icon pending (i'll design something later) // ellis // books books books // reads almost any genre // reads almost any book // we don't talk about the tbr // secondary blog to ellis-is-overthinking, all my likes will come from there
I’ll read pretty much anything. I would say my favorite genre is horror, but you'll see reviews for books that fall into lots of different categories on this blog. I predominantly read fiction but nonfic makes its way into my hands too. I read multiple books at a time so at any given moment assume I have 3-4 books underway and probably none of them go together thematically.
Pretty much every book I read is from the library. The books I do own and have intentions to read just kind of sit there. Watching. Waiting.
The TBR is unruly and has taken on a life of its own. My goodreads is private to avoid judgement of it’s heinous size. (Whatever number you’re thinking, add a zero.)
I don’t do bookish photography, but I think the graphics people make to compliment their book reviews are cute and I’d like to do something like that. Will I make them for every book I read including books I hate? Remains to be seen but I like spending time in ibisPaint so yeah, I might.
Some books I’ll write entirely too much for and some books I just won’t review at all, but I’ll still include those in my monthly wrap-up posts (which I might revamp? IDK, if I’m going to the trouble to devise a new review format for this blog then I might as well just refresh everything at once to make it all look cohesive right? Right?)
Not all reviews I post will be for current/recent reads. I have reviews I’ve posted previously in wrap-ups that I’d like to single out and make graphics for, plus there are some old reviews that just got stuck in my drafts and need to see the light of day.
Mainly this blog is for me to have fun with but I also want to start articulating my thoughts about what I read. My reactions/ratings make sense to me but if someone asked me why I liked a book or why I rated it the way I did I’d like to be able to respond coherently.
★ my star rating scale: ★
So we all have some idea of why I rate things the way I do, this is my star scale and some of the books I’ve given these ratings, just to give you a vibe for how I operate. I do not do half-star ratings.
1 ★ - I didn’t like this book and I’m definitely going to complain to you about it. Poorly executed, would not recommend. Dry writing, not even a couple of good lines to make me consider bumping the rating up to a two. Sometimes these are books that had everything going for them but completely dropped the ball with their endings. All-around not worth my time but I finished it anyway out of spite. I have questions for the people who did enjoy these books because what do you see in them???
Books I’ve given a one-star rating include Polybius by Collin Armstrong, Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw, The Hunting Wives by May Cobb, Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas, and Gothikana by RuNyx (The loathing I have for this book, I swear. If I was writing reviews back then I would have gone on such a rant. You know how Natalie from Weirdo Book Club feels about HD Carlton’s books? That is how I feel about Gothikana.)
2 ★ - Two-star land is a limbo of sorts. Like, it wasn’t great and I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but it had its moments of brilliance that kept it from being damned to one-star hell. I’d give these authors a second chance because it’s obvious they can write or that they have interesting ideas but these books just were not working for me.
Books I’ve given a two-star rating include Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy, Gallant by VE Schwab, Foster by Claire Keegan, and Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi.
3 ★ - This is where the books that had a lot going for them but were just missing something get ranked. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either; solidly meh. It pretty much accomplishes what it was trying to do. I’d still recommend it to the right person. Very middle of the road, very ambivalent, these are the hardest reviews to write.
Books I’ve given a three-star rating include I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid, The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti, The Only One Left by Riley Sager, The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch, and Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid.
4 ★ - These are books that I’d give my seal of approval to (for whatever that may be worth to you, lol). They’re well executed, they’re enjoyable, they check all the boxes. If you were on the fence about reading one of these, I’d tell you to go ahead and do it because you’ll probably have a great time.
Books I’ve given a four-star rating include We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Dead Ringer by Heidi Belleau, All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater, and Wolfsong by TJ Klune.
5 ★ - Books I loved. Books I hard-related to and feel like no one can fully appreciate but me. Books I’ll go out and buy. Books I’ll still think about years later. Books that I’d be insane not to give a five-star rating to. Or sometimes books that just bring me a lot of joy and revive the dying embers of my fangirl days. (I miss when I got wildly involved in a book’s fandom and it took up all the space in my head.) There was something about the book that made me go “This. This is to be shouted about from the rooftops.”
Books I’ve given a five-star rating include A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Girl In Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow, Still Life With Tornado by A.S. King, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, Mister Magic by Kiersten White, Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay, and of course the All For the Game series by Nora Sakavic. It would be blasphemous not to on this AFTG-loving site. (Kevin is my favorite and I will be unwell when his books come out.)
★ my tags: ★
Any post that I wrote will be tagged with 'ellis is reading.' Reblogs will be appropriately tagged with 'reblog.' In addition, I'll use 'reading wrap up,' the title and author of a book, and the year I read it. I might tag genres and the star rating too but IDK for sure yet. Would that be helpful?
One of my goals for 2026 was to read no more than one or two books at a time, in order to improve my focus. I'm currently reading five at once. As you can see, I'm doing a bang-up job of meeting my goals. Go me!
I didn't do a pride reads challenge, and I didn't do a Summerween reads challenge, so I pretty much dropped the ball on all fronts for June. BUT I'm only 2 books behind schedule for my yearly reading challenge, making great headway through my self-imposed challenge to read all of Ellen Hopkins's books this year, and all my anticipated releases came in at the library so I'm pretty set for the beginning of July.
All my thoughts (or lack thereof, lol) on the books I read in June can be found below the cut. I’m going to have to do this different from now on; this post is too long and I keep pushing review writing off until the very last minute. Plus writing them all at the end of the month means I have to take very good notes while reading to come back to later and that’s a problem too. 😭
The Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin
From the moment you start this book, you know where it’s headed. All the bad things that can happen to a queer character (maybe especially if that character is trans? I’m noticing a pattern in trans fiction I’ve read) in a YA novel happen here, so TW for a suicide attempt (pre- the start of the novel, talked about), gender identity-based bullying, forced outing, and sexual assault. This author really did check all the boxes for all the bad things that could happen to a non-binary person.
Riley is a genderfluid teen of a politician running for office. They’re not out to anyone but their therapist, who encourages them to start an anonymous blog where they can vent and be who they are. Their blog is then highlighted on a prominent queer rights website, the number of eyes on their blog skyrockets, and Riley’s irl tormentors put the pieces together and threaten to out them.
I do like that we never get to know (or need to know) Riley’s AGAB, and I appreciate that Riley wants so much to not be judged by others but still has to take a step back themself to redirect their own thoughts to ones less gendered and more open-minded. That said, I don’t think this book stands out very much. I was fine putting this down for half a month and didn’t feel pressured to finish it until the check out period was about to expire. Had it not been about to expire, I probably would have dragged out reading it even more, because I just wasn’t feeling it.
3/5, good but not great.
Cutting to the Chase by Rose Phillips
I took a huge break at around the halfway point of Cutting to the Chase because I just wasn’t into it, and I can’t say the second half got any better. It’s pretty much the same pace/tone throughout the entire story, so you know what you’re in for right from the get-go.
Lizzy definitely experiences growth, going from being a passive bystander in her own life to standing up for her old friends and for herself, but also in the way she expands her worldview through experiencing Michael’s culture alongside him. I also liked that she had to confront her double standards surrounding self-harm; she thinks of Jo as someone who just cuts for attention and as someone wholly unlike herself, but she is in a similar position to Jo and can’t initially recognize it.
As for the romance aspect, I can’t say I really cared one way or the other? You’d think I’d be into a book with an emo boy mmc, and I did like Michael, but with Lizzy? Maybe more as friends than dating.
3/5, can’t really complain about anything that happened in the story, but I wasn’t wowed.
When Jeff Comes Home by Catherine Atkins
Jeff was kidnapped and held captive for three years before being returned to his family. After showing how the kidnapping played out, the book jumps forward in time to his spontaneous reappearance on his family’s doorstep. From the start, things aren’t handled well at all. No one sees it necessary to take Jeff to a hospital for evaluation (which would be protocol for these situations, right?) and evidence left on their doorstep in the night is never taken in by police despite the kidnapper still being on the loose and having been at the scene hours before. The FBI agent questioning Jeff has zero sense of how to behave when questioning him. His father is so dead set on everything being normal again immediately that he fails to support an obviously traumatized Jeff. I really empathized with this kid. All the adults said they wanted to help him but somehow got everything wrong. I mean, if everyone was legitimately making everything worse I’d want to clam up and be left alone too.
This book was published in 1999 so I probably should have expected the homophobia. There were rumors that Jeff engaged in sexual activity with his male captor, something he vehemently denies throughout the book. We see how much the rumors get to him when he interacts with his younger brother, as even spending too much time with Brian or sharing a bed with him makes Jeff fear what his stepmother will think of him. With all of Jeff’s second guessing of his own behavior, I thought this was some kind of internalized homophobia situation with the added complexities of possible abuse muddying the waters. In a different book, written in a different time, maybe it would have gone in that direction and really dived into his turmoil, but no. Everyone’s just really homophobic and worried about gay men grooming children.
Really the only positive in this book is Jeff. Maybe it’s the rather strong empathy I felt for him that’s blinding me to the many shortcomings of this book, but if there had been a single competent adult in this book, if there was a single discussion with him where he wasn’t being grilled or forced to pretend everything was fine, this could have been salvaged a little. For what he went through, for what he endured, he deserved better.
