Top Ten Tuesday | O Captain! My Captain!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is 'Top Ten Authors I'm Dying To Meet / Ten Authors I Can't Believe I've Met  (some other "meeting authors" type spin you want to do)'. You may or may not know this, I have no idea, but I studied Creative Writing for four years at university and got tutored by some brilliant writers, but today I thought I'd talk about some of the authors I wish I'd been able to have some lessons with while I was a student - they're all writers I still wouldn't say no to a lesson with now!

Sarah Waters: I love Waters' fiction, The Little Stranger is one of my favourite books, and I think the stories she chooses to tell are fantastic. The focus of my MA was how historical fiction can be used as a tool to write women, the LGBT+ community, poc and any other form of 'other' back into history, so to be tutored by a woman who specialises in LGBT+ historical fiction would have been amazing.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I read Adichie's story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, earlier this year and loved it. She's also a very political, outspoken person and I think I could learn an awful lot from her.

Margaret Atwood: The woman's a genius, what more is there to say?

Samantha Ellis: Some Creative Writing MA courses in the UK make you choose between focusing on solely prose or solely poetry, but what I liked about my course at Lancaster University was that you could explore anything you wanted to. Having said that, I've never tried my hand at writing scripts and I think part of that is because we didn't have any tutors who specialised in them, and Ellis is a playwright as well as a writer of non-fiction. She also seems like a genuinely nice human being and I think a workshop with her would be really interesting - if nothing else we could gush about Anne Brontë together.

Alison Weir: I haven't actually read any of Weir's books yet (something I'm hoping to change this year!) but I think she'd've been a great tutor for me during my MA because she's both a historian and a novelist, and I think I could have learned a lot about knowing when to separate fact from fiction and knowing how much research to do without driving myself around the bend as I sometimes found myself doing.

Gail Carriger: I've been struggling to write fiction since I finished uni and entered the world of full-time work, which I'm finding really frustrating and it's making me lose my confidence when I sit down to finish an incomplete short story, and there's something about Carriger's work that seems so indulgent and fun that I think a workshop with her would encourage me to actually get some words on the page.

Angela Carter: Sadly Carter died in 1992 when I was a measly 4 months old so I'll never have the opportunity to be taught by her, and, if I'm being honest, I'm not actually the biggest fan of her work aside from The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. She did teach at the University of East Anglia, one of the best unis in the UK for Creative Writing, and I think workshops with her must have been fascinating because she was so radical.

Robin Hobb: Another author I haven't read but I'm planning to read this year. I think we can all agree that Hobb is the biggest female author in the world of high fantasy and I think she'd have a lot to teach me about building a whole world, with its own countries and cultures and environment, from scratch.

Kurtis J. Wiebe: Something else I wasn't able to explore at uni is writing for comics and graphic novels, and as Rat Queens is my favourite graphic novel series I'd be happy to have a workshop all about writing for comics with Wiebe.

Roald Dahl: Yet another author who has shuffled off this mortal coil, and one who would be 100 now if he was still alive. Dahl died the year before I was born but he was still a huge part of my childhood - I got my dad to read Fantastic Mr. Fox to me so many times that I think we both knew it by heart - can you imagine having a workshop about writing for children with this man? Yes please.

Who did you talk about this week?

Review | A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

A Closed and Common Orbit

by Becky Chambers

My Rating:

Lovelace was once merely a ship's artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who's determined to help her learn and grow.

Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.

Check out my review of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet here!

Considering The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is one of my favourite books of all time, I'm a little ashamed it's taken me quite this long to get to A Closed and Common Orbit. If you haven't read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet yet and you're planning to, I advise you to stop reading this review now! I try to keep my reviews spoiler-free, but I don't think you should go near A Closed and Common Orbit at all if you've yet to read the first book.

It was lovely to be back in this world, in this universe I fell in love with in the first book, and stepping back into it felt like stepping into a place that restores my faith in humanity. Unfortunately I didn't love this one as much as I loved the first one, but I also wasn't expecting to; The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is one of those rare books that's simply perfect.

When I read the blurb for A Closed and Common Orbit I predicted that I'd find Lovelace's story much more interesting than Pepper's, but it actually turned out to be the other way around. That's not to say that I didn't find Lovelace's chapters interesting because I really did; as I expected, Chambers' exploration of AIs was fantastic throughout the novel, but while I enjoyed those particular parts of Lovelace's chapters and completely empathised with her frustration at being trapped in a body she felt she wasn't suited for, Lovelace just didn't grow on me in the same way that Pepper did.

