Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Profoundly average with a hint of toxic behaviour and problematic rhetoric.
There are many characters who are genuinely terrible people and their flaws are, for the most part, accepted without pause.
Mental illness and being an absolute asshole don't have to go hand in hand. It would be great to have some representation where the mentally ill person isn't a cunt.
There also seemed to be an undertone of *poorly educated people are the only ones "naive" enough to be with a mentally ill person*, sometimes even discussed overtly. Highly problematic.
There are many characters who are genuinely terrible people and their flaws are, for the most part, accepted without pause.
Mental illness and being an absolute asshole don't have to go hand in hand. It would be great to have some representation where the mentally ill person isn't a cunt.
There also seemed to be an undertone of *poorly educated people are the only ones "naive" enough to be with a mentally ill person*, sometimes even discussed overtly. Highly problematic.
Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for providing me an e-arc of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review
Ten years after the publication of the book, an audiobook is being released. As a reader in 2023, I would definitely say that the treatment of mental illness in this book feels dated, but that actually is the case...
Ash and those around him blame a lot of his behaviors on being depressed. It's used as a crutch and even his best friends believe stereotypically negative things about him. But 2013 was a time when just talking about mental health was a pretty big deal and the book does have a happy ending and the most problematic friends are confronted and see the error of their ways.
Dated mental health treatment aside, Glitterland was an enjoyable M/M romance about a pair of unlikely lovers. Their relationship slowly progressed from one night stand, to dating, to a breakup after a colossal communication failure, and finally happily ever after. They were an easy pair to route for. Overall, it was a fun listen.
Ten years after the publication of the book, an audiobook is being released. As a reader in 2023, I would definitely say that the treatment of mental illness in this book feels dated, but that actually is the case...
Ash and those around him blame a lot of his behaviors on being depressed. It's used as a crutch and even his best friends believe stereotypically negative things about him. But 2013 was a time when just talking about mental health was a pretty big deal and the book does have a happy ending and the most problematic friends are confronted and see the error of their ways.
Dated mental health treatment aside, Glitterland was an enjoyable M/M romance about a pair of unlikely lovers. Their relationship slowly progressed from one night stand, to dating, to a breakup after a colossal communication failure, and finally happily ever after. They were an easy pair to route for. Overall, it was a fun listen.
dark
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Encounter counter: 4 or 5 I think.
CW: biphobia, self harm, suicidal ideation, fatphobia, character with bipolar depression, past hospitalisation due to suicide attempt, attempted on page drug use, parental neglect, panic attack, outing of a character’s mental health
Kinda got me in the feels here. As much work as we do to destigmatize mental illness, I also think we can make it all unicorns and hearts, and it isn’t.
ETA on reread, I just feel this book so much! Ash’s just giving up, and self-loathing, and remarkable self-centeredness that masquerades as self-deprecation (and vice versa). It puts me back, knowing how it feels to not want to keep going. And how long it took for me to be able to commit to this: “today is a day in which I will not want to die.”
I just feel so understood. and Im glad Alexis Hall keeps writing, with the humor and wisdom and grace that I feel characterize his work.
ETA on reread, I just feel this book so much! Ash’s just giving up, and self-loathing, and remarkable self-centeredness that masquerades as self-deprecation (and vice versa). It puts me back, knowing how it feels to not want to keep going. And how long it took for me to be able to commit to this: “today is a day in which I will not want to die.”
I just feel so understood. and Im glad Alexis Hall keeps writing, with the humor and wisdom and grace that I feel characterize his work.
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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
Bipolar, anxious, depressed Ash has a one night stand with a bronze glitter pirate on the night of his friend's bachelor party. After suffering from a panic attack in the middle of the night Ash runs out thinking he will never see Darian again. A while later Darian shows up at a book signing to face him. After that Ash can't stay away from Darian. Unfortunately he has so many issues with depression and self-esteem and ends up treating Darian horribly. I liked this book but it wasn't as good as For Real which I read first. Ash has so many issues but he learns that maybe he still have a life too. HEA
An Essex glitter pirate and morose academic love story?
Say less
*An ARC was provided by NetGalley and the author in exchange for an honest review*
Say less
*An ARC was provided by NetGalley and the author in exchange for an honest review*
Imagine, if you will, that you are a mentally ill queer who manages to land a full time position that requires moving from one's home area of bountiful books (and even more bountiful obscenely high rents) to one with such, jumpstarting a transition that makes you realize just how much effort is required to move 700+ physical books and their shelving alongside everything else that composes a life. At that point, you'll likely to be more eager than you have been in decades to restrict your reading scope to your immediate shelves that you spent so many hours loading and unloading. However, you've also realized that, after years of repression and other unhealthy response to abusive domestic environments and threatening real world constraints, those hundreds of pounds that constitute your library don't actually jive much what would typically offer you something in the way of quality reading representation. Fortunately, you're literally paid to trawl the Internets in search of the latest that sufficient numbers of your patrons will consider the greatest, and so when this work, with all its glorious promise that couples cathartic portrayals of suicidal ideation with reaffirming displays of the road to living, shows up in channels of your automatic collection development services, it'd be rather absurd if you didn't snatch it for yourself and guarantee its exemption from at least two years of being weeded. What I found after all this were pages were I laughed, painfully sympathized, became turned on, and enjoyed, but when compared to the long intense history of my reading, the package as a whole only came up to a 'like' in my holistic evaluation. Not the greatest result to the exertions described above, but with something like this, sometimes it really is the journey that counts.