Idk a rating for this. It made me feel but the feeling was mostly anger and idk if that’s a good thing.
Burned and Smoke by Ellen Hopkins
I have to say these are maybe the most... boring of Ellen Hopkins's books I've read so far? Such a large portion of Burned followed Pattyn finding herself and navigating first love on her aunt's farm, which is not what I've come to expect from Hopkins's books. Compared to her others, where it’s one trauma after another, Burned is an outlier with it’s relatively average coming of age sequence that takes up a third of the page count. The normalcy is a sharp contrast to Pattyn’s experiences up to then, and especially to the end of novel, which, though drastic, is more in keeping with what I’ve come to expect from Hopkins’s books.
With Burned having the ending it did, I was excited to jump into Smoke, but was once again underwhelmed. Smoke picks up almost immediately after Burned and introduces Pattyn’s sister Jackie’s POV. Smoke benefitted from having dual narrators, but while the storyline had a heavier tone than Burned it still lacked the drive that makes Hopkins’s other books so impactful and unputdownable.
3/5 for both books; they’re not bad for what they are, but compared to the rest of Hopkins’s works they’re kind of meh.
(Also Pattyn getting tan and dyeing her hair and suddenly passing herself off as a migrant worker was… a choice. 👀)
Hurts So Good by Leigh Cowart
Hurts So Good raises the question of what defines an activity as masochistic and asks if behavior we don’t typically consider masochistic should indeed be classified as such, all while pondering why we enjoy activities that cause us pain in the first place. Cowart is motivated by curiosity over their own compulsions and attractions to painful activities, wishing to understand why they take pleasure in pain and why countless others do as well.
I respect an author who is willing to partake in the behavior they research, even if it’s something they unapologetically hate (looking at you polar plunge.) I can’t say I was invested in every activity Cowart researched (this book covers ballet, hot pepper eating contests, polar plunges, disordered eating, ultramarathons, religious flagellation, body modification, and of course BDSM, among others) but even sections that didn’t initially interest me kept my attention and I came away having learned something. Cowart, having practiced ballet themself, is open about their own history with self-harm and disordered eating and the effects those activities had on their body and ties it into their current research with care and responsibility. While it does feel repetitive at times, this book is thoroughly researched for it’s slim size and I’d recommend it to readers who also enjoyed Gory Details by Erika Engelhaupt.
4/5, would recommend.
Crank and Glass by Ellen Hopkins
I know Crank is the book that put Ellen Hopkins on the map, but it’s my least favorite of hers so far. I can’t say it’s totally awful, because despite its shortcomings it was written with good intentions and gets its anti-drug message across. But I just didn’t care about anything that was happening in this book. I didn’t like way Hopkins introduced an alter ego for Kristina to use under. The stakes were high, but we didn’t get to see the consequences play out (namely how using while pregnant effects unborn children; Kristina only briefly mentions the possible complications). It’s the most after-school special of Hopkins’s books I’ve read so far, and I wasn’t impressed.
Glass though. Glass I blew through in two days and enjoyed way more because we see how Kristina’s decisions play out and affect her son and family. Crank felt like a lot of telling, but, with Kristina so deep into her addiction in Glass, readers don’t need to be told how bad things are getting because it’s inherently obvious in how she’s behaving. The stakes were just as high, maybe higher, but this time felt like they were going somewhere.
2/5 and 4/5, respectively, here’s hoping book three keeps up the momentum.
Flirtin’ With the Monster edited by Niki Burnham and Ellen Hopkins
Flirtin’ With the Monster is a companion to the then-duology Crank and Glass, comprised of essays from popular authors of that era of publishing, as well as insights from a judge and an addiction counselor. With an introduction by Ellen Hopkins, the book also includes essays from the real people who inspired the her characters, which was what I was most excited about when picking this up.
Was it interesting? Yes. Was it essential? No. Some of the author contributions to this book felt like reviews rather than analysis, and those that were analysis focused on the technical aspect of Hopkins’s writing and why her verse is so effective. They’re still interesting reads, but if you’re looking to deepen your understanding of Crank and Glass, you’re not going to find anything you didn’t already know in the author essays.
Of part one, the best contributions were from the judge and addiction counselor (forgive me, I didn’t take note of their names in preparation for writing his review), which carried more weight as they didn’t focus on writing but on character. The counselor laid out the steps of recovery and considered Kristina’s chances of putting her addiction behind her. The judge, who oversaw a multitude of cases involving members of his community who were affected by meth, spoke of the insight these two novels gave him when it came to addiction. I know this book’s subtitle denotes contributions from “Your Favorite Authors,” but a collection of essays from people with first-hand experience with drug addiction such as these two would have made for a much more interesting read.
Part two contains the most compelling and insightful essays, all from the members of Hopkins’s family that inspired the characters in Crank and Glass, which make the book worthwhile all on their own. They put into perspective the effects of drug use not only on the user but on the family that loves and supports them. Unsurprisingly, the essay that stuck with me the most from this section was “Kristina’s,” which revealed that, as bad as book-Kristina had it, there were much, much worse things happening behind the scenes.
Overall, I’d only consider a handful of these entries to be required reading. If you’re not trying to be an Ellen Hopkins completionist like I am, you could probably skip part one of this collection, but I do recommend reading the family’s contributions, if for no other reason than to drive home the impact of one person’s decisions on all who surround them.
3/5, interesting but you could skip it if you’re just a casual reader.
Polybius by Collin Armstrong
I don’t even want to talk about this book. It was dry. It was drawn out. There was a ton of POV bouncing and additional lore for side characters when what you really care about and picked this book up for is the arcade unit that’s turning people into violent zombies (not like, actual zombies, but you get what I mean). Polybius is definitely an interesting urban legend, but sometimes what makes urban legends work is how vague and mysterious they are. They keep you up and keep you guessing because you’ll never have a solid explanation for what happened, if it ever happened at all. The legend of Polybius is better off as Internet forum fodder than a full length novel (which SUCKS because I had high hopes going into this book).
1/5, I’m glad this is over.
Lore Olympus Vol 10 by Rachel Smythe
I didn't read Lore Olympus as it released on Webtoon, but I am making my way through the collected episodes + bonus content with the graphic novels. The months-long wait between each volume means I never remember what happened in the previous entry. (Which is a problem I have with Lore Olympus specifically - I don't struggle to remember previous events with other series.) I started Volume 10 and thought I skipped one because I could not remember the wedding being the cliff hanger for Vol 9. I really do just read these for the vibes/art/enjoyment I guess (and Hera, my favorite), because I'm not invested in anything that's happening but I still pick up each new volume when it releases, lol.
I really don't have much to say about this, I'm just along for the ride and even though it doesn't stick with me I still enjoy it. 4/5.
Found edited by Gabino Iglesias and Andrew Cull
Love the concept and presentation of this book. A beaten up VHS tape box for the cover of a found media anthology? Excellent design choice. Its contents could have used some more editing, though - there were a few typos and the bottom margin size was inconsistent. The text was also right-aligned, not justified, which is nitpicking as it doesn’t affect the stories being told; I’m just used to justified text (which seems to be the standard for most books) and took notice of it.
Some of the 18 stories for this anthology (19 if we count Andrew Cull’s intro piece) were written in prose and featured characters discovering cursed media, while others were presented as the found media itself. The very first story of this collection is made of text exchanges and handwritten notes, and those that follow are developed through emails, video or interview transcripts, and forum threads.
My favorites were “This Video is Unavailable” by Robert Levy (formatted as a magazine interview of those who took their parasocial relationship with a YouTuber to a deadly extreme) and “A Small Hand-Built House” by Ali Seay (written in prose and following a woman uncovering the murders her deceased husband carried out in their backyard unbeknownst to her via videotapes he leaves behind as something of a scavenger hunt; this one could be a full-length thriller). The weakest for me was “Spew of News” by Clay McLeod Chapman. The whole piece was relayed directly to the reader, but doesn’t quite feel like “found” media. It lacks the framing of the other stories, plus I found it to be really blatant and heavy-handed with its message.
Some stories I felt we were just getting somewhere with and then they just… stopped (“The Novak Roadhouse Massacre” by Alan Baxter and “Walls and Floors and Bricks and Stone” by Georgia Cook come to mind), but most of the stories utilize the incomplete/abrupt nature of found media to imply an ominous fate for their characters (most notably in “A Grave Issue” by Bev Vincent, in which a forum is closed for inactivity after its users succumb to madness). As a whole, this collection does feel like old internet horror you’d encounter on Reddit or told in a “Top 10 Creepiest Urban Legends” or similar countdown, stories where, if presented the right way, you might think them true tales of hauntings or tragedies, and it gets points for that.
And on that note, Andrew Cull’s intro piece got me - correct me if I’m wrong, but “11/7/19” and Boyd Thomas Sinclair’s exploits are fictional. I was fully believing them to be true, footnotes and all, on my first read. Cull finished his introduction with “Think of Boyd’s case when you’re reading the stories in FOUND. I do. And remember, when a story feels so close to reality that it might be true, what’s to say that it isn’t?”
Well played.
4/5, some stories were two stars, but the collection is solid as a whole.
