While looking up this book in our work catalogue, I was confused. I could have sworn that I had read the blurb before, but I knew I had not read the book. A little digging and I realised why: we now had two copies of the same book, under completely different titles! This book was also published under the title Are You Watching?. I always get so confused when authors do this, as it can make ordering books difficult, particularly if you have an author’s books on standing order! I’m not sure why I didn’t pick this book up under its other title, but here we are.
This book caught my eye because a) it’s a murder mystery, and b) it’s about a girl who goes onto a reality TV show in order to catch a murderer. That’s a pretty ballsy move, espicially then the murderer a) killed your mother, and b) took on the name you and your father gave him as his calling card… I loved the idea of the reality TV show; it was based around a number of teens who were all looking to win a prize, but each had their own reason for wanting to be on the show. Their daily lives were filled, from start to finish, and live streamed to their watchers. While this sounds like hell on earth to an introvert like me, our MC, Jess, decides to take her lifelong fight straight to the person who murdered her mother. The premise is sound. Most killers like to see the aftermath of their kills, whether by returning to the scene of the crime and pretending to be a bystander; right through to those like the Zodiac, who taunted the public and the police by communicating directly with them. So, using the ever present social media in order to attempt to shame/draw/lure the killer out makes complete sense. I enjoyed the way we saw the camera work being done, though I also think this could have worked in a more multi-media way, as some screen-play style entries. Jess was pretty likeable; she had some issues, but what teenager who’s mother was the first in a murder string doesn’t? I felt like we got to know enough about her and her father that we cared what happened to them, and I was rooting for her dad the whole way through. The portrayal of his depression was well done as well. It was a little jarring, the way the hunt for the murderer was set alongside Jess’s regular life; for example, the theology trip seemed kind of random, but I’m not overly mad about it. It did add to and further the plot, so it’s not like it was unnecessary. In terms of supporting characters, I couldn’t tell you anything about the other teens in the reality series, other than to wish for a possible spin off about one or more of them, and their histories. Jess’s friends were likewise a little hollow, but they weren’t the main feature of the story so it didn’t ruin the read for me. Content warnings: Murder, depression, suicide attempt, underage drinking, allegations of child abuse. Overall Rating: 4 stars
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I freaking loved this book. I loved the main character, I loved the fact that she wanted to bring her best friend back from the dead to find out what really happened, I loved the supporting characters, and I loved the amount of personal growth the various characters had.
It’s a book about a girl who doesn’t fit in, who’s fat and Latina, and who doesn’t want those things to change. She has her friends, her little slice of life at school, and she’s happy to stick it out and leave her small town when she can. But when her best friend dies, and is labled as being a part of a suicide pact, Mila knows there is no. way. in. HELL! We start the book inside Mila’s head. She’s seriously grieving, given her best friend is dead, and she’s 100% sure that Riley didn’t kill herself. The fact that two of the popular girls died in an apparent suidide pact a week before doesn’t mean that Riley did too. So, Mila does what any self respecting, grieving, teenage witch would do when they find an old grimoire: she decides to bring Riley back, so that she can find out what happened. Unfortunately… she also brings back the two popular girls. Now, she is stuck with three dead teens to corral; three dead teens who revert back to their dead/broken/gory forms when she is more than 100 steps away from them. Guys, this book was hilarious. Like, I have a dark and twisted sense of humor that I sometimes have to keep inside, and this book was here for all of that. It was equal parts sad and grief filled, funny and dark, and straight up a great story about friendship. It’s not a zombie book, and it’s not really a Wicca book, it’s just a book about being a teenager and all the problems that you get to face, and how it’s a whole lot easier to face those with the family you create by your side. There’s a lot of emotional growth with all parties involved, including the popular girls. I don’t want to tell you any more, because it’ll ruin the story, but honestly, it’s just wonderful. The characters are well thought out, the actions of same make complete sense, and as a bonus, it’s own voices race and fatgirl, which we love! Content Warnings: Death, undeath, redeath, dead bodies, gore, grief, emotions, discussions of suicide, murder. Overall Rating: 5 stars Wow. I just finished this book, and wow. I feel like I need to go for a walk and clear my head! I received this book as an eARC via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.
