barrettbooks's reviews
60 reviews

What a glorious collection of poems. Wiley is a fat, queer, biracial woman and the collection explores all of those intersecting identities. Various pieces highlight both the violence that oppressive structures enact against fat people, queer people, Black people, and women, and the beauty and joy of the identities themselves, and the euphoria of self love in all one's facets. There is so much pain and anger in this collection but also hope and happiness. There is also so much humour! Beyond the more serious subjects, there are a lot of pieces which explore being single and navigating online dating, many of which are extremely funny. Even within the serious pieces, Wiley's wit and humour is a highlight. The style and form of the pieces vary greatly, keeping my interest locked and showing great range. This was just a wonderful read and quickly moving up my list of all-time favourite collections.

First of all, I want to address the elephant in the room and say that this book is absolutely monarchist propaganda. It is extremely sympathetic to Elizabeth and her role in the UK, and also very sympathetic to a still-alive Phillip, who is portrayed as blunt and a bit crude but not, for example, straightforwardly homophobic or racist. Great stress is laid on the amount of care the Queen has for her staff and servants, portraying it as a system of deep mutual trust and loyalty, but not delving into the power dynamics or colonialism. If you are looking for a critique Elizabeth, or of the systems of monarchy or the massive expenses (and other costs) of such a system, this is not the book for that.

However, I did enjoy the mystery and the idea of the Queen sneaking around to solves crime because all of her closest staff and colleagues think she is a delicate flower was very amusing. I like Rozie Oshodi a lot. I always love an ambitious, sassy, clever, and kind woman, and Rozie provides a much needed outside lens on the royal life, as a Black veteran who grew up in a decidedly different paygrade than even her peers among the staff. I also like the Queen as she is portrayed here, as an extremely competent old woman who has been thriving in her job for longer than most of her advisors and other professionals have been alive and yet still has to bite her tongue to preserve men's egos. [Minor spoilers] One of my favourite parts of the solving of the mystery was that the Queen not only had to figure it out, she had to determine how to give the professional investigators enough hints for them to also figure it out, while never giving away that she knew. It was a neat extra step in the solving that allowed the author to show off a bit more cleverness on her royal detective's part. It definitely rankled slightly to have the incompetant technocrat at MI5 recite the Queen's own solution back to her, but it was played well for laughs and it had a certain realism that rang true despite being frustrating. The narration also does a really artful job of switching between dozens of viewpoints so that we get insight into many characters private thoughts without spoiling anything or getting bogged down by the perspectives of minor characters for too long.

Multiple blurbs described this as "Miss Marple meets the Crown" and that's quite accurate. I bought it because I love Miss Marple and it's one of the closest things I have found in a more modern package. But also, lots of royals royaling so your mileage may vary.

This was highly recommended to me by several people and I absolutely love it. Lauren Fortgang's voice is perfect for fairy stories, with mysterious quality that really adds to the dreamy prose. There was a voice or two that I didn't particularly care for, but it was a matter of personal preference and also barely detracted from my enjoyment of the really overall excellent narration. The character's fire and ferocity, angst, curiosity, sadness, fear, and joy were all captured beautifully.
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The story is mainly told from Hazel's perspective, and Black is terrific at balancing the supernatural elements with the very grounded feelings of adolescence. She really grasps the magnitude of teenage feelings, the secrets that seem like they have gone too long to ever be shared, the responsibility one feels for everything that has ever happened, the longing for connection and the absolute impossibility of talking about it. The story has romance elements, and I enjoyed those as well, but its main relationships are about family, about how you try to protect each other but still hurt each other, how the trauma from your childhood doesn't leave because you try to forget, how you can love someone so much and not know what they need or how to say it. And then, how you can find your own personhood beyond them, and beyond your coping mechanisms and your expectations of who you are supposed to be.
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The exposition and development of the main characters is really lovely, and the world feels very real and fulfilled, despite the strange juxtaposition of modern technology and society with fairy tale creatures and lore. I was completely taken in by the magic, the mystery, and the emotional core of the story. I loved it.

This was super sweet and sexy. The narrators were both great. Busy Business Woman is not into love, only BUSINESS is a trope I am often intrigued by (maybe because I myself have never done a business) and Rhi feels extremely fleshed out in this. She focusses on her career because of past trauma that is slowly revealed throughout the book, AND because she knows that as a Black woman she has to work harder and better to get similar success and recognition, AND because she is ambitious, AND because she loves and wants to do right by her employees and her company. I love the chemistry of Rhi and Samson, the way it feels natural both that they fall into bed together but also that they fall into vulnerability and sharing parts of themselves they didn't expect to share. I was convinced both by the attraction and compatibility that keeps bringing them together and the emotional baggage they both carry that keeps them apart. And the sex scenes are I loved the supporting cast as well. Just a delightful book!

