readingpicnic's Reviews (500)

I appreciated the overarching dichotomy between having love for your rural small town and its people while also acknowledging the racism and harmful beliefs held by the majority of people in your small town; that you can only be acceptable to them if you "don't get political," while their Facebooks are filled with harmful rhetoric about minoritized communities. I haven't gotten to the point where I'm proud to come from a rural small town (Midwest not Appalachia), but I suppose me constantly reading rural queer books shows some fondness on my part? I do love a short book, but this didn't feel like it had quite enough time to round itself out. Although I enjoyed the book for the most part, I didn't love the narrator of the audiobook. Speaking of, crazy thought, but what if non-Black audiobook narrators didn't read the full n-word out loud even if the non-Black author of the book wrote it in full...

 Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Fantagraphics Books, Inc. for a free digital ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review. 

Since the ARC I received is only the first 200 pages of the book, I want to preface by saying that my review only reflects half of the book, but I am eagerly awaiting an opportunity to finish the book because the suspense is really getting to me! Emil Ferris is a master of the cliffhanger. I read the first book five months ago, so I was a little disoriented going back into Anka’s story in particular since I didn’t remember where we left off with it, but that’s my bad for not refreshing myself on the story. I did like how the book started off with Victor, since it was such a major cliffhanger for the end of the first book. 

This book follows Karen and Deeze’s relationship a lot more closely, which was interesting to see since Deeze is such a complex character with so many sides to him, which complicates the suspicion surrounding him with Anka’s death. Their relationship is strained due to a lot of factors, including him now being her primary caregiver, but they have some very heartfelt moments that I enjoyed, such as visiting the art museum together and Deeze showing Karen his cover for the monster magazine. I do think Karen is getting a new love interest, which makes me happy for her since she’s going through a lot…

The art is incredible as always, and the lined journal set-up for the pages really lends itself to the feeling that Karen is writing and drawing the book. I love how art is woven throughout the story, with paintings that Karen visits with Deeze in art museums, as well as the cover art from the monster magazines. This series inexplicably reminds me of the game What Remains of Edith Finch, mostly the chapter focusing on the girl who starred in a monster film as a child. Karen is such an interesting and loveable character, and I adore her point of view of the world–her curiosity, her weirdness, her imagination as it pertains to monsters and her own monstrosity, etc. This story has a lot of triggering and explicit Holocaust portrayals, as well as lesbophobia, racism, and racial slurs, so be warned of that going into the book. I’ll be sure to update my review once I get my monstrous little hands on a copy of the full book, but until then, this was a very satisfying sneak peek into book two.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Algonquin Books for a free digital ARC (or I guess a late reader copy since I requested this and was approved after it was already published) in exchange for an honest review. The recipes were tied into the story so well before they were reintroduced in recipe format, and it was such a wonderful enmeshing of genres that felt so natural. The ways that the recipes were altered in creative ways, such as with instructions to noisily prepare food to make the eater feel unwelcome eating it–so creative. The food descriptions were incredible and so meticulous, and you can tell the author’s passion for the food knowledge that she wrote this to preserve, keeping both her mother and culture’s recipes alive. The mission of this book and the execution were fairly flawless in my opinion, and even though readers should check the trigger warnings due to the traumas of the Cambodian genocide and living in communist North Vietnam with extremely rationed food, living in extreme poverty, as well as losing so many family members to illness, it is still definitely worth the read. The family dynamics were very interesting to read about, especially in the ways some of her siblings just stopped interacting with them after moving away from Cambodia and the normalcy of that (could just be my western perspective). I am truly not very educated on Cambodia’s history, so even though I learned some of that history from this book, this really emphasized for me how much more I have to learn (I think I’ll read Ma and Me by Putsata Reang soon). I think that ending the book with an epilogue from her daughter was a great way to round out the story and really emphasized the generations of women that are so prevalent in this story. The relationships between Chantha and her mom, her sister (who also took on a mothering role), and then between her and her daughter were the true through line of this book, and it just all came together so nicely and in such a lovely way. Anyways, 5 stars, and I’m glad I took my time reading this slowly.

