This is a lot of fun! To any savvy reader it's completely obvious how this "flamboyant teen gives himself a masculine makeover to become more like his dream guy's type" plotline is going to play out, and that's sort of lampshaded by the reactions of all of Randy/Del's friends, but like, it's a fun story, and obviously the queer spin on the storyline makes it new. I loved all the details about Camp Outland, a summer camp for queer teens. (That camp is fictional but I know there are real ones like it.) The camp's mandatory queer history sessions are a great way to infodump interesting pieces of queer history that I think a lot of queer teen readers will particularly find interesting.

FULL DISCLOSURE Rebecca is a friend of mine (though I got this ARC from NetGalley) and I was a little nervous to read this book because what if I didn't like it and I'd just have to pretend like I never got around to reading it I guess?!

But luckily that was NOT the case. It got off to a little bit of a slow start for me but once Rose gets to Lotus Valley I was captivated. This is such a beautiful, magical exploration of grief and trauma. It reminded me a little of Night Vale but like...less quirky or whatever.

Gorgeous and surprising.

Spoiler

Also honestly I was pleasantly surprised because I really thought Rose's secret trauma w/r/t Nick was going to turn out to be sexual assault, which is of course traumatic and of course something a lot of people experience, but IDK it was sort of...nice??? that it actually wasn't that. Also I appreciated that it's a book about the trauma of the death of a friend rather than a romantic relationship or whatever--which, again, is also obviously a real trauma that affects people but it's nice to have, you know, variety in traumas represented in literature.

I remember really liking [b:The Royal We|22875451|The Royal We (Royal We, #1)|Heather Cocks|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421107274l/22875451._SY75_.jpg|42439906] so I was stoked for a sequel, but as soon as I picked it up I was like, wait I don't reallllly remember what happened in The Royal We? I searched online for a plot summary but couldn't really find a good one? (Usually I need to do this for YA trilogies and usually it's not hard to find helpful summaries for those!) Anyway I eventually just dove in and the characters started to come back to me. It's still a funny, sharply-observed novel and, as you'd expect from the Fug Girls, I appreciate their ability to contextualize fashion and pop culture as cultural driving forces. I did feel like maybe it was a little long and a little meandery with some of its side plots, but like, still, I read it all in a weekend.

This is the kind of book that I think is only successful because it's by an author who already has such a name, and even so I'm not really sure where to put it in a library. I see some have it in teen and some in adult...and I think basically fans of Neil Gaiman will seek it out, and people who are not will be like "what is this"? What it is, is a beautifully illustrated edition of one short story. The art and adaptation are gorgeous, and the story itself is fun.

It's coming out as a movie next year, which might also drive demand for this.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is really fun and sweet! I think I preferred the mystery and novelty of the first book but kids who are very into animals will get a lot out of this--there's a lot of information about egg hatching and farm life etc, and Sophie remains a delightful correspondent/narrator.

My friend Anna told me this book was good and I was like, "you know I don't really like sports books," and she was like, "It's about running...for OFFICE" and I was like, sold. Specifically it's about being the teenage daughter of a Republican Cuban-American senator who's campaigning in the presidential primary, and how as a kid you just hear the bland speeches and exciting press stuff and maybe don't realize that actually uhh even though your dad takes you to beach cleanup events and SAYS he cares about the environment, in practice he actually cares more about corporations than about protecting the environment?

There have been some great recent YA books about young activists who are already, uh, active, but I love this portrayal of a teen slowly realizing that she actually can't trust the adults in her life to do the right thing, and that maybe her voice and the voices of other teens can have some power.

Spoiler

And at the same time, it doesn't end up feeling too trite or too neatly-resolved--the teen activists don't totally save the day and there are still big messy problems, but it still shows that their actions could make small, important changes.

This and [b:Running|49484935|Running|Natalia Sylvester|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565019346l/49484935._SX50_.jpg|66527510] were inadvertently a good pair to read together since this is also a book about a teen gradually learning to be more politically aware/active. But this one is historical fiction set in 1992 (sorry if that makes you feel old) and is about a young, relatively well-off Black girl in LA as the Rodney King trial verdict is announced and riots break out.

