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simonlorden's Reviews (1.38k)
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This was neat! I loved the variety of queer rep - the main four are one trans guy who is attracted to multiple genders, two sapphic girls dating each other (I know Jess is bi but I can't remember if Abby was specified), and one a-spec girl, but Emma also has two moms, and Jess's little brother has a crush on Bells, who is a guy. There is also another aroace side character, although he's pretty minor and his identity is only mentioned in passing towards the end.
I thought this was a direct sequel to Not Your Sidekick, so I was a little surprised when it started with a recap of the first book from Bells's POV, but I actually liked this solution. It had a lot of new parts that we didn't see in the first book even though it was going on at the same time, and the actual summary part wasn't that long, or at least it didn't feel like that to me. (I do wonder if the next book is going to do the same thing, though.)
I loved that Brendan (Jess's little brother) got more focus and kind of became part of the team in this one, and I loved all the new added side characters who will hopefully be more important later on.
The next book will focus on Emma, who is definitely ace and/or aro, but still figuring things out for herself. I can't wait to read it, and I also seriously can't wait to see the cover! (Also, does this mean book 4 will be Abby? Does it?)
I thought this was a direct sequel to Not Your Sidekick, so I was a little surprised when it started with a recap of the first book from Bells's POV, but I actually liked this solution. It had a lot of new parts that we didn't see in the first book even though it was going on at the same time, and the actual summary part wasn't that long, or at least it didn't feel like that to me. (I do wonder if the next book is going to do the same thing, though.)
I loved that Brendan (Jess's little brother) got more focus and kind of became part of the team in this one, and I loved all the new added side characters who will hopefully be more important later on.
The next book will focus on Emma, who is definitely ace and/or aro, but still figuring things out for herself. I can't wait to read it, and I also seriously can't wait to see the cover! (Also, does this mean book 4 will be Abby? Does it?)
3.5 stars
this was cute and also had a sapphic couple so automatic bonus stars
this was cute and also had a sapphic couple so automatic bonus stars
I received an ARC through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
characters: Black American heroine with ADHD, Scottish/Chilean hero with a Jamaican stepfather, multiple side characters of color
I heard great things about A Princess in Theory, a romance novel with a Black heroine in foster care studying science, with a Black prince love interest. While non-YA romance with M/F pairings is a relatively new genre to me, I was excited to get my hands on an ARC of the sequel, A Duke by Default. In the end, this novel ended up being everything I hoped it would be.
In A Duke by Default, the POV alternates between Portia, an American woman who takes an internship in Scotland, and Tavish, a swordmaker who is really into Scottish history and is supposed to teach Portia how to make swords as well. From the very beginning, their dynamic was everything I loved: there is some age difference, but an even bigger difference in lifestyle.
Read the full review on my blog, A Thousand Worlds.
characters: Black American heroine with ADHD, Scottish/Chilean hero with a Jamaican stepfather, multiple side characters of color
I heard great things about A Princess in Theory, a romance novel with a Black heroine in foster care studying science, with a Black prince love interest. While non-YA romance with M/F pairings is a relatively new genre to me, I was excited to get my hands on an ARC of the sequel, A Duke by Default. In the end, this novel ended up being everything I hoped it would be.
In A Duke by Default, the POV alternates between Portia, an American woman who takes an internship in Scotland, and Tavish, a swordmaker who is really into Scottish history and is supposed to teach Portia how to make swords as well. From the very beginning, their dynamic was everything I loved: there is some age difference, but an even bigger difference in lifestyle.
Read the full review on my blog, A Thousand Worlds.
Secondhand Origin Stories is about the children of famous superheroes who want to help people as well – and as the title says, this is truly an origin story, where the “real” superhero fights only really happen towards the end. It is a very character-focused novel about both blood and adopted/found family, about growing up in the shadow of your famous parents, and even about the unrightful imprisonment of many Black people.
