Michelle

Finally getting to this eARC I received from NetGalley.

I don't regret reading this book, but it was a bit too slow for me and too long.

However, I learned something about the Sami people and how they were treated. In this story, we learn about 4 times the Sami people have been flooded out of their homes for the industrial "progression" of Norway. The way the government spoke about these people was racist as hell.

"don't loan money to the Lapps because they can't be trusted."

These people were basically kept in poverty by design. They couldn't own property because the government said they didn't need that. That they were content living in tents. Just...wow. I want to learn more about these people. I'm also just now finding out that the indigenous group depicted in Frozen 2 is based on the Sami people, so...that's cool.

I'm going to pick up more work from creators with this background.

I love how much research Kennedy does to talk about characters with issues they are usually pushed off to the margins and not spoken about. I've now read from KR that have discussed pregnancy loss and depression, autism, and now we have Verity.

Our female main character in this book has bipolar disorder. This is a disorder that I've not seen displayed in a way that is not...exploitative? Manipulative? Weaponized? This is one of the first times I've seen a character with bipolar disorder handled with care. I want to see how she'd handle schizophrenia or psychosis. I now trust her with these issues and teach me something new.

Verity experiences her very first cycle of depression and mania. We meet her in a moment of stability and watch as she starts to spiral through mania that costs her her relationship with Wright “Monk” Bellamy.

That first cycle showed us how cops are not the best to help with mental health crisis and how much compassion (or the lack there or) can turn you in a different direction.

However brief Monk and Verity's relationship was, it was pivotal for them both. They were soul mates.

We are introduced to them again after 12 years where they've come into their own. Verity is a golden globe winning screenwriter and Monk has made a big splash in the music industry. They are both hired to work on a biopic about an ignored Harlem Renaissance icon, Desi Blue.

That pull that they felt towards each other is still there and they have a decision to make about each other.

I loved this couple so much. I loved their exploration. I listened to the audiobook and the music?!?!?! Loved everything about this.

The writing was absolutely beautiful.

Edie....the way I feel about the MC of The Coldest Winter Ever is the same way I feel about Edie.

I'm so happy I wasn't like this in my 20s.

Rebecca, girl, leave him!!! Akila 😭😭😭 girl, good luck.

Based on this one, I expect the third one to get real and a little scary.

Thank you to NetGalley and Heartdrum for this eARC. Heartdrum is becoming a favorite imprint of mine.

This was absolutely beautiful. I love novels in verse. I wish I had listened to the audiobook while reading this, as I feel it would have been quite atmospheric.

This story follows a teen girl named Aouli who is dealing with struggles at home with her mother, father, and older sister. It is a coming-of-age story about Aouli finding her own wings, meeting a boy who sees her for who she truly is rather than an idea, navigating devastating family secrets, and losing people she loves.

Representation: Aouli and her family are Hawaiian. They have a family friend who is Samoan, but that is not at all the same. At church, Aouli and her sister, Kaia, are the only Hawaiian kids until Nalu comes along. As the ‘token' kids in their church group, they face a number of microaggressions and othering.

This children's book is very sweet. There's not much to it. There's just representation for families of all kinds.

This is the second book I've read from this author, and I like this vibe...it's wholesome with some spice, and not overdone. We got a grumpy/sunshine relationship in Secret Society of Irregular Witches; here, we get two grumpy, repressed people...he's just more grumpy.

I'm always going to love a found family, a quirky house as a character, and a cozy romance. This checked all those boxes for me.

I also loved the treatment of Posy as a character. She has been othered so much that her brother feels like he needs to add a disclaimer for her to other people. The folks at the inn made it very clear that none of that was necessary with them. Posy was just free to be who she was, and I loved that for her.

I felt like reading a second-chance romance with older main characters, so I picked this one up. Our main character is on the cusp of her 40th birthday at the beginning of this novel.

Simone is one of those women who are fiercely independent. She has her husband, her son, a thriving business... she's doing well. But when troubles in her marriage come to a head, the dynamics she witnessed with her parents throughout her childhood lead her to course-correct in her marriage to Jackson. She files for divorce.This story begins two years after the divorce is finalized.

