So the reason I wanted to read this is genuinely because I saw this book across the room in my local YMCA Charity shop and knew I had to pick it up. What a book to start pride month off with. Friends, this book is incredible. I genuinely didn't feel as a 31 year old queer woman I had much left to learn but this book sure proved me wrong. This book was beautiful from the way that it was set out to the illustrations and stories. It is a shorter book and I genuinely read this in one sitting but it is PACKED full of information around queerness in general {even if it says it focuses on queer girls}. I honestly believe if I have had this book as a teenager the world would have made so much more sense. This book goes through so many important topics such as consent, sex ed, queer history, resources for queer people, just everything and anything you could think of is in this book. I love the way that it handled these topics in a way which was simple and easy to understand but also expressed how important they were. The little essays from other queer people were beautiful to read and genuinely made me tear up. I would recommend this to any queer person of any age to read this book as there's so much information even I didn't know and would've been perfect to have as a younger person.

So the reason I wanted to read this is genuinely because I got a Kindle Unlimited email which showed this graphic novel as part of it and I thought it looked cute so I downloaded it. Friends, I'm really glad that I did. I had just DNF'd 3 books and caught up with my ARCs so I REALLY needed a palette cleanser and this graphic novel hit the spot. The artwork throughout this is so cute, and unique, and really brought the story to life. As y'all know I LOVE books with good, strong female friendships and we truly seem to be getting that straight off the bat. All the characters were so perfectly unique and different in their own ways but absolutely in ways that help them compliment each other and make the story whole. I really loved the little nods to the horror movies that definitely inspired some of the characters in this book as they were very obvious but also so very much Haley's own. This currently has two volumes out and I will 100% be picking up a physical copy of both books on payday. I recommend this to anyone who wants a cute spooky little graphic novel to break up their heavier hitting books. To be honest, just anyone who enjoys graphic novels in general.

I was really enjoying this book into the Jigsaw imagery to represent autism. The jigsaw piece within the autistic community is largely correlated to autism speaks which is an AWFUL company which promotes stigma & fear around autistic individuals. I cannot in good faith promote or review a book which uses this imagery.

I honestly couldn't understand most of it and DNFd

I just could not get into this book. To say it's a short book it felt a lot longer than it was.

So the reason I wanted to read this is because I actually follow the author on tiktok, and when she mentioned that this was very similar to Legends and Lattes but make it werewolves and witches I knew I wanted to read it. When I saw that it was on Netgalley I applied for it straight away! Friends, this was everything that I wanted from a cozy fantasy and more. First of all, the world building in this story was beautiful, I genuinely sat there feeling like I was in the places the author was describing. The author really took their time to describe every scent, sight, magic etc but did so in a way that wasn't too overly descriptive. This book was beautiful, and magical, and I genuinely feel like this would 100% be the perfect Halloween read. I loved the characters, and the magic system and almost every little thing about this story. The only one downside I had with this book, was it took a little longer than I'd of liked to get into the "good parts". However, once it was there, it was incredible. There was so much action, so many twists and turns I was just not expecting and it really had me on the edge of my seat towards the end. I was fully rooting for our main character and genuinely fell in love with both Nettie and Rowena. Heck, it was truly hard to not fall in love with all of the characters. I cannot wait for this to come out and will 100% be picking up a copy for my shelf. I am also excited to see the future books in the series and can't wait to see where their stories go.

So obviously the reason I wanted to read this was because I love queer storytelling. Honestly friends I did not know what I was going to think about this because I've never read a novel written in verse, and I've not read a lot of black MLM romance books. Honestly, I was blown away with this story. This is the first time I've ever read a book that wasn't a graphic novel in the Netgalley app because the send to kindle option did not do this book justice. Everything about the storytelling was visual down to the way the verses were set out and the drawings to accompany them. This story hit on so many important topics, and I would definitely look up the trigger warnings if you're going to read this book but it genuinely handled them in a way that was so beautiful and real. How emotive Kai was all throughout the book really made it easy to empathize with him and the other characters. I laughed through parts of this book, I cried through parts of this book, and I really loved the little references to Dean's other books (which I will 100% be picking up) throughout. I think this type of storytelling is so important and to be able to see more of it really makes my heart full. I would 100% recommend this to anyone and everyone who wants a beautiful queer story to read and I can't wait to read more of Dean's other literature.

Just because you *can* use queer slurs doesn't mean you necessarily should. It was very offputting

So the reason I wanted to read this is because I've been seeing the author advertise this all over booktok so when I saw it was an ARC on Netgalley I jumped at the chance to apply for it. Friends, I really enjoyed this book. I'm not gonna lie, before reading this I had DNF'd a different queer contemporary romance and started to think that maybe the genre was not for me... And then Lyla brought me right back. This book was such a fun read for me and I found myself giggling and kicking my feet throughout. I was shocked to see myself enjoying a book with so much open door romance in it as well as usually I'm not one for spice, but for this one all of the spice was perfect, and loving, and so real for the sapphic experience that even I found myself blushing and cheering it on. I really love found family and female friendship within books and this one sure did have a lot in there. I think this book also taught me how important it is to see POC represented in queer romances and how little we do actually see them within even modern main media. I will say, the only downside I had with this book was even though it was dual POV, which I love, I found the jumping in between first and third person depending on who it was a little confusing at times, but honestly once I got into it I eventually got the hang of it. I will 100% be buying myself a copy of this book when it comes out, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants a cute, funny, second chance queer romance to get stuck into.

So honestly friends, this was a re read for me. (Last time I read it was 10 years ago and I honestly couldn't remember anything). The reason I decided to re read it was because I recommended it to my friend who loves horror/splatterpunk and she said she enjoyed it and my goal this year is to read more indie authors so I picked it up. Friends, I'm not going to lie, I'm a little 50/50 on this one. I would not say this is a bad story at all, the premise was there, the twists and turns were twisting, there were a lot of good moments that genuinely had me on the edge of my seat for this book. I loved that we got to learn more about the main character which made it easier to empathise with him in such a short amount of time. My problem however, was how long it took to get to the point. To say this book is only 118 pages it consists of only 3 longer chapters, one in the present, one in the past, and then one back in the present, and for me, the length of the first chapter was unnecessary. I'm not a girly who loves when authors are overly descriptive in non - fantasy settings and honestly, this could have been a shorter novella and still have been great. I also will say, I wish that this was set somewhere other than England, the diner and the motorhome really threw me for a loop because we do not have a lot of these in England (If any). Overall, I would recommend this to those who enjoy a good horror story. I just feel unfortunately, even though this story was good, it just wasn't one of my favourites.