This book was emotional, funny, with an all-queer main cast, and I think it handled issues and questions about family nicely. Once I really got into the plot, I ended up loving it. There is also one character that I would love to squee about but I can’t really do it without spoilers, so let me just say this: I LOVE MARTIN SO MUCH.
The four main characters are:
- cis asexual Deaf guy
- nonbinary bisexual person, xe/xyr pronouns
- two sapphic girls, one a dark-skinned Black girl (labels unclear)
Important notes on representation:
- I found the treatment of the nonbinary character in the first half of the book hurtful to read as a nonbinary reader, even though the author themself is nonbinary. This nearly made me put down the book. Major tw for (unintentional) misgendering.
- As an asexual person, I found the asexual representation... okay? It's only really mentioned in one scene, and while I liked that one scene, I would have appreciated more.
- There are some aspects of the Deaf representation that felt off to me (talk of "fixing" and "going back to normal" after a character loses his hearing), but I am not Deaf so I'm not an authority on this.
Read the full review with more details on my blog, A Thousand Worlds.
This book was emotional, funny, with an all-queer main cast, and I think it handled issues and questions about family nicely. Once I really got into the plot, I ended up loving it. There is also one character that I would love to squee about but I can’t really do it without spoilers, so let me just say this: I LOVE MARTIN SO MUCH.
The four main characters are:
- cis asexual Deaf guy
- nonbinary bisexual person, xe/xyr pronouns
- two sapphic girls, one a dark-skinned Black girl (labels unclear)
Important notes on representation:
- I found the treatment of the nonbinary character in the first half of the book hurtful to read as a nonbinary reader, even though the author themself is nonbinary. This nearly made me put down the book. Major tw for (unintentional) misgendering.
- As an asexual person, I found the asexual representation... okay? It's only really mentioned in one scene, and while I liked that one scene, I would have appreciated more.
- There are some aspects of the Deaf representation that felt off to me (talk of "fixing" and "going back to normal" after a character loses his hearing), but I am not Deaf so I'm not an authority on this.
Read the full review with more details on my blog, A Thousand Worlds.
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I adore Greek mythology, which is why I was really excited to pick up this book for children that introduces 40 Greek Gods and Heroes with illustrations. I expected it to be an easy read, and I was surprised by how much I struggled to read it.
I understand that Greek mythology with all its twists and turns and multiple versions can be really difficult to summarise, but in this case, trying to sum up several complicated stories in a few sentences mostly just left me with a lot of whiplash and a constant "wait, who was that person again?".
As for the art, I'm conflicted. It's all kind of simple, and I thought it would grow on me, but I ended up not really liking it.
The format of the book with the little sections on each page looks clever, but I really struggled to read some of the smaller fonts.
Overall, this book was a disappointment for me with a lot of confusion, but maybe others will feel differently about it.
I adore Greek mythology, which is why I was really excited to pick up this book for children that introduces 40 Greek Gods and Heroes with illustrations. I expected it to be an easy read, and I was surprised by how much I struggled to read it.
I understand that Greek mythology with all its twists and turns and multiple versions can be really difficult to summarise, but in this case, trying to sum up several complicated stories in a few sentences mostly just left me with a lot of whiplash and a constant "wait, who was that person again?".
As for the art, I'm conflicted. It's all kind of simple, and I thought it would grow on me, but I ended up not really liking it.
The format of the book with the little sections on each page looks clever, but I really struggled to read some of the smaller fonts.
Overall, this book was a disappointment for me with a lot of confusion, but maybe others will feel differently about it.
I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Sarah Walker’s mother abandoned her when she was a child - she simply left one day and never came back, and this was only the culmination of a tense, dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. So when she sees a little girl, Emma being mistreated by her biological mother, Sarah makes a decision to take Emma and run.
I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy Not Her Daughter at first. It was necessary to show the mistreatment and neglect of Emma to “justify” Sarah taking her from her family, but it was horrible to read about -- and it was almost worse to read about Amy, the biological mother’s life, body image, self-esteem and how having children changed all this. As someone who doesn’t want children, reading about Amy and her resentment towards her life was like looking into a possible future that I don’t want to end up in.
