It took me a while to get into this book, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I tried a couple of times, and finally read it because it met two challenges I had going at the time. This won’t be a long review, and it’s not going to be a glowing review, but it’s not BAD either. This book was just kind of… grey.
The story is about… well I think it’s about learning about what you’re actually standing up for? Honestly, this book kind of confused me, tho that might mean that I should read it again, because clearly I didn't get the memo. This was the blurb: With a rocky start to senior year, cheerleaders and lifelong best friends Eleanor and Chanel have a lot on their minds. Eleanor is still in physical therapy months after a serious concussion from a failed cheer stunt. Chanel starts making questionable decisions to deal with the mounting pressure of college applications. But they have each other's backs—just as always, until Eleanor's new relationship with star quarterback Three starts a rift between them. Then, the cheer squad decides to take a knee at the season's first football game, and what seemed like a positive show of solidarity suddenly shines a national spotlight on the team—and becomes the reason for a larger fallout between the girls. As Eleanor and Chanel grapple with the weight of the consequences as well as their own problems, can the girls rely on the friendship they've always shared? I just didn’t feel like what I got was what was dangled. Yes, much of the plot was driven because of the taking a knee, but it wasn’t really explored. The majority of the book felt like it was from the POV of the white teen, and while it created a rift with her Black friends/boyfriend, this wasn’t really explored. It was teetering on the edge of diving in and exploring the HUGE aspect of ally/faux allies, but it never really went there. The conflict between the girls was also hinted at, especially the Cheer Captain role, but then it was kind of like, ok, next, which didn’t feel right from Chanel’s POV, after her first chapter about how she was so organised and focused. I dunno guys. It just felt… lacking. Great premise, could-have-been great characters, but the plot just wasn’t there, and neither was the character development (at all). Content warnings: racism Overall Rating: 2.5 stars (because of the talk about concussion disabilities mostly)
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“I don’t know why it took me so long to read this book.” That’s the thought I had when I picked it up for the second time, and read the blurb. Set partially in a boardingschool for rich teens, and partly on a British Country Estate; filled with murder and mystery and weird cult-like groups… That ticks way too many of my interests for me to have not read it!
Then I started reading it, and I remembered. I tried to read this before, and it was slow going. I don’t know if the first time I read it was during my post-COVID lockdown reading slump, or if it was just a really hard book to get into. I think it might be the latter, but that’s in part because I started reading Book 3, F.O.X.E.S, and that’s pretty slow going too. The premise is sound - three ‘lesser’ students are selected to spend a holiday weekend with the six Medievals - the ‘prefects’; the ruling upper class of the school. Our main character Greer is a scholarship student, Shafeen is Indian, and Chanel is *gasp* new money. The three are all, in their own ways and for their own reasons, desperate to fit in with the Medievals, but it might just come at a cost. At the start of the book, we know someone died. We then go back in time, and learn the who, what, when, where, how, and, most importantly, why. Like I said, this book had everything I love, so it should have been amazing. Honestly tho, after two slow starts, I’d probably call it average. I think it had some really good aspects, but it was let down in a few areas. Greer wasn’t my favourite character. I know that you don’t always have to like the heroine, but it wasn’t that I disliked her, I just didn’t like her. She was kind of average, kind of boring, slightly annoying with her multiple movie references (which kind of felt like most of her backstory, which may be why I didn’t like her - maybe I subconsciously thought she was a poser). If the book had been from Shafeen or Chanel’s POV, I might have enjoyed it more. With regards to characters, the Medievals themselves were so meh that I just had to go and google to find out how many there are (there are six, by the way). They just felt kind of bland, underbaked, flavourless. There wasn’t anything about them that stood out - I remember the staff at the estate more than I remember them. The plot was okay; I’m not sure it should have been made into a four (at least) part series, but it might make a decent TV show. Content Warnings: violence, classism, racism, death, injury, animal hunting/killing Overall Rating: 3 stars I’ve been really into the YA horror/thriller genre lately, and even more the “locked room” horror/thriller genre. This is weird for me, because if you asked me what I like reading, I’d say high-fantasy - Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss (although I call that sci-fantasy), Tolkein, Hearn. I read a lot for work, and my focus area there is YA, but it’s been a while since I read much YA, if I’m being honest. So it’s awesome that there are so many YA horror/thriller books out there at the minute, because I can indulge.