Dollface by Lindy Ryan
Another book compared to Scream, another book that uses a secret second killer as a twist. 🙄 Please I beg of you, if you’re marketing your book as a combo of Scream and whatever else, stop it. You’re just telling me ahead of time that there’s a second killer running amok. (I will concede Dollface has an mc that’s aware of horror conventions and that aspect does somewhat justify the blurb more, but I’m standing firm on the two killers complaint. This is not the first book I’ve seen ruin its reveal this way.)
Dollface was fun (in the way most slashers are). It’s not great (in the way most slashers aren’t). There are many typos in this book (Dara instead of Darla; first instead of fist; nouns plural when they should be singular; nouns possessive when they shouldn’t be; etc.) that should have been caught and fixed before publishing. The writing was fine for most of the book, but there were multiple times where the narration would say something like “then I told them this” or (during the final POV switch) “Jill says behind me blah blah blah.” Why have a character tell me that a person they are actively in conversation with is speaking to them when they could just have dialogue? Just let them speak for themselves.
And about the final twist’s involvement: I get their motive, but it feels separate from the rest of this book. As for the first killer, you’ll have a guess as to who it is immediately and it will be correct, so for over half the book you will be one step ahead of the mc and waiting for her to get with the program.
3/5, fun, good concept, might recommend it but overall meh.
Monster High: World’s Scare by Jacque Aye
I snuck one more book in on the 30th. While Hoopla doesn't get individual Monster High comics anymore they DO get the collected graphic novels and I snagged World’s Scare with my remaining borrow of the month. I really like Caroline Shuda's art for the MH world (and the imps! The imps were so cute!) and I like the direction that Jacque Aye took in continuing the storyline introduced in New Scaremester with the ghouls navigating their grief in their own ways (even if I still can’t quite believe Monster High would just kill off two classic horror monsters like that… and Lothar’s punishment is just reform school? When a monster is dead???)
Anyway, World’s Scare wraps up the loose ends I complained about in the New Scaremester series (Hexiciah’s whereabouts, Lothar’s accomplice, who CryptCrier is, etc.) and strikes a balance between its heavier plot points and the creepy-cute vibe Monster High is known for. I know it’s not a popular opinion, but I really like this canon and the direction it’s heading in.
4/5, Hoopla please get House Haunters added to the catalogue next.
I didn’t realize how low I was rating stuff this month before going into this post and writing reviews, but I had a bad stretch of 2-star books this month. 😅 Oops.
All my thoughts on what I've read can be found below the cut.
You Remind Me of You by Eireann Corrigan
This poetry memoir started really strong but didn’t keep up that momentum. I’m not not a fan of Corrigan’s poetry. I don’t know what exactly the quality I’m picking up on is, but I’m reminded of poems I would accidentally stumble upon on DeviantArt (this is a COMPLIMENT, I swear; my favorite poems to this day are one-offs from deactivated dA accounts, and they share a vibe with this memoir I just can’t put into words). Something, though, kept me from fully immersing myself in his book, something about the writing I wasn’t completely gelling with.
I can put into words my issue with the structure of the narrative, which blurs the lines of past and present events. I’m not someone who typically struggles to keep track of where I am in a non-chronological narrative, but this book did pose a challenge.
3/5, strong start but fizzled out and I can’t quite articulate why.
Boomuda Triangle #3 by Megan Brown
It kills me that people dislike this series because Valentine is “insufferable” because I adore his melodrama. And t they meet their older selves in he next issue??? Their happily together older selves??? My heart.
5/5, I give me more Spellentine (also more 👏 vampire 👏 hunter 👏 AUs)
Zombie Makeout Club Vol. 1-3 by Peter Richardson
The author noted that he wanted these volumes to feel like punk films, something abstract and a little confusing, which he definitely succeeded in. They have an interesting concept, but they really are all over the place. Even in their numbering! Vol. 3 chronologically takes place between Vol. 1 and 2, and having read these in publishing order myself, I would recommend you read them chronologically. Most all of the characters in Vol. 2 were new and received no introduction and past events were also brought up like the reader should already be aware of them. All of this missing info is introduced in Vol. 3, and it’s just easier to read them in order of 1, 3, 2 for this reason.
I did really enjoy the character designs. Some of the more deformed creatures had Order of the Gash/Cenobite vibes. Those with more human appearances reminded me of creepypasta ocs. Gasmask Cupid has dark pigtails, kills people who are in love, and has a carved smile, so the whole time I was just thinking about Nina. There’re characters with disfigurements similar to Toby’s decaying cheek and Eyeless Jack’s bloody eye sockets. Not to mention that everyone dresses in a punk/alt way, and if that doesn’t scream edgy creepypasta oc (complimentary) I don’t know what does. Even the concept of Black Blood, which gives people advanced physical capabilities, was reminiscent of Jane’s blood being replaced with liquid hate. I cut my teeth on 2013/2014 creepypasta headcanons, and I have to admit these did make me feel nostalgic for that time in my life.
My enjoyment kind of ends there though. The concepts are good but the execution just isn’t there. Panels are very busy and heavily inked, and I couldn’t always tell what it was I was looking at. The logistics of the Black Blood is never really delved into, and I feel like there’s so much that could be done with that storyline. At least with Mirai’s backstory in Vol. 1 we see her motivation for the demented business she’s running (She needs a human battery to keep herself from decaying further? That’s awfully badass.) The next two volumes do pretty much whatever they want. The best way to put it is Vol. 1 set up a plot, but Vol. 2 and 3 are off doing side quests - in the same world and with an awareness of the events of Vol. 1, but doing their own thing. The gore and violence are still there, but the vibes are just different.
They aren’t cohesive. They don’t always make a lot of sense. They have the aesthetics down but the execution as a whole is lacking. Vol. 3 was the best but was still just okay. I did sort of wish I used my hoopla borrows on something else.
Great aesthetics, bad execution. 2/5 for Vol. 1 and 2, MAYBE 3/5 for Vol. 3.
Understanding Trauma and Dissociation by Lynn Mary Karjala
Maybe it’s my fault for not researching this book more before picking it up, but this simply was not what I was looking for.
The author writes that “the purpose of this book is to help you understand the ins and outs of dissociation, both as a positive coping mechanism and as the cause of various kinds of disorders,” and it kind of achieves that. The book is comprised of six chapters educating readers on dissociation and six chapters focused on the course of treatment for DID, plus an appendix and a note to therapists. The writing is very accessible and I came away with a basic understanding of dissociative disorders, but this overwhelmingly felt like a self-help book.
Karjala explains her methods of treating her DID patients in detail, from creating a safe place to memory containment and processing. She also explains energy hygiene, breathing through the chakras, and acupoint tapping for energy resetting with step by step instructions. Which is great if that’s what you picked up this book expecting. I, however, wanted more of the first six chapters detailing the current understanding/research of how and why dissociative disorders occur. The appendix was more in line with my expectations, more academic in its language and much more formally written. The rest is rather simplified and somewhat conversational.
2/5, the author is a practicing psychologist and well qualified to speak on this topic, but I wanted something academic, not self-help.
Quiet Girl in a Noisy World by Debbie Tung
As an over-thinker myself (as well as someone who still has anxiety over conversations I had over a decade ago) Quiet Girl in a Noisy World is pretty relatable, but I wouldn’t say it’s good. The comics are very repetitive, and focus more on anxiety and self-doubt than introversion. Preferring to work alone and avoid casual hangouts is a lot different than feeling panic when making a phone call in front of someone or asking a question of a professor. Feeling like you’re “dying on the inside,” wondering if everyone but you is happy, and looking for deeper meanings and fearing you’ll “spend the rest of [your] life searching for something that isn’t there” points to something much more existential than simply being introverted. Tung does explicitly acknowledge her past with social anxiety, but this book presents her anxiety in a way that seemingly implies it just comes with the territory of being an introvert.
Of course, you can be both an introvert and suffering from an anxiety disorder at the same time. They aren’t mutually exclusive, and, being a memoir, the author is free to express her experiences however she would like. Ultimately, though, I think her framing made being an introvert seem quirky, which is in direct contrast to the seriousness of severe social anxiety and does this memoir a disservice. So much of the page count is focused on her mental health struggles, but there is no real reflection on this topic beyond “I’m introverted.” It felt, to some extent, flippant.
(Note: Tung does have another book, Everything Is Okay, that seems to be centered entirely around anxiety and depression; I’m curious if that book treats its topics more seriously than this one.)
2/5, relatable but lacking.
Book Love by Debbie Tung
Book Love was more enjoyable and less repetitive than Quiet Girl in a Noisy World, but not groundbreaking by any means. Pointing out how much readers like to smell books or how they experience “book hangovers” feels like beating a dead horse at this point. Granted, this was published in 2019, so I’ve seen a lot of bookish content like this in the seven year gap between its publication and my reading. Though, had I read it upon its release in ‘19, it still wouldn’t have felt original: by that point I had seen the subjects of these comics in about a hundred different variations on Pinterest, Tumblr, and Buzzfeed. It’s fine, it’s cute, but I don’t think it’s transformative enough with it’s contents to present a reader’s quirks in a fresh and engaging way.
3/5, not bad, not great, pretty basic.
Radiance by Alyson Noel
Apparently, this is the start is of a companion series to the Immortals books, which I have not read. Perhaps those books, which follow Riley’s sister, Ever, would make me have a greater attachment to Riley, but as it stands, I found this book oddly emotionless and struggled to root for her.
