Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by citrus_seasalt
Thirsty by Jas Hammonds
4.5
I knew this would fuck me up a bit when I saw both Cory McCarthy and Mark Oshiro blurbed itš
(emphasis on Cory. Dear god I canāt go through what I went through reading āMan Oā Warā again. Very glad I didnāt come close to that LMAOOO)
Literally could not put this book down, I think it says a lot about Jas Hammonds as a writer that this could deal with a topic as heavy as alcohol addiction, and I still didnāt want to stop reading it. Blakeās experience differs a lot from my other friends who struggled with alcoholism, but I could still uncomfortably feel her spiral. (I dunno. I have other unhealthy coping mechanisms that arenāt drinking, and am going through a kinda pretty terrible depressive episode right now, so her thought process was unfortunately something I could resonate with in some capacity.) A lot of the characters were realistic, too, and I loved seeing their depth when it couldāve been easy to generalize them as heroes or villains in Blakeās narrative. (Though, there are clear-cut antagonists, like Roxanne and Ella.) In general, a lot of the difficult conversations had between family or friends felt super realistic?!
And I know other reviewers have talked about it, but I thought how Blake dealt with her mom, and her shortcomings as a white parent trying to avoid talking about race with her biracial kid, was handled really well imo. Especially in the South where this book takes place, many white women who try to be anti-racist end up dancing around racism instead, in a super condescending way. (I have aunts who definitely talk exactly like how Blakeās mom does.) Iām glad more biracial or transracial adoptee writers can call it out in their books.
My only gripes are that I found elements of the story to be predictable, and I donāt know how to feel about the outing scenes being resolved so quickly (even though I know that, yeah, Blake loses control of herself when she drinks). But I definitely want to check out Jas Hammondās debut now, this was amazing!
Literally could not put this book down, I think it says a lot about Jas Hammonds as a writer that this could deal with a topic as heavy as alcohol addiction, and I still didnāt want to stop reading it. Blakeās experience differs a lot from my other friends who struggled with alcoholism, but I could still uncomfortably feel her spiral. (I dunno. I have other unhealthy coping mechanisms that arenāt drinking, and am going through a kinda pretty terrible depressive episode right now, so her thought process was unfortunately something I could resonate with in some capacity.) A lot of the characters were realistic, too, and I loved seeing their depth when it couldāve been easy to generalize them as heroes or villains in Blakeās narrative. (Though, there are clear-cut antagonists, like Roxanne and Ella.) In general, a lot of the difficult conversations had between family or friends felt super realistic?!
And I know other reviewers have talked about it, but I thought how Blake dealt with her mom, and her shortcomings as a white parent trying to avoid talking about race with her biracial kid, was handled really well imo. Especially in the South where this book takes place, many white women who try to be anti-racist end up dancing around racism instead, in a super condescending way. (I have aunts who definitely talk exactly like how Blakeās mom does.) Iām glad more biracial or transracial adoptee writers can call it out in their books.
My only gripes are that I found elements of the story to be predictable, and I donāt know how to feel about the outing scenes being resolved so quickly (even though I know that, yeah, Blake loses control of herself when she drinks). But I definitely want to check out Jas Hammondās debut now, this was amazing!