whittaker's reviews
216 reviews

This book is a tricky one to review. The premise is GENIUS - famed young asian-americas author dies and her white failing author friend ends up with her unpublished manuscript. What will she do next‽

SPOILER WARNING.

One of my issues, though, is how unlikeable June is. I mean, from the start she is utterly boring and quite frankly mean, and so we fail to actually want to invest in her story. I had to keep putting it down and picking it up later. Truthfully, it does get better in the second half. You end up developing a relationship where - even though you despise her - you NEED to know what she will do next. Now, I'm not saying she should be made into a darling character - the whole point of the book is how she WAS fucked and racist from the start, but I wish there was more intrigue in the plot to pull us in past the whole "stealing the book". She doesn't need to be likeable, but I wish the plot had developed quicker at the beginning - I wish we had more of those snippets where it felt like she was hinting to something in the future. Kuang dotted a few in there, but I really wish she'd leant more into the idea that this was June's own novel, and we were reading her account of the events, rather than following her exact thought process - or I wish that there was more of a development of other point's of view. Truthfully though, it is a good thing that June was consistently unlikeable, because it proved the point of this book. June (and likely several white authors in the industry) will always see themselves as victims, no matter how much wrong they do. There is no need for us to paint her like a darling and then rip it away from us. She can just be a bad person. My criticism is more that June is unlikeable and really we need something else then to pull us into the story. Sure, the premise is smart, but it needs to be developed (which it was in the later parts, WHICH I LOVED.)

Another issue truly is the mention of cultural things that are VERY inclusive of now. Things like twitter, BTS, GoodReads. Though it does paint a picture of what is going on now, I do worry that the book focusses a bit too much on social media - despite not being advertised as a social media heavy book. Maybe where this could change is the marketing focussing on this point -- otherwise it got a bit same-y. 

I would like to say, though, that I really enjoyed this book. I saw other reviews criticising Kuang for letting her own voice shine through but - so what? It's her book. It's likely derived on her experiences. I couldn't careless that she did so - if anything, it made the book MORE impactful. As a whole - this book has faults. Is it a good read? Sure. But I do hope they don't market it like MYOR&R, Bunny, or other books with unlikeable MCs, because it isn't their genre, it's quite frankly one of it's own.

Kindly given to me by NetGalley to honestly review.

This set of horror short stories was, to be frank, amazing. Some of them had me gripped and re-reading in an attempt to make sense of the absurdity, and some were frightening, but all of them were enjoyable and amazingly written.

This is a sweet children's book which helps explain to young people what dysphoria might be and also what transgender children may go through. I think not only is this book sweet and beautifully written and illustrated but it's also useful to adults too - with the adults section at the end which helps educate adults and help them answer any questions their children may have about the book. My only issue is there is some missing text bubble in the book - which hopefully will be recified by publishing.

This book was kindly offered for review by NetGalleyUK.

I've had bad experiences with short story collections in the past but this was amazing. At times it's absurd, I the best way possible, but at all times it explored womanhood, to an extent. If you want a book that focusses on women, for good and bad, I highly recommend.

This book is, at it's heart, a coming-of-age for a trans teenager. In some ways, I feel it echoed Ladybird, with the relationship between the main character and his mother, but it also really explored the realisation of someone being trans, and the struggles of finding yourself AND being yourself as a trans teenager. I think what this book does well is not only the exploration of being a transman but also the subtle transphobia you experience coming out.

When Zoe says she's okay with Dean being trans, it is partially true. She is not transphobic in the same way Blake is, but at the same time, she has an undercurrent of transphobia in how she treats Dean going forward, and she puts a lot of that under the guise of being jealous or having to adjust. And that is one thing I think the book does exceptionally well - it highlights the idea that people will say they're "adjusting", but what they are truthfully doing is trying to reconcile their internal transphobia with their love for someone. Zoe ultimately is okay with Dean being trans as his own person, but she is not okay with her still dating him - and in turn she really wants him to detransition for her sake, so she can keep loving him like she always has. Which ultimately, is not productive or kind to him.

This book isn't groundbreaking, or deeply insightful, but it is a fun and, quite frankly, needed YA novel, and for it's genre and it's purpose, I do think it is a really good read. If you're used to sad queer novels like A Little Life, then yes, maybe this book will seem a little novel, but if you are looking for a book in the YA genre, especially if you want to know what it's like to be a trans teen (if you're cis), then I really recommend it. 

I can't really sum up in words what this book has meant to me - but I think it's the kind of book that most women will find themselves in, somewhere in it. I think one of my favourite quotes, that kind of sums up the book as a whole is