starrysteph's reviews
448 reviews

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

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emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

4.0

A quiet and reflective story that examines mothers & daughters, generational trauma, and class divides.

Red at the Bone weaves back and forth through time fluidly, following sixteen-year-old Melody at her coming of age ceremony in 2001, her parents who had her at seventeen, and their parents. 

The language is simple yet beautiful, and shows the ripple effects of decisions made in your childhood that shape the rest of your life, and your children’s lives, and their children’s lives. 

CW: death (parent/child), racism, pregnancy, grief, cancer, abandonment, fire, classism, chronic illness, addiction

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Haunting Melody by Chloe Spencer

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious sad tense 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

Haunting Melody is a charming & inventive sapphic murder mystery, with incredibly creative supernatural lore and a lovely coming of age arc.

Melody is absolutely miserable. She was supposed to have aced her First Sacred Hunt, especially with two renowned ghost hunters for parents. But instead, she’s left with trauma, facial scars, and humiliation.

She’s now struggling with PTSD and body image issues, so when her parents give her a chance to start over on a tiny island town, she’s all in. But even though her parents tell her to stay out of the ghost hunt that has left 3 of the island’s teenagers dead, she knows this is her one chance to prove herself. 

Except after Melody meets a local ghost, she soon realizes there may be way more at play here … and that everything she THINKS she knows about the recently deceased might not be so right.

Melody has been through a LOT, and has a lot to unpack. She’s still in denial about her toxic last relationship, she has a lot of self hatred for her new facial scars and her larger body, and she feels cut off from her former community. But while there is a lot of pain, I thought the story overall kept things upbeat and hopeful. Also, no bullying/mean girl arcs!

The mystery is engaging, and I thought the world building was very unique. I loved that ghost hunters were non-human, loved how much detail we got into their religion and culture, and loved all of the Fantastical lore overall. And as Melody shifts her thinking around the paranormal, the ghostly scenes shift as well (from spooky to heartwarming). 

I also adored the characterization of Melody’s first friend in town (Tomai) and the cute ghost girl that changes everything (Cyrus). Both Tomai and Cyrus are complicated and interesting, and both have significant arcs of their own while also building relationships with Melody. 

I really appreciated the arc between Melody, her parents, and Simon. There’s so much initially left unsaid between them, with Melody holding onto a lot of trauma and making a lot of assumptions about her parents - and her parents cutting her out instead of treating her like a full human. It was great to see them start to turn that around and become a healthier family unit. 

The internalized fatphobia was rough, and while there was a short conversation about it towards the end of the book, I did wish it was addressed earlier and we got to see more of that healing process. I think that aspect could be very triggering for young readers - and we see Melody acknowledge and accept her PTSD way more than a potential eating disorder.

A+ work on the fake fantastical musical names, though. I giggled more than once at those.

I thought the ending was very sweet and the writing style overall was very easy to digest. The pacing was quick, and the mystery was fun. The author balanced scarier elements with sweeter elements with deeper & more nuanced issues very well.

A great read for anyone who loves spooky YA, murder mysteries, and unique fantasy lore! 

CW: murder, death (child), body horror, body shaming, eating disorder, fatphobia, mental illness, panic attacks, gaslighting, kidnapping, blood, car accident, grief, fire, religious bigotry, queerphobia, toxic relationship, vomit

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo

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dark hopeful mysterious tense 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? No

4.0

A deliriously weird little novella that combines monstrous gothic horror with sapphic romance.

Be bold … but not TOO bold.

That phrase is displayed all across the Capricious House, and every maid, groundskeeper, and cook knows to serve the lady of the house (Anatema, an Archaic One who is sort of a humanoid spider) well and carefully. Otherwise, you might end up eaten alongside all of her other short-lived human brides.

But someone has stolen living memories from Anatema. And so she consumed the last keeper of the keys, whose former apprentice Dália now has to step into the role.

Dália has prepared to serve Anatema her whole life and isn’t afraid, but she’s running out of time to solve the crime. And on top of all that, Dália is young and beautiful … just like the brides Anatema can’t help but devour. 

But Not Too Bold is colorful and atmospheric - each word across the 112 pages conjures something eerie and new. Capricious House is an otherworldly place that both terrifies you and pulls you ever-closer.

There are themes of identity, of vulnerability, of monstrosity, of loneliness and of being truly seen in love and romance.

I was captivated from start to finish, and felt my heart melt for the fierce yet lonely Anatema and the daring Dália who is the first human ever ready to bear witness to her full self.

