Forsythia Phlox

This book is... wow, it's an experience. I love books which make me feel things and get me invested in the characters, and Chasing the Blue Sky absolutely delivers in that regard. Everything from happiness to sorrow, anger to hopefulness, melancholy to wonderment: I felt all of them. Because of this, I had to put the book down several times to just get a break, but I never once wanted to outright quit reading because I just had to see Toby's journey through to the end.

Toby is a young pitbull mix, the puppy who was closest to his mother (whose life we see in the first chapters). He goes from a miserable environment with a doting mother and negligent, abusive humans to a loving home which soon enough turns just as negligent when the shine of a new puppy wears off. Ultimately, the parents make horribly cruel life choices which shatter Toby's life and the hearts of both children who were attached to him. Thus, he lands in the care of the local animal shelter where we meet most of the dog characters and the only human characters (except perhaps the boy child) who are actually worth knowing.

I don't want to spoil the fates of any of the dogs, thus I won't say who among the cast of dogs is lost, but I will say that it's vital to go into this book understanding that it features a "kill shelter" and pulls no punches in showing how innocent canine lives - and the lives of shelter workers who try to protect them - are impacted by human negligence, abuse, and shelter overcrowding. Don't go into it expecting a feel-good puppy story. But do go into it if you can handle the emotional journey - and be prepared to feel heartache and fury in almost equal measure.

The epilogue sums up wonderfully why the story in Chasing the Blue Sky is important, so I'll share:

Behind every lonely bark that resonates down the long, cold halls is a story. Behind the clatter of every stainless steel bowl on the barren floor is a vibrant, rich life, longing to be lived. Behind every frightened whimper from the shadowy corner of a concrete alcove is a story of redemption, waiting to be written. This book tells the story of one such life, but across our country, there are countless dogs like Toby, Jack, Marilynn, Oscar, Julius, Dizzy, and the others in these pages.

I can't say I enjoyed the story emotionally, but I can say I'm glad I read it and I liked the glimpse it offered of the plight shelter pets face. At times, I honestly felt disgust over being human just by association with real humans who are as horrible as some of the characters in this book. So... I like it, I just felt a lot of unpleasant emotions - especially as a result of being a highly empathic animal lover with a long history of rescuing strays and adopting furry friends.

For the story alone, I'd easily rate the book five stars. However, I had a few gripes with the way dogs are portrayed within and that knocks it down to four stars in my eyes.

I fully believe dogs are intelligent beings who understand and feel emotions. I also fully believe that their communication with one another is the best equivalent they can manage to the ways we know - albeit with scents, sounds, and body language instead of human language. I also completely understand using human language in a story to portray what dogs are telling one another. However, at times the dogs were excessively humanized to the point it detracted from the story... especially when it seemed to contradict their usual characteristics.

For example: the dogs are acknowledged as, logically, not being able to read signs or understand English. However, sometimes, the dogs do seem to understand and far too much emphasis is put on the nametags of the humans at the shelter to portray their names. (It would have felt more genuine to use the humans introducing themselves or to call them things such as Dreadlocks Man and Kind Smile Woman etc - how a dog might think of them before realizing the sound of their names were in fact names.) There also seems to be a shift midway from calling a dog's human family their people to using the term 'owner's when there's no reason Toby should know what an owner is and should be still thinking of them as just people.

At another point, during a horrifically depressing scene wherein one of the dogs is euthanized, the dog's foreleg is referred to as an arm; it takes away from the scene in an unpleasant way by bringing to mind an anime human-animal hybrid. And sometimes it's not made clear enough that the English used to portray dogs' communication is meant to be a human-readable approximation of what is really said between them in dog noises. For example, Toby is described as 'speaking' each word he says slowly, but there's no logical equivalent in dog noises thus it feels as if he's portrayed actually speaking English.

This story is too poignant and important for the cartoonish mental imagery those mix-ups bring to mind, and for that I feel they weaken an otherwise painfully amazing book. The author is far too skilled at causing empathetic reactions within the majority of the book to have to fall back on overly anthropomorphizing the canine characters.

Those characters will, however, stick in my mind for a long time - especially Oscar and Toby.

(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book through BookSirens. My review is left voluntarily, is not incentivized, and contains my honest opinion.)

Can't Possibly Be Show Canon

Uhm. This is... sure a choice that was made, alright. How do I even begin to unpack this one? Let's try a list of every absurdity which makes zero sense to canon.

STORY ONE: Wild Things

1. Josie is a total speed demon who drives a very nice car recklessly with her friends inside.??

2. Josie makes Veronica partake in vandalizing a Southside band's garage with Pussycats slogans as a rite of passage (and none of them get murdered by Serpents, either, despite what we know happened to Archie in canon for vandalizing less personal property).

3. The Pussycats get matching tattoos. Veronica's is right there on her left shoulder where it would be clearly visible in the show and, more importantly, to her parents in the comic.

4. Josie and Reggie drag race on a random town road.

5. Veronica and the Pussycats go to the Wyte Wyrm. During season one era. And chow down on food and hang out in a den of Serpents totally unfazed.

6. When the rival Southside band shows up in the Wyrm to get revenge on the Pussycats who they magically know are there, they have a Ghoulie-worthy punk aesthetic and are just as far out of place in the canon Whyte Wyrm as the Northside Pussycats.??

7. Josie invites a rumble with the local Southside band - named Venom, which implies Serpent ties - in the middle of the Wyrm and not only do no bystanders intervene but these four, tiny girls somehow win the fight against two guys and two girls all bigger than them. Riiiiight.

STORY TWO: The Case of the Sorrel Roan

1. Betty actively tries to stop Jughead from writing about Jason and also insults his writing style.

2. Cheryl refers to Betty and Jug as “#Bughead” - exactly how I wrote it there, hashtag and all - as if she should know they're together at that point and accept them. But back then, she literally actively hated both of them. Hell, the previous issue of this comic had Cheryl outright emotionally torture Betty and vow to destroy her when she overcame the bullying.

3. Cheryl goes to Betty and Jug... for help discovering whether her dad is having an affair.

4. Betty is so opposed to the chance to do sleuth work that she is grumpy at Jug for accepting the case. Betty Cooper. Opposed to sleuthing.??

5. Jug is portrayed as someone who doesn't know how to stfu and be stealthy while sleuthing.

6. Betty decides to keep the truth from Cheryl once they discover what Cliff is really doing.

7. Once more, Betty insults Jug's writing style.??

8. Jug says he only drinks juice from a squeeze pouch, but he's been seen drinking orange juice in the show.

So, yeah, that's an awful lot to unpack. And since this issue once again purported that the series takes place between episodes of the show I'm rating it accordingly. None of these things could have possibly happened in character, much less between episodes of season one Riverdale. Considering how absurd the Pussycats story is as a whole and how utterly meh it was seeing Betty rag on Jug while he was portrayed as something of a lowkey idiot, I can't give this more than one star. Maybe one and a half, but that isn't an option, so... one it shall be.

Clearly, this comic series isn't for me. I think this one will be my last, since it's the last one I rented from Kindle Unlimited. I'm glad I didn't spend money on it.

So, I love The Outsiders - both book and movie - and I enjoyed the film version of Rumble Fish, so reading this book seemed like a good choice. I expected to love it as much as the aforementioned titles, but it just didn't have the impact or life that I hoped it would.

There are so many parts I recognize from the film, but the writing style here just feels too juvenile to get the same atmosphere across. Which, yeah, this is from the POV of a young teen in a gang so it makes some sense to have a less adult feel to the writing, but so was The Outsiders and the prose there flows a lot better. Maybe Rumble Fish is too rushed? Maybe there isn't enough time to develop emotional attachments to characters who aren't particularly likeable? I don't know, but I didn't love this the way I hoped I might.

Also, one of my big pet peeves in writing is when people write “could of,” “should of,” etc instead of “could've,” “should have,” and such. This book makes that mistake frequently, I presume as an intentional portrayal of how Rusty James speaks, and it grinds my gears every time.

As for the story itself: I like the concept a bit more than the execution. Though I enjoyed the film version, I felt similarly about it and hoped the story would expand on some of my favourite parts. Unfortunately, it didn't... and I discovered that it feels even more unnatural to see someone's inner monologue and realize he even thinks of his own brother as “the Motorcycle Boy” instead of by a real name. It's also harder to make what you will of the story's meaning - if there really is one - when you're trapped in the POV of a character who's honestly kind of an oblivious jerkwad until the very end. Rusty-James' point of view just doesn't work the same way Ponyboy's does in The Outsiders. It's too unfeeling, too detached - at times almost like he's reading off a grocery list instead of saying what's happening.

In The Outsiders, it's obvious when a character has PTSD or when another cares and is afraid of showing it. In Rumble Fish, it's more like a guessing game. Is there a point to being told one character hasn't yet shown interest in girls (as in, are we being stealthily told he's gay) or is it just another random factoid which has no relevance - of which there are plenty? Is there a moral behind another character shunning a “junkie” despite caring about them or is it just there for shock value? These are things which feel half-addressed, half-formed, and ultimately unimportant from the way the narrative handles them. It's a shame, because I wanted there to be more to it. I wanted to leave this book feeling the same impact I did when I finished The Outsiders. I wanted to care about the characters, but aside from Steve and a peripheral interest in the Motorcycle Boy - which kept getting tainted by how silly his own brother calling him that felt - I just didn't because there wasn't enough content or emotion to feel like I actually got to know any of them.

