i was expecting a lot more self-love, empowering feminist sort of poems, and while there are some, most of this is love/romantic relationships/longingi was expecting a lot more self-love, empowering feminist sort of poems, and while there are some, most of this is love/romantic relationships/longing/heartbreak poems and they didn’t really do much for me, and after a couple it started to feel repetitive. three stars because my meh feelings about this is probably because i was expecting something else, not because it’s a bad collection or anything.
content/trigger warnings; negative body image, blood, sex, emotional abuse...more
content/trigger warnings; gender dysphoria and mention of death
rep; em is questioning her gender and sexual/romantic identities, leo is aromantic, andcontent/trigger warnings; gender dysphoria and mention of death
rep; em is questioning her gender and sexual/romantic identities, leo is aromantic, and thaian and sonia are queer ladies (labels not given).
i went into this expecting some of that good questioning content, but i just don’t feel like enough happened for me to have an opinion on it??? it’s cool that em stays questioning and without knowing her identities/labels through to the end. but that’s pretty much all i have to say about this, honestly. it needs more. of everything.
usually a two star for me is something like “mostly negative, but don’t aggressively hate it” but in this case, it’s more like “idk *shrug* okay?”...more
i need to read more poetry collections like this. so many important topics, some that really aren’t talked about enough, are touched on in this. realli need to read more poetry collections like this. so many important topics, some that really aren’t talked about enough, are touched on in this. really good.
i’ve known about this book for a while and all the rep it (and the rest of the series) has, but i hadn’t read it until now, because i don’t typically reach for this genre, but i figured, why not?
and man.......this book is really enjoyable. the humor and sarcasm and banter and interactions between the characters really makes it for me. i mean, the character are seriously wonderful. i don’t know if i would have liked it as much if it was more on the serious side, with little or subtle humor.
magnus is pansexual, or at least implied to be in later books. sam is a muslim hijabi. hearth is deaf and uses sign language. blitz is black.
i particularly liked how the deaf rep is handled. in some books with a deaf character, it’s said that they sign, but there’s no change in how the dialogue is written, there’s no description of the signs, there’s nothing to signal that the hearing characters are looking at the deaf character when they speak so they can read their lips, it’s just like, “hey this character is deaf” and literally that’s it. but with this book, hearth being deaf is actually acknowledged throughout the entire story. how it’s hard to sign and walk, how if the deaf person is lip reading they actually have to be able to see people’s mouths, signs are described, how some signs can mean different things depending on context is brought up, how the structure of sentences in sign language isn’t the same as it is in spoken language, when the gang is running from danger and one yells out where to go hearth keeps on going because he obviously didn’t hear the direction, and when the gang is checking on each other and can’t find hearth they yell his name even though that obviously doesn’t help. just small things like that make me believe that the author actually put effort into the character being deaf, as opposed to when it feels like an author wrote an entire book and then went back at the end to add in a line about how a character is deaf.
anyone who reads this review will probably groan right about now, but i couldn’t help make harry potter comparisons while reading. granted, it’s a pretty basic comparison. mg/ya fantasy series where adults are pretty much absent from the kids’ life threatening adventures until the end when they’re all “hey cool shit y’all did let’s eat.” only this is a bit more satisfying because it’s diverse and a bit more chill. harry potter will probably always have the upper hand with all the nostalgia and beloved characters, but, hey. this is pretty awesome, too.
that’s not to say i don’t have a list of things that bugged me:
• two instances of anti-native language • lots of judgmental and shaming comments about people’s appearances, like constantly describing people as ugly • using scars/disfigurement as a sign of evilness or ugliness • a lot of ableist language, including constant intellectual ableism • a girl likes a guy so she constantly insults and belittles him..........top notch romance • two characters complain about how hard it was for them to pretend to be homeless to someone who was actually homeless • a little bit of that “we can’t tell you xyz” shit you always get with the “person finds out they’re part of a magical world” trope • the deaf character has a tragic past of his family not loving or accepting him because he’s deaf and the muslim hijabi character has a tragic past of racism • main character thinks the idea of passing as a dwarf is “disturbing” • a beard on a woman is categorized as a paradox • this line “only people who have known great pain have the capacity to learn magic”...more
content/trigger warnings; ableism, abuse, death of mentally ill queer character, violence, murder,
not only is a bipolar pansexual cum...what the fuck?
content/trigger warnings; ableism, abuse, death of mentally ill queer character, violence, murder,
not only is a bipolar pansexual character murdered in this book, they are dehumanized while alive and their death and mental illness are romanticized plot devices.
corey romanticized kyra’s manic episodes, describing them as wonderful, energetic, adventurous, happy. good days. she even asked kyra if she would miss her mania if she started taking mood stabilizers. (kyra ends up calling her out on this mindset, telling her how just because she’s more “productive” during her manic episodes, doesn’t means she’s better or it’s easier than her depressive episodes.) corey literally mentions wanting to fix kyra. corey told kyra that the townspeople who spew ableist abuse at her don’t mean any harm, don’t know any better, and aren’t ill-intentioned, completely dismissing her friend’s very justified hurt and anger at how they treated her. kyra also talks a lot about never feeling like she’ll be enough, because people either hate her because of her mental illness (the town) or love her despite of it (her parents and corey), no one ever just accepts her, all of her, as she is. just...no one treats kyra as person with hopes and dreams and thoughts and feelings and fucking autonomy, simply because of her mental illness. she is completely dehumanized throughout the entire book, both in life and in death.
