Netgalley Mini Reviews #3

Time for another batch of Netgalley mini reviews! It’s a bit of a mix of genres this time, hopefully you’ll find something that interests you.

I was sent eARCs of these books through Netgalley in exchange for my honest reviews.

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Abigail Hing Wen – Loveboat, Taipei

I’d seen a ton of positive reviews about this and it sounded really good to me. And this definitely wasn’t a bad book, but it just didn’t work well for me. It just really wasn’t my kind of book.

I had a really hard time following the main character’s motivations, because I felt like she didn’t have a clear personality from the start. More importantly, though, this book felt very alienating to me as an aroace autistic reader, because it focuses so much on boys and dating, in a way that made me feel really uncomfortable. I really didn’t like the romance either. That’s not necessarily the book’s fault, of course, but it did make my reading experience less positive.

Like I said, it wasn’t a bad book. It did some great things, even. But feeling both alienated by it and feeling bored because it all moved so slowly, I just wasn’t able to fully appreciate it.

CWs: racism, stereotyping against Asian people, slutshaming, leaked nudes, bodyshaming, mentions of abuse, mentions of depression and threatened suicide, blood, vomiting, sex

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Libba Bray – The King of Crows

What better way to kick off the roaring 20s than with the final installment in The Diviners series?

The Diviners is one of my favourite series, so I was absolutely thrilled to be able to read The King of Crows early. And I both loved it and felt a little underwhelmed at the same time. This was still a really good read, but I felt like it missed some direction, and it meandered for a long time.

I still think this is a phenomenal series, as it takes on so many different topics and has such an amazing cast of characters. I just missed some of the suspense of the first three books, and didn’t feel as pressed to read on.

There were also some formatting issues with the eARC, such as missing spaces, doubled sentences, and lay-out problems, which may have added to my inability to completely enjoy this book.

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Huda Fahmy – That Can Be Arranged

I’m a big fan of the “Yes, I’m hot in this” comics, so when I saw this was available as “read now”, I quickly downloaded it and dove in. And I loved this! It was so funny, and the mix of text and comic works really well. It was a very quick, very entertaining read.

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A. Andrews – A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability

“If there’s one thing that just about every disabled person on the planet is beyond familiar with, it’s preparedness. In a world that is rarely built to accomodate us, we are often left to our own in adapting to spaces that don’t work for us.”

I heard great things about A Quick and Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns and A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities (although I haven’t actually read them yet), so when I saw this book was “read now” on Netgalley, I was very interested to give it a try. It seemed very educational, and I have been wanting to read more non-fiction. Also, as an autistic person, I want to do my best to be a good ally for people with all kinds of disabilities, and I can only do that if I educate myself.

I really appreciated that this was own voices, and I also really loved the art style. Those are two of the positives that I noticed right away. Overall, I mainly appreciated that this was hugely inclusive and hugely positive about disability, and it felt very uplifting and empowering. It was also very queer, yay!

Would definitely recommend this educational graphic novel for just about anyone, because it’s very insightful and sex positive.

CWs: ableism

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Michael Escoffier – Princess Kevin

This was a very cute picture book about defying gender norms. I loved that Kevin wanting to wear a dress wasn’t linked to him being gay or trans, because it just doesn’t matter here: boys can just wear dresses. I do think this could have done a little more in terms of actual acceptance. It was good to see that Kevin just didn’t care what his peers thought, and implicitly, of course, his parents were accepting enough. But it would have been nice if there had been more of a twist in terms of the acceptance of his peers, because they seemed to tolerate him and not much more.

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Have you read any of these books?

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