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ramunepocky's reviews
475 reviews
Take All of Us by Natalie Leif
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
“They couldn’t afford to get in trouble when their whole existence caused trouble to begin with; when they spent so much time trying to compensate for themselves.”
this review is not spoiler free
I’d been excited for this book because the concept sounded interesting and the cover was gorgeous, and I wasn’t disappointed; I really enjoyed it!! It was a bit slow to start with, and I didn’t really understand what was going on to begin with, especially where the dead were concerned, because being told that someone was dead but then moving around and muttering to themselves made my brain go “huh????” But it made sense once it was explained and I understood what was actually happening. I thought it was a really interesting take on zombies with their immediate returning and them being identifiable by their eyes, and the slow way in which they’d start to lose their memories and degrade. I thought it was really interesting too that there was an entity in the mountain that they were trying to return to, and the way it would sing to them to come home. It may be because I’ve literally obsessively been playing Rebirth, but it reminded me of the way that the Sephiroth clones are drawn to him without having real control of where they’re going, or what they’re doing. I also think it was interesting that them going to the mountain to degrade repeated the cycle as their oil would leak into the water and corrupt it and turn more people into this world’s zombie equivalent. I loved that there was a happy ending too, and that once the entity was destroyed, all the people that were dead, but still “living” got a chance to live again, though they weren’t entirely untouched by what they’d gone through and their eyes still represented that. I really loved the disability rep too and the running theme of being allowed to take up space and to stop feeling guilty for “being a burden” and being selfish and asking for what YOU want instead of thinking about what is best for everyone else because you’ve already asked for “too much” in being alive.
I really loved Ian; I thought he was a really sweet protagonist, and it absolutely broke me to see him die in such an awful way when he’d only wanted to tell his best friend how he felt. It was really heart-breaking watching him try and process the fact that he’d died, especially after living with the fact he’d die earlier than the average age as a disabled kid, and him not wanting to be mercy-killed because he still wanted to live. I loved the development of his relationship with Monica and how he goes from a one-sided rivalry with her to becoming friends and having a really sweet and supportive relationship. I also really loved his dynamic with Angel and how he went from being unsure of her and her monotone and blunt way of speaking to becoming really fond of her. I loved that the two of them became so protective of Ian and they wanted him to be able to have his own choices, despite being dead and “losing himself.” It was heartbreaking to see him start to lose those pieces of himself and forget things, and be leaking oil more often, but that that didn’t change the way his friends saw and interacted with him, and they just tried to help fill in the gaps. I loved the way they all supported each other, and the way they’d developed a fast and unbreakable friendship in the most dire of times. I also really loved Ian’s dynamic with his best friend, Eric. I would have liked to have seen their dynamic when Ian was still alive a bit more before he dies as he died really early into the book and I felt like I didn’t get a real sense of how they interacted beforehand, and then we didn’t see much of Eric until around half way through the book, but I loved seeing how they interacted after that, even though it physically broke me to see Eric struggle so much.
It was really clear from the moment that Eric first saw Ian again how much him being dead affected him and how traumatising it was for him. He blamed himself for what happened, and it breaks me when they finally properly reunite and they have the conversation about it. It also destroyed me to see Eric try to mercy kill Ian to “make things right” and how he couldn’t actually do it when he had the opportunity because it broke him too much. It was so clear how much Eric loved Ian too, even before we got to see them reunite, the essential shrine that Eric had of all the stuff Ian had given him over the years and their pictures together, it was so clear that Eric loved him back and had just suppressed that like he did the rest of his emotions. It hurt me to see Eric in so much pain after everything that had happened, but considering how much he’d blunted his own emotions and stopped himself expressing them due to his tumultuous relationship with his father, it was nice to see him able to actually express his emotions and his pain, even if a huge chunk of that is likely due to the fact he was so traumatised and felt so guilty about Ian’s death that he was unable to suppress his emotions anymore. It destroyed me to think about the fact that he blamed himself so much and was so hurt by it that he’d literally just curled up in the mall to die, and that’s how Zoey had found him, and damn, I’m glad she did. I’m really glad that Eric and Ian got to reunite properly around the 50% mark and that they actually stayed together because it was killing me not knowing what had actually happened and Ian being torn between angry and blaming Eric, and missing him and wanting to talk to him, and I just really wanted to know what had gone through Eric’s head when he’d briefly seen Ian at the store. I really loved Eric too, bless his heart, he was such a sweet character, even though he hadn’t been allowed to be sweet, and it hurt when he confessed his feelings to Ian thinking he wasn’t lucid enough to actually hear him, and him saying all the bad things he felt about himself. And it was so cute too to see him so embarrassed and always blushing when they both knew how they felt about the other and were more affectionate with each other. It made me laugh so much when Ian tentatively calls him his boyfriend and Eric is blushing like “we’re boyfriends” and Zoey is like “YOU WERENT ALREADY???? YOU WOULDN’T STOP TELLING ME HOW MUCH YOU LOVED HIM” Bless. I’m so happy that they got their happy ending together and were allowed to actually be happy.
