i originally shelved this series back in 2020 when i read the webtoon, but it’s been removed for not being a book, and now the series is published, soi originally shelved this series back in 2020 when i read the webtoon, but it’s been removed for not being a book, and now the series is published, so i wanted to shelve the actual book. and since i don’t remember if i originally read all the chapters included in this volume, i decided to just reread from the beginning to where this volume ends. i have the same thoughts (and rating) as i did the first time. the rep is nice, but it’s so overly cute that it stops being cute, if that makes sense. though, i did start actually smiling at stuff by the end. so maybe the series gets better as it goes on. i might continue on, but idk.
content/trigger warnings; ableism, violence, kissing, alcohol consumption, discussions of sex,
rep; goth bf/felix is trans, gay, polyamorous, and chinese. jock bf/kevin is bisexual, polyamorous, and vietnamese. nerd bf/adrian is a pansexual, polyamorous, and japanese demiboy. prep bf/vincent is gay, polyamorous, and singaporean. ...more
first read: 5/24/21 second read: 4/15/23 third read: 10/23/23
i need more tori/michael content
second review
again i’m jazzed about michael’s appearance and tori is a legend and these boys are just so precious
original review
super cute, great discussions of mental illness, and michael showed up!!!!!!!
content/trigger warnings; mentions of past bullying, mentions of past outing, self-harm (not shown), kissing, coming out, homophobia, biphobia, ableism, eating disorder, anorexia, ocd, therapy, mentions of toxic home environment, discussions of mental illness and trauma, psychiatric hospitalization (voluntary and non-traumatic),
rep; charlie (mc) is gay, and has an eating disorder and ocd. nick (mc) is bisexual. tara (sc) is a black lesbian, dating darcy (sc) who is a lesbian. elle (sc) is trans. tao (sc) is chinese. aled (sc) is demisexual....more
i think about this book a lot and it continues to make me want to create
original review:
wow i love this
content/trigger warnings; body image, sexual assault, rape, eating disorders, queerphobia, emotional abuse, physical abuse, gore, blood, death, fire
i really don't get why people hate this kind of poetry because it's honestly the only kind i like. it's easy, direct, and just more enjoyable to read.
i particularly like the entire "i'm afraid" section, "queer girl overture" section, and "i forgive myself" section. the "miscellaneous thoughts on love" section; specifically "love doesn't have be requited to be worthwhile / your love will not always look like everyone else's", and the "abridged list of things to let go if you want to be happy" section; specifically "the idea that romantic love makes you whole / people who cross your boundaries / the need to make your happiness look like everyone else's".
some other quotes that stood out to me:
"i wrote my own story and still said all the wrong things"
"when people say you cannot love others until you love yourself, they fundamentally misunderstand love. nothing thrives in isolation. but you must do the work to make yourself ready to love others well. no one else can be responsible for your healing."
"we use labels to help explain ourselves to others. they don't define us. we define them. if a word isn't working for you, make it work. pick it up. make it yours. or put it all the way down and pick up other words. make new ones. language evolves and revolves around you."
"you do not exist to prove anything to anyone."
also i just realized the author is the person who tweeted about how taylor swift wrote a song about the emotional abuse she experienced from john mayer when she was a teenager and he was a thirty-something year old man and she was ripped to shreds while he was painted a victim and like...makes sense...more
first read: 2/13/20 second read: 4/15/20 third read: 9/28/23
my spicy heartstopper take: isaac from the show >>>>> aled from the books
second review
it’s just all so precious. (tori passing on a paris trip because she wants to spend her summer sleeping,,,girl has never not been a whole mood)
original review
this series is still the cutest thing ever.
content/trigger warnings; mentions of past bullying, mentions of past outing, mentions of self harm, cissexist language, kissing, coming out, homophobia, biphobia, ableism, eating disorder, fainting due to eating disorder, alcohol, underage drinking, vomiting,
rep; charlie (mc) is gay. nick (mc) is bisexual. tara (sc) is a black lesbian, dating darcy (sc) who is a lesbian. elle (sc) is trans. tao (sc) is chinese. aled (sc) is demisexual.
some excellent quotes:
"There's this idea that if you're not straight, you HAVE to tell all your family and friends immediately, like you owe it to them. But you don't. You don't have to do anything until you're ready."
"What do you want from us? Forgiveness? 'Well done'? You said homophobic stuff to me, but it's okay because you're sorry? I'm glad you realised the error of your ways, but it's not my job to give you a gold star. People like you made my life hell last year. And I shouldn't have to forgive anyone for any of it. You don't get to ambush me into forgiving you in front of everyone. One 'sorry' doesn't make up for all the thing you said. So congrats on your incredibly difficult realisation that gay people actually do have feelings and have a nice life."...more
first read: 7/22/19 second read: 4/14/23 third read: 8/9/23
8/9/23:
been seeing people trash heartstopper recently, so of course i had to reread it again. i guess you could call me a stan. it’s just such a heartwarming read. ...more
this book destroyed me. again. laurent is my son and he deserves only good things always.
