Read this last night. A masterpiece. #bookpics

💌 book mail 💌

Thank you to Wednesday Books for this advanced copy of Pride or Die!! I'm really looking forward to reading this one! And I LOVE the cover 😍

‼️Pride or Die by CL Montblanc is out 4/15/25‼️

➡️ Synopsis:
In this delightful dark comedy debut, when the members of an LGBTQ+ club find themselves accidentally framed for attempted murder, it's up to them to clear their names before it's too late.

It’s kind of hard to graduate high school when you’re the prime suspect in an attempted murder.

Seventeen-year-old Eleanora Finkel just wants to finish her senior year and get the hell out of Texas. But when her club meeting inconveniently coincides with an attack on the school’s head cheerleader, she and her friends find themselves in the hot seat.

In order to clear their names and ensure the survival of their club for future queer teens, they’ll have to track down the real culprit themselves. But Eleanora is far from a professional detective; she’s riddled with anxiety, annoyingly attracted to the case’s cute victim, and her trusty crochet hook feels insufficient for fighting off a murderer. Can this ragtag group of unlikely sleuths find their way out of an entire freaking murder mystery before one of them is next?

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#bookmail #prideordie #wednesdaybooks #arc #arcs #books #bookpics #clmontblanc #lgbtqia+ #booksta #bookstagram

🎻 Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki 🎻

⭐ 3 out of 5

"𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸. 𝘈 𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵."

I'm having such a hard time articulating how I feel about this book. There was SO many good, solid parts about this story. The bare bones were excellent, and so was the writing. But it was also extremely disappointing for those same reasons - because it had so many wonderful things, I'm disappointed that I didn't love it more.

The whole storyline revolving around the aliens was extremely random, disjointed, and did not feel like it fit within the story about Katrina and Satomi. If they really wanted Satomi to have a relationship, Lan could've still been that as a human. Lan's family also provided a lot of plot convenience. It felt like the author had 50 ideas and messages she was trying to portray in under 400 pages, which left many of the side stories unfinished.

What I did really love was the family that Satomi, Katrina, and even Astrid found within each other. It was obvious that Katrina had been saved by Satomi, but it wasn't so obvious that Satomi had also been saved by Katrina. I also adored how the author uses music to explain things like gender, judgement, and life in general. The part that stuck out to me the most was when she explained how people live life in "sections", like sections of music, and when a section doesn't go how they expect it, things can go off the rails.

Please don't take the negative parts of my review as a reason not to read this book. While there are very realistic parts involving hateful things people say about trans people, and there are definitely parts I liked more than others, there is also trans joy and familial love and many good, amazing things to gain from reading this story.

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#bookreview #bookreviews #booksta #bookstagram #bookpics #bookrecs #kobo #lightfromuncommonstars

🏹 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 🏹

⭐ 5 out of 5

I stayed up past midnight finishing this lol, whoops

My review:
I first read The Hunger Games when I was in high school. That's been at least 15+ years ago, and I am so pleasantly surprised by how well this book has held up. I was daydreaming about getting back home and reading it while I was at work this week 😅

‼️ SPOILERS BELOW ‼️

This story is pretty brutal for something that is widely considered young adult, and I'm not complaining about the rating, I was just surprised that I didn't remember how gruesome some scenes were! Rue's death in particular really got me, and I'm sure part of that is because I have a kid of my own now.

I really loved Katniss so much too. I don't think I really appreciated how good her character is when I was younger, but to me she came across as a perfect main character. She's talented and brave, but also flawed, angsty, and definitely has the attitude of a 16 year old, despite her circumstances. Some of her inner thoughts really made me laugh.

I'm stoked to reread this whole series and then get to the prequels!!

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#thehungergames #hungergames #suzannecollins #bookreview #bookreviews #books #bookpics #booksta #bookstagram

#BookPics clip of 20231010