As promised, here are some mini-reviews of all the books I’ve read from May-July!
Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
A beautiful anthology by a variety of Indian and Australian authors all about feminism. The stories mainly focus on dystopian worlds where the women characters in the stories are fighting to be heard or for themselves. The works revolve around a variety of topics from cat-calling, to harassment, even covering environmental issues. All of the stories are original, unique, and their were even a few comics and a script to add some variety to the mix. Eat the Sky Drink the Ocean in a beautiful and inspiring anthology that’s a must have for any feminists in your life!
Rating: ⛤⛤.5
Wintersong was a strange book and I still don’t entirely know how I feel about it. S. Jae-Jones is a very good writer, and I really enjoyed reading her writing, but I wasn’t crazy about the story. I know that she’s retelling a myth, but for the most part it isn’t a retelling, she’s just telling the Goblin King myth happening to her protagonist. It just isn’t original. Combine that with the strange stockholmy relationship with the Goblin King, and Liesel being an annoying goddamn martyr, the book itself wasn’t for me, but I do want to read more of Jones’ work. Just not one’s about goblins.
Rating: ⛤⛤⛤
I was looking forward to this book so much and honestly it took me so long to read because I was so bored by it. Mae is an irritatingly naive protagonist, but eventually you learn she’s meant to be written this way. I did enjoy the book more about halfway through, and became incredibly angry when a private moment between Mae and someone else is filmed and uploaded to the Circle’s cloud, but what really sold me for this book is the ending. I did not seeing it coming and it gave me chills!
Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
Combining both of Ivan Coyote’s anthologies here because they’re both amazing, and the stories double up in some cases. Coyote’s work is thoughtful, endearing, and emotional. They’re short essays on their life and experiences as a trans butch Canadian from the Yukon. A must-read for anyone looking for more queer literature, especially teens.
Rating: ⛤⛤
This book was on a list for most-anticipated books of 2017 and I was won in by the dark humour concept, but it just ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Though Darrows mentions that she wanted to write a book to give sympathy to the mean girl since she’s become a trope in books, movies, etc., she fails to do it. A lot of this failure stems from the fact that the book is from the nerdy girl, not the mean girl’s perspective so it’s already biased. The second is that I feel no sympathy for a mean girl who takes pictures of guy’s dicks and sends them around, who takes pictures of herself on a teacher’s phone and gets him fired, and is homophobic to her mom and her mom’s girlfriend. If that isn’t enough I don’t know what is.
Rating: ⛤⛤
Another book on an anticipated book list that just wasn’t for me despite it’s interesting sounding plot. I’m in the minority of dislike for this book, but I found the plot to be incredibly predictable, the twist unsurprising, and the way the characters spoke annoying. It’s a Fantasy novel, but the characters speak very modernly, using words like “totally,” or describing attractive people as “hot.” It threw me off for how Fantasy novels are usually written. I also didn’t feel attached to any of the characters.
Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤⛤
I adored this book for a number of reasons. One was because it’s Canadian, the other is because it’s such an important novel to read. I love that more diverse books are getting published, and that the cover of this book shows a girl with her hijab on! Janna was a beautiful character to read, and I grew so attached to her through her pain. Ali also handled the idea of relgion being used as a mask by people to make themselves seem better, holier than others incredibly well. This was an amazing debut novel and I can’t wait to read more by Ali!
Six Blue Marbles Book Reviews 