Loren

 "Sometimes I feel my worth is determined by how loudly I riot. As if surviving it's not enough. 

But if you listen closely, even silence carries a story worth telling.” 

“Maybe I am a survivor simply my because I met fear, stared him right in the face and chose to live anyway.” 

BIG TW: This book does focus in on the assault and the court case. It was hard for me at times to even turn the page knowing what was next, so please take into account your mental capacity/health while reading. 

TW: Self Harm, Substance Abuse, and Suicide 

We Weren't Looking to be Found is definitely a book that will stick with me for a while. 

As someone who is on their own mental health journey I was excited to read this book, but it took me so long to actually pick it up and finish. Just didn't want to unintentionally trigger myself. 

Cami and Dani are two very relatable characters. They are both on similar paths of destruction, and they end up finding some form of solace in their friendship. Although they had their times of much needed betrayals to keep each other safe... and accountable. 

The mystery element of the book definitely fell flat... completely flat. If this Book completely focused just on the girls are their journey in the treatment facility it would have been a full five star. The mystery portion was definitely felt like an afterthought here. 

The ending definitely brought me to shed a few tears. 

spoiler 

Cami goes back to the treatment facility... and I resonated with that so deeply. The struggle to recover from depression is tough. You have those highs, but the lows are so low.

spoiler over

Take care of yourself 💙

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Even in my failure, I truly meant well.” 

This book is a powerful POV of a father trying to right his wrongs to his son. 

My feelings were all over the place with this book. ALL OVER. 

I was angry, devastated, and at one point I wished this man hell. 

Generational trauma. A skewed perception of Manhood. This book was heavy in subject matter, but I found myself unable to put it down at times. 

I wouldn't read too much into reviews, and just dive in. I'm happy I did.

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Individual Story Ratings:
All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hedge by Kalynn Bayron: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Best Served Cold by H.E Edgmon: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Protégé by Lamar Giles: ⭐️⭐️ Docile Girls by Chloe Gong: ⭐️⭐️ Gray Grove by Alexis Henderson: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Everything's coming up Roses by Tiffany D. Jackson: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Heaven by Adiba Jaigirdar: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Break Through Our Skin by Naseem Jamba: DNF Wasps by Mark Oshiro: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hell Is Other Demons by Karen Strong: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Road to Hell by Terry J. Benton-Walker: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The rating seems kind of low right? It's just the average of all 13 stories (2.9) + 0.5 for the collection concept!
I NEED Everything's Coming up Roses, and Heaven as a full story YESTERDAY!! I did enjoy the reading the different stories, some of them couldn't keep my interest, or was just hard for me to follow.

Thank you Tor Teen for sending me an ARC copy!  

I wish I was more confident to do video reviews because I feel like that is what this book deserves. 

This book had me first at “Oh my god Faridah is about to murk my emotions” to “oh my god I need financial compensation for the emotional state of RUIN I am in”. 

Faridah has been my go to mystery author since Ace of Spades and at the time... that was her debut book. Her writing is top tier, and her storytelling is just as powerful. 

After finishing the book I went back to the letter Faridah wrote at the beginning of the book, and I was further torn. Don't get me wrong the book finishes on a beautiful note, but going back and reading the note really did it in for me. 

I don't even know how to write a review for this? I know I say that a lot just because I'm not great with explaining BUT I truly don't want to spoil anything. The synopsis does a great job of not going into the true story especially since this is a mystery book it is very easy to say one thing and mess up the story for someone. Which I don't want! 

Where Sleeping girls lie explores “boys will be boys”, and schools brushing serious issues under the rug, revenge, and a splash of top tier black feminine rage. But on a serious note divulges in topics such as sexual assault, rape, suicide and suicidal ideation, grief, and death of family members (including parents).

This one was definitely less nerve racking than Ace of Spades, but still gave me all the same level of anxiety. 

Sade (SHAH-DAY) is a dynamic character, and I want to talk more about her, but I feel like it would give too much away 😩

While reading I loved that I was able to catch on to the mystery, and clues that were sprinkled in. BUT I still didn't have the full picture until the very end.

Then there was THE ANAGRAM! There was a freaking anagram to solve while reading. That I unfortunately still don't understand even after the answer was revealed. I'm hoping to read other reviews closer to release, and see if anyone fully grasped it. 

I can't wait until March to see what everyone else thinks about it ! 

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“I want you to know that my happiness isn't tied to being with a man or racing to the altar or having children. My happiness is tied to me living a life that I love and am proud of. My happiness is centered around me and what I want."

