Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, and Abandonment Moderate: Domestic abuse

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review! And hoo boy will this be honest. This was just bad. It was break-neck pace where things were given a max of a page and then swiftly moved onto the next thing, characters were super flat and had no growth, so many "plot points" introduced and went no where, absolutely no real logic and super inconsistent for the imagined logic presented too. The characters are just... really flat and feel like just a bullet point list of potential character ideas that have yet to be turned into actual characters. The mother has a phobia or severe anxiety of some sort, but it's treated horrifically badly and is literally one of the points of contention and anger at the end which is NEVER RESOLVED. Don't give this book to any kids that have a form of social anxiety, it's demonised pretty much at the end and it just really doesn't feel great to read. There's no growth to any of them, they all start how they end. The 2 main characters have a defining trait each (... mostly) and the rest barely have even that. There's way too many characters as well, I kept forgetting the main 2 had a sister and the majority of the side characters just have a couple lines sprinkled throughout. Absolutely no reason to have so many introduced at the start and just more keep being added... The inconsistencies drove me mad as well. The red line kept dropping a few feet apparently each time, but it barely dropped at all, and seemed to be dropping at different rates across the same street? The "redlining" was mad as well, I'm pretty sure "surface tension" of air doesn't entirely negate gravity.. They tried to give a scientific explanation for that but it doesn't really stick. Everything turns out to mean pretty much nothing in the end as well, and the general timeline of everything - I genuinely couldn't tell you how many days, weeks, this book covers. Pacing is absolutely wild. Things legit get about a page and that's it. Someone dies, and it takes a page from the kids to learn he's dying, to him being dead and then instantly switches to the next scene/topic/conversation right after. Nothing is given any room to breathe or be actually explained. Nothing is shown, literally everything is only told. A lot is also just not resolved, the main plot ending is very neatly wrapped up and resolved through absolutely no input from the characters, it's just "the book's ending now, situation just happened to be resolved now because *shrugs*", but a lot of the side things are just completely left untouched - like the mothers' anxiety/phobia and the "problem" that caused. The whole mental health thing in this is also wild. It's just thrown in randomly, random characters have random mental health issues and nothing is explained, resolved, or even has a place. A kid just randomly goes "I have mild depression but it's ok" and it's just, ignored I guess for the rest lmao. Like this is not how you do mental health topics in books at all, or medication around that as well. I can appreciate trying to teach global warming and such to children, but I think terrifying them about being unable to breathe suddenly maybe isn't the way to do that? This book in the end feels very doomer and "there's really nothing you can do in the end, you're just going to die anyway" unless a complete miracle entirely out of your control happens. There's nothing about what could have been done to prevent it or anything, it's just "the adults screwed up now we're gonna die".

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Blood, and Dysphoria Moderate: Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, and Death of parent Minor: Cancer and Medical content

Representations: https://trello.com/c/KDqPb5YE/126-to-strip-the-flesh-by-oto-toda I think saying it's a collection of short stories around the same topic is a little misleading. Half of the book is To Strip the Flesh and the other half is a pretty random collection of shorts (a few 2 page mangas too) which are completely different in tone and none of the rest are about queer identities either. Though, don't get me wrong, honestly I'd say To Strip the Flesh is good enough that you should get this manga JUST for that. And it's worth it as well. This is such a strong story of a trans perspective, and you can really tell it's an important story for the author to tell as well. There's a lovely interview at the back which I highly recommend reading through as well! Honestly, I don't think I can say too much without just detailing everything that happens in the story so I'll just say, if you're trans yourself, questioning at all, a parent to a child who just came out as trans to you or just generally interested in trans lit - Read it. It's short, but powerful. For the second half, the short stories. They're a bit of a mixed bag. I did enjoy them, but I wouldn't say it's a good idea to go straight from the end of TSTF right into... people fangirling over idols lol. They're a completely different tone, and completely different topics to TSTF. Maybe just read the first half, take a break, then come back and read the second half perhaps. There is a right mix in there from the aforementioned idol fans to a living statue to a magical watermelon (that one was depressing and a pretty hard hitting story though weirdly enough!). There's a couple just joke ones which are pretty funny, but again feels really out of place amongst the more serious topics in the other stories. Certainly well worth recommending, it's incredibly solid on the writing, very powerful and you can really tell the main topics are something close to Oto Toda's heart. Very character focused in an excellent way and really makes use of the few pages to fully convey everything. This is an absolute must-read for TSTF alone at least!

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship Moderate: Drug abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation Minor: Child abuse

Thank you to the author, Sonora, for a copy of the book as thanks for being part of the street team and allowing me to write an honest review. Representations: https://trello.com/c/3YDDdUHv/128-the-broposal-by-sonora-reyes Funny, a bit raunchy but very heartfelt and pretty serious when it wants to be. I love both Han and Kenny SO much!! They both played off of each other super well and really fit so perfectly together. Both were surprisingly deep and complex and just had so much going on, but it was really easy to know what they were feeling and thinking. The side characters were also great - Leti was fantastic and needs their own book!! Not every character was loveable, but that's by design. Jackie is certainly very much someone you want to strangle but even her character is very well handled. The plot, there's not too much of one but what there is is quite solid. The "fake dating" trope isn't really quite as strong as it first seems since they're kinda obviously in love from the start lmao. There's a fair bit going on, domestic abuse, immigration and citizenship, identity and queerness but it honestly works really well. There's some hilarious moments, there's some tense moments, there's some moments where I just wanted to wrap Han or Kenny - or both - in a big hug. The comedy never overshadowed how serious it gets though, never felt like it was making those moments too light. It was really a perfect balance imo. I think my only issue is the descriptions, I like pretty visual writing personally and while there was a basic level of description, there wasn't quite enough for my taste. For example on the drag parts, I'd have loved so much more time detailing out the scenes and the outfits and make up (especially that one couch-drag scene! Release the make up description!!) but that's a personal preference. Overall, very solid, very cute, very emotional.