content/triggerfirst read: 5/17/18 second read: 11/23/19
reread
this book destroyed me. again. laurent is my son and he deserves only good things always.
content/trigger warnings; mentions of past sex work, mentions of nonconsensual filming of sex, mentions of blackmail, queerphobia (mentions of parental rejection, mentions of threats of conversion therapy, homophobic rhetoric, gracious use of a homophobic slur, mentions of blackmail and threats of outing, fetishization of male queerness, shaming/judgement of closeted queer people, arophobic language, cissexist language), physical and emotional child abuse (some on-page homophobic verbal abuse, but everything else is recounts of past abuse), alcohol, bullying, harassment, ptsd and panic attacks, eating disorder (disordered thoughts about food, food restriction, purging, therapy/recovery, mentions of relapse), sex (masturbation, hand job, blow job, rim job, fingering, and anal sex), ableism, misogyny, mentions of past homelessness, injury, hospital,
rep; laurent (mc) is demisexual, touch-averse, and has an eating disorder and anxiety/ptsd. isaac (mc) is gay. misha (sc) is gay. max (sc) is bisexual, i think.
original review
oh man. i don’t even know where to start. this fucking book. it fucked me up. that was so much angst and feels and i just...need a lot of moments to recover.
okay, prepare yourself. i’m about to rant about how much i love laurent, with spoilers.
fucking laurent. my fucking son. the love of my life. the demisexual (on page rep) star of this book. i adore him. clearly. up until his “fuck you, i’m done” moment at the end of the book, he had wanted his extremely abusive father’s love and pride. he had struggled with touch-aversion and an eating disorder because of always being physically abused and told he wasn’t good enough or worthy and having no control. he goes to therapy, after his boyfriend, isaac, tells him he’s worried about him. he opens up and works to get better. he has a relapse, and keeps on going to get better with the help and support of his boyfriend and therapist. he quits hockey because his father made it into something he hated, after confessing how horrible his father is and getting him banned from the hockey world or whatever, and works at comic shop (oh yeah, he fucking loves comics and drawing, my boy) and goes to college. his former teammate, hux, who he’d swap comics with, becomes his best friend. he takes care of his sweet little old landlady when she has a bad fall (who said he has sad eyes earlier in the book, rip me).
he just...he does so well. he goes through so much, he doesn’t think anyone could ever love him or that he’d ever be worthy of love in the first place, he was trapped by an abuser and didn’t know what to do other than become a bully himself, and he just...turned his life around. he met a guy who was nice to him, and he tried to be better. and he was. i’m so emo about laurent. i can’t.
every single thought laurent had that was self-hating made my heart break. he deserves the world and i’m so happy that he realized it, too. every description of the abuse laurent went through also made my heart break. the thing about whenever he wanted something, his father would take it away to teach him a lesson, like the puppy he had as a child. and how he hid his sketchbooks, even as an adult in his own apartment, because his father had “flown into a rage when found him drawing as a child.” i just...my boy.
laurent was so trapped and controlled by his father that he never even had friends or relationships, because his father would scare away his friends and he had drilled it into laurent’s head that he couldn’t be with people, that hockey is his one focus. and because of this he’s so scared and unsure about making an effort with anyone, because he thinks he’ll say or do the wrong thing and they’ll be disappointed and hate him. and i just...he deserves all of the good things. he’s an actual puppy who isn’t very comfortable around people or being expected to talk or making small talk, and can come off as rude or standoffish because of those things. and i just love him. if he had a cat, or any pet really, i think i would have actually died.
isaac, max, and misha are wonderful characters who deserve the world. misha calling isaac his son had me emo as fuck, as did misha’s reaction to isaac teasingly calling him dad. such softies everywhere.
there’s a few different mentions of girls thinking two guys kissing is hot or impressive, which...ew. fetishization isn’t cool. there’s a “both genders” line, and a “just friends” line, which are both big nopes from me. there’s a comment about how homophobes are really just self-hating, closeted gays, and like...no. that puts the responsibility of anti-queer antagonism onto queer people, instead of where it belongs, on pericisallohet people. please let this narrative die. there’s a comment about how laurent won’t know if he’s into guys until he "touches a dick", which isn’t true. you don’t have to have sexual experience with anyone to know which gender(s) you’re attracted to. it might help some people, but sex doesn’t equal attraction.
now that i’m thinking about it, there’s like zero female characters in this book? there’s laurent’s landlady, who we see like three times. there’s laurent’s therapist, who we see like twice. random female characters introduced once as so and so’s girlfriend’s and then never seen again. i’m pretty sure that’s it? no major female characters.
all in all, this book is wonderful and i wish i had read it sooner. this is one of the rare books that while reading, i was making more notes on positive things than negative. 10/10 would read again....more
i maintain what i said the first time about joshua never actually wanting to be sophia's savior and elsie beingfirst read: 9/19/18 second read: 4/26/20
i maintain what i said the first time about joshua never actually wanting to be sophia's savior and elsie being a horrible friend.
rep; sophia (mc) is australian sri lankan, autistic, and has social anxiety. joshua (mc) has a lisp, was formerly selectively mute, and has anxiety. elsie (sc) is indian.