The ending felt a bit like it was trying to be as poignant as the ending of The Outsiders, but it really missed the mark for me. I knew it was coming because I'd seen the film already, and honestly it made me cry when watching... not when reading. Seeing how I still cry every time a certain few characters in the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games trilogy, and The Outsiders die despite revisiting those many times, I don't think knowing it was coming made the impact less. It just... didn't have the oomf I hoped for, I suppose. It was there and gone in barely a handful of pages, tacked onto the end like it was an afterthought. No exploration of emotions, feelings, thoughts - barely anything at all, really, and nothing so poignant as what happens in the film.

Also, in all honesty, I kind of hoped the book would cover more of an aftermath than the film. It would've been so much better if it had, I believe. Then again, maybe not; if it were written in the same detached way, it'd just be a major let down regardless.

But it's not bad. I don't dislike it. I'm just disappointed that it wasn't everything I'd built it up to be in my head and didn't make me feel as emotionally attached as I'd hoped. I took quite a bit from the story, personally, but it's as if I can tell that what I took from it is of my own creation and not something intended. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe I'm catching onto things that really are intentionally there and discrediting them as not being purposeful or meaningful to the author because of the detached writing style. I wouldn't know. I'll never know.

Three stars feels like a reasonable middle ground between the two sides of this. Maybe even 3.5, if only that were an option. I think I'd skip out on re-reading the book and just watch the film in the future if I feel like revisiting the story, but otherwise I do like it. Just not as much as I'd hoped.

I received a free copy of this book through Book Sirens and am leaving this review voluntarily; it contains my personal opinions on the book. I wasn't sure what to expect of the quality in such a program, but I'm now extremely glad that I participated as I doubt this book would have ever crossed my radar otherwise... and now it's one of my favourites.

This novel follows the path of recovery for the narrator, a high school senior named Eli with some serious issues. Chief among those issues is his heroin addiction, which nearly costs his life. Sounds a bit Lifetime Movie, I know, but this is far too well written and raw to feel like some moral about not doing drugs wrapped in a book-shaped package. There are no out of place exposition dumps, no anvil-on-the-head morality pushes, and no sugarcoated euphemisms. In fact, while the story does end on a hopeful note, it pulls no punches in admitting that addiction is a cruel and cyclic disease which controls and damages the people who fall into its grasp.

The author, Abbey Lee Nash, is an absolute master of the “show, don't tell,” rule and has found the perfect way to weave important exposition into place without just dumbing it down and dumping it on readers several paragraphs at a time (like some other authors). Nash has a wonderful way with words which makes the writing flow well while genuinely feeling like a story told by a boy Eli's age in his life circumstances. She doesn't treat readers like idiots and hold their hands; instead, she puts the hints and clues where they belong and trusts us to see them. I've outlined a few examples of this among my public notes (edit: I have not, because in sending a document version of the book instead of a genuine copy Book Sirens takes away the ability to link notes from kindle on goodreads because the device doesn't realize you're reading an actual book), but I strongly encourage anyone curious about this book to buy it and see for themselves how well-written and compelling a story Nash weaves onto the pages.

At its core, this book is almost a character study in addition to a story of addiction and rehabilitation. Even the background characters are fleshed out people with distinguishing traits and personalities. I did have a few issues with some cliches - which I'll discuss in further detail during the spoiler section - but overall everyone felt raw and real, as if I were reading an autobiographical story instead of a fictional novel. My heart broke for these characters, my rage soared at their missteps, and my heart swelled with hope when they had personal triumphs. Even the characters I disliked managed to worm their way into my emotions, as they were three-dimensional and layered. The most selfish person still had good intentions at times. The most obnoxious character still tugged at my heart strings. The most surly character still managed to warm my heart a time or two. And, just like a story told by a real person, the narrative weaved a biased tale which left me taking Eli's side at times only to realize that the way he laid out certain facts had made me jump to unfair conclusions - and, in one significant case, I was emotionally floored right along with him when a life-altering revelation happened. It was as much a surprise to me, the reader, as it was to the narrating character.

Reading this novel was an intense experience. It's very much the kind of story which sucks the reader in and keeps them on the edge of their seat, reading ‘just one more chapter' ad nauseum... but it's also the kind of story which wrenches guts and shatters hearts and tightens lungs. Perhaps that's because I've dealt with my own addictive tendencies and deeply-rooted emotional problems of a nature similar to those seen in Eli, Red, and Libby in particular. I can't be sure, because empathizing with these characters just came so easily that I can't imagine trying to assess how someone might feel about this book if they don't connect on a personal level to the people brought to life in the pages.

That is not to say, however, that the characters are likable - at least not in the traditional sense. I did like them at times, but at others I wanted to reach through the book and smack them upside the head like Gibbs from NCIS. They are raw and real, vulnerable and flawed, damaged and damaging and in some cases outright toxic. But such is how life goes. This deviation from the standard is a breath of fresh air. Not everyone in real life realizes when they've done wrong or when they're being an insensitive jerkwad. Not everyone in real life is nice all the time or friendly all the time. Sometimes, people do stupid things because they're hurting and lashing out makes them feel better. So, too, do some of the characters in this novel behave irrationally and cruelly. They are, every last one of them, people affected by addiction. Yes, even those who aren't in the clinic are affected because they have close friends or family members suffering addiction and the disease touches everyone in its path.

I wasn't particularly pleased with one particular plot arc, as I felt it would have gone much better a different way and I just wanted to be done with it from the moment it began. This is tied to the cliche issue I also had. But overall, I enjoyed reading this. I would class it as one of my favourites, even though I can't quite rate it five stars due to personal gripes. There were also a few formatting issues (particularly, random lines written in different fonts) and typos (‘lightening' instead of ‘lightning,' for example), but not enough to make me feel it detracted from the reading experience.

I also want to give major props to the author for having characters' injuries and scars be more than just window dressing. One character has bruised ribs which impact their daily activity throughout the entire book, since the book only spans one month and bruised ribs take longer than that to heal. Likewise, Nash pulls no punches with the ever-present urges addicts face and just how easy it is for them to slide right back into using if faced with even the slightest bit of temptation. This is, by far, the most realistic portrayal I've ever read in a work of fiction, and I admire it for that. However, as I've never been through a rehab or detox facility, I can't say whether that aspect was realistic. It felt genuine at times and absurd at others, sometimes like a place for healing and sometimes like a prison by any other name. But then, we're seeing the place through a specific lens - that of Eli's experiences - so perhaps the dichotomy is actually a very clever attempt to show that someone in the throes of addiction will see help as an unwanted restraint.

