#YA on StoryGraph

[francescaswords]

Pre-Orders for Rotting Trees are open, with a bonus Bezzina's short story for pre-orders!

Hello! Happy Halloween/five year anniversary of the return of My Chemical Romance to all who celebrate. I’m quite excited to announce that Rotting Trees will release as an ebook and a paperback on 31st January 2025 and you can pre-order it now from all major retailers at a very nice little discount. It will be available from your local bookshops too – just ask them to order it in for collection!…

[crookedcrowclub]

Review for A Conjuring of Light by V .E. Schwab

5/5 ⭐️

WOW.

reading this felt like reading a crossover novel of all my favourite characters from the previous two books because each of them were so incredibly fleshed out that this could’ve been anyone’s story. it feels as if i’ve met these characters and had conversations with them because they seemed so tangible.

Plot & Pacing

what book 2 lacked in terms of plot and pacing, book 3 more than made up for it. the story picks up right where book 2 left off and the momentum doesn’t slow down one bit. it only kept getting better with surprises and twists at every turn. if you know me, you know that books are my sole sustenance when it comes to escaping the horrors of reality and ACOL swept me off my feet from the very first chapter!

Characters

the character dynamics were much more nuanced and their interactions were TO DIE FOR (!!!) not to mention, they all had insane chemistry with each other and some wholesome moments thrown in as well. kell, lila, and holland have cemented themselves as my ultimate disaster trio and i just couldn’t get enough of them.

the flashback scenes gave a deeper insight into each of the characters’ backstory and i ended up caring more about them than i imagined. holland’s especially packed a punch. his chapters were agonizing to read, emotionally charged and tugged at my heartstrings. i saw him as the villain at the beginning of this trilogy but it turns out, he’s an anti-hero who deserves to be happy after everything he’s been through. his chapters alone were a solid 5/5 stars for me, and he has earned a top ten spot in my Most Favourite Fucked Up Characters of All Time 😌.

as for lila, she had it all: beauty, brains and brawn! but besides that, we also see her come to terms with her attachment and abandonment issues that she’s struggled with since book 1. her arc was moving yet powerful. most of it strongly resonated with me because it hit too close to home. delilah bard is basically me but in different font and i adore my knife wife so much 🫶🏼.

kell’s daring persona that i sorely missed in book 2 made a sweeping comeback and his character was even more striking than before! unlike in the previous book, he was very level-headed in this one and took on the fitting role of a natural leader who guided his team in their quest to defeat evil. he kinda reminded me of kaz with the easy way he almost always got the final word. his chapters were poignant with direction and focus, which was refreshing to read.

i was thrilled that we finally got alucard’s POV (!!!!) i like his character but sadly, he didn’t really stand out in the book for me. it felt as if he was merely a plot piece to keep the story going. things were happening and he was just kinda there. either way, i enjoyed being in his head and learning more about his past.

rhy was less annoying and bratty (thank goodness) which i think had a lot to do with alucard’s presence at the beginning. he also had lesser chapters in this book but he started growing on me around the 70% mark. i liked how resilient he was in never giving up or cowering in face of adversity and how much he cared for his people. towards the end, he proved to be a well rounded character with a satisfying arc.

side mention: the minor characters (hastra, lenos, tieren, maris, ned, maxim, emira, even cora!) were amazingly well developed and despite their limited page time, they stole the show all the same! i would deadass be down to read each of their spinoff stories if the author ever decided to write them.

Conclusion

overall, ACOL struck a perfect balance between character-driven and plot-driven storyline to the point where the characters ceased to be fictional and started seeming like actual people in my head. not only that, this trilogy felt like getting a warm hug from an old friend because it reminded me of six of crows and a couple other YA novels which i loved during that time. it was nostalgic reading it even though i’d never read it before.

as for the ending, it was satisfying but the suspense was over quick. i wanted to see more action in the final fight scene after all that buildup but either way, it was fulfilling to see my beloved characters find closure after everything that happened. i can see where the continuation trilogy is headed and im beyond excited to read it!

ANOSHE✨

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

The Meadows

YA dystopian set in a hyper-surveilled future world devastated by climate change

a girl from a rural seaside town is offered a place in a school that only takes the ‘best and brightest’ - and jumps at the chance, but quickly finds out things are not as they seem: they’re there to be conditioned into obedient wives, and become part of the society which enforces the belief that end of the world was caused by people ‘going against nature’

switches back and forth between then and a few years later, when she’s graduated and working as an adjudicator monitoring her fellow graduates, so she can defer her own requirement to get married and search for the former classmate she loved who was taken away after they attempted escape

slow building and twisty, lesbian MC

[mediashadowreads]

°․✶ JULY WRAP UP & AUGUST HOPEFULS

July was a bit of an odd month for me, it was busy at work, busy at home and we were dealing with some very up and down weather. Including my arch nemesis.. heat. Anyone that knows me knows I despise the heat and frankly I barely function in it. Add onto that the fact I’ve been dealing with one of my cats being injured (he’s fine now, I’m just an anxious fur baby parent) as well as my birthday at…