This book is told from two POVs (Sarah and Amy) as well as three timelines: before, during and after the kidnapping. The beginning of the book mostly had “before” and “during” scenes, while later it switched to having mostly “after” scenes with the occasional flashback. For me, reading the “after” scenes was not only easier, but also much more interesting, which is why I enjoyed the book more and more as it went on. Seeing all the things Sarah did to evade capture was scary, but also exciting and interesting.
Not Her Daughter raises very interesting questions about morality that there are no easy or correct answers to. In fact, the copy I read actually had discussion questions in the back that explicitly listed several of these. Was Sarah’s decision justified? Could Amy and her husband have been happier if they never had kids? What will Emma think of all this once she grows up and understands what happened? (And one question that wasn’t asked: what the hell is Sarah going to tell her family and friends about what happened? Will she just never talk to them again?) Even after reading the book, I couldn’t give one definite answer to most of the discussion questions.
What I really liked that in the beginning of the book, we start out with a family of miserable people: Emma is miserable, Amy is miserable, Amy’s husband is miserable, and the only reason their second child isn’t miserable is that he’s too young to really understand what’s going on in his family. Whether Sarah is justified in kidnapping Emma or not, in a weird way this disappearance moves the other three family members out of this miserable state and allows them to change their lives in a direction that might bring them more happiness in the long-run. I’m sure they will never forget Emma, but now they have a chance to move on from this.
This book was very different from what I usually read, but I really enjoyed it once I got through the difficult first part. I also felt like both Sarah’s mother and Amy’s story showed how women and families can end up if they are pressured into having children even if they don’t want to, which is a really important topic.
Sarah Walker’s mother abandoned her when she was a child - she simply left one day and never came back, and this was only the culmination of a tense, dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. So when she sees a little girl, Emma being mistreated by her biological mother, Sarah makes a decision to take Emma and run.
I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy Not Her Daughter at first. It was necessary to show the mistreatment and neglect of Emma to “justify” Sarah taking her from her family, but it was horrible to read about -- and it was almost worse to read about Amy, the biological mother’s life, body image, self-esteem and how having children changed all this. As someone who doesn’t want children, reading about Amy and her resentment towards her life was like looking into a possible future that I don’t want to end up in.
This book is told from two POVs (Sarah and Amy) as well as three timelines: before, during and after the kidnapping. The beginning of the book mostly had “before” and “during” scenes, while later it switched to having mostly “after” scenes with the occasional flashback. For me, reading the “after” scenes was not only easier, but also much more interesting, which is why I enjoyed the book more and more as it went on. Seeing all the things Sarah did to evade capture was scary, but also exciting and interesting.
Not Her Daughter raises very interesting questions about morality that there are no easy or correct answers to. In fact, the copy I read actually had discussion questions in the back that explicitly listed several of these. Was Sarah’s decision justified? Could Amy and her husband have been happier if they never had kids? What will Emma think of all this once she grows up and understands what happened? (And one question that wasn’t asked: what the hell is Sarah going to tell her family and friends about what happened? Will she just never talk to them again?) Even after reading the book, I couldn’t give one definite answer to most of the discussion questions.
What I really liked that in the beginning of the book, we start out with a family of miserable people: Emma is miserable, Amy is miserable, Amy’s husband is miserable, and the only reason their second child isn’t miserable is that he’s too young to really understand what’s going on in his family. Whether Sarah is justified in kidnapping Emma or not, in a weird way this disappearance moves the other three family members out of this miserable state and allows them to change their lives in a direction that might bring them more happiness in the long-run. I’m sure they will never forget Emma, but now they have a chance to move on from this.
