A queer person of color talks about their experience in the world through poetry. Topics of their poems include queer love, calling together their people, and trees. My favorite one was about how poetry can be whatever you want it to be. Smith is amazing at creating metaphors and word play. It was fantastic to hear them perform their poems.

I read half of this book as a physical copy and then listened to the other half. I enjoyed reading about young love that makes you kind of crazy and over analyze everything. The ending was heartbreaking. I don’t know if I’ll read the second one, it felt like a nice wrap up at the end.

This was a fun read! It was so interesting to hear about her experiences in Rome, India, and Bali. The way her thinking changed over the course of her journey was cool to see, and I loved hearing about the different people she met. Loved the healing she experienced too. For some reason I didn't expect her to talk about God so much even though Pray is in the title lol. I didn't feel like she was trying to get me to believe in a God the way she does though, it didn't feel preachy. The way she thinks about God is much different than the way most people in my life think about God, it was really neat to read a different perspective.

Very dark themes in this book, definitely check trigger warnings before picking this one up. Echo is a lovable main character who cares about her brothers, wants to make her mom proud, and learn how to use her wizard powers. Her mother doesn’t want to teach her so Echo has to find other women who will teach her. She also makes friends with other girls her age who are wizards which is fun. I liked that the character who became disabled wasn’t forgotten after his accident, like he wasn’t just a trauma Echo experienced. I loved the formatting of the time jumps. There was so much happening, friend drama, family drama, addiction, drugs,  magic, crushes, trauma, depression, anxiety, racism, and sexism. The conversations happening at the end of the book were really important.

Lost interest, so many other books I want to read. I would be open to coming back to this in the future.

I watched the movie for this books often as a kid but I hadn’t read the book until now. I’m so glad I finally did!! I loved Mary as a character and seeing her develop empathy and fostering friendship was such a joy. The scene with her and Colin when he’s throwing a fit is such a good one. One aspect of the book that stood out to me was the way Mary and Colin talked about their bodies. They are both thin at the start of the book and as the book goes on they get more of an appetite. They rejoice and are excited about getting fatter. I really liked that. So nostalgic and heartwarming.

I really enjoyed reading this book, especially as someone who was older in college. We get the perspective of Agatha, Millie, and Kennedy in this book and I loved learning their back stories throughout the book. They each have pretty different backgrounds and they have different feeling towards characters they all interact with. It was interesting to see Millie’s attitude change as the book went on. The comments on religious people were funny. Colette seemed like a mean character in the beginning but I really liked her as the book went on. I thought it was kind of silly that Agatha decided to just eavesdrop on students instead of doing more interviews. I thought the author captured the way young people talk really well. Such a great read with lots of twists and a shocking ending. Highly recommend!!

I looooved this romance!! Eva and her daughter Audre have the cutest relationship. I liked the flashback chapters so we know what happened between Shane and Eva 15 years ago when they were in high school. The open door spicy scenes were so satisfying and well written. The love Eva and Shane feel for each other is boundless and hasn’t faded at all over the years. Their connection is powerful. We love to see individual character growth outside of the relationship. I really loved the third person omniscient perspective we get in the book, very fun to see what goes on in each of the characters heads!!

I do wish Eva had come clean to Audre about lying to her about the things Eva did with her mom and how great Lizzette is.

TW: R*pe

Davis talks about slavery, racism, the women's movement, and the civil rights movement in this incredibly important must read. It was interesting to read about the movements and groups that developed in the 1800s and 1900s and thinking about how what they did affects us today. Davis wrote about some familiar topics like birth control, abortion, the Black rapist, and work. Davis portrayed the tensions between white women and Black people and their movements, how they were able to work together in some areas but couldn't in others. So informative, don't skip this one!!

I loved listening to the conversation between Juan and the young man. It was captivating to hear their stories and see the bond that they shared with each other.Juan said some pretty profound things that I really liked. I did feel like I missed out a little by listening to the audiobook and not seeing the pictures in the book or the erasure poems, but the voice actors were wonderful.