eloise_bradbooks's reviews
765 reviews

Lou Lubie est une vraie perle. Tout ce qu'elle produit est beau à regarder, super intéressant à lire, informatif, drôle, simple mais assez détaillé aussi... C'est parfait.
Je comprends bien mieux maintenant ce que ça peut vouloir dire d'être à haut potentiel intellectuel, comment chaque personne peut le vivre différemment. Et en même temps je me suis fait prendre dans une histoire avec des personnages attachantes, réalistes, j'ai ri et j'ai même pleuré quand, à la fin, il y a une référence à LA parole qui me touche le plus dans MA chanson préférée... Waou.
Lou Lubie a tout compris.

On parle beaucoup des enfants précoces, mais que deviennent-ils une fois adultes ? Birdo, brillant chef de restaurant, discret et solitaire, sait qu'il est surdoué depuis tout petit. Raya, prise dans une vie qu'elle sabote inconsciemment, cherche des réponses dans son diagnostic tout récent de « Haut Potentiel Intellectuel ». En confrontant leurs expériences, ces deux êtres singuliers vont repenser leur rapport à la douance.

 I love that this book exists. It's a wonderful middle grade story about a girl helping out birds in a magical forest kingdom when they're under potential attack, all while having to deal with friends being obsessed with crushes and dating when she's starting to realise she might not ever want that.
Reading about a young girl figuring herself out, discovering terms like aromantic and asexual and standing up for herself when others put her down was INCREDIBLE.
For me as an adult the magical woods part wasn't AS interesting but for the target audience it's probably great.
 

 Okay, Cupid is one of those books that isn't particularly bad, it just lacks the depth to be really good.
There's a supernatural element that needed so much more explanation, much more information and lore for it to truly be interesting and for the MC's struggles to be touching...
Also, it's a make-a-life-changing-decision-for-people-you-met-two-months-ago kind of conflict... like... no. There should be much more!!!
These kids shouldn't be cupids to start with but where was that talk?

PS: agender rep, horray (even though that was also only briefly mentioned and didn't seem to come up in any part of Jude's daily life)! 

 This was a very sweet romance, and most impressively a very good representation of DID.
I'd reread this regularly for some serotonin 

 Kay O'Neill's books should be put in every young person's hands. They are full of love, cute creatures and character growth.
This one focuses on protecting the oceans (even as islanders who need fish to survive).
It focuses on one part of protecting the ocean. I would have liked to have it at least mention the bigger picture that is humans destroying the planet through selfish lifestyles.. but starting with this one topic is already a very good start. 

 This was a very solid YA contemporary focused on Shireen, a fat sapphic Bengali-Irish teen, entering a baking competition on national television to help her parent's donut shop. Things get complicated when her ex-girlfriend also shows up and Shireen seems to be getting close to another contestant.

The book was a blast to read, you'll get stuck in the story like I get stuck in a chocolate fudge cake, gulfing it down, wanting more and more.
The author's note at the end also summed up something that felt so incredibly refreshing: we follow a fat character who loves food, and never is she fat-shamed!
Also, it was great to see chapter titles made out of baking puns. Bring back the chapter titles in books!

For me this isn't a five-star because there were just a couple of things I couldn't quite accept:
The things that happened, how they happened, all while filming a nationaly televised show? No way it would actually happen that way...
Also, the romance didn't feel like a great big romance, but it wasn't really meant to be. On the one hand it's refreshing, but I'd be lying if I said I would have liked to feel more from the romantic aspect of the story, I didn't quite feel the romantic connexion between the endgamers.
Anyway, that's just the pros and cons of fiction: sometimes you've got to bend the truth so that a story can be interesting...
Which this was.
 

There's everything to love in this book. Sapphic dark fantasy, lonely women finding each other. The villain getting her happy ending...
But in the end it didn't really tick all the boxes for me. 
It is heavily focused on Mina's relationship with the witch whom she falls in love with before the witch does anything nice, they almost never speak (kindly) to one another before then... (or we just don't really get to see it as time goes by quite fast in the book). Stockholm syndrome, much?
I also felt a little unease when Mina engaged a nonconsensual kiss / 'suprise-kiss' (that ended up making the witch happy because it was "needed" for the witch to understand that Mina really did love her?)
The dark mystery behind the witch and why she needs companions was intriguing but not really that surprising.
I did appreciate the writing, the ambiance, the way it ended.

AAAH ! I absolutely loved this !
It has fun (so funny), it has romance (swoon worthy, enemies-to-lovers, fake dating before they realise they're meant for each other), it has heart (SO MUCH HEART!).
I hadn't felt this deeply moved by a story in a long time.
These boys have gone through shit and, although they do become each other's safe space in some way, they're actually not their main or only safe spaces. Their personal 'issues' are solved by accepting it themselves and not because they've found a boyfriend. And that was very refreshing. 
Books like these are the reason I still believe in YA.
Thank you! When is the next Amanda Woody book?

This was a very enjoyable book.
The main issue for me was the romance which didn't really feel like a romance. From the title and synopsis it sounds like there would be a heavy focus on these girls developing relationship but in the end the development was minor. I would have liked to see more going on there and their transition from casual acquaintances to feel less rushed and out of the blue.
Anyway, it did allow more focus on family which felt much more developed and therefore much more interesting than Hani and Ishu's relationship (which is ashame since that's kind of the title and vibe of the book).