Before I get into anything, know that this book is heavy. It covers self harm, mental illness, rape, revenge porn, bi-erasure and a whole bunch of other things. I am 100% not saying don’t read it, because it was amazing, but yeah. Be warned. Whenever I think of the play Julius Caesar, I get tired. We had to study it for English one year, and it is the only book I have ever fallen asleep reading. Twice. So I can’t speak for how well the Shakespeare retelling aspect went, but I did enjoy the format of this book. Despite being told from a number of points of view, it came together well, and I was invested in all the characters, which is impressive. Written as a thesis-type paper by a student who is retelling a scandal that happened at their high school a few years earlier. It’s written as a series of interviews, interspersed with journal entries, speeches, and other rememberings. I wasn’t sure how this would work, being that there were a number of different voices, but the author did a really good job of it. We are learning about something that has happened, and seeing it through a lens of hindsight, and while this is evident in parts, it’s not at all overwhelming or preachy. I won’t go into plot detail, as I don’t want to spoil things. The original scandal took place just after the election of a certain reality TV star as President of the USA, and tracks the way this had an impact on teenagers. While the line "If the right person had been elected president of the United States, none of this bullshit would have happened” does occur, and did make me laugh, it’s about more than this. Author did an impressive job of not naming said President, so Kudos! This book has a lot of rep. We have lesbians, we have gays, we have a trans demi-girl, we have a list at the beginning which lets us know each characters pronouns. We have a male (yes!) with Bipolar, who is medicated, and a person with OCD. I think what drew me in was the take the author had on the toxicity of the LGBT+ community at times. As an omnisexual cis female, with a very close non-binary lesbian friend, the discussions about so called “gold star lesbians” and how toxic that mindset is actually is something we talk about a lot. Bi-erasure is real, and this book really digs into why people get so defensive and cliquey. Honestly, I loved this book. The character growth was amazing, across all the characters. It was a little like a Nickelodeon show, where parents are just a set of legs, but to me, that gave it a feeling of genuineness - I sure as shit wasn’t talking to my parents about this stuff at that age, I thought I was well grown. Content Warnings: a lot. Drinking, drugs, mental health, rape, revenge porn (kind of), Trump, bi-erasure, self harm, bullying, injury. Overall Rating: 5 Stars I am very glad I didn’t grow up during the Cold War. As an anxious person, I was enough of a nightmare for my parents when I learned that the Sun was going to explode one day. Note: it is, but I have become far less worried about it, because if it does we probably won’t get any warning, and it would be very quick. The idea of living in the shadow of something man-made and as destructive as the nuclear bombs which were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima… let’s just say that while I know it’s still a possibility, I can put it on my list as highly unlikely. But back then, it was a genuine and constant worry. This was new warfare; it was unknown territory. No-one had experienced anything as suddenly destructive as the nuclear attacks, and the devastation that they had caused. While the air raids of WWI and WWII were also targeted to more than just the military, and many, many civilians were killed, the nuclear drop caused more long term effects, due to the radiation and nuclear fallout. People now had to prepare not only a bomb shelter, but to also prepare a way of surviving in the shelters for up to two weeks - until the radiation had fallen to non-lethal (immediate) levels. I can only imagine how much this must have affected the lives of both children and adults during this time. It must have been awful living each day with the fear that at any moment the sirens would go off, heralding the coming of nuclear destruction.
