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directorpurry's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Bullying, Police brutality, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Transphobia, Medical content, Deadnaming, and Body horror
Moderate: Fatphobia, Death of parent, Body shaming, Car accident, Child death, and Medical trauma
Minor: Domestic abuse
callaazz's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
erincharp's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to love this book. Magic! Representation! But I could not get into it. I struggled with the world building. Magic people and monsters were open in this book, yet they were also shunned. I couldn't quite figure out why, especially when it seemed like they were accepted at one time and then not? Or maybe I didn't quite grasp that part. I also found the pacing to be slow and felt like parts of the novel meandered, while other parts that I enjoyed were quickly rushed through. From the reviews, it seems like I'm in the minority and that's okay. I did have really high hopes for this book, it just didn't do it for me.
e1oh1's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Schrieve treats magical ability as another intersection of identity in a country that is hostile to the vast majority of its people, transcending the "magical creatures as a metaphor for the oppressed" trope. While reading I was reminded both of nostalgic moments of my angsty queer youth with rebellious friends, and of the real grief our formative years can hold.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse
In the first chapter the main character's uncle violently rejects them because of their gender identity and status as a zombie. It is not a long scene, and the character is taken in by a kindly adult afterwards. However it is briefly intense.lostmymindinbooks's review against another edition
2.0
(the author uses xie/hir pronouns. I am not too familiar on how to use those correctly and based my use on a some research and examples. Please let me know if I messed up in places so I can fix that)
I really, really wanted to love this book. It is full of rep for so many people, is own voices, and has a super interesting premise.
However, thats about it. The book was poorly executed, even for a debut author (someone should really talk to the editor, as a lot of the issues I have with the book have to do with sentence structure etc).
Said sentence structure was extremely repetitive and the author used said, asked etc. A LOT. Especially in situations where other words would be way more fitting, xie uses those very basic expressions.
To me (as a non American person) the title was very misleading - I was expecting Salem, Massachusetts and got Salem, Oregon. With the themes in the book, this kinda seems intentional. "Out of Portland" "Oit of Phoenix" "Out of (insert city)" just wouldn't set the scene in the was Salem does.
Furthermore, none of the characters had a distinctive voice - no matter wether it was the 14 year old main character or the adult teacher. All of these charavters sounded the same and through that, nobody sounded (or acted, for that sake) their age.
A lot of the things happening are way too convenient. Two characters are at the same place randomly, and one of them just so happens to have exactly the thing the other one is looking for? Too convenient for my taste. One character being the only known one of their kind in the area? Again, very convenient. The list goes on and on.
"(...) when Aysel marched smartly in and asked if she could get into the supply closet" p 43
This reads like it was taken out of a bad fan fiction. Just... No.
"I think what you people are doing is very silly and wrongheaded and vicious" p261
If that was said by a child, okay. An adult? No, that feels off.
This book is definitely not YA - it reads way too young for that. However, it is also not a childrens book, too much gore and triggering content in general:
Death
Misgendering of protagonist
Deadnaming
Verbal abuse
Self harm
Gore. Loads of gore.
Police brutality
This book will be donated to my local library in the hope that someone there will find joy inbetween those pages when I could not.
Edit/addition: after reading some other reviews I saw that there are issues with the display (is that the word I'm looking for?) of nonbinary and transgender characters. As I am cis, I would recommend you to skim through some reviews and read what own-voices reviewers have to say on that.
I really, really wanted to love this book. It is full of rep for so many people, is own voices, and has a super interesting premise.
However, thats about it. The book was poorly executed, even for a debut author (someone should really talk to the editor, as a lot of the issues I have with the book have to do with sentence structure etc).
Said sentence structure was extremely repetitive and the author used said, asked etc. A LOT. Especially in situations where other words would be way more fitting, xie uses those very basic expressions.
To me (as a non American person) the title was very misleading - I was expecting Salem, Massachusetts and got Salem, Oregon. With the themes in the book, this kinda seems intentional. "Out of Portland" "Oit of Phoenix" "Out of (insert city)" just wouldn't set the scene in the was Salem does.
Furthermore, none of the characters had a distinctive voice - no matter wether it was the 14 year old main character or the adult teacher. All of these charavters sounded the same and through that, nobody sounded (or acted, for that sake) their age.
A lot of the things happening are way too convenient. Two characters are at the same place randomly, and one of them just so happens to have exactly the thing the other one is looking for? Too convenient for my taste. One character being the only known one of their kind in the area? Again, very convenient. The list goes on and on.
"(...) when Aysel marched smartly in and asked if she could get into the supply closet" p 43
This reads like it was taken out of a bad fan fiction. Just... No.
"I think what you people are doing is very silly and wrongheaded and vicious" p261
If that was said by a child, okay. An adult? No, that feels off.
This book is definitely not YA - it reads way too young for that. However, it is also not a childrens book, too much gore and triggering content in general:
Death
Misgendering of protagonist
Deadnaming
Verbal abuse
Self harm
Gore. Loads of gore.
Police brutality
This book will be donated to my local library in the hope that someone there will find joy inbetween those pages when I could not.