So, as I've mentioned, I feel like the book is raw and realistic and I praise the fact that it doesn't pull punches. I stand by this completely, but I will say that the first 25% of the book is far, far better than the majority of Eli's time in rehab. And I don't mean that I like him better before he's getting help or anything like that; I mean that the writing feels a bit more visceral and realistic in the earlier quarter of the book than it does in the latter parts. While there's an ever-present current of realness and rawness in the writing during Eli's time in rehab and I absolutely love some of the characters (Red and Mo, especially), it's hindered by the subplot with Libby.Yes, Libby, one of the characters I saw a bit too much of myself within. She was horrible and bratty to Eli from the start, but I was willing to forgive that as being troubled and easily triggered by Eli's remarkable ability to open mouth and insert foot (metaphorically speaking). However, from the very beginning, Eli kept pining after his girlfriend Savannah in one breath then obsessing over this girl who'd gone full on Psychotic Episode at him. While it's later explained that they've developed a toxic dependency upon each other, that doesn't explain why he decided not to write her off completely after she exploded at him the first time they met. It was painfully obvious that the YA book trope of a love triangle was about to play out, and so many events and character decisions conspire toward this end without making any sense, such that most things leading to Eli and Libby having a bond feel highly contrived.For some reason, Eli is creepy levels of obsessed with this girl he only just met who's extremely hot-and-cold with him - emphasis on the cold. At one point, Eli offers her unsolicited advice on how to have a more effective workout in the gym. Libby is grumpy about it, but they actually appear to be bonding a bit... until, she outright assaults him by putting a weight on his back unannounced while he's doing pushups. Since he has bruised ribs, it hurts him more than she intends, and it's that rather than the fact she could have hurt him regardless which causes her to eventually show a bit of remorse. And he continues to pine after her. He continues to obsess. It's as if he lives and breathes solely for some chick he doesn't really know, at times. Not only that, but he seems freakishly obsessed with noticing her self-harm scars. If Libby is in a scene, you can safely bet that her scars - or what wardrobe element is covering them at the time - will be mentioned.They use each other emotionally, both for comfort and for tearing down each other. The circumstances which bring them together frequently come across horribly inauthentic. For example, Eli's girlfriend who supposedly loves him (and he, her), has moved on within a week and started dating and sleeping with the guy who takes his place as lacrosse captain. Yes, within a week of being terrified someone she loved was going to die from overdose, she moves on to someone else. And then agrees to come visit him, pretends to still like him, and breaks the news to him after he's been affectionate with her. Why? Because she needs to be out of the way to push Eli/Libby. At least, that's how it seems.In another example, Libby chooses not to say goodbye to someone she considers a brother when he 'graduates' from the program, so that she can hang out on a 'date' with Eli. She's very clearly shown as wanting to linger behind, but agrees to go with Eli who selfishly encourages her away. Yet during this 'date,' she goes from warm toward him to kissing him... to pushing him away and being cruel to him and storming off. When it comes time for her to 'graduate' the program, Libby spends her speech talking about how she doesn't believe love is real... after, in a more private setting, she'd berated Eli and basically told him to grow up and get over her, despite her being the one who kissed him and left him further confused about the emotional bond they had.Then, later, she just so happens to end up being rushed back to detox at precisely the time that Eli is facing temptation to go back to doing heroin due to contraband his so-called best friend smuggled onto campus. We're given the fake-out that maybe it's Will - a character who recently accepted drugs from someone else and then disappeared from the facility - but nope. It's Libby, here to bring back the worst and most toxic 'romance' since Twilight and Fifty Shades. How does Eli react? By deciding he absolutely must chase after her and find a way to break into the detox unit to be with Libby. The girl who broke his heart. The girl he decided had played with his emotions for funsies. The girl who was extremely psychologically damaged and kept jerking his emotions around. The girl who once hurt him physically because he dared to give her friendly advice in the gym - advice she seemed to accept and appreciate at first. He's so confusingly and inexplicably devoted to her, that it's downright infuriating, especially by this point in the book.At the risk of being kicked out of the facility, Eli decides to steal a staff member's passkey to get into detox ward... and Red, who previously tore Eli down for being so stupid and so willing to throw away a chance he was lucky to have, decides to help him. This is explained away as Red feeling sympathetic because he'd have wanted to spend his dead girlfriend's last moments with her just to comfort her, but it feels extremely contrived as a means to explain a convenient Eli/Libby plot point. She's in a detox ward of a rehab facility, not the emergency room of a hospital; we'd already been shown via Eli that overdoses go to the hospital first, and the wounds on her wrists were already medically bandaged. Libby was very clearly not dying, and Red had no logical reason to risk being kicked out of rehab himself just to help Eli with an obsession he'd already called out for being toxic a chapter or two prior.Then, once Eli somehow manages to sneak into the detox ward, he's able to sneak around in the shadows unseen like he's playing a game of Dishonored on easy with extra sneak-aiding runes. He gets into Libby's room, spends time with her, is very creepily vaguely sexual after finding out that her mother's boyfriend molests her... and manages to not be seen from the doorway to the room while he's laying on the floor between the two medical beds in the room. Seriously. There were previously established security cameras on campus, but apparently in the detox ward with high-risk cases, there aren't any to be found or at the very least nobody actually monitors them. Just... what??? I've been in a clinic that handles rehab, brain trauma, and mental health issues and I can promise you that there are cameras in the rooms and facing (but not inside) the bathrooms - as well as staff constantly monitoring the rooms to make sure nobody is hurting themselves, in distress, having a seizure, etc. And when all is said and done, he walks to the reception desk and pretends the doors were open and he'd just walked in. They believe him without question, leading to more video game level sneaking through the facility without ever being caught. It's a horribly contrived and unbelievable element, which makes me very frustrated since the rest of this book and most things outside of Libby are so well-written and so beautifully portrayed with raw, unflinching realism.This also leads me to the one cliche issue I took issue with. Libby! Where everyone else has a nuanced backstory and feels more like a real person, Libby is the stereotypical girl from every Lifetime movie and Law & Order: SVU episode (and poorly written fanfic) ever. She has tattoos, is a bit emo/goth in style, has dyed hair, cuts her wrists "just to prove she's alive," pops pills, and is molested by her mother's creepy on-again, off-again boyfriend. She's basically what feels like the tv-level inaccurate depiction of bipolar: one second she's friendly, then the next she's attacking a person for doing something trivial or possibly even nothing at all. While I did see elements of myself in the way she felt like getting close to people made her too vulnerable and so she'd pull away at the slightest hint of them not caring, I still didn't particularly like her for a vast majority of the book. And I certainly didn't like the weird pseudo-romance and obsessive co-dependency she and Eli formed with one another.Had Libby and Eli been solely friends and had the most ridiculous, contrived things not happened to push them toward a weird faux romance, I would have easily rated this book five stars. I think I'd have even forgiven Libby's cliche nature if only I wasn't extremely sick of hearing about her every five seconds and watching Eli spiral as if she were the sun around which his world revolved (even BEFORE his girlfriend broke up with him!) by time her story was revealed. And, y'know, if the self harm scars weren't mentioned in literally every scene where she appears, as if she's just a prop there to be edgy. (I don't at all think that was the author's intent, it's just an unfortunate side effect of her choosing to give Eli a predisposition toward focusing on Libby's scars.) I wish they'd been friends. I wish they'd been buddies at times and chilly acquaintances at others, leaving Red to remain Eli's best friend in rehab and giving Eli a less disturbing tie to Libby. I wish Eli hadn't latched onto Libby so much. Certainly there could have been a better way to portray his need for an emotional crutch relationship?I also wish that the book hadn't rushed so much toward Eli feeling like maybe he can handle recovery on his own. I was hoping that he'd recognize he wasn't ready and ask to have his stay extended, setting up for a potential sequel novel covering more of his time in rehab alongside Red, who was capable of admitting he needed to enter the extended stay program. In one chapter, Eli is admitting he's not ready to go home and jonesing for another hit because he's so overwhelmed. In the very next chapter, he's suddenly finding hope and thinking he might be okay. It's rushed. Not unrealistic, necessarily, just too rushed - as if the author realized at the last minute she was running out of days and had to cram everything remaining into a small amount of in-universe time. I'd have also liked to see Eli and his little brother, Benny, reunite.However, as I've said before, I do love that the ending isn't one of 'happily ever after' but rather a realistic one of trying and hoping but knowing that the journey with addiction is a very difficult path to walk. And, ultimately, I loved the other characters and I loved the dynamic between (nearly) everyone so much that I was completely willing to forgive the annoyance of the Libby/Eli relationship.Perhaps, in the end, my gripe with Libby and Eli is that I've been in horribly toxic friendships and relationships and it scares and irks me to see similar play out in a book where I relate so well to one (partially both) of the characters involved. It certainly wouldn't be the only element of this novel which made me face uncomfortable truths about myself at the same time as the characters. I think I love it for that element.

This book is... I'm not even sure how to describe it. Raw, visceral, at times vulgar in ways which perfectly fit the subject matter. I don't know how to explain the things it made me think and feel, though of course I'm about to try.

To start, however, I will say that I'm extremely torn on the fact this is presented as Young Adult literature and aimed at teens. On the one hand, it contains things which would easily get a movie the R rating in the US. On the other hand, it's a topic which is very real to far too many teens and one which shouldn't be treated with kid gloves. But on the mysterious third hand I seem to have grown for the sake of making an extra point, I'm not sure if I feel that the way this book handles topics of drugs, sex, drinking, lying, and addiction is necessarily the right approach to take when marketing toward teens. It's almost romanticized, almost glorified, and I think the biggest reason I get that impression is the many, many chapters dedicated to drug use and deception vs. the rushed handful dedicated to recovery and moving on. (Not to mention the way everything is tied up in a neat, little bow and Sacha ultimately considers the worst fall of her life to have been experience which improved her musical talents and style.)

Do I think that this book should have shied away from details? Nah. Do I think it should have cut down on the drug use? Quite contrary, actually; I felt that the spiral from casual usage to addiction shouldn't have been summarized in a couple paragraphs and instead should have been covered more to give a more realistic glimpse into the way drugs grasp onto a person and drag them down into addiction without them even realizing before it's too late. My complaint is more that I wish a more comparable amount of time had been spent on recovery; as-is, the ending feels rushed and therefore not as satisfactory as it otherwise could have been.

Overall, this book was... a peculiar experience. I like the story it set out to tell and I like the gall this author has in deciding not to shy away from topics like these in teen literature. In a sea of romanticized, abusive relationships, we need a more realistic take on teenage lust-turned-“love” and the message that even the most straight-laced of kids can fall into addiction given the right circumstances is not a bad one. I just really didn't find Sacha and Dylan's love to be all that believable, myself.

Well, no, it was believable at first. In fact, I thought it was very cute how Sacha fell into a crush so easily because she liked the music Dylan played. I just didn't like how this crush and hint of lust became “I love you!!!” in a couple of weeks and “I would simply die without you!” in a month. It was toxic and creepy and kept me rooting for the relationship to fail at times because it just weirded me out how quickly they were obsessed with each other when all they seemed to have in common was a mutual love for music.

It doesn't help that the thing they had in common is also the thing which kept me skimming, glazed-eyed, every time it came up in the book: talk about music, how it sounds, how it works, how to play it, etc. I'm a listener of music, not a performer or a writer of it, thus it went a bit over my head (or simply bored me) at times.