I'm not sure I can accurately pinpoint what it was about Pepper that made me so fond of her. We discover how much crap the poor woman went through as a child, so I found something really rewarding in watching her overcome all that hardship with the help of a woman called Owl who may have been my favourite character in the book. The relationship between the two of them was heart-warming, and while it became just the slightest bit saccharine near the end of the novel I didn't mind; I needed to read something nice, something hopeful, and though this book isn't hopeful in the same way The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is, it's still lovely.

It would be unfair to compare another book, even a book set in the same universe, with A Closed and Common Orbit. The two books are such different stories - A Closed and Common Orbit is a much more confined, secretive story, as the title suggests - that it's impossible to truly compare them. Chambers excels at quiet, kind science fiction, and I enjoyed learning more about AIs and Aeluons in this book. I can't wait to return to this universe for a third time, and will happily gobble up whatever Chambers writes.

Review | The Other Half of Happiness by Ayisha Malik

The Other Half of Happiness

by Ayisha Malik

My Rating:

Sofia Khan is just married. But no-one told her life was going to be this way . . .

Her living situation is in dire straits, her husband Conall is distant, and his annoyingly attractive colleague is ringing all sorts of alarm bells.

When her mother forces them into a belated wedding ceremony (elopement: you can run, but you can't hide), Sofia wonders if it might be a chance to bring them together. But when it forces Conall to confess his darkest secret, it might just tear them apart.

I received an ARC of The Other Half of Happiness from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Check out my review of Sofia Khan is Not Obliged here!

Last year I read Ayisha Malik's debut, Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, and really enjoyed it, so I was thrilled when I was approached by the publisher and offered the chance to receive an ARC of the sequel, The Other Half of Happiness. If you haven't read Sofia Khan is Not Obliged and you're planning to then I suggest you stop reading this review now; I try to keep my reviews spoiler-free, but as this book is a sequel there will be spoilers for the end of the first book here.

One of the things I mentioned in my review of the first book was that it felt like two different books in one; the first half of the book was very much a Muslim Bridget Jones's Diary while the second half took a more serious turn, leaving me a little unsure as to the kind of tone the book was trying to hit. The Other Half of Happiness felt much more like the latter half of the first book, but Malik has still littered the story with a great sense of humour and Sofia is still such a fun protagonist to follow.

Honestly, I found this book difficult to rate and see-sawed between 3 and 4 stars for a long time before I finally compromised and settled on 3.5. I loved the relationship between Sofia and Conall in the first book - the end of Sofia Khan is Not Obliged definitely gave me the warm fuzzies - and I'm still not sure how I feel about what happens to their relationship in this book. As the blurb suggests, Sofia discovers that Conall has a pretty big secret and that secret turned Conall into someone I wasn't sure I liked anymore. I appreciated that Conall became more complex, that he's definitely not perfect despite Sofia's idolisation of him in the first book, but the secret he keeps from Sofia is not okay (the keeping it from her that is, not the secret itself) and I got a little frustrated by the way he seemed to look down on Sofia's writing career in this book while expecting her to put up with his own passion project. This was especially confusing considering he was so supportive of her in the first book.

What Sofia was lacking in romance in this book, however, she certainly made up for in the relationships with the other women in her life. I loved that Malik chose to explore the relationship Sofia has with her mother, in particular, as well as her sister and her friends. They're all incredibly supportive of Sofia, and it was nice to see this focus when so much of the first book was focused on Sofia's romantic life. So much of Sofia's life seems to have been focused on romance and marriage that, in this book, it felt as though she was finally able to pour more of her energy into the other areas of her life, such as her career.

Unfortunately, I didn't quite enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed the first one. I loved the themes that Malik chose to explore, but so much of the book was Sofia being sad and moping; this is completely justified considering what happens, but it didn't make for particularly thrilling reading. In fact parts of this book felt like reading the first book again, with Sofia once again unsure where her life is going or what's going to become of her career - I desperately wanted her to use her own initiative more rather than simply jumping on the opportunities other people offered her. She's a bright woman, she just needed a bit of a kick up the backside from time to time.

I did still like this book, though, and I recommend both Sofia Khan books - particularly if you enjoy contemporary, and especially if you're interested in reading a Muslim protagonist written by a Muslim author.