CW: murder, death, body horror, addiction, blood, confinement, spiders, animal death/cruelty

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Solis by Abby Sher, Paola Mendoza

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dark emotional sad tense medium-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

3.0

Whew. That hurt.

Solis is a bleak, devastating dystopian story following a group of prisoners (mostly undocumented immigrants & a lot of children) who are forced into dangerous labor and medical experiments by an extremist government.

It’s 2023, and the New American Republic is obsessed with mining toxic aqualinium in order to control the weather and tamper the impact of climate change. If America is the first to succeed with its aqualinium experiments, they’ll be the most powerful country in the world. 

The story is split between four narrators, most of them held in the horrific labor camp. The final narrator is training with the resistance (SOLIS) in California, which has seceded from the rest of the US. There’s a dangerous plan in motion to free the prisoners and destroy the aqualinium research and mine.

It is a really, really bleak and disturbing story. There’s a lot of child death and torture, and of course tons of xenophobia and racism and homophobia as well. I found this tough to read as an adult, and would definitely encourage parents/educators to take caution and make sure this book is the right fit for the teenager you know. 

There are sparks of revolution and sparks of hope - and compassion and strength from those going through the most horrific experiences  - but I wasn’t quite sure what to walk away with here. Perhaps that this is possible. This could happen anywhere. These are the ripple effects of welcoming hatred & bigotry, of dismissing our impact on each other & the earth, of corrupt politicians. You’re bearing witness to so much trauma as a reader. A lot of it is heightened, but some of it is indeed closer to our current reality (in the US and outside of the US). 

I appreciated the character development and do feel as though I got to know our narrators. The writing was very simple and very direct. 

I wished for a bit more resolution and framing at the end, especially because this is a young adult book. I wanted a smidge more hope or ferocity or empowerment. But the final sentences were quiet. 

CW: death (child/parent), murder, slavery, genocide, racism, torture, drug use, emotional abuse, gun violence, gore, suicide, vomit, excrement, police brutality, deportation, fire, confinement

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

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emotional funny reflective sad 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

4.5

Martyr! asks some big, messy, complicated questions - how can we ensure our lives and deaths have meaning? - through rich characters, layered timelines and narrators, and language that is both poetic and simple to take in.

Cyrus is looking at the puzzle pieces of his life and not quite sure what they all mean. His mother died in a horrific accident when he was a baby in Tehran, shot by an American missile in a civilian plane. His dad spent his days hard at work on a chicken farm before leaving as quietly as he lived. And his uncle is haunted by his job as an Iranian soldier, dressed as an Angel and comforting dying soldiers on the battlefield.

Now, adult Cyrus is fighting to stay sober, pushing away love, writing poetry, and dreaming of martyrs. He’s obsessed with the act of dying for something and doesn’t know how to fully grasp it, and his journey of researching martyrs leads to some unexpected truths about his history and future.

There are dark topics at play here, but the writing is clever and quick. It’s very clear that Kaveh Akbar is a poet, but his words are crisp and not too heady. They land precisely right.

Cyrus can make frustrating decisions, but he is so multilayered and so earnest with his search for martyrdom that it is hard not to love him. He’s a great analyst, though he sometimes misses what is right in front of his face. And his narration is so vulnerable and so intimate.

“If the mortal sin of the suicide is greed, to hoard stillness and calm for yourself while dispersing your riotous internal pain among all those who survive you, then the mortal sin of the martyr must be pride, the vanity, the hubris to believe not only that your death could mean more than your living, but that your death could mean more than death itself—which, because it is inevitable, means nothing.”

The interludes of narration from Cyrus’ family were just as interesting, and an additional element that I loved were the dream sequences. To help his insomnia, Cyrus imagines two figures (historical, real, people he knows, people he doesn’t) having a conversation - a classic writing exercise. And we get to witness them interact, sometimes with a wink to the fact that they are actually iterations of Cyrus’ thoughts and mind. Each sequence was fascinating. 

This is a book that celebrates the act of dreaming, that comforts the artist in all of us, that challenges what it means to have lived a worthwhile life, that welcomes uncertainty and bewilderment, and so much more. It didn’t offer up a grand emotional release, but instead thousands of little sparks of curiosity and the warmth of seeing some of my quietest thoughts and questions reflected back at me.

“He felt a flash of familiar shame—his whole life had been a steady procession of him passionately loving what other people merely liked, and struggling, mostly failing, to translate to anyone else how and why everything mattered so much.”