Then there was Sacha. I actively dislike her, and that began after the first handful of chapters. She's the worst kind of selfish person: the kind who thinks she's selfless because she doesn't like taking full advantage of others but has no trouble deceiving, manipulating, and using others while complaining about how they're all so selfish the second their lives stop revolving around either her or the plan she thinks their lives should follow. Throughout the story, she left a wave of destruction and hurt in her wake and often said and did contradictory and hypocritical things to the point it had me wondering if perhaps the author herself was creating plot holes rather than just portraying how wishy-washy Sacha is. Even now, I can't decide whether to fault the character or the author entirely, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I will say, though, that I suffered through my grievances with Sacha because I wanted to see how the story ended. I wanted to see what happened - and especially how Dylan handled his addiction problem (for that reason, I feel a little cheated by the ending but also glad that we do get a glimpse of how he fares).

Sacha... frankly, she could have been eaten by a shark and I wouldn't have cared, not after the insensitive, ignorant, and stupid way she treated her boyfriend with regards to his addiction. Not only does she not help him, but she attacks him the second he relapses by accusing him of loving heroin more than her. And then... she decides to shoot some smack herself for the sake of "understanding" why he "loves it more than her." And then she gets mad at him for using. And then she decides she understands and actively encourages him to fall back into addiction when he's trying to make an effort at getting clean. Then she decides to be angry at him again for using. And then she decides that it's okay so long as they're doing it together... many of these things within a couple paragraphs of each other. She never actually helped him - no matter how much credit he ultimately tries to give the heartbreak she caused - and instead abandoned him entirely without a proper "bye, it's over." Because that's Sacha McLeod: use up the things which benefit her then throw them away when a new whim comes along then cry about missing the things she threw away. Rinse and repeat.

In the end, I can't say that I regret reading this book. I can't even say I disliked the story. I can definitely say I disliked the narrating character and having to view the world through her eyes, but it didn't deter me enough to make me quit reading. And ultimately, there are absolutely people like Sacha in the world. There are whirlwind romances like hers with Dylan. I imagine it's fairly common amongst teens to mistake the thrill of enjoying someone's talent as loving them, or think the burning touch of lust is actually eternal love. But unlike so many books aimed at teens, this one takes that kind of love and shows just how toxic and dangerous it can be - then, at the end, makes it explicit that what was felt wasn't true love after all. For that, and for tackling the topic of drug addiction, I think I have respect for this book.

Would I read it again? Probably not. But the characters will stick in my head for a while, I believe, and the story made me feel an entire gamut of emotions.

((Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book through BookSirens. This review is left voluntarily and is not incentivized.))

So, I've been on a binge of spooky/mysterious things on YouTube lately, and one video I landed on promoted this book. (I think it may have been by Scare Theater, but don't quote me on that.) Given I was enjoying the material provided on the channel and the narrator seemed to have enjoyed this book, I decided I'd give it a shot. With so few pages in it and my Kindle Unlimited trial still good to go, there was nothing to lose. Except maybe sleep, I suppose, but we all know sleep is a foregone option for people who fall down the YouTube horror rabbit hole anyway.

Though a few of the stories fell very flat for me, these are all bite-sized horror so the ‘meh' ones are more like biting into a gross Halloween candy: it's gone quickly and doesn't ruin the taste of the good ones. And boy were there ever some good ones in this assortment! The anthology starts out very strong, then becomes a bit of a roller coaster, but it's a fun ride overall.

I can't say much about the plots of the tales, given how brief most of them are, but I will share my impressions and individual ratings for each in the hopes of spiking curiosity for potential readers and providing a bit of feedback for the author. And, of course, for the sake of getting my thoughts out - the main reason I write reviews in the first place.

My Dark Box - ???????????????

This one is very short (less than two pages on my device), but effective in creating a bit of a chill down my spine. It seems like the story's going one way, then it seems like it's going another, and finally it arrives at a conclusion which doesn't feel quite so spooky - but only because I absolutely love the type of character involved and don't find them scary. I'd say more, but that'd completely ruin this one, and spoilers for a two-page story feel unfair to both author and potential readers.

Overall, I think managing twists and effective creep factor in so few words is an admirable feat and this would make a decent ‘campfire story.' I'm also very happy about the subtle yet effective representation, since within the first few sentences we learn that the narrating character is a (presumably young) woman who's eagerly awaiting a visit from another woman she can't get out of her head.

Human Mercy - ???????????????

The ending is a bit overly rushed compared to the beginning, but I loved how this one preys upon modern human fears. This one didn't so much scare me, but it did make me think in the way a psychological horror might. I enjoyed it a lot. I don't have an Alexa or anything of the sort, but for those of you who do... Perhaps after you've read this, you'll want to reconsider how much control you give Alexa. Maybe, someday, she'll really be able to think... and have a few opinions on the state of your existence, like the main character in this tale.

Burlap Agave - ???????????????

Yes, the imagery is a bit on the comical side at moments, but I still loved everything about this one. It's a little bit spooky, a little bit unnerving, and very entertaining. Once again, a very small amount of words manages to tell a somewhat complex and intriguing story with an unforeseen ending.

Six Minutes - ???????????????

You know that show Black Mirror? Yeah, I want an episode based on this! I love how there's this undercurrent of intrigue from the start and the ending really drives the point home. The only reason for 4.5 instead of 5 on this one is a punctuation flub: the use of double quotations instead of single quotes inside of dialogue. It tripped me up once because the dialogue had continued through a new page and suddenly I saw an opening quotation and thought I'd been misreading. I hadn't; it really was still a character speaking.

The Sands - ???????????????

This is the first “long” story in the mix, but it's also the first I didn't particularly like. It relies heavily on gross body horror and never gives much explanation for what's happening. When the story was over, I had far more questions than answers and just felt overall annoyed. I almost gave this one one star, but it was objectively well written in the quality of body horror, so I'm being generous.

Live Action - ???????????????

The formatting on this story irks me so much. It contains excerpts from a character's screenplay, but there is nothing to truly set that apart from normal prose. A different font, italics, or even indentation would have been much nicer. As for content... well, there are a couple of really interesting elements but as a whole I felt let down. It feels a bit like someone threw a few episodes of Black Mirror into a blender, but forgot to add sweetener to the resulting smoothie: I can see all the potential, but don't enjoy consuming it as-is.

Shuggah - ???????????????

This one is weirdly fun, albeit in a twisted manner. I wish there were more lore for the creature involved, but what's provided is plenty enough to paint a vivid mental picture.

Madeline Gray - ???????????????

I didn't like some of the wording used in sentences here because it often felt overly convoluted, as if the author were trying too hard to sound fanciful. The story itself is alright, but ends before what I feel would have been the best part. I like the concept, but I'm not all that fond of the execution.

Rex - ???????????????

Dead dogs and decomposition-based body horror are both extremely not my jam, so I honestly expected to hate this story. Weirdly enough, though, it had an odd sense of happiness to it, as the characters - dog included - all seemed quite complacent with their lot in life. The ending is... happy? I don't really think that's a good word for the circumstances, but the ending is oddly cute. There was an odd typo of “the it sounded more like,” which made me stumble for a second in the flow of reading, but otherwise this is a well-written and peculiarly compelling story. Skip this one if dying pets and animal body horror bother you a lot, but otherwise it's a quirky, spooky read. I was able to put aside my own issues with those things to actually enjoy the story of Rex and his human.

Salon Du Jour - ???????????????

I saw the twist in this one coming by the second paragraph, if not sooner. Similarly to Live Action, I find myself disappointed by the great potential in this tale compared to the generic and lackluster execution. Perhaps I'm expecting too much of a short story, but I really wish that even a small hint had been given as to why the main character behaved and thought as she did. Without nuanced motives, it just feels empty.

Make the First Swing Count - ???????????????

This one is rife with typos and makes no sense to me. I can tell what's happening but not why and the whole thing is just annoyingly confusing.

Sister Seafood - ???????????????

I'd say this one is just plain okay. Not bad, not great, just middle of the road. The action element felt very detached and unemotional, though the situation should have called for some form of emotional impact. Every character involved came across as a sociopath, and I don't think that was the intention.

Pepsis Formosa - ???????????????

This is everything I want from short, spooky stories. I definitely didn't realize where this one was heading, and the ending left me smirking. Loved it! I wish I could say more, but to do so would be to spoil this two-page story, and I absolutely refuse to do that.

Grandfather Mountain - ???????????????

He said. She said. He said. She said. Please, give me more dialogue tag variety than just a pronoun and the word said! It's a two-pager and successfully pulls off an edge of creepiness, but sadly this is a case of ‘cool concept, not fond of the execution.' It feels like a very weak way to end this anthology.

Overall Average Rating: ???????????????
My Overall Rating: ???????????????

Considering this book is free on Kindle Unlimited and available for $3 USD, I think it's priced fairly for the content and well worth reading. The stories I loved far outweigh the ones I felt indifferent toward and the small few I actively disliked. Plus, I think there may be a little bit of something for every type of horror fan in this anthology. As such, despite the technical average of all the ratings being three stars, I chose to give an extra for the enjoyment I gathered from my favourites.