While she complains about the unfairness of it all (which is fair, I’d be upset if I died at twelve, too), ultimately she seems unaffected by having to live her (after)life in Here. She is very matter-of-fact about her circumstances and it reads as indifference. Also matter-of-fact are the backstories of the spirits Riley interacts with, which are info-dumps of trauma with no real emotional impact. You’d think a girl who died maybe a week prior to the start of this novella would be in shock or despair, but she seems content to go about her new life manifesting whatever she wishes for. She’s such a boastful, self-centered girl, and the narrative allows her to be with no consequence, especially when it comes to the Radiant Boy. No previous Soul Catcher has been able to convince the boy to move on, leading Riley to brag about how she’ll have no problem at all, and she ultimately closes the case easily and quickly. Good for her for being so self-assured, I guess, but I don’t understand what makes her so special. This is the kind of story where the protagonist knows next to nothing about the world in which she now exists but somehow still overcomes every obstacle with little to no resistance, and I don’t particularly care for those kinds of invincible and perfect protagonists.
(I will concede that it’s not totally Riley’s fault that she doesn’t know anything about Here or being a Soul Catcher, because no one is teaching her. Her parents don’t speak with her about it, and Bohdi - who’s job it is to teach her - has the nerve to yell at her that she “[doesn’t] have the first clue as to how this all works.” Like, of course she doesn’t. You aren’t telling her.)
Most annoying of all, though, were the constant sentence fragments just tossed about in the narration, which stylistically could have worked if they were following a sentence they were building off of. That was not the case in this book; rather, incomplete thoughts were inserted anywhere and everywhere, and each time I encountered one, my mind automatically prepared for a second clause that never came. Was the book not edited before publication, or was this a purposeful choice the author made? Either way, it made for a very choppy reading experience.
I think the only scene in this book I enjoyed was when Riley brought up Joe Jonas. Once, when making fun of Bohdi’s way of dressing, she said “Just close you’re eyes and ask - What would Joe Jonas wear?” And like, Joe Jonas was the pinnacle of my childhood, I get why we’re invoking him in a book published in 2010, but I need you to understand the way I had to set this book aside for a moment and just cringe at this line. 😂
1/5, will not continue series.
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
My first book from Mafi was Shatter Me, which I didn't care for at all. I wanted to give Mafi a second chance since she's such a popular author, plus AVLEOS is a totally different premise from Shatter Me. AVLEOS is better than Shatter Me, but I think I have to accept I just don't like Mafi's writing.
Maybe it’s because I was listening to the audiobook so I just noticed it more, but so much of the dialogue seemingly was comprised of disbelieving wows or repeatedly asking what. The romance was fine, and Ocean I was an endearing love interest, but that whole subplot came across as pretty basic. And as much as I liked Shirin and Ocean together, I didn’t feel very impacted when they had to go their separate ways. (The ending reminded me a lot of The Sun is Also a Star, actually, but at least those guys got an epilogue that promised a happy ending.) There definitely were things I liked about this book (Shirin’s personality, her resilience, Ocean’s naivety in regards to how people will react to him and Shirin together), but their relationship took center stage and the romance was kind of meh.
3/5, it was just okay.
Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
I took a bit of an Ellen Hopkins break since Impulse and Perfect disappointed me. I had a theory that the more POVs Hopkins wrote, the less developed each would be, which turns out to be completely false. All POVs felt like they received equal attention and development in Tricks, which splits the narrative between five teens who turn to the sex trade as a means of survival, exploring what led them to the streets and their experiences as sex workers.
I am left with some questions about this book, namely why the synopsis advertises the cast of characters as “four straight, one gay.” Seth is openly gay, but calling Ginger straight? Ginger who said she loved Alex and kissed her on the bus all the way to Vegas? Ginger who waits up for Alex to come home so they can go to bed together? That Ginger? Lol, absolutely not.
I’m also left wondering about Whitney’s almost-assault. Was that Cody? I feel like the inclusion of the gambling details was to allude to it being him, but 1) I don’t see why he would solicit sex and 2) it’s never brought up in his POV and I definitely feel like it would be. But then what was the point of dropping those details in their conversation?
4/5, as a whole, I did enjoy this book and immediately put the sequel on hold at the library.
Traffick by Ellen Hopkins
Traffick picks up right after Tricks, with Eden and Ginger off the streets and in group homes, Seth looking for ways to get out of sex work, Whitney in rehab, and Cody in the hospital. We then follow each character as they try to forge new paths forward, as well as glance into the minds of side characters through one-off poems preceding each main POV change. It’s good, but Traffick just doesn’t hit as hard as Tricks did.
From my understanding (having read just a handful of Hopkins’s books now and their reviews on Goodreads) Hopkins’s books are pointedly open-ended to the point of feeling incomplete, so it’s curious to me that she would write a sequel to (debatably) give these characters happy endings. In all honesty, I think the ambiguity of Tricks’s ending worked for the stories being told, and the questions I had at the end of Tricks weren’t even answered in Traffick. Ginger’s narrative ended with discovering her sex-worker mother was dying of AIDS, but Traffick doesn’t focus on what Ginger does with that information (which seems like the next logical step?) until her very last poems. All of Cody’s bad choices (the gambling, stealing money from his stepfather, the debt he racked up) are brushed aside in favor of focusing on his recovery, but his gambling habits were such a huge part of his narrative in Tricks that glossing over the fallout is a strange choice. We don’t see what happens to Jerome after Eden escapes with him, if he’s ever apprehended, if he’s looking for her still, which was totally where my mind went at the end of Tricks (even just a one-off poem from his perspective would have sufficed, I think).
Of course, it’s still interesting to see them all try to forge paths to a better future, but I wasn’t as hooked as I was with Tricks. This also felt more info-dumpy and direct with its messaging, which isn’t to say any of the information conveyed here wasn’t important. It just felt inserted into the narrative for educational purposes and not integrated naturally into the narrative/dialogue.
3/5, nothing lost, nothing gained - I was perfectly happy with the way Tricks ended and didn’t necessarily need this sequel.
Banned Together by Ashley Hope Pérez
First things first, I love the design of this book. The lavender flames at the bottom of the pages, the illustrated contributor portraits beneath the dust jacket, the physical weight of the book itself from the thick pages.
Banned Together is a mix of essays, comics, and short fiction from popular authors who have all had their books challenged, illuminating how personal it is to an author when their book is under attack, as it’s not just an attack on the book itself but on the authors’ own lived experiences and existences. I think my favorite piece was Brendan Kiely’s short story, which follows a teen boy stuck between standing back while his mother leads the initiative to ban “explicit” works from his school’s library or standing up for what he knows is right, all framed as a letter to an author whose book is being challenged in his own hometown. This piece in particular was the most impactful to me because it doesn’t end on a triumphant note; rather, the narrator feels regret for being so passive in the face of his mother’s crusade for censorship. The question it asks is pointed and poignant: after all is said and done, will you look back proud of the choices you made (or, perhaps more apt, the ones you didn’t)?
Interspersed between submissions are ideas to combat book banning (such as starting your own free little library stocked solely on banned books) as well as general information and statistics on the rise of book banning in America. Peréz includes reading lists of banned books, as well as supplemental reading for those looking to educate themselves further on the history of book banning and censorship. While this book is marketed toward teens, it’s not a bad selection for adults to also pick up and read for its accessibility and its resources.
5/5, relevant and recommended.
Bloom by Kevin Panetta
This graphic novel is compared to Heartstopper, and I totally see why, but I way prefer Heartstopper to Bloom. Heartstopper’s story has room to develop at it’s own pace, and had Bloom been been split into multiple volumes I think the issues I had with it would have been avoided. I still don’t think I would have loved it as much as I love Heartstopper, but it would have been slightly more enjoyable of a read.
The pacing of this book is just so bad. It’s a slow burn, slice of life story with a side of angst for 278 pages, and then suddenly it’s a speed run. After Ari and Hector kiss, so much starts happening, and with only 75 pages left a lot is just glossed right over. Suddenly Ari is moving out of his friend’s apartment (we never see him move in, despite this promised arrangement being a big part Ari’s plans), he’s apologizing to Hector (and that’s wrapped up remarkably easily), and then it’s a time skip to December for just a few pages before the book ends. Plus, Ari starts out so juvenile (what 18 year old actually stomps away in an argument?) and any growth he experiences also seems to happen off-page. Why put so much time into building all of these conflicts just to breeze past their resolutions in the last 20% of the story?
2/5, an unsatisfying ending, but good art/character design.
I know I’ve been really laid back so far about being behind on my reading goal but actually wth. I need to lock in.
April had some five star reads and also my first one-star book of the year (and honestly that one’s on me, I had low expectations for it going in and they were proven accurate.) My thoughts on what I read are below the line break. Buckle in; it’s a long one. There will be some spoilers for Perfect.
Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
Top community reviews for this book are so split on Goodreads; they’re either glowing praise or absolute disgust. I fall into the former category. Coming from someone who did not care for McCurdy’s memoir, I absolutely loved Half His Age.
