micaelamariem's reviews
728 reviews

2.0

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

What the Fireflies Knewby Kai Harris, published by Tiny Reparations Books, is a literary coming-of-age fiction set in 1995 Michigan. After ten-year-old narrator K.B.'s dad dies of a drug overdoes, she and her sister, Nia, are sent to spend the summer with their grandfather, with no knowledge of where their mom is going or if she's coming back. For K.B., the summer is about healing from the grief and hurt of a separated family, and possibly finding a way back to the family she does have.

I love that we read this story through the lens of a ten-year-old girl. I think the narration captures not only the hurt of the family, but through a special kind of innocence and confusion as she navigates darker topics. While there are many stories out there that delve into childhood trauma, I also think the important thing that Harris portrays--and that she seems very passionate about portraying--was the Black experience through this trauma. We see K.B. heal from hurt and grief but discover other dark things in the world such as racism and harmful sexual behaviors.

“It’s like I’m standing in a field full of fireflies, struggling to catch ’em all, when really, I just gotta slow down and catch one.”

There is strong character development throughout the story. The main character, K.B, learns the secrets of the family and must grow up over the summer, but also learns how people can move on from hurt. Her older sister learns much the same, and the relationship between the two, from distance and hate back to love, is a heartwarming one. In fact, that seems to be the main theme of the story--moving on from hurt and reaching out to those who love you, even when they make mistakes.

As most character driven novels, this book can--and did for me--elicit a strong emotional response. There are many times when my heart broke for this family and some times when my heart soared for K.B. I didn't physically cry--but I certainly came close.

My main critique of the book would be how quickly it ended. After a slow pace (fitting in a character driven novel), it seemed like the ending was rushed, as if the author had to quickly wrap it up. Since the novel didn't quite reach 300 pages, I do think Harris could have taken a little more time to reunite the family and bring everything to a close.

Despite this, I did very much like the novel. It was fresh, propelling, and most importantly, offered themes and lessons that are necessary: to know we are all flawed but must work through the flaws to forgive the hurt. I would ultimately give this book four stars on a five star scale system. I would recommend this to those who like character driven novels, coming of age novels, literary fiction, or those who loved Toni Morrison as she was an inspiration for this author and the book is reminiscent of Morrison's works.

Content Warnings

Hot British Boyfriend by Kristy Boyce

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adventurous inspiring lighthearted medium-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

3.0

I’m going on the higher side of my rating because I was pleased at the ending. And because I miss England.

But the main character was insufferable. She was a terrible friend. It’s fine for a teenage girl to be “boy crazy”; that’s developmentally normal. But I hate how she sacrificed herself for it. I do like she at least had a gardening hobby and wish the book delved even more into that to give her a better personality.

Also, the British guys in the book were so stereotypical and weird 😂 so unbelievable.

It was a sort of fun read, and I think that’s mostly because the side characters, the character’s friends really made the book. They should’ve been the main character. Would have been way more interesting.

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King's Cage by Victoria Aveyard

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adventurous dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was such a let down from how much I enjoyed the rest of the series. The majority of the book is Mare being trapped in a room and just wallowing about it, which was incredibly boring.
I didn’t think her torture was as dramatic as it should’ve been.
The twist towards the middle and end was interesting but it needed more. As it stands, this book did not need to be 500 pages.
Also wtf was that weird bathroom scene

Content Warnings

Heartstopper Volume 2 by Alice Oseman

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inspiring lighthearted 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? It's complicated

5.0

This is so cozy and cute and gives all the warm feelings 🥰 I kept waiting for the shoe to drop or something to go wrong but everything just seemed perfect and it was such a nice break from the drama/traumatic things I usually read. Written and drawn exquisitely.

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Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

It took me a while to get to this one, as it's size is intimidating and it's a fantasy I've never heard of until it showed up in a mystery book box, but I finally did it!

The author, Guy Gavriel Kay, is a Canadian fantasy author. His history is impressive, having helped with the construction of The Silmarillion by Tolkien, becoming the Principal Writer and Associate Producer for the CBC radio series, “The Scales of Justice”, and having published novels since 1984, his debut being The Summer Tree.

This novel, Children of Earth and Sky,published by the New American Library, is such a complex fantasy it's hard to sum up in a few words. It follows a multitude of characters, including Danica, a young woman off to find vengeance for her family's demise; Pero, an artist hired to travel across the empire to paint a portrait of the Khalif; Lenora, a young woman posing as a doctor's wife but in truth a spy; Marin, a merchant ambivalent about his role in life; and a young boy being trained in the Khalif's elite infantry for a war that is soon to come. These character's lives and roles become intertwined in ways that shape them and the world around them.

The story technically spans years, but the bulk of it really spans a few months over six hundred pages. Because of the long span, the pacing can be slow--except for the battle times when the action goes a lot faster. As such, it took me a while to get into it because of the slow rising action. That, and because of the huge cast of characters that jump between perspectives in the middle of a chapter, it was at first very confusing to me. My biggest critique of the book would be that the POV would only change in a new chapter--though I get that sometimes that wasn't always possible. Especially--and I did think this was clever--as we see two characters remembering the same event differently, hearing words that are said differently. That, I thought, spoke greatly to human memory and perspective.

