It’s super late, I know, but life has been hectic due to final exams, moving and starting a new job immediately after. I’m excluding my reviews for the books on the women’s prize shortlist since I already made a post reviewing those, but here’s the rest of the books I read in May. In total May was an exceptionally good reading month considering how busy I was, I read a total of 13 books which I think is the most I’ve read in a month this whole year, plus, 3 of them are definitely going on my favourite books of all time list!
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza (5 stars) *
I feel like there’s only so many times you can say a book is amazing before people stop listening to your raving about a book but yes I did happen to read a lot of books that topped my all time favourites list in within days of one another and this one has definitely earned the title of my all time favourite book. A Place For Us is about the struggles that come from living between two cultures, figuring out your identity, loss, guilt, trying to figure out where exactly you went wrong. From the start of the book you find out that Hadia is getting married and for the first time in years her family is reunited with Amar, the youngest child and only son in a Muslim-American family. Throughout the book you get to see every moment leading up to the wedding through several points of view. I generally don’t like books that retell the same events from different perspectives as I find them to be repetitive and after the first few perspectives add very little to the overall story but I didn’t find that to be the case at all with this book. After reading every perspective I felt like I finally understood what happened and whose fault it was, until I got to the next one and after the very last one I was as confused about where things went wrong and whose fault it was as the characters were. I found every single character to be incredibly relatable and I’d never had as strong an emotional connection and reaction to a book ever before, the more time passes the more my love for it grows and I can’t stop thinking about it and I really recommend you pick up this book (though if you’re not a fan of character-driven books this is probably not the book for you).
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (5 stars)
I kept seeing this book everywhere but it never really caught my eye, and the blurb and the reviews I’d seen certainly didn’t help with making me feel like reading it, I was convinced it was a book I would at best tolerate. But then I heard someone comparing Adam Silvera’s writing style and characters to Benjamin Saenz’s and that was what pushed me to give it a go. They Both Die at the End is set in a universe similar to our own, except Deadcast exists, and you get a call telling you that you’re going to die in the next 24h. Mateo and Rufus both get the call and find each other through the Last Friend app, and through their friendship they both tackle their regrets, fears and bucket list. What stood out most to me though were two things: a) the handling of LGBTQ topics and Latin American culture contrasted to the US and b) this is the first book ever where I didn’t hate the romance. I tend to hate romance in books because it always feels shallow and stupid and like it distracts from the elements I do actually enjoy, and I think this is probably at least partially related to my being demisexual, so I need a strong bond with someone before I feel attraction towards them, let alone act on it. Unlike most books where romance is involved, this book focused on forging the bond between the two characters first, and I found myself actually hoping it would happen.
Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel (5 stars)
Can’t really say much about the plot without spoiling book 1, 2 or 3 of the Themis Files so if you’ve never heard of it and finding parts of a huge alien robot sounds like your kind of thing then go check it out! I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read this book or not, it’s a hard choice to make after your favourite character gets killed or otherwise removed but for other people also feeling that way about it I’m happy to report Eva really takes after her mother so not as big a deal as I thought it would be. The other thing I was uneasy about is the fact that the book kicks off with a 9 year time jump which isn’t exactly what I was expecting and saying I’m not fond of time jumps would be a bit of an understatement, but again, happy to report that wasn’t as huge a deal as I thought it was, in fact, I think I actually liked the time jump! I think this book is the first in the series where there is really a big advantage to the unusual interview/journal entry/etc kind of format since it means you get to go over 10 years of stuff always in the present, but only as much as you need to understand what’s going on and everyone’s stances and feelings, it feels like exactly the right amount. So overall I was pleasantly surprised, though I did miss the element of scientific exploration and discovery that was so strong on the first book, this one was way more politics heavy than the second book was.
Phoenix Goes to School by Michelle Finch (5 stars)*
Phoenix goes to school is a really short and cute book about a trans girl who is scared of what people will think of her in school and being bullied by older students. I loved the story and the fact that it’s based on an actual trans kid’s experience and I thought the way being trans is explained both in the story and on the back in a for grownups version were really good, definitely recommend this for any fellow children book lovers and it’s definitely going on the top of the list of books I recommend to people who either work with trans kids or are thinking about coming out as trans to children.
Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (4 stars)
This is a weird one for me to review. While I was reading the book I was loving it and read it all in one go and thought it would be a favourite but as soon as I finished it that kinda started fading away and at this point there’s very little I can remember: I liked the body positivity and the handling of anxiety but on the other hand I disliked some of Abby’s behaviour and it kinda felt like by the end of the book it had all been forgotten which made me feel uneasy. The other thing I didn’t like is that this book has way more high school and relationship drama than Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda, plus I didn’t really get to see my favourite character.
Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger (4 stars)
Parrotfish follows Grady, kicking off shortly after his coming out as trans to his family and then following him into high school presenting as a guy for the first time. I found some aspects of the book to be incredibly annoying, like the fact that it kept using the word transgendered every 5 seconds and kept mentioning binding using ACE bandages which is incredibly dangerous (yes, Grady does at some point get a binder and he mentions how it’s way better and more comfortable but at least the first few times bandages are mentioned there’s no talk about how incredibly dangerous they are which I think any mention of them should definitely come with). A lot of the gender related discussions felt like they were full of stereotypes and like they were written by someone who doesn’t understand but feels like an expert and tries to teach everyone (I wasn’t at all surprised to find out the author is cis) and of course it also had to include the token non white person who is only there for the purposes of being fetishized but those things aside it was a nice short happy-ish story touching on bullying, finding unexpected allies and people coming around, I just wish it wasn’t the book everyone recommends when there’s (few, I know) better own-voices books (for example, When The Moon Was Ours).
Dreadnought by April Daniels (3 stars)
In a world full of people with “special abilities” heroes rising, falling, and being replaced is commonplace. However, unlike everyone else, when Danny takes up Dreadnought’s mantle she undergoes a radical physical transformation, finally getting a body that matches her gender identity. As much as I hate to write non-positive reviews (especially for own-voices books featuring minorities or sensitive topics), I feel like this book needs one, because it seems to me like the author really could have done with a know your audience course. I assume a fair amount of the people who will be reading the book are either trans themselves or people who aren’t very transphobic (I have no idea why a transphobe would ever be open to reading a book with a trans main character written by a trans author). Being on the first category myself, I initially liked how there were some characters that weren’t ok with Danny’s transition because I hate it when books make it seem like coming out is easy and like being who you are doesn’t involve facing a lot of hate and stigma. But as the book progressed it felt like every 5 minutes I had very transphobic and TERF-y ideas thrown in my face and they made start to hate the book and hope it would be over soon. On the other hand, I feel like it’s useful for non-trans people to be exposed to the stigma, the transphobic ideas, what’s the issue with them etc but there’s having some exposure and people learning a lesson from it and there’s feeling like you’re being preached at aggressively (not to mention some people with less negative views about trans people might read it and end up agreeing with all the bullshit ideas, we certainly don’t need more transphobes in the world) and I felt like all the characters were very black and white, either 100% ok with Danny being trans from the get go or 100% not ok with it and being huge assholes, in my experience both extremes do exist but it’s rarer to find them than to find several different shades in between.
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (3 stars)
I was really excited about this book since I haven’t read any other books with asexual characters and I identify as asexual, plus the plot also seemed interesting to me. Every Heart a Doorway is based at a boarding school where every single student went through a doorway to another world and came back and struggled with adjusting to the real world, ending up there to be “cured”. Around a quarter through the book I was absolutely loving it, I didn’t particularly love any characters since they all felt shallow (though also finding a trans masculine character was a nice surprise) but the world building and premise were all very appealing to me and I was prepared to love it. However, as the book goes on it turns into a murder mystery, which I figured out pretty early, and the little character development that there was from that point on just made me go from being apathetic but hopeful to split between apathetic towards some and absolutely hating the rest of the characters. However, I feel like this is one of those books that I’m just not the right reader for, rather than an inherently bad book.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (3 stars)
I was really looking forward to reading this series since there’s few things that are better than a fantasy series everyone constantly raves about written by a feminist author with a strong female character, but sadly it didn’t quite do it for me. At the start I was really enjoying it and I thought Feyre was steadily walking towards becoming a favourite character but it kind of felt like at the start she was a way stronger character than the rest of the book, she goes from being responsible and baddass to just utterly stupid. Then we got into Twilight territory, didn’t like the “romance” there, liked it even less here, one of the reasons being several scenes that seemed more like erotica than YA fantasy (which in case you’re new here, I absolutely do not read). I was also incredibly annoyed by Nesta’s character development, it just felt so out of the blue and like she was entirely replaced by a new person (or I guess Feyre and Nesta swapped bodies some time after the book started, either seems possible), and now that I think about it most of the characters really, Lucien is the only character who I kinda liked. And then the biggest issue – how do people think Sarah Maas is a great feminist writer? The book was plagued with men constantly rescuing Feyre from whatever trouble she got herself into so she’s definitely nowhere near my idea of a strong female character, and there was some let’s blame the person who was being an idiot for sexually assaulting her (or wanting to) and implying someone was nice because he only touched a woman’s hip-region (without permission, mind you). I might go back to this series because I still feel like it could get better and I really do want to love it as much as everyone else seems to but not sure when that’ll happen.
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (3 stars)*
I loved The Tidal Zone so much that I added every single one of Sarah Moss’ books to my TBR. I still haven’t actually gotten my hands on any of them so when I saw Ghost Wall on netgalley I was really excited and requested it immediately. Ghost Wall follows Silvie, a 17 year old girl (who I initially thought was around 12, not really sure where I got that impression from) and her family, who are all staying at a camp in Northumberland focused on re-enacting life in the Iron Age. It quickly becomes evident that Silvie’s father is abusive to both Silvie and her mother and his obsession with the re-enactment combines with it to take things to dangerous extremes. Unlike The Tidal Zone I didn’t find the characters very relatable and I found it hard to care, had it not been as short as it was I would have DNFd it.
(*) I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review
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