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starrysteph's reviews
448 reviews
Hardly Strangers by A.C. Robinson
2.5
An interesting little novella - I loved that we were watching everything unfold in real time over the course of a single night.
Both Shera and Max are surrounded by the ghosts of past relationships, haunted by ways they were hurt and ways they were cruel. It’s an exploration of vulnerability, intimacy, and processing past pain in order to open yourself up to something new.
It’s simple and realistic, but all of the conflict is centered around exes and past flings, which is not really what I like to read about (and not necessarily the best way to start a potential new relationship). Both leads can also be a bit hard to like. I think they needed to go talk to professionals more than each other!
Still kind of cutesy, still kind of tender, but a bit too cheesy at times for me.
CW: infidelity, alcohol, panic attacks, sexual content
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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
The Strange Case of Harleen and Harley by Melissa Marr, Jenn St-Onge
3.0
Fun & mischievous (and actually pretty dark, but we glossed over it) & sapphic reimagining of Harley Quinn inspired by Jekyll & Hyde.
I really enjoyed the artwork. The plot was a bit slow, and the takeaways for young readers might be a bit confusing haha. Nice little bit of Jewish rep. Go lesbians!
CW: child abuse, domestic abuse, medical content, biphobia, violence, murder (off-page), animal cruelty (testing)
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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Conditions of a Heart by Bethany Mangle
4.0
WOW did this make me feel seen.
Conditions of a Heart follows Brynn, who hides her chronic illnesses (EDS, POTS, MCAS) from the world. Her life looks sweet & ordinary from the outside - she’s popular, she has friends, she gets decent grades - but in truth she’s gritting her teeth and keeping everyone at a distance.
After a punch from a privileged douchebag leads to Brynn’s suspension from all senior life, she goes on a bit of a doom spiral and has to figure out what she really wants for herself. And her dream life may or may not include her ex-boyfriend, Oliver…
The disabled teenage perspective was absolutely perfect: vulnerable, honest, and funny. (If you’re chronically ill, you’ve got to have a great sense of humor. You’ve just GOT to.) The medical gaslighting and snide doctors were groan-inducing and deeply relatable, and Brynn’s paperwork reminded me of the FAQ binder I had started to put together as a teen to just stop engaging at whatever new specialist I was forced to see next.
The father-daughter relationship here was spectacular and also made me realize I haven’t read a lot of books with disabled main characters that also have disabled parents. Their banter and quips were the best, and he was also so kind and looked out for Brynn in ways that her mom couldn’t always comprehend or relate to.
All of the family dynamics were interesting, but I wish there was more time spent healing Brynn’s relationship with her other two (able-bodied) family members. They often serve as (mild) antagonists who misunderstand Brynn’s needs, but both have shining moments towards the end and are genuinely trying. I just wish we had gotten to see more explicit conversations and gotten a little more insight into their lives and struggles.
The romance was a little silly to me because Oliver talks like that most theatre kid to EVER theatre kid - it made me giggle, but I’m genuinely not sure if a young reader would have fun with it as well or just cringe. Also since they’re on the outs at the start of the book and we don’t get much insight into their previous relationship, the arc isn’t as satisfying as Brynn’s overall personal growth journey (and her journey with her family and letting her existing best friends into her life).
There’s a bit of brief yet impactful discussion about how the world moved on swiftly post-pandemic (in the world of this book, COVID-19 was completely eradicated), but didn’t stop to consider who was included and who was promised safety. And how thoughtless side comments can have lasting, hurtful impacts.
Overall, a beautiful read.
CW: ableism, medical content, chronic illness, pandemic, classism, homophobia, bullying, grief, racism (brief mention - Brynn is Korean American and is reflecting on racist COVID-19 remarks)
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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Teen Titans: Starfire by Kami Garcia
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Ehlers Danlos Syndrome superhero?! Say less!
Kori is a kind rule follower and an introverted stargazer - who constantly finds herself clashing with her sister Kira. Kira is popular, she’s dating lazy and hot and kinda manipulative Tate Fairweather, and she won’t listen to anything Kori has to say about it.
When both sisters join a clinical trial to advance treatments for EDS, they each learn that the other is developing strange powers … and the Tate’s uncle’s pharmaceutical company might have more going on behind the scenes.
It’s a simple storyline. I loved the artwork and I loved Kori’s characterization, though it was hard not to feel frustrated and angry by the supporting antagonists, including her sister.
Would definitely recommend for young readers & I always appreciate great chronic illness rep!
CW: ableism, chronic illness, violence, medical content, classism, fire
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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino
dark
medium-paced
3.25
An unsettling and eerie collection of three short stories – the first (Nails and Eyes) was so much stronger than the accompanying two, but I was still hungering for a more powerful conclusion.
Told in second person, a young woman moves in with her formerly secret lover and his young child after his wife’s tragic death. The three year old puts on an obedient and simplistic air, but is aware of much more than she lets on. Meanwhile, the young woman can barely see what is in front of her face (both literally and metaphorically) as the walls slowly close in …
Each of the stories had interesting and distinctive character work and heavy tension, but flitted away a little too easily for my tastes. I wanted a little more to dissect, and weighter climaxes and finales.
