I really liked the magical worldbuilding and the tasty food! The fantasy plot itself is a little rote but overall an enjoyable read. The kind of thing that might be more eye-opening for a younger reader than a jaded old one like me.

I really enjoyed this! The world of the nonbinary mer is so interesting, and this romance was so sweet. I liked the ecology stuff too, and the existence of fat characters who are a) good at swimming and b) desirable partners. So sweet!

I adored this. It's so funny and charming, and I loved the ~misfit found family~ situation of course, and I screamed when the mermaids had to have capitalism explained to them. And I loved all the different mer-body types.

This art is gorgeousssss and the romance is sweet. The alien-in-disguise scenario works great as a transgender allegory. I'm not really sure where this fits into the DC universe (aside from a few passing mentions of Superman) and I don't think this would please someone looking for a Superhero Story, but readers looking for queer sci-fi romance will find a lot to like.

I really dug this. I think teens who read a lot will find a lot to love here with all of Ellie's references to other books. I love books that are about ~the power of stories~ and this is one of them. The alien world stuff is cool too--folks who are into harder sci-fi will probably have some questions, but I absolutely do not.

Not my cup of slime tbh

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-197-night-of-the-living-dummy/

I LOVED this so much. Exactly the kind of urban fantasy (you hate to say ~Harry Potter for Grownups~ but also yeah basically that) that I always crave, plus an explicitly pro-trans witch/anti-TERF witch storyline?? Hell yeah. So fun and also so evocative of 90s girl friendships. Just loved it, can't wait for book 2!

OK so "How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It" is a book I'd love to read but it's really not what this book is? This book is 90% a history of One Direction online fandom with occasional offhand mentions of other fandoms, mostly K-Pop. I've been very involved with online fan communities since my teen years, but just not those ones.

Anyway that said, I still really enjoyed this read because One Direction fandom is WILD. I appreciated Kaitlyn Tiffany's insider perspective and that she was writing as a fangirl herself and not really ridiculing online fangirls, especially taking care to point out that a lot of their most wild activities (building a shrine to Harry Styles's puke) are done by people who were in on the joke and know that it's something intentionally funny and weird to do.

So, yeah, a fun and interesting read but NOT as described on the tin!! I think it would also have teen appeal, esp for teen 1D (or tangentially K-Pop) fans.

This is the kind of ""women's fiction"" ""literary novel"" that I might not have picked up if it hadn't been written by the cohost of a podcast I love, but I'm glad I did! I really enjoyed this tragi-comic look at small-town secrets. I appreciated the room for character growth and that all of the main women had developed personalities. The Texan small-town gossip scene was perfectly developed.

I read this in 5th grade and loved it and re-read it and YO IT STILL FUCKING SLAPS. Cannot believe this was written in 1978, it is so fresh and sharp. Ellen Raskin is more aware of microaggressions in 1978 than a lot of authors writing today are. Ellen Raskin's disabled kid character is treated with 500% more respect by the narrative than, e.g., Auggie from Wonder. (There is some dated language eg use of the word "retarded" and "Mongoloid" in clinical contexts.)

The introduction of my edition addresses that Ellen Raskin didn't know how to write for children so she just wrote short books for adults and it works. Like there are some concepts in here that honestly I didn't get when I was a kid and it didn't affect my enjoyment of the book at all then.

Spoiler

Also as you may know, I only like murder mysteries where it turns out that no one was actually murdered, so gold star here.

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THIS BOOK STILL FUCKING SLAPS, ALL-TIME BEST BESTSELLER

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-198-the-westing-game/