camokclay's reviews
701 reviews

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

emotional funny mysterious reflective

4.25

Pisces man

Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt

challenging dark reflective tense

3.0

🤢🤨😬🤮🫣 me reading this book. READ AND HEED THE CONTENT WARNINGS!! Had I known what this was  going to be about probably would’ve tapped out

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler

fast-paced

5.0

I didnt love all of the stories but the ones that I did definitely got me thinking. Always enjoy her writing so much. Bloodchild, Amnesty, The Book of (?)

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

The black liberals are thriving

Mangos and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrera

emotional hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Instant classic

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

I appreciated how honest this book was in a way that was really unapologetic. I really appreciated how Lamya spoke about her journey of queerness and opening up to people about it and her elaborating about the boundary not to tell her parents. She challenges the narrative that queerness is validated by being out about it and upon reflection caused me to challenge, reflect on, and change previously held beliefs. I enjoyed the mix of stories in here and it was nice to learn more about the Quran.

A World Between by Emily Hashimoto

slow-paced

1.5

Where to start…

The unrelenting liberalism has got to be the thing that annoyed me most 😭 Eleanor annoyed me most. She’s constantly going on about how she cares so much and wants to make a positive impact on the world meanwhile they both recognize the role they’re playing in gentrification and continue doing it relentlessly…? Eleanor *vaguely* brings up Israel/Zionism in her family and community but in no way at all comments on or condemns the genocide being enacted upon Palestinians… (it’s Free Palestine over here in case you didn’t know so 🖕🏽). Her “caring” for community is so ingenuine beyond wanting to make herself feel good it’s soooo annoying to hear about so constantly. Mind you more than half the time a Black person is brought up and described, their skin is depicted as “beautiful black skin”…? Did you know that actually tells us nothing about their skin tone? 

Secondly the romance and writing  just wasn’t that good. Tbh I was rooting more for Dhaval & Leena more than I was for Eleanor & Leena. I feel like the writing wasn’t the most sharp… like Leena & Eleanor had a lot of similarities with how their characters behaved and it just landed to me as an inability to differentiate them in meaningful ways. Like yeah they’re depicted as being opposites with one being more detail oriented vs messy but the way they interacted with each other felt as thought the behaviors would just get flip flopped between the two during different time periods.

MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE OF THE BOOK—there was no reason this book needed to be nearly this long!!! But if you’re going to have the book be this long at LEAST GIVE US THEIR ZODIAC SIGNS. It’s ridiculous this book covered all 12 of the months but not once were birthdays celebrated… so unrealistic and what a poor choice of detail to skip over 👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽 what makes this even more annoying is how they bring up zodiacs and how much gays love them…like ok yes now tell us what the characters are. This was a general theme in the book. There were so many things they could have elaborated or explored more and didn’t in favor of describing minute details that are way less relevant to the story.

While this book was very gay, not much of it was queer at all. Not really trying to push beyond or have us question or think more deeply about anything…

like let’s be so clear that Leena did not have to come out to her family to live a happy gay life (s/o to Hijab Butch Blues for pushing me to realize this). This book draws the conclusions that this really should be the case.

similarly with the comments about how bisexuality was handled *poorly* Leena did not have to be with a man to have her gayness negated and the author could have done a hell of a lot more to actually explore and emphasize this.

What a performative flop. Will not read another of their books. Not surprised this was recommended to me by white gay ppl

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

dark emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No

3.25

This is a very character driven book and that is not really my style so it did feel quite slow at times. A lot of narration about the day to day tasks which I do find interesting ~in moderation~. I liked the twist & tension that was building. Loved the conclusions they ended on.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I enjoyed the concepts they were exploring and the sci-fi elements weaved in. At times throughout the book it did feel like it dragged for a bit. Long book, which I generally think worked well though maybe could’ve been like 50 pages shorter. Near the end it did start to feel a bit more disjointed—but where the plot went felt real (unfortunately). Excited to read more of their books!

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Wow, this was a really good book. I was very tempted to give it a 5 star review. My drawback is that the romance was something I was deeply invested in, the buildup was *chefs kiss* as it approached the end though I was not satisfied what we were given

they barely gave us anything??? I was fiending for a sex scene 😭

very promising for a debut!