Tag: young adult fiction

E-ARC REVIEW; IN THE SILENCES

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“When did life get so dangerous? Kaz Adams just wants to read comic books with her best friend, Aisha Warren. And maybe get up the nerve to ask her out, if Kaz turns out to be a gender that Aisha’s into. Kaz figured she’d be the target of violence for her gender nonconformity, but a fatal police shooting thirty miles from their town opens her eyes to the realities of racism. She watches as pressures at school and in their social group mount against Aisha. Kaz would try to stop a bullet for Aisha if she had to, but she has no idea how to stop the waves of soul-crushing disapproval and judgement. When she talks to the other white students and adults in her area, they don’t seem to understand what she’s talking about. Aisha has helped Kaz find a place in the world, but that was about Kaz’s gender expression. Kaz can’t magically change the world for Aisha, but something has to change in their school system or she’ll lose the girl she loves.”
4/5 stars.

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WLW RECOMMENDATIONS!

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Hey everyone! So, as some of you may already know, last month I took part in F/F February. The aim of the game, basically, was to help myself branch out a little and read more WLW reads, both for the theme of the month, and as a way to contribute to some of my reading resolutions that I set for the year! I managed to get through three LGBT+ books, bringing my WLW reads this year up to four out of nine so far. It’s really great setting challenges like this and branching out and reading things that you wouldn’t necessarily prioritise, but I also wanted to do this as a general rule, regardless of month, as I think it’s so incredibly important for LGBT+ stories to be given more attention. And, as well loved as the Simon Spiers’, Elio Perlmans’, Alec Lightwoods’ and Loras Tyrells’ of the world are, I think we need to step away from merely focusing on white boys being our only, or at the very least most celebrated, form of LGBT+ rep. I can never reiterate enough how important I think it is to keep reading LGBT+ lit, but to never place yourself in a box and allow yourself to fall into habits of hyper focusing on the white, cisgendered, male aspects of the LGBT+ community when there are so many other genders, sexualities, and people coming from varying cultural and social backgrounds to be represented.

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REVIEW; THE LADY’S GUIDE TO PETTICOATS AND PIRACY – MACKENZI LEE

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“In this highly anticipated sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Felicity Montague must use all her womanly wits and wiles to achieve her dreams of becoming a doctor—even if she has to scheme her way across Europe to do it. A must-have for fans of Mackenzi Lee’s extraordinary and Stonewall Honor-winning novel.
A year after an accidentally whirlwind grand tour with her brother Monty, Felicity Montague has returned to England with two goals in mind—avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. However, her intellect and passion will never be enough in the eyes of the administrators, who see men as the sole guardians of science.
But then a window of opportunity opens—a doctor she idolizes is marrying an old friend of hers in Germany. Felicity believes if she could meet this man he could change her future, but she has no money of her own to make the trip. Luckily, a mysterious young woman is willing to pay Felicity’s way, so long as she’s allowed to travel with Felicity disguised as her maid.
In spite of her suspicions, Felicity agrees, but once the girl’s true motives are revealed, Felicity becomes part of a perilous quest that leads them from the German countryside to the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic.”
5/5 stars.

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REVIEW; TRELL: NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH – DICK LEHR

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“On a hot summer night in the late 1980s, in the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, a twelve-year-old African-American girl was sitting on a mailbox talking with her friends when she became the innocent victim of gang-related gunfire. Amid public outcry, an immediate manhunt was on to catch the murderer, and a young African-American man was quickly apprehended, charged, and — wrongly — convicted of the crime. Dick Lehr, a former reporter for the Boston Globe’s famous Spotlight Team who worked on this story, brings the case to light once more with Trell, a page-turning novel about the daughter of an imprisoned man who persuades a reporter and a lawyer to help her prove her father’s innocence. What pieces of evidence might have been overlooked? Can they manage to get to the truth before a dangerous character from the neighborhood gets to them?”

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REVIEW; THINGS A BRIGHT GIRL CAN DO – SALLY NICHOLLS

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Okay, first thing’s first: raise your hand if you picked this book up because you heard ‘lesbians’ and ‘suffragettes’ in the same sentence.

I’m mostly kidding, but also a little bit not. Because, truthfully, that was absolutely one of the deciding factors for me! This book has, shamefully, been sitting on my shelf for almost a year now, and it’s taken me this long to finally pull myself together and pick it up. All I knew of this story, besides the fact that a few of my friends had already given it glowing reviews, was that it featured three young, bright girls, each with their own stories and own motives, but all striving for the same goal: votes for women. Aside from that, all I knew was that it happened to feature a romance between two of the girls, a fact that drew me in immediately! Gay suffragettes? I’m sold.

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