Overall though, I enjoyed this writing style and appreciated the shivers these stories left behind.
CW: death (parent), infidelity, injury, sexual assault, body horror, bullying, animal death, child abuse
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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Heavyweight: A Family Story of the Holocaust, Empire, and Memory by Solomon J. Brager
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
Heavyweight is a memoir, an exploration of family trauma & how our identities can shift from victims of hatred to upholders of colonial violence, and a diligently researched historical legacy.
Solomon Brager is fascinated by the story of their great-grandfather, a boxing champion - and the various threads of their family who both escaped and died in Nazi Germany. They’re wondering about what they carry in their own body and mind, and what it means when you contextualize the Holocaust among larger historical patterns.
So they decide to find out as much as they can, and deliver a hauntingly beautiful portrait of family mythology. We bounce between Brager’s modern day discoveries and commentary, conversations with their grandfather and recorded conversations with their great-grandmother, reimaginings of family stories & piercing together lore from documents, and beyond.
It’s a new type of reflection on the Shoah, and while this is definitely a personal story (and Brager’s family is absolutely fascinating), it offers challenges and guiding questions to every reader, Jewish or not.
The organization (both of the throughline and the placement of artwork and panels and text on each page) was a little bit hard to follow at times, and sometimes I had to retrace a few sentences and flip back and forth to the opening family tree to truly understand what was happening.
I appreciated the vulnerability and the humor, and the strong anti-Zionist commentary. And the research was truly impressive (coming from someone who has struggled to find threads on so many of my ancestors). However, it often felt like we hopped from topic to topic without truly diving deep and chewing on the uneasy questions this memoir asks.
“We can both be victimized and be complicit in violence."
CW: murder (parent/child), death, antisemitism, racism, slurs, violence, genocide, transphobia, queerphobia, classism, colonization, deportation, grief, terminal illness, war
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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, War, Classism, and Deportation
Minor: Deadnaming and Infidelity
The Blood Gift by N.E. Davenport
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
An intense conclusion to an epic, bloody, and captivating fantasy duology.
I definitely felt what other reviews felt here – bummed at a condensed plot with very uneven pacing. I can see the bones of what this would have looked like as a full series, and I’m so sad that publishing took away that chance.
But there’s still lots to love. Ikenna grows SO much over these two books, and so do her relationships with the people who become her new family. There were quiet & thoughtful & nuanced conversations between some of the wildest battle scenes out there. All the conversations around systemic issues (racism and classism), how they could hope to reshape their world, and Ikenna’s personal growth & vulnerability were really nice to read.
The battle scenes? Absolutely amazing. Who knew all the different ways blood could be used, spilled, and mutilated?
The antagonists intrigued me as well. There are some standout villains, but there’s also a lot of juicy moral murkiness, and so many shades of gray. People grow, people stay stubbornly in the past, and people also betray those they are supposed to protect and care about. I wasn’t sure what to anticipate next.
There was too much silent communication between glances, lol. Nobody is THAT in sync.
It wasn’t exactly the ending I hoped for after how much I adored The Blood Trials (just SO MUCh chaotically crammed in without getting a chance to simmer), but this is still a duology I’d recommend.
CW: murder, death (parent/child), war, blood, racism, gore, sexual assault, slurs, misogyny, genocide, torture, guns, xenophobia, religious bigotry, fire, body horror, classism, kidnapping, vomit, sexual content
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Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-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? Yes
3.5
Spinning Silver is a rich & layered fairytale with Jewish themes – it had these shining delicate moments that I loved very dearly, but also struggled with pacing that felt sluggish rather than lush ... and it was a little too forgiving to cruel men.
Miryem and her family live in poverty, because even though her father is the village’s much-needed moneylender, he’s too tender-hearted to collect on his debts. So she embraces her inner coldness and does the work herself, quickly becoming known for her ability to change silver into gold.
But the Staryk - who live in an alternate wintery realm just beyond the forest - hunger for gold. So when their fey king hears about Miryem’s skills, he whisks her away and has quite a few demands.
Luckily, she gains two unlikely allies, a local peasant girl (Wanda) with an abusive father and the neglected daughter of a duke (Irina). Together, they learn how to bargain, how to stand up for themselves & know their worth, and how to save their kingdom from fiery tsars and icy kings alike.
My favorite part of this read might have been the developing friendships, particularly between Miryem and Wanda. Wanda fears Miryem because she’s Jewish and thinks her prayers are dark magic, but she is slowly and warmly welcomed into Miryem’s household - and begins to realize that her past line of thinking was warped. Miryem teaches her math & reading and in Wanda’s eyes, that is beautiful & transformative magic. And Miryem’s parents look out for Wanda and her brothers when they all live in fear of their own father. There’s a found family element that is so, so lovely.