Top Ten Tuesday | Down in One

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is a 'Read In One Sitting' theme, so, shockingly, I'm going to talk about the books I read in one sitting. Because I lack imagination today.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling: This arrived during the weekend, a blissful day when I wasn't at school and had nothing to do, so I holed myself up on the sofa with snacks and started reading as soon as this book arrived and finished it that same day. I had to know what happened, and I had to know what happened before the internet ruined it for me.

Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant: This little horror novella is the perfect read for anyone who loves horror movies, particularly found footage movies like The Blair Witch Project or Trollhunter. I read this in an hour or two, so it's a great book to pick up if you're in the mood to start and finish something in the same day.

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli: My favourite book of 2017 so far, which I really wasn't expecting because I loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and I didn't see how this book could be any better. I was lucky enough to read it early thanks to NetGalley, and once I started it I couldn't stop and devoured it one evening after work.

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson: It's a very rare instance in which I don't read a graphic novel in one sitting, but I have such fond memories of this one because it took me on such an emotional rollercoaster. Like The Upside of Unrequited, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did and it ended up giving me lots of feelings.

Malkin Child by Livi Michael: I read this little book in one sitting while I was studying for my MA, and was lucky enough to meet the author and get a signed copy. The Pendle Witch Trials are one of the most famous witch trials in Britain, most famous for the fact that it was the testimony of a nine year old girl who sent ten people, including her own mother, sister and brother, to the gallows. That little girl, Jennet Device, has been depicted as something of a cruel child ever since, and I enjoyed Livi Michael's more sympathetic view of her.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood: Another one I read at uni, this time while doing my undergrad degree, and a book that also happened to be my very first (and so far only) Margaret Atwood read. I'm determined to read more of Atwood's work this year, but this was a brilliant introduction to her. If you're a fan of retellings I recommend picking this one up!

The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark: I think this book has to be read in one sitting to really feel the impact of it, and I recommend picking it up if you haven't already - I read it in January and loved it.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: I'm sure I read this as a child, but I remember reading it one sitting during a five hour coach ride; I had to study it at university, so it was a lot of fun to revisit it as a student rather than only a reader and there was so much in it that passed me by as a little girl.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman: It's easy to read this book in one sitting, it's not long at all, but this is one of those rare instances in which I enjoyed the film adaptation more than the book itself.

Woman Who Brings the Rain by Eluned Gramich: This teeny memoir made the English-language non-fiction shortlist at last year's Wales Book of the Year and it ended up being the first book I read this year. I enjoyed it, but I'd love Eluned Gramich to write a longer book about her time in Japan.

Which books made your list this week?

Review | Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Mistress of the Art of Death

by Ariana Franklin

My Rating:

Adelia Aguilar is a rare thing in medieval Europe - a woman who has trained as a doctor. Her speciality is the study of corpses, a skill that must be concealed if she is to avoid accusations of witchcraft.

But in Cambridge a child has been murdered, others are disappearing, and King Henry has called upon a renowned Italian investigator to find the killer - fast.

What the king gets is Adelia, his very own Mistress of the Art of Death.

The investigation takes Adelia deep into Cambridge; its castle and convents, and streets teeming with life. And it is here that she attracts the attention of a murderer who is prepared to kill again...

It's no secret that I love a bit of historical crime, but if there's one thing the genre's lacking it's leading ladies. Enter Adelia Aguilar.

When it comes to historical fiction I rarely venture into stories set before the sixteenth century; while I find certain aspects of the Wars of the Roses interesting there's far too many people involved for me to be able to keep track of everyone, and my knowledge of the Middle Ages is very limited so historical fiction set in that period doesn't attract me in the same way a book set during the reign of Henry VIII does. As such I couldn't be certain what was and wasn't historically accurate while reading Mistress of the Art of Death, but that's not the book's fault and I tried not to let it bother me. Ultimately there's no way to enjoy historical fiction if you don't suspend your disbelief a little - after all, none of us were there in the Middle Ages, so how are we really to know what was accurate in the first place? - and I'm a big believer in the power historical fiction has to encourage readers to learn more about history.

That being said, I did feel as though it was obvious this book had been written by a 21st century woman. I know that's a strange thing to say because, obviously, it hasn't been written by a medieval woman, but I didn't feel completely engrossed in the Middle Ages like I was hoping to be. Some of Franklin's descriptions are wonderful and she was clearly a woman who was very passionate about this period of history, but every now and then Adelia said something that was a little jarring and a little too modern. I hate to say that because I am all for more women with agency in historical fiction, particularly pre-suffragette historical fiction, but we must be able to give women in history agency without making them feel like 21st century women in period costumes.

