I've rarely read a book of any genre with prose so moving and lyrical as Ta-Nehisi Coates'. What he was saying was important. It was a viewpoint I've never read before. And it was beautiful. My issue with non-fiction is almost always that it can't hold my attention, it doesn't capture my imagination. Coates' anecdotes were vividly described. His ideas and theories were illustrated eloquently. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Possibly my favorite comic I’ve ever read

Date Me, Bryson Keller has absolutely one of the wildest premises I've ever read in a teen rom-com. The titular Bryson Keller is dared to date whoever asks him out first every Monday for the rest of the week to prove that he could get a date, even though he was against dating in high school. After several months of girl after girl, our main character, Kai Sheridan (who is a boy! gasp!), asks Bryson Keller out on a whim one Monday.

Even overlooking how insane this dare is, Kai isn't actually out as gay, so he and Bryson embark on a relationship that is both fake and secret. I have never, ever, read a book about a secret fake relationship, and honestly, for good reason. What possible reason is there for a SECRET, FAKE relationship? It comes together in the story but man did I just genuinely spend entirely too long thinking about how weird that is.

Bryson and Kai were interesting characters, although I will say that after reading a couple of interviews with the author, I wholeheartedly believe that Kai is 100% a self-insert character, which was simultaneously a little weird and made his story more believable (the author and the character have the same hobbies, interests, mannerisms...).

I will say this though: there are two main reasons why I didn't like this book as much as I honestly expected to. Firstly, the writing itself was in need of another round of revisions. I don't love to point this out given that I read an ARC and not the final product, but it did affect my enjoyment. I encourage you to take it with a grain of salt, though, since this book will obviously be getting those revisions before it's published. Secondly, this is a coming-out story. I want to be very clear that this is just my personal opinion and why I didn't enjoy the book, not a criticism of the author or even the story. I, though, am frustrated with books like this, in which characters are forced out of the closet and then treated with homophobia from family and schoolmates. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and I know these types of stories are important for some people. It just hits too close to home for me to enjoy it fully.

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley

I mean, of course I gave this 5 stars. I adore McLemore's books -- their prose is so beautiful, their stories transcendent. Dark and Deepest Red feels like the darkest book so far but I loved it just as much. If this book had only been the modern-day plotline, I think I might have given it four stars, but the 1518 plotline was so good, I was never not going to give this 5 stars.

It's difficult to describe this book -- it's less a narrative story and more just an exploration of a people. But honestly, it was really good. It's about generational trauma, and identity, and the value of history. I'm glad Rivers decided to do this as a novella instead of a full-length book: the relative shortness lent itself really well to the atmospheric, abstract nature of it.

I gave The Fever King a 3 star rating and a relatively critical review -- I didn't like it. It felt like so many of the other YA dystopias that I read in middle school, and while I didn't think it was a bad example of the genre, it's one that's been done so much that it's incredibly hard for me to enjoy.

The Electric Heir, on the other hand, was wonderful.

We pick up a few months after we left off and the drama begins almost immediately. I was worried it would take too much of the runtime for Dara to return to Carolinia, but I was happily mistaken. Noam and Dara work together to take down Lehrer from very different angles: Dara as an insurgent planning while on the run, and Noam from the inside as Lehrer's protege.

A lot of the first book followed the magic school plot archetype, which was a lot of why I found it less interesting. By the time we get to The Electric Heir, that's largely done. Dara's lost his powers, Noam has mastered his, all that's left to do is accomplish the quest.

What this book is about is abuse. In the time between the books, Noam has essentially taken Dara's place in terms of his relationship with Lehrer. At the beginning, Noam sees Lehrer as someone with whom he has common trauma (the presumed loss of Dara) and emotional support. Throughout the story, Noam has to work through the process of identifying that relationship as abusive, while simultaneously, we're getting Dara's POV as he begins to heal. We see Dara's pain as he watches someone he loves suffer at the hands of his abuser and work to get him out.

This plotline was much more impactful. The primary emotion I felt while reading The Electric Heir was horror, but that's intentional. Lee's handling of the subject as a survivor herself is delicate and deliberate.

I find it hard to write too much of a review for this book since it's the second book in a series, since I don't want to spoil the first. Suffice it to say, I would officially and emphatically recommend this duology (I'm assuming this is a duology -- the end of this book felt like an ending but I may be proven wrong).

If you plan on reading this book I highly recommend reading the full content warning list here. This book is a lot darker than The Fever King.

ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley