teeny

This is a book about female rage, and I love that. It's well written and engaging, and I didn't want to put it down. However, it sort of just petered out toward the end, which was enough of a disappointment to drop it down to 3 stars. I don't want to post spoilers, but it just didn't come together for me and I'm not really sure what message the author was even going for. I was absolutely loving it up until about the 85% mark and it just lost me.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

Fun thriller that was well paced and overall enjoyable to read. The twist was a bit too obvious, it was pretty clear from early on what was going on. Also could have done without the random racism and slurs from some of the characters, they were obnoxious enough as written, wasn't really necessary to add that to make them unlikeable.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC!

This is a book about depression, about wearing masks your whole life and what happens when you lose the will to slip the mask on anymore. It is raw, uncomfortable, sometimes painful to read, and I could not put it down.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC.

I loved the premise of this book. The blurb seemed right up my alley, and I did enjoy the overall themes and plot, and the representation of bisexual characters.

Unfortunately, the writing style itself really didn't work for me. It was written in a weird combo of first person (the protagonist) and third person (to give backstory on anyone else.) I'm struggling to articulate why this came across so strangely, so bear with me. The third person sections of the book read like an omnipresent narrator, but they were presented as if our protagonist was giving us information on these people in her lives. It just... didn't really feel like it made any sense, since she wouldn't know half the stuff that was being narrated to us? Even if all these people relayed these stories to her, they wouldn't do so in the exacting detail we see in the text. It just took me out of the story entirely, instead of being engrossed I was very, very aware that I was reading a book.

I also found the protagonist kind of one dimensional? She didn't really seem to have much in the way of thoughts or feelings, we were following along her life with her in her head but all we really saw was what happened, barely anything of what it actually made her feel. I felt like she didn't really have a personality.

Overall, interesting premise but executed poorly for me.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

I enjoyed the writing style of this book, it was readable and fairly well-paced and definitely held my interest. I initially found the number of different characters mentioned quickly a little hard to keep track of, but that settled as I got further into the book. I did find that the title story (the little clothes) seemed fairly disconnected from the rest of the book and could have been ingrained in the main story and the build up a little better.

This book also very badly needs some trigger warnings, particularly for CSA, because that was not in the blurb and I was not at all expecting to be reading it.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC

There's a lot about this book that I really enjoyed, the raw emotional heart of it shines through on every page. The writing itself I found a little difficult; the time jumps without shift in tone make it quite disorienting and difficult to tell where we are occasionally, and that's not necessarily an issue in itself but I did sometimes find myself focusing on context clues to figure out what time period we were in and missing the emotion of the story because of it. I also found the dialogue confusing at times, especially when there were more than 2 people speaking.

Overall, a wonderful debut from a promising author I would love to read more from in future.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

I really wanted to like this book because I found the premise interesting, but it just didn't really come together for me. The central thread of the main couple's marriage just felt very far away most of the time. The protagonist recounts stories told by friends, or stories about friends, so often that I almost felt like I was reading a collection of short stories for a large part of the book. I would get super engrossed in one of them and then it would end and I'd remember oh yeah, this is a book about this couple. It was an odd and disjointed experience that kinda left me just not really caring about their marriage. I pushed through because it was an ARC, but had it not been I probably would have DNFed mid book.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

Was that a fever dream?

I want to read this book in the reality where Remy dies and Alicia continues her absurd journey to become Jen.

I like reading about unlikable protagonists and messy women so I enjoyed the book a lot, the story was kind of ridiculous and the ending was a little predictable, but in all it was a fun ride. I like that the character was flawed and we saw her start to recognise that and take steps to grow, but it didn't get wrapped up in a neat bow. At the end she's still flawed, but trying, which I appreciate as feeling more real than a happy ending.

My one major issue with the book was the use of the n-word, as recited lyrics from a song. Entirely unnecessary, added nothing, could very easily have been left out, so not sure why the fuck the author and/or editor/publisher decided to include it? Almost seems like going out of your way to be shitty tbh. Wasn't a recurring issue through the book. As others have mentioned, lesbian slurs were used but since the book is about a lesbian and written by a queer woman, that's not an issue for me the same way that a white woman including the n-word for the fuck of it is.

What the fk

Unhinged and depressing but I feel seen? Not gonna worry about what that says about me

I found this book very readable, I enjoyed it and it didn't drag at all. The concept was interesting, and ofc I'm gonna pick up anything that can be described as a gender swapped lord of the flies.

The main issue that I did have here was the love story. In a book that's making a clear point about patriarchal brutality, it didn't seem a little bit strange to include a cutesy romance between a literal 16 year old and an adult man whose entire job is to hunt teenage girls to sell their body parts? Even without his job role, he's a grown man and she's a child, and that is not remotely examined or painted as anything other than romantic. I found it incredibly jarring in a book that is fairly explicitly ABOUT misogyny. When he died I was glad about it, which didn't seem like the author's intention. I'd have preferred a sapphic romance or no romance at all.