I don't think I've laughed so hard at a book like this one! Danielle Allen could honestly be a comedian on the side! Every Character had personality and humor. Ahmad had me cackling in the depths of the night, he did not spare Aaliyah from any roasts. He ate her up (in more ways than one)! 
Curvy Girl Summer was honestly an effortless read. It is a slow-burn romance, which I don't normally like, BUT while you reading there's so much more to be worried about that the end goal of Ahmad and Aaliyah working out in the end felt like the cherry on top to bring the entire story together. 
Outside of the romance, we have Aaliyah struggling with the dating scene, and the turmoil she has with her family worried that she will not find love soon enough since she is about to turn 30. I loved that we got to see her confront her family on their misconceptions of her as a whole, and the subconscious comparisons they have been making between her and her older sister that passed. It got addressed in a very mature and admirable way. It was one of my favorite scenes in the book! 
I will definitely be reading some more Danielle Allen in the future! 

I don't really know what to think of Helga as a whole. 
I didn't have any issue getting into the story, but I think it was because I was confused while reading and wanted the answers to my confusion. 
I didn't understand the connections Helga made to rebel. It just felt like she did so because she didn't know anything else, and because she didn't want to be like her dad, so she did the opposite. 
Also her infatuation with Clyde???? The build up to it just didn't make sense. She just latched on to him like a leech, and he was just the absolute worst. Made borderline racist comments to her face, and never remembered her name. 
I just couldn't figure this book out. At first blamed myself. Since this is a retelling, and I haven't read Frankenstein in years I thought that's where I was missing the connection. And after further research... no that's not what I was missing I think this book was just an overall miss when it came to retelling the story of Frankenstein. Not that it had to be spot on or anything but... 

Thank you @pagestreetya for the arc copy! 

Pretty good story that depicts the authors daughter struggling with her mental health (depression and anxiety), but with a supernatural twist . The story is fast pace, but some of the transitions between scenes felt a bit choppy and unfortunately I think the storytelling portion suffered because of that. 

I did love how at every step of her journey Cleo had someone who advocated for her, and didn't shame her for some regression she had while trying to acclimatize back into her normal routine at school and back home. 

Thank you Image Comics for the arc copy! 

I'm not sure how to even put into words how much I love this book. I held this book up to some high standards since bookstagram was going crazy about it, and I was definitely influenced to buying it right away. I'm so happy I gave it a chance because everyone was so right. 

I haven't related so deeply with a book in a very long time. From Maddie having trouble with accepting her sadness is depression to navigating the world of online dating. Maame just hit the spot for me. 

Maame is definitely a top 5 book for me this year. 

This review is going to be short because I think Maame is just something you have to read and resonate with on your own, trust me. 

Thank you @/hearourvoicestour for the gifted copy! This is my first book tour 🫣 so thank you for taking a chance on me!

It's never too early for a good Christmas book especially one that flows like a cozy lifetime movie. 

We follow Nadia and Micah go through their woes of a second chance romance! 

Micah fell hard and fast for Nadia, and she high tailed it out of there scared of her feelings for him after having a great summer romance. 

Sprinkle in some mistletoe kisses, and some mystery envelopes, and snowy trip to Big Ben Micah and Nadia find themselves falling in love again. Of course this comes with the second guesses, and extreme hesitation. 

This story was such a cute Christmas romance, and WHO was going to tell me there was an amazing author making board game themed romance books??? My friends know I'm a sucker for a good board game! 

I'm going to have to go back, and read the others in the series!

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WOW... just wow. 
I'm absolutely floored at how amazing this book is. 
From the writing, to the characters, to the art. This book had it all. 
🖤 Dark Academia  ✨Found Family  🤐 Secret Societies  💕 A bit of Romance  🌌 Powers drawn from the stars 
The gifted society gave the same level of storytelling like Legendborn, The Blood Gift, The Gilded Ones. All top tier black girls in fantasy books! 
My absolute favorite parts of this book are the aspects of found family. Alexia is truly going through it, she just wants to find her friend and get back to her family. Of course her journey is not straight forward and she gathers her family in her new home, The Grove, along the way. We met Kyle, Nate, Alani, and Lucie these amazing well thought out characters. You can see the labor of love that went into writing this book as a whole.
You know when you enjoy something you just wanna blab about it to anyone, but you can't find the right words to say? This is that lol.  
There are plenty of lingering questions left and I cannot wait for the next chapter for the kids at Malveaux Academy! 

