Saturday, April 18, 2020

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay BuriedThe Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really tried to go into this book with an open mind, I really did. What this was pitched to be as, our main character, Dino (my gay roll of cinnamon son) broke up with his best friend of 15 years and she recently died so he's trying to unpack that emotionally. Of course, it's more complicated than that, because July, the ex best friend has risen from the dead and is back to haunt him in more ways than one. I really did enjoy Shaun David Hutchinson's other books, but there were a couple things in this one that I just couldn't get past.

First of all, Dino's ex best friend is flat out homophobic, from the first page to the last page and i'm sure that had to be a reason why Dino decided to cut her out of his life. She was at Rafi's (Dino's bf) house-party, and was talking to the theater geek friend group and she opens her mouth and says "what's the point of being gay if you don't do theather." Let me remind all of u, that she is a straight heterosexual women who previously referred to herself as "gay by proxy." She's constantly making out of her lane gay jokes, and she's truly the most ignorant bitch that I've been, seeing that it is 2019 and her long-time best friend is gay. I just wish she was more sensitive and knew how to shut her mouth. She visits the hospital to try to figure out what's wrong with her body, her being undead and all, and she starts an argument which a man who tried to commit suicide and his stomach was just pumped out. For two straight pages this girl asks him questions like "you're glad for this second chance right?" and when the patient says no she keeps on asking him "what's the point you wouldn't cut off your finger from your hand if you had a splinter." This book would have been a 4 star read for me, if not for this girl. Why I am so affected is because her perspective is 50% the author has alternating chapters from her first chapter which I really had the urge to skim.

On the other hand, I could gush how much I loved Dino and Rafi, and how much he grew and had an actual character development arc. His chapters were the only reason why I didn't dnf this in the first place. And I will admit that the writing was excellent Shaun knows his craft and how to complex characters that are flawed and unlikeable, there's a talented genius quality to his writing and even I can't deny that.

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Monday, April 13, 2020

Ghosted in L.A. Vol. 1Ghosted in L.A. Vol. 1 by Sina Grace
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Graphic novels are usually a hit or miss for me. Here we follow the story of Daphne, who moves across the country to attend the same college as her boyfriend Ronnie. After suffering a blow to the heart, she founds herself lost and trying to find some comfort at twilight. She stumbles on this mysterious mansion, where she finds a group of ghosts that welcome her into their circle and let her live there.

The artwork is truly so gorgeous. I was astounded at the level of detail and how the color schemes affected/changed the moods of the story itself. I would highly reccomend buying yourself a physical copy because every single piece of artwork is so masterfully created that I had my jaw drop at certain points. Not only that, but there's a clear plotline and story happened here (to be continued) that really set us up for what Daphne's dealing with here. It didn't fall flat, I wasn't bored for one second or one page, because there were enough action scenes to keep me intrigued and curious.

Also! There are openly queer characters here,which I deeply appreciated. The side characters were some of the most entertaining parts of the books for me personally, and I think the rest of the world will fall in love with this undead gang as much as I did.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Yes No Maybe SoYes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I went into this book with high expectations, after all its Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed, two excellent authors who have written earlier books and this is their first ever collab. In this we follow two povs, Jaime Goldenberg, a Jewish boy who lives in the suburbs with this sister, mom, and grandmother. His mom works for a state councilmen, and his cousin is helping the Democrat candidate run for the special election. Then we introduce Maya, a Muslim girl whose parents have recently separated and it was a bombshell. This book was pitched to me as a romance between two inter-religious people, with 50/50 politics and love. Let’s just say I was immediately hooked.

My issues are many with this book. To start off, let’s address the representation. While I can’t directly speak to this as I am not Muslim, I did notice that Maya was the only Muslim character in the whole book (other than her parents). I just kind of found that odd because she did attend a mosque during Eid and we see that on page, however there is no mention of any Muslim friends or acquaintances she would inevitably have.

