When I find books like SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND that have low ratings on Goodreads, part of me is like, "You fools! Are we but mere swines turning up our sWhen I find books like SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND that have low ratings on Goodreads, part of me is like, "You fools! Are we but mere swines turning up our snouts at the pearls that lie before us?" And part of me is like, "Actually, maybe I'm the weird one here, and also, let those that live in pig houses cast not the first pearl." Or something like that. Because SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND is not a perfect read. The time travel is purely whimsical and doesn't really have a lot of scientific bases. And while it touches upon racism and bigotry in the '80s more than books like ELEANOR AND PARK did (i.e. not at all, except when convenient), there's still a sort of whitewashed gloss to the book that never really goes there. Which I think, on the one hand, is actually fine. We read books for escapism and this is YA, so we probably shouldn't traumatize the kiddos with brutal depictions of what bigotry in action could look like in history. And this light hand, for SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND, actually works, because the author manages to get his point across and he does so in a way that feels temporally acceptable, if not necessarily accurate.
The plot revolves around a flamboyantly gay boy named Luis who is going to a Christian school. It's pretty progressive for a Christian school but it still doesn't allow gay kids to go to the dance as couples and Luis is campaigning hard against that, because he wants to attend with his boyfriend, Cheng. He also has a nonbinary best friend named Nix, who tries to reign him in because they have a rather tragic understanding of the limits of what the school will and will not allow. Especially since, back in the 1980s a young gay Black man named Chaz died at the school and basically became a cautionary tale that the teachers decided to use as a fallback for their gussied up "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Anyway, after a failed attempt at subterfuge involving the prom invites (whoops, did I forgot to add pronouns to the invites, thus creating a legal loophole? SILLY ME), he ends up whacked on the head in the drama department (curse you, plywood!), which sends him back to the 1980s. 1985, specifically. Which I might be more skeptical about if 80% of my Timeswept historical romances didn't end the same way. I literally shared one today on Instagram where a female stuntwoman ends up int he middle of an 1800s bank robbery because of some faulty pyrotechnics. A few weeks ago, it was one where this woman bonked her head while falling out of a tree. Head bonkings are the leading cause of time travel, IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW.
Anyway, Luis ends up meeting his favorite teacher (who is in her twenties in this timeline, omg so SWEET), and she believes him about the whole time travel thing because Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is her favorite book, so hooray. She decides that the best thing to do is to grandfather him into the school by pretending he's her tragically orphaned nephew, and it works because nobody has Google to look that shit up (looking that shit up on Google fixes 99% of falsified nephew shenanigans). Since his personality is big and brash, he decides to just be his best gay self while hanging out with the fringe crowd at this school, which includes HIS MOM(!), an artsy girl named Leeza, an adorable dork named Ernie, and the soon-to-be-doomed Chaz(!).
I don't want to say too much about this book because spoilers are foilers, people. But it's actually adorable in the way that some of those low budget YA movies of the '90s were adorable, where even if the story is far-fetched, it's so earnest and enjoyable that you end up coming back to it over and over. This book manages to capture all of the nostalgia of what made the '80s live on in so many young people's imaginations: the thrill of being in the moment, without phones; the over the top catchy beats of '80s songs (I appreciate The Cars shoutout); Tiger Beat; '80s clothes involving ruffles; CHESS KING; bomber jackets; big hair, etc. But it also doesn't ignore what made the '80s kind of awful, and it hammers home, in a really subtle and kind of quietly tragic way, how so many kids of the '80s and '90s had to wait a very long time to grow up and come out, in order to get to be their true, authentic selves.