the townspeople ostracized kyra because of her mental illness, but when she started creating prophetic paintings during her manic episodes, they quite literally held her hostage, denied her medication and therapy, and used her to their benefit because they - in her father’s words - “needed her light.” they romanticized her illness as a way to better them and the town with no care or concern to what it was doing to her. they minimized her to nothing but her illness and paintings and what she could do for them. they watched her die while trying to escape them and did nothing to help her because she had painted that moment.
even with corey’s pov telling us what the townspeople did was wrong, the very fact that kyra’s manic episodes were written as producing magical predictions of the future romanticizes mental illness and dehumanizes mentally ill people.
rep; kyra is pansexual and has bipolar, both said on page. corey is asexual, the word is used on page. but asexuality and aromanticism seem to be conflated here. the fact that there isn’t only one form of attraction is just never acknowledged. the book tells us that corey doesn’t fall in love because she’s asexual. first it’s said that corey isn’t in love with kyra because she doesn’t feel those things for anyone, that “that’s not how it works for her,” then it’s later explained that corey is asexual. but that’s not what asexual means. that is a conflation or confusion of asexual and aromantic. eileen is black and roshan and sam are queer and moc?
other things:
corey also tells her black friend that she never thought believing in a lie was enough to kill someone, to which eileen says that in her experience words and beliefs kill people all the time and that corey never thought of it like that because she never needed to. when corey moves away, she stops responding to kyra letters and we never find out why? we’re constantly reminded of the fact, but it’s never really explained.
roshan tries to convince corey to make good with kyra’s parents before she leaves, and i’m not here for that bullshit. they abused their daughter, let the entire town abuse her, watched her die and did nothing to help, treated corey like shit and tried to kill her, too. so, nah, roshan can fuck off with trying to guilt corey into fixing a fractured relationship she didn’t create with abuser, murderous people....more
i don’t really know how i feel about this. i like the characters and their romance (for the most part), but i don’t care for some tropes and all the si don’t really know how i feel about this. i like the characters and their romance (for the most part), but i don’t care for some tropes and all the sex (even though there is less than i was expecting). i don’t have any big issues with the book, but i also don’t love it?
i enjoy the rep, the character growth and accountability, and how the unrequited love/pining best friend never turned into some entitled male “friend zone” bullshit.
rep: jasmine is fat, black and pansexual. her pansexuality isn’t named on page, but the author has confirmed it elsewhere. her sexuality is referenced a couple times; putting emphasis on “platonic” when talking about her girl friends who aren’t girlfriends, rahul mentioning her disappearing at parties with girls, and her friend asking if she had feelings for a girl or guy or otherwise categorized person. rahul is muslim/hindi. jasmine’s friend asmita is queer and dating a girl.
some notes i do have:
i have aphobic language in my content/trigger warnings, so let’s talk about that. along with “just a friend” being used a couple times, there’s this line “jasmine filed away her own horror at the situation and tried to think like a normal human being” and what she was referring to was her friend being in love and her being horrified by it. thus, “normal human being” means someone who likes or believes in romantic love, which toes the line of being arophobic, in the idea that experiencing romantic love is what makes people human or normal.
some of the tropes in this that i don’t like are the “i don’t do relationships or love” trope, the self fulfilling “i believe i will fuck up any serious relationship i’m in, so i actively fuck up any potential relationship before it even begins” shit, the “pining and angst until the very last minute, so we barely get to see the actual relationship” trope, and the over done miscommunications (which granted, are only slightly present because of the affects of jasmine’s mother neglecting and abandoning her).
i don’t care for this line, either: “he couldn’t stop his hand from moving if he’d tried” because it reminds me of those shitty romances where right before they have sex, the characters are like “i won’t be able to stop if we go further, so be sure you want this” as if that isn’t gross as hell. i don’t care how turned on you are or how into the sex you are, if someone decides they don’t want to continue, you stop. full stop. you don’t get to ask for blanket consent, or take one yes as a never ending yes.
a little bit of “how can i whine about missing my father who is only on vacation, when his father is dead” from jasmine, which is......ugh, that’s not how it works.
and this moment that i both like and don’t like:
“his heart swelled, joy turning molten in his chest. ‘i shouldn’t have tried to change you. i don’t want you to change.’ ‘i should have trusted you. and i—i haven’t changed. i don’t think i ever will. but i’ve grown. i’m growing.’”
i like it because growth. she’s not changing who is she is, she’s just growing as a person and dealing with her shit in more healthy manners. but i don’t like it because he literally never tried to change her. he loved her and knew she didn’t do relationships, so he never brought it up and was happy to be friend. and when he does tell her how he feels, he’s just putting it out there, she was leaving and didn’t want to and he just went for it. he wasn’t telling her to manipulate her into wanting what he wants or changing who she is. i cannot stand when characters apologize for things they didn’t do to make the character who usually in the wrong feel better.
i only realized while reading this one that it’s the third in the killogy series, not the second lmao oh well, it’s the one i wanted to read most anyways. it’s alright, i saw someone say it was lowkey sad and i’m always up for some deadpool feels, but i didn’t really think so :/...more
i saw a tweet about how deadpool lifts his mask so hawkeye can read his lips and wanted to read the comic, so here i am. deadpool is a wonderful charai saw a tweet about how deadpool lifts his mask so hawkeye can read his lips and wanted to read the comic, so here i am. deadpool is a wonderful character and i’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. some ableist language....more
second: what is praise worthy about a book that uses suicide as vehicle to drive the story, but doesn’t have a sifirst: connor murphy deserved better.
second: what is praise worthy about a book that uses suicide as vehicle to drive the story, but doesn’t have a single meaningful conversation about mental illness or suicide? what is praise worthy about a main character who is a self-important jackass who capitalizes off the suicide of a stranger and inserts himself into a grieving family’s life to feel better about himself and never faces a single consequence for it? what is praise worthy about the portrayal of a mental illness that disappears halfway through the story?
what the actual fuck is praise worthy about this garbage fire? (and i’m gonna go ahead and say the musical is just as trash. i don’t care if it has a different feel or whatever the fuck, it’s the same horrible story. point blank.)
content/trigger warnings; suicide, self-harm, attempted suicide, depression, anxiety, ableism, disfiguremisia, fatphobia, anti-native language, harassment, doxxing, stalking, death of a queer character,
so, i read this for the social anxiety rep that i saw people praising, but um........i wish i hadn’t. sure, there were moments where evan’s descriptions of his anxiety were relatable, but the way he interacted with people wasn’t relatable to me, as someone with social anxiety. nor was his angsting about being different and not right and wanting to be like everyone else. for once, i’d like a mentally ill character to just accept their mental illness and work with it and that’s it. i don’t need or want the angst about wishing they were neurotypical. and there’s also the glaring fact that his anxiety disappears in the second half of the book.
a major flaw in this is the complete lack of any discussion about mental illness or suicide. it’s becoming real meaningless to me when authors have books with these themes, without any important, needed conversations going on in the text, but have a whole “if you or someone you know is struggling....” page with hotline numbers at the end of the book. you’ll sensationalize and romanticize suicide and use it as a plot device, you’ll have your mentally ill character go off their meds without telling anyone, you’ll have characters commit suicide, you’ll fill your book to the brim with ableism, but you won’t actually delve into the important topics surrounding mental illness and self-harm and suicide. you won’t let your characters have meaningful discussions about it. but you’ll accept the praise of your book being a needed take on this topic.
other things that annoy, anger, and disgust me:
• fatphobia (kids of a “certain body type” watch with envy as even sits out during gym class, because obviously if you aren’t skinny you must hate any kind of physical activity. gym teacher was replaced for ridiculing “generously proportioned” students. when evan refers to baby-evan as fat, zoe immediately admonishes him for saying so and assures him that he was adorable.) • ableist language/slurs and disfiguremisia (can people stop fucking comparing being disabled or disfigured to being dead? thanks.) • anti-native language • the idea that when a man chooses to leave his girlfriend/wife for another women, he is being stolen by the other woman, which absolves men from all responsibility of being faithful, decent fucking people • jokes about school shootings • evan angsts about being friendless and invisible, but then decides to not ask certain students to sign his cast because he deems them irrelevant • evan fantasizes about how connor murphy killed himself and then we’re told how connor did it which is some tragedy porn bullshit • students making money off a kid’s suicide • students romanticizing connor’s suicide, claiming he’s bringing people together, calling it inspirational • evan proclaiming himself as a guy who doesn’t think, let alone say, anything mean ever. despite an entire book of him being the absolute worst person ever. • being a senior in high school and not having been kissed a lot is described as depressing, because apparently mental illnesses are adjectives for random shit and everyone should be kissing people by a certain age • evan convinced himself that his encounter with connor forged a bond between them and that he knew what connor was feeling in that moment, and that saying he’s connor best friend is “kind of true” and i really cannot deal with this bullshit. before connor’s suicide, evan literally justified him thinking of connor as a future school shooter. fuck all the way off. “who was closer to connor than i was?” oh i don’t know his sister his parents his boyfriend. fuck off. • “i don’t want it to be this way, but what am i supposed to do?” how about not lie about being the best friend of a dead kid and insert yourself into his family’s life and grief and justify doing so because you want the attention. how about that? • some talk about “fixing” mentally ill people • evan romanticizing himself, convincing himself that what he was doing was saving connor’s family • evan thinking he isn’t allowed to feel upset about his father having another son because zoe just lost her brother, which is bullshit that needs to stop. zoe losing her brother doesn’t change or have anything to do with the relationship between evan and his father, or evan’s feelings about his father having another son. • "i can’t imagine what it must have been like having to share a house with connor. it was hard enough for people who shared a classroom or bus or hallway with him." evan