[reliablenarrators]

kissing the kiss quotient goodbye

the kiss quotient (2018) by helen hoang. 24.04.2024

the kiss quotient is filled with sex. lots of it. so much that it’s mind boggling that it won the goodreads romance award when really, it’s just smut with a dash of autism representation. the smut is more cringe than hot and there are way more scenes than necessary. like, at one point michael, our martial arts boy of the story, says “you're milking my fingers stella” and well, just no. no, thank you. and sure, maybe it’s sweet, but it’s also a hell of a turn off if someone calls your pussy a sweet potato or a little bird. ladies, try it out on the guys when you’re in the sheets and get back to us on how successful it is. (we have an hypothesis)

but back to the beginning. in the kiss quotient we meet stella, a 30 year old successful woman working as an econometrist in silicon valley (and let’s just here take a moment of silence for how obvious it is that the author is not a mathematician by how stella is portrayed like a stereotypical brainiac). and why oh why is this book called the kiss quotient when there’s no mention of any kiss quotients, i guess coherency is too much to ask for. 

the maths part isn’t important, but what’s really important for the plot is that stella is autistic and hasn’t really told anyone outside of her close family - consisting of her mother and father and like every only child (and autistic adult apparently) ever, she doesn’t have any friends. but luckily, she’s uber rich and is capable of buying a tesla for every time michael comes up with a new nickname for her pussy. and have we mentioned that her mother is weirdly obsessed with trying to marry off her strong independent daughter (who really don’t need no man!) so stella and michael meet each other because she hires him as an escort wanting to learn how to fuck. she has experience, but only with jerks (but which men in their twenties are not?!). so is this reverse pretty woman really giving hashtag slaying the day away, or?

and of course, stella’s autism can just be ‘solved’ by some very good shagging by michael. i think we should all try that next time we’re feeling anxious. it’s a curiously problematic take on an autistic character from an author who herself is diagnosed with autism.

the miscommunication trope is on full throttle here, although very badly executed. early on, when michael’s sweet cousin (whose name slips our mind, but he’s cute and probably more of the ideal man we all want) notices it, michael lets stella know that he knows in a very sweet lowkey way to which she acknowledged it. later on, it gets turned into this big reveal and they have a huge fight about it and as a reader you just kinda want to skip through to the end.

the point of view changes throughout the story completely forgetting our main character and the book ends up revolving around michael’s daddy issues instead of stella’s autism because her autistic traits have magically disappeared at michael’s touch. that’s what love will do to ya. so the whole premise of autism representation and stella being a girl boss just falls a bit flat when michael is the knight in shining armour who has so much more wisdom and experience than stella and how all her issues are solved by love and sex (where did the girl boss go?). and then we have phillip, her one dimensional jerk coworker, whose only contribution to the plot is being the villain michael can save her from.

is michael hot? well, not in our top 3 over book boyfriends. very forgettable (which doesn’t say much in bridget’s case). he’s sweet and cute and a good brother who cooks for his whole family which consists of his mum, many sisters and some more we forgot. the banter he has with his family is cute, so adorably written that whatever daddy issues he has gets forgotten by us and the author herself - and when it does finally get revealed it’s really fucking boring. come up with something original for once! we think he should have had it way worse for him to act so sulky. 

in the end, the kiss quotient is really just another booktok dark romance book in the sea of tiktok books. that it has been turned into somewhat of a franchise tells you everything about the publishing industry nowadays and nothing about complex female characters. we all like to read cheesy chickflicks, that’s the reason we wrote this, but perhaps we should raise the standards, girlies. if anyone can recommend a good fun, romance that’s not about dorky girls and creepy men and their toxic relationship, please do let us know.

[ya-world-challenge]

Alright, I made a challenge! If anyone wants to read globally with me, I made a little list of prompts, neatly divisible by 12 months, plus a bonus. If you want to track your progress, I set it up on Storygraph, too - the link is below.

Tag your posts with "#ya world challenge" ! You don't have to read YA, but I want to see all your posts. :D Also please reblog to spread the word.

YA World Challenge 2023 prompts

By a Caribbean author

Features a religion not your own

Historical/contemporary fiction in a country not your own

Set in Latin America

European book in translation

Features a minority group in your country

Desi lead character, or set on the Indian subcontinent

By an Australian or New Zealand author

A non-Western sci-fi or fantasy world

Set in Asia

By an African author

Minority or non-US disabled character

LGBTQIA+ book in translation

About immigrants or refugees

Set in the Middle East

By an indigenous author

Diversity jackpot! Team of characters of varying cultures

By a Pacific Islander author

Set somewhere you'd like to travel

Non-Western mythology or fairy tale

Memoir of someone outside your cultural group

A country you heard about on the news

Focus on environment or climate

Eastern European or Slavic book

Bonus! Roll a random number and read a book for that country (my personal method, see instructions below)

Storygraph challenge link is here

Roll a random number and read a book for that country

Go to random.org and generate a number from 8 to 215.

Go to my spreadsheet here, and find your number. Use my picks or find your own!

