Jasper
Only Mostly Devasted was a sweet book which was on the whole easy to read and enjoyable. I found the theme of cancer with Aunt Linda and how her death affected Ollie really tragic and interesting, as it makes a good change from the will-they-won't-they with Ollie and Will. I also like how Ollie realises that he's being mistreated by Will before they end up together, to make it clear that the way he treated him was wrong.
I do wish that Ollie's band had been more included, but overall, I enjoyed the book a lot!
Okay this was great. The world building was soooo intruiging, taking the story of Cinderella and completely twisting it to make an incredible story and I love it. I also really love the art on the cover (the cover I have is not the cover shown on GoodReads) because its so detailed and beautiful and I love how the colours flow and you can see all the detail and texture, without it being too detailed!
So...why is it not 5 stars? Well, that's because of the ending. It just feels a bit...empty? Like, they kill the king and some guys are still sexist to them and they realise the fight isn't over which I like, I like an ending that isn't 100% happy and perfect, but it just felt like I needed more. More closure. Of course there's Luke and his boyfriend Louis who I would've loved to see, but never came up again but I can understand Luke's past lover being sent to the castle being used as an example for the story. But...what about Erin? She was advertised all over the blurb, and the first page literally starts with Sophia talking about how much she loves her. And then she's barely in the book and Sophia falls in love with someone else? What? Sophia's last interaction with her is going to visit her secretly at her new house with her husband which ends in an argument where Sophia admits that the dominating patriarchy of the society they live in has made her cruel and infected the way she thinks. And that's it! No apologies and reunions at the end, even though Sophia and her new girlfriend Constance (awesome name by the way) will surely free her from her marriage? It just feels strange to me, like the author hit a deadline and had to just finish the book as fast as possible.
Apart from the loose ends, I did really enjoy this book and it's reimagining of a traditional fairytale into something much darker and interesting.
charming and beautiful
made me think a lot
the boy, the mole, the fox, and the horse will all be running and travelling and chatting (and eating cake) in my head forever, reminding me of the valuable lessons of self love and acceptance
Love the normalisation of gay people within sports. Also, I'm British and don't understand soccer!! I really enjoyed the story, I thought Spencer's relationship with his parents was sweet and realistic, and his struggle with legislation and his birth certificate so realistic and it highlighted how there are still laws that discriminate against trans people.
Some things I didn't like were the fact that Spencer had like no chest so he could just take his shirt off and not need top surgery. I get that the Fitzsimons wanted to write a story about a trans teen who was stealth, but it just made Spencer a lot harder to connect with, seeing as he didn't face probably one of the biggest and most upsetting struggles for many trans men.
Another thing I didn't like was the ending, as Justice just disappeared and the explanation felt a bit rushed and I think I would've liked more detail into Justice's difficulty with being blackmailed into coming out to his very homophobic family and then leaving the school. I also think it would've been nice if the book expanded on Spencer and Aidan's relationship, as it never feels explored enough, as well as Spencer's budding friendship with Riley.
I would definitely recommend this book, and it would've been a 5/5 if some of the problems had been fixed.
Nothing wrong with the book I think I've just realised this series isn't really my thing.
I LOVE this book!! It has great asexual and aromantic representation and I absolutely adore the platonic love shown in this book. It does an incredible job of showing just how important this kind of love is; I love Rooney's love speech for Georgia!
This book is the only book I've read that has asexual or aromantic representation and it does it so well! This is definitely well worth the read.
I was disappointed. This is probably a book that appeals to some audience, but that is not me. Also, despite how this book advertises itself, this is not a story about bisexuality. Vetty's bisexuality was quite a small side plot, so maybe it shouldn't have been advertised as much?
Anyway, it's a shame I couldn't connect with this book as I really wanted to, but oh well.
Omg amazing underrated book!! This messed me up in the best way possible. I love this book so much! I love Brody and his family and his Everland friends and the ending just breaks my heart but is still happy! Everland brings up so many questions!
How does time work there?
What happens if you stay there forever?
Does the amount of time that passes in the real world vary depending on whether the door is open or shut?
How the hell does physics work??
Is it actually a real place somewhere in the universe???
All of these questions were swirling around in my head while I read this and none of them are properly answered, but I like that, as it gives room for the reader to imagine.
This is definitely one of my absolute favourite books! I would 100% recommend this to anyone who likes queer YA books!