This may be something of a ramble with leanings toward a rant, but I have a lot of conflicting emotions to unpack about this book. On the surface, it's beautiful. It has gorgeous prose and an amazing cover and there are so many questions which keep you reading in seek of answers. But beneath the surface, there's pitting from weak plot threads and stains from lost trains of thought. The emphasis on description eventually becomes droll. The tiptoeing around what's troubling Marin eventually becomes obnoxious, since we're inside her head and there's no true reason for it to take so long to reveal the answers to important questions like what happened to her.

Marin's guilt issues are obnoxious sometimes, as well. In the past, she beats herself up over “making her grandpa sad” when she asks an extremely reasonable question of whether any baby pictures exist of herself. You'd think that she had called him a terrible person for not saving any, instead. But no. A simple question, which should have a simple answer, and she acts like she's a monster for ever asking in the first place. It's ridiculous.

I also found it difficult to empathize when she waxes poetic about how much she misses her old belongings, since it's her own fault they're gone. She's the one who threw away having a real home and ran off. She's the one who didn't care enough about those things to preserve them. She's the one who betrayed the person closest to her by ignoring concerned texts. She's the one who decided to wallow uselessly in self-pity and stay in crappy hotels instead of accepting a loving home openly and freely offered. There's a point where I just wanted to scream at Marin that she needs to grow up because she did this to herself.

I also hated that, after feeling empathy for Marin through the beginning of the book, things began falling apart and she became less and less relatable toward the middle. At the end, it's revealed via flashback that she's the kind of person who throws away an otherwise perfectly good set of clothes just because they'd been worn too much and she was concerned about making a bad impression on her new roommate with stinky attire. So she spent three hundred bucks on school-branded attire and threw her old clothes away instead of just tossing them aside so a poorer student could find and claim them, washing them later and keeping them, or outright donating them. That moment really took me out of liking Marin, because it's such a gross display of privilege and she surrounds it with fretting over how eventually she'll run out of the mass of money her dead grandpa she hates so much for lying to her left... Well, maybe stop pissing away money and just buy a can of body spray instead. Jeez.

Also, I got sick of how she seems incapable of going five seconds without mentioning Jane Eyre. I know rabid fangirls who are better than her when it comes to desperately trying to relate every aspect of life to her favourite book. And maybe in those five, shining seconds of not talking or thinking about Jane Eyre, she could also stop mentally begging Mabel to ask her about things she wants to say and then stop trailing off halfway all “nevermind I can't do this” after starting to tell one of the only plot-like stories in this book. There's mystery and then there's being obnoxiously secretive and the line gets crossed several times. Of course, then when it finally does come out, the reveal is so... anti-climactic. The event itself which apparently so deeply traumatized Marin is so dull.

All these emotions. All these hints at some sinister darkness. All the time spent wondering what kind of horrible, awful thing happened to Marin to make her feel so lost and so uncomfortable in her own skin that she ghosted her friend/girlfriend and fled to the other side of the country...

And it turns out, Marin has been a whiny, little brat about finding out her grandfather suffered a mental illness and kept secrets from her. Whiny enough to wonder if something as simple as a Christmas memory of decorating the tree was real or tainted by lies. (Protip: you can't lie that you're putting an ornament on a tree when you are literally putting an ornament on a tree and you can't taint a dialogue-free memory of sitting around said tree with lies that aren't being spoken.) And of course, she throws away a home, a family, a life all because she can't handle the idea of facing things she literally does not ever have to face. Nobody's telling her to go live in the house where the frankly not-so-bad thing happened (nobody was murdered, molested, raped, attacked, etc. it was just an emotionally bad thing). Hell, at one point, Mabel - the ex-girlfriend, sorta vaguely still best friend - begs her to just visit for Christmas break, and Marin is an ass about that.

Oh, she just can't possibly do it. Why not? Nobody knows. The way it's written, Marin is just plain stupid and self-centered. “Oh, I can't possibly go with Mabel, but oh I'll be so horribly lost without her.” “Oh, I can't possibly go back there, but oh I'm so worried and sad and distraught about all the things I willingly left behind and wondering what happened to them.” At some point, it stops being relatable as anxiety or grief and just starts inducing this feeling of ‘shut the fuck up, Marin, and grow up; if you miss things, go back to them, or else accept the consequences of your choices.' I think that's because the author is trying a little too hard to express thoughts logically when they're not supposed to be logical. Grief, anxiety, depression: these things cause irrational thoughts and actions. But in locking in on “oh I can't” instead of exploring the true struggle of desperately wanting to go, being terrified of returning, wanting to say yes but being seized by panic... we just get Marin constantly whining that she can't return. And being a horrible, entitled brat with regards to how her grandfather handled his grief while clearly influenced by some sort of mental illness.

How can she be such a terrible, cold-hearted person about her grandfather keeping photos of her mom away from her? Those were his property and he was clearly living in denial so strong that he couldn't face talking about the fact she was dead or sharing those memories with Marin. Yes, it hurt her. But, no, she was never entitled to him breaking his own heart open to talk to her about her mom or share his personal photos. And she of all people - the girl who ghosted everyone who still cared about her and ran off to the other side of the country just so she could live in denial - should be capable of understanding that sometimes you just can't face the source of grief. But nope, she's whining about how she was so entitled to have her grandfather share those memories with her within three pages of refusing to even visit Mabel for Christmas because boo hoo I can't go back there. The hypocrisy is infuriating and confusing and ugh.

I find this so peculiar, since all other aspects of the emotional handling show that Nina LaCour is a talented writer who's perfectly capable of portraying panic and soul-crushing sadness and the kind of bone-deep depression which makes a person not even want to get out of bed or be around other humans. Then we reach the end, and it's as if a resolution is provided but she needs to fill more space in the book so she has Marin artificially keep clinging to denial after admitting aloud and to herself what truly happened. She has Marin keep acting entitled, even after feeling the weight of denial and grief herself. We get a lacklustre reveal of a mediocre plot point, and still Marin doesn't change at all for having admitted the truth. Nothing changes. She's still a horrible friend, she's still self-absorbed and self-pitying and keen on blaming her grandfather for his obvious mental illness. It isn't until the very end of the book where we get any change, and at that point it just feels like more artificial, forced plot for the sake of tying it all up in a little bow and promising that things will be okay eventually.

Except Marin doesn't change herself. She doesn't drag herself out of grief and she doesn't overcome anything. She remains a hermit and the people she betrayed and hurt come running back to her with open arms to give her company when she chose solitude. That, to me, isn't overly hopeful of a message. It's more like a Lifetime Movie ending to force some happiness into a bleak, depressing experience. It's not a message about overcoming and surviving and moving on with life after facing a great loss; it's a message about just waiting around and continuing to hide from one's problems, and if the people you've hurt care enough about you they'll come crawling back to make your life a little brighter again regardless.

I also very much disliked that out of the blue, the dynamic between Mabel and Marin changed and suddenly created this awkward and out-of-place scene where Mabel teased Marin about potential crushes. Or that the very end is Marin finally agreeing to live with Mabel's family not because she's loved and not because of them as individuals and the true kindness they've shown all her life but rather because being hugged by Mabel's mother gave her a brief flash of memory about her own and she decided to chase that feeling and use Ana as her replacement mother.

It's just... meh. The book begins strongly. It has this beautiful writing and these entrancingly melancholy glimpses into a troubled mind. But by the middle, it becomes obvious that it's all just pathetic melodrama and not something as huge or as insidious as the reactions might imply. Then at the end, all of that is tossed away to put a magic fix into place and go ah, yes, everything is perfect again now when really nothing at all has been resolved and the main mysteries and questions are still left with only vague half-answers at best. Judging by how this book came to exist, as explained in the acknowledgments, I can see why it started out so beautifully atmospheric then petered out to the now everything will be totes okay again all the sudden ending. I've been there before, myself; when you're writing from a place of your own grief and sadness, there comes a point where you just want to make it all stop and put a happy ending on and be done with it. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe the author had very different reasons for ending this book as she did, but that's the impression I get.

All the same, I expected so much more from this book and honestly I feel somewhat let down by it. Were it not for the amazing representation provided for bisexual women and lesbians, I'm not sure I'd have even given this four stars. It's closer to three otherwise, and even those come from mostly the first quarter to half of the book and not the entire thing.

But the representation really is good. It touches on fear of homophobia without being too heavy-handed. It touches on confusion without being overly dramatic. It touches on the fact that it's entirely possible to be bisexual and still monogamous. And overall, it treats these girls as normally and respectfully as it does anyone else in the narrative. Their sexualities don't define them, even though naturally the former relationship is frequent across Marin's mind. And Mabel having a boyfriend now and a girlfriend in the past isn't treated as some kind of horrible or exceptional or traitorous thing; it's just how her love life works.

(There's also a lot of representation in the form of hispanic characters - Mexican immigrants, in this case - but I can't really speak to the accuracy or the way it's handled, as I don't have first-hand experience with a real life Mexican family. I will say, however, that it felt as if everything came from a place of authenticity, affection, and understanding.)

And even though I'm so let down by the ending and the reveal, I can't be too harsh on a book which made me feel as much as I did. I can't be too hard on a book that's written so beautifully. And I certainly can't be too hard on a book which made me feel like I could relate through half of the tale; it's so difficult to run across depression and grief written so well it doesn't feel like a failed attempt at emo fanfiction. I'm glad I read this book, I just wish the entire thing had been as good as the first portion.

