LGBTQIA Read Wrap-Up

Hello everybody! Its the weekend, yay! Today I'm sharing my reviews for the books I read during the #LGBTQIARead, which was hosted from 24th June-1st July by Faye from A Daydreamer`s Thoughts and George Lester (who is one of my very favourite YouTubers). I read some fabulous books during this ( even though I didn’t read everything from my TBR, which you can read here)

Along with the books I`ll be reviewing below, I also reread Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, which I loved even more this time round.

Let`s get onto the reviews!

Noah Can`t Even by Simon James Green
In his delightful debut novel, Simon James Green tells the story of Noah Grimes, a socially awkward teenage boy whose already crazy life gets even more pear shaped after his best friend Harry kisses him at a party. This book is the kind of funny that will make you snort with laughter multiple times as Noah gets into the most crazy situations imaginable, and I also really enjoyed Noah`s witty comments throughout the narrative. I also liked the fact that even though this was a contemporary comedy, Noah (a huge Agatha Christie fan) got to solve a few little mysteries such as who his mother`s mysterious new boyfriend was, and I thought that this book dealt really well with issues such as a family member`s dementia, family issues in general and sexuality. In short, this was a fantastic, fun read, and I would recommend it highly to fans of humour and hilarious hijinks in the books they read. 4.5/5
Every Day by David Levithan
This book tells the story of A, a person who wakes up in a different body every day, as they meet Rhiannon and decide that they don`t want to swap bodies constantly any more as they want to spend their life with Rhiannon. The format of this story, which is essentially slice-of-life chapters that let you explore the body A is in that day, was entirely unique, and the breadth of characters and issues that were explored was excellent. I liked A a lot, regardless of which body they were in, and I liked the message of the story that who you are and what you look like shouldn`t matter if you love someone`s personality. However, I did struggle to empathise with Rhiannon, the other main character, as I found her to be quite superficial, and I also found the ending an unsatisfying conclusion to A`s story. 3.5/5
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
In what is probably the most hyped YA novel of the summer, we read about two Indian American teenagers (Dimple and Rishi) as they meet at a STEM focused summer programme, discover that they`ve been set up to meet as their parents have arranged their marriage (well, Dimple does. Rishi was in on the plan without knowing Dimple had no idea, which leads to a hilarious meet cute) and get past this to fall in love with each other. I loved the writing style of this book, which had a lot of figurative language that made me smile, and I thought the close 3rd person, dual narrative worked perfectly for this book. While I wasn’t really that interested in the secondary characters or their subplots, Dimple and Rishi were both super likeable in completely different ways, and I was rooting for their romance throughout, as well as willing them on to succeed in the creation of their app and the competition, which I thought was a fun plot in general. A final thing I loved about this book was the fact that I got to learn more about Indian culture as I knew very little before starting When Dimple Met Rishi, and I think this book is a perfect summer contemporary read. 4/5
Margot and Me by Juno Dawson
This book tells the story of Fliss as she is forced to move to the countryside with her mum, who is in remission from cancer, to live with her battle-axe grandmother Margot. While Fliss initially struggles with the move, everything changes when she discovers Margot`s wartime diary and begins to unravel her past. I loved both Fliss`s and Margot`s perspectives as they were instantly engaging and the way in which the timelines were continually swapping always left me desperate to find out what would happen in the next part of both. The characters in both periods were diverse and instantly loveable, and except for Fliss`s bully Megan (who was so awful I struggled to read scenes she was in) I genuinely cared about and sympathised with all of them. Another thing that I adored about Margot and Me was that it felt somehow cinematic, and it really reminded me of the feeling you get when you curl up with a classic movie on a rainy day as it was heart-breaking to the point where I shed more than a few tears at some parts of the novel, yet was still heart-warming. I can`t quite put my finger on why this book is so special, but it`s going to stay with me for a long time and I can`t recommend it highly enough. 5/5
Girlhood by Cat Clarke
Girlhood tells the story of Harper, a girl who chose to go to boarding school as she is wracked with guilt over her sister`s death, as the friendships she`s built turn toxic when a new girl starts at Duncraggan, a boarding school much darker than any of Enid Blyton`s. While I initially really struggled with Girlhood as it was very slow paced to begin with, as it went on I became utterly gripped and could barely flip the pages fast enough to find out what would happen, and I actually expected the ending to go in a very different direction. I thought Harper was a fabulous, flawed narrator, and the side characters also felt well-developed and layered, and it felt like I was reading about real people. The book explored friendship in a really interesting way as it looked at how powerful and positive female friendships can be when they`re good, but also dangerous they can be when they aren`t. Even though I didn’t love this quite as much as the Lost and the Found, it`s still an excellent read. 4.5/5

Thank you for reading everyone! Id love to know what you think of these if you`ve read them, or whether you might like to pick them up after reading these reviews!

 

 

 

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