so instead of adding to my original review like i usually do, i kind of just redid the whole time. i reread this as my seventh book for the autistic pride readathon (prompt: contemporary) and the magical readathon (prompt: starts with an m, i cheated and did has a word starting with m in the title).
sophia's anxiety is super relatable. her anxiety is almost visible in everything she does throughout the entire book, and as she's not seeing a proper therapist to put a name to what she's experiencing and to be able to deal, it's just sort of become part of her. there are moments throughout the book where sophia will do or think something that is just so on the nose when it comes to social anxiety, that i had to stop and be like, "holy shit, this is me".
especially that one scene when she's in drama class and hyper-focuses on what she's doing with her hands and starts feeling like everyone is aware of it. that moment is so small, but detailed and real and it's nice to read. social anxiety is always being hyper-aware of every minuscule move you make, how you're sitting or walking, every shift in your position, and feel like everyone is watching to the point where it feels like there's a spotlight on you. i think this is the first time i've seen that particular experience detailed that explicitly in social anxiety rep.
sophia has a great "fuck you" moment in response to her drama teacher insisting one too many times that she can show sophia how to get in touch with herself and her feelings. sophia finally snaps and says, "did you ever think that maybe i am in touch with myself? the things that make me happy – well, maybe they're not the things that you understand, but – do you get that i never felt inadequate until people started telling me i needed to be fixed?" you go girl.
joshua's friend camilla says some great stuff too, "i've never understood how being forced into a situation where you're possibly going to pee your pants is supposed to make you less freaked. do things when you're good and goddamned ready." and "like, everyone should want to be front and center, belting out a song at the grammys [...] maybe not everyone is supposed to be a superstar! maybe some of us are perfectly happy writing music for superstars to sing." !!!! forcing anxious people into situations that make them anxious isn't how you make them not anxious anymore. let them go at their own pace. and the idea that everyone has to want or strive for superstar status, otherwise they aren't truly living or achieving or meeting their potential or what they're doing doesn't have value is such crap.
at the end, sophia says, "i have a long way to go. i'll never be great among crowds, and i know i'll never be totally happy too far outside my comfort zone. i still have moments where my fears get the best of me, where i need to lock myself away, alone, and focus only on the maths. sometimes it's not another person i need, just space to be inside my own head. but i am trying to find the wisdom to figure out which bits to work on, and which bits to accept." which is !!!!! important!!!!!!
i love joshua. he's a soft boy gem. he was once selectively mute, has a lisp, and reads as someone with anxiety. he mentions knowing what it's like to triple check everything in your head before it comes out of your mouth which is a whole mood. and there are a bunch of times when he's described as appearing as if he's bracing himself for an interaction or to speak. we stan joshua on this goodreads.
that doesn't mean we stan how he falls into that "guys obsesses over girl he doesn't know because they're Meant To Be" trope. or how he threw himself so completely into sophia to avoid having to deal with his life. but given how immediately the trope is challenged, and how joshua realizes what he's doing and instantly makes a change, i'm not mad about it. he even acknowledges whatever he felt before knowing sophia wasn't healthy or real, it only became so once he actually got to know her.
and we definitely don't stan how he for some reason apologizes for or admits to her that he wanted to save her. because...where? he liked her, wanted to know her, wanted to help her if he could, but be her savior? i did get that the first time i read this and i didn't get it the second time. he is super supportive of her, gets mad on her behalf when people want to fix her or make her feel bad about who she is, reassures her that there is nothing wrong with how she feels and that she's perfect the way she is, relates to her and shares his own similar feelings and struggles, respects her boundaries by not sitting too close to her or touching her, and uses his body as a wall between her and the people on the bus. the idea that he wanted to fix or save her the whole time just doesn't line up. he should have just apologized for throwing all his focus and energy into her to avoid his responsibilities.
my biggest annoyance with this book is the ableism. so many people treat sophia horribly because she isn't neurotypical. her brother and best friend are the biggest offenders. they both keep her at arms length and are passive aggressive with her, and they tell her she's selfish, has no feelings, thinks she's better than everyone else, doesn't care about anyone, is a burden, and has it so much easier than they do. they make assumptions about sophia through a lens of their own insecurities, treat her in a way no brother or best friend should, and then blame her for it. and while she talks it out with them, she does most of the apologizing while agreeing with most of the things they said about her.
other notes: i'm still baffled by how there are no adults in this book. the drama teacher gets like two scenes where she talks, joshua's dad gets one, and that's it. sophia's parents are only mentioned. they literally do not interact with their daughter on page. i can't wrap my head around why the author chose to not include parents in a book about a teen girl struggling as much as sophia does.
anyways, i still enjoy this. the anxiety rep is great, the main characters are lovable, the romance is sweet, the sibling relationships between joshua and his sister is endearing as hell, the resolving of issues and eventual communication between sophia and pretty much everyone is very much appreciated, the cats!!!!, the friendship feelings, and the overall message of people who are different and not neurotypical/allistic don't need fixing or saving is an important one....more
this book still hurts my feelings and adien maar still owns my entire heart and soul.
rep; shannon (mc) is bisexual. aiden (mc) is pansexual with dissociative dysthymia and anxiety. daisy (sc) is demisexual, chinese, and has ptsd. chelsea (sc) is bisexual.
content/trigger warnings; ableism, gendered slurs, kissing, stab wound, blood, alcohol, smoking, mentions of car accident related death of parents, non-consensual kiss, physical assault, violence, victim blaming, marijuana, mentions of sexual assault, depression, anxiety, disassociation, panic attacks, sex, sexual assault,
the first time i read this, the only notes i made were about shannon’s “i can talk about sex, because i’m an adult” comment and the ableist language, but this time i have a couple more notes.
the animal comparisons are super cringeworthy and i find the writing to be a bit pretentious. shannon is unnecessarily violent at times, like when he shoves aiden into walls when aiden is bleeding from a stab wound and after he was harassed and assaulted, and then when he lashes out verbally at aiden in a victim blaming bitch fit because he’s jealous of a non-consensual kiss.
i also don’t care for how when shannon learns about aiden being a virgin, he thinks “how could the man draped over his lap, the dangerous, sharp-tongued aiden maar, make it out of his youth without being someone’s conquest?” it really rubs me the wrong way. it makes aiden and his body into something to be won by others. as opposed to something aiden chooses to share with others. shannon is literally thinking of aiden’s looks in the exact way aiden expressed discomfort with earlier in the book. and then he thinks aiden being a virgin gives him a sense of power and authority, which is like....what the fuck.
i really don’t like how chelsea slapping aiden is just waved away as okay and normal. she’s absolved of any wrongdoing because aiden purposely pushed her into doing it to break down whatever bullshit was between them. but, like, come on. if the only way for someone to deal with their emotions and cut the bullshit is to be violent, then uh....super duper large red flag. i’m just not a fan of this author’s thing for violence. or the idea that it’s okay for women to physically take their emotions out on men.
karman says some super ableist shit about aiden and while she is immediately called out and does apologize, it’s not really about the ableism. it’s about her just lashing out at others because of her own issues. she literally says mental illness is a choice and that aiden’s episode was just a “funk” he was in. but it’s just....okay because she admits to being a bitch who can’t handle her own shit so she takes it out on others. okay. sure. cool.
one positive thing i noted this time is that when aiden is fucked up over his parents’ death anniversary and wants to use sex to escape, shannon says no. i just read a book where a character decided he was ready for sex for the first time minutes after finding out his friend died and made his boyfriend out to be an asshole for questioning that. but if you don’t want to have sex with someone who is in a bad place emotionally, you don’t have to! it’s actually pretty common to see characters beg and guilt people (usually their partners) into having sex with them when they clearly aren’t in a good place, so it’s refreshing to see a character be like, “no, not like this, this isn’t the time, let me just be here for you, let’s communicate and actually deal with whatever it is you’re going through.”
original review
i am a mess. this book ruined me. i can’t even handle the emotions right now.
i knew right off the bat that i was going to enjoy this book. a book about that soulmates fanfiction au with a pansexual main character? sign me the fuck up. the romance totally fucked me up. the characters completely fucked me up, aiden more specifically. like i was feeling the angst and feeling the feels from the beginning and didn’t stop for the rest of the book. even now, i’m still feeling it. and the mental illness rep was honestly unlike any other that i’ve read before. the queer rep; a pansexual main and bisexual main in love? amazing. like, holy shit. this book is incredible.
aiden my favorite character, my pansexual son, my life, my light has dissociative dysthymia, is adorably a cat person with a fat fluffy white cat named mercy who he walks with a pink harness and talks to like she’s a person who understands and can reply, wears leather and ripped jeans and combat boots, has a black phoenix tattoo on his side that goes up his back to his shoulder, has anxiety, makes sure he helps homeless people who are hungry, kids like him how adorable, bored by polite niceties and forced interactions, agreed that he shouldn’t litter when he got chewed out for putting his cigarette out on the ground, “spoke when spoken to and said only what was necessary,” his ears turned pink when shannon asked if he should stick a twenty in aiden’s hand or his pants my son, never dated or had sex before which was nice because he was the typical kind of bad boy player and a pansexual character who wasn’t just all about fucking around with whoever? amazing. unsure and nervous, lonely, likes pineapple pizza, he texted shannon who was in the car with him and his parents instead of just talking to him, photographer, and former art and jewelry thief. i think the only thing that could have made him better were if his pansexuality was stated in the text, if he had talked about being pansexual and what it means to him.
daisy is definitely my second favorite. chelsea took a while for me to like. the whole aiden vs chelsea thing and her hating him and treating him like trash from the moment she met him for no reason at all was really unnecessary, in my opinion. but she got better towards the end. i just don’t know why she couldn’t have been like that the whole time.
i didn’t care for this line at all: “sex wasn’t an uncomfortable topic—he was an adult”............like, some people are uncomfortable with sex, some people are sex-repulsed, some people are just private about sex. that doesn’t make them childish. leave this shit in the garbage. and then when karman asks for details about shannon’s sex life, he’s like, “we’re not children”..........so, first shannon is an adult because he can talk about sex, but now karman is childish for wanting to talk about sex in more detail? make up your mind. and other than some ableist language here and there, i don’t really have any complaints....more
rep; taylor (mc) is fat, autistic, and has social anxiety. charlie (mc) is bisexual and chinese-australian. alyssa (li) is black and queer. jamie (li) is latinx.
the first time i read this i was so focused on the social anxiety rep that i kind of missed the autism rep, but this time around i definitely picked up on taylor’s autism. her stimming, sensory overload, missing social cues, meltdown, etc. there’s overlap in the things autistic people and people with social anxiety experience, so that could’ve contributed to me not immediately identifying those things as autism related the first time.
i love that taylor talked about how her going to the convention doesn’t mean she can just up and enter the cosplay contest, because she planned and prepared for the convention, whereas the contest is completely out of the blue. because so much of social anxiety comes from not knowing what to expect from or do in social situations. i’ve avoided things because i didn’t know what they’d be like or what i’d have to do or who i’d have to interact with. there’s such a big difference between planning, preparing for, researching, and having the time to work up the confidence and courage to do something and having something sprung on you last minute without any of that. and doing the former does not mean you can or want to or are ready to or it will be easy to do the latter.
and i definitely don’t care for jamie being a little pushy about taylor entering the contest. or being like “how do you know how people would react to your anxiety if you never give them the chance by not opening up to them” right after she explained how her past experiences of opening up to people only to have them ignore or dismiss her anxiety has made her not want to trust people with it. like wtf dude.
another thing i don’t like is when taylor thinks “maybe everyone is as on edge as i am” because um just because you ran into a girl who you thought was super cool calm collected having a panic attack in a bathroom doesn’t mean what you experience, social anxiety (an actual disorder), is something everyone experiences. everyone does not have social anxiety disorder. i really hate that she went from “how does everyone manage to do things with such ease and comfort when they terrify me?” to “oh everyone feels like this” just because she met one girl who seemed totally confident having a panic attack. ugh. i’m tired of anxiety rep almost always having the “everyone feels like i do” moment. because no. they fucking don’t.
i don’t really care for the convention, it’s not really my thing. or how super cheesy it is. i remember it being cute, but this time i was like, oh god that’s a bit much. also, why are the ships straight girls in books obsess over usually m/m? whether it’s fictional or real people, girls are always obsessing over m/m ships. there’s nothing wrong with them liking m/m ships, but when books only ever show girls in fandom losing their shit over m/m ships, it feels...icky. sure, m/f ships are mentioned, but they aren’t the ones the girls are fantasizing and writing fanfic about. and f/f? please. y’all never see girls in books, especially straight girls, loving themselves some ships like swanqueen, which is a fanon ship with a huge following like the m/m ships that are typically mentioned have. idk just an observation.
original review
i mainly gave this five stars because of the anxiety rep. this is definitely one of the best representations of anxiety that i’ve read.
taylor describes how when she sees other people at places like the supermarket, smiling and making small talk with strangers, it makes her want to ask them how they do it because she can’t go into stores alone or talk to the cashiers because it gives her anxiety and makes her overwhelmed. she describes being in awe of how easy other people make it look, and how it makes her feel like there’s something wrong with her for not being able to do those things with the same ease. she mentions having to push herself to hold eye contact, and having trouble expressing herself through talking, that her thoughts get jumbled and she gets flustered and freezes. taylor mentions listening to the questions being asked to the other girls, so she could prepare herself for when it’s her turn so she doesn’t freeze up. she talks about how people misinterpret her shyness and lack of eye contact as disrespect or rudeness.
there are two passages that are a bit long and just so accurate and speak for themselves that i have to include them:
”anxiety isn’t an attack that explodes out of me; it’s not a volcano that lies dormant until it’s triggered by an earth-shattering event. it’s a constant companion. like a blowfly that gets into the house in the middle of summer, flying around and around. you can hear it buzzing, but you can’t see it, can’t capture it, can’t let it out. my anxiety is invisible to others, but often it’s the focal point of my mind. everything that happens on a day-to-day basis is filtered through a lens colored by anxiety. that nervousness that makes your palms sweat and your heart race before you get up and make a speech in front of an audience? that’s what i feel in a normal conversation at a dinner table. or just thinking about having a conversation at a dinner table. the fear that other people feel on rare occasions, reserved only for when they jump out of a plane or hear a strange noise in the middle of the night—that’s my normal. that’s what i feel when the phone rings. when someone knocks on my door. when i go outside. when i’m alone. when i’m in line at a store.”
