christa

I think my main issue is that a lot of the horror/scary elements were explained awkwardly. The physical blocking of stuff that was meant to scare me was so confusing. For example, when they saw eyes and noses and mouths on the wall. I'm somehow supposed to imagine that when it's not explained well. Just simple stuff that, when horror is made into visual media, is always easier to do.

I was a bit confused on the medical aspect as well. I understand the story is open ended (fair but also did not love this), but with the medical aspect right before it, it feels like we're meant to believe both of them are suffering from the same thing. That none of this is real.

I was especially confused in the “Just Kidding” scene. Not sure what i was supposed to get from that. There are things i desperately wish we'd gone back to (cave, water, trees, rolf in more ways than one).


I loved the jumping off the roof scene and some other moments when they begin to not trust each other. The mold and journals were really special and well done detail. It kept me engaged with the language as well.

I finished the book and immediately wanted to rate it five stars because grief was explained so well in the books end. But realistically, there were some things I wished were different.

- The coincidences of every character somehow coming from nothing and becoming millionaires/wealthy/famous is unrealistic.
- When reading, these characters were perpetually 25 years old, regardless of how time shifted. They spoke that way, acted that way, and went about life in certain ways that felt juvenile. This could potentially be fixed if there were some indicators of time and eras. Certain fashion, political or environmental events, or just tweaks in the way a character grows. I guess that's part of the problem too. They didn't seem to grow and so their image didn't either.

I had a little bit more and explained more, but I honestly don't think it's that important anymore. This book was tragic and I think that's essentially the most important thing you need to know going into it. The prose is beautiful. The characters are beautiful. The imagery, dialogue, storytelling, landscape, EVERYTHING was beautiful even with criticism involved.

Maybe it's because I never read Jane Eyre or maybe it's because I'm young and lose interest quick or maybe I don't have amazing reading comprehension but this story was so impossible to follow. I had to read spark notes alongside the book to understand what was happening. I only understood what they were saying and doing when it was spelled out for me. So many things happened so quickly and I wasn't familiar with anything that was referenced. The writing style, language, and characterization were all wonderful! I enjoyed it solely for these reasons.

My one criticism is that the structure of the poems often made it difficult to read. I understand this is purposeful but still, I felt it muddled the experience a bit. This book is a bit hard to grasp, both through metaphor/allusion and in the actual reading experience. Otherwise, this is an absolutely beautiful connection. A particular favorite of mine is “spoon”. There's just something about it man. It's so damn good.


Edit literally months later:

This became my favorite poetry book of all time. So. There's that.

Good one liners do not make poetry. it's inherently lazy and childish. if you like pretty sounding things that you and every ofher teenager or child could write, you'd love this!

i spent a lot of this feeling like our narrator was very contemporary in his speech. someone mentioned this might be because he was taught to read and write. i suppose! i enjoyed it, it was just different.

ultimately, i just wished there was a happy ending for literally anyone other than our narrator. it was so disappointing to learn that all but 3 children died in the tribe. i understand happy endings aren't always realistic, but rutherford got his after never establishing loyalty to anyone. i think, in this fictional world, we can allow for a few men and women to be spared and saved too.

it was surprisingly very funny at times. i think this, alongside Isadora, were the main elements that kept me going! It was a short read with beautiful writing and imagery. This was an assignment for class but I enjoyed it very much.

One of the best books i've read TO DATE

I found myself wanting a little more exploration of this intersex/gender identity nearing the end. realized on its last pages that gender identity is only a small section of a life. Considering the book was very long, it just doesn't make sense how much time we spent with the grandparents. (not that i didn't enjoy it!) I'm torn because the book doesn't pride itself (blurb wise) on being solely about the gender identity of Cal, but everything is riding on this one detail. I almost felt guilty wanting a bit more (I mean how much can you really talk about your genitals?) but I think what's obvious here is the physical barrier of the author. I think authors can take on identities to create characters (ex. white author writes black character into story) but it feels a bit inauthentic to, quite literally, take on Cal's identity (imagine that same white author writing a story about the black experience?) being...not intersex. I think Eugenides tackled it. The medical aspect and the relationships were throughly explored. It's the mental I thought was being hid from us. What Cal felt had very little airtime, in my opinion. And what airtime it did have, felt surface level or at the very least, predictable. I guess I'm just the kind of reader who can't separate the writer from the work. If I'd gone into it blind, maybe I'd think different.

Apart from that, the prose is great! I mean it won a pulitzer.