pretends to have been connor’s best friend, while actually feeling sorry for everyone who came into contact with him. • of course evan goes off his meds and doesn’t tell anyone. because what is mental health rep without that? and of course once he’s off his meds, he’s feeling more and finally experiencing life. • evan’s mom is awful. she pushes and pushes and pushes evan without a care if it’s what he needs or will actually help him, and then when he’s actually going out and meeting people and putting himself out there, she gets mad at him and claims she doesn’t know him. • evan referring his cleaned up and carefully messed around room as “fake news” um what? • nothing about evan is genuine. nothing. he asks zoe about things he already knows from literally stalking her around town and watching her every move in school. he cleans his room and then makes it carefully messy when zoe comes over. and obviously, the entire fabrication of him being connor’s best friend. after threatening jared, evan knows people might be watching him, so he puts on a fake smile to make people think the conversation was just harmless joking between friends. • evan has connor’s family so fucking manipulated that they want to give evan the money they had set away for connor’s college!!!! they even invited him to stay the nigh in connor’s bed!!!! he had them treating him like their son. this book makes me fucking sick to my stomach. • nothing about evan did was for anyone but himself. his number one concern when thinking about telling the truth was everything he would lose. zoe, connor’s parents, people at school knowing and liking him. he kept the lie going because he didn’t want to lose the life his lie got him. • a character posts what she believes is connor’s suicide note online which is so fucking disgusting i can’t even wrap my head around it • after evan sends what he tells another student is connor’s suicide note, it’s posted online, and connor’s family is blamed, hated, harassed (online and otherwise), and doxxed. and then evan goes to their house to comfort him. he is a fucking disgusting human being. • zoe meeting up with evan later and telling him that he saved her parents? yeah, fuck off. evan did a horrible, atrocious, devious, self-serving thing and faces zero consequences. zero. two people he didn’t really even care about stopped talking to him. but the family he royally fucked over and used and manipulated never reported him and the girl whose brother’s suicide he used to get close to her forgives him and absolves him of all wrongdoing.
and my one positive from this book. connor murphy.
connor is the only good part of this book. the chapters in his pov are the only parts of the book that don’t piss me off. he deserves so much better than a family that treated him like shit and didn’t help him, a school who only “cared” about him after he was dead, students making money off his death, and a stranger capitalizing off his death and taking advantage of his grieving family. he calls out zoe for checking on evan, but not checking on connor. he calls out the school for claiming they cared and related to him, when he had to die for them to notice he was ever alive. but sadly, he never really calls out evan for being a piece of shit. connor is also queer, which is nice. but also upsetting because i don’t need more dead queer characters. he only refers to his sexuality as fluid.
jared is okay, too. he’s the only one to call evan on his bullshit and not justify it or wave it away. but at the same time, he did help in the bullshit, so *shrug*
anyways. trash. wish i hadn’t read it. wish i could cleanse it from my mind. wish connor wasn’t treated so horribly. wish evan got hit by that car.
content/trigger warnings; ableist language/slurs, homophobia, past suicide attempts, descriptions of suicide attempts,
this is actually a bit more angscontent/trigger warnings; ableist language/slurs, homophobia, past suicide attempts, descriptions of suicide attempts,
this is actually a bit more angsty than i was expecting, most coming from the whole will they won’t they at the beginning when josh tries to deny his feelings. but i enjoyed it. not as much as just like heaven, but it’s still a nice read. the characters are interesting and the relationship is sweet. i wish we had gotten angus’ pov, though. and more about josh’s depression now. he mentions having medication and ect in the past, but notes that his depression obviously isn’t gone, so i find it a little weird that he doesn’t mention any kind of current treatment or ways of managing.
rep; josh and angus are gay. josh has depression. angus’ mother, eleanor has anxiety and agoraphobia
some annoyances: misuse of “antisocial,” use of “gay or straight” as if those are the only two sexualities, the “medication makes you a zombie” narrative, angus reconnects with his shitty homophobic father and “he’s still your dad” is mentioned a few times because that’s what queer people need, a weird insistence that ect super duper helped josh with his depression even though he’s clearly not okay still and his memory of that time is “like a big black hole” go figure, josh sorts of looks down on addicts and basically thinks angus deserves someone better than that because ableism is great, the “i don’t do intimacy, i just hook up” and denial of feelings tropes are so tired can we find something more interesting please, josh’s coworker emma is kind of the worst for putting him on the spot about his sexuality because she assumes he’s gay (or asexual) because he doesn’t want to fuck her (because a man who doesn’t want to fuck one specific woman must not be sexually attracted to women to all. this type of insecure woman is super fucking annoying) and then insists that she’s going to hook him up with someone....like just leave people alone their sexuality is not your business and you’re not entitled to know and you don’t get a say in their dating life....more
i really, truly didn’t expect to love this. but my god, the characters, the relationship, the setting, everything. and i know this is about jess and di really, truly didn’t expect to love this. but my god, the characters, the relationship, the setting, everything. and i know this is about jess and david, but jonny fucked me up big time. his unrequited feelings for david and his genuine want for david to be happy and go for it with jess and his implied/hinted pansexuality......i’m emo. (the implication that jonny and max might be a thing is slightly annoying, because authors always throw the friend who has unrequited feelings for the main character a love interest for no reason, as if to “get them out of the way”) just....jonny is my supportive, self-aware, accountable child and jess and david are my sweet, shy, wholesome children. it’s rare that all the relevant characters in a book are just genuinely good people. ugh i love this, i want a full novel of this.
