tropes, which is when a character is viewed one way from an outside POV and then gets their own POV and you see how they really are. I also loved Wes, and his entire family to be honest. Apparently there's just guaranteed to be one woman I love in each of these books, and in this one that was Sam.
Dylan and Apollo's cameos were also incredible and I'm complete trash who wants another entire book about them.
The dynamics of the relationship between Dustin and Wes were also incredible. They have a D/S relationship which I thought was explored really nicely, and was constantly validated as a normal relationship people can have (my one complaint is that I wish we had gotten more discussion of safe words). The sex scenes were also incredible, in large part due to the fact that quite a few of them take place over video chat which is a personal favourite sex-trope of mine.
I loved the different discussions that took place in this book, about sex and kink and bisexuality and family expectations. For a fairly short erotica book, this definitely deals with some heavy topics in a seemingly effortless way and I really appreciate it.
There's also a moment when one of the characters lampshades the fact that suddenly every main is getting paired up and I'm not going to lie, I laughed out loud in my English class at that.
I loved this book (not sure if I liked it more than At Attention but if not it's a close second), and I'm especially excited for the next one because I know one of the main characters is demi.
2) At Attention ★★★★★
3) On Point ★★★★
content warnings: family member with a heart condition
representation: main m/m relationship, main gay character, main bi character, side gay characters
I wasn't expecting this one to be a contender for my favourite book of the series, but here we are folks. Apparently the Strauss boys will steal my heart every time.
I already really enjoyed Dustin in At Attention, but this book gave him so much more depth. It feeds into one of my favourite tropes, which is when a character is viewed one way from an outside POV and then gets their own POV and you see how they really are. I also loved Wes, and his entire family to be honest. Apparently there's just guaranteed to be one woman I love in each of these books, and in this one that was Sam.
Dylan and Apollo's cameos were also incredible and I'm complete trash who wants another entire book about them.
The dynamics of the relationship between Dustin and Wes were also incredible. They have a D/S relationship which I thought was explored really nicely, and was constantly validated as a normal relationship people can have (my one complaint is that I wish we had gotten more discussion of safe words). The sex scenes were also incredible, in large part due to the fact that quite a few of them take place over video chat which is a personal favourite sex-trope of mine.
I loved the different discussions that took place in this book, about sex and kink and bisexuality and family expectations. For a fairly short erotica book, this definitely deals with some heavy topics in a seemingly effortless way and I really appreciate it.
There's also a moment when one of the characters lampshades the fact that suddenly every main is getting paired up and I'm not going to lie, I laughed out loud in my English class at that.
I loved this book (not sure if I liked it more than At Attention but if not it's a close second), and I'm especially excited for the next one because I know one of the main characters is demi.
content warnings: violence, loss of loved ones, discussions and descriptions of sexual assault, slut shaming
representation: lesbian main character, bisexual side character, aromantic/asexual side character, side characters of colour
“Because there was nothing in a girl’s history that might negate her right to choose what happens to her body.”
This was quite possibly the most melancholy book I've ever read and I loved it. The entirety of this book is just dripping with beautiful sadness, mixed with unexplained magic and good people caring about one another.
Summer of Salt is about Georgina, a girl who comes from a long line of magical Fernweh women but shows no sign of magical powers herself despite her sister having the ability to float from birth. The Fernweh's own an inn on the island By-the-Sea and every summer the inn becomes overrun with birdheads all there to study Annabella, a bird that has supposedly come to roost on the island for centuries. When tragedy strikes, Georgina's family - specifically her sister - are the prime suspects and Georgina needs to try to prove her family's innocence.
Everything about this book is beautiful, from the writing to the setting to the crafting of the characters to the various relationships to the themes, absolutely everything. I genuinely don't have the words to express how much I loved this so I'm not even going to try.
I now want to pick up everything Katrina Leno has ever written because if it's even half as good as this, I can't wait to read it.
representation: lesbian main character, bisexual side character, aromantic/asexual side character, side characters of colour
“Because there was nothing in a girl’s history that might negate her right to choose what happens to her body.”
This was quite possibly the most melancholy book I've ever read and I loved it. The entirety of this book is just dripping with beautiful sadness, mixed with unexplained magic and good people caring about one another.
Summer of Salt is about Georgina, a girl who comes from a long line of magical Fernweh women but shows no sign of magical powers herself despite her sister having the ability to float from birth. The Fernweh's own an inn on the island By-the-Sea and every summer the inn becomes overrun with birdheads all there to study Annabella, a bird that has supposedly come to roost on the island for centuries. When tragedy strikes, Georgina's family - specifically her sister - are the prime suspects and Georgina needs to try to prove her family's innocence.
Everything about this book is beautiful, from the writing to the setting to the crafting of the characters to the various relationships to the themes, absolutely everything. I genuinely don't have the words to express how much I loved this so I'm not even going to try.
I now want to pick up everything Katrina Leno has ever written because if it's even half as good as this, I can't wait to read it.
content warnings: violence, loss of a loved one, murder, kidnapping, torture,
representation: gay protagonist, bi/pan main character, m/m main relationship, biracial (indian-white) main character, indian sikh main characters, amputee side character, mute side character, sapphic trans side character, lesbian indian side character, interracial f/f side relationship,
“‘I’m not just Colton anymore,’ he said. ‘I am also Evangeline, and Ben, and every clock spirit in the world. I speak and fight for them, because they can’t.’”
Review may contain spoilers for Timekeeper and Chainbreaker.