In spite of the riots this is generally a quieter, more introspective coming of age story with a strong narrative voice.

This was a fun read! I never went to Action Park but I'd heard bits and pieces about it online. About how, as this book's subtitle implies, it was "America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park." The author is one of the sons of Gene Mulvihill, the park's founder and person who designed a lot of the rides at the park despite not having like, an engineering degree. Anyway, Andy is obviously a little defensive and protective of his father's legacy, pointing out that a lot of injured park guests had been drinking heavily or not following the rules etc, and also that maybe some of Action Park's reputation was slightly un-earned since bigger parks like Disneyland paid more money to hush up the accidents (including fatalities) that happen at those parks too.

But also this park still sounds chaotic AF. Anyway, if you're interested in reading about this wack park I'd recommend it. It's not the kind of memoir where the prose is particularly stunning or anything, but it's an overall fun read. (He does talk some about the trauma of being a young lifeguard there and not being able to save people from the extremely over-powered wave pool. Which: yeah, yikes!)

This came highly recommended to me as a readalike for [b:Red, White & Royal Blue|41150487|Red, White & Royal Blue|Casey McQuiston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566742512l/41150487._SY75_.jpg|61657690]. And I kind of think...that what happened here was that this publisher was like "we need a readalike for RWRB, let's rush this to publish!!" Because this book had way more typos and sentences with missing key words than I'm used to seeing in professionally published fiction. And it's not like that will totally ruin the experience for me, but it was like, every few pages.

Anyway, I also feel like this book couldn't decide if it was supposed to be realistic or a satire? Like all of Luc's posh coworker seem like absolute cardboard slapstick people, to the point where it was hard to process any of Luc's interactions with them. Like: is Luc's POV exaggerating this for effect? Are these people joking? Are these people legitimately suffering from some sort of brain injury? WTF?

I require very little buy-in to get on board for a fake dating scenario; this one seemed a little thin but like, sure, I'm here for it. And Luc and Oliver were both more developed characters than the side characters. (Obviously that's almost always the case but here it was so jarring to have these other characters who were SO unrealistic nothing cardboard people).

ESPECIALLY since it came so highly compared to Red White and Royal Blue but it really does suffer in comparison IMO since RWRB did have such fun and compelling side characters and just felt like...more in touch with the world. Oh also, again not a huge deal per se but this book did have weirdly dated pop culture references like Season 1 of Drag Race and early episodes of Welcome to Night Vale? Like was this something Alexis Hall had been trying to publish since like 2012 and then all of a sudden RWRB became a hit and Sourcebooks was like "MUST PUBLISH THIS IMMEDIATELY no time to spellcheck or update the pop culture references!!!!!!!!"

IDK IDK IDK whatever it's fine, it's fun, I just didn't like it nearly as much as Red White and Royal Blue and I wish I had not been led to expect that I would.

I WANTED TO BELIEVE LIKE THIS but it was just a struggle. I love Dana Scully obv, and I liked seeing her as a teen with her hippie sister Melissa.

In addition to me not really buying the plot, it also seemed kind of lazily edited? Like characters would just contradict themselves within the same conversation...and at first I thought maybe it would be a clue or something that they were lying but Scully never seemed to notice or comment upon it.

Spoiler

The whole time I was mad about Scully having psychic visions and then when they turned out to be drug-induced I was like, OK I guess? But it just seemed like a dumb twist, especially when I spent the whole book being low-key annoyed. I guess it does kind of explain why Scully would grow up to be a ~skeptic~ but mostly...dumb.

Also it felt too long, it was a real slog to get through. And I say this as, presumably, the target audience of this book--a millennial who grew up loving X-Files and still reads a lot of YA? Although IDK, maybe someone who didn't like X-Files could read this as a standalone without having a persistent sense of Scully wouldn't do that throughout. But...I don't think the mystery is that well developed to be enjoyed without the X-Files tie-in.

:(

--

I re-read this for the podcast and did not like it any better the second time around

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-156-devils-advocate/