I picked up five strangers quite a while ago - what I meant was “I picked up Five Total Strangers” a while ago, and actually put it back down. The premise was really good: Mira catches a ride with four college students, after her flight is cancelled due to weather. As the drive progresses and weather conditions become more treacherous, soon, they're not just dealing with heavy snowfall and ice-slick roads, but the fact that somebody will stop at nothing to ensure their trip ends in a deadly disaster. I just couldn’t get fully immersed into the story the first time around. I was listening to the audiobook (and no shade on any narrator, they are all gods to me because they are amazing and do such an important job!), and it could be that I just didn’t gel with the narration, because I got maybe a third in before I just stopped. I picked it up again as an ebook, and basically inhaled it. My main issue with this story is that we are given too much info in the blurb. I just scrolled up and deleted that part from my premise, so if you want to read this, do it without further info! It’s a minor thing, but I think the suspense and drama would have been heightened if I didn’t know that info. In terms of story, I liked this one. It was all go from start to finish - planes, snow, crashes, guns, creepy truck stops, backwood hillbillies, storms, creepy letters. Driving in snow is not something I have ever had to do (we don’t get a lot of snow where I live), much less a full blown blizzard. I will make a note there that there is a multi-vehicle accident described in the book - this scared the bejesus out of me on a personal level, because the worst we ever get here is maybe 3 cars. I know these crashes do happen in places like the USA, but the characters seemed like this was normal, which scares me on a non-reader level! I didn’t figure out who was the bad guy until the end. Natalie D. RIchards did a really good job of keeping the options open, and it felt realistic in the way the main character's suspicions built slowly and kept changing. There were a few times where I was a little like… not sure that’s a realistic response to the actions of a character, but people’s reactions aren’t all the same, so it wasn’t a deal breaker for me, just a reminder that reactions in crisis vary. Content Warnings: car crashes, discussions of death, discussions of end of life, discussions of divirce and mental illness, people getting run over, language, minor blood and gore. Overall Rating: 4 stars Romance isn’t usually my type of book. I don’t go out of my way to avoid them, the way I go out of my way to avoid all those books like They Both Die at the End and Goodbye Days which everyone is always like “oh mah gawd, you gotta read this, I cried like a baby…”. No thanks! But this one I picked up despite the obvious romantic overtones, because the premise was interesting.
A family in which magic is carried - each girl in the family gets her “season”; one year in which every single person she willingly kisses gets good luck for the rest of their lives. It was nice to have some female-led magic that the general population was aware of, and not scared of! So often, we see the trope of magical women being less than, or hated and feared, much like witches of old. In this book however, everyone wants their own little piece of the Holloway Magic, and the girls have been willing to share it for generations. This book was sweet, and funny, and depressing enough that you wanted things to turn out well for Remy. We are tossed straight into the heart of the novel, with Remy starting her season while her older sister Maggie finishes hers. Maggie’s season was perfect, she kissed everyone she wanted to, and enjoyed her time of making people's lives better. Things… don’t go so well for Remy. When her magic turns on her, twisting its purpose into something darker, bringing nothing but bad luck to the boy she kisses, Remy decides she won’t kiss anyone else until she figures out how to break the curse. What comes next was much more than I expected. Remy withdraws from everyone in her family, but in particular, she withdraws from Maggie. Where once they were closer than twins, MaggieandRemy, there is now a wedge between them - Maggie thinks Remy needs to let go of her worries, and trust the magic. But Remy just can’t. The interpersonal dynamics and relationships in this book are really good. Remy’s parents aren’t a huge focus, but they are around, and they do offer their opinions when asked.I loved the way Remy retreated into her baking and music, as this is 100% something people do in real life. The weaving of the magic into the real world was done well as well. It was subtle and gentle and wholly believable. I came into this book expecting a fluffy romance, but what I got was a surprisingly complex book about learning to stand for what you believe in, and how to reconnect with important people when you know you are to blame for the rift. Oh, and all I wanted after reading this book, other than both the hot neighbors to come to life, was whoopie pies! Warning, this book will make you hungry. Content Warnings: injuries from falls, bullying. Overall Rating: 5 stars DON'T LISTEN TO THIS BOOK AT NIGHT, ALONE, IN THE DARK, IN THE SHOWER. OKAY?
