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Category: lgbtqia

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

Our Own Private Universe by Robin Talley

This one of my most anticipated releases for the entirety of 2017. After reading Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley, I was eager to get my hands on her new book: Our Own Private Universe. I was excited because I read that this book was about a bisexual, POC, fifteen-year-old, who goes to Mexico with the church. So already, there’s a lot going on here: we have a black girl, a bisexual protagonist who wants to explore her sexuality and it’s set in Mexico where there are religious aspects to it. After finishing it, I realised that I was slightly disappointed. *lengthy review ahead* …

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Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

This was a book that I had heard very mixed reviews on; people either loved it or hated it – and of course, I just had to be the person that thought it was in between. I didn’t dislike it, I didn’t love it. It just took forever to get into and I nearly DNF’d (did not finish) it. But luckily the last quarter of the book saved it from being dumped in the DNF pile!

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Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Reading Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda, you wouldn’t think that this was Albertalli’s debut novel. Normally a debut has a few problems here and there and the storyline isn’t quite up to the standard that is should be, but not with this book. No way. Albertalli has created something that is so powerful and moving that I started reading it again once I had finished it.

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Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

If you’re looking for a diverse book to read, then look no further. Lies We Tell Ourselves is the story about a black girl falling in love with a white girl during the Civil Rights movement.

I had to read this book for my local Waterstones book club and I am so glad that this was the book that was picked. It was so eye-opening and it taught me a lot about the Civil Right movement; I already imagined the integration of black people into white schools to be an unpleasant read, but the way that Talley tells it is horrifying: I wanted to cry for the black students.

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This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

With the American gun laws still present, with innocents getting killed all around the world by these monstruous weapons, it’s only right that a book about a gun-wielding killer would trickle it’s way into the young adult genre.

This book is important to read. It’s important that’s it’s read by everyone. Yes, it’s a young adult book but it shows us the horrors of what happens at a school shooting, it shows us how families grieve and mourn the loss of their children who were taken away from them too early. This is a feeling that parents should never feel.

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More Than This by Patrick Ness

More Than This by Patrick Ness

More Than This is the first book that I have ever read by Patrick Ness. And it certainly isn’t going to be the last. I was recommended by one of my best friends to read this last year and I finally decided to read it.

I was quite weary of reading this, as the blurb doesn’t give away much about the book, and I like having some inkling about what the book is about before I start reading – all I knew is that a boy dies and wakes up in an unknown place.

It does sound very interesting though, doesn’t it?

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Affinity by Sarah Waters

Affinity by Sarah Waters

When I was given the list of books that I had to read for my English and Media course at university, I let out a groan. Whenever I think of study texts for anything, whether it was at school, college or university, I always think that they’re going to be boring.

I was proved wrong when I studied To Kill a Mockingbird at Secondary School, I was wrong when I also studied An Inspector Calls and The Woman in Black there. I was proved wrong when I studied The Time Machine in college (even though I was proved right when we were also given Hard Times by Charles Dickens!) and now I’m at university. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Great Expectations, I didn’t really enjoy To The Lighthouse and now Affinity by Sarah Waters.

Is this book going to go against the stereotypical texts of studying or not?

An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work. 

 Amongst Millbank’s murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by on apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a séance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed. 

 Although initially skeptical of Selina’s gifts, Margaret is soon drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions

 When I read the blurb of this book, I had to admit, it sounded rather different than any university book that I was expecting. A feminist, gothic, Victorian-era book. Sounds pretty good right?

 It was.

 It really was.

 Although this book was slow to start off with, I found myself becoming hooked. I have never read about women’s jails (or gaols – as they are written in Affinity) before and I found the subject intriguing. 

“Your twisting is done — you have the last thread of my heart. I wonder: when the thread grows slack, will you feel it?”
– Sarah Waters, Affinity
 
 


 The whole premise of this book was fascinating: a ‘lady’ that has tried to commit suicide, women’s jails, spirit mediums and an LGBT theme. 

 Sarah Waters writes her characters with such depth that, when I was reading the parts of Margaret, I felt like I was actually her walking through Millbank jail, I felt like I was her when she would go and talk to Selina Dawes. I was sucked right into her world and couldn’t seem to find myself getting out of it. 

 That ending though?!!! The last 50 pages were probably one of the best sections of literature that I’ve ever read. (Not THE best, ONE of the best – nothing can ever beat To Kill a Mockingbird). I have no one to talk about this book with as no one that I know has read it. I need to rant and rave about what happened at the end because it was so darn good! When I finished the book, I think I was sat on my bed in disbelief for about an hour, trying to take everything in that I had just read. 

 Just wow.

 I cannot wait to study this book in more depth at university. I can’t wait to read more work by Sarah Waters. This book is a strong five out of five and I definitely recommend this book to everyone. I think this is a must-read book.


