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A review by lawbooks600
Do You Speak Chocolate? by Cas Lester
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Representation: Main character with dyslexia, side Asian character
Trigger warnings: Refugee experiences, grief and loss depiction, death of relatives, divorce, military violence and war themes, gun violence, physical injury, implied PTSD, displacement
7/10, first off that's a lot of trigger warnings right there so be careful before reading this if you don't want to get triggered by any of these. That being said I had this on my to read pile for a while and one of the two libraries I normally go to has this so not long after I picked it up, cracked it open and at first I thought it was going to be about chocolate but no! It went in an unexpectedly different direction from what I first thought. Now then, it starts with the main character Jaz whose last name I forgot and what sets her apart from other characters is that she has dyslexia and I don't know of any other character who has this and also the book has a few... unique things going for it. For starters I didn't like the writing style at times when it used Internet slang that should've been reserved for text message or social media scenes and of course, the adverb overuse like they were "virtually" everywhere and "literally" on every page if you know what I mean. Oh and the typos, so frustrating to read. Jaz after a few pages meets the new girl called Nadima but here's the special thing about her, one she's a refugee, two she's either Syrian or Kurdish and three she doesn't speak much English but the blurb lied when it said she doesn't speak a word of English.
At first Jaz does not know how exactly to approach Nadima and sometimes she makes some wrong decisions (a lot of them) and that almost made me lower the rating to three stars if it wasn't for the redemption of this when Jaz and Nadima got along again after Jaz used her as a charity case when she needed support. I liked when Jaz tried the Turkish Delight chocolate and also the emoji scenes when she couldn't use English due to the language barrier but on occasions I don't get the book like why did Jaz decide to sell chocolate when A, no one wanted it and B, it was against the rules? And another time when the family tree project triggered Nadima since some of her family died in the war but Jaz calls that insensitive and shouts at a teacher? That refugee part was hard to read but it's in a similar vein to No Ballet Shoes in Syria or Inside Out and Back Again. The ending was nice when Jaz went to a Kurdish restaurant and as I said earlier she restored her friendship ending this on a high note.
Trigger warnings: Refugee experiences, grief and loss depiction, death of relatives, divorce, military violence and war themes, gun violence, physical injury, implied PTSD, displacement
7/10, first off that's a lot of trigger warnings right there so be careful before reading this if you don't want to get triggered by any of these. That being said I had this on my to read pile for a while and one of the two libraries I normally go to has this so not long after I picked it up, cracked it open and at first I thought it was going to be about chocolate but no! It went in an unexpectedly different direction from what I first thought. Now then, it starts with the main character Jaz whose last name I forgot and what sets her apart from other characters is that she has dyslexia and I don't know of any other character who has this and also the book has a few... unique things going for it. For starters I didn't like the writing style at times when it used Internet slang that should've been reserved for text message or social media scenes and of course, the adverb overuse like they were "virtually" everywhere and "literally" on every page if you know what I mean. Oh and the typos, so frustrating to read. Jaz after a few pages meets the new girl called Nadima but here's the special thing about her, one she's a refugee, two she's either Syrian or Kurdish and three she doesn't speak much English but the blurb lied when it said she doesn't speak a word of English.
At first Jaz does not know how exactly to approach Nadima and sometimes she makes some wrong decisions (a lot of them) and that almost made me lower the rating to three stars if it wasn't for the redemption of this when Jaz and Nadima got along again after Jaz used her as a charity case when she needed support. I liked when Jaz tried the Turkish Delight chocolate and also the emoji scenes when she couldn't use English due to the language barrier but on occasions I don't get the book like why did Jaz decide to sell chocolate when A, no one wanted it and B, it was against the rules? And another time when the family tree project triggered Nadima since some of her family died in the war but Jaz calls that insensitive and shouts at a teacher? That refugee part was hard to read but it's in a similar vein to No Ballet Shoes in Syria or Inside Out and Back Again. The ending was nice when Jaz went to a Kurdish restaurant and as I said earlier she restored her friendship ending this on a high note.