Right, now that we have that important note out of the way, let’s get into this quick review. It won’t be a long one, because there’s not a whole lot I can say without spoilering, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad book. Oh. And maybe don’t read this if you have coulrophobia. ‘Kay? This book starts with a death, and it’s quite confronting. We start in the past, with a group of teens spending some time at the local swimming hole (is it possible to say/write that without a country twang?). Things go a little wrong, and someone dies. Then we change POV, and are introduced to a whole new character. Honestly, this is the second time I have tried to listen to this book. The first time, I was so confused and let down by the change, that I just didn’t care about our new character, and gave up. This time through I pushed on, mostly because I was going through an unrecognised depressive patch and simply found the thought of looking for something else to listen to overwhelming. Eventually, I did get relatively drawn into the story again, though my attention wasn’t held the whole way through the book. I do wonder if I would have done better with a print copy, as in hindsight I feel like I want to go back and look up a few things, to make sure I understood what was going on, and who was who, and who was working with who. Maybe one day I will, or maybe one of my lovely readers can fill me in! This book starts out slow, and gives a lot of potentially unnecessary build up. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but put it this way. If you like scary movies, the ones where the killer just starts wreaking vengeance for something the main characters did in the past, you’ll probably like this. If you’re an older person, who just wants to see some teens get what they deserve, you also might enjoy this. Content warnings: gore, death, more death, clowns, more clowns, death of young people. Overall Rating: for me, 3 stars, maybe 3.5. This book is a lot. I mean, it was always going to be, given the topic, but I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out. This is the line in the synopsis that drew me in:
After attending a party with her three best friends, the night ends in a terrible accident that puts Eliza on an operating table. Awake yet paralyzed, in a condition known as anesthetic awareness, Eliza leaves her body and begins a desperate search to discover the fate of her friends. Anesthetic awareness is a crazy phenomenon that actually does exist, and makes me afraid to ever go under for surgery. It’s also something a lot of people don’t know about, which honestly, isn’t a bad thing! I thought the premise was an interesting one, and while I was a little surprised at how far into the sci-fi/supernatural we go, I wasn’t unhappy with it. Our MC wakes up on the operating table, with no recollection of how she got there, or what has happened to her. Desperate to escape the pain and invasiveness of the surgery, she pulls until she is free from her earthly body, and begins to wander the halls of the hospital. Honestly, I thought this book was well done. I enjoyed the journey we went on with Eliza, as she pieced together what happened, and how it happened, and who was to blame. There was a lot of introspection, and guilt, and realizations about how everyone else was going to be affected by this accident, not just her. Eliza made some major growth through this short book, which takes place over less than 24 hours. The author did a good job of blending the flashbacks and the present, and we got to learn about all of the other people involved in a way that made you are about them (for the most part*). There will be people for whom this book doesn’t resonate, and some of that will likely be the sci-fi aspect, of a girl wandering the halls of a hospital while still able to feel the hands of the surgeons inside her. Others may find Eliza hard to relate to, but to me she felt genuine - she wasn’t my favourite person at the beginning, but what teenager is? I remain unsure about the dementia patient being the only person who could see Eliza, but this wasn’t handled particularly badly as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t a “dementia isn’t real, they’re just seeing things”, more of a “there are things beyond our ken” type of situation. I was also pleased to see the way the author explored marital infidelity, and ** (SPOILER) * I did think the best friends could have used a little more fleshing out, but it is a story focusing primarily on Eliza, and how her friends fit into her world, so it wasn’t book-ruining for me. Content warnings: gore, pain, drinking, discussions of drugs (maybe?), drunk driving, car accidents, alcoholism, infidelity, eating disorders, dementia. Overall Rating: a solid 4 stars. **SPOILER the fact that we had a male with an eating disorder made me happy, because we need more representation for this. Wow. Just WOW.
