A Bookish Girl
Eh. It was readable, but it all felt a bit rushed, and the detective work of the main character didn't really make sense. It felt like the author planned whodunnit, and then just had the MC take huge leaps to get there. Plus she kept trusting people she'd just met, who were supposed to be her suspects, which is pretty silly for someone supposedly so brilliant.
I picked this up at a charity shop because it was one of the many Enid Blytons I had to give away when I emigrated. They went to an excellent home with a school teacher friend, but I've always felt sad about giving them up, when I loved them so much and they were such a huge part of my childhood. Anyway, I didn't really intend to reread this book, given that it's meant for quite young children (I'll still happily reread Blyton's older novels like Famous Five and the Adventure series though). I just wanted to own it. But I looked inside to see what stories were in it, and before I knew it I'd read the whole damn thing and loved it.
This book didn't really work for me, and I know exactly why. TJR made the decision to tell the story as one long interview piece, which I can totally understand. It's an interesting way of approaching a story about a rock n roll band. Unfortunately it just left me cold, because it was all “this happened and then this happened” and there was no emotion to any of it. I never felt compelled to keep reading because it was all just very detached. I never felt connected to any of the characters. I do think Reid is a good author and I enjoyed Evelyn Hugo much more than this. I just don't connect well with this storytelling choice.
This is aimed at a much younger age than the middle grade books I usually read, but the author is someone I interact with a lot online, and she's really lovely, so I thought I'd support her by reading her new book. It's a sweet story about a group of friends who try to find out where a stray dog came from. And there's non-binary rep!
A lovely picture book with a few lines of text per page. I absolutely loved the detailed artwork, especially the full double-page spreads showing the streets of Grandad's village, and all the attendees of the parade. It reminded me of looking at all the details in a Richard Scarry book.
Obviously I'm not the target market for a picture book, but any book that celebrates diversity and queerness gets full marks from me. Teaching children to be accepting and kind towards others is how we make the world a kinder, more loving place. ❤️
This is a middle grade book that's for everybody. Non-binary kids, queer kids, kids who don't feel like they fit in. And all other young people too, so they can learn, understand, and empathise.
And it's for adults, too. The struggle Jamie has to be understood and taken seriously as who they are by the adults in their life is a real-life struggle faced by many young queer people (and adults). “You can't just make up a gender” and other similar comments Jamie gets given are exactly the sort of hurtful things people say when they don't understand gender identity. Reading a book written from the POV of a non-binary character is a fantastic way to learn through empathy.
This book reads a little younger than Lapinski's “Strangeworld Travel Agency” trilogy, but it's just as compelling, and so incredibly important.
This is a middle grade book that's for everybody. Non-binary kids, queer kids, kids who don't feel like they fit in. And all other young people too, so they can learn, understand, and empathise.
And it's for adults, too. The struggle Jamie has to be understood and taken seriously as who they are by the adults in their life is a real-life struggle faced by many young queer people (and adults). “You can't just make up a gender” and other similar comments Jamie gets given are exactly the sort of hurtful things people say when they don't understand gender identity. Reading a book written from the POV of a non-binary character is a fantastic way to learn through empathy.
This book reads a little younger than Lapinski's “Strangeworld Travel Agency” trilogy, but it's just as compelling, and so incredibly important.
I love middle grade mysteries, but sadly I was a bit disappointed with this book of short stories. Firstly, the title is misleading, because most of the stories aren't about murders at all, just general mysteries. Which would probably have been fine if I'd loved them more. It's always hard to rate collections of short stories by different authors, because each story could get a wildly different rating, but since most of these stories were just okay, with a few I liked and a few I didn't like, I'm going to go with the “It was okay” rating of two stars.