Tara Sim is an evil genius, and I can’t decide whether I hate her or want to worship her. I love this entire trilogy, and I think this final book might be my favourite, something which doesn’t happen very often.
The conclusion of the Timekeeper series follows almost immediately from where the last book left off, with Danny, Daphne, Meena and Colton all kidnapped. The directions this book went were very unexpected, from the twists and turns to the character decisions, and I loved it for that.
Without any spoilers, I’ll just say that the mythology of the world plays a much greater role in this book than the others, both in terms of general worldbuilding and the directions the plot goes in. I wasn’t expecting the angle it took but I liked the way it went. I also loved how much more brutal and emotional this book is than the others; the stakes are far higher in this one, and there are times when it does ‘go there’, which I loved as a reader and hated as someone who loves all these characters.
Speaking of, there are several side characters introduced in this book, most notably Zavier, Dae, Jo, Astrid and Archer. The first four make up part of the crew of the Prometheus, and I love the direction that Sim took their characters. There’s also a lot that hasn’t been explored with them and I would be 100% down for another book, or even just a novella, following a lot of those characters, whether it was a prequel or sequel.
Archer is a bit different, and functions as the primary villain. In general, she and the Builders are only there to be a threat. Yes, there’s some personal issues there between them and the main characters, but on the whole they really are only there as an obstacle for the heroes to defeat. That probably won’t work for people who don’t love this series as much as I do and aren’t as willing to lay their lives down for the characters, but I don’t think it’s too much of a detriment to the book as a whole.
People who didn’t like the fact that Danny and Colton were apart for majority of the last book definitely aren’t going to be disappointed in that aspect with this one. They’re together fairly quickly, and there’s so much angst and love it was literally murdering me. They also get their fair share of steamy scenes in this, which was greatly appreciated ;)
Daphne is my wife and I love her so much. She’s easily my favourite character of the whole series. Seeing her grapple with her identity as a biracial woman, as well as with the morality of the things she does to save the ones that she loves, is sometimes heartbreaking to read but, oh god, so fulfilling. There’s also more about her past and family in this one, which was almost amazing to read about.
Part of me is really sad because I’ve been reading this series from the start (I bought and read Timekeeper the month it came out) and it’s quickly become one of my all-time favourite series. I never want a series I love to end, but I’m so glad that this trilogy had such a satisfying and emotional ending. I can’t wait for Tara Sim’s next series, and everything she does past that; she has well and truly solidified herself as one of my all-time favourite authors.
15/01/19: I AM HOLDING THIS BOOK IN MY HANDS RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND AND I. AM. NOT. OKAY.
representation: gay protagonist, bi/pan main character, m/m main relationship, biracial (indian-white) main character, indian sikh main characters, amputee side character, mute side character, sapphic trans side character, lesbian indian side character, interracial f/f side relationship,
“‘I’m not just Colton anymore,’ he said. ‘I am also Evangeline, and Ben, and every clock spirit in the world. I speak and fight for them, because they can’t.’”
Review may contain spoilers for Timekeeper and Chainbreaker.
Tara Sim is an evil genius, and I can’t decide whether I hate her or want to worship her. I love this entire trilogy, and I think this final book might be my favourite, something which doesn’t happen very often.
The conclusion of the Timekeeper series follows almost immediately from where the last book left off, with Danny, Daphne, Meena and Colton all kidnapped. The directions this book went were very unexpected, from the twists and turns to the character decisions, and I loved it for that.
Without any spoilers, I’ll just say that the mythology of the world plays a much greater role in this book than the others, both in terms of general worldbuilding and the directions the plot goes in. I wasn’t expecting the angle it took but I liked the way it went. I also loved how much more brutal and emotional this book is than the others; the stakes are far higher in this one, and there are times when it does ‘go there’, which I loved as a reader and hated as someone who loves all these characters.
Speaking of, there are several side characters introduced in this book, most notably Zavier, Dae, Jo, Astrid and Archer. The first four make up part of the crew of the Prometheus, and I love the direction that Sim took their characters. There’s also a lot that hasn’t been explored with them and I would be 100% down for another book, or even just a novella, following a lot of those characters, whether it was a prequel or sequel.
Archer is a bit different, and functions as the primary villain. In general, she and the Builders are only there to be a threat. Yes, there’s some personal issues there between them and the main characters, but on the whole they really are only there as an obstacle for the heroes to defeat. That probably won’t work for people who don’t love this series as much as I do and aren’t as willing to lay their lives down for the characters, but I don’t think it’s too much of a detriment to the book as a whole.
People who didn’t like the fact that Danny and Colton were apart for majority of the last book definitely aren’t going to be disappointed in that aspect with this one. They’re together fairly quickly, and there’s so much angst and love it was literally murdering me. They also get their fair share of steamy scenes in this, which was greatly appreciated ;)
Daphne is my wife and I love her so much. She’s easily my favourite character of the whole series. Seeing her grapple with her identity as a biracial woman, as well as with the morality of the things she does to save the ones that she loves, is sometimes heartbreaking to read but, oh god, so fulfilling. There’s also more about her past and family in this one, which was almost amazing to read about.
Part of me is really sad because I’ve been reading this series from the start (I bought and read Timekeeper the month it came out) and it’s quickly become one of my all-time favourite series. I never want a series I love to end, but I’m so glad that this trilogy had such a satisfying and emotional ending. I can’t wait for Tara Sim’s next series, and everything she does past that; she has well and truly solidified herself as one of my all-time favourite authors.
15/01/19: I AM HOLDING THIS BOOK IN MY HANDS RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND AND I. AM. NOT. OKAY.