It took me a long time to finish and it dragged on a bit, but once you finish, you realize how truly amazing it is. The relationship between Arin and Kestrel is perfect, indescribable, yet somehow, the author makes it even better than you expected. It blows my mind when I go back and think about all the different things that happen, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

I bought this in dollar general for about 3 bucks, mainly because I thought it was a creepy romance novel. I read the first page in the car and got hooked. Stupidly, I thought it was all entirely true. Later I realized; Abraham Lincoln is not and never was a vampire. If you like historical fiction with a bit of horror, you'll definitely enjoy this book. (P.S this is a sequel, which I didn't know until weeks after reading. I suggest reading the 1st book first, but I'm unsure if it makes a difference)

what melinda said.

This is one of the only poetry books I've ever read that felt completely unedited. These poems were so long, not because it needed to be, but because the poet attempted to put so many things in what couldve been consise and amazing. Less is MORE. Putting your brothers whole life story in one poem is never going to turn out good.

It's good, but it's a bit boring. It took me a really long time to read because I got bored with it and put it on my bookshelf. But read it, it might be for you. Personally, my favorite was the playlist in the end and the cover. I might have some bias because I was told the ending, but it wasn't as good as I thought it would be.

major spoilers ahead

To put it bluntly, I think this book could be wildly shorter and still extremely impactful. But I think that of most books. This book succeeds in remaining fairly impartial and interesting. Sometimes it drags...sometimes it's thrilling and I can't put it down. The sensationalized idea of this book kept me going, if I'm being as honest as possible. I wanted to be in on this event and this writing that so many have talked about. It was also an assigned book and I've been trying to reach my reading goal. I found the story's beginning and end to be the most interesting sections of the story. I loved getting to know the Clutter family. Admittedly, it was interesting to get to know Dick and Perry as well. I am not usually sympathetic for murderers, but this book allows for a little wiggle room. It's awesome that we can understand why people do what they do, what drives them to heinous acts, and maybe, how we can prevent them. Though I do believe certain subsets of criminals are not deserving of too much sympathy, they are excellent displays of failures in American systems. We can address the orphaned, the abused, the privileged, and the mentally ill American in the same context. This book is a great starting point and beautifully written.

I love We Were Liars. I have to be honest and say that it's not for everyone. It's slow and sometimes boring. It's all about patience. I recommended it to two people; one of which read it in 2 days, another of which read to page 10 and quit. The ending is the best part and I'm sure you'll be so surprised, you'll have to reread the last chapter to make sure you read it right. Give it a chance, it's amazing.

Making a wild claim here: this is the best book i have EVER read.

I am not a fan of sea literature. I couldn't get through 20 chapters of Moby Dick. I am usually reading adult fiction about serial killer women and bad men. This story is absolutely everything I am not.

I was assigned this for class! I usually can tell if I want to put in effort to read something and this was not one of them. However, the first page alone made it worthwhile. If you, at all, care about philosophy and justice, there are elements of that. Do you love novels at sea? With angry, violent captains? Do you like romance? There is a little something for everybody.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review!

I was super surprised with these beautiful stories! They were refreshing and unique. At first, I was a bit confused on what the stories were trying to do, specifically with the sex scenes. They were unexpected and sometimes felt ill-fitting for the tone of certain stories here. I wasn't sure if they were supposed to be a critical analysis of bad male behavior or just stories of unusual relationships with eroticism mixed in. But I think they can totally be both. That's one of my favorite parts of this collection. It can be lighthearted and fun while also saying something important about culture, gender, and status. The last story is, in my opinion, the most powerful (and also the most triggering, i'm sure). While some endings fell flat or rushed, this one was particularly perfect. Overall this was so good and I'd recommend it to probably everyone!

Most confusing and convoluted conflict I've ever read in a fantasy novel ever. Too many elements, too many characters. It was hard to care about the stakes and death when I just had no fucking clue what was going on. This felt like it was two books put into one. Never in my LIFE has a 600 page book felt this long. What I would do to get the 17 hours back I low-key wasted on this.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for letting me read this ARC for an unbiased review!

Can I just start by saying the obvious: the illustration is beautiful. The dialogue flowed well and was realistic. The storyline was easy to follow yet emotionally complex. There were plot twists and great characterization. Relationships were built and lost in so few pages. This was brilliant all around.

Yazidi! is a beautifully written and illustrated graphic novel dealing with the Yazidi genocide. Peshmergas, defenses for Yazidis against ISIL, flee and leave them defenseless. Zéré, a young girl must survive despite the kidnappings, rape, and murder that is occurring to her community.

I had no idea about ANY OF THIS! It seriously brought to my attention that I know very little about religion, politics, and oppression that isn't occurring in my own country. This was a very informative exploration of the topic that, because of its illustration and pretty easy-breezy reading experience, was a great introduction into a topic that is undoubtably much bigger and complex (meaning there is probably SO much more to know about this that cannot all be touched on in a <200 page graphic novel). It definitely sent me down a rabbit hole so I could understand more. It is a truly disheartening piece of history that more people should know about. I'm only 19 and have never heard of the Yazidi genoicde, so I cannot imagine how this history will fade from younger peoples understanding of global history if stories like this are not told. This graphic novels is both an engaging story and an educational illustration of difficult topics. In other words, it makes difficult subject matter easier to grasp and accessible. And it does so with much sensitivity, especially as it deals with young girls.