“let’s say…let’s say someone is terrified of heights, and in order to get out of the house every day she has to walk across a tightrope from fifty stories up. everyone would say, ‘oh, she’s so brave. she faces heights every day.’ that’s what we do. we walk a tightrope every day. getting out the door is a tightrope. going grocery shopping is a tightrope. socializing is a tightrope. things that most people consider to be normal, daily parts of life are the very things we fear and struggle with the most, and yet here we are, moving forward anyway. that’s not weak. we are the brave ones.”
i liked that taylor mentions how she’s “invisible by her own design,” that she likes being the people watcher on the sidelines, and that at the end of the book she says that she hasn’t beaten her anxiety because she was able to manage it and do things she never thought she could, but that maybe she doesn’t need to. i feel like it’s so common to have the shy, introverted, socially anxious character wish they could change themselves or be like everyone else, and even end up suddenly becoming a huge social butterfly. so it’s nice to have a character like taylor, who while wanting to be able to manage her anxiety and not let it keep her from living her life, she is still happy being the person on the sidelines. because that’s realistic for me.
i like the concept of a “social hangover,” which as described, is like a regular hangover, but instead of being caused by too much alcohol, it’s caused by too much social exposure and over-stimulation of the senses. i definitely have those, and people always make a joke out of me saying, “that’s enough socializing for today” as if i’m just being funny or whatever, but it’s like, no, i’m being serious, i’ve had enough.
taylor also made a comment about how if she were to go to college and put herself through the stress and anxiety of going to class every day, she has enough self awareness to know that it has to be a class on something she really cares about, and i relate to that feeling.
taylor also is autistic, which is some rep that i appreciate.
there’s a few other things i liked, like how charlie immediately calls out her own slut shaming, how it’s pointed out that men get asked questions about their acting and basically just in depth, relevant questions whereas women are often asked about their looks, their diet, their clothes, touches on toxic fandom where fans think they know a celebrity relationship better than those actually in the relationship, biphobia was called out, reese was constantly called out for being the actual worst, and there was a really beautiful moment when charlie is playing the video game for her movie and sees herself as one of the available avatars and she just, “me, the geek girl from the suburbs of melbourne. the youngest daughter of chinese immigrants. the only openly bi kid at school. the drama freak who makes vlogs in her room. i’m the hero.” it just really showcased how important representation is.
the romances were cute, the theme was cute, pretty much everything was cute. i think the only thing i didn’t care for was one small comment about how taylor and jamie have “practically been a couple for years, just without the fun stuff.” i cannot stand when romance is valued over friendship, and in this particular case, we can guess that sex is the “fun stuff” that their friendship lacks. romantic and/or sexual relationships are not automatically better or more important than platonic relationships, nor should they be the kind of relationships everyone strives for and if they don’t get them they’re “settling” for something less than. phrases like “just friends” and “more than friends” and “like a relationship/dating but without the fun/good parts” are a slap in the face to a lot of people. they’re right up there with the mostly hated term “friendzone,” because they all imply that there is something lacking platonic relationships that make them lesser and not worth having....more
fifth book for the autistic pride month readathon, fitting the prompts for contemporary, queer rep, and rofirst read: 7/8/17 second read: 4/19/19
reread
fifth book for the autistic pride month readathon, fitting the prompts for contemporary, queer rep, and romance. and sixth book for the owls readathon, fitting the prompt for contemporary.
this is still a favorite, but i definitely don’t have the same “i have no negative thoughts” opinion of it the second time around.
content/trigger warnings for ableism, intellectual ableism, internalized ableism, ableist slurs (including the r slur), monosexism, abusive parents, mentions of bullying, on-page panic attacks, on-page meltdowns, gendered slurs, therapy sessions, suicidal ideation, on-page suicide attempt, hospital, mentions of institutionalization, psychiatric ward, group home, on-page sex,
rep: emmet (mc) is gay and autistic. jeremey (mc) is gay and has major depressive disorder and clinical/social anxiety. althea (sc) is autistic. david (sc) is a quadriplegic.
notes: there’s a lot of outdated and not preferred language used about disability, the phrase “just friends,” equating dating to having sex, and the abusive mother’s apology and claim of just wanting her son to be happy is treated as an “all’s forgiven, we’re okay” moment rather than what it realistically is; the first small step in repairing the relationship, because an apology without changed behavior (which we don’t see, in fact she ends up being comforted by the son she abused) means nothing. the abuse feels entirely swept under the rug for the sake of a happy ending.
original review
i loved this book. so much. i’m honestly blown away by it. i’m just so in love with it. there wasn’t a single thing that stood out to me in a negative way throughout the whole book, which is rare.
personally, i think this book has the best portrayal of mental health and disability that i’ve read so far. it was real, it didn’t hold back, and it was informative. one thing i really loved, and was quite surprised by, was that ableism was actually called out multiple times throughout the book, including ableist language. words like “stupid” and “crazy” and even “normal” were all called out for being used, along with the r-word, and explained why they shouldn’t be used. for a book so heavily focused on mental health and disability, i was so glad that ableist slurs, even ones that are the most ingrained in our vocabulary, were called out. i can’t count the amount of times i’ve said “you’d think a book with a focus on mental health and/or disability wouldn’t have so many ableist slurs in it” while reviewing books. other kinds of ableism were called out, like people assuming disabled people can’t make their own decisions or date or pretty much do anything and talking down to them, and places not being accessible and accommodating for disabled and mentally ill people.