Simone and Jackson successfully co-parent their teenage son, they are cordial/friendly to each other, and Jackson shows up for her whenever she needs him to. But on the edge of her 40th birthday, Simone is starting to feel overwhelmed with her life and career choices. She has a client from hell, and she's feeling more lost than ever.

On the advice of her friends, Simone travels to Jamaica for her 40th and while there, she links up with Jackson... you know how that goes.

This story is about Simone dealing with the trauma of her past and how that shaped her relationship with Jackson. She deals with how she exploded her life and lost touch.

This journey is messy. Simone and Jackson are messy. It takes them a while to figure out their shit, but it was nice to see them actually work through this and come to terms with how they both contributed to the failure of their marriage.

This book has a fair bit of spice. In romantasy, those scenes are always so cringey for me. But this??!?!?! This right here?! Sensual af. I loved it.

TW: Childhood trauma that leads to depression, self-harm (cutting), and panic/anxiety attacks. Simone has been in and out of therapy since her teens. Simone's son dates a girl that mirrors Simone's younger self. There is a scene where Simone helps her through an anxiety attack.

Thank you to NetGalley for the translated eARC.

I can just tell that the author has worked with a lot of teenage boys. Zeno's voice feels authentic, and it feels like we're reading his real journal entries.

We follow Zeno, a 15-year-old inmate, from the start of this novella to the day before Zeno gets his furlough to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his mother.

In between that time, Zeno writes to his teacher about his experiences, his family, his girlfriend, and the act that led to his imprisonment.

We learn how he was led into this life and never really given the chance to just be a kid, and how it has led to where he is now. You end up caring for Zeno and his friends and are saddened when bad stuff happens to these kids.

It's just another reminder of how things can really go wrong for kids depending on their circumstances.

It's all a gut punch really...this felt like watching Basketball Diaries all over again.

Although the author's note states that these are all fictional characters, they feel real. The prison is real, the sea is real, and these stories feel pulled out of a bunch of other stories from kids in juvie.

How young children and teenagers see life is always so fascinating to me. It's even more fascinating to me how a child can be force to grow up so fast in this world. Zeno mentions how he wishes that he was born a child. His life could have been so different, but the circumstances he was born into set him up for this current life. “That other guy” as Zeno sees it would have been much happier. He's only 15....

This was a fun time.

Mira, grappling with a difficult past she desperately tries to leave behind, finds herself self-sabotaging her present life. She has an extensive list of requirements for a partner, but anyone who seems too perfect triggers old wounds, leading to relationship failures.

Enter Naveen. He was the first match her matchmaker presented, but Mira rejects him due to her past. Their paths cross again when Mira, using a new alias, discovers that Naveen is the executor of her late aunt's estate.

What follows is a wild adventure of kidnapping, an art heist, the rekindling of an old flame, and perhaps some healing. There's also some spice that appears after the 50% mark.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC of this novel.

I've been in a bit of a slump with eARCs, but this one was really good. The story centers around a family that has sent its two eldest daughters to “The Outer Country,” aka the US. The family has created a weird dynamic of competition between the daughters who are all seeking their parents' approval. The second eldest, Siripon, was sent to Los Angeles (over the eldest daughter, Manda) after college where she found a husband and had the first living son of the family, Ben (Rattawut).

The story begins when Manda arrives in LA to “help” Siripon raise her son. We follow that son from childhood through to college. What his mother doesn't know is that when Ben was about six years old, his aunt and father, Kamron, led an exorcism to rid Ben of the spirit that made him gay. That one act has ramifications that follow Ben as he grows up.

I really felt for Ben and for his mother. Siripon was made into a people pleaser, taking care of everyone and leaving herself with nothing. As Ben changes, Siripon begins to change as well.

This novel was so good. I'm getting a copy ASAP.

I can't do this anymore.

I was curious about this because I hadn't heard of this and I enjoy Zora's writing.