This book was very different from what I usually read, but I really enjoyed it once I got through the difficult first part. I also felt like both Sarah’s mother and Amy’s story showed how women and families can end up if they are pressured into having children even if they don’t want to, which is a really important topic.
pairing: Puerto Rican lesbian MC / white panromantic ace girl MC with ADHD
you might be surprised by my rating if you were following my updates, but I actually loved this! I did have a couple of issues but they were mostly unimportant/subjective things
also the ace rep was A+
you might be surprised by my rating if you were following my updates, but I actually loved this! I did have a couple of issues but they were mostly unimportant/subjective things
also the ace rep was A+
This book was exactly as good as everyone said it would be, and the reason for that is 80% the main character, Murderbot. About 15% is the rest of the crew, and maybe 5% the plot.
Which doesn't mean the plot is bad, actually - but Murderbot and its personality stole the spotlight so completely that the plot was secondary (tertiary?) to me.
Murderbot (as it calls itself) is officially a SecUnit, a security construct with both organic and inorganic parts that is supposed to have no free will and protect the company's clients on surveys and missions. In reality, Murderbot has overriden its government module and has complete free will, only it has to hide this fact to avoid being discarded. It does its job more-or-less, but mostly it just likes to be left alone and watch entertainment/serials/the equivalent of TV shows I guess.
And that is only one of Murderbot's super relatable qualities. I'm not sure saying that a construct has anxiety would be correct, but Murderbot certainly shows the signs. It doesn't like to talk to humans, and it doesn't even like humans looking at it.
As for the crew, only a few of them really stand out for me, but I loved their little interactions with each other, their surprise and arguments about Murderbot's personhood, and the way they (especially Dr. Mensah) made an effort to accomodate Murderbot's needs and make sure it's comfortable.
As I said, the plot was secondary to me, but I still enjoyed it and felt the tension at several parts where I couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
I'm not sure how I feel about the ending - I would have to read the sequel to really decide on that - but I really hope that characters from this first book will pop up later on as well.
ALSO: While there is no central romance in this book, several side characters are mentioned to be in polyamorous relationship. In fact, polyamory appears normalised and quite common in this universe, which was amazing to see. This is why I'm tagging this polyamory even though there are no central polyamorous ships.
(Note: Murderbot is not human and has no gender, but still very much a person. However, at least in this first book, it hasn't expressed preference towards any pronoun, and only "it" is used throughout the book. So, I'll be using that pronoun unless Murderbot prefers another one later on.)
Which doesn't mean the plot is bad, actually - but Murderbot and its personality stole the spotlight so completely that the plot was secondary (tertiary?) to me.
Murderbot (as it calls itself) is officially a SecUnit, a security construct with both organic and inorganic parts that is supposed to have no free will and protect the company's clients on surveys and missions. In reality, Murderbot has overriden its government module and has complete free will, only it has to hide this fact to avoid being discarded. It does its job more-or-less, but mostly it just likes to be left alone and watch entertainment/serials/the equivalent of TV shows I guess.
And that is only one of Murderbot's super relatable qualities. I'm not sure saying that a construct has anxiety would be correct, but Murderbot certainly shows the signs. It doesn't like to talk to humans, and it doesn't even like humans looking at it.
As for the crew, only a few of them really stand out for me, but I loved their little interactions with each other, their surprise and arguments about Murderbot's personhood, and the way they (especially Dr. Mensah) made an effort to accomodate Murderbot's needs and make sure it's comfortable.
As I said, the plot was secondary to me, but I still enjoyed it and felt the tension at several parts where I couldn't wait to see what would happen next.
I'm not sure how I feel about the ending - I would have to read the sequel to really decide on that - but I really hope that characters from this first book will pop up later on as well.
ALSO: While there is no central romance in this book, several side characters are mentioned to be in polyamorous relationship. In fact, polyamory appears normalised and quite common in this universe, which was amazing to see. This is why I'm tagging this polyamory even though there are no central polyamorous ships.
(Note: Murderbot is not human and has no gender, but still very much a person. However, at least in this first book, it hasn't expressed preference towards any pronoun, and only "it" is used throughout the book. So, I'll be using that pronoun unless Murderbot prefers another one later on.)