My favourite character was absolutely Angel. I loved her so much. I loved the way that she tried to encourage Ian and Monica to take up space and stop apologising for their existences. I resonated a lot with her and her clearly autistic traits, and I think it was sweet the way she showed that she cared about Ian in her own way. I also related to her not caring about the evacuation and choosing to stay behind because she liked and wanted the quiet, and that she hated how loud the world usually was, and how overwhelming it had been.
I would have liked to have seen Ian reunite with his family at the end, especially after the phone call he’d had with his parents and sister, and how she’d asked him if he was still alive and he’d said no, but I did love that the focus was more on found family instead.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book and am excited for the physical release (that cover is so pretty), and will absolutely read anything else the author writes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Ableism and Death of parent
Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
“But that’s the way it goes. I lost nearly everything, and then I built something better.”
This book was somewhat a disappointment to me. We Are Okay is one of my absolute favourite books so I had high hopes that I’d love this one too, and I just didn’t. It was okay, but only okay. It wasn’t a particularly long book, and in spite of the fact that it spans over about 12 years, I feel like absolutely nothing happened. And despite the fact that there is essentially two protagonists, Sara and Emilie, I feel like the book isn’t split well between the two; it focuses so much on Emilie and so little on Sara, which is a shame, because I absolutely couldn’t stand Emilie, whereas I really felt for Sara and would have liked to read more about her. Emilie was just so damn annoying and I really hated her. I feel like she made a victim out of herself, even though she was the one that got herself into those situations. She distanced herself entirely from her family due to her sister’s issues with drugs, which I can understand wanting distance from that, but then she complained that there was a distance between her and her family, and between her and her sister. BRO, you created it. And then the fact that she actively got involved with a married man, who had kids. She knew that he was married, she knew that he had kids, and she had an affair with him anyway, a long standing one, and only broke up with him when it actively affected her. I was genuinely so disgusted with her for that, and I could no longer feel any sympathy or warmth towards her. I feel so much of the book focused on the affair too, and I just really didn’t want that. It was so vile. And it irritated me so much that Emilie once again acts like a victim and goes on about how no-one wants to stay, and everyone leaves her, like ofc he’s gonna leave in the middle of the night, hE’S MARRIED AND YOU KNOW THAT HES GOING HOME TO HIS WIFE AND KIDS GODDAMMIT. And again, it annoyed me so much that after Sara’s father died and she practically begged Emilie to come home with her, and Emilie said no, she then went on again about how everyone leaves her and that Sara wouldn’t come back like BRO, WHAT. She literally begged you to come with her. You do this to yourself, and then act like a victim and blame it on everyone else. It just winds me up so much.
The redeeming features for me were the chapters about Sara – I was a lot more invested in her life and the harrowing things she’d been through, and the connections she’d made and lost. She’d done whatever she could to survive, even though it meant severing all her ties to her hometown and her friends. I was glad that she got the opportunity to reunite with them ten years later and that they didn’t hold it against her. Her tumultuous relationship with her brother was interesting too since he was the one part of her family she’d tried to hold onto, but he didn’t want her to hold on as tight as she did, especially after they were older, and he understood more what was happening and wanted his own freedom to choose for himself. I often found myself desperately trying not to sob during Sara’s chapters because everything she went through and built for herself just really broke me. I really wish she had been the centre of the book instead of Emilie as maybe I would have loved it more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Sexual content, Sexual assault, Death, Sexual harassment, and Drug abuse
Mighty Millie Novak by Elizabeth Holden
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Favourite quote: “People can be different from each other and still understand each other.”
