Wow. This is such a heart-rending collection of poetry, primarily on fatherhood, but also on race and grief and life. 

Wow. This was an incredibly impactful read about growing up the black sheep in your family, about finding your voice through words, about imperfect people loving imperfectly. 

This was a fun read. I picked it up based on the endorsement on the back claiming it to be like Gaiman and Stephen King combined, but I really enjoyed it. It was a smart fresh take on a magic system, and with a backdrop of a mystery. I can't wait for book 2! 

Oooooh boy, this was a hard read for me. It's MEANT to be a hard read, I think, because the main character is intentionally very unlikable, as she engages in plagiarism and theft and doubles down on shitty behaviors, including and especially racism, along the way. I listened to it on audio book, and that helped me not put it down out of disgust. It's like a trainwreck, watching June slowly destroy her own life and double down on shittier and shittier behaviors, but very well done by Kuang and I think a worthwhile read. 

This is a sweet story. But it suffers from lack of diversity, in which the only Black character is the maid to the rich white woman who seems to exist to caretake, and whose adult son is "wayward" because his father left him. It's also very heteronormative. But the story was a nice exploration of complex relationships between daughters and their mother, and healing old wounds, and took place mostly in Maine - which were all redeeming factors for me. 

My first foray into an "adult" graphic novel! Graphic novels aren't my preferred format - I like words and I struggle with pictures being the base of the story over written narrative - but I wanted to read these after enjoying the Netflix show last year. It is a bit of a stretch for me, as I also don't read horror much and certainly was disturbed by some scenes, but on the whole, I enjoyed this read and I plan to continue in the series.