I asked to read this book based on the blurb, because to me it sounded kind of like Hunger Games meets something dark and twisted. Here’s the blurb (or at least the part that called to me): Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate, but they soon discover that everything is tied to a terrifying urban legend called the Echo Game. The game is rumored to trap people in a sinister world underneath the city, and the rules are based on a particularly dark chapter in New York’s past. And if the friends want to save their home and everyone they love, they will have to play the game and destroy the evil at its heart—or die trying. I love urban legends, almost as much as they scare the bejaysus out of me. I don’t know why I am so drawn to horror movies and ghost stories when I am such a giant wuss, but that’s ok! This book was masterful. I went in expecting the Hunger Games type of game, but what I got was more the Elevator Game (if you haven't read about the Cecil Hotel and seen the seriously upsetting video of Elisa Lam, do some reading, but know it is a LOT). I was not mad about this! The author did such a good job of blending the macabre with the everyday, and bring a place I have never been to life. That said, I have never been to America, let alone the Bronx, have never lived in a neighborhood that diverse or charged, and I am white-passing, so I can’t speak to the accuracy there. That all said, I genuinely felt a connection to the places in the story - it was jarring to look up and see bright sun and smiling eyes (no mouths because COVID). The author used their writing, the descriptions, the past pace, the shifts between the past/present/echo to amazing effect. I can understand how people would find it confusing, but I managed to keep up, and it just sucked me in and I had to keep reading. The relationships in this book are as diverse and meaningful as the characters. We have friendship, the start of a maybe-relationship, family dynamics within a split family, school “friends” vs actual friends… And they all work together in a way that feels natural. I felt for our main character Raquel when she had to face an uncomfortable truth - she might be falling for the same girl her best friend has been in love with for years, but the girl likes her, not her friend. This burgeoning romance didn’t take over the whole story, which was nice. It wasn’t like a coming out story, it was just feelings being realised alongside everyday (ha) life. The little parts of religion that are woven in are done well, not overwhelming or too in your face; just enough to make you want to learn more without HAVING to learn more in order to understand and enjoy. Ordinarily, the religion/spiritual aspect of a story calls to me more, but in this book the history was so powerful and so powerfully used, that I now need to do some research. As I said above, I can’t speak to the lived experience, but the author definitely brought to life not only modern day life or Afro-Latinx people in the Bronx, but also the systemic racism and poverty and general asshattery of those in power throughout the generations. It was interesting to have a main character learn things about the place they have grown up in in an organic way, rather than having them start out all “rah rah this is my town, I know everything, I will defend it”. I don’t want to give away the plot, or the dark sh*t that is in the Echo, but I loved that the whole Echo wasn’t based in one area of the world. The Reddit threads show that history is a foundational part of EVERY city, and the author added a whole swathe of world-building simply by tying in other people around the globe who had been to and reported back on their own local Echo. Content Warnings: Guys, this is NOT A FLUFFY BOOK. These may not be all of the warnings, so beware. Gore, violence, racism, homophobia, police violence, gun violence, misogyny, missing family member, sick family member, burning, death, ghosts/spirits. Overall Rating: 5 stars. I received an eARC of this book courtesy of Netgalley and the publisher, in return for an honest review. There’s something to be said for stepping out of your comfort zone. If you know me in real life, there’s a good chance you’ve heard me raging about how much I *HATE* time travel.