content/trigger warnings; brief mentions of anti-gay hate and abusive relationships...more
content/trigger warnings; revenge porn and panic attacks
very short, but very sweet and fluffy and sappy. ally is described as having dark skin, and becontent/trigger warnings; revenge porn and panic attacks
very short, but very sweet and fluffy and sappy. ally is described as having dark skin, and being latino. he and levi are both unlabeled queer, but probably gay. levi talks about having panic attacks and read to me as being socially anxious, even though he’s just described as being very shy. if this had been a little longer, had more getting to know each other and less sex, and little less insta-love then it might have been a five star. they both have had feelings for each other for a while, but they get together and basically exchange i love you’s within a day? even having liked each other for a while, that’s a bit fast....more
before i start i have to say that i will fight everyone who complains about “forced diversity” because one) fuck you two) books (and movies and shows and comics and every other form of media and just generally all aspects of life) are allowed to and fucking should reflect the world we live in and the world we live in has all kinds of people. not just abled, neurotypical, white, non-queer people. also, be careful what you call "forced diversity" because an author could be writing a story that reflects their identity/identities or the identities of the people around them. assuming diversity is insincere and attention seeking is ignorant and privileged. three) fuck you four) it’s interesting how when it comes to diverse books, suddenly people have such high standards and are incredibly critical, but let book series like twilight and fifty shades become phenomenons. along with assuming the high praise/rating is simply because of the diversity, as if that’s true or even a bad thing. people are sick of reading the same abled, neurotypical, white, non-queer characters, or the non-specified characters that author leave blank so they can claim rep when someone says they see themselves in a character, so yeah, they flock to and praise diverse books. five) just say you hate marginalized groups being represented and go (fuck yourself)
now. the review. i like this one more than the first, less than the second.
rep: cora is fat. kade is transgender and native american. nadya is disabled with an amputated arm. christopher is mexican-american, bisexual, polyamorous, and a cancer survivor. rini is japanese. sumi is bisexual and japanese. layla is a hijabi woc. nancy is asexual. eleanor is panromantic. (same as the previous books, not all this rep is addressed in the book.)
i like the adventure aspect of this one. the first one was more introductory and murder mystery-y, and the second one just kind of followed jack and jill’s lives before the first one. this one is much more whimsical and fun, and it’s a plus to see some characters from the first one again. i did miss jack, though. but christopher is sweet and makes up for that. cora, on the other hand....the fat rep and addressing of fatphobia and the look into how one’s weight, or more accurately, how people’s fatphobia can affect someone are appreciated and needed. and i don’t think it’s over the top, or too in your face, or whatever. but i don’t really know anything about cora other than she’s fat. that’s like, her entire personality. she’s a mermaid and she’s fat. (i only just now remembered that she’s a mermaid, so that’s telling.) people complain when a character’s queerness is their entire personality, like the queer rep is cool and all, but what else is there to the character? that’s how i feel about cora.
i have some other annoyances, too. the first being when cora goes on about how the students at the boarding school are kind and don’t judge each other on anything other than the places they’ve gone or things they’ve done, not who they are. you can’t make me forget the transphobia in book one by having your fat character in book three look at the students with rose colored glasses because no one made fun of her for being fat or nadya for being disabled. lack of fatphobia and ableism doesn’t erase transphobia. next.
the second being the weird justification of what jill did. people “respect" what jill did? they’d "do the same” if they had the skills? “sure she killed people but it got her home”? the fuck kind of shit is this? in the book where they’re trying to bring back one of the kids jill murdered? killing people did not get jill home. her selfless, loving sister who happens to be able to bring people back from the dead is what got her home. jack could have left jill’s dead body behind at the school, but she chose to bring her with her to resurrect her. fucking miss me with minimizing and justifying jill being a fucking murderer.
the third being this thought from cora: “she didn’t like the idea that people who already had socially acceptable bodies would get the adventures, too.” like....what? is she trying to say that the point of finding a door is about being accepted? and if that’s the case, does she think people who don’t face fatphobia can’t have any other kind of need for acceptance? (need i remind y’all that kade was rejected from his world for being trans? so uh...fuck you, cora.) this comment just makes no fucking sense and is completely misplaced bitterness.
