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emilybolivia's reviews
580 reviews
Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec
4.5
I saw it on the new releases shelf at the library and I’m glad I picked it up. It is short, challenging, and beautiful. It is a small part memoir, part history, mostly call to growth and action. A a reckoning of the past with someone holding your hand the whole time. Highly recommend.
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
5.0
The perfect teen romance. It is so sweet and somehow manages to be both friends to lovers and enemies to lovers and second chance all at the same time. As always, Hibbert does an amazing job of tackling living and loving with a diagnosis.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
4.5
The audiobook narration was terrible. Didn’t do justice at all to the content and actually was so distractingly awful it made me not want to pick it up between breaks. The narrator read like a deadpan movie voiceover. To book was a bit choppy and non-linear but carefully researched. I always appreciate when an investigative non-fiction book wraps up with concrete calls to action, which were helpful here.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
3.5
The two long letters at the end had more action and introspection than I was expecting. Overall it felt more half-baked than more successful novellas.
The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
4.5
The second half of this final book in the series was the best! I loved the character development, especially the interpersonal relationships. YA at its best.
What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry, Oprah Winfrey
5.0
Highly recommend enjoying on audio. It reads just like a podcast. It is so engaging and rich. It is eye-opening and also compassionate. A great primer on trauma with challenges and ideas for individuals, practitioners in caring fields, and also systems-level observations. It is great.
Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
5.0
Elizabeth Acevedo is such an amazing author. The prose is beautiful and poetic (obviously) and the characters are so full. She did well reading this but the multiple POVs were hard to follow on audio through the first half. I didn’t want it to end!
Nobody, Somebody, Anybody by Kelly McClorey
2.75
There is an audience for this book and I think the author did right by them, it isn’t me though. This book is soooo New England WASPY and cis-het there aren’t even really character descriptions. You’re just supposed to know, and you do. Also, Kristen Arnett blurbs it as thoroughly hilarious and I didn’t crack a smile the entire book. If anything it was painfully sad. If it is supposed to be funny because you’re laughing at the characters’ vulnerabilities then yikes.
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
3.75
As a memoir in essays this is beautifully written and so raw. As nature writing in essays this is lacking, I’m sorry to say. I wanted to like it more. It is a great accessible way to toe into science writing for folks who don’t normally read it.
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
3.75
Really picked up in the second half. I’m confused why this is categorized as LGBTQ+ when it is 95% homophonic rhetoric for one character and an absence of denial of queerness by another character. The series is entertaining but make no mistake, I am here for Chainsaw only. I have never loved a fictional bird more!