Apparently, there’s an exception. I received this book as an advanced review copy from Turning Pages and Penguin Books, and I asked for it despite knowing there may be a time travel aspect, because it's Fleur Beale, and I *LOVE* her work. I’ve been reading her books since I was in primary school, and I’m like, 90% sure I met her in person at a school event. I’m really glad I was approved for this copy, because truth be told I probably would have waited a while to read it, and then regretted it! So, into the review! The story starts with a bang, and I was laughing out loud by the 12th line. “Young ladies do not gossip with the servants. WTF? Servants?” We find out very quickly that something is wrong in this household, with Jamie, our main character’s half brother. He has been getting sicker for a while, and while sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast, he suddenly looks up and begins speaking to a ghost. At least, it could be a ghost, except that the rest of the family can see and touch her. What follows is one of the best time travel books I’ve read. I didn’t find myself getting sucked into a “but if they went back in time then there would have been no reason for the person to come forward in time because it would have all been fixed” paradox. Instead, it made sure that the two timelines were separate but intertwined - without the forward travel, Jamie would die, but without the backward travel, the girls would not have been able to solve the problem. Beale leaned into the fact that social media is pervasive and a person can’t sneeze without the world knowing (at least, these days!). Unlike a lot of time travel stories, there is no time dilation. When Etta is sucked back into the past alongside Constance, she physically vanishes from her own timeline. Of course, this is captured/noticed by a large number of people, and when they return, they have become a viral sensation. This is actually used to the advantage of the girls, when it comes to finding an item from the past. It was nice to see it acknowledged, rather than glossed over “because fantasy”. The juxtaposition of the past and present was something that I did take a little while to adjust to. Once I relaxed into the idea that it was a physical time travel, I was fine. I love historical fiction, and I thought it was really cool to see the side by side reactions of not only someone from our timeline learning about the realities of the past, but also someone from the past beginning to grapple with the idea of women having actual rights was incredibly well done. Setting this at the eve of the suffragette movement was a genius move, as it gave that extra freedom and believability that Constance could have done what she ended up doing. The writing was lovely; I could feel both the chill of the floors in the run-down 1800’s mansion owned by Constance’s parents, as well as smell the antiseptic tinged air of the modern hospitals. Etta didn’t ever compromise herself, even when she was in the past and knew there was a threat of physical danger to herself, she didn’t back down; her love for Jamie was so strong she knew she needed to push onwards. Constance also remained true to herself, though it was lovely to see the blinders of familial respect and obedience begin to fall away. Oh, and I LOVED that the characters in the here and now also used an online currency converter to find out what the amounts mentioned would be worth in today’s money - I 100% did the same thing. Content warnings: abuse (contextually appropriate but still there, beating and punishments in the 1800s) verbal and (discussed) physical, illness, hospitals. Overall Rating: 4.5 stars - I wanted it to be longer! Yes, that’s kinda my only complaint haha. If you asked my friends and workmates whether I was into dance, they would probably tell you no. They’d be wrong.
When I was young, I took Tap Dancing lessons for a while. I remember enjoying it; I remember wishing it was Irish Dancing instead; but mostly I remember playing in the entryway with the other kids, squishing ourselves into the little storage shelves meant for bags and belongings. Hey, I never said I was GOOD at dance. I have however been enjoying the influx of dance-themed movies and books lately. From Step Sisters and Work It on Netflix, to Flowers in the Attic and Tiny Pretty Things (as both a book and a TV show), I love reading about the hard work the dancers go through, and the amazing ways they can push their bodies. So this book caught my eye - it’s set at a ballet boarding school - uh, yes please! Honestly, this book was so good. We meet our main characters in the first scene, and things don’t go too well! With an injury right off the bat, Teddy is in trouble. Taryn, his dance partner for three years, finds her life plan changed - the company she desperately wants to dance for will only take a pair. Enter Jaidev, our third character; a dancer who is haunted by an accident that happened the last time he danced; an accident that had serious ramifications and ended with him being arrested. He doesn’t want to dance anymore, he wants to leave that life behind and try to move on, but his mother won’t let him. I won’t give away too much more about the