Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester by Maya MacGregor

28 reviews

spark_879's review

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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evelynyle_88's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The story is really creepy somehow, but heartwarming in some way. I love how Sam Sylvester enganged himself with his autistic (neurodivergent) condition in his life.
I love every minute reading this!

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aexileigh's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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betweentheshelves's review

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emotional 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

4.0

Not only is there great representation in this (the main character is nonbinary, autistic, and on the ace spectrum!) but I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery in here. There's a few hints of something almost supernatural at work (kind of like a ghost), and the characters were great. I especially loved Sam's relationship with their dad. Seeing such a supportive dad in a YA book like this is something I love to see. And a single dad at that!

I will say I didn't necessarily think the romance was necessary for the plot, and it fell a little flat for me. It almost felt like it happened too quickly, and I think I would have rathered that maybe it was just a hint at the end of the story.

However, the mystery worked so well, with strong twists and turns unfolding at every turn. If you like your mysteries with a contemporary spin, I'd definitely recommend this one!

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platoniciris's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book, wow. This book was something else entirely from anything I was expecting. I loved every page of it. It was intimidating as it’s outside my usual genres but I would read this again.

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onceuponabookcase's review

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I was sent this review copy for free by GMC Distribution on behalf of Astra Young Readers for the purposes of providing an honest review.

I was super excited for The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester by Maya MacGregor from when I first heard about it. I believe it's the first YA book published in the UK by a non-binary author living in the UK. That's massive, and I was so keen to read it! And I loved it!

Sam is an autistic, queer, non-binary teen who is interested in people who died before they turned 19. They keep a scrapbook about them, their lives, and their deaths. After surviving a physical homophobic and transphobic attack, Sam and their dad have moved to Oregon to start afresh. But after only a few days, Sam realises they're living in the house of Billy Clement, one of the teens in their book. Everyone says it was a tragic accident, but there are things that just don't fit. With their new friends, Sam decides to figure out what happened to Billy, and get him Justice.

I honestly loved this book! I loved enjoyed MacGregor's writing; it flows so well, like water sliding over stones, and it was just so enjoyable to be carried along with it. I can't put my finger on exactly what, but there was something about the flow of the writing that's been missing from books I've read recently, so reading Sam Sylvester was like finding something you didn't know you had misplaced. Then there's Sam themself. I adored them! I cannot speak to the autism and non-binary rep, as I'm never, but Sam Sylvester is an #OwnVoices story, and it felt well done. It sounds like something that's really obvious, but Sam's autism is a part of who they are, part of their normal everyday life, finding it difficult to read people sometimes, or feeling overwhelmed on occasion, for example. This isn't something I've read before in books with autistic characters, and I think it's because this isn't a book about a person with autism, it's about a person solving a murder. Sam is autistic, and it's a big part of their life and who they are, but that's not what the story is about, you know? So it felt very different to me, that it wasn't the sole focus.

Sam Sylvester touches on many serious topics, some briefly, some longer. Sam has been through a great deal. Because they're autistic, they were in foster care until they were 7, when they were adopted by their dad, Junius. Sam is white, and Junius is Black, and the book touches on the question in people's faces about their family when they realise their relationship. Junius (who is aroace) is also a single father, adopting Sam on his own. The story even touches on the difficulties Junius experienced as a Black man having to deal with the police when Sam was attacked. He's also the best freaking dad to have ever existed! He's extremely supportive and understands Sam and their needs. I'm not sure I've ever read a more loving dad. But he's also concerned, because of Sam's attack and their trauma, and wanting to keep them safe. So when they're bullied at school, he becomes increasingly concerned - but Sam is actually feeling like they've found their place for the first time in their life, where they're fully accepted for who they are by their new friends and their teachers. Sam has experienced trauma, though, and it's almost ever-present in their life, even when they're doing ok. Sam also has anxiety, and because they're autistic, there are a few moments when things are difficult to process and overwhelming for them. Then there are instances of homophobia, biphobia and bi-erasure experienced by Sam's friends. There's this one moment when a boy admits to being attracted to Sam, but, as Sam isn't a girl, is confused about what that means about his sexuality. It was such a beautiful moment, because even though Sam is frustrated and uncomfortable by this guy asking them if they're gay now, you can still feel the tenderness towards this character in their confusion. There are actually a few characters in this book that you might think on first meeting them that they're going to cause problems for Sam, but actually turn out to be good people. They may not get everything right, but they're trying, and are accepting of Sam. It was refreshing, and really sweet.