CW: death (parent), addiction, alcoholism, suicide, grief, cancer, terminal illness, racism, abandonment, islamophobia, queerphobia, infidelity, mental illness, xenophobia, war, pregnancy, slurs, self harm, vomit

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

4.25

Ghostroots is a riveting collection of stories that will creep up and haunt you. 

What a blend! One story masterfully flowed into the next, and while there were some central themes around ancestry & innate identity & community responsibility, each piece had a weight of its own. 

What are we willing to carve out of ourselves? What do we owe for our past crimes - or the crimes of our ancestors? How much of us lives on in our children, and then in their children? 

Many stories centered around women or girls and how much ownership and freedom they have. Some are trapped in cycles, some question where their mothers end and they begin, and some will do anything to feel something.

And the setting was so rich. A slightly shifted version of Lagos, layered on top of cityscapes that feel familiar. At what point do we become part of our community? How much must we serve it? 

It’s a strange journey, and many of the arcs are left open-ended. These were subtly (but powerfully) disturbing reads! Some transfixed me more than others, but overall this was an excellent read that tickled my imagination and left me a bit frightened. 

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I think “Masquerade Season” will be tucked up into my ribcage for a long while. 

CW: murder, death (child), animal cruelty/death, body horror, confinement, kidnapping, car accident, abandonment, pregnancy, abuse, self harm, infidelity, pedophilia, rape, incest

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa

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dark emotional funny tense fast-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

4.0

The Book Censor’s Library was a clever and deliciously delirious satire of government censorship and restriction.

The newest book censor had thought his job would be simple and boring: he just has to sit at his government office and comb through books line by line, marking anything unfit for the people to read (per the System). He’s not permitted to interpret, oh no. Just note down inappropriate references to religion, sex, queerness, and anything from the Old World.

He certainly never thought he'd be lured into the world of reading. But the first illicit book he picks up starts to infect him, putting his unobtrusive life with his wife and daughter at risk. 

The revolution is calling him, but he also fears for his daughter's life as she starts showing signs of an imagination that cannot be controlled. The book censor slowly starts to descend into literature and resistance, but he has so much to lose. 

It's an outpouring of love to stories and words and their power. It's filled with winks and allusions and metaphors that mix with reality.

It's a condemnation of literary censorship, but also an acknowledgement that restriction to that extent simply isn’t possible. Storytelling and dipping below the surface of language is so very human. Words as resistance can never be taken away.

It’s an intense journey with meta twists and turns, but it does still keep a bit of levity. Play and imagination are resistance here, so the book is playful as well. It’s got some great little illustrations, too!

It’s hard not to love a book that loves books so much, y’know? 

CW: death (child), child abuse, forced institutionalization, homophobia, police brutality, gaslighting, animal cruelty, bullying, dementia, fire, grief, suicide

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
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We Are the Origin by C.M. Lockhart

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adventurous dark emotional medium-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

4.0

If you enjoy defiant & hardcore main characters, complex relationships between mortals and gods, and unique world building & creation stories, then you should pick up We Are the Origin.

Brandi is a skilled assassin, serving her queendom and her goddess with a magical bow and an aim that never misses. She was raised to be a shadow and to NEVER question orders to send someone to the gods. Until her orders from the throne clash against her orders from the goddess of life, Freya.

Now she’s being asked to turn against the fellow assassins she views as family and tuck a (mostly incompetent) princess under her wing as she takes on her biggest enemy yet. One the gods themselves can’t even fight … and one who threatens the existence of her entire world.

Luckily, Brandi is up for the challenge.

If you like a female main character that never backs down, knows her power, swims around in moral murkiness, is kinda mean (complimentary), and kills those that cross her between blinks … you’re going to adore Brandi.

The supporting characters are each so different and so interesting. Jack’s journey from a scrappy boy who only trusted himself to becoming Brandi’s reliable partner was really sweet. The fellow shadows piqued my curiosity, though we didn’t get as much backstory on them. Sarah is the most frustrating one by far because she is fully flailing, but her group also needs to learn to treat her with compassion and throw her a bone every once in a while if she’s going to be part of the team. 

I appreciated all the forms of love shown here. There’s polyamorous romantic love, there’s folks who have found their soulmate, there’s found family love, there’s worship love, and so much more. I thought the depth of love shown between Brandi and Jack was touching, and was curious about how all these venn diagrams of love between mortals and gods both challenged and supported each other.

I was less interested in the budding romance between Sarah and Noble, mostly because it felt a bit more shallow and silly compared to the stakes of everything else. (Also I don’t really like romance plotlines, so it’s for sure personal as well.) My other biggest stumble was that the language was clunky at times. The sentences didn’t always flow, and sometimes tenses (or other things) would make me have to reread a paragraph a couple of times.