This is a scene of a poker game in a play and goes by pretty quickly. There's not enough to form a real opinion other than I would actually love to see what happens are this confrontation. It feels like a prompt to write your own ending to this scenario.

Thank you to Heartdrum and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

This writing style wasn't for me. I almost DNF'd, but I wanted to know his great-grandmother's story, so I kept reading... I should have just DNF'd it. I got through it by imagining each chapter as the MC's journal entry.

YA really isn't my thing anymore, and I should have listened to my gut. I'm going to pick up a different book about this topic that's for an older audience.

I'm going to rate this in the middle. The story is good: it's about a teenage Diné boy who gets accepted into a prestigious boarding school that's a feeder for Ivy League colleges. His story parallels his great-grandmother, who was kidnapped and sent to a boarding school meant to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” where she (like many others) was abused, and many Indigenous children were killed.

This is a topic I already know a little about, but not nearly enough. This is a good introduction for teens to learn about the atrocities committed against Indigenous nations in the U.S., and I would recommend it to that audience.

I'm loving these KU collection stories.

I decided to do an immersive read to help with the Nahuatl and to hear the names read correctly. The narrator did a great job, even if her Melchor voice made me laugh a bit.

Interestingly, I don't think the main character ever gets named. Her mom calls her a tomboy for running around with the boys (her cousins), but even scanning back through, I can't find it.

The story is told from her POV and centers on her brother, her favorite person. They aren't twins, but they might as well be. Despite their bond, they are opposites: she's strong, and he's fragile and sickly. She's young and small, but she still manages to protect him from an escaped tiger that corners them in the cave their hiding from the soldiers in.

I'm always fascinated by how kids navigate hard situations like war and trauma. It's wild how they can still have fun in the middle of a extended atrocities while being aware of the horrors around them: sexual violence, their father and uncle going off to fight, and people disappearing daily.

Now I need to do some research to learn more about this war.

Silvia and an author whose voice and writing style I truly enjoy. In her note, she describes how this story was inspired by her great-grandmother who had a similar encounter with a lion. Like our main character, her great-grandmother experiences war as a child, was illiterate, and worked as a maid. Silvia writes that her great-grandmother is the reason she is a writer.

I read Mexican Gothic years ago, but I'm excited to read more from this author.

I love an unhinged main character.

Usually, I have a really hard time reading unlikable characters (they're better on-screen), but Elizabeth managed to have some redeeming qualities.

Elizabeth is unhinged. I found myself really wanting to understand her obsession with placing everyone in categories of attractiveness and intelligence, and being better than the people she deemed intellectually inferior. She latches on to Laura Kim, who she is convinced stole her spot at Harvard Law. I saw from a mile away that she was about to become obsessed with what it is that Laura has that Elizabeth doesn't. This part is almost always predictable, but it can still be satisfying to see how everything plays out.

This novel did not disappoint.

It took me a while to get through this, but I flew through the second half once my burnout was over and I could lock in. I also liked that the person who “took Elizabeth's spot” was another Asian female and that Elizabeth didn't even entertain for a second that someone who looks like me (Black) got her spot. Refreshing, honestly.

By the end of this novel, Elizabeth is completely out of touch. That ending... I feel like she's just gonna go even harder. I wonder what guilt and her unhingedness is going to cause her to do.

Finally finished this eARC I got courtesy of NetGalley.

This book started to lose me toward the end. I like reading books about messy dynamics, this book explained the very well with Dzifa and Esther, Dzifa and her mother, Dzifa and Tatiana, B and his mother, etc.

Where this started to lose me was how the story just...wrapped. It just left me confused. What was that about the tobacco flats and calling her mom? I'm gonna reread the ending to make sure I didn't miss a page.

I've seen others say that Dzifa's character is difficult, but i just see her dealing with CPTSD from everything her mother has put her through. I'm rooting for her and for Esther.

I wish I understood the Persephone thing, but I guess because Dzifa didn't want to know, we didn't get to. But knowing that story, maybe it was about being okay with wherever you? Make the best out of wherever you are?

