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A review by jakewritesbooks
U Up? by Catie Disabato
4.0
In the end, this one receives the thinnest of four stars. I’m nudging it over the line because I think it has a lot going for it, even with the protagonist driving me absolutely bonkers for the last 20-30 pages.
I guess I should start with the positives: I like Catie Disabato’s writing. She has a gift for creating real, believable characters, even the ghost ones. Her vision of how witchcraft works in this world: that mediums have the power to see ghosts, with certain conditions, and with problems attached, was fun to explore. I liked how she created and focused on mostly (not exclusively) LGBTQIA+ relationships and her take on the lesbian scene in Los Angeles was enlightening. If you’re looking for a book to read for Pride and this sounds interesting to you, I’d say go for it.
There are some problems with this too, and those problems are big with a capital-P. Disabato really likes long, run on paragraphs that are packed with plot. It made for a disorienting reading experience, especially since the dialogue is either spoken in a clipped manner or written through text media. It took me two tries to start this and while I’m glad I finished it, it’s disorienting.
Also, the deeper into the story I got, the less I liked Eve. She seems like a lousy friend/lover/companion who pitches a fit when she doesn’t get what she wants. When good things happen to her in the duration of the book (don’t want to say where for spoiler reasons), I kind of rolled my eyes. Now I have no problem reading unlikable characters if there’s a reason to care for them but the more I read, the less I cared and by the end, I was glad to be done.
My other beef, which is kind of a small one in terms of the plot but: the ghosts Eve sees are mostly white people. I don’t know much about the spiritual realm but if Los Angeles was really haunted, wouldn’t it be by like the thousands of indigenous folks who were victims of colonialization?
At any rate, there’s enough here to like that I’m glad I read it but your mileage may vary.
I guess I should start with the positives: I like Catie Disabato’s writing. She has a gift for creating real, believable characters, even the ghost ones. Her vision of how witchcraft works in this world: that mediums have the power to see ghosts, with certain conditions, and with problems attached, was fun to explore. I liked how she created and focused on mostly (not exclusively) LGBTQIA+ relationships and her take on the lesbian scene in Los Angeles was enlightening. If you’re looking for a book to read for Pride and this sounds interesting to you, I’d say go for it.
There are some problems with this too, and those problems are big with a capital-P. Disabato really likes long, run on paragraphs that are packed with plot. It made for a disorienting reading experience, especially since the dialogue is either spoken in a clipped manner or written through text media. It took me two tries to start this and while I’m glad I finished it, it’s disorienting.
Also, the deeper into the story I got, the less I liked Eve. She seems like a lousy friend/lover/companion who pitches a fit when she doesn’t get what she wants. When good things happen to her in the duration of the book (don’t want to say where for spoiler reasons), I kind of rolled my eyes. Now I have no problem reading unlikable characters if there’s a reason to care for them but the more I read, the less I cared and by the end, I was glad to be done.
My other beef, which is kind of a small one in terms of the plot but: the ghosts Eve sees are mostly white people. I don’t know much about the spiritual realm but if Los Angeles was really haunted, wouldn’t it be by like the thousands of indigenous folks who were victims of colonialization?
At any rate, there’s enough here to like that I’m glad I read it but your mileage may vary.