This review is not spoiler free
I really enjoyed this book and I thought it was very fun, and sweet. I don’t know much about Roller Derby, but I feel like it was descriptive enough that my lack of knowledge didn’t hinder me at all, and I feel like I understand a lot more about the sport now without ever actually having seen a game. I also like the way that none of the characters are perfect and that they’re all flawed in some way.
General opinion on the main character:
Millie really frustrated me to begin with, especially when she’d constantly complain that she was bored. That’s like one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when you have as much freedom as Millie did, you can just go out and do things, or find something to do around the house, there’s so much you can spend your time doing so it irritates me to no end when people whine about being bored. I understood and related to Millie’s anxieties and self-doubt, especially when she didn’t think she was talented or worthy enough to be on the team, and I liked seeing her work to better herself and take other people’s advice into consideration. I really liked the dynamic she developed with Gables, especially as she’d been so intimidated by her to begin with, I feel like they developed a sweet team-mate bond and Gables was always helping Millie improve her skills. I didn’t like Millie’s initial crush, the age gap was a big yikes, and it was so wrong of Millie to lie about her age and pretend that she was two years older. I’m not sure how she’d managed to convince herself that Spiny would be okay with that when she found out, but Spiny flipping her shit was definitely appropriate. I really loved Millie’s developing friendship with Stork though, and how she didn’t even realise at first that she was developing a crush on her because it was so gradual and natural, and not intense like her crush on Spiny had been. It was so gross though when Millie betrayed Stork’s trust and told Pumpkin about Stork’s home life, especially considering she knew that Pumpkin never had a good thing to say about Stork and would obviously use it against her. Millie’s naivity and selfishness irritated me a lot, but I feel like she did grow up a lot over the course of the book and she is a teenager so I get where it comes from. I appreciate too that she owned up to what she’d done to Stork when she apologised, and that she apologised about/owned up to other nasty things she’d said too.
I loved Stork from the moment I met her, she was so sweet and dedicated and she was never pompous or arrogant about it. It irritated me to no end that Pumpkin and Millie would make fun of her for being passionate and dedicated, and then be mad that she was better/more skilled than them. Like of course she is, she puts the time and effort in! I really felt for her with her home life, and I love that she still had a loving relationship with her father, even if his hoarding tendencies made her home life more embarrassing for her. I feel like Stork was almost definitely autistic coded and I just loved her so much. The only thing that irritated me a bit was the way that she completely ignored Millie/stopped hanging out with her after she’d seen Spiny kiss her, and I get she was hurt and jealous or whatever, but like bro, come on, you made zero indication that you liked Millie for her to know that, and why can’t y’all just be friends anyway. I know of course she did start hanging out with her again before Millie actually told her that she’d broken up with Spiny, and I get it was because she was hurt, but I do think it was a bit shitty to just be so off with her like that and take it out on her, without actually explaining anything or giving a reason. Again, I know they’re teenagers, and none of them are perfect, but like dayum bro. I’m glad that the two of them ended up together though because they were really sweet together and I enjoyed their dynamic a lot, and I loved that they were both able to be entirely themselves.
By the end of the book, I really couldn’t stand Pumpkin. She was so hypocritical. Considering that she accused Millie of being selfish and only thinking about herself, Pumpkin was actually so selfish. Maybe it’s just me, but I remembered a bunch of times that Millie asked about David and maybe she didn’t engage as much in the conversation as Pumpkin might have wanted, but how is that Millie’s fault?? She asked about him a whole bunch of times, and yet Pumpkin made out like she’d never asked about him ever. Also, Pumpkin was the one that essentially forced Millie on Spiny so how can she then be mad that Millie constantly consults her about it/wants her advice/wants to tell her about it. YOU’RE THE ONE THAT BROUGHT IT UP. Millie has no real concept of friendship so she’s literally going off what you’ve given her and you made her “relationship” with Spiny so ofc Millie is gonna think bringing it up and involving Pumpkin is a way of spending time with her/showing that they’re friends. God, it frustrated me so much. And the fact that Pumpkin was so defensive about the fact she started dating Millie’s brother and never tried to understand where Millie had been coming from/understand why she was upset, and never once apologised. She wasn’t a good friend, and constantly pushed the blame onto everyone else for it. I cannot stand people like that. And when she weaponised what Millie had stupidly told her about Stork, that was so disgusting.
Overall, this was a fun read and I enjoyed it a lot.