melissyteapot73's reviews
1060 reviews

adventurous hopeful fast-paced

3.75

This was really stinking cute! The art style was gorgeous, and there was just enough peril for you to feel that there are actual stakes, while keeping it appropriate for a middle grade audience. Avery is a great character, and Gribblet is adorable!
Themes of family, self-discovery, finding your place and fitting in.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Born Sacred: Poems for Palestine by Smokii Sumac

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challenging hopeful sad

This is a hard book to rate as it's about such an important and vital topic, one that I am woefully undereducated in. Sumac, an indigenous poet, descended from a colonised nation who experienced genocide first-hand, so he comes at the topic from a place of understanding and empathy.
I often feel I am too stupid for poetry, to really "get" it, but this collection really resonated with me, and I feel like I understand the need to witness these atrocities and feel our feelings deeply.

I do think perhaps the preface may have had more impact had it been at the end of the book, or maybe in sections interspersed. It was a lot to get through before I even got to the poems and figured out if they were for me!

Thanks to #NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Someone to Watch Over You by Kumi Kimura

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challenging hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

A short, sharp novella set at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. It centres on two characters: a middle-aged former teacher living alone after returning to her hometown from Tokyo, and a former security guard who, down on his luck, is living in a room without amenities in his brother's garden. Both are isolated on the fringes of society and grappling with incidents from their past that are coming back to haunt them. They form an unusual bond in the uncertain circumstances of the pandemic and come to depend on each other for a sense of connection in a disconnected world.

I found it fascinating to see the pandemic from the point of view of a different nation, and felt the characters were very well realised and fleshed out. I did feel the same dissatisfaction I feel with a lot of novellas translated from the Japanese in that it ended so abruptly and I didn't get closure or a happy ending!

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Twist by Colum McCann

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informative slow-paced

3.0

Love on the Horizon 1 by Machi Yamashita

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emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

3.75

This was a very cute story of two college students, Nagi and Yuu, who become friends after discovering they're neighbours. Yuu has a habit of getting blackout drunk so Nagi often has to help him home, which does him no favours when he's got secret crush on him!
If you like Heartstopper you'll love this! It has yearning like I Cannot Reach You and Blue Flag, but there's payoff in volume 1 which I very much appreciated!
3.75/5
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