simplythegirl's reviews
19 reviews

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

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

5.0

This is definitely  my favorite James Baldwin book. He explores questioning and denying one's sexual identity, power dynamics, class differences,  citizenship, the American dream, homophobia, and racism. Racism can be seen when you decode his characters I believe if Baldwin was alive today he definitely  would have made David obviously African American since he would no longer have to worry about audiences laughing him off/not taking him serious for having an African American man who questions his sexual identity as a main character. The writing is beautiful and I love the symbolism.


By the end of the book it seems like how David identifies (gay straight or bisexual) is still up for debate. His decision in the end can be seen as further denial of his true self especially during times where it wasn't  accepted to be anything but straight  but others can interpret his decision as ending an experimental time for David.

 His decision could also be symbolic of  a part of himself dying  much like Giovanni died.
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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

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adventurous dark hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

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adventurous dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is probably  the best book I read this year so far. The characters are loveable, the descriptions and storytelling are amazing, and the concept is interesting.  The gore descriptions are so vivid I love it. I'm  a huge fan of Andrew Joseph White do I knew going in I would love it but I was blown away. I couldn't put the book down. 
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You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I have super mixed feelings about this book. For one I am super sick of pixie dream girl cliche. YA authors (especially  men authors- I'm looking at you John Green) always write  young women like this: isolated whimsical kind of person then don't really give her any redeeming qualities or make her three dimensional.  Julie seems more like a device to explore grief and talk about Sam than a real  character.  If you want to read a book about an obssessed pixie dream girl who gets even more obssessed over her boyfriend once he dies only to vaguely find closure then read on.

Julie doesnt seem to have much of a life outside of Sam even before he died. For one  most of her friends are ones she met through him. The only people who don't rely on Sam's connection is her family and of course shes not close to them.  The story is about her grief and moving on which I think was handled alright I really love the different portrayals of grief  but the timing is super rushed. The magical realism is also really neat
but as soon as others are able to talk to Sam I lost a lot of interest in the whole concept.


I  think this quote shows what a lack of power Julie has throughout the book and how the book is so Sam centric when the summary leads readers to believe Julie is an autonomus character.

"He always loved having Sam around. Mr. Lee said he brought in good luck. 'What did I bring in?' I once  asked him. "You brought in Sam." 

Overall I really liked the portrayal of grief and most of the characters especially Oliver but Julie definitely got on my nerves. There are a lot of moments where she acknowledged her mistakes and how she should change and be  less selfish then never does it until Sam pushes her to do so.
She acknowledges she should be there tor Mika then only foes it when she promises Sam she will. I think it's  dumb that Julie's only solution to get Mika to not be upset at her was to show her she could call Sam.<endspoiler That seemed like a big step for something where there should have been other solutions.

One small thing that really got on my nerves was Julie acknowledging  she only thought professional script writers got to where they were because of nepotism(privileged life) when the professor  talks to her about classes she can take at her mom's college, which are typically reserved for seniors,  but he shows an interest because  her mom: a professor at that school brags about her writingand Julie doesnt even blink an eye at her own priveledged life.

I also wish that the author expanded more on some of the cultural rituals of grieving death. This book is definitely a guilty pleasure though.

Oliver, Tristan and Mika  seemed like really neat characters and it really bummed me out we didnt get a lot of time with them.  I think the author really should have spent a little more time on the epilogue. The grief was the entire book so it felt frustrating to get so little after going through so much of Julie's journey, at least she's dating so that's good.

Pros: overall cool characters, the writing style flows well, the imagery is cute, the magical realism is sweet, great depiction of grieving and the ways people may grieve, 

Cons: too many clichés, selfish characters, the timing is bad, unrealistic situations (I don't  mean the magic part),  a lot characters aren't  three dimensional

I gave it 2.5 stars for the pros and the fact that I'm  not the target demographic  for this YA book
The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose

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mysterious tense medium-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

2.25

I am not your perfect Mexican daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

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

2.75

I really wanted to like this book I'm  first generation Latina so I was hoping to relate to the MC and get lost in the book but it was a huge letdown. The MC seems entitled and whiny. The mystery aspect also seems a little lame I rather it just focus on the family dynamics than focus on the secret life of Olga. I imagine the author is very much in tune to American culture so it makes sense why MC is so focused on making some aspects of  Mexican culture seem annoying or like a burden. It seems like MC and author are pandering to Americanization  being better than embracing a bicultural identity. There are definitely unique strifes to being both American and Latino and those identities mixing have another set of unique struggles but the book reads moreso that being white washed is better than not in America and that feels icky. 