Where Franklin excelled in this novel was with her side characters. Adelia has a charming array of companions who grew on me very quickly, and I thought her characterisation of Henry II was fantastic. Writing a monarch is a difficult thing to do but Franklin wrote Henry II the way I imagined him. Sadly, it was Adelia herself and her love interest whom I had more of a problem with.

Considering this is marketed as a historical crime book first and foremost, the romance took over way too much for my liking and seemed to come out of nowhere. I actually liked the two characters together, there were moments when they had great chemistry, but they seemed to go from distrust to love/lust very quickly and it all got a tad Mills and Boon to the point where Adelia's relationship appeared to be the main focus of the plot rather than her skills as the Middle Ages' answer to Sherlock Holmes. 

I was also a little disappointed that I guessed who the killer was fairly early on. There were enough potential culprits to keep me guessing, just in case I was wrong, but the feeling that I had around half-way through the novel ultimately proved to be correct and it was a shame; I like to be surprised.

Mistress of the Art of Death isn't the best historical crime has to offer - the beginning isn't written particularly well, jumping from perspective to perspective within the chapters so much that I almost stopped reading - but ultimately it's refreshing to read some historical crime with a female lead, and I'm hoping that Adelia has paved the way for even more heroines. I'll continue with the series, if for no other reason than to find out what happens to the side characters and to see if Franklin improves as a writer, and I think this would be a good place to start if you're looking for female-led historical crime. If you're a Medieval expert, however, this book is not for you.

Top Ten Tuesday | My Spring TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!

This week's theme is Top Ten Books On My Spring TBR, and this week I've split my list into fiction and non-fiction. There are lots of books I want to read, but right now these are the books I'm either most inclined toward or put me most in the mood for spring. My non-fiction selections certainly have a theme as March is Women's History Month (woohoo!) so I'm hoping to absorb all the women's history I can throughout spring and beyond.

The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Heilig: I have such fond memories of reading The Girl from Everywhere last spring that it only feels natural to pick up the sequel, which has been released very recently, this spring. I'm looking forward to seeing where Heilig takes this story!

The Witchfinder's Sister by Beth Underdown: To me, Matthew Hopkins is one of history's most wicked villains. He's also known as The Witchfinder General, and we have him to thank for the persecution of thousands of women across the UK and in the US. It's thanks to a book written by Hopkins that the Salem Witch Trials took place, such is his influence. This novel, another recent release, is about Hopkins' sister and I can't wait to read it; I think it'll be really interesting to read Hopkins through the eyes of a female relative.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth: Something about spring puts me in the mood for fairy tales, and Bitter Greens has been on my radar for a while. Recently I finally got a copy for my kindle and I keep thinking of picking it up so I think I'm going to read it soon; rather than the Brothers Grimm, I think Bitter Greens focuses more on the many women who told fairy tales before the Brothers Grimm collected them and subsequently took the credit for them.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson: Another thing spring puts me in the mood for is contemporary, and I've owned this novel for longer than I'd like to admit. Not only does it sound like a charming, very British book, but with the focus on the relationship between a white man and a Pakistani woman, a woman who isn't thought particularly highly of within her community, I think it's going to be a timely and important read, too.

Chocolat by Joanne Harris: I really like the film but I still haven't read the book, and frankly what better book is there to read over Easter?

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly: I saw the film not so long ago and absolutely adored it, it's one of the best films I've seen in a long time, and now I can't wait to read the book and learn more about the African-American women who helped get man to the moon.

Heartthrobs: A History of Women and Desire by Carol Dyhouse: This is another recent release and a book that sounds super interesting to me. I've seen plenty of books and articles about the male gaze, particularly when I was at uni, but I don't think I've ever read anything about the way men are portrayed for women, and I think this will be a fascinating read given the worrying love some women have for men such as Heathcliff and Christian Grey.

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor: I love to watch documentaries and Helen Castor's are always fantastic, but I've yet to read any of her books. This one sounds brilliant and will hopefully fill some of the gap in my historical knowledge; my favourite era of history is the 16th century, particularly the reign of the Tudors, but my Medieval knowledge is lacking, so I'm hoping this book will teach me about some of the amazing women who paved the way for Elizabeth I.

Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis: I loved Samantha Ellis's memoir, How To Be a Heroine, and I've been looking forward to this book since I found out she was writing a book about Anne Brontë, who is my favourite of the three sisters. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey by Nicola Tallis: I've always had a soft spot for Lady Jane Grey ever since one of my primary school teachers introduced me to her story as the Nine Days Queen, but other than the basics I know very little about her. I know what happened to her and I know that was a very intelligent young woman, but I don't have a feel for her character in the same way I do her cousins, Mary I and Elizabeth I. I've heard very good things about this biography so far and I'm looking forward to getting to it soon.

What are you planning to read this spring?

Review | Final Girls by Riley Sager

Final Girls

by Riley Sager

My Rating:

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media’s attempts, they never meet.

Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past. 

That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy’s doorstep. Blowing through Quincy’s life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa’s death come to light, Quincy’s life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam’s truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.

I received an eARC of Final Girls from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't know about you, but I both love and hate horror movies. Sometimes there's nothing more enjoyable than watching a teen slasher movie and laughing at all the mistakes they make, until it's time to go to bed and turn the lights out and all I can think about is Ghostface appearing at the foot of my bed. I'm a wuss - I can't even watch Shaun of the Dead on my own, although I think that might be because zombies are the supernatural creatures that freak me out the most.

What I do really love, though, is when horror tropes are played around with - it's why I enjoyed The Cabin in the Woods so much (which is a really good film by the way, if you haven't seen it already). So when I heard of Final Girls and was sent an eARC via NetGalley, I couldn't wait to read it; I picked it up at a time when I was really in the mood for a thriller, and what I got was an addictive, dark, adrenaline-filled adventure. Once I started this book I didn't want to put it back down and I easily could have read it in one sitting if I didn't have to be a proper functioning adult.

Essentially, Final Girls plays around with the idea of, you guessed it, the 'final girl'; she's Sidney Prescott in Scream, Ellen Ripley in Alien, Laurie Strode in Halloween. In the novel there are three girls who solely survived separate horrific attacks, the kind of attacks you'd expect to see in a horror movie, whom the media have become obsessed with. Our protagonist, Quincy, is the only member of her group of friends to have survived a massacre ten years before, and she's slowly starting to move on with her life and put the past behind her as much as she can. Then she discovers one of her fellow final girls has been found dead, and the life Quincy has built for herself begins to fall apart.

Final Girls is such a fun idea for a thriller - horrific, yes, I wouldn't want to go through anything that any of these 'final girls' go through, but it's such a cool idea - and it has to be one of the twistiest books I've ever read. There's not a lot I can say about the novel without giving anything away, and I'd hate to give anything away when it's so much fun to discover for yourself as the story unfolds, but I will say it kept me guessing until the end. If someone had asked me to guess the ending of the story at the very beginning, I never would have guessed the outcome in a million years. If I'm being completely honest that might just be because I don't tend to read thrillers often - for all I know someone who is a real thriller nut may find this book a lot more paint-by-numbers than I did - but I'm usually quite good at guessing where a story's going, so it's always nice to be surprised.

Part of me couldn't help but wonder how realistic the ending is, but that didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of it; I don't mind suspending my disbelief a little for a thriller, because frankly if thrillers were really accurate we'd spend a lot of time watching police officers filling out their paperwork. Ultimately I loved the juxtaposition between the beginning and the end of the book, meaning Final Girls has to be the most twisty, turny book I've read since I read Fingersmith.

The most prominent thought I had while reading Final Girls, which I don't have often, is that this book would make a great movie. I'd watch the hell out of that movie, and I'll definitely pick up whatever Riley Sager brings out next. This is already being described as the thriller of the year and I can see why, I enjoyed it a lot and I think that whether you're a thriller junkie or a complete newbie, you'll like this book - especially if you have a soft spot for horror movies.

Review | The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

The Upside of Unrequited

by Becky Albertalli

My Rating:

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love-she's lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can't stomach the idea of rejection. So she's careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie's orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly's cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly's totally not dying of loneliness-except for the part where she is.

Luckily, Cassie's new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny, flirtatious, and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she'll get her first kiss and she'll get her twin back.

There's only one problem: Molly's coworker, Reid. He's an awkward Tolkien superfan, and there's absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

I received an eARC of The Upside of Unrequited from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Check out my review of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda here!

I ummed and ahhed over how I should rate this book. It had to be 4 stars, surely? I really, really liked it, but it's not exactly a literary masterpiece. Then I had the not-so-surprising revelation that it didn't have to be to warrant 5 stars - what are ratings anyway? 5 stars means I loved a book an awful lot, but that doesn't mean I love a YA Contemporary in the same way I love a High Fantasy or a Memoir - and I bloody loved this book.

