Bringing this feature back as part of my return to blogging! I'm trying to be less type-a about posting, so I won't catch *every* 2022 release, but I'll try to organize a series of highlights for the books I'm most excited to see on shelves. First up is this queer contemporary novel by debut author Rachel Roasek, Love Somebody. Out January 11th from Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Sam Dickson is a charismatic actress, ambitious and popular with big plans for her future. Ros Shew is one of the smartest people in school--but she's a loner, and prefers to keep it that way. Then there's Christian Powell, the darling of the high school soccer team. He's not the best with communication, which is why he and Sam broke up after dating for six months; but he makes up for it by being genuine, effusive, and kind, which is why they're still best friends. When Christian falls for Ros on first sight, their first interaction is a disaster, so he enlists Sam's help to get through to her. Sam, with motives of her own, agrees to coach Christian from the sidelines on how to soften Ros's notorious walls. But as Ros starts to suspect Christian is acting differently, and Sam starts to realize the complexity of her own feelings, their fragile relationships threaten to fall apart. This fresh romantic comedy from debut author Rachel Roasek is a heartfelt story about falling in love--with a partner, with your friends, or just with yourself--and about how maybe, the bravest thing to do in the face of change is just love somebody.
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Thank you to Wednesday Books for sharing a copy in exchange for my honest review.
A queer YA #MeToo reimagining of Thelma & Louise with the aesthetic of Riverdale, for fans of Mindy McGinnis, Courtney Summers, and Rory Power. When Trixie picks up her best friend Lux for their weekend getaway, she’s looking to escape for a little while, to forget the despair of being trapped in their dead-end Rust Belt town and the daunting responsibility of caring for her ailing mother. The girls are packing light: a supply of Diet Coke for Lux and her ‘89 Canon to help her frame the world in a sunnier light; half a pack of cigarettes for Trixie that she doesn’t really smoke, and a knife—one she’s just hanging on to for a friend—that she’s never used before. But a single night of violence derails their trip and will forever change the course of the girls’ lives, as they go from ordinary high schoolers to wanted fugitives. Trying to stay ahead of the cops and a hellscape of media attention, the girls grapple with an unforgiving landscape, rapidly diminishing supplies, and disastrous decisions at every turn. As they are transformed by the media into the face of a #MeToo movement they didn’t ask to lead and the road before them begins to run out, Trixie and Lux realize that they can only rely on each other, and that the love they find together is the one thing that truly makes them free. Queer Thelma & Louise! Road trip! Fighting the patriarchy! There were so many things about this novel that I wanted to work for me, which absolutely sold me concept-wise. I think this book had such potential to be incredible. Unfortunately, aspects of the execution fell flat and I didn't love the assembly of all those intriguing individual elements. The story felt more surface level than I wanted. I was reading a collection of scenes, which related to one another plot-wise, but didn’t really connect me to any deeper emotions. Some of the themes Trouble Girls means to tap into are female rage, queer joy, and the desperation of a best friendship in front of a tragic background. One thing I did appreciate--Trixie and Lux seemed like real life teens. They acted their age 100% of the time. All their rash decisions, poor money management, and mistrust of any offered help (sometimes justified, other times unfortunate) led to fantastic characterization as two teen girls from less-than-perfect home lives, looking to find their way out of a mess. Trixie's longing for her home life deepens over the course of the story, even as we see how imperfect her past has been. To me, that was the emotional height of the story. Life grew so complicated around her, and Trixie wished to go back to the simplicity of the life she knew in her mother's house, with her old job and best friend. Speaking of whom, I need to talk about Lux. My biggest issue is that Trixie treated Lux like a manic pixie dream girl. I’m pretty sure this was meant to be a queer reimagining of this trope, but it fell flat for me because subverting the concept requires a bit more than “hey! they’re sapphic!” for me. Trixie’s narration therefore doesn’t allow Lux much agency outside of how Trixie sees her, which irritated me throughout the novel. I would have felt much more connected to the story with dual narrators who could counter this effect of over-writing Lux’s story with Trixie’s perspective. I don't think this characterization did the novel a great service, as you can't really have Thelma and Louise and only narrate for Thelma. Their brief romance also fell victim to this unequal characterization. Lux and Trixie supposedly carry on this whirlwhind