I would've liked more on Monique's character personally, as it felt like she was purely an audience surrogate and a vessel to hear Evelyn's story. Evelyn's story, for me, scratched the same itch I get/use to scroll through the Daily Mail snapchat stories. It read and was written pretty well, though, and the ending redeemed it to 3.5 for me. Kept me interested but felt a lil predictable.

Absolutely incredible. Not many books tackle the “triple a” of queerness, and it’s what drew me to this one, but then was given a wonderful surprise of decolonizing perceptions, conceptualizations, and practices of sexuality, romance, and gender (SRG). And WHAT a treat that was. I’m happy the title is what it is, but this book should 100% be on allos’ shelves too, because the history behind the social systems/legal structures surrounding SRG is DAMNING and insane. So informative and fascinating. Wish it wasn’t currently $190 on Amazon for me right now so I can annotate the shit out of it, but shoutout to Interlibrary Loans!! “Thinkpiece” on “Amatonormativity, Aromanticism, and What Even is Romance?” pending thanks to this one happy pride month

The final boss really do be amatonormativity (shoutout to Elizabeth Brake: https://elizabethbrake.com/amatonormativity/). This was a really heartwarming read. Stories that center ace/aro/aroace experiences, I’ve noticed, have such a gift at exploring new kinds of relationships and ways of connecting to one another. I wish “allo” books would take a note or two from them (and adult fiction, because 9/10 times, aroace rep is in YA). Really loved the story progression and characters, even if it was a little predictable, it was still unique and well-done.

3.75, I absolutely loved the concept and the world-building but I think it would've done better as an adult vs. YA, I just really struggled with the pacing and the prose felt mismatched with the lyricality and vibe of the story. And as happy as I was for the main character to be ace it was such a nonitem for the story and just a mere mention

love to see this in my library's kids collection 🤩

happy pride !!!

I feel like this is what The Midnight Library wanted to be, but with a very thoughtful, intriguing, and unique world built around it. Did that world still feel pretty oversimplified, Westernized, and hyperindividualized? Yeah but that seems to come with the terrain of being "utopian," and all the critiques that word contains, and the novella format. Absurdist and emotional at heart (but not as in your face and cliche as TML was) and love the ending conversation, but def had the potential to say more. But live laugh love some enby rep so ty Becky <33

"In the weeks after I read about Kochavi’s application of Situationist theory to colonising practice, experiences I’d had, over time, with theory and practice kept coming into my mind. The smooth little word ‘and’ makes the transition from theory to practice seem effortless, but I’d rarely found that to be the case," (15-16). This is ultimately what draw me to the book, as someone with a historic preponderance with the former and reawakened interest in the latter. The brunt of this theme seemed to be explored when feminist theory and beliefs don't make the transition into lived realities of heterosexual dating, which was interesting, but I was craving a larger scope of application. A quick and well written read, but I felt like the anticapitalist/decolonial undertones could have been explored more.

Loved "The Logic of Imaginary Friends" and "If I Could Have Anything, I'd Only Choose This." Such original characters and ways of exploring our imaginations and their interference (or full on severance) with embodied realities. The collection takes you on a strange but subversively soothing sort of journey, a pleasure to read and a unique pleasure as well.