I'm late coming to this but I'd loved Libba Bray's other books and figured I should check these out. (Also I read all 3 together in a week of quarantine without pausing to review between them, so they've blurred together in my mind.) Basically there is a lot to like but also...well...Libba Bray has deffo grown as an author. These are messy and draggy books, and the ~mystery~ is unnecessarily prolonged and I kind of just wanted to keep shaking Gemma to be like NO, ASK A FUCKING QUESTION AND GET AN ANSWER ALREADY!!!!

But I like Gemma and I like the realistically messy characters.

(I used the same review for books 1 and 2 and all this still applies but also I STILL feel unsatisfied with the worldbuilding of the realms?? Like this was so long and still didn't answer my questions. Mild props for making the queer subtext text. Mild un-props for killing off the British-Indian love interest [esp when the nature of the magical sacrifice is still unclear?!])

Whatever. I'm glad this trilogy got Libba Bray her start and maybe in some ways her training wheels before writing the fantastic DIVINERS series that I love with my whole heart.

I had to put myself on a curfew for reading [b:I Know This Much Is True|227711|I Know This Much Is True|Wally Lamb|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1373532198l/227711._SY75_.jpg|1191096] because it was too upsetting so this was my alternate book for pre-bedtime and it was very chill and enjoyable and did not give me nightmares so yay! It was nice to just have this sweet little story with these characters without a huge plot, but also with an appropriate weight to the topic of a couple's first time having sex and the stress that might cause.

I think. this would have been a great book for me personally to have read at age 13, and also for a lot of current teen girls struggling with internalized misogyny/Not Like Other Girls syndrome. For me as an adult reader it came across a bit didactic in pursuit of that goal.

Still, it's a noble goal, and I also liked it sex positivity and pursuit of intersectionality. It bit off a lot of stuff and some of the family stuff in particular was maybe more than could be properly chewed? But maybe it's enough just to hint at some parental drama without digging into it.

me when I heard Gene Luen Yang was writing a book about sports: :/
GLY when he realized he was going to write a book about sports: :/

and so I ended up loving this memoir/history. He wrote from the perspective of someone who was always bored by sports (same) and so was able to really figure out what made them interesting to a reader like me. It's such an interesting narrative between his own personal life, his students' lives, and the history of basketball, especially with an eye toward racism and progress made.

Just so compelling and thrilling. Knocked it out of the park. (Sports reference!)

this book would have been a lot less wack if it had just been set in a fake country!!!

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-146-american-royals/

Whew, I thought I already knew a lot about Jonestown but this was still very informative and compelling. Guinn did a ton of interviews with survivors and former members and comes across as so compassionate to a group that really was so well-meaning. It's so horrifying to see how this all went off the rails.

I definitely missed something in the comics universe but what else is new? As long as I'm willing to go along with the fact that a character has died and come back as a clone, which I am, because comics, this was fun. Great to see Nat trusting her teammates :')

gdi I hate how confusing comics numbering is, I'm just now realizing via GoodReads that this Spider-Gwen Vol 1 is a completely different one than the Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider 1 that I should have read. idk it was fine. I'm very confused.

I accidentally read this after the wrong vol 1 of Spider-Gwen (but according to GR I already read the other vol 1 of Spider-Gwen? cannot stress enough: sometimes I rly hate comics). I love Seanan McGuire's writing but I'm too confused by all of this. I might be done with Spider-Gwen until she joins a team or something idk.

FOR ME it was all a letdown after the title pun, but then I'm not a big mystery reader in general.

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-147-the-fast-and-the-furriest/