Tuesday, November 7, 2017

FrankieFrankie by Shivaun Plozza
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I picked this book up on a whim, because of the beautiful cover, not knowing anything, not having any specific expectations. This book absolutely blew me away, made me laugh out loud, sob a puddle of tears, yell really loudly. In other words, this gorgeous debut novel tore my heart out of my chest, wrecked me completely. Every single page is so raw and packed with haunting emotions that will be left lingering even after you turn the last page.

We follow Frankie who is a character that I loved so fiercely. She is an angry fiery badass that it one of my favorite teens that I’ve ever read about. In other words I can imagine her marching the streets of Melbourne as this kickass passionate feminist. Basically everything that I project onto myself, is what Frankie is but one thousand more amazing. I’m having a hard time her describing because it’s like fireworks and I’ve never wanted someone to be my best friend so hard before.

Frankie has some serious abandonment issues because of her complicated family situation, but when she finds her half-brother Xavier and witnesses a crime being committing, she gets wrapped up into the story of his life. Throughout the whole book, she stops at nothing to try to find Xavier, who mysteriously went missing a couple of days after she first met him.

The fact that the author has mastered the craft of write realistic and imperfect teens makes me appreciate this book hundreds of times more. I’ve heard some people say that she comes off as an unlikeable character, however I thought the fact that she was a flawed human being who’s so real made her all the more interesting dammit.

If you know my reading tastes at all, I’m not usually someone who loves romance and a plot point or side thing in YA novels. However in this one it was very subtle and side-lined because of the laser focus for the search for missing Xavier. If it was overpowering, I would be really disappointed, but here it’s portrayed as a background thing while there is much more urgent goal.

To all my Australian friend, this is set in Melbourne, in her aunt quaint kebab shop a lot of the time. There is a strong sense of setting, the author talk about the park and places where Frankie grew up her whole life. So if you’re familiar with the area you’ll instantly recognize some of the regular sights.

One of my favorite things was the strong female friendships Frankie and her bestie, as well as the complicated relationship with her aunt (who adopted her at a young age). They’re just portrayed as messy,soul-sucking, and life-giving relationships as teenage girls tend to have. At some points I felt myself screaming “Don’t forget about the wonderful women in your life who love you so very much!” in frustration as a reminder that Frankie doesn’t have to do this completely alone. If I learned one thing from this book is that you’ll show up when your loved ones are in trouble with fire inside your bones. If you want to play with fire, go read this book. You’ll get burned and not regret a second of it.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own**


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All the Wind in the WorldAll the Wind in the World by Samantha Mabry


I was sucked in from the first page, immediately felt myself perk up from my long book slump. On a recent podcast I heard someone say that they want to read the first chapter before bed and ended up staying up the whole night finishing the whole book in one sitting. That's what I'm sure that I would end up doing, if I had a full arc and not just a sampler. Will picking this up as soon as I can, because I’m still thinking about how intriguing it was. Which is honestly the highest praise I can give!

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing with a sampler in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own**





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Renegades (Renegades, #1)Renegades by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Meyer is best known for her lunar Chronicles series, which I remember to be such a delightful binge read during the holidays. When I heard she has a new sci-fi series/duology coming out? Of course I jumped on the chance to read it!

What I found so irritatingly unnecessary is the developing romance, which was like the -we both have false identities-but we’re actually -enemies to lovers-. It's so annoying that Nova and Adrian can’t just stay enemies as they actually are or platonic friends. This type of romance is over done, and there is no chemistry because I kept on screaming “stop it Adrian!”“stop it Nova!”and frustration. This is an easy/lazy method of writing to create some sort of messiness or tention and it ended up falling flat on its face. Also they had four people on the team and the author paired them up male female and male female,(ugh heteronormativity)

There is one thing that I can give high praise is on the aspects of diversity. Our main character Adrian is described to have brown skin and he was adopted at a young age by his two dads. Our other main character Nova is Italian Filipina briefly mentions about her being biracial There is a character called there if you just character who has a disability and has to use a cane.

I was really hoping that we can have some side characters fleshed out, ones that the readers could really get invested in. Here is the problem, I connected to 0 of them. A big part of the problem was that the narrative was so focused on Nova and Adrian’s backstory and current plot points. There are two POVs, and they were our protagonists, so I feel like that's the reason why. I wanted to feel like the side characters were my best friends, but that just didn't end up happening for me.

The most boring part of this book was the Throne of Glass-esque competition where gifted people audition and compete to become a Renegade. It’s your typical what you could envision because it's been done time and time again in fantasy and sci-fi way. The most yawn worthy part of the book, because this was where I almost DNFed this.

Another thing that irked me to no end was the fact that the biggest super villain’s name was Ace. I’m asexual, and we’re portrayed as cold heartless monsters and the author choosing this name just rubbed me the wrong way.

Since I wasn’t this in physical form I actually didn't realise that it was the 500 pages long. Which wow isn't that way too long for a weak introduction where nothing really happened, was full of superhero villain cliches and over used tropes? No thanks!

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own**

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Monday, November 6, 2017

Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad, #2)Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is probably the fifth time that I'm writing a review for this book and I still don't know if I can do this beloved superhero/villain story justice. Let's start with the fact that we have a black trans guy on the front cover, which is an incentive for anyone to pick this one up from the bookstore.

Bells is definitely the most fascinating character, one that encroaches on the morally gray side which is what I love to see. He is just such a dedicated friend and he has such a big heart for those people he loves, and I love that about him. That’s what made this book so delightful, making me grin from ear to ear the whole time.

My favourite scene as a non-binary person was the normalisation of preferred pronouns; the constant use of him/his pronouns for Bells as well as the usage of the they/them. In fact, there was one scene where there was an introduction and everyone went around the room and just simply stated their pronouns. This made my heart so happy to see such in accepting save space for all of the characters.

Emma is the most relatable character in this whole series, because she is definitely ace and most possibly aroace; and that made me cry actual tears. I just want all the happiness from a fierce cinnamon roll whom I can strongly identify with. I have a feeling that the next book is going to be the best one yet, because it contains the queer of that I'm so desperately thirsty for.

Throughout this book Jess and Abby's relationship just grow stronger and more communicative like most long-term relationships tend to. I love how well they could read each other’s body language and how they adorably took care of each other through the ups and downs of their upsidedown life.

Nothing can live up to the first book in the series “Not Your Sidekick”, as that was the stellar five stars and my current favourite of the series; which is the only reason I gave this for starters. Still, this is a worthy sequel of the best,most action packed,epic, and diverse superhero story out there on the market.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own**

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