Taylor did a great job of making this anxiety feel palpable during Connie’s chapters, while still having life as normal move on around her. Life didn’t just stop because of the threats of the Cold War, and I was impressed by how well this was balanced. I listened to the audiobook format, and while I often stay away from audiobooks with multiple narrators, I enjoyed this one. The audio narrator only changed when the chapter narrator changed, and the voices were different enough to make it easy to know which character, and therefore which timeline, you were listening to. As I mentioned in another post, this book is set in a high school (in this case, the same school in two different time periods), and it felt like a realistic high school. It is a private boarding school, so there is a definite mix of characters across the socioeconomic ranges. Our main character in the ‘now’ timeline has been sent to the school by her parents, and is struggling to find a way to fit in with her new peers. She finally makes a connection with a classmate, and is quickly sucked into the orbit of a secret society - complete with initiations, a motto, and alumni who can make basically any employment or college dream you have come true. Despite missing the cross-country team tryouts, her new friends are able to get her onto the team, and she meets a boy (of course), who has a less favourable view of the school - his cousin died there in a tragic accident back in the 1960’s. In the 1960’s meanwhile, a hot young teacher called Andy is the talk of the school. Well, Andy and the looming threat of the Cold War. When the school builds a fallout shelter, Andy offers 6 students the opportunity to spend a week in the shelter. We follow Connie, a young girl who is terrified about the thought of a bomb falling, as she spends some time in the shelter with her best friend, her crush, and her crush's girlfriend. The flow between the timelines is well done, and I enjoyed trying to figure out how the two crossed paths. The characters are well developed, and I found myself rooting for different characters as the book progressed. There’s no insta-love, and we see other aspects of the high school other than the secret society, which was nice. I particularly loved the D&D aspect! I think the biggest issue I had with this book was the age of the shelter-era kids at the end. I just felt like they acted/read too young for their ages - I know some 70+ year olds are young and spry, but I know a lot who aren’t. Content Warnings: death, discussions of war, intimidation and bullying. Overall Rating: 4 Stars OH MY GOD. This book. Just wow.
Okay, so the blurb for this book made me pass it by a couple of times. Here’s the blurb: Raina Petree is crushing her senior year, until her boyfriend dumps her, the drama club (basically) dumps her, the college of her dreams slips away, and her arch-nemesis triumphs. Things aren’t much better for Millie Goodwin. Her father treats her like a servant, and the all-boy Mock Trial team votes her out, even after she spent the last three years helping to build its success. But then, an advice columnist unexpectedly helps Raina find new purpose in a pair of knitting needles and a politically active local yarn store. This leads to an unlikely meeting in the girls’ bathroom, where Raina inspires Millie to start a rival team. The two join together and recruit four other angry girls to not only take on Mock Trial, but to smash the patriarchy in the process. But I was bored, and my ADHD brain couldn’t choose anything I wanted to listen to, so I decided to give it a go. GUYS. Just read it. It has knitted vaginas (and vulva, and clitorises (? clitori? - goes to Google, says clitorises or cliterides - there you go, we both learned something); spunky old ladies who are willing to stand up for the rights of women of all ages; a little romance but not too much; and good LGBT+ rep! If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know how much crafting has been a literal life saver for me. So, listening to this book, when one of our MC’s was given advice after a breakup - go to your Local Yarn Store and learn to knit - I knew I would listen to the whole book. It’s true: crafting is good for your mental health. Side note, the ladies at this particular LYS are AMAZING, and honestly, I think sometimes we forget that older people were young once, and had all the same “dirty” thoughts we do, did all the “kinky” things we do, and that it doesn’t just go away because you get older. (If you want proof, play Cards Against Humanity with my 80yo Nana.) I loved the craft aspect of this book, and how Raina kept up with it, even when things in her life began to improve. It was a central theme, and highlighted how making something for someone else can be cathartic and healing; as well as the fact that learning a new hands-on skill can be enough to make your mind step back from the edge of the spiraling pit. I wasn’t 100% sold on the dual narration. I understand why they did it, but it wasn’t as developed as I feel like it needed to be. I was listening to the eAudio, so I didn’t get as much out of the chapter headings as I might have done had I been reading a print copy. But yeah, I didn’t feel enough of a difference in the voice of the characters, and near the end, when the friend groups overlapped, I couldn’t rely on the surrounding characters in order to figure out who was talking. The LGBT+ rep was good, from a cis-bi POV anyway. As someone who has a number of Ace friends, I enjoyed that there was a discussion of how Ace doesn’t mean just no relationships. I think the sentiment was ‘I may not want sex but kissing and romance aren’t sex’. It’s always nice to see an explanation, and a good explanation, about how sexuality isn’t the same for everyone who identifies as that sexuality. There was a solid mix of LGBT+ characters, and a discussion about deadnaming and trans identities. Honestly, I will be recommending this book to people - I already have ahaha - despite the flaws. There was A LOT crammed into the book, two different plots running side by side and interweaving, and it could have been longer, but overall, a solid book. Content warnings: mention of reproductive organs, maybe some swearing, homophobia/transphobia. Overall Rating 4.5 stars Hoo-boy. I picked up this book based on its cover, I won’t lie. The cover is gorgeous, and after reading it, it’s interesting to look at, in a new light.
