kyarabereading's reviews
60 reviews

At 22 years old, this is my first time ever reading the Percy Jackson series, and I am loving it so far. I wanted to read it ahead of the upcoming Disney+ series, and I am really looking forward to seeing this book series come to life on screen (again lol). 

This is a very fun, adventurous book with loveable characters, interesting lore, and a plot that keeps you hooked. But even though it's a children's book series, at its core, it goes so much deeper than just fun adventures and cool powers. This is a book about neglectful parents, and how it feels to be the children of said parents. This is a book about community, and how finding the right one for you can be life-changing. This is a book about realizing that you are capable of so much more than the negative voices around you say you are. I hope that with the Disney+ series coming out, more kids can be inspired and moved by this series & its characters. And I hope more kids are willing to check out the books as well. 

Can't wait to read the next one!

This is a beautifully written novel, and many times, I found myself in awe of Cao's writing. It is a beautiful thing to find an author that makes you wish you could write with their same level of creativity and cleverness, but of course, we can't all be Lan Cao. I will admit that sometimes chapters seemed to drag on a bit, and there were times when I would re-read the same passages and not quite understand what Cao was getting at. But nonetheless, I enjoyed the writing, and I think another re-read would help me further understand this novel. 

I was glad to get to read a novel about the Vietnam War from the point of view of a Vietnamese refugee. Living in America, the novels and history books I learned from always focused on how the war affected America. I hope more teachers across America are willing to teach more books like Monkey Bridge, because this point of view is so important when discussing the atrocities of that war. This book was very informative and interesting. I genuinely feel like I learned a lot. 

Outside of how informative this novel is, it is also very emotional and moving. At its core, it is not just about the history of Vietnam, but it is also a story about a teenage girl and her mother - the struggles within that relationship and the differences that pushed them apart. It is a story about what it feels like to be caught between two worlds because you're both disconnected from your culture but also treated as "other" in America. I'm not Vietnamese, so obviously I do not completely understand or identify with everything that happened in this book, but as a single mother's daughter and as someone who moved from Puerto Rico to the U.S., I saw myself in some parts of this book. I think other women/people of color could feel the same way. 

I don't often read plays, so it was fun getting to do so. I found the writing very funny and the commentary very interesting. 

I'll admit it: I would finish reading chapters of this book and be left incredibly confused more often than I would like to admit. Mind you, I found some chapters interesting - there were even some I identified with as a woman - and I can definitely see what Anne wanted to achieve with this "manual." But I think it will take a couple of reads for me to fully grasp this story. 

It was a really cool experience getting to read a book in a very nontraditional writing style, and I think that if that's something you are looking for, you should definitely check this one out. 

I don't often read poetry collections, so I was really excited to check this one out. It is beautifully written, it is tragically painful, it is overwhelmingly reflective - I loved those things about Beastiary. I'll admit that I don't know enough about the animals referenced in this poetry collection, and I think if I knew more, it would help me understand Kelly's poetry more profoundly. I gave it a pretty quick read, so I'm hoping to re-read it, spend a little bit more time with it, and do some research as I read so I can understand it further. I look forward to the day I pick this book up again. 

I have re-read this book a handful of times, and I love it more every time. I appreciate Grande's honesty about the struggles that have impacted her life, the reality of both living in Mexico and being an immigrant in America, and the difficult relationship she had with her family. This book is incredibly informative about parts of Mexico's history, as well as legislation in America that impacted the lives of Mexican immigrants. If you are interested in learning some Mexican history told from the point of view of someone who experienced it, I think this is the book for you. I also think this is a book that a lot of Latinos could identify with and be moved by. I, for one, certainly felt moved by it. 

I read Frankenstein in high school, but I decided to read it again, and it's crazy how much more you can like a book when you don't have to be graded on your understanding of it lol. It's not that I hated it the first time or anything. I just think that essays and tests and whatnot can really take the fun out of reading a book for the first time.

There's not much I can say that hasn't already been said, but I really enjoyed this book. Not only is Shelley's writing incredible, Frankenstein is also a much quicker + easier read than I anticipated. All I'm saying is, there is a reason it is one of the most well-known books of all time. 

I think this book series is genuinely one of the best YA book series of the 2000s, and I will always stand by that. It is so honest about the atrocities of war, about capitalism, about fame, about the government, about PTSD, about all these things that affect our lives. This is a true reflection of today's world, and I think it's interesting to read it with our real world and history in mind.

