caseythereader's reviews
1740 reviews

A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole by Marian Schembari

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emotional hopeful informative fast-paced

4.5


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If They Come for Us: Poems by Fatimah Asghar

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emotional reflective medium-paced

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Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.
This is a clever modern retelling, but at their meet cute both of them said weirdly racist things to each other and it was basically ignored?? Also why is everyone so sure they're going to find a man at a party for a new condo building?
The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

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emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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The Witch's Daughter: My Mother, Her Magic, and the Madness that Bound Us by Orenda Fink

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

3.75

Thanks to Gallery Books for the free copy of this book.

 - THE WITCH’S DAUGHTER falls into the memoir category of Messed Up Childhoods, and if you gravitate toward that kind of memoir, you should definitely pick this one up.
- The narration flips between past an present, the context for and understanding of Orenda’s mother’s borderline personality disorder becoming clearer for both Orenda and the reader as the book advances.
- Fink is so empathetic toward all her family members, and illustrates precisely why it’s so hard to disentangle oneself from a situation like this.
- Additionally, Fink was a member of the band Azure Ray, so there’s some really delicious name dropping if you were a fan of Saddle Creek Records bands at their peak. 

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The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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Eighteen Roses by Shannon C.F. Rogers

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emotional funny hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Thanks to Macmillan for the free copy of this book.

 - After loving I’D RATHER BURN THAN BLOOM and now EIGHTEEN ROSES, I’ll offically read anything Shannon C.F. Rogers writes.
- Lucia is a hater of the first degree, and I loved her, spiky edges and all.
- Rogers blends together the broad injustices of being a teenager with the specific struggles of being Filipina-American and of fighting to make ends meet.
- There are so many plot threads in this book that I worried about it going off the rails, but Rogers brings them all together perfectly at the end. Best of all, Lucia grows and learns without losing the essence of herself.
 

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Tangleroot by Kalela Williams

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challenging emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Thanks to Macmillan Audio for the free copy of this book.

 - I have mixed feelings about TANGLEROOT. I was on board for the story and setting, for Noni, and for the mystery of her family history as it unraveled. However, the execution of it fell short for me.
- The big thing I couldn’t get past was Noni’s mother. She was intensely controlling and it was swept away at the end, with Noni coming to the conclusion that her mother knew best. I’m sorry, but in what world is it fine to find out that your daughter made one insensitive comment to a coworker so you decide she can no longer attend the four year college she plans to in the fall and you instead enroll her in the local community college and sign her up for a slate of courses she isn’t interested in at all??? There are several other actions the mother takes that horrified me, and they simply weren’t addressed.
- Whew okay, aside from that, I appreciated that this is a YA novel that explored aspects of slavery that aren’t usually touched in books for this age group. 

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