jelly
What attracted me to this book: the cover and the tags (Gay Romance, Erotic Romance, Science Fiction Romance, Space Romance, Kinky Romance, Smut Romance, Polyamory, Queer Characters, Novels, and Debut)
What kept me reading: the quality of the writing, the intrigue, and how hot the sex scenes were!
Who I would recommend this book to: seriously anyone who loves a good erotic romance!
This book absolutely blew me away. I don't remember the last time I enjoyed reading a book as much as I did this one. It had everything I loved: sci-fi setting, cool and intriguing queer non-binary polyamory kinky characters, sooooo many ups and downs and emotional moments, a super diverse cast of characters where every one is completely distinct from each other, and an ending that got me guessing till the end. The ending!!!!! It was so hard to read but I really like that the author chose it. My heart...
Niska Morrow, please please pleaaaaaaaaaase write more! I want to read your next book today!
This was such a trip, it taught me that self-published weird and kinky books are where my heart is now haha <3. LOVE IT!
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Is it my favorite poetry collection ever? Maybe. Possibly. Yes.
This collection is about love, about friendship, about softening your eyes, listening, living life with kindness. I listened to it while walking in nature and it was just the perfect time and place. I will start again from the start and listen to it again in the coming days. This collection has such a soothing effect on me.
Audiobook ARC provided by Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing, so beautifully read by the author Elena Brower.
This anthology of trans and nonbinary stories originated as a successful Kickstarter project, initially featuring 18 autobiographical stories. In its 2023 edition, the concept has been expanded, inviting 29 artists to share their personal journeys of self-care and acceptance.
Diverse and Validating:
Reading this anthology, I experienced a deep sense of validation. The collection embraced diversity, showcasing a wide range of perspectives, identities, and experiences. However, I did hope for even more diversity, which I'll elaborate on below.
Expectations and Rating:
Having held high expectations for this book, I initially anticipated giving it a stellar 5-star rating. However, upon completion, I feel it falls slightly short, earning a 4-star rating. The main issue was the sense of repetition evident in some of the stories toward the end of the anthology.
Room for Improvement:
One aspect that left me disappointed was the lack of representation for intersex, agender, and two-spirit individuals. With such a significant number of artists involved (29 in total), I believe it would have been valuable to include these perspectives as well.
Conclusion:
Despite my reservations, I still wholeheartedly recommend this anthology. It offers a powerful and diverse collection of stories that highlight the importance of self-care and acceptance for trans and nonbinary individuals. However, I hope that future editions will strive for even greater inclusivity to ensure that the richness of all identities within the community is represented.
This book is an insult to the way the internet works.
(this is a cheesy title, but not as cheesy as the book itself)
Pro: The art is good
Cons:
- There is a clear lack of diverse representation. Everyone is thin and white. It feels like a book from the early 2000s.
- Who is the lead and the savior? a white man.
- The portrayal of sisters feels clichéd and outdated.
- The publisher's summary of the book doesn't even match the plot of book (never seen that before). Sofia is not propelled into the digital world, we just follow her avatar made out of all her digital data, which is vastly different.
- Speaking of plot, face-palm, it makes no sense that suddenly there is no more space on the internet. Connect another computer to the internet, and voilà, you have more space on the internet. And it makes even less sense that people would be limited to a life-time 30GB of data (we use this amount so quickly).
- Even if I try to imagine a sci-fi scenario where the internet would be limited and the data restricted, the author doesn't grasp what the internet is and the plot falls flat.
- And that's not all! The book is short, but the narration is very confusing. I would have expected it to be a standalone with an actual resolution. Instead, the book ends on a cliffhanger with most of the plot and the characters' background unexplained. That was odd.
- And then there are the masks haters, the malevolent shop owner, and the rescuers with ‘68 vibes, all coming across as gauche, cheesy, and heavy-handed. The overarching message is that “Spending time on the internet is bad, being in nature is good”. I would have appreciated some nuance here.
Overall, I do not recommend this book, particularly if you only read the first volume. It lacks structure and coherence, and the theme failed to capture my interest.