Dream interpretation is something which has always fascinated me. I'm the kind of person who has lucid dreams on a regular basis and often wonders just what some of the more confusing or fantastical elements might mean. Thus, when I came across this book, I knew I had to give it a chance. After all, it claims to be the “all-in-one dream interpretation book and concise dream dictionary” and that seems like a very useful tool to have.

Unfortunately, it's not really ALL in one, as the semi-frequent mentions of this author's other, larger books containing dream analysis guides make abundantly clear. This is more of a small refresher and a newbie's guide, I'd say. So keep that in mind while proceeding; you won't be getting the be-all, end-all guidebook here. But that's not really what this book wants to be, and thus I question the subtitle quite a bit. This book is fairly upfront from the start that it's meant to lead you into the process of interpreting and recognizing symbolism in your dreams - not to be some magic book which tells you definitively what everything means.

In that regard, I found the book to be quite refreshing. Unlike some other sources I've found over the years, it doesn't pretend that we don't know our own minds better than some stranger's dictionary of dream elements might. The author reminds her readers that, because dreams are manifestations of our worries and subconscious thoughts, the symbols we find may not mean what they commonly do for others and, ultimately, we should listen to our intuition. If the gut instinct is, “no, that's not what this means to me,” then we should listen. I wish I could go back in time and hand this advice to my teenage self, who was led down a scary path of thinking her dreams meant certain doom because of what online dream interpretations insisted the darker symbols meant.

Overall, I'm happy with the guide to dream analysis and the advice it gives. However, it could use a bit of polish here and there. For example, it sometimes reads as if the author is trying to pad paragraphs for length like a student desperate to finish an essay, and that can get repetitive quickly. (eg. “Intuition is key in understanding dream meaning because it is the part of you that recognizes the truth. It's through your intuition that you recognize the true meaning of a dream.”) I ended up skimming through a few paragraphs, if only because it felt like I was having a Groundhog Day moment - the same thing, over and over, just presented with slight variations.

The symbols dictionary section contains fifty things ranging from very common (cats, words, being naked) to slightly more obscure (wallet, being rescued, things/people being next to other things/people), along with some useful information on what each might mean. However, it feels rather lacking compared to what I expected from a book proclaiming to be an All-In-One. It feels more like a basic primer, and honestly contains details anyone could find online for free.

Don't get this book for the sake of the dream dictionary; you'd be wasting your money. But if you want a primer for dream analysis and some useful insight on how to make sense of what you dream, this may very well be useful for you. I'd dare say, though, that it might be a better deal to go for one or both of the author's larger books instead if you already know you're very seriously interested in dedicating time and energy to analyze your dreams; this book seems at times more like a preview for those, right down to including a sizable excerpt from one.

(Note: I received an Advance Review Copy of this book for free from Book Sirens, and have chosen to provide honest insights on what I've read within. I do consider the book to be worth the current Amazon list price of slightly under $3.)

Hauntingly Blunt Look Into Meat Processing

Let me preface this by saying it's going to be rambly and blunt in ways which may bother others who don't want to think about slaughtering animals. (But then, if you don't want to think about that, you shouldn't read this book because it details the process of a slaughter house.)

I'm one of those people who clings to meat despite the disgust I feel every time I think about it being the muscles and flesh of once-living creatures. When I realize what it is, I usually feel sick and stop eating. If I see a vein in the meat on my plate, I feed it to my pets instead and feel too ill to keep eating. If there's a bone in a piece of meat, I won't eat it because that bone makes me think of death and corpses. But hamburgers, chicken nuggets, beef jerky...? Those I chow down upon with no ill feelings. I like the taste and so long as I don't have to think about the reality, it doesn't bother me.

It's a flaw, I know. Perhaps even a product of my upbringing. I was raised in an area where hunting was the main source of meat. In abstract, it doesn't faze me to know that animals die for meat because, as I was taught, animals also eat other animals for food. And it's true, where hunting for food (not sport) or raising individual animals to feed only one's own family are concerned: an individual of one species takes down an individual of another in order to feed their family. Questionable in that, unlike wild animals, we aren't obligate carnivores, but... humans are horribly selfish creatures. We want what we want, and seldom do we question what we actually need.

The idea of gnawing on flesh disgusts me not for the fact that it's a sentient creature's hide but for the fact I don't like the idea of eating a corpse because it sounds filthy. Yet, when I see an animal head trophy, I have to look away because I feel so sad for the creature's fate. I am a hypocrite, an animal lover who at once both loathes and loves meat. I have struggled for years with the fact I “just can't live without” beef jerky in particular, yet I have the heart of someone who'd be better off a vegetarian.??

How do I manage? Well, in my mind, I like to hide behind thoughts of how “humane” the meat industry claims its slaughter methods are, and honestly until I read this book I assumed that meant the animals lived happy lives on a farm until one day, without them ever being scared, they were taken to another farm - the slaughterhouse - and killed instantly for processing. Like hunted animals: oblivious to their fates, never suffering. They still die, of course, and that's the part I prefer not to think about, but I was content to assume humane meant a lack of suffering and fear.

Boy, was I wrong! This book sheds a whole new light on what passes as “humane” in the meat industry, and I find myself both regretting this knowledge and feeling like I needed to have it.??

How can giving a fellow creature brain damage to knock them out and slitting the throat of their twitching body until they bleed out count as humane? How many of these animals die for no purpose whatsoever because their meat is overstocked and gets thrown away, expired before it could ever be purchased? Why is this a thing that society has chosen to ignore?

I find myself questioning the last bit a lot right now. This book is thought-provoking, and honestly I'm not sure how much longer I can handle eating my beloved beef jerky when I know that somewhere out there a cow was led to a horrific death then sawed apart in front of their herdmates just so I could gnaw on their dehydrated flesh. It doesn't sit well in my heart.

As you can see, I have a lot of emotions and thoughts as a result of reading this book. It's short and generally easy to read, though at times the scenery descriptions get repetitive and once the gender of a cow is mistyped as male when previously it was female. (Chapter five, the black cow which was once called a female is referred to as male. It's most likely a typo but it was a little odd.) The prose flows a bit more like an article or other piece of journalism, though that may be unavoidable by nature and certainly doesn't detract from the information provided.

Oddly, the portions from the cow's point of view were less emotional to me than the ones which just cover the witnessing of slaughter. Perhaps it's because we don't know the cow or what her life once was or how she feels other than intensely afraid. I have the same issue in horror stories where it starts mid-action and all we're told is how scared the human character is: I find it difficult to connect without more detail. But I didn't need a direct connection to the cow to empathize once I saw the proces she unwillingly endured.

I wish there was more to say, but honestly I can't quite sort out my thoughts. This book will make you think an awful lot.

I'm so conflicted by this book. I found it in the YA section, but it's far closer to a children's book because it's so simplistic in both art style and writing. Most second graders would be able to understand the book with minimal help from an adult (or older sibling). Teens... I honestly can't imagine they'd be able to read this without feeling embarrassment because of how simply it's written.

In fact, I found it so odd that this is from the perspective of someone who was sixteen when her little brother was born yet the rhyme scheme is very juvenile and weak. At times, the rhyming drops entirely or would require a heavy accent to work. Other times, it's the kind of thing a child would write. The art also looks like something a child may draw: simple, no defined hands or features, colouring outside the lines. Also, there's a random goat which appears in a few drawings, but it has purpose at the end.

That said, this book tells a meaningful story about an older sister bonding with her little brother who's sixteen years younger. She begins to suffer depression (which is portrayed in one heartbreaking drawing as the goat having broken horns) and tries to explain it to her brother as she fights to maintain her facade of normalcy. But... I think she maybe kills herself? It's confusing. Things go from adorable to extremely dark very abruptly and the book ends on a very confusing note.

The sister says that she's tired of being a scapegoat and wants to find a home of her own off somewhere that she can be anything she wants. Except the things listed are all animals, which bring to mind certain beliefs about reincarnation. At the very end, her goat is shown with wings, and I can't tell if it means she's flying in an empowering sense or that she's an angel because she killed herself.I also can't tell what she means when she says the little brother learned from "them" to avoid and blame her. It's sudden and rushed and not as well explained as anything else. Maybe it's a sibling thing? Uncertain, since I have no siblings myself. It almost sounds more like he became a bad person...?

So, yeah, it's an interesting book and it attempts to tell an important story, but I think it suffers from the poetry scheme and I'm not sure what audience it's trying to reach or whether the ending is appropriate. (Is this a book to share with the younger sibling of someone who committed suicide? Or just the younger sibling of someone who ran away / moved away?)

Digital ARC provided by NetGalley. Review left voluntarily and contains honest opinions.

Honest, Amusing, Entertaining, and Educational

I found this book by chance and chose it as a sort of research item since I've been writing a lot of characters who are parents lately but don't have any children??of my own. With a title like Herding Cats and the adorably amusing cover, I figured it would be an enjoyable reading experience instead of a boring and clinical one. And you know what? I was right!