I may revisit this in the future, but for now...the ending has confused me a little.

DNF @ 54%

I'll officially read anything this author writes.

I like that both of the stories I've read so far from Jesmyn have taken place in the South (Let Us Descend and now this). I love the mixture of spirituality and the research the author does to create these stories. I knew about places like Parchman and the kind of research she did makes me want to read all of her work.

I definitely will be re-reading this one at some point and grabbing a hard copy.

This story centers around a 13-year old mixed boy named Jojo who is learning from the men in his life what it means to be a man, even the men that have been largely absent in his life. Raised by his grandpartents along with his little sister, Kayla, Jojo is navigating some hard stuff at his young age: his mother is an addict that cares more about her own interests than being a good mother (no matter how much she wants to be better), his grandmother is dying from cancer, his father is being released from prison, and one set of his grandparents (paternal - white) wants nothing to do with Jojo or Kayla...

I found myself on the edge of my seat with Leonie and Misty taking the kids to go get Michael from prison and the shenanigans along the way (that's putting it very lightly...that trip was scary and messed up). Pops' story about his time at Parchman and what happened to Richie (*tears). There's so much.

I loved this.

This book is enjoyable with some typical rom-com tropes that can be a little annoying (normalize choosing the 2nd option. It's usually the healthier one.)

Ezra's ignorance and fb qualities really irritated me, but I'm also not surprised he is that way. I'm forever team Malcolm over here.

What a good book. Thank you to NetGalley and Viking for this eARC.

I don't even really know what to say. So much happened in this novel...

The story is about a fractured family and the sibling who was made the scapegoat for all that went wrong.

Sola has been made the wayward eldest daughter. She was seen as the rebellious one, the troublemaker. Ola is the obedient eldest son, so we already know his upbringing was much different than that of his 3 younger sisters. Anjola is the second eldest daughter, the doctor, one of the good ones. Karen is the baby sister silently observing everyone and going along with her mother's wishes for her.

They all have so much going on: Sola's influencer life has been upended by her ex; Ola is feeling lost with the impending birth of his firstborn and this unrecognizable, married life; Anjola is in love with her best friend; and Karen is questioning her sexuality.

The story is about all of the above things, but it's also about these messy family dynamics and the way they have affected all of the siblings and their connection to each other.

There were moments when the characters were so unlikable, but they were all so real and multilayered. I really quite enjoyed this and can't wait to pick up the finalized copy.

Thank you to NetGalley for this eARC.

Due to the controversy surrounding this novel, I decided to read it and form my own thoughts. The story is solid, but the writing was much too repetitive for me. The "something x, something y" phrasing was particularly egregious for me. I actually searched how many times the word "something" was used: 200 times! For the most part, they all followed that "something x, something y" format, with the occasional "something z" added in.

In my opinion, this book was overwritten. The premise is so interesting, but it gets lost in the technical issues. To me, the best-written part of the novel is the Beverly chapter. It feels like a short story that might have been written first (perhaps without AI assistance?) with the rest of the novel built around it.

Given the AI allegations, I questioned whether I even wanted to read this. I tried hard to avoid outside opinions, but after starting, the issues others pointed out became impossible to ignore.

***I don't want to add to the pile on, but I do hope for more growth in their future work***

I am curious about *Sugar*, the author's previous novel, but I think I’ll hold off for now.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the eARC! 

I actually really loved this. It kind of follows the format of a romantic comedy, although the leads are platonic. There's the beginning, which is about the core group of friends, and then that relationship changes unexpectedly for our main character, Remy. We have a “meet-cute” with Simone, the build-up of Remy and Simone's relationship, an inciting event, and then resolution. Sometimes formulas are good. This was one of those times.

I love a rom-com, and I saw myself in both Remy and Simone (I'm almost certain both are neurodivergent as well). Both Remy and Simone are individuals with a lot going on in their lives (no spoilers), and they help each other get through to the other side.

The writing is fun and feels like someone is reciting the story to you. The use of parentheses to add a thought or random aside actually fit with the tone of this story.