Thank you Netgalley and Europe Comics for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I received a copy of the audiobook by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Even if the quality of the recording is far from professional, there is a rawness and intimacy in hearing the author narrate her own book, hearing hesitations in words, objects falling on the desk, and pauses after particularly emotional moments.
This is a rare kind of book. A book where someone decides to share the reality of living with an addiction, just like a shadow following you everywhere and taking control of your brain. She calls the sex addition a fantasy addition, and explains how often it is paired with eating disorder. Her mindset coach, who helped her find new ways to cope with her life and heal from her addictions, wrote the preface and the final conclusion of the book.
There is something about finding mirrors, something about finding raw self-published testimonies that reveal parts of yourself and help you heal. This is one of these books. I recommend it highly.
As an immigrant coming from Europe, my view of the US countryside can be quite romanticized, edging closer to my childhood experience (Europe) than to the American countryside itself. I view it as huge natural spaces where I could grow fruit trees, let my dog run in the backyard, and have enough room to fully stretch out on the patio. But then, I am also gender fluid and in a queer and biracial relationship. So I know that my ideal view of the countryside would be tinted by how people might view me and my wife, as well as my own sense of safety and integrity. So sometimes, I need to read a book like this one to remind me that romanticizing a place keeps the pros of a community but removes the aspects that are less than welcoming.
This is the story of Navied and his wife, who, tired from the daily commute in the Bay Area, decide to buy a plot of land in Idaho and make it their home. They will hire Amish people to build and deliver, by the road, the foundation of their home, lay their own wood floor and ceramic tiles, plant their kitchen garden, and little by little make their new house a home. Some of their neighbors will be friendly, especially cooking Navied elk kebabs, some less so, clearly displaying a note on the front store that people coming from ‘over there' are not welcome ‘here.'
Most of the pages are about Navied's exploration of nature, learning to recognize with his wife the birds and tracks of animals in the snow, getting enough wood to keep them warm through the winter, and deciding (or not) to get a hunting license.
Ultimately, the book will be about deciding what makes a land a home, what traditions and culture we gain from a place, and what kind of life they would want their future family to have.
It was a sobering story, filled with beautiful art and a smooth narrative. I would highly recommend it.
Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
More accurate titles: “How I joined the murderers to help the victims”, or “a privileged college-educated US citizen joins the US Patrol to understand the pleas of migrants, which he apparently didn't learn from his international relationships and border policies college classes”, or “How I stayed for four years at the Patrol, choosing every day to participate and witness dehumanizing acts, and only decided to leave after receiving a paid scholarship to study abroad”. Is this book problematic? Yes. Is it well written? Yes. Should we listen to the voices of undocumented people instead? Yes
Note: if someone thinks murderer is too strong of a word, how would you call someone who destroys and pees on the migrants' belongings, empty their water supply (or doesn't protest when colleagues do so) and then simply drives home, leaving hidden migrants to their death in the scorching desert. Well of course the author has nightmares, and we get pages and pages of them, but are we supposed to sympathize?
This book was long and repetitive. We follow the life of Tia Torres, an animal rescuer who specializes in wolves, wolf-hybrids and pitbulls. Each chapter is dedicated to one pittbull that she adopted, and we learn all about their personalities, quirks, and back stories. The issue is that each chapter reads like a stand-alone story, and we get introduces to their life setting over and over again. I think we got a description of their move to Louisiana 7 or 8 times. It was that repetitive.
The other thing that bothered me if that the author can be quite judgmental. She criticizes how judgmental her “middle- to upper-class” neighbors are, while being quite judgmental herself: “These particular people have more skeletons in their own closets than probably the entire valley, yet they love to gossip and spread horrible rumors about others. This is especially bad among the women who spend their time sleeping with other women's husbands and shoving cocaine up their noses while judging everyone else's behavior”.
All in all, we can tell that she is a tough person and that she absolutely adores each and every single one of her dogs, always placing their needs first, but I wish I could have learned more about the rescue itself, especially in Louisiana.