mari
yay feminism except when i wanna sleep with someone's husband i guess?? insert eye roll here
picked this up because it was an available audiobook on scribd and was very pleasantly surprised to see that it's a polyamorous romance featuring two trans women and one trans man! hell yes!!
i think the only reason i was unable to give this five stars was the sort of lack of plot. sure, two of the main characters are writers and writing a novel is the goal of one of them, but outside of the smut and (really good) conversations surrounding identity, vulnerability, and being perceived, i felt myself wanting for more.
that being said, those conversations were handled quite well. i'm a cis-woman, so keep that in mind when i say this, but i really loved conversations about the body after intimacy, as well as what you can and can't control about your public perception as a transgender person. and of course i loved that the characters were able to be wholly themselves with each other, and the relationship was spicy and enjoyable
not only did this book have a magic system based on music, but it also had a friends-to-no-contact-because-of-some-traumatizing-event-to-lovers romance, AKA my new fav SMG??
i've heard a lot of people tell me that they were forced to read this as a drug abuse prevention technique in high school, which makes me sad. my teacher gave me this book and wanted me to look for what was wrong with its message, and that's what makes this book important: to start a conversation about how we market and discuss drug abuse.
giving this book to a child in an attempt to stop them from using hard drugs is a mistake. this (probably entirely fictional) story was written to be something that scares you. scare tactics may work with some kids, but for others it might influence them to do just that. scaring children is not a good way of teaching them. instead, sit them down and talk to them about the facts because, believe it or not, kids can be pretty good at listening when you give them the chance. this is another discussion for another day, but i just want everyone to stop and think for a moment before they give this to a kid. it might not have the effect you want.
as a book, something read for pleasure, i derived absolutely no pleasure from having read this. i spent however many weeks reading this for a class assignment, and as much as i enjoyed criticizing this work and what it's used for in academia, i did not enjoy reading it. it scared me, but felt unrealistic all the while, and there was nothing that characterizes good literature in here. read if you want to know the controversy but otherwise skip so as not to waste your time.
wow racist, homophobic, sexist and an abusive parent? pick a struggle, maria semple
edit: i highly recommend reading this fantastic review for a breakdown on just why this was so awful
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1846350494?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
i know you shouldn't romanticise fitzgerald romance but boy is a girl SWOONING
clearly much more autobiographical than steinbeck's cannery row (another favourite of mine) but still enjoyable nonetheless. as a huge fan of fitzgerald, a lot of the stories that he tells here make it obvious how he became to be the writer and person that he was.
tangent but #teameleanor
hello i have a new favorite book don't @ me
(actually, @ me, i'd love to talk more about this book but alas responsibility calls)
okay, why do i feel like there was definitely some wasted time after finishing this book?
i loved the build up so much. it was great to hear lazlo's beginnings, as well as sarai's, but all of that felt ancillary or irrelevant at the end, which is frustrating, especially as an audiobook (and a particularly long one at that). there were too few triumphant moments drowned out by parts that honestly could have been left out.
i'm interested in the next book if there's a promise of all of that backstory having relevance.
im sobbing on the ground pls this book makes me miss the islands and the air and the culture and the people and my heart is aching so bad skkdkfkslskf
tw: death
i have.... nothing bad to say about this book
i had no idea what it was about going in, so when the early on twist happened i was shocked to say the least. this book brings up so many important discussions on what it means to be alive but also living your life, and how grief can consume and change us. also a brief but thoughtful discussion on the ethics of bringing someone back to life and how to treat/approach them, adored this part especially!!
minor pacing issues and i want more of the anointed sibs (mayazatyl ctfu) BUT what a wonderful and rich world. so glad to see this is the first book in a series as it beautifully establishes this world, its unique magic, and complicated politics. can't wait for the rest of this series!!!!!!!
also, you're lying if you say you're not soft for sanjeet.
i needed more time to reflect on this before rating it and have thus bumped it up. my first review showed that kiley reid conveyed everything she intended to
my brain's on again which i guess means book plot twists don't surprise me anymore BUT i got the found family content i love so much from this series so i'm a happy gal
uhh yeah the basis for this book is not it. cute book but not so cute author intentions
i don't know how to rate this book in all honesty but boy does it live in my mind rent free
uy... i think i need to put some space between myself and YA for a little bit
this started off so great. to have a main character who excelled at a non-traditional sport for women was incredibly exciting, and i also really enjoyed the fact that she had trouble asking for help or advertising if she needed help. i think that's something a lot of kids of immigrants/kids of color can relate to, and i know that i definitely saw a lot of myself in kareena's surprise when people did start turning up for her.
however, the fact that muay thai and her father's illness fall to the wayside for a boy was really not it for me. while i do love a good romance, especially one where it's two people who really challenge each other, it took too much of the spotlight, and got a little savior-y at the end there. it didn't sit well with me that this novel was trying to paint kareena as a badass who could take a punch and get sh*t done, only for a boy to solve her problems. it also got a little too girlboss-y at some points, especially towards the end when i was just getting exasperated.
culture also falls to the wayside after that one event, which was disappointing. i feel like once the author had established that kareena was indian, ameet was indian, lily was filipino, etc. none of that really mattered except to cause drama (e.g. mentions of arranged marriages). just wasn't a fan of how representation was handled
but uhhh i won an ARC in a giveaway so i had to give it a chance so hah... the more you know
powerful exploration of toxic masculinity, stereotypes, and grieving family dynamics. cried at least twice
2 stars is incredibly generous on my part
this book fails to meet the hype of the blurb, is some weird blending of YA age characters with adult fantasy themes, and generally falls flat in all areas outside of characterization (although character building that only really happens in the last 10% of the book is not really character building imo)
i'm so sad because from the premise i wanted to like this so much. but the writing was flat and unsatisfactory in so many ways. i don't know that there's much good i can say about this book outside of its unique concept and a few good lines.
ugh.