The moments when I liked this? When the characterization was credible, the implications of mental illness were relatable, and the development rode along a path that was hardly easy, but also refrained from being heartlessly stingy in its coincidences, its sympathies, its good ol' fashioned luck o' the draws and gloriously inspired fortunes. The moments when I didn't? When the writing was repetitive, the tropes rode the simplistic train a tad to long, and closures seemed timed more to the remaining page count than to a believable evolution from one breed of relationship to another. Sure, the sex scenes were good more often than not, and there's something inimitably indulgent about a romance that really can do the comedic in a far deeper and more meaningful sense, especially when clinical diagnoses are involved, than the genre typically implies. However, living with suicidal ideation and the common side effect of becoming an unmitigated cunt for as long as I have, I've had my fill of cheap solutions and unfulfilling finishes, so my relative lack of experience with the queer romcom doesn't mean my literary standards are lowered any when it comes to quality emotional developments tracked through narrative form. In any case, I'm glad the author is doing well book publishing wise despite all my griping. There are myriad stories involving falling in love while losing your queer little mind that have been taken out back and shot like a dog in the morning dew for the past how many centuries, and we, who pay tribute to those of the past who stood in the line of fire so that we of the present could put pen to paper, have a lot of catching up to do.
After having this book out for who knows how many weeks (the perks of being a librarian is being able to renew a book indefinitely (although I swear I checked for holds before doing so)), it is time to put this back on the shelf and let it fend for itself in a community that isn't entirely conservative, but is still along way from equitable if my coworker's unwillingness to take my they/them pronouns in stride after six and a half months is anything to go by. Speaking of work, the upcoming first day of June will mark my having been at my workplace a full year, and the fact that I'm finishing this nearly in line with that is rather meaningful in its own right. For while I can't say that this is a favorite, or even that I really liked it, the read still felt like my first fullest exploration of the newly found queer self (mentally ill and all) that I've been stumbling over since my relocation. It was far from pretty, and the fact that the narrator was often a massive git didn't preclude his ability to say in words what I've nastily kept to myself more often than tends to happen in a mind that is veers more towards well adjusted than anything else. However, that sort of ugly introspection is often what's required when it comes to the whole bildungsroman sort of thing if one ever has a hope of not passing along one's inherited abusiveness to the next generation, and the fact that this book helped get me that much further along that healing path is worth a great deal. So, if you're wondering what's up with the shiny new edition for a ten year old book or thumbing through this author's back catalog in search of something that isn't on hold for the next thirty years at your local libraries, I can't promise that you'll like it. However, if you're like me and have a little more invested in the whole 'find something worth living more' than the typical sane person, it could be worth giving this a try. Of course, take your meds and don't blow off your therapist, but sometimes you have to laugh in the whole muck of it all, and this book was pretty decent at making that happen while positively guaranteeing that folks were laughing with you, not at you. And sometimes, that's worth the world till we all fall into the sun.
The moments when I liked this? When the characterization was credible, the implications of mental illness were relatable, and the development rode along a path that was hardly easy, but also refrained from being heartlessly stingy in its coincidences, its sympathies, its good ol' fashioned luck o' the draws and gloriously inspired fortunes. The moments when I didn't? When the writing was repetitive, the tropes rode the simplistic train a tad to long, and closures seemed timed more to the remaining page count than to a believable evolution from one breed of relationship to another. Sure, the sex scenes were good more often than not, and there's something inimitably indulgent about a romance that really can do the comedic in a far deeper and more meaningful sense, especially when clinical diagnoses are involved, than the genre typically implies. However, living with suicidal ideation and the common side effect of becoming an unmitigated cunt for as long as I have, I've had my fill of cheap solutions and unfulfilling finishes, so my relative lack of experience with the queer romcom doesn't mean my literary standards are lowered any when it comes to quality emotional developments tracked through narrative form. In any case, I'm glad the author is doing well book publishing wise despite all my griping. There are myriad stories involving falling in love while losing your queer little mind that have been taken out back and shot like a dog in the morning dew for the past how many centuries, and we, who pay tribute to those of the past who stood in the line of fire so that we of the present could put pen to paper, have a lot of catching up to do.
After having this book out for who knows how many weeks (the perks of being a librarian is being able to renew a book indefinitely (although I swear I checked for holds before doing so)), it is time to put this back on the shelf and let it fend for itself in a community that isn't entirely conservative, but is still along way from equitable if my coworker's unwillingness to take my they/them pronouns in stride after six and a half months is anything to go by. Speaking of work, the upcoming first day of June will mark my having been at my workplace a full year, and the fact that I'm finishing this nearly in line with that is rather meaningful in its own right. For while I can't say that this is a favorite, or even that I really liked it, the read still felt like my first fullest exploration of the newly found queer self (mentally ill and all) that I've been stumbling over since my relocation. It was far from pretty, and the fact that the narrator was often a massive git didn't preclude his ability to say in words what I've nastily kept to myself more often than tends to happen in a mind that is veers more towards well adjusted than anything else. However, that sort of ugly introspection is often what's required when it comes to the whole bildungsroman sort of thing if one ever has a hope of not passing along one's inherited abusiveness to the next generation, and the fact that this book helped get me that much further along that healing path is worth a great deal. So, if you're wondering what's up with the shiny new edition for a ten year old book or thumbing through this author's back catalog in search of something that isn't on hold for the next thirty years at your local libraries, I can't promise that you'll like it. However, if you're like me and have a little more invested in the whole 'find something worth living more' than the typical sane person, it could be worth giving this a try. Of course, take your meds and don't blow off your therapist, but sometimes you have to laugh in the whole muck of it all, and this book was pretty decent at making that happen while positively guaranteeing that folks were laughing with you, not at you. And sometimes, that's worth the world till we all fall into the sun.