Nora

As a fan of all things puzzles and games, I loved this YA novel. The teenager me would have been obsessed. Like a cross between knives out, the princess diary and locke & key without the fantasy. I'm off to read the second one because that ending.

“Society was a system for falling in love. People who couldn't fall in love had to fake it. What came first: the system or love? All I knew was that love was a mechanism designed to make Earthlings breed.”

This book is about how a child survives abuse and the pressures of society. Very strange, disturbing and heartbreaking. Quick read but impactful.

This book covers important topics and is beautifully written, I just couldn't get into it. I think the second-person perspective threw me off, so it took me a while to finish despite being short.

“Imagine knowing that your wholeness could be split at any moment, so you live in pieces. You live broken, you live small, lest someone makes you smaller, lest someone break you. You are Black body, container, vessel, property. You are treated as such because property is easy to destroy and plunder”

This is right up my alley. Stories of growing up, of friends and relationships, of spending dreamy summers outdoors in the summer, of memories, and of life. Yet there is also mystery, intrigue, a puzzle to be solved.

“And maybe,
just maybe,
he'd come back one day,
and burn that
fucking
palace
to the ground.”

As sweet and emotional as the first book, though some repetition for the sake of being able to be read as a stand-alone piece. It was fun to hear updates from characters in the first book. Overall I loved it as much as the first one.

Read in one evening. Fast read, simple, yet gripping with a great plot twist, though I was disappointed with Lowen's reaction to it in the end.

This book got to me. It deals with very heavy topics - I suggest reading the list of trigger warnings beforehand and not to read if you don't think you're in the headspace for it. I was, and it pulled on my every heart string. It made me angry, sad, anxious, joyful, excited, hopeful. The story follows the life of four friends, mainly through the lense of Willem and Jude in particular. We get to know Jude from beginning to end and slowly uncover why he is the way he is, and the horrors he has experienced throughout his life. As heavy and descriptive and detailed as the topics and events were written, I think that's what made me love it - because it felt so real and raw and honest, and I really felt for Jude and everyone else in the story. Of course one can problematize writing a book as heavy as this but I do think it has its place, it's just not for everyone.

Instant new favourite. I loved everything about it. It pulled on all my heartstrings, I rooted for Kya, I wished I was in her world so I could help her out. It made me long for the sea and nature, and reading it on a beach in Barcelona probably only added to the magic of Kya's world.

Reading too many other things and don't have the headspace. I would love to read it physically and annotate later on. Back on the TBR it goes.