I'm always wary of hype, particularly in the realms of YA, so when I picked up Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda a couple of years ago I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. Albertalli's been on my radar ever since, and while I was looking forward to her second novel I was pretty certain I wasn't going to enjoy it as much as I enjoyed her debut, and I was blissfully incorrect.

This book was both familiar and wonderfully different; it felt like an Albertalli book, it was so easy to read, so much so that I devoured it in one sitting after I got home from work, and it's funny. I can't even begin to explain how rare it is for me to find a book, YA or not, that I find genuinely funny and that writes the teenage experience the way I remember it. Just like in Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, the characters in The Upside of Unrequited are characters I recognised from my own teenage years - in particular, protagonist Molly struck a real chord with me.

I don't think this book will be for everyone, I think there will be people who don't like it as much as Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and people who like it more, but this book felt very personal and I actually got quite emotional while reading it. Molly is an overweight protagonist - and I'm all for more overweight protagonists in YA - but what I adored the most is that this book isn't about her weight or her attempt to lose it. That is such a rare thing, and as someone who has always struggled with my weight, and was very self-conscious during my teens, this book felt like such an important read. This book made me feel as though the way I felt as a teenager wasn't silly, that my feelings then and now were and are valid, and that's, frankly, kind of magical.

I'm not going to say Molly's weight isn't important to the story, because that would be a lie. It's mentioned on a number of occasions that she's overweight, but it's the way that it's handled that's so refreshing; there are people who say and do shitty things because of her weight, and there are times when Molly is self-conscious about it because being a teenager is hard enough without having your body policed by the rest of society, but at no point in this story does Molly even think about losing weight. Her issues with her weight are more about what she thinks other people are thinking, and when she realises that the people worth knowing think she's rad regardless of her size, she opens herself up to people and even admits that she's happy as she is, that her weight doesn't define what kind of person she is. I just can't put into words how happy this made me, and yes I did cry a little because I'm a wreck. Being in your 20s is hard.

Aside from Molly, this book has diversity galore and does it in such a way that doesn't feel as though Albertalli is ticking a box. She's not afraid to use labels - someone in this book identifies as pansexual, which is super refreshing after years of authors not wanting to explore anything but heterosexuality and homosexuality - but her characters aren't defined by them. She knows how to write real people, the kind of people I feel like I might bump into in the street, and I loved all of them and kind of just want to re-read this book already.

I also need to talk about the romance, which has to be one of my favourite YA romances. I'm not usually the type to get mushy over a YA couple, but I loved Molly and Reid so much; they have so much chemistry and they're also both just genuinely nice people and, ugh, my heart can't take it. One of the things I loved most about The Upside of Unrequited, though, was that the book itself isn't really romance focused. There's a lot of talk of romance, particularly with Molly's long back catalogue of one-sided crushes, but this book is as much about Molly's relationship with her twin sister as anything else, and what it means when two people who are so close realise they're beginning to grow up and drift apart. I loved their relationship, and I want to read more positive sister relationships in basically every book I read from now on.

I'm sorry if you were expecting an in-depth review, I feel as though all I've really done here is gush, but I adored this book and coming from someone who doesn't really lean towards YA much nowadays I think that's saying something. Maybe you won't love this as much as I did, as you may have gathered some of my love for this book comes from a very personal place, but even so I think it's well-written, well-intentioned, and such a nice, good book - a perfect read for the spring!

This Week in Books | 08/03/17

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

Now: I'm trying to catch up on the eARCs I've managed to accumulate recently, so after an accidental break to read other stuff I'm currently continuing with Mark Lawrence's Red Sister. It's okay so far, though it feels like it still hasn't really got going yet, but I'm all for a story with assassin nuns.

Then: Another eARC that I was very lucky to receive after I loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda a couple of years ago. I got home from work yesterday, sat down, and read Becky Albertalli's second novel in one sitting. I loved it. Look out for my review soon!

Next: And another eARC! I'm hoping I'll be able to speed through Our Own Private Universe as quickly as I did The Upside of Unrequited; one of the things I really like about YA Contemporary when I find myself reading it is how easy it is to read. I haven't enjoyed any of Talley's novels as much as her debut, Lies We Tell Ourselves, so I'm interested to see what I think of this one.

What are you reading?