Edit/addition: after reading some other reviews I saw that there are issues with the display (is that the word I'm looking for?) of nonbinary and transgender characters. As I am cis, I would recommend you to skim through some reviews and read what own-voices reviewers have to say on that.
librarypatronus's review against another edition
3.0
This was basically two stars for my enjoyment and one because I want queer characters, especially in things that aren’t contemporaries. I saw this cover at the library on the new shelf and was instantly intrigued, and then when I heard queer + zombies + werewolves + enchanters, I was sold. I got home, checked goodreads and was extra excited when I saw how many people enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them.
My first, and biggest, issue was that it was fantastical revisionist history without any backstory. All the characters just were like “yep, there’s monsters and magic and has been for a long time” but because they just take it for granted, it’s never really EXPLAINED well, and I found the historical references jarring. I’ve read historical fiction + fantasy that I’ve not had that problem with : Dread Nation, Romanov, The Hunger all spring to mind(in the first you get a backstory, and the other two an explanation of why normal people wouldn’t know this). But this was just SO MUCH without enough explanation. They just randomly talk about Wolfe and Hemingway having been known werewolves, for example.
The plot did nothing for me, which would’ve been fine if I’d loved the characters and just wanted to see them do stuff, but I didn’t really care about any of them that much.
My first, and biggest, issue was that it was fantastical revisionist history without any backstory. All the characters just were like “yep, there’s monsters and magic and has been for a long time” but because they just take it for granted, it’s never really EXPLAINED well, and I found the historical references jarring. I’ve read historical fiction + fantasy that I’ve not had that problem with : Dread Nation, Romanov, The Hunger all spring to mind(in the first you get a backstory, and the other two an explanation of why normal people wouldn’t know this). But this was just SO MUCH without enough explanation. They just randomly talk about Wolfe and Hemingway having been known werewolves, for example.
The plot did nothing for me, which would’ve been fine if I’d loved the characters and just wanted to see them do stuff, but I didn’t really care about any of them that much.
lilyrooke's review against another edition
2.0
When genderqueer teen Z becomes a zombie after a car crash, they have to adjust quickly to their new undead life. Faced with rejection, Z moves in with an elderly woman, and befriends Aysel, an unregistered werewolf. When a local psychiatrist is murdered in an apparent werewolf attack, their town becomes even more hostile to monsters, and Z and Aysel are driven together in an attempt to survive a place where most people wish that neither of them existed. More of an Urban Fantasy than a zombie novel, Out of Salem includes trans and lesbian rep, and draws interesting parallels between monster hunting and queerphobia.
My understanding is that the term 'transsexual' is outdated and widely considered offensive, unless a trans individual is comfortable using it for themselves. Therefore, I was disappointed to see Z regularly being questioned about 'oh, so you're transsexual?' or 'that means you're transsexual, right?' by characters who the reader is supposed to root for, when the accurate word to use would have been perhaps non-binary or genderqueer, which is what Z uses for themself. It's concerning to me that people might read this book and be impressed by the gender diversity, but then think using 'transsexual' is appropriate in everyday life, which it definitely is not. I thought for a while that this book was from the 80s or 90s, because it reads that way in terms of the language, and it feels as though it came before the Young Adult genre existed, but apparently it was only published a couple of years ago, so I think it's fair to question this language usage and expect better.
Out of Salem is quite hard to read because the chapters are incredibly long, and go on and on and on. I would recommend stopping at each section break instead of each chapter, because otherwise it can encourage a reading slump. I understand why Z's narration is so emotionless and holds so much narrative distance, because of them being a zombie, but I think this offered an opportunity for Aysel's PoV chapters to be far more emotionally-driven or offer the reader a closer look into her head, but her chapters felt very similar in voice to Z's. Basically the novel kept too much of an emotional distance from the characters for me to be fully engaged.
cw: body horror; transphobia; queerphobia; homophobic bullying; magical racism
- read my tbr challenge ?? / 167 -
1. Out of Salem 2/5
My understanding is that the term 'transsexual' is outdated and widely considered offensive, unless a trans individual is comfortable using it for themselves. Therefore, I was disappointed to see Z regularly being questioned about 'oh, so you're transsexual?' or 'that means you're transsexual, right?' by characters who the reader is supposed to root for, when the accurate word to use would have been perhaps non-binary or genderqueer, which is what Z uses for themself. It's concerning to me that people might read this book and be impressed by the gender diversity, but then think using 'transsexual' is appropriate in everyday life, which it definitely is not. I thought for a while that this book was from the 80s or 90s, because it reads that way in terms of the language, and it feels as though it came before the Young Adult genre existed, but apparently it was only published a couple of years ago, so I think it's fair to question this language usage and expect better.
Out of Salem is quite hard to read because the chapters are incredibly long, and go on and on and on. I would recommend stopping at each section break instead of each chapter, because otherwise it can encourage a reading slump. I understand why Z's narration is so emotionless and holds so much narrative distance, because of them being a zombie, but I think this offered an opportunity for Aysel's PoV chapters to be far more emotionally-driven or offer the reader a closer look into her head, but her chapters felt very similar in voice to Z's. Basically the novel kept too much of an emotional distance from the characters for me to be fully engaged.
cw: body horror; transphobia; queerphobia; homophobic bullying; magical racism
- read my tbr challenge ?? / 167 -
1. Out of Salem 2/5
kayesm's review against another edition
4.0
“queer undead anarchist Harry-Potter-replacement” was the perfect pitch for this book. so wonderfully diverse and full of heart!
crichar9's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
theboywithallthekeys's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5