The ending is beautiful and perfect and the scenes with Luis discovering his mom as a teen and seeing so much of himself in her actually made me tear up. I think it's easy for kids-- especially teens-- to forget their parents are people with actual hopes and dreams, and seeing his mom before she grew up, and seeing so much of himself in her, was such a powerful, beautiful moment. Luis is everything I love in a narrator-- he's willful and difficult, but he's also very funny, and even though he's shallow and a little selfish, he's not an inherently bad person and part of the story is watching him grow, as well. This is another cool thing about the book because a lot of the times, when an author writes a queer book, I think that there's an expectation that the queer character has to be flawless, acting as a sort of ambassador for whatever color block on the Pride flag they're representing, so seeing a queer character who gets to be imperfect and who gets to do so in a really fun way is fun and exciting and actually ended up making him feel really well rounded and interesting. I liked that he could be a bitch. I can be a bitch, too, so that made me really relate to Luis. I also liked the fact that he was Cuban, and how the author touches upon some of the inherent misogyny that can appear in some Latinx households, and how working past that (in the case of Luis's mother) can take a lot of effort and introspection.
Is this book for everyone? No. But if you like camp and catty narrators and John Hughes movies, I think you're going to love this book. I know I did. It's also a clever subversion of the bury-your-gays trope. Netflix seriously needs to make this into a movie for the promposal and the "Drive" scenes alone.
THIS IS KIND OF AN EPIC LOVE STORY is such a good book and it makes me sad that the average rating for the book is so low on Goodreads because I read THIS IS KIND OF AN EPIC LOVE STORY is such a good book and it makes me sad that the average rating for the book is so low on Goodreads because I read it in just over a day and loved it so much, even if I do think I understand why so many people seem to have a hard time loving it (more on that in a minute). In some ways, it kind of reads as the prototype version of FELIX EVER AFTER, only with younger characters, but it's also a really great portrayal of diversity, realistically dramatic and tempestuous teen friendships, and the trials and tribulations of first love, so it does stand on its own.
Nate is an aspiring screenwriter who's painfully single. Ever since his dad died, he's had trouble forming close bonds with others because he's terrified of loving and losing again-- after all, everyone has to go away sometimes, why open yourself to hurt? It causes him to push people away and make bad decisions, even though you can kind of get where he's coming from, and how he's dooming himself with his behavior.
He has a close-knit group of friends, which includes his ex, Flo, who cheated on him with the girl she's now dating. There's also Ashley, an aggressively go-getter Hermione Granger type, Gideon, a jock, and, now, Ollie, the "new kid" in school who was actually Nate's closest friend as a child... until Nate kissed him on the day he moved away, which made everything awkward, and caused them never to speak again.
There really isn't a plot to this book, apart from teen boy is awkward and anxious, teen boy meets teen boy who is also awkward and anxious. Boys fall in love but keep messing up because they are bad at communicating with each other because teen boys are gonna teen. Some people complained about the drama and yes, there is a LOT. Everyone has histories with everyone and there's a lot of cheating. Normally, I hate cheating in romances, but I feel like it works better in stories about high school and college because we all know that most of those relationships DON'T last forever, and sometimes falling out with someone you used to like or even love is part of an adult journey. I've said in other reviews that I don't question teenagers making stupid decisions if they make them for believable reasons. There's a difference between a bad decision on behalf of the character and a bad decision on behalf of the author writing as that character, and here, all of the characters felt very real and believable to me.
I loved the diversity of Nate's friend group. Both heroes seem to be either bi or pan (I couldn't really tell, but it seems like both of them have dated or been interested in girls). Ollie is Latinx and I think the hero is Black. His friend, Flo, is Taiwanese and Black and also bi/pan, and I think Ashley and Gideon are white and straight. Ollie is also HoH (hard of hearing) and even though I don't believe this is ownvoices in that regard, it seemed very respectfully done. I liked the signing on the page, and how communication style between him and the other characters was inclusive and respectful and focused on Ollie's needs. I also liked how grief was approached, and how a big part of the story was about Nate's mom sorting out some of her own unresolved psychological trauma, and how a big part of the narrative arc between Nate and his mom was about communication and her learning to let him go.
THIS IS KIND OF AN EPIC LOVE STORY can be a really frustrating read at times because Nate does not always make the most likable decisions, and sometimes you, the reader, will get really mad at him. But the way he behaves is consistent to his character and it makes watching him learn and grow so much more rewarding as you watch him lower those prickly walls of his and learn to let others in. I think anyone who enjoys YA with topics geared towards older teens (sex, first time, relationships, long-stance relationships, college applications, internships, career decisions, grief, friend drama, etc.) will really enjoy this book, as it ticks a lot of the boxes of what I personally look for and love in YA.