i appreciated that the therapist (there were so many in depth therapy sessions, and i loved that) pointed out that your significant other shouldn’t be your only way of or reason to be stable, that it has to be for you. there are so many books and shows and movies where mentally ill characters get better for their partner, or worse, because of their partner. as if that’s a healthy or realistic message to send. the “love cures mental illness” trope needs to die in a fire. i’m super glad that jeremey’s depression and anxiety didn’t just disappear once he fell in love or after he started treatment. that’s another common thing in fiction; mentally ill characters having their illness just disappear after one show of getting treatment. again, not how it works. so, like i said, i’m glad we see jeremey still having symptoms and being affected by his depression and anxiety.
even though my anxiety isn’t as severe as his, jeremey is one of the two most relatable representations of anxiety for me. there are so many characters with anxiety that are portrayed as just pushing through it like it’s nothing, or being forced and pressured by their friends or family to do things that give them anxiety, and when they end up doing the thing, it’s no big deal and everything is fine. it’s like the magical happy ending for characters who have anxiety; people force them to face their anxiety and all is well. nothing negative happens or they never struggle or have a set back or anything. they’re able to just go about their life with no or little interference from their anxiety. and that, to me, isn’t really relatable. i appreciated that jeremey continued to struggle and set his own pace and limits and was able to say when and what he did or didn’t want to try, and other than his awful parents, no one forced and pushed and nagged him to just do something.
which brings me to jeremey and emmet and david. they’re all so fucking supportive of each other, it makes me so happy.
there’s a scene where some assholes muttered something and laughed as they walked by emmet, jeremey, and david and david’s response was everything. he followed the guys and kept calling them out and trying to get them to say something, and emmet was loving it.
those four girls over there look really interested to hear what a pack of assholes have to say to a quad and his autistic wingman and his friend with social anxiety.
the friendship between the three of them is so fucking supportive and pure and important. i honestly wish there had been a little more it, that david hadn’t come into the book so late, so we could have seen more of his awesomeness.
i liked that jeremey’s ignorant, bigoted, and basically abusive parents were always shown as being in the wrong. so many times characters end up making excuses for abusive, bigoted parents simply because they’re parents. as if giving birth to someone gives you a free pass to be awful to them and grants you automatic respect and love. they do come around at the end, but i felt it was a little too neat and sudden. i wish there had been more of a conversation about that.
the romance between jeremey and emmet is so pure and wonderful, and i’m happy to hear that the sequel isn’t an excuse to throw some unnecessary angst at them. they deserve to be happy.
i have to say, while reading some reviews, i was disappointed to see people hating on jeremey for being miserable and lacking effort. i mean? he had major depressive disorder? he’s going to show symptoms of that? and then a reviewer who said the previous, also said that they didn’t like jeremey participating in the target dance video, because it was unrealistic. so, jeremey is annoying when he’s showing symptoms of his depression and “not trying,” but he’s also unrealistic when he’s able to do things, like dance in a store, despite his anxiety? and he wasn’t even completely fine in that scene. he had moments where it got to be too much, and he moved out of the spotlight and behind david, like they all practiced beforehand. so, it wasn’t like his anxiety was completely forgotten so he could participate in something fun with his friends. his anxiety was still there, he just found a way to not let it overcome him in that moment. ugh. i just hate when people want characters with mental illnesses, but then they trash them for showing symptoms of a mental illness. pick one. you can’t have mentally ill characters without them being mentally ill.
anyways, i love this book. that’s all.
oh! i remembered one small thing that i didn’t like! the line, “to be my boyfriend, he would have to be gay too,” annoyed me. i guess mspec identities just don’t exist in this book? *eye roll*...more
the biggest plot twist of 2019 is me rereading twilight ten years after i first read it, now a very picky, critical reader and aware of the issues, and giving it 5 stars.
content/trigger warnings; ableism, near car accident, blood, misogyny, harassment, kissing, racism, arophobia, mentions of illness, mentions of child death, mentions of attempted suicide, violence, injury, hospital, amatonormativity,
let’s start this with a weird observation;
this author clearly loves herself an em dash. there were so many in the first chapter (nearly 60) that i kept count for the rest of the book. there are around 764 em dashes in this book. there are no less than 20 in each chapter, with the exception of the prologue, which is like a paragraph, and two other chapters, which are pretty short compared to the rest. none of this matters, it’s just one of those things once i notice it i can’t unnotice it.
why i like this book;
it was fun. it made me laugh, and not in the “this is so bad it’s funny” way. it was a quick read, i devoured it like i did in high school. i found bella, arguably the most hated ya protagonist ever, to be kind of relatable. she’s sarcastic, doesn’t talk much, blushes and stammers a lot, cries when angry, hates gym class, plans conversations/arguments/confrontations in her head that she knows she’s not actually going to have, loves books, and angry cries when realizing she’s being taken to the prom. i mean....she isn’t the greatest character ever, she is one of those female protagonists who stop caring about literally everything once they get a boyfriend, and think they’re so ordinary and uninteresting, but everyone either wants to date them or be their friend. but she’s not as bad as everyone makes her out to be, in my opinion.