I thought Waldo was excellently written. She’s so sure of herself and her maturity, but the cracks are so obvious to anyone on the outside looking in. She’s wildly insecure and binge buys products to cover it up. She thinks she can handle a relationship with a grown man but we see how she’s emotionally drained by being “the other woman.” She’s ashamed when she drops everything to go see him, but figures she doesn’t “need dignity. I just need him.” She’s too proud to say it’s “cradle robbing,” but she’ll let it slip in the way she feels she’s “disappeared overnight, [been] kidnapped from her bed.” All of her flaws and inconsistencies make this into such an honest and raw book about a young girl who doesn’t yet understand what she wants or deserves. I’d be interested in a follow up somewhere down the road to see how Waldo fares as an adult, because I’m honestly really rooting for this girl and want to see her outgrow her uncertainties and into the confidence her teenage self thought she possessed.
To all the scandalized reviews, I say: Yeah, it’s ugly and vulgar and shocking but like… have you been a teenage girl?
5/5, the long library waitlist was worth it, big recommend.
Bad Apple by Laura Ruby
Another book about a student teacher relationship, except the relationship is entirely a rumor. After running into her art teacher at a museum, a rumor is started that Tola Riley is having an affair with her art teacher. While she’s adamant that nothing of the sort happened, it’s also clear that you can’t entirely trust her narrative, or anyone else’s for that matter. Between her first person POV chapters are sound bites from other characters and their takes on Tola and the scandal, and they reveal miscommunications, outright lies, ironies, and secrets that illustrate just how easy it is for information to get twisted around.
It’s really interesting to me that no one believes Tola when she says that nothing scandalous happened between her and her teacher. Everyone seems to badly want the rumor to be true for their own entertainment, and even Tola’s mother is convinced that she’s not telling the truth and leads the campaign to get the teacher fired. No one listens to Tola when she says she wasn’t taken advantage of, and while that is 100% factual, she can’t blame them for not believing her because she is still hiding something important about the situation from everyone. The info Tola is withholding honestly isn’t that awful, but she’s young and embarrassed and everything just gets so blown out of proportion by every single character (including Tola!) that yeah, I can see why it would feel like her world is ending.
Suffice it so say, I think this book does a very good job of exploring how narratives get twisted sometimes beyond recognition and how it’s up to you yourself to decide what to believe when there are competing “truths.”
4/5, would recommend.
Side note: This book includes a scene at a school board meeting where a mother holds a stack of books she wants removed from the school library, one of which is about a student-teacher affair and features an apple on the cover, which I’m pretty sure is referencing What Was She Thinking? by Zoe Heller and I should have that one finished in early May I think?
Foster By Claire Keegan
I kept seeing this book recommended as this must-read tear-jerker of a novella, though the synopsis didn’t really interest me and I didn’t put it on my TBR. I only took a chance on it because I found out the audiobook run time was only an hour and a half and I figured I didn’t have anything to lose. I have to say, though, I just do not get the hype over this book.
This book is talked up so much and I was left so underwhelmed by it. I was expecting the ending to be something spectacular or for there to be some heart-wrenching twist, something to make all the praise make sense, but everything developed exactly as I expected it to. You can seriously see this ending coming from the very first page, and it might have been emotional had I had any investment in these characters, but I wasn’t feeling it. I will say, Claire Keegan is good at establishing a sense of place, but ultimately this didn't do anything for me.
2/5, I don’t think you’re missing anything by skipping this one.
Perfect by Ellen Hopkins
This is the sequel to Impulse, which I read in March and was disappointed by. Perfect was also disappointing, but for different reasons.
Pros: Each individual storyline was interesting, and I do think these characters had more personality than those in Impulse. Cons: Their storylines are kind of all over the place. Kendra’s arc kind of developed but it’s very open-ended if she will accept help for her eating disorder. Sean’s definitely developed (in a very chaotic and let’s make-all-the-wrong-choices kind of way, which made him unlikeable, sure, but also very interesting) but there was too much other stuff going on with him that the main focus of his steroid use kind of got pushed aside. Andre gets a happy ending, but his path to it felt overtaken by Jenna’s involvement in his life. Cara’s arc gives more insight to the family dynamic Connor touches on in Impulse but the focus is mainly on her exploring her sexuality, which wasn’t bad but was very insta-lovey so it came across as kind of forced, I guess?
I have a theory that the more POVs Ellen Hopkins introduces in a book the less I’ll like it, because I think if all these characters had their own dedicated novels they would have been given the care and attention they needed to make their arcs feel complete. There’s just so much being juggled here and i felt like it could have been executed better.
Also, a spoilery rant: Kendra’s sister is raped (off-page) near the end of the novel and her assault serves as a way for Sean to keep justifying to himself that what he did to Cara wasn’t assault because it was nothing nearly as violent as what happened to Jenna. Fine, Sean’s still a bad person at the end of the book, I’m okay with that, readers aren’t meant to like him, his whole arc is a downward spiral, that’s not my issue here. I am NOT okay with how, in the author’s note, Hopkins says “if you possess great outer beauty and use it in the wrong way, it can come back to haunt you. Witness Jenna, in this book.” Like??? What is this victim blaming suddenly coming from the author? Jenna’s beauty didn’t “come back to haunt her,” a man made the choice to assault her. And like, the whole time in the aftermath of Sean assaulting Cara I wasn’t getting this victim blaming vibe from the author (quite the opposite, because Sean has this small moment of clarity when he says the same things about Cara “asking for it” as he is about Jenna and he’s just on the cusp of understanding what he’s done). But then there’s this little addendum with a warning to readers not to end up like her. Seriously, wtf???
2/5, somehow both better and worse than Impulse, just a lot going on and the storylines sometimes stray too far from their main focuses.
Irreversible by Chris Lynch
I have to wonder what made anyone think penning a sequel to Inexcusable was necessary or a good idea. The final scene of Inexcusable was very open ended and readers could decide for themselves if Keir felt any remorse for his actions. He wasn’t redeemed by the end of the novel, but you could come to your own conclusions about whether redemption would ever be possible for him and if he would change. That book was meant to spark conversations, and, while I didn’t enjoy Inexcusable, I could appreciate why it was written and what it was trying to do. So why, ten years later, would you publish a book that spells out exactly what happens to Keir after he assaults Gigi?
Firstly, this did not need to be nearly as long as it was. Inexcusable clocks in art 176 pages (give or take, depending on the edition) and manages to tell its story in that span. Irreversible is somehow 352 pages and doesn’t have much to say for it’s length. (I will say, part of the high page count is the copy/paste of scenes from Inexcusable; while done sparingly, there are one or two pages here and there of flashbacks from the previous book for readers who are picking up Irreversible after the ten year gap in publishing.)
Keir’s development in Inexcusable was dubious at best and it’s just nonexistent here for a good 98% of the novel. He’s leaving home for the first time, and while he’s coming to realize that he’s (gasp) not the center of the universe he still has a sense of entitlement that he doesn’t ever really lose. He doesn’t handle life well without his father acting as a buffer, and you’d think he’d take his new experiences as some sort of wake up call but everything just goes right over his head. At least in Inexcusable he had moments where he doubted his perception of past events and was a little bit self aware; he’s so much more dense in Irreversible and there is only so much time I can spend in Keir Sarafian’s head before becoming absolutely sick of him and his refusal to grow as a person. Look, I don’t typically mind frustrating characters, but in a character-driven novel I need him to make some kind of progress before the final ten or so pages to make the read worthwhile.
1/5, this was a slog, if you didn’t like the first book you are not going to like the second.
Monster High Boomuda Triangle (Issues #1 & #2) by Megan Brown
No thoughts, just Spellentine bouncing around the multiverse. Hoopla stopped getting the new IDW Monster High issues so I had to venture into a comic shop for these and it was worth it.
5/5, Kieran Valentine they could never make me hate you.
Hannibal Lecter by Brian Raftery
I’m a sucker for horror movie history, so of course I was going to enjoy a biography of sorts for a fictional cannibal. This is a well researched book that really leaves no stone unturned in chronicling the creation of Hannibal Lecter. Raftery of course starts with the author himself, the seclusive Thomas Harris, and his news reporter background during the rise of violent crime across the nation, drawing connections between the real-life Hannibal Lecters Harris reported on and the fictional cannibal he created. The book then goes into the research and production involved with each of Harris’s novels and subsequent movie adaptations, weaving in commentary from individuals involved in their creation (both from secondary sources and interviews conducted by the author). It’s a very thorough book.
I do think that, while of course you have to provide necessary context about the films Hannibal Lecter is in to understand the character, this book is much more of a history of the franchise than a character analysis of Lecter himself, and I wanted and expected character analysis in a book touted as a “biography.”
4/5, very thoroughly researched franchise history but could have really honed in on Lecter more.
Happyland (Vol. 1 & 2) by Shingo Honda
I was so invested and just blew through these two volumes. Every big secret these characters revealed had me hooked and the ending of the first volume made me want to immediately pick up the second. The gore is well done, the “attractions” are creative, the mystery of the park and its sudden appearance was so intriguing - everything just comes together so well. If you’re into horror in any format I think you’d really like these manga.
I got way back on track this month with 10 finished books, which was about my average per month last year. I'm still not "on track" according to Goodreads for my yearly goal (I'm like 8 behind?) but in terms of monthly stats things are getting back to normal. I’ve also realized that it would be much easier for me to write my little reviews after finishing each book instead of doing them all at once at the end of the month, but I’m sure next wrap up I won’t have learned anything and will still be doing things the hard way.