Goodreads lists or this group are helpful for finding books. (If I'm having trouble, I'll allow myself a culturally relevant fantasy world as substitute. Or you can reroll if you get a particularly difficult country!)

If you don't want to include the territories from my list, an "official" list of 195 is here, enter 1 to 195 in the randomizer.

[pointesdulac]

tagged by @milfeivor and this is so hard because i'm so many 'technically both' answers BUT...

hardcover or paperback? bookstore or library? bookmark or receipt? stand alone or series? nonfiction or fiction? thriller or fantasy? under 300 pages or over 300 pages? children’s or ya? friends to lovers or enemies to lovers? read in bed or read on the couch? read at night or read in the morning? keep pristine or markup? cracked spine or dog ear?

where are my book mutuals... no pressure tags for @spaceoperetta @neverfeedthekraken @ashleyrguillory and anyone else who wants to do this and consider themselves tagged

[everythingseverywheres]

#bishova fanfics have led me to these 2 #lgbtqia books and a really cool app alternative to Goodreads called storygraph.

Thanks kids 🤓

Send similar books my way!

[crunchycrystals]

love when i start recognizing audiobook narrators

[mishkwaagegekwereads]

All Out Book Review: 4.5 Stars!

This was an amazing anthology of short stories. It had several Five Star reads including the opener, "Roja," a very interesting Trans retelling of Little Red Riding Hood by Anna-Marie McLemore that had me coming back to it several times before I even finished the rest of the book! The Queer authors of this anthology have created wonderful Queer stories filled with diverse characters who quickly pull you into their worlds. There were 2 stories that I was not super fond of, hence the drop from a full 5 star rating. Filled with absolute bangers of quotes, "All Out" will be an anthology I re-read time and time again. I will definitely be finding more works by these fantastic authors to read! 

5 Star Stories and my favorite quotes from them

-Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore: A wonderful trans retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that takes place in war-torn 1870s Mexico. “He saw me as something soft, a girl he did not want to plague with nightmares.” “We survived to whisper our names to each other even if we could not yet confess them to anyone else.”

-Burnt Umber by Mackenzi Lee: Cute story of a teenage boy during the Golden Age of Dutch art, figuring out his sexuality and finding his first love. This one left me feeling giddy and warm, and excited about new love. “I wonder what his eyes would look like with our noses pressed together.” “Just as the snow stops, I take his hand.”

-The Dresser and the Chamber Maid by Robin Talley: I had this one at 4 stars initially but then I kept getting drawn back into it and re-reading because it was so good. Lesbians finding love while maneuvering the perils of aiding their royal employers? More please.  “It was an easy thing, then, to kiss her. As easy as laughter. Easy as a warm sun on a September afternoon.”

Linking TheStoryGraph page for the content warnings: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f003ea5c-fbcc-4b6c-906f-ba3fb8f40eff/content_warnings

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Alright this is a long shot since I’ve been MIA but does anyone have book recommendations? I mean ANY books, regardless of genre, themes, etc—part of my job is reader’s advisory but I’m in the biggest reading slump of my life and I can’t keep telling people to check out Lessons in Chemistry just because it’s popular right now.

…also if anyone wanted to be friends on Storygraph I’d be cool with that

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Honestly it's why a lot of booktube isn't for me either. A lot of criticisms in those spaces basically fall back on "this character/content is problematic, hence the book is bad and the author is normalising bad stuff" and just end it there with either no or superficial analysis on structure, style, tone, themes etc.

Like, forgive the conspiracy board but I genuinely think it goes hand in hand with the fast fashionisation of books, where the point is to consume and get your stats up by reading as quickly and as many books as possible, so content creators will speed through these books in like a couple of days and not even give themselves time to absorb what they were reading before they turn the camera on to give their review. Hence their critical analysis only stretches as far as the most prominent and surface level content, in which bad stuff happens in it, which is bad and makes the book bad, and I can't think too deeply on it right now because I've got to spend hours editing this tonight and start on another book/video tomorrow. And then thousands of readers will watch that and internalise that this is how we should be interacting with books and it's fucked up

kicking a hornets nest.

[dungeonsandfierceorangecats]

Come find me on StoryGraph so I can get some new book recs! @estlin_is_out_there

[moonwabbitt]

i don't really know how/where to organize all my book stuff and notes and what to do with the stuff i've written/where to post and just idk im struck but indecisiveness and indecision,,,and ahhhhhhhhh

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

I finished Malinda Lo's novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club early this morning (before bed), and as I was trying to fall asleep afterward I was like, 'Oooooooh my god I really want to read more just-as-good-as-that-book-was historical fiction!!!' and as I was idly scrolling through the boards on Neopets just now I fucking noticed in someone's signature 'Recommended reading' and it was of a historical fiction book set in (or starting in, I guess?) El Salvador about Indigenous women!?!?!?!?!? I COULD NOT ASK FOR A BETTER REC (I hope - apparently it's not even out yet but MANNNNN I CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT!!), at least that almost perfectly aligns with my interests and what I like to read!?! Hello synchronicity, I LOVE YOU.

[figueroths]

i miss gay book club