what a perfect sequel to my favorite book of the year! this duology is so incredibly well written. i WISH i’d had this when i was 16 in catholic school, but im beyond grateful to be able to read it now as well. no books other than this devils like us/devils we know duology that i’ve read in my adult life have given me quite the same feeling as the one i had when i read as a kid — the dual sensation of having the most fun of my life while rethinking everything i thought i knew about the world. this book perfectly combined rollicking adventure with the gut punch of self realization.

there were multiple parts of this book where i was full on sobbing, and they weren’t even necessarily the sad parts! the concept of carving your own path and building the life you want with people you love as a queer person with nontraditional relationships? S O B B I N G. i adore cas and finn, and while remy wasn’t my favorite all the time, i grew to love her and always appreciated her will and strength and capacity for change. the relationship between the three of them was so real, and i thought the conversations they had where they finally communicated their frustrations and learned to understand each other was perfect.

the adventure! the angst! the grief! the love! i will never get over this book of devils like us

my life could be a disaster, but hey, at least i’m not a 13 year old girl.

this is honestly super cute! i, like a million other people, used to see cassandra calin’s comics 5-10 years ago, and when this popped up in my local bookstore i had to grab it. i really like the way she uses colored speech bubble and language markers to show when the characters are speaking different languages. i also LOVE a diverse girl friend group. despite the title, this is truly at its core a book about friendship, and on principle, i gotta support that. just because of the subject matter which is WAY young for me obviously, i couldn’t rate this any higher, but i think this would be a perfect book for any preteen girl who has ever felt too awkward or weird or dramatic.

how is it possible to wish a that a book that’s 540 pages long is even LONGER? i wish i got to spend even more time in this world. tillie walden, if you’re listening, pretty pretty please write a sequel or a spinoff for ANY character. i would read all of it in a heartbeat. this was so heartfelt and beautiful. i loved the way that this book really used illustration to tell the story, with page long wordless spreads. i also think she did an amazing job intercutting between timelines and perspectives. there were so many moments where multiple climaxes happened simultaneously, and i loved how this graphic novel managed to show all of them at once. my only real complaint is that i occasionally had some trouble telling alma and ell apart. otherwise, this was a 10/10 experience.

a fantastical re-envisioning of the history of the Philippines and Spain? featuring queer characters and a trans MC? that's explicitly anti-imperlialist? sign me up!

i was obsessed with this from the jump. the main character, rey, reminds me of rin from the poppy war or zhu from she who became the sun. The art is GORGEOUS, and the story is fascinating. teo and rosa are such interesting characters. i especially love the contrast between rey and teo, the conflict between doing the "right thing" and there being no "right thing" when there is war. i am interested to see where they take the direction of rosa's character since she is royal and part of a pretty terrible system that seems impossible to change from the inside.

i can't wait for the next volumes!

the atmosphere is incredible, and i loved the insertions of the script, as though from a movie. i am also a big fan of anya's thought processes and the way that everything is a performance. as a filipina american myself, i thought the representation was great, and the interactions with anya's cousins were really fun. for me, all the elements of this were there to make this a great book, it just didn't completely come together. the critiques of wealth,, whiteness, sensationalism, and superficiality were all there, but the book ended up being so confusing that it didn't really HIT for me. i kept waiting for the moment when everything would become clear, and that just never happened. i have read girl dinner by olivie blake, and i liked that as well, but again i felt the whole was less than the sum of its parts. i do really like her writing style and concepts, so i imagine i will continue to return to her writing and maybe check out some of her older stuff.

honey girl is for anyone who has ever asked “are you there? is anyone listening?” it took me a little bit of time to get into the writing style of this book (it’s very poetic and many of the things people say seem too poetic to be even half realistic) but once i did, this was life changing. i read this on a recommendation from one of my closest friends since she chose it for a book club that we run together, and then as a book club, we had genuinely the best book club discussion i have ever had in my entire life. we are largely different ages, but every single person saw themself in some way in this book, and multiple people from ages 20-50 gave this book 5 stars. personally, there were multiple points where i cried so hard i had to stop reading because i genuinely could not see.

this is a coming of age story. although the romance is important, the crux of the book is self discovery. i’m turning 25 in a month, and even though i am a little younger than the main character (grace), i have been feeling a lot of things that she feels in that i often feel like i have no idea where i want to go with my life long term. i’m not at all where i thought i would be at age 25, and it’s an ongoing process to accept that, even though i like where i am. no character was 100% exactly like me, but wow were the emotions and the relationships relatable. i rarely come out of a book feeling so seen. this cut right to the core of the fact that so many people are lonely and longing for connection but have no idea where/how to find it.

to any other lonely creatures: are you there? let’s talk