Reviews and Comments

As a white female in the USA, this book hit me in all of the uncomfortable ways. But that's how I should feel when reading books where I am not the target audience, and that is the whole reason that I have been working to diversify my reading more.

Sidney is a biracial girl who has been raised by her white family while her actual father has spent her whole life in jail after wrongly being accused and convicted of a crime. Their struggles to face their new realities and find themselves in this new America where Black people are able to dance in the streets, celebrate holidays as they please, and just to finally feel like they can breathe without offending someone at the risk of their lives.

I knew the general grasp of what had caused the event by the time they arrived to Alabama. I was really surprised but happy that we were going to find out what caused it. But it also lead to some massive discomfort that I've been sitting with and thinking on.

This is not a cut-and-dry book. There are so many emotions, thoughts and uncertainties that it honestly got a little overwhelming at times. The MCs bounce back and forth between their beliefs and thoughts as they are attempting to find out who they are. That provides a lot of information to chew on and attempt to process in a fairly short span of time.

I have a lot of feelings that I need to work through on this one. I recommend it, but just know that it's not a light read by any means.

Disclaimer: This is a YA book, so I did not judge it harshly in an attempt to compare it to adult book expectations.

This book was like taking The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson, and Mexican culture and throwing it all into the blender. I really enjoyed a mythology book that was not centered around Greek mythology. Thomas is also amazing at incorporating diversity into his books, and this one had it in spades. A semidiós is deaf and even the bad guys have enough knowledge of sign language to be able to tell what's being said. LGBTQ+ representation is shown through the entirety of the book. Teo, the MC, is trans and still struggles with accepting himself because his feathers are still the feminine brown colors. The overall acceptance of the characters choosing to be themselves and receiving full support of everyone -even the mortals- was amazing.

I really loved Cemetery Boys with Yadriel struggling with his family not accepting his gender and refusing to allow him to partake in the brujo traditions, but this book overtakes it. Both are amazing, but the amount of culture and love and respect that was shown through this was such a nice change. With Teo, you get to experience a Trans boy who is still struggling with his identity even with unwavering support from everyone. That's not a perspective that I've really seen at this point.

I would definitely recommend this one. I laughed a lot. Niya and Teo's banter was top notch and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it in the next book.

Still not great by any means, but it held my attention more than Neon Gods did. The plot was more active in this one, but it took a back burner too many times for the convenience of stretching the book out so you got more interaction from the MCs. It went with the political intrigue a little too heavy when it didn't really help move the story along. I also didn't care much for the influencer stuff.

The connection to the first is barely there, the biggest connection being Zeus becoming a likeable character (due to the events in the 1st book) and Persephone living in the Underworld with Hades. Because Roberts gives a quick rundown of what happened, this can fully be treated as a stand-alone.

I found it enjoyable enough that I'm going to give the 3rd book a shot. But that one is going to make or break my continuing with the series. We'll see how it goes.

This book shall be my go-to reference for enjoyable stories that leave you with no answers for what is going on. We don't even know if they're on earth or not. Everything written in the book is learned through the main character who has never known life outside of the bunker. It adds an extra flair of surrealism as she gets to see and witness all these new things that the other women with her took for granted.

This copy contains an afterward referencing Jacqueline's family having to flee their home during the Nazi invasion and the likelihood that the other bunkers full of dead bodies was influenced by the concentration camps. This added an entirely new level to the book for me.

Another audiobook that was well-done. The narrator did a really great job at conveying the innocence that the MC would have had due to not knowing the world and that information being held from her because what's the point in teaching it since they will all die in the bunker and she will never experience a semblance of what life once was.

This is one that I will be buying a copy of. Highly recommend.

I listened to the audio book for this one, and I highly recommend it. Ellis Evans did a really great job bouncing between goofy fun conversations and serious moments. I gave it an extra star because of it. I laughed out loud in my car many times.

This has been toted as being a enemies-to-lovers romance, and that's absolutely not it at all. They are "entered" into a competition to prove that they should be the one that will marry Iris (all 3 involved characters have no interest in this marriage), but they're going along while trying to figure out what the driving factor is between this push for an arraigned marriage. There's a lot more political drama through this book, so just be prepared for that. This is another moment where I'm glad that I don't read the blurbs before I read.

This is my first holiday-themed book, so I'm not sure if it's quite my jam yet. But the characters were adorable, and there was a lot of communication between all, not just the MCs. It also didn't feel like there was a lot of random fluff thrown in, and the steamy scenes weren't just thrown into random spaces for entertainment purposes. The steam was a little diluted with a lot of talking (consent, consent, consent) and Coal's insecurities were a constant point of discussion between the two.

I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if we got to see a little from Hex's POV. This was straight from Coal's perspective only. Even just an epilogue with a peek through Hex's eyes would have been fine. It just emphasized the feeling that he's more of a background character. I wanted to see more of him.

I'll be picking up the next in this series to follow with Kris' story.