edward also isn’t the greatest love interest ever (we all agree that sneaking into her bedroom to watch her sleep on more than one occasion is creepy as fuck), but for the most part, he’s a funny, entertaining, and lowkey charming guy. yeah, i said it. i thought it was sweet as fuck that he was “pleasantly surprised” to find out that bella thought he was good at being with her, after years of believing he was never going to find someone he wanted to be with. do i want a boyfriend like him? no. but i’m also not looking for love interests in books to be what i personally want in my actual life. and let me just say that edward’s reactions to bella crying are a whole fucking mood, i cackled each time.
bella and edward’s relationship;
we established that edward was creepy for the watching-her-sleep thing and he could be a bit demanding and short with bella sometimes, and yes, bella does quickly develop an unhealthy dependency on him, but the only time i was truly frustrated with the relationship dynamic was when edward is with bella in the hospital after james and she’s saying she wants to be a vampire and he just shuts her and the conversation down, as if her becoming a vampire is his choice, and calls in a nurse to knock bella out with pain meds to end the conversation after bella says she doesn’t want them. he then says he will stay with her for as long as she wants, “as long it’s what’s best for her,” as if he gets to decide what is best for her. is ditching her life, friends, and family to become a vampire to be with a guy she’s been dating for like a minute the best idea? no. but it’s not a choice he gets to approve or reject.
other things;
not enough people talk about how fucking gross mike and tyler are with bella. they hover around her, follow her, expect her to date them, and it’s just......no, take no for an answer my dudes. the fact that tyler actually shows up at bella’s house to take her to prom after pretty much not speaking to her since he asked her to that dance and she rejected him is fucking ridiculous.
esme worrying that there was “something missing from edward’s essential makeup” because he didn’t have romantic love for so long is really not a good take. amatonormativity is wild.
there’s a lot less jacob than i was expecting. i remember him being more prominent in the movie?? and given how played up the “love triangle” is, i expected him to show up more than like three times. and not be in the dark about vampires and barely 15 years old, the latter being especially surprising to me because i thought he and bella were the same age or that he was older.
and speaking of the “love triangle”...saying this book has a love triangle between edward, bella, and jacob is...false. it’s like saying edward, bella, and tyler/mike is a love triangle. jacob’s role in this book and his relationship with bella is equivalent to that of tyler and mike. they liked her, she had no romantic interest in them, and they were present for all of five minutes. at most, there’s enough animosity (edward) and awkwardness (bella and jacob) due to jacob’s crush to let you know that’s where that dynamic is going to go. but it’s definitely not there yet in this book.
all in all;
just like the mortal instruments and pretty little liars series; i’m aware of all of the valid criticism, but i still enjoyed it and had fun reading it and i don’t feel bad about it....more
i had a whole fucking review for this but i lost it because my computer is a piece of shit. so enjoy whatfirst read: 8/1/15 second read: 12/31/19
reread
i had a whole fucking review for this but i lost it because my computer is a piece of shit. so enjoy whatever i can remember and feel like typing again.
→ rep; laney (mc) is queer -unlabeled, can be read as pansexual, possibly not completely cis- and has borderline personality disorder and addiction. blythe (li) is bisexual and has bipolar. laney’s mother (sc) has bipolar. armin (sc) and hayim (sc) are persian. zoeller (sc) has antisocial personality disorder.
→ content/trigger warnings; suicide, death of a parent, explicit sex, ableism, gendered slurs, drug use, underage drinking, violence, blood, physical assault, sexual harassment, slut shaming, bullying, drugging, guns, child abuse, queerphobia (f slur, d slur, arophobic language, lesbophobia, internalized queerphobia, biphobia, outing, fetishization), mental illness (suicidal ideation, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, disordered eating, depression, addiction, depersonalization),
my thoughts are basically: - messy, angry, volatile queer girls getting revenge is great, we need more of it - the mental illness rep is fucking dangerous, don’t vilify or romanticize or neglect mental illnesses that are already under represented and heavily stigmatized and absolutely don’t tell people that medication is the enemy and seeking treatment is bad - laney’s way of describing her sexuality is important for a lot of people and fuck you if dismiss or criticize it, because it’s often how pan people explain their attraction when they don’t have the words to better explain it because they don’t pan is a thing and other labels don’t specifically express how they feel and they deserve the room to figure their shit out when they aren’t trying to fucking hurt anyone by struggling to articulate something they’ve heard expressed before - saw some reviews and uh maybe don’t complain about mspec girls have sex with men and disdainfully refer to it as “het sex” you fucking mspecphobes - laney talks about not feeling like a girl or boy or anything else and i wish her gender identity had been explored because that could’ve been a really great storyline alongside her sexuality - some questionable/unhealthy portrayals of sex - the persian character ending up being part of a secret society that’s full of privileged bigots because *surprise* he’s a raging misogynist who loathes queer women is a.......choice
original review
let me tell you something about this fucking book, okay, i have no idea what i’m supposed to feel after reading that. i had no idea what was going on or what was going to happen the entire time. the story kept me intrigued and reading but in a "can’t stop staring at the car crash" sort of way. i don’t know, it just was not what i expected when i read the summary and decided to read it, at all. still not sure if that turned out to be a good or bad thing....more
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