Adrienne

I'm aware of Dracula and the other monsters referred here by pop culture osmosis, but I haven't read the Stoker or Lovecraft books.

I was still able to enjoy this book as a series of largely disastrous space adventures, told mostly from the point of view of the ship's AI.

Demeter is a fun character, as a ship dropped into multiple impossible situations which, according to her databases, should be fictional. Her vacillation as to whether any of this death is her problem and how can she get the corporation to take her seriously feels very relatable.

Steward, the medical AI, is on some ways even more relatable to me. They're cranky and self interested and convinced of their own cleverness. I really enjoyed the interaction between the two AIs.

The world building feels a little sketchy, in a good and bad way. In a good way, it feels like we barely scratch the service on the human culture of interstellar travel and Earth-colonial relationships. That all feels sufficient to me. How and why the monsters exist and why the limits on their powers feels a bit under explained. What did Dracula want to do with a tame werewolf and why was he traveling to alpha centauri?

Overall, I had a good time reading the book.

This was a great middle grade book about a young person coming out to herself and, eventually, friends and family as nonbinary over the summer. Her gender issues interact with her competitive skating (and a teensy bit with her Judaism, not really at all with being mixed white Chinese.)

I really appreciate that while Ana's gender feels are hers, the book is very clear that people around her have their own problems, and that Ana has sometimes been a bad friend and made her problems worse by not communicating.

I also greatly appreciated that she had a queer elder in the firm of her gay figure skating coach.

This book felt realistic (appropriately heavy phone use, including googling things instead of talking to people) and generous with all of its characters. Great book for kids who are on the cusp of adolescence. If you would give them "Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret" you should also consider getting them this book

Nice romance between two clearly drawn characters. It's missing a little bit of tension in the plot; once they get together they don't have obstacles so much as a few rough spots making their lives fit. But I like both of these guys and I see why they're drawn to each other.

Clearly defined characters with matching baggage. I really understood why they were drawn to each other, what their problems were, and his they for together.

Also, the hockey and the Northern Virginia of it all felt true to life.

I really enjoyed Benji and Olly's story and I would read again

The imagery in this book is vague. The lack of detail makes most of the poetry read more like a collection of slogans than like a human emotion or experience caught and shared.

There is also very little rhyme, rhythm, or prosody of interest.

The different poems turned toward the same language and imagery for expression (honey, sweet, finger, between legs, hairiness). The repetition felt uninspired, rather than meaningful.

I listened to the audiobook and read the ebook. The separation and flow of the poems in both was confusing. There was little clarity about how to chunk the poems (is this couplet a standalone piece? Is it a reply to the following paragraph? Which one goes with the illustration?)

I had the sense that this was supposed to feel daring because of the intimation of sex and violence, but since the child abuse/domestic violence/family resentment both starts on page one and also is so poorly defined that I can't guess what happened to the poet (or her mother; or the subject of the poetry, if it's not the poet) there is no reversal of expectation to result in the shock. The vagueness also prevents any tittilation in the section about good times with a romantic partner.

I've heard Rupi Kaur maligned as an Instagram poet, but I honestly think these poems would have come off better in an Instagram feed, mixed with a hundred other photos about dogs and books and planners and great food and cosplay. In a book, their sameness is stifling; in the feed, it's the brand that helps mark the poetry as coming from the same source.