What an incredible book! I was so nervous to read this for a while since it's sci-fi, but that's honestly not the genre of most of the story, so it wasn't hard to understand at all. The writing was incredible, the story had a very satisfying conclusion, and I loved the use of many different perspectives throughout the story, even if we didn't get to stick with some of them too often. I do wish that I had gotten to read more of Tamiko's perspective since she was very interesting and was set up as if she was going to play a major part in the plot, but that kind of fizzled out until the very end of the book when she was briefly mentioned by another character. I would have liked to stick with her perspective a little more because her obsession with Shizuka and creepy way of thinking about her was really attention-grabbing. I also wish I had gotten more of Markus' story, as I found myself questioning why he was in the story at all if he was going to be

put in a stasis and never return as a character. I wish I understood his actions and motivations a bit more before he vanished from the book. I understand that he gave more context on the Empire and the EndPlague, but his character seemed to be very expendable to the story other than that.

I really liked the trans rep in this story with Katrina, and I especially liked how she discussed transition with Shirley in her decision to not alter her body, as well as how she came to love her visibly trans body as the story went on. It didn't emphasize medical transition as necessary to being a trans woman or being trans at all, and I liked how it challenged Shirley's way of thinking of transness, even if she was trying to be helpful. I loved Katrina so much though, and she was definitely my favorite character that I was always rooting for. Shizuka is a little questionable with her actions to me, so I'm still not sure how I feel about her...but she's a complex character for sure and meant to invoke that reaction from the reader, I suppose.

In the words of Pete "Flavor Dave" Michaels, this book was "just OK." I had the lowest expectations going in to this book as a "feminist" book written by a man, and it was better than I expected it to be. I quite liked it to begin with; I thought it was funny and enjoyed reading about Helen's childhood and Edith working in the senior home. However, it felt like trauma p*rn for most of the book where traumatic events kept happening to all of the main characters, just hardship after hardship and death after death to the point where I got desensitized to these horrific events and got kind of...annoyed when tragedy struck, as bad as that is. The pacing felt pretty weird as a result of these constant dramatic moments, and the big reveals were all very predictable and obvious. I feel like only

throwing Helen and Edith together for a reunion in the very last chapter of the book didn't give them enough time to actually talk, and although the whole book felt like it was leading up to that moment, I was disappointed with how brief and rushed it seemed. However, I did really like the last paragraphs where Helen reimagines a past where she brought Edith with her when she stole those beers as a child, as it was very beautiful and heartfelt.

I feel like I was expecting Helen to be queer due to some brief mentions of her attraction and obsession with certain women, such as the lasso woman and Tippi, but these were never explored more sadly. Also, I feel like there were too many characters in this book and that the author expected me to keep track of them all for a brief callback much later in the book, and I had forgotten their names by that point... The book also seemed to be critical with Diana's commentary on the subject of the "American Dream" mindset that if you work hard, it'll pay off and you'll achieve wealth, but then kind of went back on that by showing Helen and Diana achieving wealth by working hard/being gifted things by wealthier people? I wasn't sure what the message was supposed to be there, and it wasn't very intersectional in that Diana and Helen being white was never brought up for why they may have been able to achieve this "American Dream" lifestyle, only that they overcame the hurdles of being women in a male-dominated industry. Did Diana never consider that her whiteness protected her when she got caught stealing tools from people's garages? Would Frank have given a job to a person of color whom he caught stealing from his garage? Also, they often made a point of hiring people specifically who were women to uplift them, but didn't mention hiring diversely in any other regards, so in summary, it felt like a white feminism book.

I'm glad Diana called out Helen for her bullshit with not giving them any money while Edith was working two part time jobs and Diana was trying to support them by working in a cafe and stealing power tools, meanwhile Helen was living a lavish existence for a while there. Helen also seemed pretty dismissive of Edith having lost both her husband and a child and having to take care of her grandchild on her own, only saying that she had "heard" these things happened to her; from whom, she did not say.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

This book was such a fun and light read that I couldn’t put it down. It was so fast paced, and I live for the trope of people being rivals in person and friends online, so this reversal of that trope really intrigued me. I remember seeing the announcement that this book was acquired by the publisher years ago (I think?) with a brief description of the book, as well as the author announcing it on TikTok, and I was so excited to see aspec and arospec rep like this! Although I identify as aspec and not arospec, I loved the representation in this book and the reality of questioning yourself endlessly about your aspec/arospec identity. The excitement that Jo and Sophie experience when they find out that they’re both aroace was so heartwarming, as I remember when I accidentally moved into a cooperative living house full of other aspec and arospec college people by accident years ago and was so relieved to finally meet people who shared this identity with me in real life. The platonic friendship in this book reminded me a lot of Radio Silence by Alice Oseman with the friendship between Aled and Frances, which is the book that I always think about when I think of ace rep since it introduced me to demisexuality. I love a good teasing, platonic relationship, so Jo and Sophie made me very happy.