the fourth being the “no one should find the place where they belonged and then reject it” thought about kade. from, you guessed it, cora. he didn’t reject his world. it rejected him. again, fuck you, cora.
all in all...the adventure, the nonsense world, and (some of) the characters are really great. i wish there had more of certain characters and less of others, but whatever....more
i am bitter. jack deserves better. none of this is fair.
content/trigger warnings fatphobia, gore, queer character death
rep; jack is pansexual, sex repulsed, and has ocd. alexis is fat and unlabeled queer.
y’all....i don’t even know how to explain how i feel right now. i definitely prefer this one over the first one. the characters, the themes, the feel, everything. i’m in love with jack and could read a dozen books about her, but i’m bitter as fuck that she got stuck with such a shitty sister.
like, listen. jack was forced into being nothing but the pretty girl who sat still and was admired and not allowed to do anything that might "dirty" her femininity. she was never expected, encouraged, or allowed to be more than pretty. she wasn’t even allowed to be called jack, because that’s too ~harsh and ~masculine. when she finally finds not only her place, but also happiness and love, it’s taken away from her. her sister brutally murders her girlfriend (who she says some fatphobic shit about), and because jack isn’t the worst, she saves her sister from being killed by an angry mob of villagers. that act of seemingly unmotivated love basically puts a target on her back, so she’s sent away from the only place she’s found home in. she’s sent to boarding school within a month of being back because her parents already had the perfect son and didn’t want him under the same roof as her and jill. at boarding school she’s treated like she’s a freak, accused of murder, stabbed by her sister who started murdering their classmates, and forced to kill her sister to stop the killing. and because jack isn’t the worst, she decides to save her murderous sister again by bringing her back to the moors to resurrect her. i’m just bitter. jill doesn’t deserve the kind of determined devotion that jack has for her.
anyways. the queer character death. not only is jack’s girlfriend, alexis, brutally murdered by jill, but alexis is pretty much used as character development for jack and her death is a plot device for the sisters. jack goes on about how alexis is the reason she loves and sees her sister as human again, and that newfound love or sympathy or whatever thanks to alexis is what allows jack to save jill from being killed by an angry mob of villagers, rather than letting it happen. and because of alexis’ death, jack and jill cannot stay in their little fantasy world, so they’re sent back. and without them being sent back, the first book wouldn’t have been what it is, what will jill being behind the murder mystery. so, yeah, the first book is built on queer death. cool!
so while i definitely did love this, so much more than the first, i am really disappointed by alexis being killed off. you can only brag so much about having a fat love interest, who is drawn as fat in the drawing included in the book, when you kill them off. and people can only praise a f/f relationship so much when one of them ends up dead....more
i’m not completely blown away by this, but i definitely like it. the whole fantastical world is intriguing, if a little confusing. i think this could have benefited from being a bit longer to really get into all that. the murder mystery aspect is a little...odd, in terms of how it’s handled, but still appreciated. some of the characters are great (one calls out the use of ableist slurs!), some are lacking, but hopefully that will get better as the series goes on.
content/trigger warnings; transphobia, aro-erasure/conflation with ace, gore, death,
the rep is actually what made me read this. i saw a tumblr post from the author talking about the rep and there’s a nice selection. nancy is asexual. sumi is bisexual and japanese. jack is pansexual, sex-repulsed, and has ocd. kade is transgender and native american. eleanor is panromantic. christopher is mexican-american, bisexual, and polyamorous. not all of this rep is addressed in this book (though i will tag each queer identity), but again, hopefully that will change as the series goes on.
while i very much so appreciate the rep, i do have some critiques about it. the first being the trans rep. there’s quite a bit of transphobia, some challenged, some not. sumi says jill used to want to have sex with kade until she “found out he used to be a girl,” mentions of jill having misgendered kade, nancy refers to kade’s gender identity as his gender expression, kade’s deadname is given (kade is talking about how his parents don’t accept him when he says it, but i just don’t like how authors feel the need to include their trans character’s deadnames), angela yells at kade for “deciding to be a boy when he’s really a girl” and then tells him it’s “sick how he pretends to be something he’s not.” like i said, some of this is challenged and obviously portrayed to be wrong, but it bugs me that even in this kind of book, where queerphobia serves literally purpose, it’s still there. it’s completely out of place. i mean, even in kade’s perfect fantasy world he’s rejected for being trans. there’s just no point to transphobia being in this story at all, let alone this much of it. this could have been one of those stories where queer people just get to exist without queerphobia, and given that this is fantasy, no one can pull the “well, realistically....” excuses. super disappointed by this.
