readingpicnic's reviews
475 reviews

Thirsty by Jas Hammonds

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  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Good grief, these girls know two things that bother Annetta and pull them out in every argument!! The same vibes as “That’s why your DAD died!!!” from PEN15. The ending was a relief, and although I’m sure the author could have ended the story sooner, I’m glad that we got to see some long overdue conversations happen and Blake gain some necessary support systems. Also, excellent audiobook narration.
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Sadie by Courtney Summers

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5.0

Yeah, this holds up as one of my favorite books ever. The voice actors capture the painful emotions of this book so well, and the cutoffs of each POV were perfect and kept me listening long after my commute ended. The audiobook gave the vibes of ominous videogame voice acting like in What Remains of Edith Finch, Life is Strange, or Oxenfree. Sadie is so important to me.
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Little Weirds by Jenny Slate

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 47%.
This book felt like a YouTuber writing a poetry book that nobody asked for. I love a weird book, but not this, dare I say, millennial, genre of weird which seems to just be repeating silly words like “gobbledygook” or teasing at bestiality. I was so unamused for the two hours I listened to this audiobook, and I felt finishing it would add nothing to my life but cringe.
Long Time No See by Taylor Blossom

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4.0

The plot was a little silly to me with most of Olive’s motivations being driven by an average man, but I did get emotionally invested. This reminded me quite a bit of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and the ethics explored in it, which I loved. I just think the style of this graphic novel is so creative as a Flipnote Hantena lover, and I’m just in awe of the art.
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin

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4.5

God I love books with in depth food descriptions. I was very caught off guard by the “ugli” mention. 
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Down the Drain by Julia Fox

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5.0

Every female friendship in this book is so intense and homoerotic; very relatable for girl-likers.
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Supporting Students on the Autism Spectrum: A Practical Guide for Academic Libraries by Kerry R. Walton, Rachel M. McMullin

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3.75

I found a lot of the content in this book very useful, especially since there isn't much literature on this topic (I will be digging into their references at some point). I will say that a few things bothered me while reading, such as the weird how to clock an autistic person vibes of a lot of it. The chapter talking about employing autistic people was also a bit strange with how it correlated autism with productivity in the workplace and talked about how certain employers seek out autistic people on purpose because they view their autistic traits as a utility (like the car wash example)? The statistics for how few autistic people are hired for jobs that they are qualified for, or hired at all, were dismal and saddening though. Some of the statements about autistic people's behaviors felt very generalizing and framed their strengths as surprising, like did you know autistic people have good traits, too! Here's how we can use those good traits to our advantage in the workplace and exploit them! I did write down a lot of the suggestions for making academic libraries more inviting and accessible for autistic people, but overall this book felt very off to me as an autistic person. I suppose it was written for a neurotypical audience, which is okay since they need to educate themselves and this is a good starting point, as long as they're critical of some of the wording.
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Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

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3.0

The Amazon history chapter broke me and had me crying in the bathroom. Ocean’s narration is excellent as always, although a lot of the poetry just didn’t hook me like I expected it to. 
My favorite lines: “Do you know how many hours I’ve wasted watching straight boys play video games? Enough.” Highly relatable.
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Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

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5.0

Stellar audiobook performance, and an incredible writing style unlike any I've encountered before. I love unabashedly honest memoirs, especially those that dip into the weird and messy. I think that I judged this book by its cover and expected it to be soft poetry, but it was shocking, flagrant, in-your-face storytelling with a poetic flare that I could not put down. I felt like a kitten being carried around by the scruff of my neck listening to this while my mother cat runs down a treacherous path, enjoying the ride but also being like ahhhhh!
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Thunder Song by Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe

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5.0

Very excellent audiobook narration by the author! Great dissection of the whiteness inherent in the punk music scene (which I keep accidentally reading about?) The breakdown of the colonial nature of monogamy was interesting and not something I knew much about--this memoir is queer in the best of ways.
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