I think I just need to stick to Greek Mythology retellings because this gave nothing new. I don't know what I really expected, but I'm disappointed none the less. 

I also lost my physical copy somehow so I switched to the audiobook, which I do not recommend. 

I think the book gods hid my book as sign to put the book down. 

4.5/5

Wow. I picked this up for the #TransRightsReadathon after one of my favorite nonfiction book reviewers mentioned it in a post highlighting trans and non-binary nonfiction pieces to pick up. 

How Far the Light Reaches is part memoir, part academic piece stemming from a thesis on sea creatures. 

I think the combination was successful, but do think that a few of the academic parts were a bit too long or didn't connect well to the the memoir piece it was paired with. I found myself drifting into focusing on other things instead of paying attention to the story. 

I highly recommend this one on audio and can we talk about this cover?? Amazing. 

A memoir and academic piece that needed to be written at and the author knocked it out of the park. 

I knew going in this was kind of a mix of cozy mystery and locked room mystery with baking show added in. However how it all came together just didn’t work for me. 

The sudden reveal at the end came out of left field and wasn’t explained well enough for it to make sense

This was so predictable that I’m second guessing everyone’s opinion on any book they review if they gave this five stars.

I picked this one up after someone recommended it for the #TransRightReadathon 2023 and I'm disappointed it didn't work out. I think this had a lot of promise, but needed a good edit to help each story be successful on their own. 

As a lot of others have mentioned, there are several TWs you need to be aware of, and that almost had me DNFing. Many of these stories read like trauma porn, or something similar and it made me very uncomfortable. I had to stop drinking my coffee at one point while listening to the audiobook. 

The main things that made me uncomfortable: the explicit sexual scenes between minors (12-13 year olds) and the narrative push that men can't be raped. 

I won't suggest this one and hope I can find similar short story collections. Additionally, I'm confused on why this is on the 2023 PEN America Literary Awards longlist when looking at the other books on the longlist. I guess we'll see what the short list ends up being. 

TW: explicit minor sexual scenes, grooming, cheating, rape

It’s painfully obvious that this was released in 2006 and it definitely doesn’t stand up to 2023 standards. If this second book in the series was released in 2023, I don’t think eighteen books forthcoming books. 

Book one of the series was charming and had me believing the hype from everyone, but this is second installment was just a mess. The plot was jumbled and POV jumps were a mess.

By far the biggest problem for this one was the fatphobia and body shaming of a child by several adults, mainly men, who of course were written by a woman. 

I think we all remember how popular body shaming was of kids and teenagers by our mothers and other older women in the mid 2000s was, I guess this just fits the mold of that era. However if a woman can’t write a child with more descriptions than “huge” or “grotesque”, I think that says a lot about her.

I may continue on in this series, but I won’t be wasting my money on it. I’ve heard the body shaming continues on in following books and that is a disappointment.