My thoughts on each book can be found beyond the line break. This is going to be a looooooong post.
“My heart beats hard in my chest, though I ask myself: How bad could a library emergency be?”
Pretty bad actually. I’ve witnessed some altercations during my time at the library. I have not, however, discovered that one of my coworkers is actually on the run for killing patients during their time as a nurse.
Yet.
This was fun. Library work is always a time, but suddenly getting a new job at the reference desk and befriending a woman you know is a killer certainly takes the cake for most wild library story. And then to start writing your novel about that woman and her prior exploits in somewhat close quarters? Not a choice I’d have made (probably, hopefully, I’d at least wait until the woman was apprehended before I started fictionalizing it) but it makes for a great premise for a novel.
I do think the ending escalated a bit quickly, but it’s plausible given Margo’s “backed into a corner” mentality. And of course with her newfound love for Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, there was no other way this could possibly end. Given the ending, I wonder how the Carlyle library feels about their fate; all the libraries mentioned are actual locations in Illinois, so it really grounds it in the real world for me.
I do have one complaint: I did not like how the dialogue between characters was all in one paragraph instead of there being a line break when the speaker changed. I adapted to it, but it did throw me at first and took some adjustment.
4/5, library thrillers have a special place in my heart.
Impulse by Ellen Hopkins
My second book from Ellen Hopkins and I was way less invested in this one that I was Identical. I didn't feel very attached to Vanessa and Tony, and really only cared for Connor. Honestly, I feel like Connor could have had his own book instead of being made one of three narrators in Impulse. He definitely had the sort of family dynamic and personal drama that could have constituted his own 600+ page novel in verse.
Tony on the other hand never felt developed. He definitely had more than his fair share of trauma, but I was never invested and his whole story arc was overtaken by his sudden attraction to Vanessa. And Vanessa herself felt underdeveloped too. Like her and Tony had a random buzzword list of traumas tossed together to define their personality/character but we didn't get the level of care needed from the author to make them feel fully fleshed out.
I don't know how I feel about the love triangle aspect either; it was kind of random, kind of unnessecary, just like the wilderness training they went through to “graduate” from their in-patient programs. I’m pretty sure the wilderness survival stuff was just an excuse to get them into a less supervised setting for the final tragedy to play out. But idk, I’ve never been in a mental health facility, so let me know if you’ve ever had to go camping in the Nevada desert to be released from your psychiatric stay.
2/5, really only found Connor interesting and he was done SO dirty.
The Leaving Room by Amber McBride
Okay so. I have notes for this book on why I rated it the way I did. But to be honest, this book just has not stuck with me. I know it deserves its four-star rating; the writing was excellent, I loved the aesthetic of the Leaving Room setting and the whimsy of it’s magic, and I loved the twist involving all the girls who passed through the Leaving Room on their way to the next place. But thinking back on this book a month later I feel pretty meh about it and I’m not sure what to even write for this quick review. It definitely wasn’t bad, but it is forgettable. Like if someone asked me for recommendations this would not come to mind even though I really enjoyed it and found it well-crafted.
4/5 immediately after finishing, but maybe more like a 3/5 based on how its impact on me has faded in just a little under a month?
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
Good news: I found this book to be better written than Game Changer (which I read in February and found to be very surface level and honestly a little mind-numbing.) Bad news: it’s still pretty meh.
The stakes were higher than in book one; both Shane and Ilya sharing the fear of losing everything they have worked for if their secret were to ever come out was definitely more engrossing than Kip being off in his own world while Scott is the only one with something to lose. I just don’t think I’d have cared about book Hollanov if I didn’t love show Hollanov, you know? The source material doesn’t do as good of a job of making me care about these characters, and I don’t think their connection is as powerfully depicted in print as it is in the show.
3/5, better than Game Changer, but overall meh. Unsure if I care enough to read The Long Game.
The Harrowing by Kristen Kiesling
Liked the art, liked the concept, but the plot felt very surface level I guess? This book asks big questions about morality and what makes a person irredeemable as well as what gives someone the right to decide who lives or dies. But I’m not convinced that the characters have their own answers to those questions by the end. I don’t know if 240 pages of a graphic novel is enough to tackle those topics at all, really.
This story does have a strong set up though, as well as a great concept: Harrows are people who are able to tell via touch if a person is going to commit an act of violence, which they then report to their organization so someone can step in and prevent that tragedy if necessary. Of course, as with all mysterious organizations who claim to be doing things for the greater good, the lines between right and wrong blur and there are major overreaches in their power. Rowan discovers that her mother was a Harrow and so is she, and, after being (very suspiciously) shipped to the training facility to hone her abilities, starts working for this organization. When her best friend and love interest becomes a target of the Harrows, she questions everything she has been taught.
This sounds like an amazing concept, and yet something wasn’t working for me. Again, 200 some pages just isn’t enough to really delve into all the questions this story raises. Another few chapters to spread this story across might have balanced it out.
3/5, interesting concept, needed more from it than it was giving.
Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
Note: I tried reading this in high school, barely got into it, and DNF’d. It was just as hard to get into now as it was back then.
The formatting of this one was interesting: we start at the scene of the crime then shift in and out of it as Keir explains the events leading up to that moment and tries to convince the reader that he’s not the bad guy that Gigi seems to be convinced he is. We end where we started and it’s neat… to a point.
Knowing the end at the beginning makes the ending anticlimactic. The whole book is anticlimactic, actually. It doesn’t build up to anything, you know immediately where it’s heading and then it happens and that’s pretty much all it has to say for itself. The way Keir stays in the bed waiting for whatever happens next to happen is not the kind of powerful ending that fixes the monotony of the rest of the book. (Fun fact: I’ve barely started the sequel, but it picks up right where Inexcusable leaves off and negates any open-ended conclusion you as a reader may have come to about Keir’s feelings of guilt or regret.)
This is Keir’s tunnel vision POV of how everything went wrong between him and Gigi and how what he did couldn’t possibly be considered by any sane mind assault. He’s steadfast in his belief that he’s a good guy. But he does have a few moments where the clouds part and he doubts his recollection and his actions. There’s a scene where him and the other football players think they’re just playing harmless pranks on the soccer team, but when he watches the recording of that night back he thinks the person on screen can’t possibly be him because his memories of that night are so different from the abject cruelty that was captured on video.
He’s not a reliable narrator but his moments of minor clarity aren’t enough to redeem him of his ignorance either. The open-ended final scene isn’t enough to make me think he’s going to change. The synopsis of the sequel tells me that he hasn’t since we last saw him. I think it’s an interesting exercise to write from the accused’s POV, but I don’t think it was well executed.
My last complaint: it’s maybe trivial but why did Gigi always have to be referred to by her first and last name? There is only one Gigi in this story. We know it’s Gigi Boudakian. Every time the author writes Gigi I know he is referring to Gigi Boudakian. When Keir is speaking about Gigi I know he is speaking about Gigi Boudakian. If you neglect to mention her last name the world will not end. Just call her Gigi.
Unsure of rating, probably like 2/5? Still going to read Irreversible.
Loving, Ohio by Matthew Erman
I love a good eldritch being. I love a good dead-end midwest town. This is both of those things combined, and I somehow felt underwhelmed. I saw someone else in their review say it felt like an A24 film and I can see that. It definitely has that quality, but I can’t really elaborate on what or why.
This graphic novel did a great job at showing the oppressiveness of the Midwest and the yearning to leave your small town, and I like the dynamic of the protagonists. I can’t really put my finger on why this didn’t captivate me. It started strong and had a good set up for the rest of the story - maybe it was the pacing? The climax happens, our eldritch religious cult creature is killed, and then life just goes on for the last fourth of the book. I’m a big proponent of authors showing the aftermath of trauma, of giving us some kind of epilogue to see how the characters are doing after the Big Bad Evil is defeated, because after everything they’ve been through life still has to go on somehow. I love that aspect of stories. I think in this case too much attention was given to that part of their lives, and they honestly seemed pretty okay given all that they had been through. I don’t know that the final quarter of this narrative needed to be dedicated to Sloane and her travels across the country when it didn’t add a ton of substance. She definitely needed something to finish out her arc, but this didn’t feel like the right direction to take it.
But also, I wasn’t feeling engrossed before I got to that point in the story, so maybe it was something else pushing me away? Idk. I can’t articulate why this one didn’t totally work for me, but it didn’t. And I have to mention that there were a ton of typos and missing words within the dialogue. That’s not the crux of my issue with this book, but I did notice errors often.
Yeah. 3/5, there was something in it that kept me reading, just a spark of something that never took off. I mean I’m still thinking about it, so. Maybe I should reread this. I feel like I’m missing something.
Journal Me Organized by Rebecca Spooner
I don’t really know why I keep picking up books on creative journaling/ bullet journaling. I’m at the point where I don’t exactly need to use them for reference but I still pick them up when I see them. And I pretty much give all of them 3/5.
The spreads were cute but not really my style, plus all of the spreads were the basic things you see by browsing Pinterest. If you are just starting out and want the cliff notes of the bullet journal method with beginner friendly spreads for inspiration, then I’d recommend this to you. Well-versed planners/journalers won’t find anything new here.
3/5, not groundbreaking but useful to the right audience.
