Isaiah Roby's Blog: MI Book Reviews, page 75
June 17, 2020
Felix Ever After
A glorious exploration and celebration of transgender identity, and so much more.
From Stonewall and Lambda Award–winning author Kacen Callender comes a revelatory YA novel about a transgender teen grappling with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time.
Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even th...
June 14, 2020
Glitterland
What a guttingly raw and tragically funny read.
The universe is a glitterball I hold in the palm of my hand.
Once the golden boy of the English literary scene, now a clinically depressed writer of pulp crime fiction, Ash Winters has given up on love, hope, happiness, and — most of all — himself. He lives his life between the cycles of his illness, haunted by the ghosts of other people’s expectations.
Then a chance encounter at a stag party throws him into the arms of Essex boy Darian Taylor, an...
June 10, 2020
Lucky
Winning the lottery is the best thing that’s ever happened to Serena Evans. Gone are the days of living paycheck to paycheck. On her own and fully funded, Serena’s excited to open Pet Posh Inn. She can’t imagine a more fulfilling dream than caring for and being surrounded by animals.
Gabrielle Barnes can’t understand why anyone would dump millions of dollars into a pet daycare, but if she wants to prove herself worthy of a partner position at Arnest & Max Architecture, she’s going to have pas...
See These Bones
Post-apocalyptic Superhero Academy featuring a necromancer fighting against the expectation that he’s gonna kill everyone? Sounds fantastic, and while this wasn’t quite what I expected going in, it was extremely engaging, very gore-y, and yet kept all the coming-of-age elements of other magical academy books.
Some superheroes want to save the world. Damian is just hoping to save himself.
In the post-Break world of superpowers, necromancy is the one gift nobody wants. Everyone knows what happen...
June 6, 2020
Life Minus Me
A somber read about angels, suicide, and helping others before oneself.
Mel is half-Angel, but despite her ability to heal and read minds, she feels powerless to help anyone. When a prophecy shows a local pet supply store owner driving their car off a bridge, Mel sets out to stop it.
Baily, owner of Barks and Bits, is barely holding it together. Things keep going wrong, and their depression spirals out of control. Just as they start wondering if they’d be better off dead, a new friend provid...
June 4, 2020
We Are Okay
“You go through life thinking there’s so much you need…
Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.
Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend, Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an e...
June 3, 2020
Better Be Sure
This was a total rollercoaster – not because of feelings, but because it was both wonderfully sweet in some and sort of off-putting in other aspects.
Orphan Jackson Murphy just staked his legacy on a bet.
Holy shit, his impulsive ass is in trouble.
Bring a guy to the fraternity formal? Pfft. Easy. Won’t be him kicked of the house.
So what if his luck with guys on campus has been shitty? Ed Knowles is Jack’s winning ticket.
Tall, handsome, hardworking—and he doesn’t go to Harrison.
With every stole...
June 2, 2020
Everything Leads to You
” “I want you to do something with the place. Something epic.”
Emi has been entrusted with her brother’s Los Angeles apartment for the summer as a graduation gift, but she isn’t sure how to fulfil his one condition: that something great take place there while he’s gone. She may be a talented young production designer, already beginning to thrive in the competitive film industry, but she still feels like an average teen, floundering when it comes to romance.
But when Emi and her friend Char...
Black Lives Matter
I used to want to be a cop. I thought it was the best way to help people, but I learned very quickly that it was far from the way.
I worked in prosecution and tried to justify my position there, but the longer I was there the harder it was. There are only so many times you can hear the local police bragging about being racist and how they cover up racial profiling before you become an accomplice to it. Yes, not all police did this. The issue was enough did and nothing was done to stop it. The...
June 1, 2020
Hold Still
“An arresting story about starting over after a friend’s suicide, from a breakthrough new voice in YA fiction.
dear caitlin, there are so many things that i want so badly to tell you but i just can’t.
Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful . . . in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, by loss and by choice, struggling to find renewed hope in the wake of her best friend’s suicide. With the help of family and n...