The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

I haven’t read a book by Holly Black since The Spiderwick Chronicles when I was about eleven; so when I found out that she did young adult fantasy/supernatural books, I knew right there and then that I had to read them. Holly Black had a way of writing The Spiderwick Chronicles that left me in awe.
Faeries make a re-appearance in Holly Black’s: The Darkest Part of the Forest.
 


Near the little town of Fairfold, in the darkest part of the forest, is a glass casket. Inside lies a sleeping faerie prince that none can rouse. He’s the most fascinating thing Hazel and her brother Ben have ever seen. They dream of waking him – but what happens when dreams come true?

In the darkest part of the forest, you must be careful what you wish for…
Let me start off by saying that this book was absolutely fantastic! It’s the first fantasy book that I’ve read in a long time because my time has seemed to be taken up my YA Contemporary, but this book just reminded me how much I love the fantasy genre and how magical it is – especially when it is written as beautifully as this.
At first, I didn’t care much for Hazel, she seemed like a very two-dimensional character. But as the story goes on and the plot develops, so do the characters. The character development is phenomenal. I went from not liking Hazel to absolutely worshipping her towards the end. And Ben! We see his struggles as a gay character throughout the book but you know what I love about this book? Everyone is accepting of the fact that he’s gay – there’s no name-calling, no teasing, just no bullying or hate in general and it’s a breath of fresh air to see a book that includes a gay character that is fully accepted within the society.
“We love until we do not. For us, love doesn’t fade gradually. It snaps like a branch bent too far.”
– Holly Black, The Darkest Part of the Forest
 
 
Also… I think I might have fallen in love with the horned boy… And Jack… Oops…
Both the main and the secondary characters in this book have all been given a lot of attention as well. The secondary characters are given as much depth as the main characters and we are told parts of every characters background in detail that makes the reader feel like they know this character, they know what they’ve been through, how they are feeling right now and what’s caused them to act how they do in the present day.
There are so many twists and turns throughout this book and a realisation that will leave your mouth hanging open in disbelief. There’s magic, there’s fighting, there’s faeries, there’s romance. There’s everything that you could possibly want from a book about the magical realms within a forest.
I can’t say any more about this book without revealing spoilers but all you have to know is that it’s beautifully written, it’s an amazing storyline, there’s plot twists galore and the main characters (and secondary characters) are amazingly written.
There we go. I think it’s 10000% obvious that I fully recommend this book to anyone. Go on, get it now and read it. And then tell me what you think!
We Are All Made Of Molecules by Susin Nielsen

We Are All Made Of Molecules by Susin Nielsen



This book was one of my quick-buys when I went into Waterstones one day. It wasn’t on my TBR (to-be-read) list; I just saw it on the shelves, read the blurb and bought it. 

There are two sides to every story.
Stewart is geeky, gifted but socially clueless. His mom has died and he misses her every day.
Ashley is popular, cool but her grades stink. Her dad has come out and moved out – but not far enough.
Their worlds are about to collide: Stewart and his dad are moving in with Ashley and her mom. Stewart is 89.9% happy about it even as he struggles to fit in at his new school. But Ashley is 110% horrified and can’t get used to her totally awkward home. And things are about to become a whole lot more mixed up when they attract the wrong kind of attention…



I started and finished this book on my four-hour train journey from Aachen to Berlin. 

What I loved about this book was that it had the fresh, young voices of young teenagers. Stewart is 13 and Ashley is 14. Normally with teen fiction books, the main character is about 16/17.

What I didn’t like about this book was that they were 13 and 14. Feeling confused? Bear with me.

Using younger characters was a brilliant idea, it showed the transition from being a ‘child’ to a teenager and the troubles that come with that. Unfortunately, how the characters spoke on paper made them seem like they were about ten.

The character of Stewart is supposed to be gifted for his age, but sometimes he comes across and talks as though he’s a little boy. It’s the same with the character of Ashley. She’s 14; she should sound 14 – not ten.

“The next day, Mom made an appointment with the doctor. But it wasn’t a baby growing inside her. It was cancer.”
– Susin Nielsen, We Are All Made Of Molecules



I also hated the character of Ashley. You know those characters that you get that you love to hate? Ashley wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t stand her. She was moaning all of the time and complaining about her life like it was the worst thing in the world – granted most 13/14 year old complain most of the time that their life is horrible – and when I reading her chapters, I just wanted to get them over with.

The book got slightly better as it progressed; we learned a few things about some of the characters and there was some character development, but not an awful lot and the development that did happen was towards the end. I think the character that I like the most was Stewart. Even though he spoke like a five-year-old, he was still a very caring person and always tried to do the right thing no matter what.

 There are a few mature moments in this book like dealing with death, drinking and attempted rape (although with the latter is described in very little detail and is stopped before anything happens. It happens for about a few lines.)

 I would recommend this book but to those who do want to read it, keep an open mind that the two point of views are very childlike. It’s good, but it’s not a book that I would read again.
Warning: contains references to physical abuse. May trigger.