All in all, I had a good time with this.

I struggled so much with Roy being unlikable from the very start. To me, choosing between Roy and Dre seemed like an easy decision to make. He was always so selfish.

Even with his selfishness, he never deserved what happened to him. Such a huge disruption of his life and the trajectory it was headed, had he never been accused and unjustly imprisoned.

I really liked reading the letter exchanges between Roy and Celestial, but they were never being real with each other. Roy was seeing Celestial as something that belonged to him, and Celestial was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole until she just couldn't anymore.

Her question, “would you have waited for 5 years?” was so valid. From the very first page (so not a spoiler), we already know he was unfaithful. To find out that this story was inspired by this same question being asked in a real argument Tayari witnessed?

In the essay at the end of the book, Tayari noted that when she witnessed that argument, she felt for the guy and thought the woman was in the wrong. He had clearly suffered. She asked him that same question, and he responded that this never would have happened to her in the first place. Not knowing all the details, Tayari's imagination fills in the blanks. Maybe he was imprisoned and now he's out and she has moved on?  

Tayari taking a step back to realize how incarceration alters not just those imprisoned but also the loved ones on the other side led to one of my favorite quotes in the book:

Roy: “I'm innocent.”

Celestial: “I'm innocent too.”

The multiple perspectives are necessary. There's no way for the characters to really be understood if we are reading them from the perspective of a different person. Celestial would have been seen as cold. Roy would have just been... (I really don't like him, so I only see him as annoying).

I have many thoughts about this book that will continue to morph over time.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC.

I love the horror genre and how we've used it to talk about things in our society that folks want to sweep under the rug and pretend doesn't exist. It's a powerful tool that will make you think while also startling you. Maybe you'll feel a little of what these characters feel...dread....powerless...etc.

This story takes place in the projects in Michigan in a neighborhood called Hester Gardens. It's about the kids that all grew up together and how poverty has robbed them of the freedom they had as children. When they were children, they weren't aware that this environment was designed for them to fail, designed to kill them, designed to keep them down. This kids grew up fast because that's what the Gardens demanded of them.

We follow Nona McKinley, mother of three, whose husband has been imprisoned for drug trafficking and her oldest college-bound son murdered after his high school graduation. Nona is trying desperately to get her middle child, Marcus, out now that he has graduated valedictorian and the same age her oldest was when he died. However, there's a presence in her house that lurks and and threatens Marcus' future.

Her younger son, Lance, is 14 years old in middle school and hangs around the local gang, The Hester Boys, at 14 he's already prepared to die and it's just really sad.

I docked one star because I didn't always like the writing and the pacing was just a little off. This story designated with me deeply. I didn't grow up in the projects, but I did grow up in Detroit and knew kids in gangs that also sold drugs. They were just regular kids trying to make ends meet for their families at home. I connected with Harlan (Nona's nephew) who wanted to get the world to see that the way gun violence has persisted and the way black kids are villainized compared to white, suburban kids who commit the same crime needed to be addressed so that the problem could be solved.

Harlan's speech about how living the way that the residents of Hester Gardens are forced to has a feeling attached to it: the residents are made to feel humiliated, worthless, powerless, beat down, undesired, hopeless, despair, and anger...trash pickup happens seldomly so these people are forced to live amongst trash and the smells seeping into their homes. Pest control and maintenance is non-existent. These people have to fend for themselves. 

How else do you expect these kids to end up? Their paths were designed by the powers that be and it would take a miracle and some good luck for them to make it.

Anyway...the book. I really liked this book even though it started to drag. I didn't care much about Nona and her issues, I wanted more focus on the kids and young adults there. Nona's narrative started to annoy me a little because I felt like she had moments where she was smart and then that went out the window when we needed the plot to progress in a certain direction. For someone with street smarts like her, there's no way she would be ok with her son leaving the house to meet “someone” and allowing him to be vague. I guess, girl...whatever gets the job done. That part could have been better.

Cut out everything with pastor and the church and the first lady...that felt unnecessary for me.