The tone of this book is almost like having a conversation with a new friend who's catching you up to speed on what it's like to be a parent - or commiserating, if you happen to already be one. It's light and refreshing, funny and entertaining, yet also bluntly honest in a very relatable way. No punches are pulled on how gross and infuriating life can be for a parent of multiple toddlers, but no love is withheld either when explaining why all the trials and tribulations are worthwhile.

Reading this book felt like a journey through someone's blog or family YouTube channel: fun and fascinating glimpses into real lives, maybe a little polished to be palatable for entertainment but always with the undercurrent of honesty and realism. I was very entertained and sped through reading because I never wanted to put it down. I greatly enjoyed Whitney's honesty and sense of humour - and the way she manages to convey the individual personalities of each child featured in the anecdotes without having to give long-winded explanations.

On the technical level, I only have two gripes: One, the footnotes aren't tappable and thus by time I reach them at the end of each chapter I've already forgotten context and why I should care. (That's a shame, because many of them are hilarious or even educational - such as the one which led me to learn about embryo adoption's existence - so it's sad to think some readers may skip them.) And two, the phrase “could care less” was used when “couldn't care less” is the technically correct version. Are one typo and me not wanting to flip pages to find footnotes worthy of docking a star, though? I debated it, but ultimately decided the answer is no. I loved this book, overall. It deserves all five!

“Night Animals Need Sleep Too” is an adorable, easy-to-read book presented almost as if it's a children's graphic novel (the animals have speech bubbles, instead of a narrative text). It features adorable art and silly jokes which will likely get kids giggling away the last of their energy before bed. Though it's short and simple, there's quite a bit of personality to be found in this title, especially with Possum and a running joke about how opossums play dead.

I would recommend “Night Animals Need Sleep Too” for parents/guardians whose children enjoy animal-based humor - particularly cartoons, as this book almost feels like the storybook version of an animated short. As a child, I would have likely requested this book frequently as a bedtime tale! Those who are concerned about morals to stories, however, may find issue with the lack of one in this book; it's mostly just light education and age-appropriate comedy.

(Full disclosure: I received a digital advance review copy of this book for free and have voluntarily left this review containing my honest opinion.)

I agonized for a while over whether to rate this title two or three stars, and I think ultimately I'd say it's 2.5 stars for me - rounded up to three to be nice since I don't actively dislike the book. Trouble is: I also didn't particularly enjoy the whole thing. There were pieces (and one side character) I liked and the concept was fascinating, but ultimately I found myself deeply disappointed and often bored with this one. For a story where the dead can come back to life and an extremely toxic friendship is explored, I expected more emotion and resolution and drama. Instead, things just kind of crawl along slowly and meander through a field of reasons why Dino and July should have never been friends in the first place, peppered with plot points which make absolutely no sense.

Perhaps the most egregious plot hole here is the fact July is described as actively decaying. Her skin's coming off, but nobody other than Dino ever notices or mentions it. She smells like death and decay because she wasn't embalmed, yet people just kind of deal with it for the most part. Have you ever smelled a decomposing corpse?! I have - albeit in the sense of roadkill and such - and let me tell you: that goes far beyond thinking someone smells a little ripe. It is a highly distinctive scent, it gets in your nose and makes you feel like it's crawling all over your skin. It causes a gag reflex for a lot of people. And we're supposed to believe that for several days - I think a week or longer - July is walking around, skin peeling off, leaving the scent of decaying corpses behind her and... that's it, that's all, nobody runs away and pukes or notices the rotting flesh?

I'd be okay with this as suspension of disbelief territory, if only we weren't reminded of the rotting skin and smell of decay every few pages. In fact, at one point, she's told not to move her thumb or its skin will fall off again; afterward, she does all manner of things from driving to touching people to texting to playing video games with someone which would absolutely require use of her thumb. The skin doesn't fall back off. She doesn't even split the stitches Dino used to reattach the flesh.

If not for the (very frustrating, I believe) hopping between Dino's and July's points of view, I'd have taken these elements to mean we were being set up to discover it was all a dream or hallucination at the end. With how little sense everything surrounding the paranormal element makes, I'd have welcomed a “just a dream” ending with open arms and probably liked this book a bit more as a result.

After all, when it's revealed that death has outright stopped happening all around the world, rules are established for the paranormal element which directly contradict everything about July's resurrection. One woman apparently can't speak or respond due to "missing more of her brain than is left" after an accidental shooting, but July herself has had all of her internal organs removed and she's still sentient and functional while she slowly rots from the inside out. And we never get a true explanation, just a vague theory. While the whole world keeps going on like “lol nbd, this is just generic news, no reason to panic.” People get more upset about rain storms in real life than they did about such a huge revelation in this book.

Since I was hoping for a book that veered firmly into paranormal territory while also exploring interpersonal relationships, this was a huge letdown for me. However, since I don't feel particularly strongly one way or the other - and goodreads has the most ridiculous review length limits - I'm not sure how to articulate what I liked and disliked. Enter my friend, the list! I'll start with what I didn't like and end with what I did, so I can leave on a positive note.

The Negatives

* Instead of realistic teenage voices, we get characters who sound like they're chatting online in the early 2010s. Example, from July's dialogue: “Uh-oh. Better call the dramahawk ‘cause the waaambulance'll take too long to get here.” Is this really how teens talk in person these days? Please tell me it isn't. Do people even use the whole ‘waaambulance' thing anymore? I remember it being big online back when I was in my late teens, and I'm nearly thirty now! July also references the Janet Jackson nip slip, which would have happened when she was a toddler, and knows more about it than I do despite having been fourteen at the time myself.

* There's a preachy SJW-level morality thrown in at every opportunity. Let me count the most noticeable ways this occurs:

01. July is scolded for making homophobic jokes not because doing so is hurtful and wrong but because she's not gay herself thus it's “not her joke to tell.” Why can't we just agree that perpetuating harmful stereotypes is wrong, full stop, instead? Being LGBT doesn't mean you aren't responsible for aiding in the reinforcement of bigoted beliefs when you tell shitty stereotype-based jokes yourself; every bigot who hears a gay person reinforce a generalization then feels validated because hey look even they believe it's true is worse than a straight ally who makes an oops because gay people around her also make or tolerate those jokes. Hypocrisy is just wrong, m'kay!

02. We're reminded at least three times that the president both exists and is a moron, despite it literally never being relevant and people generally reading to escape the bullshit of real life. Just fucking stop, please. That dead horse has been beaten to a pulp by now.

03. A young woman who was perfectly happy and excited to be married nearly decides to call it off because “it's a tool of the patriarchy” or something like that. She's magically worried about how marriage may change her and her future husband might want her to be a housewife simply because he wants kids at some point. Nothing even comes of it, other than a chapter full of what feels like a buzzfeed article.

04. “Come pretend to be a zombie and scare my mom's boss because he grabs her inappropriately! I am a teenager whose mom apparently tells her about this, but doesn't have the wherewithal to tell the police or upper management. And this is definitely not just an awkward attempt to hit more social justice hot topics. Promise!” Obviously not a direct quote, but the best way I can explain it.

05. July herself is a disgusting amalgam of every “bad straight ally” and “stupid cis white bitch” stereotype possible. There's no reason someone who's that blatantly and wilfully ignorant would have ever had a best friend who wasn't just as nasty - especially a gay one! Her characterization feels like a cheap attempt to have an excuse to check off all the buzzwords and morals which frankly don't fit in a story of this tone.

06. “Why is it that when a guy knows what he wants and goes after it and is proud of who he is, people call him a winner or a leader, but when a girl does it she's a selfish bitch?” This is a direct quote of the response to July being told that she's selfish and made people feel obligated to worship her during her confirmation party. It is completely irrelevant to the situation, because she really is terribly selfish and nobody would call a male a “leader” or “winner” for being a jerk like that. Instead of accepting criticism or admitting it hurts, she turns it into some bullshit social justice thing to silence Dino.

07. Dino tells July she isn't a selfish bitch - which is a lie - and that people are jealous she can get what she wants. Except the selfish things she's done have literally nothing to do with that. She makes Dino coming out be about her, outs him to the whole school, twists being called out on bigotry into a self-pity party, gets jealous of Dino's boyfriend spending more time with him than her, etc. But let's ignore that to push the narrative that calling a girl selfish just means you're sexist and jealous of her ‘success' in life!

And those are just the most blatant instances.

* Instead of compelling, emotionally-driven narrative, we get detached writing which makes both July and Dino feel like they're suffering dissociative episodes. They're not, by the way. The writing just carries no emotion, even in the rare moments where the characters do show emotion. (Seriously, the reactions to July's resurrection are so flat and lifeless from everyone except a single side character.)

* Death has stopped happening worldwide, and nobody reacts realistically. There is no horror, no chaos, no mass hysteria - even though the whole thing is covered on the news.

