zilver
i???d say giving this two stars is generous. the only good parts of this book were the dogs and greeley. Yikes.
my issues with this book were i think mostly my issues and to do with my enjoyment, not the quality of the book itself.
i was actually recommended this book because of the particular narrative structure, which is so real! i love strange story structures. and the idea of one of the points of view in the story being from the sickness within a body is so! fascinating! but for some reason the idea of the cancer being an actively and “consciously” malicious entity - deriving joy from destroying someone from the inside out and seeing the body's attempts to stop it - didn't vibe with me. i can see how it might hit for other people, but i think it would've actually hit me more emotionally if it had been a neutral entity that is just... happening to the body.
these are so gorgeous, i can???t get over it. def the most heart-wrenching volume yet, but fantastic nonetheless. waiting for the next volume to heal my soul again week by week (hopefully) <3
hard to explain what kind of special crack is in these books. it???s like there???s a sleeper agent in my brain that is triggered when i see the word exy.
jean lacks rage, luckily i have it in abundance (when i catch coach moriyama they will not find his body etc etc). but i also have so much love for all the trojans and our little catlailajeremyjean squad most of all. jean giving out his first hug oh i???ll cry.
ways in which jean moreau is neil josten-coded: says yes anytime anyone asks him if he???s all right (he???s not), throws fits at fall banquets, communicates with people by watching exy games
other tidbits: jean calls andrew a fair-haired rat in narration. kevin makes a chess joke while drunk. agent browning 2/2 failed wpp attempts and OVER it. everyone on team ???get jean a hobby??? like this man is a sims expansion pack.
ALSO i cannot believe that the ravens just tried to straight up MURDER at least 3 foxes ON LIVE TV within FIVE minutes of starting their first game of the season. they are insane. okay that???s it i???m done
i???m sure this was dystopian to read in 2006 but it SURE is dystopian to read in 2024. woof.
my roman empire is that this never got a sequel. but it???s so good nonetheless and rereading it made me understand where my boundless love for strange, dreamy, fantastical meta-stories comes from
would probably have to read it again to really understand what was going on but especially the end of the world bits were soooo vibey, soooo you-don???t-know-why-you???re-here-but-you???ll-feel-things-regardless and i love that!
art continues to astound, the developing relationship does too. the slowly revealed backstory and trauma, the mutual support, the care and dedication.... all so right up my alley. pulls on the heartstrings in all the right ways!!
I kind of hate that I didn???t like this book. It looks so promising! A fun, cute, light, summer-y read. We need those! But honestly, this book read like a Disney Channel movie. And not in the funny way - in the cringey way.
I???ll start by mentioning some things I enjoyed: the feeling of summer it brought about; the fact that the main character, Emma is very secure in her sexuality and (besides a horribly homophobic and toxic mother) this isn???t made into a big deal any time it comes up; that Emma gets to stand up to said mother; I suppose the idea of this book???
Oof. I think the main problem is that I???ve read this entire book, and I still feel like I know nothing about any of the characters. They are all two-dimensional, not fleshed out, bland characters. Everyone???s personality relies on being a) sarcastic, b) nice, or c) a bully. Generally, I do consider it quite a problem if no one, including your main character, seems to go through any kind of development. Any details regarding characters??? lives and feelings were always handed to us, and we were expected to take them at face-value. Even major things like Emma???s depression and anxiety, which are mentioned a couple of times as being something that influences her life greatly at times (and understandably so!), are kept completely at a distance. At some point she mentions to her father on the phone that she???s having a bad day, and I just had the thought that I would not have gotten that at all from any of the other descriptions of what had been going on that day. The panic attacks she experiences happen, and are brushed off afterwards, not to be talked about again. Their effects or causes are left untouched upon.
Besides that, the decision-making, the way basically everyone acted, was quite ridiculous constantly. Again, Disney Channel movie vibes. No one???s actions really sense. Multiple times when characters pointed out other characters??? motivations or thought-processes I was genuinely thrown because I would just not understand how they got to those conclusions at all. I'd blame it on the fact that the characters are young but honestly? All of them are around 18. Not to say all your decisions should be logical and sensible all of a sudden, but they also shouldn't be... this. And the relationships... I don???t know, but Emma keeps saying she???s bad at making friends, and I???m inclined to agree with her, because despite saying that Gwen is her, and I quote, ???soulmate???, she knows literally nothing about Gwen except that???s she???s peppy and kind. Same with Vivian, our love interest. After 300 pages I know nothing about her except that she goes to college, where she acts ???differently??? than she does at camp, and that she likes order. But then again, after 300 pages I know not much more about Emma, so.
I think this book had a lot of potential, and unfortunately it just didn???t live up to any of it for me.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
stale prose sentences devoid of any meaning because they are either too juvenile or trying too hard to be ~edgy. no idea is developed beyond the very first thought and instead is repeated in slightly varying ways making no point at all.
Ohhh this one was very dear.
???The Times I Knew I Was Gay??? by Eleanor Crewes tells??? well, kind of what it says on the tin. It gives us Ellie???s journey (so far) as she comes out, comes of age, becomes. It???s about how a struggle with one thing in yourself can be the insidious seed for more struggles with yourself. How difficult a place to be your own headspace is if you???re so vehemently denying something you don???t even know what you???re denying.