The Lords of Salem by Rob Zombie
I have to preface this by saying that I love this movie. I would describe it as a more demented Rosemary’s Baby. The visuals and the atmosphere are great, the horror is amazing, the jumpscares don’t feel cheap. The book doesn’t quite live up to the film though.
It is expanded with extra scenes and already existing sequences are slightly modified. I think some of the choices made to alter scenes make the story more gimmicky and goofy, like Morgan’s chair floating up in the air during her trial and subsequent execution, or the record from the Lords only playing backwards (not like the song is reversed - though that reminds me, nuns do speak the Lord’s Prayer backwards in the book, which might have been cool to see in the film - but the needle starts at the inside of the record and moves outwards.)
The book also added Heidi sensing a chicken cage swinging above her bed, imagery included in the beginning of the novel as the coven’s demise plays out, and the red cross in the empty apartment is changed to the Jesus Saves sign, which makes more sense in all honesty. I liked these additions, especially how bits and pieces of the past start to filter into Heidi’s present and how she senses them.
There’s also a lot more violence in the novelization than the film. Heidi is attacked so many times and almost drowned, characters who previously lived in the film meet brutal ends, and we get perspectives from other women and see how the music drives them toward madness/violence. I’d say the film falls squarely in horror and the book veers into splatterpunk territory just a bit, like it was going for the shock factor instead of building up that dread.
So overall it’s a 3/5; it had it’s merits, but it doesn’t hit the same as the film.
Dear Medusa by Olivia A. Cole
This book covers a lot of topics and it makes for a heavy read, but it never feels overwhelming given all the content packed into this novel in verse. While mainly about sexual assault, this book also touches on racism, sexuality, and briefly on religion.
Alicia was sexually assaulted by one of her teachers her sophomore year and is navigating (sometimes poorly) the effects the assault has had on her. We maybe catch one or two glimpses of the Colonel as Alicia avoids him at all costs, but his presence in the school haunts every moment she spends there. She feels like a ghost, like a monster, like her high school’s newest lightning rod for slut shaming. She’s justifiably enraged, and it’s hard not to root for her as she learns to use her voice and connects with other girls who she previously didn’t think she had anything in common with. This book makes a point of how women are stronger together, that it doesn’t serve women to villainize each other when what we need is to be bringing each other up and fighting together, which I loved. Dr. Kareem’s group discussions especially will be powerful for young readers as they show that the real enemy isn’t each other but the way the world polices women and their bodies.
My biggest complaint is that the letters to Medusa aspect didn’t come in until later in the plot. It’s the title of the novel, it’s the reason I picked this up, and it took not an insanely long time to get to it but long enough that I was wondering when that device would come into play. Perhaps it was necessary to see Alicia discover Medusa in her own time to see how Medusa’s story sparks her towards action: before discovering Medusa’s origins she’s understandably angry at her circumstances, but after reading about her we see the fire in Alicia grow and grow with each injustice she faces and each message she writes to the gods who harmed Medusa.
I’m also iffy on the ending. This book is about the path to getting justice, so Alicia’s teacher facing consequences for the abuse isn’t the end game, per se. But finishing off with Alicia running track again didn’t quite feel as climactic as it was meant to be. The very final poem (a message to Olympus) WAS the ending I wanted, but coming after the track scene just didn’t flow for me.
4/5, powerful, love the message, would recommend. My complaints might just be a me thing.
February was not a good month for reading. Big home repairs were happening, so I didn't have as much time to read as I normally would, and then when I did have time to read I couldn't concentrate. Five is still a good number, but I know had I not had other stuff going on I could have read a few more before February ended. Hopefully I'll get back on track in March once things die down around here.
Brief thoughts on each book can be found below.
Pig Wife by Abbey Luck
I had Sofia Isella’s “Us and Pigs” stuck in my mind when I saw this title in the Hoopla catalog and decided to take a chance on it. Bad news: so much of a graphic novel’s success depends upon its art, and I did not like the art for this one at all. Good news: the plot is genuinely unsettling, well thought out, and would translate very well to film.
Mary, after slinking into a cellar door in the barn to hide from her step-father, becomes trapped in a cave system after a storm collapses the structure. In the caves, she discovers Ed and Tommy, who have lived their entire lives underground and believe Mary was sent down to them to keep them company and become a wife to one of them. You can feel the tension between the characters when things turn violent, and the oppressiveness of the abandoned mining caves combined with the characters’ close proximity to each other, Ed’s outbursts, and the mysterious “pig wife” in an adjoining cave all combine to create an atmosphere that truly conveys the horror and helplessness of Mary’s situation.
However, Mary puzzled me with how she was fearful one moment then comfortable with the boys the next. She’ll make quips in all the wrong moments, and it’s not like it’s a nervous reaction or anything. Some are actively at the expense of her captors, and I don’t know about you, but if I was trapped in a cave with two strange men, one of whom is easy to anger and could bash my skull in, I wouldn’t be making jokes at him. And then there was a part where Mary told them about her life above ground and the songs her father used to sing in his band, and she sings part of one literally right after Ed punches Tommy like nothing is wrong. I guess there could be something to be said for coping and dissociating under strenuous circumstances, but I don’t think that’s what the author was doing here.
2/5, good plot, great circumstances for a horror graphic novel, but didn’t deliver with the art style or characterization.
Game Changer by Rachel Reid
I’ve seen things about how Rachel Reid writes floating around Tumblr and I have to agree with them: it’s very fanfic-y and it’s very surface level. I’m not typically a fan of insta-love (I think this book really cemented that for me) but I can usually look past it and still enjoy the story if it’s written well. I can’t say that about this one though.
The first half just felt so repetitive and (dare I say it) boring. Even the sex scenes were pretty meh and became mind numbing to read. The second half is better and picks up some, but this was still largely an unenjoyable read. Despite it all, I’m still going to read Heated Rivalry, and probably (?) The Long Game, but the rest of the series will most likely be a skip.
2/5, if the show didn’t introduce me to these characters first I don’t think I’d have cared about them at all.
Deathtrap by Ira Levin
I know this was on my TBR because I loved Jean Korelitz’s The Plot, but I can’t remember now if the rec was because that person hated The Plot and thought this was better or if they really liked both because of their similarities. Regardless, I did like it a lot. I’m a sucker for anything meta, so a play about a play that’s still being written but simultaneously unfolding before your eyes is of course going to be something I’d enjoy. My only complaint is the final scene; I acknowledge that it’s meant to convey that what we just read/watched is about to happen all over again, but the play loses its momentum in the way it suddenly has to recap itself.
4/5, would be interested in seeing this work actually acted out on stage.
Fake Blood by Whitney Gardner
This graphic novel gets checked out all the time and I always put it on display when Halloween comes around, but I’ve never actually read it. With my bad attention span this month I wanted something quick and easy so I finally picked it up, and it was pretty cute. AJ’s long-time crush Nia is obsessed with vampires, so in order to finally catch her attention he pretends to be one. Except Nia isn’t obsessed with vampires because she loves them: she’s actually a vampire slayer.
This is a hit with it’s target age demographic (if the constant check-outs are any indication) and I can see why. It’s cute, it pokes fun at Twilight and its sparkly vampires, and the fear of not being accepted by someone as you are is pretty universal, especially for middle grade aged readers. I’ll definitely keep recommending this to kids at the library.
3/5 for me, but I think the target audience would rate it higher.
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
I don’t really have anything bad to say about this book, but I am annoyed. I loved the characters, thought the romance between August and Jane was cute, enjoyed the dashes of mystery that were tossed in outside of Jane’s time-trapped circumstances and how it all tied together at the end.
So is it bad that I wish this had an “unhappy” ending? I would have been just as happy if August was able to send Jane back to her own time and grow and move on and take the experiences she shared with Jane along with her - which she did for like three months! But the time travel logistics are never ironed out (I wasn’t really expecting them to be in a Casey McQuiston novel, but still, we need some rules) and Jane just poofs back into the 2020s like nothing changed. I didn’t feel warm and fuzzy at their reunion, I rolled my eyes because, even though there weren’t any defined rules to the time travel, it still felt like the author was breaking some kind of rule and forcing a happy ending when everything about this book was giving “bittersweet parting” as the best outcome.
4/5, I have to acknowledge that this was good and I did like it, but I’m still annoyed.
I read eight books this month. Technically, I’m behind by two if I wanted to stay on track for finishing 130 by the end of the year, but oh well. I think my favorite read this month was Identical, which I actually listened to on Libby. It’s difficult for me to stay focused on audiobooks typically, but it helped that this one was poetry. I might do one audiobook a month of Ellen Hopkins’s books actually, provided that they don’t pale in comparison to this first one I’ve read of hers. Hopefully she doesn’t let me down, lol.
My thoughts on each book can be found underneath the cut in order of appearance on the graphic above, starting in the first column and going down.
A Year Without a Name by Cyrus Grace Dunham
This a very vulnerable and honest look into one person’s feelings about their gender and identity. I found the contradiction of wanting to be known and have a solid identity while simultaneously not wanting to be perceived at all to be very relatable. Dunham at points feels that their identity is subject to who they are surrounded by and the environment they are in, another predicament I think most of the population finds themselves in at some point, though maybe not to the degree that Dunham does as a trans individual. While about Dunham’s transition journey, you don’t have to be trans to relate to their experience because a lot of their insecurities are universal, and Dunham does a great job of articulating these moments and their struggles to the reader.