my second critique is the asexual rep. i read a review from an aro spec person and they said it feels like ace and aro were conflated, and that’s the thought i had while reading. nancy identifies on page as asexual and says she can be attracted to people romantically, but that’s as far as it goes. but she then explains her attraction to kade as aesthetic, not romantic. and that would be fine, maybe she just isn’t into him like that, but then she goes on to talk about how she always has to explain that asexual and aromantic are different things, and how she would like to kiss and hold hands and date, and do those things with kade, but nothing else and how in her experience it never seemed to end there, something else was always expected. then she says that she doesn’t date, doesn’t want to date, and compares people to paintings; they’re pretty and she likes to look at them, but she doesn’t want to date a painting. this is all just so confusing and contradictory. first she’s asexual and romantically attracted to people, then she’s aesthetically attracted and not romantically attracted, then she’s romantically attracted again, then she’s not romantically attracted. it just feels more and more like she’s aroace and simply aesthetically attracted to people. but the author is insistent that she’s asexual and not aromantic. so.......this rep is kind of all over the place to me.
my only other two notes are:
jack makes a comment about not being into corpses “that way” unless they’ve been reanimated, because corpses can’t offer informed consent and therefor are no better than vibrators. i get that she’s just saying a dead body offers nothing more than an object could, still comparing dead bodies to vibrators? odd. but what actually bugs me a bit is that....why’s it gotta be the pansexual character explaining the circumstances in which she’d be sexually interested in a corpse? assholes already accuse actual pansexual people of wanting to fuck literally everything; live, dead, human, not human, legal, not legal, etc. even with this kind of fantasy world and the different rules (such as christopher and his skeletal girlfriend), not what i strive for pansexual rep to be.
when the students accuse jack of being the murderer, kade says if they get violent, jack will fight back which will just prove they were right to accuse her, and like......that’s not how it works. if they were to get violent, any reaction from jack would be in response solely to that and 100% justified. maybe he was talking about from their perspective it would only convince them, but it kind of seemed a little...blamey. like defending yourself puts you in the wrong or makes you a bad person. idk.
(some people have said it’s....iffy that the latino character’s perfect fantasy world is basically a día de los muertos-esque world. not my place, so i’m just throwing it out there that people have critiqued that.)
anyways. all in all, i did really like this. i’m interested to see what the rest of the series brings. the transphobia and questionable representation of asexuality make this a four star, though....more
while i love that the main character is autistic (and bisexual but it’s not addressed in this) and the other rep i’ve read that this series has, i juswhile i love that the main character is autistic (and bisexual but it’s not addressed in this) and the other rep i’ve read that this series has, i just not sure if this is for me. which is surprising because i think i generally like this author’s books? anyways. there’s disappointing amount of ableism, the main character compels a guy to kiss her and then erases it from his memory, “just friends,” the main character is too naive and childish for my liking, i don’t care for the “character finds out they’re part of a magical/supernatural world and immediately thinks they know better than everyone” trope or the “mentor keeps things from said character to protect them but ends up endangering them” trope....more
this tackles a lot of important topics. there is some ableist language, and in the chapter about sexuality discussing homophobia there’s a heavy, uncethis tackles a lot of important topics. there is some ableist language, and in the chapter about sexuality discussing homophobia there’s a heavy, uncensored use of an anti-gay slur. overall i did enjoy this. not only is the subject matter up my ally, the writing is a bit angry and cynical, but honest. the chapter about mental health is really good. the bit praising kanye’s “political consciousness” did not age well, though. ...more
whoever fucking said this book sheds light on an important topic, grooming and the power imbalance in a relationship with an age what the actual fuck?
whoever fucking said this book sheds light on an important topic, grooming and the power imbalance in a relationship with an age gap between a student and teacher, must have read a different fucking book.
i don’t even know how to put my rage into words here. i wish i never fucking read this steaming pile of garbage.
let’s start with the aforementioned important topic. there is literally one paragraph that gets to the truth about the topic.
“what i mean is, sometimes, when we’re young we can feel like we’re making a choice, when actually we’re not. we don’t have all the facts, or all the perspective. if there’s someone else who knows a bit more than we do, or has authority over us, sometimes they can take advantage of that knowledge, or that power.”
the rest of the book? blames bonnie, shames bonnie, gets mad at bonnie, dismisses bonnie. bonnie is treated, throughout the entire book, by nearly every character, as a good girl who is simply acting out and hurting the people who love her. characters act as if she just made a bad decision. grooming is brought up once or twice, but no one seems to really understand what that means. it is never truly discussed that bonnie is the victim in the situation, that her teacher saw that she was vulnerable and manipulated and groomed her, and then abducted her, while raping her. yes, rape. she is fifteen and he is twenty-nine. not only is there the legality of it, but also the power imbalance, and the fact that he targeted her. none of this is ever really driven home.
given the reviews i read that praised this book for how it tackled this topic, i was expecting to mark so many quotes while reading that delve into grooming, power imbalances, statutory rape, the glamorization of age gaps and student/teacher relationships. but...that one quote was all i got. there is no much needed hard hitting dialogue in this book. at all. if that’s why you want to read this book, like me, take a hard pass.
next up is the fact that eden is the worst fucking character ever. she is so naive and selfish and rude and just such a fucking brat. she literally has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. it was awful being in her head. not only did she know where bonnie was the entire time and lied to everyone about it, but she also had the nerve to blame others for bonnie’s situation and get mad when people were suspicious of her. she cares more about keeping bonnie’s secret because ~besties! and getting in trouble for keeping bonnie’s secret than the fact that her best friend is being taken advantage of by a grown ass man.