romance, but between Lux's naïveté at the beginning of the story and Trixie's yearning, there wasn't much chemistry between them for me. Nor does a life on the run seem conducive to starting a relationship, or giving it page time to develop. Ultimately, I think most aspects of the novel fell flat for me. I don't think I'd have a different experience on a second or third read, but I'm glad I finished the story and committed to learning the ending. I always say my issues with books are mine, and you should make your own reading choices, so I bet Trouble Girls will resonate with some of you. It's worth checking out from the library, especially if you're interested in stories about female agency and sexual assault. I'm giving Trouble Girls 3/5 stars. I'm back!! You may have noticed my rather long unannounced hiatus since this spring. In the past when I've taken breaks, I've always explained my reasons and built up a back catalog of posts for the time elapsed. I won't be taking that approach from here on out. Blogging is supposed to be fun for me, it's supposed to be an outlet. I don't always have time for the daily posts I've done in the past, and I know I started 2021 with so many wonderful features (the 2021 Release Radar comes to mind) which I couldn't fulfill until the end of the year. I'm sorry about that. This year has been marked with so many wonderful new novels to read, and I know 2022 is as well. I'm trying to find a balance between my love for promoting new novels and my own outside life. That's it for today! I've got some reviews scheduled for the upcoming week--currently working off a backload of unread ARCs that deserve some attention--so that's something to look forward to. Thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy my new style!
Thank you to Wednesday Books for sharing a copy in exchange for my honest review.
Seventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan. But then Sam dies. And everything changes. Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries everything to forget him and the tragic way he died. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces back memories. Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail. And Sam picks up the phone. In a miraculous turn of events, Julie’s been given a second chance at goodbye. The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam’s voice makes her fall for him all over again, and with each call it becomes harder to let him go. However, keeping her otherworldly calls with Sam a secret isn’t easy, especially when Julie witnesses the suffering Sam’s family is going through. Unable to stand by the sidelines and watch their shared loved ones in pain, Julie is torn between spilling the truth about her calls with Sam and risking their connection and losing him forever. I was really looking forward to this one! Contemporary fiction with a touch of whimsy, to aid Julie in grieving Sam. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me as well as I'd hoped. Although I finished the novel, a couple key aspects just bothered me until the end. First of all, the novel takes place entirely after Sam's death, so we only see his character from Julie's point of view. We didn’t have very many “before” scenes, and some of them were from a perspective where Sam was already gone. I just couldn’t bring myself to care about their relationship, beyond a basic sense of sadness. It was hard to imagine Julie and Sam moving out together, planning a future, when the timeline of their relationship was completely relegated to before the book even starts. I wasn't emotionally invested in Julie's grief for Sam, and even his phone calls didn't give me a real appreciation for his character. The premise of being able to talk to your loved one after their passing is interesting, but the rules seemed quite arbitrary and changed to suit the story. I can kind of understand the reasoning behind the nebulous representation of grief, but I didn't like how that was set up for Julie to just use at her convenience, sometimes contradicting theories she had about the calls in the text directly. This relates to my dislike of the ending of the novel. No spoilers, but it involves a specific inconsistency that I felt was just thrown in to give the story a neat wrap-up, and lacks justification in line with previous plot points. The thing is, Dustin Thao’s prose is so lovely. Even when I was skeptical of the premise, or I wasn’t quite sympathizing with Julie, I just couldn’t stop reading. Julie can be a grating character, to put it mildly, but Thao turned her storyline into a beautiful grief arc as she learns how to keep Sam's memory alive after he'd passed. The narration of a character some would call unlikeable does her justice in a way that feels so true to the core of the story. You've Reached Sam really knows what it's about in the best of ways. For this, I'm rating the novel 3/5 stars. I think this is a case of the novel reaching the wrong audience. I would recommend giving it a try if you're interested in the premise and ready to do a bit of soul-searching. |
The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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