I did have a bit of difficulty understanding who was who in the past and present. But with a second pass through the book, it made much more sense. I do not read graphic novels often so didn't notice small details in illustration that can help with this. Honestly, reading it a second time was even more enjoyable because I found things I missed. It's such a quick read anyway that it wasn't a burden at all to read again. I also found it helpful to look up some vocabulary like caliphates, peshmergas, etc. Not imperative, as you can make inferences. But it can provide some important context.

This is BEAUTIFUL and I couldn't put it down. I would recommend it to literally everyone.

I could so say many things but I'll get right to it: I was imagining santángel as an 80 year old man and Luzia as a 18 year old girl the entire time so their chemistry felt so unnatural. I'm sure their physical looks were probably described differently but ever since that motherfucker appeared on the page, he was an old ass hag and she was literally on the cusp of adulthood to me. Now, I must confess that I do, in fact, have a thing for geriatric, basically dead old men. So, IN ALL HONESTY, I was not opposed (well I kinda was, morally). But he felt like a predator to me the entire time until I eventually just had to rework my brain to ignore it. He was just too wise, too lived, to not be a bag of bones in my head. I digress.

Here's my short and sweet take of the whole thing:
- felt like a romantic lapvona (ottessa moshfegh).
- The fantasy element was beautifully done. It wasn't too heavy handed but also played an integral part in the plot.
- Too many names to remember. Specifically Victor vs Antonio Perez.
- writing style eats down. i truly wasn't aware bardugo got down like that. Also didn't know she's written every fantasy novel ever.
- loved valentina's arc
- This would've been so much cooler if he actually WAS old and was a mentor and father figure. That's the energy I was picking up at first anyways.

This was a great story. There was many times when I wanted to squeal with excitement, die of laughter, and punch someone's face in. I was so conflicted as to how I wanted it to turn out to end, but the ending surprised me a little. SPOILERS I didn't expect Amelia and Chris to NOT to end up together, but they just didn't. Even though they're like 6 years apart. (Or seven, Idk) You usually read a book and you expect for everything and everyone to live happily ever after. This is not like that. It's real, raw, and a great read.

She says impending doom like 12 million times and has a tendency to skim through extremely important eras of her life, sometimes within a few lines. But she knows how to write something candid and gritty and hopeful.

Like I said before, I think the pacing of this is a bit awkward. I'm not sure I would've been able to finish it if I wasn't listening to the audiobook (which is exceptional because it's read by her). At times, I felt like we stayed in the same place for far too long or escaped an important part of her history entirely too fast. But at the same time, I think most memoirs are like this. Besides pacing (or maybe what goes hand-in-hand with pacing), is the sheer number of names you have to remember in this. I just started floating through this with no regard for who was who. Maybe this is just a reader comprehension problem though.

I find it really impressive that this has no ghostwriter. Idk what that says about me and my perception of celebs/actors (yea, I'd definitely consider her a celeb), but Julia knows how to write. Her interiority is very much just told to us instead of always shown, but that is definitely in the nature of memoirs.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.

My summaries tend to be long-winded, especially when I'm trying to condense such lively plot into short sentences, so all I'll say is I greatly appreciate the themes this book explored and I learned so much. I've read a lot of books about the black experience because it's something I relate to and live through everyday. This was an extremely different reading experience for me because I am incredibly separated from it. Asian fetishization is something I understand in theory, can probably describe in objective terms, but will never truly experience firsthand. Reading stories like this then is imperative to inform that. It was a beautifully written and engaging way to learn how it feels, or what it looks like, to be fetishized as an asian woman. Despite this being fiction, I have no doubt the relationships here resemble ones that do exist and are harmful to asian women in real life.

Aside from theme, I sometimes felt this book was too smart for me. Who knows what Mylar is? Or what lissome beauty means? Daniel sitting in a....naugahyde recliner? You can't tell me you all knew what these were. Not a big issue to look things up obviously, but I think this is why it took me longer than usual to finish it. It's not a book I can breeze through for that reason alone. Honestly, this problem could be reduced if the netgalley app just allowed the dictionary/search function in the app but I digress. Alternatively, there were allusions to art, language, and food, like dishes, artists and art pieces, and korean words/phrases, that built character and contextualized identity/relationships. I really enjoyed these (though I tended to skip over a lot of the music talk).

This story had awesome momentum. I was always wondering what could possibly happen next, what intimacies were going to be unveiled. Once I learned everyone's names and quirks (you'd be surprised how hard it is for me), I felt extremely close to them all. Sometimes their ignorance was hard to look at. Other times, the intense desire for revenge had me stressed. But I was always invested.

