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2/5 cw: queerphobia, sexual abuse, racismBumped this up on my to-read list because of some happenings in a local community and library with challenges, “hide the pride,” etc. Asked my partner, “Am I too radicalized and gay already?”, but that's not the core of my lukewarm feelings. There's valuable commentary in this book, particularly for young folk (and especially for young, queer, Black boys), in the realm of finding people who care about you in the way that the author's family and line brothers cared for and respected them. I studied these theories in college. The young adults at whom this book is directed may be interacting with its content for the first time.The work itself isn't outstanding, though. The writing is... fine. Johnson's journey is about becoming comfortable with being an “effeminate” queer Black boy and defining their own masculinity. It alludes to struggles and traumas, but doesn't write about them in a compelling manner. No one is required to share their coming out story, but in a “memoir-manifesto” in which the narrator struggles with coming out, and shares multiple times that they officially came out to their parents over the phone at 25, I was waiting for that scene the entire time. The books ends before it happens. I couldn't identify a call-to-action. The last handful of chapters is more a shill for the author's fraternity than anything.Then there is the explicit content for which this book (alongside the being gay, of course) is challenged. There are two chapters in which the author describes in step-by-step detail their sexual encounters. I think the author, in writing something so deeply personal, needed to write those details for their own catharsis, particularly in the case of the sexual abuse. I don't think the encounters needed to be shared in as much intimate detail to make a point. The author insists within the text that they didn't have appropriate sexual education, and were willing to risk their own embarrassment to educate others like them, but alluding to sexual practices (be that oral, anal, bottoming, topping, whatever) is just as useful as relating the minutiae of particular instances.I don't have an opinion on the topic of “young adult memoirs” just yet. Memoirs in general are hit-or-miss for me; I'm not a fan of the interconnected essay format, but I did miss Trevor Noah's [b:Born A Crime 29780253 Born a Crime Stories From a South African Childhood Trevor Noah https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1473867911l/29780253.SY75.jpg 50150838] while reading this. I do find myself wanting to promote more memoirs to the young adult audience, though, if only so they have more people to see themselves through.

3/5

At this point the series has gotten too wound up in itself for me; too many rules and oaths and names to remember, plus I'm tired of brownie holes and Jax walking directly into danger. I also can't fathom why the reader is expected to be on the side of continuing to stuff innocents into the Eighth Day. It would nix powers and the bad guys are in jail anyway...

Also, why is the font for the Emrys girls so bad? Maybe it's meant to be meta, but it just gave me a headache. Fortunately I got the second two books on Kindle.

I think that Death should not be allowed to have a penis. Or a clitoris, I don't care, just do Not let Death fuck.

OK gang! Here's the conundrum I present you with today: Let's say you're a young, twenty-year-old girl. Everyone you have ever loved, or who has taken care of you in any sense of the word, has died. When you should have died, you didn't. So ever since you can remember, you can see the Reaper and you can see ghosts. You have seen Death, the very real being, over and over again, and he has seen you; you decide you will be rid of him. You take a dose of poison???the titular belladonna???and Death appears before you, hulking, a predator. He calls you “Little Bird”. You run at him with a knife.It seeps through him, and he laughs. The ruckus alerts your cruel aunt, who appears at your door and tries to strangle you. You should die there, but you don't; she does. Death disavows the reaping. He says he is not your enemy. He says that he will prove it to you in two days' time.Two days later, an invitation to a new home is offered to you, and a young, handsome stable boy arrives to pick you up. His shoes are too clean to be a stable boy, and it appears improper that a young man should be sent alone to pick up a young lady, especially according to your late mother's etiquette book. You learn that the Hawthorne estate is in troubling times because its matriarch has recently passed away from illness, its patriarch is lost in wine and sorrow, its son lost also in his grief and frustration, and daughter dying of the same illness as her mother.Also, Lillian Hawthorne's twisted ghost haunts the estate, seeking to protect her daughter from the murderer that killed her.Now!As you solve the murder mystery alongside them, should you get with Sylas???the mysterious, handsome, peasant man who escorted you here???or Death himself, whose powers it seems you share? If you, like me, tend to envision Death as an ageless, sexless being, when main character Signa (yep) starts being attracted to Death???who has been watching and protecting her since she was a baby???and Death reciprocates, you said aloud, “Big yikes!” My only consolation was that there were more potential romantic interests, so maybe Death would eventually refuse her for Being Death reasons, except then the book solves the potential love triangle by having Sylas be Death in disguise. Which explains why he's so curiously around and then absent at seemingly random times, I guess, but also adds to the Yikes! factor because it's just Death grooming and manipulating Signa all the way down.I could get into how the other parts of the book are flat???none of the main cast have engaging personalities and too much time is spent at tea parties and talking about scones, plus there's constant talk of “pieces falling into place” in the “puzzle” Signa is solving???but most of my energy is lost in the fucking of Should-Be-Your-Grandfather Death. Don't do that. At least he asked for consent every time I guess.

I read this book because it was a Goodreads Nominee for Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction. I surmise that when there is a young adult-ish protagonist (such as twenty-year-old-yet-to-debut Signa here) and the writing and story are Just Okay, publishers shove it into YA. The audiobook performance by Kristin Atherton is the source of 2 stars.

Oh also a big shout out to the like three instances of the shadow lesbians who are always making out in the corners 10/10 queer rep