There is a lot of set up here for the rest of the series (also just making sure everyone knows that this IS a series because it isn’t quite clear from the description), and I’m hungry for more. We collect our group of protagonists throughout the course of the book and every one of them has major growth to do. They all have super different personal journeys in store and I can’t wait.

This story was fresh, vibrant, and compelling. 

CW: death (parent), murder, injury, violence, blood, grief, suicide, torture, toxic relationship

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

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dark emotional funny tense medium-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

4.5

I LOVE a slasher story with a meta spin – every time Stephen Graham Jones writes a gruesome love letter to horror, I’m ready to sit down and read.

Tolly Driver sits on the outskirts of his small Texan town, alongside his best friend Amber. He’s a great writer, but not the best academically or social - and he’s felt even more powerless ever since his dad’s unexpected death.

And then … he gets infected. A very specific slasher killer infection. And even though Tolly knows he’s part of the story, he can’t help but play his part and take out some gory revenge on the classmates that hurt him.

But this was all seventeen years ago. We’re reading Tolly’s autobiography as he reflects on those fateful few days so long ago, especially since his slasher story might not be over. 

Tolly’s a bit of an unreliable narrator, especially as he flip flops between embracing his new killer instincts, wanting to break away from them, and feeling unsure if he has any actual say in his own story. He might be murdering kids in a mask, but he’s also pretty relatable. He feels alienated, nervous about his future, and might be a little bit in love with his best friend (though he’ll deny it). If you were on the outskirts looking in as a teenager, that pain is all too familiar. 

As always, SGJ puts together a GREAT kill scene. The action and the gore leap off the pages, and my heart was pounding. This definitely feels like a faster-paced story for him, and I had fun with that. Things don’t slow down much, and the characters are pretty quick to put the pieces together (except for the final piece which I’m sure we all knew EXCEPT for Tolly). 

Something I marveled at was how high the stakes felt. Tolly is writing from the future, so of course you know he makes it, but I felt like I was making discoveries with him right in the moment, right in 1989. I almost imagined myself discovering Tolly’s manuscript and turning each page with a sprinkle of dread. 

SGJ writes very specific books for a very specific audience and I can never get enough.

I Was a Teenage Slasher is funny, creative, and feels like settling in for an awesome summer slasher film. 

CW: murder, gore, blood, injury, vomit, death (parent/child), body horror, grief, suicide,stalking, animal cruelty/death, guns, torture, confinement, homophobia, racism

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

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emotional funny hopeful 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

Beautyland is a peculiar little book that hit me at just the right moment. If you’ve ever felt like an alien, if you’ve ever stood with your back to the wall at a party and tried your very hardest to understand all the intricacies of the community at the center, if you’ve ever flip flopped between optimism and despair for humanity, then this is a book for you.

Adina Giorno has always been a step apart from humans: she’s been activated as a child to report on Earth to her superiors, alien relatives who live on some distant planet.

We watch Adina grow up, reporting on all her human findings through a fax machine. She experiences adolescent isolation, deep friendships, grief, fear, and all those other peculiarities in between.

I always appreciate a book from the perspective of an othered individual looking into humanity (and all the bafflement that comes alongside that). There are so many quotes and observations here that were deeply moving, and that only could have been made by someone who has been cast out.

Adina is asexual and probably autistic, but don’t fret about this falling into those tired alien tropes. It feels so earnest and fresh, and heart-wrenchingly relatable.

“Grief is a bad mirror. It shows you manipulated images of yourself, your will, and the future. It cannot show you how the small work you do will add up to yourself. Inch by inch.”

Even though I sobbed, so much of this story also made me laugh. The response transmissions from Adina’s alien superiors were SO good, along with her charming little dog Buttercup, and the relationship of a precocious little girl and her single mom.

Adina’s reflections - including of her past selves as she reexamines old memories with new knowledge- were always spot on. And the characterizations of the entire cast of characters were SO rich and well-developed.

To be clear: Beautyland is not science fiction. It’s a slow, character-driven, contemplative piece that’s using aliens as a piece of narrative framing to allow Adina to collect very direct observations.

This is the sort of story I’m going to tuck away for decades to come.

“Language is pitiable when weighed against experience.”

CW: death, animal death (pet), cancer, grief, terminal illness, sexual assault, suicide, abandonment, xenophobia, child abuse, classism, pregnancy, dysphoria, xenophobia

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