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.
This book is simply amazing and so inspiring! I think books like this are so important for young adult readers. It gives examples of how it can be so easy to turn to the path of least resistance when we’re struggling to meet our needs but how it only makes our problems worse. The characters in this book are all so courageous how they work themselves out of the problems they created for themselves and develop the lives and relationships they deserve. Definitely look into the trigger warnings before reading anything by Hopkins as her book content is heavy, but even with that being said, they provide a great opportunity for healing, insight and empathy.
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