The first time I read this book was as an ARC when it first came out and I couldn't stop thinking about it. THE SUMMER PRINCE was one of the first divThe first time I read this book was as an ARC when it first came out and I couldn't stop thinking about it. THE SUMMER PRINCE was one of the first diverse sci-fi-fantasy books I ever read and it totally blew me away. It's set in a dystopian matriarchal society in a futuristic Brazil, where all of the leaders are women and everyone old expects to live to two hundred. They elect their kings in an elaborate, Hunger Games-like ceremony every five years, and the king, in turn, chooses his new queen one year later: on the day of his sacrificial execution.
Our heroine, June, is an activist/artist, kind of like a female Banksy. She does all of these elaborate art pranks and one of these is at the very beginning, with her friend Gil, to help elect the underdog choice: a boy from the very worst parts of Palmares Tres named Enki. The prank works and the three of them end up first as glamorous poster children for the opulent party scene, and then as icons of rebellion. As the year goes on, the three of them become incredibly close: Gil and Enki become lovers and June starts to fall for him too, all the while, his fate hangs over the three of them like the sword of Damocles.
I think I loved this book just as much the second time. I loved the way Brazilian culture and the Portuguese language are woven into the story. I liked the heroine's passion for art, and how it ends up taking a more political bent as she sees more of the injustice that's inherent in the system that she's been blind to because of her privilege. I liked how there wasn't really a lot of slut-shaming, and how all of the characters in this book felt like real people making real decisions in this fantastic backdrop. It takes a while to get into, but I think the heroine sells the world-building, and her melancholy and wistfulness end up making this a pretty devastating read, especially as the story winds to the end.
I was a bit torn on whether to give this a four or a five. It's not a perfect book, but it's still a very, very good one, so I've decided to round up because I've never read anything like it before and I still love it.
I bought STAY GOLD a while ago and was really excited to read it after one of my friends gave it a very high review. As others have said, though, I doI bought STAY GOLD a while ago and was really excited to read it after one of my friends gave it a very high review. As others have said, though, I don't think the blurb really sets you up for how intense and angsty this read is going to be. The cover and blurb make it sound like it's going to be a fluffy, feel-good romance book, but it's actually loaded with some pretty devastating scenes, everything from physical assault to misgendering to use of slurs, and there's a scene at the end that is reminiscent of Boys Don't Cry, only not quite as bad.
The story is basically this. Pony is the son of an active military dude and moves around a lot. At his last school, he was out as trans and that basically became his sole identity-- he was sick of the positive and negative attention surrounding that. At his newest Texas high school, he's decided he's going to go about incognito. Which seems simple enough until he sort of catches romantic feelings for one of the cheerleaders and she likes him back. He has to tell her, right?
STAY GOLD is told in dual POV, narrated by both Pony and Georgia. Both of them are dealing with things outside of their primary relationship conflict. Obviously, Pony is hiding his identity, but he's also working a part-time job with a retired golden age movie actor named Ted London in order to pay for his own top surgery, but the actor has secrets of his own. Georgia, on the other hand, is recovering from a bad breakup and trying to find herself. She anonymously writes columns for the school newspaper because she wants to be a journo, but that doesn't fit in with the popular and pretty vibe that she's been cultivating for herself as a cheerleader.
As far as YA books go, I feel like this is geared towards a slightly older audience. It doesn't talk down to its readers and it deals with some pretty serious subject matter. I can see why some trans readers took issue with the book because it does deal with some pretty heavy stuff before slapping on a happy ending that almost feels too easy. But on the other hand, I think that stories like these can be valuable because they end up almost being hurt/comfort-like, showing that someone can triumph over suffering (even though it sucks that the suffering ends up being the catalyst to the triumph). I never really fully warmed to Georgia though, because of how she hurt and strung Pony along. I guess she sort of redeemed herself in the end, but this wasn't one of my favorite YA romances. Pony was great, though.