Enjoyed this more than i expected! I like the format of the story, how it's entirely told through the letter Kurl and Jo send to each other. I found their voices very interesting and distinct, though I did find that Kurl's voice seemed to become more like Jo's by the end, which was commented on within the book itself as a good thing, but I personally disliked it as it made the two characters harder to differentiate, and I'd start to forget who's perspective I was reading from.
But thats honestly my only complaint! This book was great, gripping in places and really emotional in others. All the characters felt so real and I came to like all of them and it was just a very fun book to read, even considering some of the heavier topics.
I am a transgender man, and this book is disgustingly transphobic, including the title, holds the ‘pain' of the cisgender main character over the pain of his transgender sister and is also written very poorly, especially with pacing and some themes that never come up again. I am ashamed to have bought this book before realising how problematic it is. DO NOT give any money to the author of this book!
(I literally ripped this book apart today and it felt so good)
To be honest, I can't believe it actually took me this long to read this book. I always thought there was more to Scourge's story than this, but i guess not. This wasn't a good or bad read, but it had nice art was a decent way for me to spend my time.
AHAHhhhhh I will never get enough of Monty and Percy!
This book was short and sweet and silly and other words beginning with s, while also having its own serious moments which made it a whole brilliant rollercoaster.
I just love Monty and Percy so so much and this book just added to that and was absolutely adorable!!!
It was pretty good, not as good as the first one. There were some really intense scenes and the plot was very interesting. It just didn't grasp me as much as it could have. Charlie, to me, is a bit of a dull protagonist. But i still enjoyed it :)
At first I was not a huge fan of the way it's all written in verses, it meant that I felt that I couldn't really get enough detail to connect with the main character, but by the end it sort of worked as he was a huge fan of poetry and it all tied in with his drag act.
This book taught me a lot about being who you want to and understanding how other people want to be.
(3.5) (I had to read this for school)
This book was enjoyable, considering the fact that it's 180 years old and I was forced to read it. I don't really have much to say about the themes and writing, as I can't criticise any of the stuff that happens seeing as it was nearly 200 years ago and Charles Dickens is very much dead.
At least, for school, there's a lot for me to analyse and also it's not too long so it's not much of a slog.
I don't think I've ever been more confused reading a book. Somehow they managed to fill up an entire 250-odd page book with enough filler to feel like a regular half hour long episode of Torchwood.
Pretty good! The narrative style was very similar to how it is in the podcast which, to be honest, struggles a lot more in a book format, so I found quite a bit of the book quite difficult to get through, but once I got more used to this style I was able to enjoy the story more. Diane and Jackie were great protagonists and it was awesome to see mysteries depicted in the podcast be solved in this novel! It may not have been the greatest book ever written but it certainly was enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys the podcast and wants some more content!
This book is so good apart from one crucial point - at the end of Bun's story he has his character (himself) regain his sight. I can understand that he wouldn't want to be blind, but this ending to his story presents his blindness as something that needs to be cured, and yes, while it would be preferable to Bun for him to be sighted, what sort of message is this to another young blind person? That the only proper and happy ending to a story about a blind kid is where he stops being blind, something that these children most likely would not be able to do? Wouldn't a book where a child learns to be content and happy while blind be a much better message for other blind children, and not fall into the common ableist trope where the disabled character has to be ‘cured' to be happy?
Had this one small aspect of this book changed, I probably would have liked it a lot more. :(
[3.5]
This was an interesting take on gender, especially from 53 years ago. Although I mostly just found it confusing, but it's clear that I'm not the target audience for this novel.
Wow. Wow wowowow.
I was not expecting this to be soooooo good. While, there was quite a lot of confusing stuff to understand, some tonal issues and unclear scene changes, this book was sooo good.
Dane is a brilliant protagonist; I really enjoyed reading his character navigate the story, and his struggles with his own morality were very compelling. The flashback to April was incredibly chilling, and the bathroom scene was one of the best scenes I've ever read in a book. (This is definitely a fanart worthy book!)
I really liked all of the main characters, and how they all managed to have their own stories wrapped in the larger narrative, with a lot of open-endedness, like with EJ and Dane's relationship, and Madelaine looking for her brother.
This book was just brilliant and I'm so glad to have read it so soon after it's publishing. I'm only sad that I got it as an Ebook, since the cover is amazing and I'd love to have it irl.
Read WICKED LITTLE THINGS!
(P.S. Aloysius is the most adorable sweetheart and I love everything about him)