story, as it was almost a compulsive read. I will note that I was surprisingly on board with the tri-narration; I wasn’t sure it was going to work when I first realised that we had three first-person POVs, but the author did this really well. I liked the open and honest discussions of eating disorders - yes, they are discussed, but it’s a ballet school. There’s no way people would think it was well done if they ignored this aspect, but it was handled sensitively and well, no weight specific descriptions, more focussed on the health and wellness aspect - meetings with nutritionists, therapy sessions. A character also gets a major diagnosis which changes their life, and I felt that was handled really well, it explored how different people react to the same diagnosis in very different ways. And the rep! This book is #ownvoices AroAce, which is awesome! While our characters don’t want to be outed (let’s be real, who does?), it’s not at any point shown as a detriment or a ‘bad thing’ (except by one homophobic nutbag, but we don’t like him and neither do most of the characters). The reader gets to learn about what being aromantic and asexual means, and how there is a spectrum, and how people who identify as these are not all the same. There’s also discussion about being sex-repulsed, and how that too differs from person to person, with some Ace people being willing to engage, while others are physically repulsed. We need more Ace books, and even more so on the Aro side, so I will 100% be recommending this book. In terms of racial rep, Jaidev is Korean, and it’s not until he appears to be being racially targeted that Taryn realises just how homogeneously white her school is. It’s not explored fully, but it’s not brushed off either. I hope the author might dive further into this topic with the subsequent books. Content warnings: medical diagnoses, talk of eating disorders (incl some vomiting*), bullying, racism, homophobia. Overall Rating: 5 stars, no doubt. *spoiler alert* content warning - backstreet abortion. Alright, I read an excerpt of this book MONTHS ago, I think on Epic Reads. At the time, I knew I needed to read the whole book, but I also knew that not everyone would enjoy it the way I would! So, as we go into this, know that there is a content warning for gore, and medical trauma, from page one.
I love me a post apocalyptic book. You’d think that my desire to read these would have waned, given the last two years and the state of the world, but you’d be wrong! I am still reading (and writing) post apoc fiction like it is going out of style, possibly because it’s all still SOMEHOW worse than things are now, and maybe that’s hopeful? *shrugs* We meet our main character, Paige, as she awakens from what she thinks is a nap. However, as she becomes more aware of her surroundings, she realises something is very wrong. Instead of a short, post game nap, she seems to have been asleep for a lot longer, maybe a night? Full consciousness brings awareness of an IV line in her arm, and following the tube leads to more than one banana bag (saline solution), daisy chained together, allowing for constant hydration without the need for human intervention. All of the bags are empty. Desperate for a shower, Paige doesn’t really take much more in until she returns to her room to get dressed (assuming the cold shower is simply the result of her brother using all the hot water). As she gets dressed, she realises she is thin - far thinner than she could possibly be after one night. Things get progressively worse from here. It’s not a spoiler to let you know that Paige is the only member of her family to make it out alive, or that she has been sick. The descriptions here of the bodies of her family are quite graphic, so if you made it past the medical gross then this is your next hurdle. Outside, Paige finds that no-one else seems to be alive. Anywhere. As much as she doesn’t want to believe it, it’s true. The apocalypse has happened, and she is alone. Well, apart from a dog. (Yes, the dog is adorable, and yes, we see a lot of said dog). I won’t go into too much more detail here, because once I picked this book up, I didn’t want to put it down. It was a special purchase, my local had to order it in for me (hello, NZ, we love being so far away from everywhere!), but I don’t regret it at all! It’s got a little bit of Tomorrow When the War Began vibes to it, and that doesn’t hurt at all! I enjoyed the discussions about consent, and the brief touches on gender/sexuality, and how we should respect others, even during the end of the world. This book was more sci-fi than I expected, but I wasn’t mad about it. It’s set in the future (maybe 15 years after now), so there are some mentions of coronavirus that you need to be aware of. I will tell you now that this virus may not have been entirely natural, and that there may be some people who know more than Paige, but that’s really all I’m willing to tell you! If you don’t like sci-fi tho, like if you’re REALLY against it, this might not be the book for you. Content warnings: gore, medical gore, death, plague, pain, loneliness, mentions of COVID times, abusive parents. Overall Rating: 5 stars (and not just because of the dog). |