I found this really heartwarming. Heart wrenching as well at parts. There???s a huge focus on process, and needing to process. At some point - after having come out to her friends once already - she???s turning the thought over again in her mind, time and time again, and she says, ???It wasn???t such an epiphany as last time ... it was more like small moments of clarity. Like I had to test the words, allow them to settle inside me before speaking them aloud to anyone.??? As someone who needs about a week to process any minor decision this is an extremely recognisable feeling. I especially also really like the focus on transitional places in this graphic memoir about change - this particular moments on the London Underground.
I really liked how we get both the narrator Ellie and the narrated Ellie???s thoughts - we see how they differ, and how she reflects on herself at the time. It???s one of the thing that makes autographies such as this very appealing to me, the aspect of direct revisiting through the author???s own art. Ellie switches to her present-day self at significant moments, rethinking her own thoughts out loud (or, on page), taking us with her in her thought processes as they develop and have developed.
Overall I think this is an accomplished, well narrated and wonderfully drawn, but most of all a hopeful book.
I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
this one's for my dad because “five stars needs an explanation” and maybe he's right sometimes and this book at least deserves one.
this book is very [trying to find a word that isn't beautiful or chilling or sad or harrowing or wondrous but somehow all those words together]. it's somehow detached and also extremely humanised. i think you can feel the empathy the author has for her characters, for the world that they are made to live in, even if the narrator has a hard time verbalising that empathy herself. even has a hard time understanding that what she feels is empathy, and understanding.
and then at the end, it wraps up inevitably, in a way that makes you want to restart it immediately to re-read the beginning with an understanding you didn't have before.
???It's a curious, wanting thing.???
4.5 stars
lesbian dickens?????????? bithc this was better than any dickens i've ever read
it was totally not what i expected to be honest (i wasn't entirely sure what to expect) but what i got was a thrilling tale about a scam, many gloves, mystery and SNEAKY GIRLS. i loved the way the story was built up, told through multiple perspectives so you never quite knew what was going on. i love my girls both equally they deserve all my love (and also all of each other's love) so. there's that.
I DON'T WANT TO SAY ANYTHING MORE BECAUSE IT'S JUST A WASTE OF SPACE AND I DON'T WANT TO GIVE ANYTHING AWAY SO Y'ALL SHOULD JUST READ THIS OKAY
???and the earth felt soft and i was above us, could see all of us from above, like i was dead and shattered about the sky with the stars looking down and i saw the way we fanned out to make a moving rope pushing itself through the grey grass???
had a bit of a hard time getting into this. most of the characters except mush didn???t speak to me basically at all until this picked up pace 30-40%. really missed some depth for some of the characters as well, most importantly titular kala, but also for aiofe, joe, aidan. i usually love a book where you???re dropped into a story without much context, which is sort of how the early part of this book feels, but it also felt like it was trying too hard to keep me at a distance?
but i will say! there were also a lot of parts that spoke to me and stuck with me that could have been pretentious but edged enough towards heartfelt.
???you knew then, in the face to face, that it had been wrong to think of aidan as a lost cause, that no one is the simple playing card you reduce them to, (???) that there???s this whole animal being to everyone and that in this animal being there???s a point where you and everyone else in the world can meet???
ooooooh wanted to like it but a little too Inspiring???.. a little too incomprehensible-choices-mc?????? im sorry matt
3.5-4.0 stars
???Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.???
I think I was expecting a little more from this book than it gave me. I got it in glimpses and fragments and parts but not in its entirety.
I'm a big fan of communication and dialogue, especially in a novel as character driven as this one. That's also more what I was expecting of it and that's not really what I got. This book is very heavily relies on the internal monologue of 17-year-old Elio, who becomes completely infatuated with the house guest staying with their family for the summer.
That part, the infatuation, comes across very well, to say the least. Elio finds meaning in every look exchanged between Oliver and him, finds whole conversations in tiny smiles and heart-stopping significance in that one time Oliver picks up the glass that Elio accidentally knocks over (honestly kid... it's just a glass).
I think the lack of actual communication we got between the two made it difficult for me to really connect to either of the characters. There was so much of Elio's internal monologue that it became a little overwhelming at times and for me, a bit of perspective might have helped. I felt like it stopped me from actually getting to know the characters themselves more, strangely enough, because Elio was constantly so concerned with Oliver. I think there's a very good possibility that that was done intentionally, because he's a teenager in love and the rest of the world can suddenly seem a whole less important or significant opposed to this one, wonderful person. And yet, the recreation of that feeling left me feeling a little unsatisfied.
I definitely enjoyed parts. I liked the vibrant, summer-y feeling it gave me (especially now when the days are getting shorter and more filled with rain), the kind of feeling that you get when summer has just started and everything seems endless and possible. I'm really curious to see the movie, and maybe that will help me bring everything and everyone to life a little more.
ps. peaches are ruined forever don't talk to me about them nothing happened with peaches i hate everything
gdi jane eyre is such a badass. she's just out there in the world, making her own choices, living her own life, super aware of her own worth. freaking Goals. all those weak ass bitches (men)? she doesn't need them. none of them deserve her and she knows it.
(let me also point out that she's clearly the happiest surrounded by smart and cool girls but that's neither here nor there)