readingpicnic's reviews
475 reviews

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.

I enjoyed this a lot. Very relatable journey with gender for me personally. This was very funny, and I grew to enjoy the art style (I think I waited so long to read it because the art style on the cover put me off for some reason). I was also an emo teen "tomboy" for most of middle school and high school who listened to punk and rock music, so I felt very seen by this lol.

This book kept me guessing the whole time, and I enjoyed being surprised by each new twist and turn that revealed itself as the story went on. I will say that this book was very slow for me to get through, which I think really slowed me down for the TRR unfortunately, and I considered DNFing it at certain points. It starts off really intense and then slows almost all the way down before picking back up around 70% through. However, I really enjoyed the ending of the book, so I'm glad I stuck through it ultimately. The bee horror in this book felt so creative and new, and I loved the drippy, rotten, and sweet imagery throughout. The depictions of grief were very real in this book and became all the more real after reading the author's acknowledgements section at the end. I appreciated how Caroline remained a presence throughout the whole story, even if just in the peripheral. I think that this book would make an excellent A24 horror movie honestly, going off of the trend on BookTok, as this book felt so cinematic and I could picture so much of it in my head. It reminded me a lot of both Wickerman movies, the original with its slow-paced disconcerting vibes and horror, and the remake with its bee horror. I was also reminded of Bunny a lot while reading this with the group of Honey girls, but I think this specific story hasn't been told before even though it reminded me of other horror. Overall, I enjoyed this and its explorations of gender, sexuality, and class. I think this story has so many layers to it and I wasn't necessarily patient at times with this slow method of storytelling, but I understand why it's well loved.

My god, what an incredible book! This is also the horniest book I think I’ve ever read lol. The writing was beautifully weird, the narrator was so funny and blunt, and the relationships with the main character and the women in their life were so deep and lovely.

The final scene with Jonny crying at their Kokum’s grave made me cry so much. It was such an emotional and impactful scene to have towards the end of the book to really emphasize how their relationship transcends death with their imagined conversation (or real conversation since Jonny used to see spirits). This scene hit me like a truck.

I wrote down and highlighted the fuck out of this book. I’m going to recommend this to everyone. It’s so unabashedly queer and sex positive, and I can’t wait to devour the rest of Joshua Whitehead’s books.

I really enjoyed the art style of this! I didn't read the synopsis before picking this up, and I'm pretty sure that I've seen this advertised as a book by a trans author, which isn't true since it's written by a cisgender bisexual woman whose partner is a trans woman. The story mainly focuses on the author's partner's social transition with many different groups of people and the reactions they receive in coming out. I appreciated the author's honesty with including thought processes she was going through that she feels shame and regret about now that she's looking back on her reaction to her partner coming out. On that note though, I feel like this book's primary audience is not trans people, but cis people like the author who are having someone close to them transition. I didn't not enjoy it as a trans person, but it kind of felt like a book for educating cis people on how to and how not to react to someone close to them coming out as trans since we mainly got the cis author's perspective for the whole book. I will also say that the author's humor is not for me, and I feel like she seemed too jokey about how her partner now has to experience transmisogyny and catcalling from strangers. Idk, it was an okay book.

I enjoyed this memoir and learning about the author's journey with navigating queer spaces as a trans man. I related to a lot of the author's experiences even though I'm a nonbinary lesbian, and I really liked how he talked about gender and transness as such an individual experience and that he didn't want to be a trans monolith. There were so many realizations I had about my gender while reading, like things I've done that I didn't even connect to gender dysphoria: stopping running due to gender dysphoria with the tight athletic clothes I had to wear, not liking the sound of my own voice, and more that I can't remember at the moment. This is a very raw and honest book, and I feel like I got a lot out of it. It also made me realize that I say "I identify as..." instead of "I am..." or "I exist as..." which I found to be an important distinction and something I was doing unconsciously. Also, the author provided so many resources to trans books in the back that sound great, as well as referencing trans artists and influencers that I had never heard of until now, so I'm grateful for that.