It Helps With the Blues by Bryan Cebulski

 

Ebook provided by BookSirens for review. Thank you.

Read April 2022.

4/5 stars

This was a strange and engaging little book. We follow a nameless narrator and his connections? I'm not sure how to word it. We open with our narrator and his friend Jules just hanging out, she then invites Dennis who is struggling with something. We later learn that Dennis has taken his own life.

What follows is our narrator pondering over his various friendships, peppered with letters some have written themselves. In fact the only person who doesn't write a letter is Estelle. Once upon a time he bullied them - sidenote but I loved how self-aware he was about his past mistakes - but a chance meeting leads to an almost something, the overarching theme to this section is his pride in Estelle discovering their identity, and getting rid of an apparently racist boyfriend.

Our other characters are Gabriel, openly gay and angry at the world, and Joshua, Jules's younger brother who had a connection to Dennis and feels partially responsible. A small cast yet effective in its simplicity.

At 178 pages by GoodReads description this is a short book and I think that would be my main criticism. It is great as it is but I wanted more. More backstory, more connections. I wasn't a fan of the way things were abandoned with Gabriel and I hated how abrupt the ending was. Did our narrator sort his crap out? Who was he?

Stef Out x 

To Dare by Jemma Wayne

 

I found this quite a dull book really. I kept expecting more from it. Instead I got tasteless descriptions of a violent beating and wholly unlikeable characters.

Sarah in particular annoyed me. Blaming Veronica for her sister's death when she wasn't even involved. The issues that led to it may have been caused by Veronica but I feel that there was enough years for Sarah to have gotten help for her issues.

The ending was very disappointing. Very rushed and a lot of lack of clarity. I was surprised when I noticed I was near the end of the book because I felt like there was still so much to cover. Even now I'm unsure of what really happened.

2/5 stars

Stef Out x

Plan Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Read March 2022. Borrowed from the library but also own as an ebook thanks to NetGalley.

3/5 stars

Dual timeline told in alternating chapters. Half is set in 1902 where Libbie is running a girls school with her partner Alex when a diary of a girl named Mary MacLane starts making its rounds. What follows is tragedy and creepiness. And a lot of yellow jacket wasps 😬

The other half is set in the present day where a horror movie is being made about Brookhants School's tragic past. It girl Harper Harper is one of the co-leads and is also co-producing. Aubrey is a former child star whose role in the film has suddenly changed. Merritt is the writer of the book about the original tragedy that is now the basis for this film.

So firstly this book is super queer. Like 99% of the female characters have a same sex leaning. Harper is named lesbian, Aubrey is bi, not sure what Merritt is and the historical sections introduced me to the term "Boston Marriage" wherein two women (whether romantically inclined or not) would live together in order to achieve careers and independence uncommon for the time.

I thought that it was interesting and creepy but the novel was too long (over 600 pages) and too slowly paced. A lot could have been cut in my opinion. Also the ending was very abrupt. I've seen reviews saying it could have been a duology: the historical story and then the modern one. That would allow for the detail without being overlong.

Stef Out x 

Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins

 

Read February 2022. Borrowed from the library.

5/5 stars

I read this in two sittings and it could have been one but I needed to get to bed. I loved this book! The characters were amazing, Felipé was so relatable for I too am a fat, socially awkward gay. And like Felipé my school bullying was directed towards my weight rather than anything sexuality based. Sigh.

I loved the development of both the boy's characters and the growth of their relationship. I also loved Caio's friends and I wish we'd had more of them. I just wanted more story in general, 15 days was just not enough!

Stef Out x

After the End by Clare Mackintosh

 

Read January/February 2022. Book I owned but since donated.

3/5 stars

This was a very strange book. Pip and Max are a married couple whose 3 year old son, Dylan, has cancer. It soon comes to a point that it's time to choose what to do next. Pip and Max sadly disagree on what to do and a court case soon comes.

What follows is a Sliding Doors-esque alternating chapter dual narrative following each outcome after the trial.

The layout change did confuse me for a moment but it was kind of interesting to see the similarities/differences between the two futures.

There was one character who we got to know who was then dropped which was frustrating and then the ending was a bombshell and an unexplained cliffhanger all in one which annoyed me.

I do like the author's writing style though, I didn't twig until I checked GoodReads that I had already read a book by her, the other was Let Me Lie which comes under thriller and this was domestic drama.

Also interestingly I found this at work and then re-donated it back there after I'd read it and then today while looking for a book for a book stack photo on Instagram (@owls_rainbow) I found a copy on my shelf! So that one will go to work as well as it's not one I see myself re-reading.

Stef Out x

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

 

Book I own. Read January 2022.

5/5 stars

This is a book that doesn't hold back and it feels like such a necessary read.

All white people should read this and especially white men. Stop fetishizing black women, stop using and abusing them.

I loved Queenie, she was strong but in a fragile way. I loved her growth throughout and how she gradually realised that she needed help and accepted it. I really appreciated that it showed the divide in family attitudes towards getting help.

Her friends were a great mix but I hated Cassandra and her lack of faith in her supposed best friend!

Overall I loved this book but it's a difficult one to review. The summary is just read it.

Stef Out x

Eeny Meeny by M.J. Arlidge

 

4/5 stars

CW: small amount of transphobic language, misgendering and use of outdated terms.

This was so nearly a 5 star book! The story was ever so gripping and drew me in straight away.

Pairs of victims are being kidnapped, held in a secure location and starved. They are left a gun with a single bullet and an instruction to kill or be killed.

The DI on the case - Helen Grace - is a strong, stoic character who is struggling to find the reason behind the crime. Soon another pair appears, seemingly unconnected to the first but clearly the same perpetrator, and unusually a woman!

I loved all the different points of view and the descriptiveness of the author's writing. The characters and story were engaging and the pacing was good overall but the ending was seriously lacking.

The killer's explanation was vague and sparse, I had to guess her motives and even then I'm unsure overall.

I did appreciate the overall reveal though. But after the killer is apprehended everything just stops and that's it, the book is over.

There was an extract from the next book in my copy which picks up a short time after and presumably gives a lot more of the aftermath, so it's disappointing that it's not included in this book. However I enjoyed it enough to seek out more in the series.

Stef Out x