I enjoyed Match Game! I read it in about a day or so.
Lydia being a female director for an e-sports league was actually amazing. We saw the general ups and downs of being a woman in a male dominated field but I loved how she always had people in her corner. But when it came to Griffin it felt like his POVs were always overly negative and self deprecating (I think this was supposed to be the grumpy in the grumpyxsunshine but it was kinda sad :/. This wasn't frequent, but there were times where I would rush through his parts. 
There's a fake dating trope that definitely could have been done better? I feel like there could have been more development in that aspect since the ending felt kind of rushed, and the third act breakup felt unnecessary. 
The overall romance between the two was actually really cute and sweet! I would definitely read another book by Arreguin in the future! 

I'm so disappointed  to be writing this review under this rating.    This was definitely my least favorite book in the New Haven's Series, and up until this point I didn't have a least favorite. Every one up to this point was a hit!    It wasn't the story or the characters. I actually  enjoyed Hunter and Rae (and Riley) being introduced into the series, but for whatever reason this one felt rushed.    And I stand by this because of how the book ended. Just abrupt, and unexpected.    Besides that nagging feeling I did enjoy the book overall like I said. You could definitely feel the emotion and the turmoil the characters were going through, and that's definitely a main reason I love J.L Seegars. She really knows how to illicit that type of feeling from her writing, and just creating a space where it's completely unflinching/unfiltered but handled with the upmost care.    I definitely will be back for book #5 regardless.    Thank you Good Girl PR for the e-arc copy! 

Very sweet middle grade story. I normally don't read middle grade books, but I always want to find books like these to recommend to the middle school kids coming into the library. 

Our MC Mallory is a great example of an evolving character, and learning to advocate/speak up for yourself. I think Mal is a very relatable character for the younger audience. 

Also I really liked the plot of the drag story time at the library! 

Thank you Quill Tree Books for the arc! 

No one can change a storm's path. Only then storm can do that for itself. A storm, like you, can never be controlled. Because a storm has a destiny. 
Thank you, Partner @cocoachapters @getunderlined! 
As if it's not super obvious... I'm a HUGE marvel fan. I'm still fangirling a bit that I was given this opportunity to be on this tour!! 
Ororo Monroe aka Storm's backstory is one of my favorites! She constantly diminishes herself in the hopes that one day she will be normal. Just like many black girls who have deemed themselves as not good enough, or not up to the standards set by society. As Ororo pushes through this we see her slowly become Storm, and accept herself and her ancestry that set her on this journey. 
On this Journey, we get to see the budding relationship between Ororo and T'Challa (Son, not Dad)! 
I really hope one day we get Storm's story translated into film! 
⚡️Fun fact: Storm is an Omega level Mutant!! Meaning she has really no limit to her powers. Making her one of the most powerful Mutant on Earth! 

It's truly not about a boy. 
This book is so important. It has the vibes of the Euphoria but without the sensationalism. It's real. 
Not About a Boy is a beautifully crafted story that resonated with me through its honest portrayal of Substance abuse, mental health, and life within the foster system. 
I see myself so deeply in Mel. Struggling with her mental health, Not believing that people care for your wellbeing, and want to genuinely see your happiness. Having people who clock your behavior, when you're obviously not okay, and confront you with it. It's absolutely important to have those people in your life. 
There's a session between Mel and her psychiatrist Richards where he suggested for her to go back on her antidepressants just based on the behaviors he sees that she's ignoring. I started to boohoo cry because I literally just met with a new psychiatrist and started my antidepressants again. I've never had a book speak so closely to my reality like this. You would thought Myah Hollis knew my life 🤣. 
Not About a Boy has truly became one of my favorite books I've read this year, and a book I will keep very close to my heart. 

Thanks to @hearourvoicestours for the finished copy and selecting me for this tour! I waited waaayyy too long to jump on The Davenports train!!! 💛    This was a great YA historical romance, and I believe is my very first historical romance read.    It took me a bit to get into the flow of this book with the back and forth between our main FMCs. As we get really get into the defining feats of each character the story begins to pick up!    I did grow a slight (very slight) ick to Ruby in the beginning, but I did grow to appreciate her.    Olivia definitely surprised me with the activism route, but truly loved how she stuck to it. She definitely had her doubts, and her worries about how this would reflect on her family.    Helen and Amy Rose were my absolute faves and I did find myself kinda rushing past the other characters chapters to get to theirs because of how much I loved them and their story line.    The romance for me didn't hit like I thought it would, but only because at the end of the day I wanted to see all these girls succeed! Don't get me wrong the romance was cute and sweet, BUT I wanted Olivia to build up her community and fight for equal rights! I want Amy-Rose to continue to fight for her dreams of owning a salon. I want Helen to fight for her place among her father's company with her innovative ideas. Shoot even though Ruby was not my favorite I wanted her to stand up to her parents, and choose a path in life that was best for her.   The Davenports did end on a cliffhanger, but we are getting a sequel! I'm excited to see how the story progresses with all of the girls.