One of the devestating parts of the book that I keep going back to is this relationship between Daniel and Emi. That he hasn't been thinking about her at all despite Kyoko wanting him dead for decades. I just find that so gut wrenching0–to never be able to let go of someone, to feel a bit foolish for having thought of them so much, only for them to not care or remember you. I think that's just such an excellent lesson, one that we don't really talk about. You can ruin someone's life and forget about them. But their life is still ruined. They don't get to forget you. This murder fantasy of Kyoko's is such an inventive way to go about showing this.

I also think, for this same reason, that Daniels ‘redemption' didn't make the most sense to me. This didn't feel like a book about forgiveness to me. I thought it was going to be quite the opposite. The book at one point even admits Daniel forgives himself, not because he deserved it, but because he needed it? As if this is not how we all experience guilt and remorse, wanting desperately to be forgiven and knowing it's not our decision? People have suffered not being forgiven for much less. Being able to admit to oneself their bad habits, their fetishization in this case, is not the same as working through, and away, from them. Without this, you just have acceptance which isn't fair to anyone. I guess I just wanted others to hold him accountable. It felt like everyone was dancing around what it was, refusing to actually call him an asian fetishist, or they weren't willing to talk about this pattern at all. Kyoko managed this, but quickly forgot it. Alma was the last person I expected to take his realization so lightly, especially as he would accuse her soon after of always being so opinionated. In the end, despite my reaction to this detail, the writing is amazing and realistic. Sometimes time really does heals wounds. Sometimes the shittiest people do get redemption arcs, despite only narrowly deserving them. In the same way you might hate an unreliable or evil narrator but still love the writing, I think Daniel as a character is unbearable and that unbearable-ness is very well written. The fact that I can recognize his unbearable-ness and still love how it's written, is proof that this book had me invested in the well-being of flawed characters. Not every book can do that.

I did wish there was more emphasis on Rickey at the end. He faded away despite being their connective tissue in many ways. I was a bit unsatisfied with this because I didn't believe that he could be so dedicated to Alma and then get very little time to shine at the end. Just because he's a ‘smaller' character doesn't mean he didn't grieve, didn't experience loss. There were other smaller, subtler details that I think were lost as well.

The ending was another impressive part. It solidified, for me at least, that Daniel's obsession with asian women wasn't just an attempt at replicating what he had with Alma, but a true perversion that had a much earlier and strange origin. I say this because some of the events in the book made it feel like everything came down to Alma, that his string of lovers were some sort of replacement for HER? I'm sure Daniel would characteristically think that about himself. But it was necessary to establish that, despite loving Alma for who she was, his love for her, like all the other women, sprouted from something less romantic, less genuine (to say the least). This section was an obvious separation from the rest of the book that felt fresh and incredibly necessary.

This was such a beautiful book. I was extremely sad to find that the author is no longer with us, but I'm very glad this book is making its way into the world. It's such a unique story and I'm so thankful I could read it!!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review!

Imagine my ecstatic surprise when I realized this was a graphic novel! I totally skipped that in the description. Not only are graphic novels quicker, but they're also just really creative/artistic. So I was very excited about this.

The beginning part of this book kinda felt like when someone's showing you all the photos in their phone gallery and explaining them all. Sweet at first but eventually gets a bit repetitive. I guess what I mean is that, despite it providing context on how they met, much of the beginning of this book lacked detail that moved the story forward. And the writing itself didn't make up for the lack of detail.

Part of what makes memoirs, especially surrounding memory and childhood, is the reflections we make that we would've never made back then. Our adult selves can find slivers of beauty and reflection that our childhood selves were not sophisticated or sentimental enough to. The book eventually certainly got there. And when it did, it was extremely heartfelt, relatable, tender, and even tense at times. The speaker/author was incredibly honest and spoke on things so many face alone out of shame. And that's very admirable. The first about half of the book though had moments that could've been expanded to point out some progression, reflection, or lesson. The trip they took together, for example, felt as if it was building to something only for us to move on very quickly. I just think the story of their friendship GROWING is just as important as how they lost each other.

While the illustration does portray the awkwardness of adolescence, there are maybe about three facial expressions: neutral, anger, worry. It just feels stiff and almost wholly reliant on the subtitles/text. I definitely think this art style could appeal to many! It's just not my favorite.

All of this to say though, this is really sweet and heartbreaking. It's an important story to tell. So many people go through these things and struggle is nothing to be ashamed of. And I think it's really important to preface that criticism to storytelling is not criticism of the story itself. This was a very beautiful exploration of someone's life and how the loss affected those who loved them. It needed to be written and I applaud the author for writing it. I wish I could give them the biggest hug.