eden teases her boyfriend about not being “manly” because he wants to cuddle with her, refers to guys being gross misogynists as “guys being guys,” and calls the stories from other girls the teacher was inappropriate with “bullshit.” eden literally says “she wasn’t abusive or anything, but we were pretty much neglected for most of the time we lived with her” about her biological mother. if you need more proof of just how out of fucking touch with reality this chick is. neglect is abuse. you don’t have to lay a hand on someone to abuse them.
eden guilt trips bonnie in her thoughts by saying that everything she’s lost was taken from her while bonnie is choosing to throw everything away. because being groomed and taken advantage of and manipulated is totally a choice!!!! what a great friend!!!! eden thinks it isn’t fair for bonnie to be “rewarded” with a “great love story” for “messing up everyone’s lives” because hey, nothing says “great love story” better than abuse, amiright? and how nice of her to make bonnie’s abuse into a pesky inconvenience for her. eden talks about resenting bonnie for being “the darling on the front pages” because it isn’t fair that she did something “so stupid” and everyone is still on her side. because being groomed, manipulated, raped, and abducted is a fucked decision she chose to make that should have everyone hating her. what a classy gal this eden is.
eden treats valerie like absolute shit for no fucking reason and then uses her knowing that valerie would jump at the chance to bond with her. eden literally acknowledges that she’s emotionally manipulating valerie and she just does not fucking care. and the kicker? eden has the nerve to get mad at valerie for seeing her deception and taking the necessary precautions without telling her. she actually claims valerie betrayed her. i just fucking can’t.
eden chose not to ask bonnie anything about her secret boyfriend because she assumed she wouldn’t tell her and she didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, but then had the nerve to be mad that bonnie didn’t tell her. eden also chose not to ask connor about his mom’s condition or his role as her caretaker because she assumed he wouldn’t want to talk about it, but then had the nerve to be all “why is he getting defensive about me not knowing anything, it’s not like he ever talks about it so it’s not my fault.”
probably the most ridiculous thing related to eden is the fact that she points out how when people talk about bonnie being “good” they don’t mean she goes to church, they mean she’s white and middle class. like...y’all really expect me to believe a child this naive and out of fucking touch with reality understands the intricacies of racism and classism? please. that and the fact that eden describes herself as a wild spirit. eden is the most boring naive childish character ever. in no way whatsoever is she wild. she’s just a fucking brat.
eden says she’s a gryffindor, which explains so much about my hatred for her.
another thing is that everyone goes on about how healthy a relationship connor and eden have but i just don’t see it. he’s a fucking pushover. whenever he starts to question eden, she gets mad and he apologizes and drops it. he doesn’t even really push her on the fact that it’s so fucking horrible that she’s lying to everyone about not knowing where bonnie is. and there’s a moment when eden touches a nerve and upsets him and she notes that he looks like he wants an apology, but that she isn’t the type to apologize when she doesn’t mean it. so, what a great healthy relationship, she hurts him and doesn’t feel like apologizing is something she should do. despite the fact that connor is constantly apologizing to her if he so much as thinks he might have upset her.
and there’s also the weirdness about family. i mean, what’s with eden always adding “adoptive” before sister/mom/dad? she can just say sister/mom/dad. and she calls her parents by their first names, which isn’t that big of a deal, but given the emphasis on the fact that she was adopted, it kind of feels like there’s a disconnect, like her family isn’t really her family because they aren’t related by blood. she refers to her biological mom as her “real mom” more than once, which makes me think there really is an “adoptive family isn’t real family” disconnect. and that that’s why when she talked about her sister daisy, she didn’t preface it with “adoptive,” because daisy is related to her by blood and to her “sister” means “real blood sister” on its own. and furthering the disconnect is her father calling himself her “father figure.” since when do adoptive parents refer to themselves as parental figures as opposed to just parents? eden mentions later how blood doesn’t always mean family, yet she still refer to her abusive (yes, neglect is abuse) mother as her real mom and the man she never even met as her dad, and the people who actually take care of and love her and chose her by their first names and can’t even call them mom or dad without “adoptive” prefacing it.
my two positive notes are that valerie listens to christine and the queens and calls eden on never letting her in or bothering to get to know her, yet acting like she knows everything about her and judging and looking down on her for the shit she makes up in her head: “you can’t be so distant from me, and act like you don’t have any interest in who i am or what my life is, and instead judge me on whatever it is you’re making up in your own head. maybe you don’t see people as well as you think you do, maybe you should stop thinking your impression is the right one, just because it’s yours.”
there is a little rep; connor and eded are dyslexic, eden’s sister daisy has adhd and dyscalculia, and connor’s mom has rheumatoid arthritis and he is her caretaker. and i think i remember eden saying her biological father is brazilian?
anyways, super disappointed and angered by this book, which surprises me because i absolutely loved one of sara’s other books. but there’s just too many important aspects of this topic missing and too many problematic takes go unchallenged....more
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