I also adored the Jewish representation (there were several ‘big’ moments that made me tear up in addition to smaller things like Miryem’s insistence on keeping Shabbat and a Jewish geography scene), and the growth of the three main women as they become stronger and surer. (I had mixed-to-negative feelings on some of their conclusions, but I won’t spoil anything.) The loose rules of magic and speaking something into being because of your own strength and self assuredness were quite lovely. There is real magic in a bargain!
“You were challenged beyond the bounds of what could be done, and found a path to make it true.”
But this book feels SLOW. And I generally enjoy a slower-paced read and a rich world. The fairytale inspiration led to a lot of repetition and rules of three which I do understand, but the middle of this story felt like I was stuck in a time loop and I wanted nothing more than to gnaw my way out. I kept putting it down.
Sometimes we would read the same exact scene twice in a row from different perspectives - and that additional insight was not worth it to me.
I liked the atmospheric world and the rules of the Staryk. It kept me intrigued, and I do feel like Miryem and the king both had a lot to teach the other. Miryem has to challenge her own assumptions about the ‘other’, just like she is othered and viewed as monstrous by her fellow villagers.
Wanda is aroace in my mind. The other romantic relationships were a disappointment to me.
Overall, I would recommend this for the elements I love, but I’m sure there’s a lot of readers who shut this book in frustration and never picked it back up, and I completely understand that.
CW: death (parent/child), murder, child abuse, domestic abuse, antisemitism, alcoholism, fire, kidnapping, sexism, body horror, grief, torture, xenophobia, miscarriage, classism, gore, war, vomit
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Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
An absolutely brutal spiral into the fear-soaked streets of NYC at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, mixed with hauntings and hungerings from the ghosts who are shoved out of the public’s eye and the public’s memory.
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng follows Cora, who works as a crime scene cleaner in Chinatown after her sister Delilah was pushed in front of an oncoming subway train right in front of her.
She shoulders anti-Asian hatred, tucks herself away to avoid all germs, and numbly nods along to her aunt’s insistence that she prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival.
Delilah’s murderer has never been found, and the only things Cora has to go on were a spidery white hand and two terrible words: bat eater. And now as she cleans up the crime scenes of East Asian women and finds bats in their walls, Cora realizes that the hungry ghosts her aunt has desperately warned her about might actually be manifesting. Unless it’s all in her head.
It’s an incredibly dark story, with body horror & gore and scenes that will shock you. And chilling social commentary - real world terror - is mixed with hungry bottle-necked ghosts hopping from shadow to shadow, desperate to consume their way back into reality. The result is a terrifying cocktail that feels firmly rooted in our world, but also might make you take a double look at every shadow.
There’s so much hate blossoming from fear & then manifesting into the various antagonists here. And heart-wrenching scenes - moments where trauma reshapes itself into silenced ghosts. It’s a scary story, but there are also moments of levity, cleverness, and joy.
Cora learns the power of seeing and naming others. She learns to find her inner strength and push past her limits to adapt and exist in a world filled with germs and cruelty and fear. She finds a new respect for traditions that she shrugged off and felt disconnected to in the past. She slowly starts to understand that building community and trust is crucial if you want to survive all sorts of diseases, whether they’re literal pandemics or metaphorical infections of hatred.
I held my breath through so many of these pages. I was never quite sure what was going to happen next, and had NO idea who was going to survive the story.
It forces you to reflect on who we choose to sacrifice, to bury, and to ignore. It explores strained family relationships, mental health, and how racism flourishes when one group turns another into an easy scapegoat, even when the elements of blame are completely nonsensical and contradict each other.
Kylie Lee Baker crafted a terrible, brilliant, devastatingly haunting story that is going to stick with me.
CW: murder, death, grief, mental illness, gore, hate crime, racism, pandemic, blood, body horror, child abuse, car accident, animal death/cruelty, fire, sexism, racial slurs, vomit, forced institutionalization (mentioned), sexual harassment, police brutality (mentioned)
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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
This Land Is Our Land: a Blue Beetle Story by Julio Anta
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A fast-paced origin story that tackles community involvement & care, racism & xenophobia, and the indoctrination of young men into white supremacist ideology
Jaime is happy to live his life as an ordinary teenager in El Paso, helping out at his dad’s auto shop and gazing up at the stars every night. But when his friends notice one of their classmates is starting to buy into racist and xenophobic rhetoric, and tensions around immigration rise as the border is shut down once again, he can’t stay silent.
Especially because El Paso has an ACTUAL alien threat: An entity called the Reach is heading towards Earth, and they’ve selected Jaime as their representative. They claim their contact will be all about peace, but Jaime isn’t so sure, especially since he’s got some pretty violent new powers.
Jaime learns the importance of speaking up, building bridges, and becoming an active part of his community. He’s got great parents and a supportive friend duo, too, which is always lovely to read in YA.
This was a quick read and a great way to make the Blue Beetle story even more relevant for young readers.
CW: racism, hate crime, guns, fire, xenophobia, classism
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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)