While I do think this memoir could build empathy in the reader for the trans community, I can see some being turned off by the writing style. Dunham writes very academically, and I’ve seen some reviewers describe it as pretentious. I can see where those people are coming from (there were parts where I felt the flow of the narrative was disrupted) but ultimately I still enjoyed it, and it was a good start to my year of reading.
4/5, would recommend.
Identical by Ellen Hopkins
Identical follows twins Kayleigh and Raeanne. To the outside world they’re the model family: their father is a judge, their mother is actively campaigning for office, and the well-behaved twins finish their picture perfect family portrait. But behind closed doors, their father drinks and SA’s Kayleigh while their mother is on the road, leading Kayleigh to turn to self-harm and bingeing/purging to cope. Meanwhile, Raeanne finds herself craving the attention that is forced upon her sister and resorts to drugs and sex to cope in her own way.
I didn’t mind the twist of this book being “overdone,” as some would say. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it at all and was locked in when it was revealed. I do think that the resolution regarding her father was lacking, though. I think most readers will want to see a heavier punishment for him for his actions. (Could I even call what he received a punishment? It’s accurate in the way that most abusers tend to get away with it and face little to no consequences, but that doesn’t make it any less infuriating.) I wish Kayleigh stood up for herself against him one more time, but I can also completely understand why she didn’t. Kayleigh has hope for the future despite it all, and I respect the author for giving Kayleigh’s story a realistic conclusion, even if it’s not quite a happy one.
5/5, heavy but absolutely worth the read.
Side note: I listened to this book on audio and enjoyed that experience, but my library had a physical copy on the shelf that I flipped through and some of the poems are better appreciated in print. Being mirror twins, the poems of Raeanne and Kayleigh that appear on facing pages are also mirrored in their structure. These poems also single out certain words that make a sentence to supplement the poem and provide an extra glimpse into their minds. Some poems are structured into images or large letters to start the final line of the poem. I don’t know which experience I would have enjoyed more for my initial reading of this book. I don’t regret choosing the audio experience and would recommend it, but maybe it would be best experienced with a physical book in hand to follow along with?
Skater Boy by Anthony Nerada
100% picked this up because I saw someone else on Tumblr post the cover and blindly ordered it at the library hoping it was Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi coded. And it wassssss.
Wes is one of Stonebridge’s resident bad boys, getting into fights, skipping class, and getting high with his friends. Adults have told him that he’s destined to be a nobody when he graduates (if he graduates). But there’s more to Wes than meets the eye, and after meeting Tristan (yes, he does ballet, yes they meet after a production of The Nutcracker), Wes is determined to change for the better and shed the image that he’s let become him.
I appreciate an angry main character, and Wes has plenty to be angry about. The stereotypically masculine man image has him in its grips and he never feels like he can open up to anyone, least of all his friends. His sense of self is further complicated by the labels people give him. He’s scared of change, scared of losing his friends, scared of them turning on him if he were to ever come out to them - he’s got a lot going on and no outlet to work through it (or so he thinks).
It’s not a play by play of the song, but it doesn’t need to be.
4/5, this fills the Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda sized hole in my heart.
Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson
Phoebe is obsessed with true crime and is writing her dissertation on the genre while clearing out her late father’s house. Enter Sam, a neighbor she meets on the night she arrives in Florida that Phoebe is convinced is up to something. He keeps odd hours, his garage is conveniently sound proofed, and Phoebe sees him with a suspiciously red something on his hands late at night. Can you blame a girl for suspecting the worst?
This sounds like a good set up for a romcom. FMC suspects neighbor of foul play, he’s actually really normal (not to mention cute), maybe she starts a little investigation of her own, hijinks ensue, etc. Which is what it was until about 36% into the book when Phoebe’s suspicions are all cleared up in a quick and easy conversation. I expected this kind of behavior to last at least until the halfway point, maybe even until the third act conflict, but at 36% it just felt too soon to drop the gimmick. Really, without the gimmick, Phoebe and Sam’s romance felt really dull, and I can’t say the sexy scenes were all that intriguing either.
Phoebe is the kind of woman who’d “rather be seen as a little rude that risk being taken to a second location”, and I love her for it. I love that she’s cynical, I love that she’s jaded, I love that she’s so convinced love is dead but slowly learns to let her guard down and accept kindness. She’s flawed but trying her best and I saw a lot of myself in her. Then there’s Sam who’s… boring. I get why he makes a good love interest; he’s a school music teacher, he’s selfless, he sees the good in Phoebe when she doesn’t. He’s good for her, but I just didn’t feel like they had any chemistry.
I think this book was mismarketed, honestly. It’s only sort of a lighthearted romcom, but drops that front pretty quick in favor of dissecting Phoebe’s relationship with true crime and her father and her resentment of relationships. This a solid story about a woman coming to accept her father’s sudden death, the broken home she came from, and how that experience shaped who she became. Yes, there’s a romance, but everything with Sam felt like background noise. The best parts were the ones where Phoebe showed growth and began to heal from her past.
3/5 for Phoebe’s arc, she carried this all on her own, the romance was boring.
The Flip Side by Jason Walz
I initially was hesitant to read this one; while the synopsis sounded good, the art style was putting me off. I got over that initial reservation fast, though, because the story is that good. Theo has just lost his best friend to cancer; upon returning home from the reception, he falls asleep only to wake up in the Flip Side, a world just like his own but quite literally flipped upside down. In the Flip Side, his depression takes a physical form and follows his every move through this strange mirror land. Along with Emma, a girl who is very familiar with the terrors of the Flip Side, Theo searches for a way back to his reality, learning about his grief along the way. The world itself is a great visual metaphor for loss and the depression that follows in it’s wake, and the state of the Flip Side is a stark contrast to the moment where Theo wakes up and is able to get out of bed again and leave the house for the first time following Evan’s death. This is all heavy subject matter, but it is expertly balanced by moments of levity between Emma and Theo, glimmers of hope for the future, and the promise of healing through letting go.
This book is somewhat inspired by the author’s own experiences with losing his best friend and that friend’s short story (“Rooted,” available on the author’s website to read). The author’s note at the end of this book really grounds this story in reality despite its fantastical world. Grief may be universal, but it can still feel like you’re on your own navigating it. Traversing it often feels like having a monster breathing down your neck or hiding just around the corner ready to pounce. You can’t outrun it, but you can learn from it and learn to live again after it.
4/5, a solid depiction of depression and grief in a whimsical, dark, and desolate world.
Inked in Blood 2: Once Upon a Crime by Ryan J. Downey and Spencer Charnas
Finally purchased this one after the mess that the preorders for the first release turned into. A fun time, and I hope INK keeps making media for their albums like this. Though I have to go back and watch the music videos again because I’m not sure how this one fit into the Horrorwood lore, or if it was meant to at all.
Love a cheesy slasher, love an INK tie-in.
Clear Cut by Melody Dodds
Heather is a high school freshman who accidentally injures her arm but finds that the pain helps soothe her. She starts to cut to cope with her parents fighting all the time, her best friend suddenly spending her time with a new boyfriend, and the forest she lives beside being cut down in favor of high-end seasonal tourist houses (which taught me that clear cutting means to cut down every tree in an area, so the title is pulling double duty.)
It wasn’t bad, and I liked Heather, but the ending just wasn’t clicking for me. This book spans a little over a year, and the final months where she recovers and breaks her self harm habit are so briefly mentioned that they make recovery feel easy when it’s definitely not. It does cast therapy in a positive light, and without having Ms. Turner’s support Heather definitely would have had a harder time of it, but still just to gloss over those months? Seeing a character heal over time is just as important as seeing them struggle, maybe even more so, but August-December is all breezed through in one short poem. It just didn’t feel finished.
3/5, not bad, but a weak/rushed ending.
The Taylors by Jen Calonita
I saw The Taylors Version #1 in one of the hoopla digital newsletters and was curious enough to look into it and borrow the prequel. Idk, I feel compelled to read most things inspired by or about Taylor Swift. It was cute, definitely for a middle grade or younger audience. The Taylors Version books seem to be more geared toward young adult readers, and I may pick one up but if I leave this series unfinished I’d be okay with that also. It’s not high on my priorities.
The Taylors are a group of four girls all named Taylor (after Taylor Swift, of course). There’s Teffy (who goes by the nickname Austin Swift has for Taylor), Tay Tay, TS, and Taylor, and all are dreaming of going to the Eras Tour when it comes to Indianapolis. The girls team up to raise money for tickets while navigating middle school, mean girls, and conflicts within the group.
This was published in October 2025 and probably would have been super popular if it was out during the Eras Tour’s run. If we were all still experiencing Taylor fever and watching the livestreams every night and guessing surprise songs alongside these girls, it’s release would be more timely. But coming after the Eras Tour, I guess I’m kind of over it? Like, yeah I experienced all these same things, the fandom, the listening parties, I lived through this moment in pop culture history. It’s just too soon for a period piece about the ticket presale fiasco and the fall of 2024. Maybe it would be well received with younger readers today but this just seems like something that needed to come out alongside the big event it’s depicting, not after the fact.
3/5, cute, probably a hit for young swifties, but whatever for me.