The mystery itself is a major, major slow burn. This isn't really the kind of story where you can come up with many theories of what happened, because there isn't a huge amount of sleuthing. A conversation will be had, or someone will do something that has Sam connecting dots, but it seems mostly to come without any proper evidence. They're really small things, so it's almost a bit of a leap that Sam takes at times. To be honest, I wasn't really invested in the mystery. I don't think it was tight enough or developed well enough. This isn't really a story with twists and turns that will keep you sitting on the edge of your seat. If I was reviewing this book solely on the mystery, this review would probably be quite a negative review. The reveal was a little disappointing; I didn't see it coming, because it's such a slow burn mystery, there isn't much to base theories on, but once you do realise who was behind the murder and why, it just fell a little flat for me. I also didn't really feel the romance between Sam and Shep. Honestly, beyond Sam's relationship with Junius, I feel most of the relationships were underdeveloped to a certain degree. I could see why they all liked each other, I just didn't see what the fact that they're alls such good friends was based on.

But as I said, I adored the writing, and I loved Sam. They're such a fully formed character, reading this book was like hanging out with a friend. There were definitely aspects of this book that could have been better, but you don't really needs a reason to spend time with someone you like, and that's what reading this book was like for me. I'm not sure that really sells the story, but I loved this book a hell of a lot simply because of Sam, and I think that says something.

Thank you to Astra Young Readers and GMC Distribution for the review copy.

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ankonyx's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

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sarah984's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

I feel terrible giving this book such a low rating but I didn't like it at all.

I will say first off that I really liked Sam's relationship with their dad, and the way that emotions are described being interpreted through facial expressions and the general autistic point of view.

Every character that wasn't Sam or their dad was pretty one-note, though. I kept forgetting about Sky even though he was part of the core friend group, and it took me like half the book to realize Aidan and Dylan were two different guys. There were two different characters whose entire personality was "mean girl". The slang is really embarrassing (stop saying emoji!) and the constant brand name and meme references are already dated.

The mystery was also just really bad. The perpetrator is pretty easy to guess

because it's the one adult with zero redeeming qualities.

The author also seems to want to write a book where true crime sleuths save the day while acknowledging how damaging and ghoulish true crime superfans can be and that did not work for me. The way everything worked out comes across as "digging at old wounds and invading peoples' privacy is bad unless I do it."

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lettuce_read's review against another edition

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4.0

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howlinglibraries's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I really wanted to love this, especially because there's so little nonbinary and/or autistic representation in books (especially from authors who are nonbinary and autistic, too!), but unfortunately even the amount of love I held for the diversity in these characters couldn't redeem this story from how much the narrative voice and writing dragged it down.

Not only did the dialogue and characters feel stilted and flat much of the time, but the romance struck me as entirely unnecessary. I love a romantic subplot and it's very rare that I wish a book had skipped it altogether, but Sam and Shep didn't have any romantic chemistry and the formation of their relationship felt rushed and one-dimensional. The friendships between Sam and the other side characters were also difficult to connect to, with the only real exception being the surprising level of warmth I felt towards the unlikely closeness between Sam and Aiden.

I feel terrible for complaining so much, but while we're at it, while the mystery did keep me engaged, the killer reveal was predictable and their motive was anti-climactic. A slight spoiler here:

based on the reoccurring theme of hate crimes, I fully anticipated the killer's motive to be rooted in that same plot, yet it wasn't, and for some reason it left me feeling like the entire book had carried out all of this trauma for a half-formed purpose in the end.

All of the negatives aside, there were a few things I loved, and the greatest of these was, without a doubt, Junius Sylvester. Sam's dad is an absolute shining beacon of wonderful parenting in a world of books full of lackluster or terrible fathers, and the fact that he was also ace/aro and a Black man (who occasionally touched on topics important to him specifically, such as the eggshells he walks on in his daily life to avoid being seen as a "problem") was an added bonus on top of his unconditional love for Sam and his delightful dad jokes. Honestly, 5 stars for Junius alone.

Altogether, The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester is a book that I had high hopes for, but it fell short on almost every front. While I'll still recommend it heartily to anyone looking for great nonbinary, autistic, and asexual rep (as Sam themself is also ace!), I wouldn't go into it looking for a fully cohesive story or a thrilling mystery.

✨ Representation: Sam is nonbinary, autistic, ace, and uses they/them pronouns, and Sam stims (including self-harm stims); Shep is Latinx and bi; Junius (Sam's dad) is Black, ace, and aro; multiple side characters are queer and/or BIPOC

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