FELIX EVER AFTER was a really, really good book. It's a story about questioning your identity, writing secret letters, first loves, secret cruelties, FELIX EVER AFTER was a really, really good book. It's a story about questioning your identity, writing secret letters, first loves, secret cruelties, calling out harassment and bigotry, and educating loved ones-- oh, and art, New York, and coming of age. Basically, it's a hodge-podge of everything I love about YA, handled really maturely, and with a really great message to boot.
Felix is a trans boy who has never been in love but would like to be. He's also an art student with big dreams, and a group of friends who he mostly likes, although they can be annoying. In liberal New York, he's mostly accepted but he still runs into bigots-- like his TERF "friend" who says he's a misogynist for transitioning from "female" to male and giving into the patriarchy, or the bigot who deadnames him and posts a gallery of photos from his Instagram taken pre-transition.
The secret bigot harasses him on Instagram, trying to tell him that he's a girl and damage his self-worth. The things the bully says are incredibly cruel and Felix is understandably devastated and enraged, and he decides he's going to figure out who they are and ruin them. He already has one suspect, the ex-boyfriend of his BFF who inexplicably seems to hate both their guts. But the more that Felix talks to him, under an assumed identity, the more he actually -gulp- starts to like him.
I don't want to say too much more because I don't want to spoil things, but I liked that I never knew what was going to happen. I also liked that Felix started out as really prickly, but as the story progresses we get to know the real him as he figures himself out. I liked the message about how even loved ones can screw up and it's important to forgive even as you hold them accountable, and how bigots should be called out so they can't continue to harass on the sly. I loved the message that you can continue to question your whole life, and how identity is this ever-evolving thing that belongs to you alone, and the power that naming yourself gives you when you find a label that is you.
There's a lot of YA that condescends to its audience so I'm always really excited when I find a mature work that deals out realistic problems with realistic people and dialogue that sounds like real teens speaking. Real teens make mistakes and sometimes do reckless things, but real teens can also surprise you with their insightfulness and their passions. When I was a teenager, I definitely saw myself as a very ~mature~ individual, and I think a lot of teens probably feel the same way and like to see reflections of their almost-adult self in fiction. FELIX EVER AFTER perfectly captures what it means to be growing up and having everything change, caught mid-glide on that journey of endless possibility.
THE LESBIANA'S GUIDE TO CATHOLIC SCHOOL was so cute and made me feel literally all the emotions. After Yami is outed at her old school by her ex-best THE LESBIANA'S GUIDE TO CATHOLIC SCHOOL was so cute and made me feel literally all the emotions. After Yami is outed at her old school by her ex-best friend (and crush) and starts getting bullied, she and her brother decide to start anew at Catholic school. The only problem is, unlike her old school, it's mostly white, and she feels like she doesn't get to be her whole authentic self living in the closet.
One thing I loved about this book was all the nuance. Exploring one's cultural identity when one feels isolated from it. The conflict when faith turns to sanctimony. Loving your parents but being afraid that they won't love you for who you are. The adultification of children of color, and the very real fear of what happens when you get kicked out of your home. Mean girls. Redemption stories. The discussion of how "coming out" is a privilege and isn't always safe. Depression and suicide. Rejection and acceptance. And love, in so many forms.
Sonora Reyes totally outdid themselves with this book, okay? I felt like I was reading a real Latina girl's diary. I laughed, I cried, and felt real anger on behalf of this girl, who I got to know over the course of the 300-or-so pages of this book. I loved Cesar, and her mother. I loved Bo, and the gay joy of her existence. I loved Bo's parents. I loved how Latinx culture was inserted into the book and colored the heroine's world. I loved this book.
I see complaints about how YA these days seems too afraid to tackle the tough stuff. If you've been complaining about that, too, you need to read this book. In a sea of YA where the young characters feel like a mouthpiece for their adult authors, Yami feels like an authentic teenage voice.