I also wish the other girls had been given more characterisation, only one really was to any degree. The main character is very Not Like Other Girls, and I don't feel like we really saw her develop beyond that through the book, with just a quick turnaround in the last few pages.

Overall enjoyable read but not really doing what it set out to, IMO.

Generally quite sweet young adult book with interesting themes around death and loss.

Another one with a weird age gap relationship between a teen girl and an adult man that goes entirely unexamined, though, which I am definitely not a fan of. The reverse ageing plot point seems to brush it under the rug, like the older man looks like a 17 year old boy therefore it's fine, but they still have their memories and the totality of their experience in their heads, so how is it not creepy for someone in their mid 30s experience-wise to be interested in a straight up teen girl? It's even mentioned at one point that while they're 9 and 11 in elsewhere, they would have been 22 and 41 on earth. But then they also do seem to regress into actual childlike mental states when they're little kids, so I don't really get it. Like their maturity level reverses as their age does, but they keep all their memories, and what is maturity if not the collective learning you gain by experience?

The concept just ended up a bit muddled, for me, but maybe I'm just thinking about it too much. As a young adult novel (which I have to say, I don't usually read) it examined the themes well enough.

Heathers on acid

Trigger warnings for CSA and suicide. Also some semi spoilers in this review.

This was a well written book dealing with difficult subject matter. I found the writing itself engaging and well paced, and the protagonist flawed yet sympathetic.

I guess I had a little bit of a disconnect with the book as a whole because it is essentially a book about healing from trauma, but it felt like a lot of that process was skipped over. The majority of the book takes place at a time in her life when Maddie is finally starting to actually face these events from many years ago. We see these confrontations play out (her father, her mother, summer) on the page, but nothing actually changes based on any of them. I don't think that's a bad thing in itself, a large part of dealing with trauma can be recognising what you can't change/control, processing it and moving forward. The problem is that the processing part takes place off the page, with her doctor during a time jump we don't see. The end of the book is a skip into the future, where she still doesn't speak to her father or summer and ignores her mother's willful denial. The only difference really is how she perceives her life. The end just felt a little unsatisfying to me because we didn't experience the healing process with her, we didn't see how she got there.

Overall, wonderful writing on a difficult subject to write well, and worth a read. I'll definitely pick up anything else this author writes. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

Absolutely unhinged, and I loved it

This is a book about an incredibly anxious woman who is allergic to stress and the relationship she forms with her work printer. She sits in her office all day talking to “him” until, unsurprisingly, her boss thinks she's losing her mind and puts her on leave.

This book does not have much in the way of a plot, which is not an issue for me but may be for some. I recognised a lot of my own experience with anxiety in her inner ramblings and her struggle to function in the world, so maybe that's why I enjoyed the read more than I was expecting to. If you like weird books that are mostly vibes, you'll probably enjoy this.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC :)

This book is readable and fairly engaging, and the main topic is important and handled well. I just think it could maybe have been a little shorter, there are a lot of interactions with characters who aren't particularly well developed or necessary to be included, and all of the dialogue is written in a way that makes it quite difficult to follow who is speaking. I also found the single chapter from a different POV a little jarring and unnecessary.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC

Sweet and cozy, great and intersectional representation. Not really my type of story (I'm an unhinged girlie through and through) but I can see a lot of people enjoying this.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

Strange, surreal and oddly vivid stories. Some interesting perspective on the world around us that we may not always feel in tune with. Fans of sayaka murata will enjoy.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC.

The Echoes tells the story of Hannah's life, through multiple perspectives including her own, her dead boyfriend's and various family members'. I found it engaging, warm, sad, and thoroughly touching. I really enjoyed the split narratives and the exploration of the parts of everyone that are unknowable to the people around them.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC

Jolene is an anxious misanthrope who gets through her workdays by venting her frustrations at her coworkers through hidden white text rants at the bottom of emails. When she forgets to change the text colour on one, she faces disciplinary action, but an IT screw up that was meant to monitor her emails instead gives her access to the emails of everyone in the company.

This novel hooked me with the premise, but it ended up being a surprisingly sweet and wholesome book with the main takeaway that you never really know what shit people are dealing with and how it informs their behaviour.

As an Iranian British woman, I also really enjoyed seeing the familiar Persian diaspora dynamics whenever Jolene interacted with her family. It's not something I often get to see of my own experience in modern litfic, and it was a nice surprise.

Main downside of this book has been Dolly Parton's Jolene getting stuck in my head since reading it...

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for a taster story. Loved it, NEED MORE!

This is a novel about toxic relationships, obsession and self-destruction. The protagonist is fairly unlikeable from the start, but in a way that I still found enjoyable to read. I really liked the pacing of the book, rather than being very quick with major plot points it slowly built up the relationships and the steps towards the inevitable end, and that isn't always easy to do. The little ways in which insecurity can spiral over time, how small reasonable-seeming curiosities can build on each other into obsession, felt very real.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC!