Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes

9 reviews

thenextbookdilemma's review against another edition

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

5.0

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. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and Abandonment

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

Minor: Police brutality and Deportation

annamay1021's review against another edition

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

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

emily_mh's review against another edition

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

5.0

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 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, and Racism

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

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

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

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Bullying, Toxic friendship, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Child abuse

kmk95's review

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

4.0

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.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia

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

cecerosa's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Racism, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Hate crime, Mental illness, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Police brutality, Self harm, Classism, Colonisation, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, and Deportation

toffishay's review

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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

3.5

This was a really emotional read! I felt very connected to Yamilet as I think many young women of color who went to a predominantly white institution will. Her struggles against racism (institutional and interpersonal), homophobia, sexism and unfair/unequal familial expectations, and her strong desire to be able to just live as herself, made this a very compelling and relatable read. I also like the way that her family life is fleshed out and many of the other characters in her school and her home life are able to grow and have some additional dimension. I think that the book dragged a little at the end. We were approaching wrap up and then another piece of plot happened that felt a little too tacked on and Hallmark-y. But it is a YA story and I think it would be something that a teenager would enjoy being incorporated. A really nice read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Racism, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Biphobia, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Bullying, Self harm, Physical abuse, Outing, Alcohol, Sexism, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Violence, Domestic abuse, Cursing, Child abuse, Classism, Hate crime, Deportation, and Blood

charlie1995's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Suicidal thoughts, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Racism, Toxic friendship, Outing, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Child abuse

ericageorge91's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

4.25

**Edited**

[Re-read: 4.25⭐️] I really appreciate the fact that in this YA novel, you see a character who is sure of herself in her identity, her appearance, etc. It would have been so easy to have Yami wallowing in several events that happened in her life, so to see her be this confident at this age is so refreshing. 

I also felt connected with Yami in so many ways. I also grew up closeted and went to a PWI and dealing with homophobia and racism was a lot. I would have killed to have this book during that angsty time period. 

On my second reread, I am feeling how young this story was (which is not necessarily a bad thing!) but the repetitiveness and cheesy/cringey moments made me squirm a bit so I had to knock a few points of. I still love this story and these characters though. Rereading felt like a big, warm hug 🤗 

[Original Review: 4.75 ⭐️] This book was so soft and tender. Right from the start, the characters seemed so alive. They jumped off the page and burrowed themselves into my heart 😭 This book is a masterpiece all on its own and it does deal with the hardships of coming out (among other trigger warnings). That being said, I have been on the lookout for a book that gave me the giddy, squealing-outloud feeling that Heartstopper gave me but sapphic? 

Found it 🥹

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Outing, Police brutality, Racism, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Bullying, Child abuse, Abandonment, Hate crime, and Alcohol