Anda

The writing was great, I enjoyed the style.

It was interesting reading about the challenges that arise from someone in a relationship transitioning.

The character of Tom was insufferable, and I am glad the author called out his Fisher Price socialism.

I found the pacing a bit uneven, I stopped reading for a while as I just wasn’t interested in some of the story.

A very captivating coming of age story of young Karl. It captures teenage angst very well, but also touches on other topics like social & environmental issues in Nigeria, learning about slavery and racial injustice. The writing style is quite specific, it took me a little bit to get into it but once I did, I really enjoyed it. 100% recommend!

The story was excellent, well thought through and very gripping.

My one gripe with this book was the character of Jeppe, who I really disliked. His constant judgment of his colleague Anette sprinkled with fatphobia and envy of her successful marriage gets old quickly. The Anna storyline was also gross. I wish there was more of Anette's life in this, and less of this pathetic Jeppe character.

This was painful and I almost gave up on it a couple of times. The writing is bad, it's pretty obvious it's the author's first book. Everything is narrated matter of factly and it gets boring quickly.

The pacing of the book was off too, with too many details of building and rebuilding the cafe. The big mystery of the Madrigal was super disappointing. As much as it's funny that this big threat was an old day, it doesn't really work with all the build up before meeting her.

I did not like any of the characters, except maybe Tandri. They were all 2 dimensional and I really disliked Viv. I get that her arc is a redemption one where she changes for the better but I just couldn't feel any connection to her.

If it wasn't for the promise of a queer romance, I would have dropped the book like a hot potato about halfway.

This book was a disappointment. I felt it wasn't written for an LGBTQ+ audience, but more for the straights to understand what queer people go through when coming out etc.

It was tame and and times just plain boring. Like the “Love, Simon” of novels. The main character is really annoying and the story arc is a typical coming of age one, but with nothing genuine about it.

The author is clearly trying too hard.

I really enjoyed the first half (or so) of this book that introduces the different characters and connects all of them.

However, once the story is being told from Gaspery's point of view, I found the pacing accelerated a bit too much. There's a lot of action packed at the end and it feels rushed. All of the characters we invested time in learning about at the start are even hardly mentioned.

I didn't really get the point of the ending either, it felt abrupt.

This should be required reading for anyone wanting to educated themselves about trans/nonbinary/genderqueer people. It opened my eyes to many experiences I would not have thought of, especially with regards to the medical field treating nonbinary identified people.

I took off a star only because I found the writing quite dry at times.

The artwork and choice of a mono colour palette makes this look stunning.

However, the story and characters leave a lot to be desired. Most of them are 2 dimensional (no pun intended), including the main characters. The ending was particularly bad and the last few pages felt rushed.

It's a shame as it looks really great but lacks depth on the story side.

A wonderful and at times hard to read graphic novel. The narration style reminds me of Maus. The visuals are quite striking, Thi Bui using just a couple of colours in a great way.

I didn't know much about the Vietnam war but thanks to this book I learned how horrible this period was. Definitely worth a read!