Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes

13 reviews

bookish_perseus's review against another edition

3.5

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad 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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship

Moderate: Biphobia, Child abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Outing, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Deportation

Minor: Body shaming, Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Vomit, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Colonisation

warning_incoming_disasterpiece's review

4.5

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad 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: Yes

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, Alcohol

Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Suicide attempt

Minor: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Deportation

greenpearls's review

5.0

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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: Complicated

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Outing

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality

Minor: Child abuse, Deportation

bg_oseman_fan's review

5.0

emotional funny hopeful 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

---

this book was everything. it was so heartfelt and funny. loved the characters. loved the things i saw coming as much as the things i didn’t. a great coming of age story. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia

Minor: Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Grief, Outing, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation

lyriklara's review

4.25

emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad 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: Yes

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Xenophobia, Suicide attempt

Moderate: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Child abuse

thenextbookdilemma's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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: No

---

Y’all, I sometimes think maybe I’ve moved on from YA only to get sucked back in—because I am a sucker for coming of age stories. Something everyone can relate to is the absolute agony and euphoria of being a teenager—all your feelings are SO BIG and so many important discoveries about ourselves are made during this time. I just love being brought back into those feelings, to feel angsty and unsure and read inner (and outer) monologues of kids who haven’t fully learned to filter themselves. It’s always just so refreshing for me. And I almost always cry. 

I loved A Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School. The voice of Yamilet was so strong, her turbulent teenage feelings and identity just dripped off the page (or my headphones, as I listed to the audiobook and it was spectacular). She deals with so much in this book, from hiding her queerness from family and friends, betrayals from people she trusts most, the deportation of a parent, and finally, to having an agonizing crush. 

She grapples with not knowing how the people in her life will react to her queerness, and whether she will lose everything important to her if she…comes out. This was devastating to experience with Yamilet because unfortunately, not everyone in this book is *a good human being* and….

While Yami struggles with keeping herself closeted, she is also forced to deal with her fractured family, and the classism, homophobia, and racism that run rampant at her new private catholic school. All in all, it’s a lot. 

This book forces the reader to consider the reality of possible homelessness in the face of coming out to your parents, an ongoing fear for Yamilet throughout the book. We know this is a reality for far too many queer teens and I held so much anger and fear for Yamilet and she worked to provide herself with a plan if she were to be kicked out of her home. 

This book isn’t all turmoil and at the center is a sweet budding crush and Yamilet’s internal monologues made me laugh out loud, she is funny y’all. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how much I loved her relationship with her brother. 

If you like YA then I could not recommend this more. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Abandonment

Moderate: Child abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship

Minor: Police brutality, Deportation

annamay1021's review against another edition

3.75

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective 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: Yes

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Deportation

emily_mh's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful 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: No

---

I don’t really feel capable of giving a proper, detailed review of this book because I am simply in awe of it. Just know that it is a perfect book about queerness, lesbians pining for each other, a gorgeous sibling relationship, celebrating every part of who you are, complicated families, mental health, the trauma of religious bigotry, being Brown and queer in a majority allocishet white space, forced separation from family, relearning to trust, rebonding with loved ones, simple and massive moments of joy, and ultimately, hope. I loved reading every second of it. 

My favourite quote was: “I can’t make him love himself. The closest I can get is loving myself unapologetically right in front of him.” 

Rep: lesbian Chicana MC, lesbian Chinese-American LI, bisexual Chicano SC, Native American (Navajo) SC, queer Black SC 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Religious bigotry, Alcohol

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Xenophobia, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Lesbophobia, Outing, Deportation

Minor: Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism

Moderate: forced separation from family, disownment, suicidal ideation Minor: loss of a loved one, colourism, one use of the Spanish homophobic m-slur, one use of the lesbophobic d-slur

dacha's review

4.0

emotional funny fast-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

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia

Moderate: Bullying, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship

Minor: Child abuse

kmk95's review

4.0

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-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

---

such a lovely, fun read. every time i read queer ya i feel like a little bit of my inner child is healing. this book had LAYERS of queer experience, which i really appreciated. i especially loved that FOUR (4!!) of the central characters were queer (i wont say which ones) although

someday i'd love to read a book where there are many main queer characters and they don't all end up in a relationship bc queer friendship is also so precious and magical? but still included a lot of good supportive friendship vibes, esp with the main sibling relationship

. only other note was that at times the book seemed to be trying to do a little too much and so some parts felt more like blocky cultural exposition, but that still was nice because as a young reader, i probably would have appreciated the small moments that explained why a bi person might call themselves gay, etc. overall, really lovely, esp for folks with some residual religious trauma (esp catholic, ofc). loved and would read again.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia

Moderate: Child abuse, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Deportation