The commentary on how awful the embedded misogyny(machismo) in Latino culture is was great but besides that point MC didn't have a lot of valid complaints in my opinion. The comparisons made between her and Olga seemed kind of weak. I feel like if we had seen Olga alive more it would have felt more impactful but because  we didn't  it just seemed like her mom made comparisons because  the author had nothing else for MC to go through instead of it feeling like mom's actual opinions. 
Always the Almost by Edward Underhill

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

2.75

So I wanted to like this book but I think it fails where a lot of other queer books fail (especially  when written by queer peoppe who are not minorities)in its representation  of people of color. Mile's the main character and his boyfriend  Eric is the flat character who seemingly only exists to support Miles in the story. He loves to draw and cares about his sister but his personality is just not really developed. Besides Eric and his family the only other presumanly hispanic character in the book is the school janitor José. José  of course is not developed or even shown just mentioned and definitely  falls into the Hispanic are cleaners stereotype. A queer Hispanic this definitely  annoyed me and I almost stopped reading. The author acknowledges systematic racism through  the lack of people of color at the piano competitions but it feels weird that they acknowledge  it but still have a mainly white cast. I Also overall I did not like Miles that much the only times I really enjoyed him were his cute moments with Eric and his struggling with people's perception due to him being transgender. I do feel that like others have stated
The cheating was a real  put off I feel like Rachel and Paige got shafted. Their relationship should've  had a little more focus especially after the cheating instead it just ends and the relationship the author set us up to love is just gone. Meanwhile it feels like Eric forgives Miles super quickly. Eric deserves so much better. Miles was especially  annoying to me in how selfish he is. His friends are struggling in their relationship  together and he doesn't  even help them? Paige and Rachel consistently  have been there for him(albeit sometimes overstepping and being more unintentionally rude than anything at times) but when they start having troubles in their relationship(when Rachel tells Miles they had trouble trying to do it and it made their relationship weird)  Miles can't  even say anything? He's  just in shock not even an "I'm  sorry that happened" a "I don't  know what to say" or some form of comfort. He just gets incredulous which comes off as belittling to me (especially  wjen its clear Miles isn't  ace) then just gets uncomfortable  and bails on them.
The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera

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emotional inspiring sad
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

I really was surprised by the fact that I loved  Rolando, Paz, and Gloria more than the main two. I found Valentino, Orion and the other side characters(maybe Joaquin Rosa to a lesser degree) pretty unlikable too. Delma is by far my least favorite after Frankie. I was also more invested in Gloria and Rolondo more than anyone. Sometimes the other characters were charming but overall I didn't  like them much. Valentino and Orion's romance was cute sometimes but it was missing something. It took me a long time to get into the book probably   because  the main two guys got on my nerves the most but to be fair that's also how I felt about Matteo and Rufus in the first book. I'm glad that this book didnt beat the "one outgoing character helps the other sheltered character  live his best" trope to death. At times I felt like it dragged on a bit but I loved how the stories intertwined. It was a fun easy read and I always love the morals about life. The snippets of characters from the first book is also super cute too
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John Dies at the End by David Wong

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

2.75

Definitely  hasn't  aged well. The racist slurs are really off putting I know it was a different  time back in 2007 but it's still uncomfortable especially  since I listened to the audiobook. The book is really tense and the descriptions are great. I do wish there were more female characters it's  pretty lame the women get shafted. I really love the funny moments but I think the characters are overdone and stereotypical. Is that the point? The characters are like stereotypical white guys. It's also off putting that the african american people get shafted too. Not to mention the only presumanly latina character is hypersexualized
and thrown away never to be seen again when romance with a main character doesn't work out.
. Robert one of the few African American characters is the stereotypical drug dealer type and
who is involved with ending the world and "Morgan Freeman" an African American detective/cop of course dies early on.  Then a journalist dies. The only survivors are the white characters obviously.  Yes lots of characters die in general but not even one survivor is a person of color? Come on

One of the characters was in the special education  class and casually called the r word repeatedly. Her health is made fun of too. Women are higly sexualized with little to no personality. 
The representation in this book is terrible. Some good things in the book but it is definitely annoying and gross.
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Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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