CW: Suicide, threat of murder, homophobia, gaslighting, emotional abuse, toxic relationship, death of a parent, physical abuse, cancer, addiction, grief, abandonment of a child, abandonment of an elder.

Are you surprised? Because honestly, I was!

To me, “Arthur and Teddy are Coming Out” is marketed as this lighthearted, heartwarming little book about a grandpa and a grandson both coming out to their family members as being gay. I honestly don’t think this book was either heartwarming nor lighthearted in the way that the author aimed for.

[And here is where it gets a bit spoilery – prob don’t read on if you plan to read this book….]

A few of my biggest gripes: This beautifully composed man comes out to his family as being gay at age 79, with full acceptance and support of his ex wife. His daughter FLIPS out and refuses to talk to him for over half of the book, forcing her children (including Teddy) from talking to him also. She then kicks her son out of the house when he declares he is also gay. When she (surprise!) has a complete change of heart in the third act.. Literally no one calls her out for being a shitty human, nor does she seem to have any character growth from the whole experience.

Teddy was my least fav character – he spends the entire book whinging about the silver spoon he has been given, yet literally every time he faces any sniff of hardship, he runs to others to fix his shit. I honestly don’t have enough words to describe how deeply problematic his romantic arc was, so I will just say that the three boys were all as horribly gaslighty as each other and they all deserve each other.

Last thing – why is Arthur suddenly super famous and on the cover of multiple magazines/newspapers for coming out as gay? Does that seriously warrant a front page…?! The mind boggles.

Parts of this book I liked? It was quick and easy to read, I enjoyed that it portrayed the older generation as people who still aimed to live life to the fullest and I love the message that it is never too late to chase your desires.

Content Warnings

Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

Go to review page

inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful inspiring fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The Blood Traitor by Lynette Noni

Go to review page

I feel like I need to preface this review by saying that I probably should have let this series go after the first book, it wasn't quite my "jam" from the get-go and sadly, it didn't improve as the series progressed.

I took a decent amount of issue with the with the first two books for being a bit basic and predictable and I thought it was a bit insensitive how the prison was structured to mirror Auschwitz in a number of ways. I did think the way they dealt with Kiva's trauma was believable and well handled, and I quite liked the tug and pull of the two loyalties she secretly harboured and how these conflicted her.

But.

This book had none of the good parts and none of the bad parts of the first two books - this book was just one giant sob-fest of "poor mes" for the main character as she blandly gets hauled along from one place to the next. Seriously. You could drown in the invariable sobfest that is book-three-Kiva-Meridan.

The amount of self loathing and self pity that emanated from the pages of this book was SUCH a bore - Why Noni chose to focus on this rather than so many of the other cool things she set up in book one and book two I have no idea. We had almost no character progression from the merry gang of rag-tag quest fulfillers, the world building that occurred boiled down to single passages of "then they came across another land. It was sandy and looked different to the last place they visited" and the two big boss battles that ended the trilogy were not only predictable and anti-climactic, but they were rushed and unfulfilling.

The only cool character from this book was Cresta- she remained true to her character from the last two books but her growth felt real and meaningful. Why didn't we hear more from Zuleeka? Why is Torell just wandering along not doing much of anything at all? Why is Naari so submissive in this book when she was a firecracker in the last two? Why don't we hear from the royals trapped in the castle? Why is Tipp's only part in this book to be slightly hurt by Kiva's actions and a little bit in the way? Why doesn't Cal do literally anything interesting? Ugh.

As for the romances - snoozefest. I was sad that nothing was really done with the cool LGBTQI rep that was slowly brewing in the background of the last few books, and the Kiva/Jaren situation was just SO DULL.

I choose to think that I am just not the audience for this book - the twists were super predictable, the inner-monologue was boring and repetitive and the ending left me super unfulfilled. Rounding up to a 2 star, but don't not read this on my account, maybe it'll be more up your alley than mine.

More...

just22jess22's reviews 250 reviews

just22jess22's reviews
250 reviews