justinlife's reviews
853 reviews

The Long Run by James Acker

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this book. I could see myself picking this up again, which I don’t say often. 

Track team superstar Bash the Flash and Field captain Sandro fall for each other their senior year. Battling family, loss, identity issues, this book adds to the canon of YA gay romance. The book has tense moments, but not too tense. It has angst, but not too angsty. 

Told in dual first person narrative, we get to see both characters process their growing friendship, understand their past and present, and figure out how to keep up with it all. Both characters are likable with flaws. By the end of the book you’re rooting for them and can see how people will make 1,000 different fan fictions after it. 

I would say this is in the vein of Ari and Dante series, but with more honest conversations about sex.

Husband Material by Alexis Hall

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

This is a fun sequel to Boyfriend Material. You can tell pretty quickly that Halls uses the plot of Four Weddings and Funeral and makes it gay. While I don't care for the narrator as much, Hall writes characters that are fun to read and you want to experience their life. He also writes with a great wit and a sense of camp that boosts the plot and takes a familiar plot and makes it queer. 

Amidst the weddings and funerals are thoughtful conversations about what it means to be queer, how we define our relationships and what it feels like when you're not represented by the community that seems to get the most attention.

If you're a fan of 90s rom coms, pick this up and enjoy it. If you've read the first one, you'll enjoy this one more. 

Finally, I love love love love love that there are so many queer romance novels that are getting more mainstream attention. Younger me would be thrilled by this. 

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. I liked it. It was inventive and interesting. It had pros and cons and it was well written.

What worked for me:

• The setting: I appreciated that Barnhill created this world set in post ww2/McCarthy era America. It gave the book an oppressive feel through most of it. Having this set during that time gave me an understanding of what's spoken and what's not spoken.  
• It had dragons. I think Barnhill mostly succeeds with the magical realism elements to this book. when breaking up sections with news reports, scientific studies, and historical documents, she creates a world with history that is both real and fantastical. 
• Recognizing that memory isn't always accurate or complete. Told in first person narrative, almost as an autobiography, the main character recounts her history and her experiences with dragons. Some memories are fresh and clear while others get muddled and combined. It was refreshing to see a narrator show this. 
• Queerness- It's always nice to read stories with well developed queer characters. Barnhill also treats trans characters with such respect and dignity in the simplest of language one has to ask why it's so hard. 
• I don't know if this is a spoiler, but her approach to handling the information of dragons and dragoning felt on brand for cultural standards. What don't we talk about? What can we get away with? Using these questions to brush everything under the rug was a solid technique. 

What I didn't work for me

• Sadly, the dragons themselves. I couldn't figure out the proportion and size of the dragons. I couldn't place it in my mind and it made it hard to tell. Were they giant like Smaug or tiny like MooShu? It felt like the size varied depending on the need. 
• While I appreciated the setting and how that made the characters feel suffocated, that feeling carried on too long in the book. It's stuffy for about 75% of it. 
• There were a couple of plot points and I guess red herrings that felt, at the start of the book, to be rather important. By the end of the book, they weren't talked about or defined. 

That's about it. Overall it's a good read and I think people will enjoy it. 

Gender Queer: A Memoir Deluxe Edition by Maia Kobabe

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.25

Overall a lovely memoir by someone figuring emselves out as terminology changes, pronouns shift, and eir body morphs. 

Not sure why this is on the book banning lists but that’s usually how it goes for the books that are on those lists. Kobabe does a great job describing eir gender journey. The book is beautifully drawn and colored. If graphic novel memoirs are your thing and you want a first person account of someone’s gender journey, then give this a shot. 

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

3.5

A solid, fun, campy fake boyfriend trope romance. My biggest pet peeve is self deprecating narrators with low self esteem. Hall is able to make this bearable with ridiculous side characters and corny situations. He makes these side characters that are interesting and sweet with B and C plots that make curious how book 2 is going to go. 

There’s wit, there’s references, and while the characters didn’t used the word “therapy” there was definitely healing and boundaries. Would recommend and would read the sequel 

Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy

hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.75

This is a solid history and maybe beginning of capturing the various histories of Asian Americans. Choy does great work connecting modern day prejudices and issues with their roots. In a nation that in 2023 continues to want to deny or not discuss other histories books like these are important. It’s important to see the struggles and the successes. 

Choy also writes really well and describes pictures that I wish she had included them. The book is short and felt like an overview but never felt incomplete. I hope more books like these get published.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I was not prepared. 

I bought this book b/c the cover was giving me m/m romance, space adventure, enemies to lovers, low stakes vibes. 

While it is most of those things, this is not low stakes. This is intense, dark, and excellent sci-fi. 

It made me ask so many questions and consider the ethics of things I would’ve have before. Just when I thought I had all of the ethical questions down, MORE PRESENTED THEMSELVES! It was a lot! 

This book is a ride. It starts YA enemies to lovers and then just throws curve ball after curve ball. I was genuinely surprised and impressed. I’ll be thinking about this book for awhile. I might even beg you to read it so we can discuss it. I NEED to discuss it! 

Highly recommend! 

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

adventurous emotional funny inspiring lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

3.5

This book was a delight. This book is the palate cleanser you need after reading something serious. It's one that's easily rereadable and the characters are enjoyable. HIghly recommend. 

O Human Star, Volume One by Blue Delliquanti

lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.25

This is an odd comic. That man on the cover is supposed to be forty which I strongly disagree with. This was a slow moving light hearted comic about a scientist who dies and comes back as a robot in a time when AI can support it. His former lover/protege has built a company and is shocked. 

It’s both a tender LGBTQ family story and a low stakes mystery that doesn’t get solved in book one.

The Shapeshifters by Stefan Spjut

challenging mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was alright. I’m sure if you’re a fan of Scandinavian crime novels, adding a folklore twist would be fun. I couldn’t place most of the locations, so it felt like I was lost though the book. I could’ve even keep all the characters straight. The book wasn’t as tense nor as mystical as I was expecting. It’s not bad, but I know why I waited years to pick this up.