Ever since I finished Holly Black's The Folk of the Air series, I've been dying to get my hands on other mature YA fantasy books that capture that samEver since I finished Holly Black's The Folk of the Air series, I've been dying to get my hands on other mature YA fantasy books that capture that same breathless atmosphere of sensuality, back-stabbing, and court intrigue. So many authors try for this vibe, but miss-- hard-- because they either aren't good enough writers to fully sell the worlds they're building, or because they try to dumb everything down to be inoffensive and uncontroversial as possible, leading to books that feel pandering and sanitized.
I received an ARC of Bartlett's other book, WE RULE THE NIGHT, earlier this year, which was an amazing steampunk fantasy story about female fighter pilots in the midst of a war. Where WE RULE THE NIGHT was a book about female hot-heads and fiery blazes, THE WINTER DUKE is all ice. Set in a fantasy world split into two major zones-- Kylma Above and Kylma Below-- the heroine, Ekata, lives with her cut-throat family in a palace made of ice where it's always winter.
Everything goes terribly wrong on the evening of her brother's "brideshow," the ceremony where he chooses his future wife. Ekata's whole family is struck by a mysterious sleeping sickness, leaving her in charge of the family's duchy. Ekata is considered the bookish, weak one in her family and is ill-equipped to handle being the Grand Duke, or all of the people attempting to manipulate and use her. In order to escape marriage to one such odious person, Ekata elopes with one of her brother's would be brides, a warrior from a lesser kingdom named Inkar, and with her new wife and a small circle of trusted advisors, Ekata tries to navigate not just her new responsibilities but also figure out who hurt her family-- and whether she might be next-- while also trying to keep her entire kingdom from falling into chaos, anarchy, or upheaval.
So, yeah, it's a trip.
There was so much about this book that I loved so much. First, obviously, the world-building. Kylma Above is so cold and inhospitable, and so are the people who live in it. The ice roses and the hilarious dishes (pickled shark!) really added so much depth to the environment, and allows you, the reader, to become fully immersed. I also really loved Kylma Below, which is a water world home to magic and mermaids and beasts of the deep. I kind of pictured it as being a cross between the Aquas level from Starfox 64 (amazing video game if you haven't played it) and Holly Black's Undersea. It was so good.
Second, the romance between Inkar and Ekata. This is an F/F fantasy novel with an arranged marriage, slow-burn romance and that is basically my favorite thing ever. I talked about my sincere love for that trope in another recent review of a fantasy novel-- but, again, not a lot of authors can carry that off because it requires a really solid understanding of characterization. Bartlett did such an amazing job and it was great to see these two girls slowly begin to relax around one another and find intimacy in a kingdom that saw such closeness as weakness.
Third, the plotting was really good. When you think about it, it's kind of like a challenge-for-the-crown trope meets a grandiose parlor-murder-mystery trope. It works really well. I liked seeing Ekata go through all of her challenges to hold on to her title while also trying to solve the greater mystery. In the beginning she was so uncertain and awkward in her role, and even though she didn't exactly become Cersei Lannister by the end of the book, it was amazing to see her grow into her confidence and apply her knowledge to finding out who the evil-doers were, while also getting better at her job.
I also really appreciated a world where LGBT+ people are fully incorporated and depicted as being the norm. The "Duke" title is unisex and does not change depending on who inherits. The brideshows include men and women and it seems that Ekata's brother likes both, whereas she seems to prefer women. There's a main character who is non-binary, and no homophobic or misogynistic slurs are hurled around; this is a society that is dark and cut-throat but doesn't embrace the usual misogynistic and sexist pseudo-Medieval setting that so many popular fantasy novels are partial to.
If I had one qualm, it was that the ending was a tiny bit disappointing for me. But just a tiny bit.
Claire Eliza Bartlett is fast becoming one of my all-time favorite authors. Both her books have wrested five stars from me and I'm notoriously stingy with them. I hope she writes more fantasy novels, because she's incredibly good at them, and while I roll my eyes at the need for authors to turn all of their books into series, both of her novels are standalones and I desperately wish they were not, so there's that. I can't wait to see what else she writes and will be crossing my fingers for more court intrigue and kick-butt female protagonists, because I think we can all agree we need more of those.
Also, that cover is DELICIOUS. I want to eat it.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