Our story starts with a disagreement among best friends, which results in a forest fire. By the time the fire is out, numerous lives have been lost, and the five “monsters” - a nickname gained when they were children - are set on a path that gets darker and darker. This book might be about a wildfire, and the destruction that they can cause, as well as the serious repercussions it can have legally and ethically, but at its burning heart, it’s about a group of teens who are realising that just because you have been friends forever, as you grow up, things change. I don’t want to go into detail, because the plot is pretty simple, and I don’t want to ruin it. It’s a quick read, and I think the author did a great job of really capturing that dynamic between friends who have always been friends, and how things get messy when that starts to fall apart. Set in the summer before they all go away to college, it’s a time in a teenagers life when many realize that they are changing, and growing up, and growing away from the things and people they have used to define themselves. Look, it’s just good, ok? It’s also a great story about how quickly things can get out of control, and turn into something far bigger than you expected. As a reader, I didn’t see all of the ways things spiraled, and that’s always a good thing. As an allegory, it’s well paced, realistic, and honestly kind of scary. We’ve all lied, and we’ve all had to double down on a lie. This really took that to the extreme, but in a way that was believable. Content Warnings: language, injuries, drug use, death, wildfire, descriptions of wildfire, animal death. Overall Rating: 5 stars I don’t pick up books just because they have a fat girl on the cover. I don’t pick up books because they have a Black person on the cover. Honestly, half the time I don’t even look at the covers. But I know how important it is that we have this representation, so yay for this book cover!
While this book is set at a Fat Camp, it’s really body positive! I was gonna say “our main character is perfectly happy with being bigger than sample size”, but then I remembered that there are in fact SIX main characters. That is perhaps the main downside to this book, by the way. All six of our main characters are at the Camp for non-traditional reasons. Vee, who we see on the cover, is perfectly happy with being above sample size. She has been sent to Camp by her mother, who is less happy about it. Allie, who’s sister is a movie star, is there to make a movie - not that she’s told anyone this. The boys are there for other reasons - espionage being just one. And Rachel… well, I’ll leave that for you! Things go bad from the offing; a blizzard strikes, and the Camp van is delayed in it’s arrival. When they finally get there, the camp is in chaos because of the storm, and because there may or may not be a missing person. Sent to their cabin, we get to know the cast of teens a little better. Then… there are zombies. And they’re not your standard, slow, shuffling zoms. I won’t go into detail about how the zoms are created, but it was really interesting to see the teens find out, and watch the story unfold. This book was honestly hilarious, and while I wasn’t the biggest fan of the ending, I really enjoyed the journey. The moving between the characters was a little confusing, though again, I was listening to the audiobook. While there were multiple narrators, which helped a lot, I found it confusing that each of the characters referred to the other teens with various names - one would call him Sheldon, the next Smentkowski. This was what I found confusing, but I’m rubbish with names at the best of times! The audiobook was enjoyable. I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks, and it’s a good sign that this one has stuck with me. I would read it again; it’s just the right mix of dark humor and semi-decent science (I say semi, because I didn’t research it). Content Warnings: Gore, fatphobia, gore, zombies, death Overall Rating: 4.5 stars I am a HUGE fan of Mindy McGinnis. I loved Heroine so much, and this book just sounded so amazing. So I took it home with me when we went back into a surprise lockdown, and I am so glad I did.
I love me a good survival story. And I love a female character who doesn’t give a shit if people don’t like her. Ashley is a girl who has grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, with a family life that isn’t perfect. She’s had to take care of herself since she was young, and it’s given her a sense that if something needs to be done, she can do it. At a party in the woods one night, Ashley finds her boyfriend in a… compromising situation with another girl (his ex-girlfriend to be precise). Drunk, Ashley runs from the situation, and finds herself injured, at the bottom of a ravine. I won’t go into too much detail, but Ashley knows that she needs help, and that her friends don’t know the woods like she does. Worried that they will leave assuming she was mad and went home, she decides to make her own way out of the woods. What follows is a story that keeps you hooked. I don’t know if Mindy McGinnis is a woodsman, but the detail in this book is wonderful. I loved Hatchet, I loved the way you learned each small step with Brian, and this book was the same. I didn’t know you could make rope from your own hair, but now I do! Despite this being a fiction book, I learned a lot. There is an aspect to this book that I expect some people won’t like, and that’s the fact that you are alone with Ashley. If you don’t like her, this might be a slog. I personally enjoyed being in her mind, and learning more about how she thought, what she believed in, and her own personal demons. It was very much a story of self examination and discovery, which seems to be an underlying theme for McGinnis. Content warnings: there’s discussions of sex, probably language (I have a high tolerance for this so I’m not totally sure), injury, dead things/people, gore, discussions of drugs, pain. Overall Rating: 5 stars I was so grumpy when this book finished and I realised it was part of a series AND THIS FIRST ONE ISN’T BEING PUBLISHED UNTIL NEXT YEAR *cries pitifully*
Anyway… When I started this book I wasn’t 100% sold. There are some issues with it in terms of things that could be tightened up; world building that could have been a little stronger etc. We see a lot of the book from Emilee/Emery’s perspective, and she can be a little boring, more of a watcher than a participant in her own life. I understand that is her personality type, but I do think some harsher editing/rewriting wouldn’t go too far amiss here. My other biggest issue (and it’s minor but it broke the flow EVERY time) was the pronunciation of Famoux. In my head, for the first chapter or two, it was Fame-oh - my own bastardised attempt at what I assumed was French in origin - or maybe Fame-OX, like the animal. However, just like She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named* gave us a lesson in how to pronounce Hermione vis Viktor Krum, the author does give us a lesson, and the word is pronounced Fame-Ecks. This… bugged me! I wonder if having the explanation at the beginning - like when it’s done as a dictionary entry to set the tone of the book - would have made it less jarring, as I wouldn’t have had to correct myself EVERY time I read it? In terms of storyline, I loved it. It’s dystopian sci-fi meets Big Brother style reality TV. That’s basically where I would like to live. The plot was good; there were things I saw coming and things I didn’t. I think I wish there was more time getting to know the Famoux - it felt as though because the population of the world in-book knew everything, it was assumed we did too. I would have loved more scenes without our MC before her name change - maybe some past scenes in the Fishbowl, or even overheard discussions about the Famoux? The main storyline needs the full cast, but we get too much inside Emilee/Emery’s head, and it can be a little self absorbed. Overall, the story was good. I wanted to read the next one, and I don’t want to have to wait! Loses a couple stars because of editing/world-building issues as above, but I would recommend it to others! Content Warning: bullying, body-shaming (it’s been a little while, nothing too triggering is coming to mind. Correct me if I’m wrong please!) Overall Rating: 3.5 stars *I personally don’t hate the Harry Potter BOOKS. But I 100% stand with the LGBT+ community, particularly the Trans community, in defense against the damaging things SHMNBN has said recently. As always, I am willing to have a discussion with anyone regarding this - I am not perfect! |