The back of the book describes this as "an imaginative exploration of Black girlhood and womanhood through poetry, visual art, and narrative prose." This has been a useful sentence for me to think about the book, which I have been describing as poetry but, like, it's not all poetry. The use of form is super interesting in this. The font changes between pieces, visual elements are included, a few pieces are white text on black page rather than vice versa. A couple very memorable pieces are "retellings" which start as typeface recounting a true, disturbing memory of experiences of racism and then eventually morph into a fantastical ending for the tale, the text changing to scrawled handwriting as we leave reality. Obviously every book and especially every poetry collection engages with form and uses form intentionally but the choices made here are so bold and sometimes disruptive to the ease of reading that it is an almost visceral experience which forces you to really engage with the work.

In terms of content, I really loved Electric Arches. Several of the pieces made me chuckle, some gave me goosebumps, and others (or sometimes the same ones!) brought tears to my eyes. Ewing is a master. This book is 90 pages long and it packs in a lot of reflection and exploration. The hope and especially the love that really carries the work, even in its dark moments, is so vibrant and constant. This was an honour to read.

I found Honey Girl very slow to get into, but I pushed through because I was confident I was going to end up liking it and I was correct. Despite the really enjoyable characters, including a pretty large cast of great friends and family side characters, the first 20% of the book was a struggle for me. However, once it really got moving, I was hooked. I love Grace, feel for her deeply in her struggles with professional, family, and self acceptance, with racism, with her mental health, with balancing her aspirations with her self care. I love her friends, and honestly would enjoy follow up books that focus on several of the other fascinating characters. The dreamy tone of the book was lovely, though sometimes a bit slow. The complicated relationships felt very real. The love story was unconventional, and sweet. It was great to see so many BIPOC and queer characters among the cast. Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot.

The Lunar Chronicles are very fun books. I love the premise of sci-fi fairy tales! Placing these classic, familiar stories in a dystopian future is interesting and adds a neat dynamic to reading as I was invested in the characters and story in their own right, but also I wanted to see what the next parallels would be! Cress is probably my favourite so far of the series. I really like how we have now fleshed out to an emsemble cast but also that the previous characters have not been totally left out of later books. It's a nice balance. I was not completely sold on the core romance of this one, but it is fun and it definitely gets healthier as the book progresses. Basically, I just want these crazy kids to work it out, solve the problem of the ridiculously overpowered Moon People and the hugely deadly plague, and all live happily ever after with their various crushes. 
(I try not to say this about every book, but one of my big gripes about this is it could benefit from being much much gayer.)

I love how Neil Gaiman takes a somewhat odd and ridiculous premise (in this case, a living boy being raised by ghosts in a graveyard) and turns it into something not just creative and quirky, but also deeply sweet. The relationships Bod crafts in the graveyard feel very real and deep. His longing for the living world, in conflict with his love of his guardians and his home, hit home so hard as being a part of ordinary life and growing up, not just for those who were raised by ghosts in cemeteries. In addition to the lovely homey and coming of age moments, the plot throughline of the murderous Jack is exciting and often funny but sometimes truly scary, even as an adult. A delightful book.

This was a highly anticipated read for me as I have followed Lex Croucher on social media for quite awhile and really enjoy their content. The book did not disappoint at all! I stayed up until 4am finishing it. It is extremely funny and the banter is A+. There is a lot of depth to the challenges faced by the various characters, as the book touches on racism, sexual assault, spousal abuse, homophobia, grief, alcoholism, toxic friendships, and abandonment. Additionally, making extremely questionable choices is more common than not for almost every character. However, throughout, Reputation always maintains a hopefulness and a humour that I really appreciated. I also love the acknowledgement that people of colour and queer people existed in the Regency era, something so many period peices choose to willfully ignore. Plus, the love story is sweet. Just a delightful book.

To start with the bad parts: this book is very slow paced and somewhat circular (the main character has a big decision to make and she gets everyone's opinion more than once and goes back on it several times, for example.) However, despite this, I find the book compelling. The world of the novel is a very intriguing premise, and the magic system is cool. The main character being privileged in almost all ways, but looked down upon for magical reasons leads to interesting tension and character growth. The historical time period (mid-19th century England and Hungary) was portrayed richly and the authors seemed to have researched extensively (I am by no means anIexpert.) I appreciated the Romani representation as a severely discriminated-against group with a deep cultural tradition and individuals with different personalities and opinions rather than as simply a plot device or stereotypes. I was relieved that the book limited its use of "g*psy" (though it is used by outsiders and before the main character is educated by a Romani friend) and that the author's note thanked her Hungarian Romani consultant. The characters were, at times, somewhat flat, but I found them generally likeable, with understandable motivations and capacity for growth. Our main character especially, grows substantially throughout the novel, and reexamines many of her own assumptions and prejudices. I am interested to see where the series goes and if it can improve upon some of the faults of the first novel.