I do think that this book felt on the young side of young adult for a book that’s more new adult fiction, especially in the very unserious Instagram fights between Wanda and Wendy, but I suppose they are college freshmen, so I wasn’t torn up about it. The author had a message in the beginning of the book that she kind of wrote this book for fun during college, and you can tell that in a good way because it was fun to read and easygoing for the most part. However, this book was also good about being serious, such as interrogating ace discourse, Jo questioning their LGBTQIA+ identities, and Sophie grappling with her Chinese immigrant parents not understanding her asexuality and aromanticism and thinking it’s just a phase for her. This book was quite good and so necessary–we need more aspec and arospec books like this in the world! I’m so glad this exists! 

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for a free digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book felt so comforting to read, like a warm gay hug. The characters felt so complete and real, like queer and trans people that I’ve met in real life, and the lack of quotes with the dialogue worked very well actually; I never got confused about when someone was speaking. This was such a creative book, and unlike anything I’ve read before with its narrator being an older queer woman basically stalking (?) the two main characters, Bernie and Leah. I was unsure how the narrator pulled this off and knew so much about their journey, other than the few times she admitted that she lost track of them, but it was still interesting narratively. Sometimes I would forget about this other main character until she came in with an “I” statement and threw me off, since she’s kind of always hovering in the background in a way that she’s not always visible and apparent to the reader, much like her hidden presence in relation to Bernie and Leah. The generational differences in the queerness between the narrator, Bernie, and Leah was also commented upon by the narrator at times, mostly with envy at how their queer relationship was easier in many ways, not quite as taboo as it was for the narrator and her partner. Even though the story of the narrator and her “housemate,” or partner, was only revealed to the reader in brief snippets, these still felt so raw, heartbreaking, and essential to the story. It was so satisfying how everything connected and fell into place every time the narrator would make direct contact with Bernie and Leah. 

The narrator’s perspective on Leah and Bernie’s relationship and dynamics with a whole life of queer experience behind her helped break up the story with some analysis of characters’ thoughts and actions from an impartial, or at least outsider POV, which I don’t often see in novels. I don’t know much about photography, but the descriptions of it in the book were very cool and kept my interest, so I’m sure they’re even cooler to someone who knows about photography. I also liked that there was lots of dialogue talking about more socially unrespectable behaviors, like nose and skin picking, but in a way that wasn’t shameful, just honest. There were also some nasty thought processes and descriptions, but I liked and appreciated those too. The conversations around class were especially poignant in comparing Bernie’s lack of money and two jobs to Leah and her friend group, who all came from wealthy backgrounds and could pursue higher education, startups, passion projects, etc., and it was interesting how the narrator pointed out how money and fame played into Bernie and Leah’s relationship, especially when Bernie started to have money of her own and didn’t depend upon Leah as much financially. Overall, this felt like a nuanced look into the lives of a messy group of queer and trans 20-somethings figuring out what they want from their relationships. I understand why people have been loving this book so much, and I know I’ll be thinking about it for a long time. This is the type of book that I need to sit with before starting a new one since it was chock full of so much goodness that I want to sort through. 

The art was very nice to look at, especially for the scenes with the djinn world. Very good coming of age story featuring the complicated nature of girlhood and friendship between young girls. I do wish there had been more to the end of the story since there was a loose end with the school she got into that wasn't addressed again. 

This was so fun and fast paced. I burst out laughing so many times reading this, and it genuinely felt like reading slack conversations, as someone who has witnessed many slack convos and arguments from housemates in a cooperative living house.

I will say that I finished the book still confused about what was going on with Lydia and whether she existed, as well as how a spreadsheet uploaded Gerald into Slack in the first place? I don’t know if I missed something or if it just wasn’t explained. Not too pressing though.

Failing sapphic marriages in books make me sooo sad (similar to Our Wives Under the Sea). This story posed very interesting questions about ethics, conservation, and intimacy. The main character was genuinely so morally gray, and I did NOT support most of her behaviors, but my discomfort and disgust with her actions and thoughts also intrigued me. You can see her growth throughout the story as she learns the cost of her selfishness with her work project and her ambivalence towards and unappreciation of her wife. Their relationship was so complicated but felt very real. It gave me hope that after everything, they were still working on it, even though they had both made mistakes and had miscommunications. The wolf scenes were so visceral and strange, but also cool. I could definitely see this type of scenario posed by the book taking place in real life where a big corporation funds something like this in order to monetize it to the masses as a VR experience. What a trip.