I did end up falling in love with each of the characters in the large cast. Despite a sexist and misguided environment, the characters showed us they could be determined to change how things are. The women strived to show that women could be fierce and sensual and make their own choices. The men showed us they could be emotional, sentimental, and even fearful. They changed parts of the world and even changed themselves, somewhat hardened by the world, somewhat matured. But some things remained the same, showing a more realistic view. I also loved how their paths came together, making a temporary found family, even though they weren't sure they'd ever see each other again as their paths parted.

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The worldbuilding in this book was insanely heavy. There wasn't much, if any, magic, but there was a detailed map and various countries with political intrigue, spies, assassins, different religions and attitudes, and it showed the author put a lot of thought into his work, even when I'm too dumb (not true--I just didn't want to put the effort in) to always understand where the characters were at and what that meant politically.

Overall, I surprisingly liked this story. Though I'm a fantasy girlie, I don't usually like that with such heavy worldbuilding that it makes you think. But I liked this because it also made me feel. There were chapters that absolutely shattered my heart, and that is what I look for in a book. There are definitely some things that bothered me, one thing being the switching perspective in the middle of the chapter, the other being some of the sexist attitudes and presence of slavery within the book. Now, I'm not saying the main characters condoned these actions, and I think most of the time they were fighting against at least the sexism. But I'm ready to read fantasy novels without the sexism, slavery, and sexual assault scenes (not explicit, but one thing that really bothered me was that people in position of power would sleep with "boys" which is not only potential sexual assault, but also potential pedophilia, and potentially an affront to the gay community, no? We could have done without that, let the leaders have same sex lovers of the same or near the same age? Idk). Again, these were present in the book, not necessarily presented as a good thing, but it was still a little disconcerting. So I guess this is your trigger warning for that.

I think with this novel the author presented a theme that we are all connected by love, loss, and suffering, and thus can have empathy with each other. I could be way off but that's the theme I took, and made me like the book more, despite the previous paragraph.

Again, overall I did like the book. I would recommend it to my hard fantasy readers out there. I was debating, but I think this book deserves four stars out of five.

Happy reading out there!

Content Warnings

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

A full review on my blog will come eventually, but yes, I’m Ali Hazelwood trash. I had doubts about her being able to write paranormal but I think this was the best one yet. It had the romance, the spicy scenes, but also the worldbuilding and intense political intrigue and I was here for it. I had such a good time reading this, and really it’s what I needed book wise right now!

One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

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funny hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

I was so excited for this book. As someone who, though I’m not plus sized, struggled with body image and low self esteem my whole life, I was ecstatic at the idea of a badass plus sized women taking the reins to prove that bigger women are beautiful and deserving of love, too (just like any body type is!). What I got instead was a main character who was similarly full of self-hatred and constantly believing that no one could truly love her, despite constant evidence to the contrary.
Now, having been hurt in the past, I can totally understand Bea’s outlook and her journey to discovering self-love was in itself a beautiful theme. However, I don’t think this was how the book was advertised and it’s not something I was prepared for. I wanted, like I said, the unwavering confidence and body positivity to help inspire me in my own struggles. So I think part of the issue is just the book being different from my expectations and that influenced my enjoyment.
Plus, Bea was a bit insufferable at times. I get it was her journey to self love but each page being “he couldn’t possibly be attracted to someone like me” was so repetitive, boring, and annoying.
And I would have also loved more male body diversity in this. It felt a bit hateful to me that Bea’s first thought was “well a heavier man I could settle for” when all bodies are beautiful!!
I did love the creativity of adding in interviews, blogs, podcasts, and messages. It created a mixed media novel and if the novel was just told in these forms, that would’ve been super fun and I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more.
But as we have it, it was hard for me to get behind because it differed from my expectations and honestly, I didn’t like the MC. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Content Warnings

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Going into this book, I had no idea this was a thriller, so that was definitely a surprise. But despite my aversion to mysteries, this book sucked me in.
Each chapter left me hungrily wanting more and there were deep scenes that evoked strong emotions from me. The representation of grief I thought was done really well as well as the PTSD the character was experiencing; though it wasn’t named that, the symptoms were visceral and evocative, and it felt believable, not a laundry list from WebMD. I’m not indigenous, so I can’t speak to the representation of a native tribe, though I think I learned more about tribe systems and laws. And with the ending, that wasn’t quite happy or sad, we got just a taste of the injustices indigenous tribal members face to this day.
Though I felt empathy for the main character, there were times I didn’t like her. I felt like she slipped into the “not like other girls” category like a lot of YA protagonists have a tendency to do. She acted like she wanted to speak up for women, but she called other girls dating her brother’s friends “angler fish” and judged them way too harshly.
I also think the pacing was slightly off. The first two thirds of the book was slow to medium paced, but still enjoyable. In the last third, lots of action came seemingly out of nowhere and it felt like we were racing to keep up until the end. If the pacing could’ve been evened out a little more, I think it would’ve made for an even more enjoyable read.

However, I did love this, and I do recommend it! It kept me on my toes and taught me a few lessons, while being mostly believable.

Content Warnings

Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

This was such a beautiful book 🥹 I will always be an Ari and Dante Stan. I loved to see how much Ari grew as a character, from being a loner to accepting love and friendship into his life. The writing was beautiful, each word carefully crafted to reflect deeper life meanings and holding strong sentiments. And above all, the theme of love, not just of the romantic type but loving your fellow humans, was strong and shown throughout in many different ways.

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micaelamariem's reviews 728 reviews

micaelamariem's reviews
728 reviews