But aside from the clear commentary within this book series, what also makes this series incredible is that there is so much heart in it. You truly fall in love with the characters, you enjoy their interactions, you feel for their struggles. This is truly one of the few instances where I read a book, and I felt so connected to the characters that I started tearing up when I realized I was nearing the end of the story. Mockingjay was a bittersweet ending to this book series. It wasn't this perfect happy ending, but it wrapped everything up well, and more importantly, it was realistic. I wouldn't have had it any other way. 

People give John Green a lot of $#!+ but I genuinely think he's a great author and TFIOS is proof of that. This book is funny, sad, and incredibly insightful. The characters remain loveable and realistic all the way through - even when you read a line that leaves you thinking "no teenager today would speak like a walking thesaurus but ok." The plot is one of those where not much happens, which is part of what makes it feel realistic. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but personally, I like books like that. And finally, I think this book has a great message. It gives the reader a lot to ponder when it comes to life and death and the fear of being forgotten and all that jazz. Green is great about inserting these little philosophical thoughts and conversations into his books - the sorts of things that we tend to obsess over, especially as we get older - and making them more digestible. It is interesting to read TFIOS through that lens, but also, I honestly think it makes this book that much more heartbreaking. 

If there's one thing I wish Green had done differently, it's

remove that part when Hazel and Augustus kissed in the Anne Frank House and everyone clapped. Every time I read it, I get the worst secondhand embarrassment. If I had a time machine, the first thing I would do is go back in time and prevent Green from writing that part, I'm so serious.

 

Anyway, I wanted to share a not-so-fun-fact from Mr. John Green himself. Apparently,

Hazel died about a year after Augustus. Isn't that sad as hell?

I gave this book 5 stars because it is one of my favorite books I read this year, and I definitely see myself reading it over and over again. It's not a perfect book, of course, but I truly do think it is deserving of this rating.

One of my favorite things about this book that I don't think it gets enough love for is the relationship between Starr and her family. I think it is genuinely one of my favorite depictions of a family in a book. This family is so realistic and heartwarming and funny and so so full of love. It is a crazy thing to read a book where you can feel that love radiating off the page so strongly even though the characters are not even real. You could see that too with the Garden Heights community. I loved the interactions Starr and her family had with members of the community. When you read this book, you truly feel like the characters have known each other for ages and that they care about one another even though they aren't related by blood. The characters in this story feel so real and that makes them that much more loveable to me.

Obviously, this book gets a lot of love for how reflective and informative it is on the struggles that Black people face in America, especially when it comes to things like police brutality, micro-aggressions, systemic racism, etc. That's truly one of the things that makes this book so important and impactful. Without saying too much, what I truly appreciated about how this story handled the issue of police brutality against the Black community is that it didn't give you this perfect happy ending. It is a good happy ending, but it is very bittersweet. I have seen countless TV shows, movies, etc. cover police brutality and they paint this fairytale where everything goes perfectly and justice is served exactly as we would hope it would be. And it would be super sick to live in that world, but we don't. We live in a world where things are much more complicated, where things don't always go the way you would hope, and I'm glad Thomas showed that reality. I'm glad she didn't sugarcoat a single thing.

I'll admit this though: Though I appreciate how honest it is about these issues, I think sometimes it does read like a PSA-type video, like one of those videos teachers would put on to teach you about bullying. The way that those informative bits were inserted into the book felt unnatural at times, and it took me out of the story a little bit. But I will say that I am much older than the target audience for this book, and I think that could be part of it. If this book is meant for a primarily teenage audience that will most likely discuss this book in class, maybe it needs to be more obvious and clear about the points it is making. I think that can be a good thing too.

I'll also say that this book, like most books about teenagers written by adults, did not completely grasp how teenagers communicate. I think Thomas did a better job than most because most of the dialogue sounds very natural, but every once in a while I came across a line that had me cringing a little bit. My qualification for saying this is that I was a teenager during the time that this book is set in (lol), so sometimes the dialogue read like an adult trying to sound like a teenager. 

A final little tidbit of criticism: The pacing for this book was a little all over the place. I usually don't mind books where not much happens because they're set in the real world and the real world is not all that exciting, of course. But at times it felt like there was a lot of unnecessary filler that dragged the book down a bit. It, unfortunately, got a little boring at times because of it.

Thomas is a great author, and considering this is the first time she ever published a book, seeing what she achieved with The Hate U Give is incredible to see. I'm incredibly happy for her, and I hope she is having a prosperous and fulfilling career.