SPOILERY Interesting take by having Santa be the holiday mafia boss with capitalistic greed.

Very light spoiler that pertains to the progression of the book

I did really enjoy the view of history that I've not seen covered in a book before. I got through the first part pretty quickly due to not wanting to put the book down. But then it just started dragging. I was avoiding reading because I didn't want to be reminded that I had this on my phone waiting to be finished.

SPOILERISH I also got to the point that my first though when being introduced to a new character was "ok and how long until they die?" END SPOILERISH

This should have been a DNF for me, but I'm still going to give it 2 stars because I really did appreciate Min Jin Lee bringing forward the racism and disparity that Koreans faced during that time. I cannot begin to fathom leaving your birth country and then have no country want to claim you as a citizen.

I just wish some of the parts would have been slimmed down a little more.

This book was pretty dang intense. I don't think there was actually a happy moment that happened throughout. Even in the day-to-day events, it just felt like everyone trudging along. My biggest gripe is that it drags on too much. It took a surprising amount of time to even get to the murder that spurs the rest of the book on. It has magical realism woven throughout, but it blurs the line a little too much for my liking. I'm still not entirely sure what was going on with a lot of parts.

It's labeled as a murder-mystery, but there's no real mystery or even suspense through the book until the ending. If you go into it expecting a coming-of-age story with magical realism blurred throughout, you'll probably find it more enjoyable. The expectation that was given through the marketing was not met at all. A quick reminder of the reason why I try to never read the blurbs for books. I would be willing to give Alering's next book a go, though.

Beatrice Sparks was evil incarnate.

I picked this book to read after reading Go Ask Alice last year and then learning that it was fake and not even based on a real person's diary at all. Sparks just completely fabricated it to try to discourage drug use in teens. It brought up the interesting point that there is no official labeling system for books and it's ultimately left up for the authors and publishers to decide, so Alice was labeled as nonfiction even though it was completely falsified. Another example of this is A Million Little Pieces, which was titled and advertised as a memoir until someone happened to realize that at least one portion of his story was not possible and everything tumbled down after that.

After reading Go Ask Alice and finding out the truth, this book happened to pop up on a random search through catalogues for books I wanted to try to read this year. I had no idea how deep everything would run. I saw the title and chuckled to myself a little because it seemed like such an odd thing to be tying so many topics together. But it all does tie together. Go Ask Alice was used to fuel the war on drugs. Spark's other big hit, Jay's Journal, was used to spiral everyone into the Satanic Panic.

For Jay's Journal, Sparks was given a real diary from a grieving parent who's son committed suicide. She wanted her son, Alden Barrett, to be able to help other teens work through issues and hoped his death would prevent others from allowing themselves to spiral so horribly. The problem was, Sparks added a whole lot of fabrication to the journal before publishing it to make it seem like Alden (aka Jay) was into witchcraft and satanism and that's what caused him to kill himself in a ritualistic manner. The worst part is that when Sparks left in some of the actual journal entries, she didn't remove the information that would have made it easy for people to figure out the town that the "journal" came from and circle it back to the poor family that was still grieving the loss. The worst thing is that when people decided to look into the authenticity of Jay's Journal, not a single person spoke to his parents to find out if it had happened and instead just relied on whatever Sparks responded with.

Emerson did a really good job at explaining the parallel lines that connected these "journals" to the war on drugs and satanic panic. If you've ever wondered about what helped to fuel these "wars", this is definitely a good one to pick up. This book had way more than I expected and just kept shocking me with the information. Do recommend.

This book went through a decent amount of tropes without making it boring. There's an age gap (though not in a way that gives you the ick), he is her ex-friend's brother, there's some miscommunication thrown in (in a plausibly believable way that doesn't just make them out to be idiots), and rich man with a woman who is trying to break out in her job.

Having diversity in the main characters is always refreshing, and they are actually quite wholesome together. They're completely respectful of each other and honestly the book dragged a little a times because they were, like, actually working through their relationship like an ideal couple in real life would. There's so much toxicity thrown around in other spicy books, so it was a big surprise to realize that this wouldn't be having that for driving the plot along. Added bonus that it actually made me laugh.

The spice was very very good, too. I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed the narrator. I would definitely recommend this if you want to try out a spicy book without the risk of heavy emotional damage.

I really enjoyed this book. It was quite a fun ride, but the ending was just...not very good. This was written by the same author that wrote Oona Out of Order so it took me by surprise when the book started going. This is definitely more on the thriller/suspense end of things, so it was quite different from the previous book. The books did both have one similar thing: the pop culture references. I think Montimore likes to flex her knowledge in that area throughout her books. Any and every reason that she could find to reference a band or a song was taken full advantage of.

Even still, I did enjoy the book up until the end. The ending just fell very flat and just irritated me. I've read other books that have an ending where you're left questioning how things turned out and not getting an answer but it was done well to a point that it didn't bother me. I'm not sure if she just dragged it out too much, if I was just expecting the ending, or what the deal was. But it did not work for me.