* July is a horrible person, and I deeply resent the book's attempts to redeem her without forcing her to own up to how bad she is. Let's count the most egregious ways:

01. misgenders her “best friend's” trans boyfriend and gets pissed off when called out on it

02. calls Dino her “girlfriend” because he's a gay guy

03. makes shitty, bigoted remarks, and gets angry when others try to explain why it's wrong

04. body shames skinny people (despite knowing Dino himself is thin and insecure about his body) but gets angry when she's body shamed for her curves

05. actively thinks of Dino as spineless and other insulting things which shame him for his anxiety issues

06. frequently manipulates people and twists everything until she's absolved of her wrongdoings and the other person feels a need to apologize (it's damn near gaslighting)

07. made Dino's coming out be about her instead of him by crying that she was afraid she'd turned him gay (yes, really)

08. outed Dino to the entire school without permission

09. responds to being told about her toxic cycle of manipulation with: “Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it.”

10. sneaks into Rafi's bedroom and snooped around his personal belongings

* Dino himself is an annoying person who does shitty things, too. I mean, he breaks up with Rafi because he isn't sure whether he feels love yet when Rafi does. Because, you know, hurting someone very important who cares a lot about you is totally a better option than actually partaking in a little self-reflection or just being honest and saying you need time to think. It's very odd and out of left field, too - not congruent with Dino's character at all - and, worse, inspired by something July told him. So, yeah, July's an obnoxious idiot bu Dino's an oblivious idiot and together they make one giant pot of Idiot Stew, which gets poured into a metaphorical Slurpee Cup otherwise known as this book.

* The ending sucks and feels extremely anti-climactic. This book goes out with a pathetic whimper, at best. By the ending, all the trudging through frustrating back-and-forth with Dino and July seems utterly pointless.

* Dino ends up apologizing for “not being a good friend” when the only thing he ever did wrong to July was call her out on being a shitty friend and exclude her from being around people he thought she'd hurt with her harmful ‘jokes' and remarks. (He was right, by the way!) This book builds up what seems to be letting go of an extremely toxic friendship then backpedals to tie everything up in an ugly bow as if the non-toxic person were also partly responsible for finally breaking the friendship in the past. As someone who's been trapped in cyclic toxicity before, I was highly annoyed and disappointed by this element.

* Rafi, Dino's trans boyfriend, feels more like a tool to further Dino's plot with July. I love Rafi - you'll see him in the positives section soon - but every scene he's in (except the first chapter) feels more like it's about how he impacts Dino and July's “friendship” than about his relationship with Dino or him as an individual.

The Positives

* Dino points out that body shaming is disgusting and wrong whether the person being attacked is skinny or overweight. I was ecstatic to see this message included, because I'm so sick of the current trend of people pretending that the nastiness overweight people face somehow means it's okay or ‘not as bad' to make thinner people feel like trash or hate their own bodies. One group's pain does not negate the fact that another group doesn't deserve to endure self-hatred or bullying!

* Rafi is amazing! His personality is fun, his relationship with Dino feels genuine, and overall he's basically the best character in this book. (Seriously, he's the only character I actually liked.) While July drags others down, Rafi lifts them up. He cares selflessly about his friends, does his best to make sure Dino understands how special he is in Rafi's eyes, helps a friend see that an ex's choice of new partner isn't a reflection on their worthiness or lack thereof, and overall just... is a precious cinnamon bun with a bit of snark and humour on top. I want more of characters like Rafi and less of characters like July, please!

* There's a very poignant and accurate explanation of depression, as told by a young man who tried to commit suicide by overdose. (He, like July, is one of the people who should be dead.) He explains how depression is this veil of darkness and despair which settles in even when your life seems to be going okay and isolates you from everyone who cares until you're convinced that they don't care at all and you deserve to be lost and alone and sad. The way he said it - which I won't share, because it's something which deserves to be read in its entirety and experienced within proper context - resonated with me so much as someone who struggles with depression.

* The humour is fun and got a few, real chuckles from me. For the most part, the humour is juvenile - fart jokes and decomposing body smells, etc. - but it works in the way a b-movie comedy might. It's light hearted and a welcome relief from the constant bickering between Dino and July.

* This book is well-written. Yeah, there's the outdated pop (and meme) culture references and the often heavy-handed morality, but I don't consider those to be issues with the writing quality so much as with the content. Other than a few typos - ‘lead' where it should say ‘led,' ‘then' where it should say ‘the' - the style flows well and is mostly enjoyable to read. Despite being bored and annoyed several times - and disliking the main characters - I still felt compelled to keep reading.

* The cover is awesome. I just had to add that one, because it's so pretty!

And that's all I have room to say, but I think it sums up my main thoughts fairly accurately. I really wanted to love this book. The cover is gorgeous, the premise is intriguing, but unfortunately the actual content just does not deliver what I expected. I'm honestly just sad and disappointed at the ending, but not enough to regret reading this book.

This book is fun and I can honestly say I love it despite its minor flaws. As a child, I would have taken this whole series from the school library and eagerly awaited each installment - if only it existed back then. I enjoyed reading it, and even managed to giggle at some of the jokes despite being am adult myself.

Stick Dog is a fun story about canine friends who seek out delicious hamburgers when they find a family grilling at the park. They have hilarious and adorable antics along the way, narrated by the child who drew them. (This gets a little confusing for us adults in the mix, because the child's name is also the author's name instead of a fictional character's. I assume it's done to avoid confusing children who read this book, but I worry perhaps it's an unnecessary blurring of the lines between reality and fiction.) Each dog has a unique appearance and personality, and they interact in a way which feels natural.

In terms of content, I can't say it's clear what the target audience is. There are words and scenarios which require an older audience capable of reasoning and vocabulary building (e.g.: distraction, contraction, rhinoceroses, and other large words). Parents of impressionable or particularly young kids may want to provide some guidance due to cartoon logic and some instances of dangerous behaviour not being fully addressed as very bad ideas. For the sake of helping parents make an informed choice, I'm listing things which stuck out to me as inappropriate for a very young reader unless they have proper guidance:

* In one instance, a dog suggests intentionally getting hurt - by jumping off a cliff into rocky water - for attention, so that humans will pity them and give them food. Her friends decide to shelve that idea as 'Plan B.' For mature readers, it's obvious they're placating her and think it's a terrible idea; for less reasonable readers, like young children, it may not be as clear.* In another instance, one dog says he can run face first into a tree and only get a little injured. The other dogs consider that a good idea, as it might help distract humans while they steal hamburgers. It's later likened to being as harmless as when a baby stumbles while learning to walk.* There are moments of animal prejudice - dogs against squirrels and mailmen - which may be inappropriate in some parent's eyes. I personally thought it was all in good fun, but just be aware it exists. One dog tolerates another's hatred of squirrels, despite feeling it's wrong, just to placate him. Another instance has a dog saying he had a human who was very nice to him, but he barked at his human anyway because there was no choice since that human was a mailman. It's the kind of logic racists use and doesn't get addressed, so it may be important to discuss with a young reader why this is not a good way to think.* I don't know how to explain this one bit without just transcribing it. The narrator is talking about how it feels to burn the roof of your mouth and says: "you burn the roof of your mouth so badly that it makes a little flap of loose skin hang down, and you spend the rest of the day trying to tear that thing off with your tongue???only it takes forever, and it SLOWLY DRIVES YOU CRAZY until you???d do just about anything, INCLUDING STICKING A VACCUUM CLEANER???S SUCKING TUBE THINGY IN YOUR MOUTH, just to get it out!" Emphasis is not mine; it's all caps in the book. There is also an illustration at this point of a child shoving a vacuum hose into his mouth. Needless to say, you'll want to make sure your child is mature enough to know this is by no means okay to do in real life!

As for those minor flaws I mentioned earlier: Well, much like many cartoons and children's books, there are illogical moments. Why does Poo-Poo the Poodle know what slingshots and cannons are? (Don't worry, it's all used in comical daredevil humour, not as tools for direct violence.) Why do suburban dogs know what a warrior human is or that said warriors have swords? (One dog mistakes a woman with cooking utensils as a warrior with a mighty sword.) How does a dog know the phrase “at a hundred miles an hour”? How does a dog know how to spell ‘distraction'? These things are inherent flaws, but given the book is for children and these elements make it more entertaining and fun, I can't fault it much. I mean, sponges also can't talk and dogs can't solve mysteries but Spongebob and Scooby-Doo are beloved children's media characters. Besides, this isn't just a book about dogs; it's a book about a kid telling stories he made up about dogs. There's a lot of leeway to be had there, since kids don't generally notice problems like that when telling stories.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely, yes. Would I let my own kids read it if I had any? Yep! If they were eight or younger, I'd want to discuss the book with them during or after they read it, but otherwise I wouldn't mind.

Avid and reluctant readers alike would probably enjoy the adventures of Stick Dog and his motley crew, but some may need the help of a trusted older person to understand certain aspects or words. I also think having a dialogue with children about reality vs. fiction is vital, and anyone whose child understands the concept likely won't acquire any dangerous ideas from the antics in this book. As for older kids, I can't say for certain. At times, this book feels more middle grade, but the contents and storytelling style seem like they might embarrass middleschoolers. I'd have loved it myself, but I never lost my love for cute animal-based stories.

Overall, I love Stick Dog and I'm so happy that I decided I need a simple, cute book to cleanse my palate after reading an infuriatingly bad one. Thank uhoh, Tom Watson, for the happiness Stick Dog and his friends gave me. I hope they do the same for children, especially those who need a reason to enjoy reading.