Another thing that ticked me off was the fact that Jaime, our blissfully ignorant white male, had bought and gave food to Maya four (4) times during Ramadan when he knew she was fasting. Maya had to keep on reminding him that she can’t consume that, and then she ended up being the one who apologized to HIM for “getting mad” that he kept on trying to give her food? Like that whole thing was really off, I understand that it happened this first time with the Goldfish and became an inside joke with them two, however I see no reason why then the authors went and made him look like a clown four more times.

That leads me to the romance, it was the most cliche and in my opinion, unrealistic thing. So we know that they are childhood friends that went to an after school camp together, their moms were best friends years ago, and they haven’t seen each other in about ten years. In fact, during their first chance encounter at Target, they didn’t even recognize each other. However, that storyline fell flat because the authors never developed that aspect of the story. This could have been so well done and used the childhood friends-to lover trope but instead it was the insta-love trope. For gods sake, they both said “I’m in love with you” before they even had their first kiss. Their whole “friendship” spans less than two months, and they were already making “i love you” declarations before they ever went on their first date (in fact we don’t see them go on a first real date in this book at all.) The plot was just super predictable in that aspect, boy meets girls, childhood best friends reconnect about ten years, they spend their whole summer together, and then they’re head over heels. They had no hardships to overcome weirdly, only a brief stint with Maya’s parents being hesitant about this relationship, to which they then relented almost immediately. Maya and Jaime both lied to eachother i’m pretty significant ways, but when they found out each others secrets they just brushed it off and never even had a real conversation about how hurt they were. Cut to them making out in the Target dressing rooms. Yeah.

Oh and not only that, but there was this whole storyline of Maya realizing the distance and loss with her best friend, her *only* friend Sara, who was a year older than her and moving to college. It was supposed to be their late summer together, but Maya barely days Sara because she worked over forty hours a week to be able to afford college. Cue to Maya whining for the whole summer about how abandoned she feels, etc. The whole was a yawn because we didn’t see any of their childhood backstory since the “Elmo” days. To me, they didn’t even seem that close to begin with because we didn’t get any flashbacks or backstory. So for the whole book, Maya has no female friend, her only “best” friend is Jaime. That just seems unrealistic to me.

A great reprieve and the only part of the book that I was really interested in was the politics, this was a special election, their candidate was a progressive in a very red zone. The 50% of the book about the politics surrounding them, was the best part in my opinion. Otherwise, I genuinely disliked all the characters with the exception of Maya, who made the book bearable enough to keep on trudging. If your looking to pick this book up, I would say save your time and instead read a similar yet stellar title like Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali.

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Wednesday, April 1, 2020

EmberhawkEmberhawk by Jamie Foley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Kira refuses to marry a guy who was dumber than a sack of rocks. Of which there were plenty.”

So, I went into Emberhawk with no previous expectations. I was craving a unique YA fantasy, and in some ways this hit that sweet spot.

I’m quite conflicted, because I feel like there were a number of things that were well done, and then others not so much. We follow our main characters, Kira and Ryon who are living in this dangerous world full of magic on the brink of war. Kira is setting her traps and catches Ryon on her property stealing her families chickens. So of course she doesn’t hesitate to shoot him in the shoulder, thinking he’s a trace cat, and then no surprise insta-love follows.

Without delving too much into this, the romance really didn’t click with me, specifically because of one scene where Ryon forced himself on her without consent and then spent about 10 pages justifying it. After that, all out their romantic interactions and flirtations left a sour taste in my mouth.

For me the highlight of this book was Kira. It was a delight seeing this complex complicated (often confusing) world that was against her. She’s a feminist badass, without the author trying too hard to make that obvious. The only thing that stuck out like a sore thumb to me, was that because of her situation and family we see virtually no other females interacting with her? Like for example she has two brothers, but I wanted to know more about her everyday—where she went to school, what type of friends she had,etc.

If I’m being honest, I struggled for more than half the book to understand how exactly the magic system works. Yes, there was a lot of infodumping from the author as it’s to be expected with the introduction to a high fantasy series. However, I wish some things were explained more clearly earlier on; that way I feel like I would have gotten an overall more enjoyable experience. That being said, I will definitely keep my eye out of the sequel and put it high up on my tbr because this book was an intriguing start.

3.5/5 stars

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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