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Review: One Year of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie

4/5 stars

Title: One Year of Ugly

Author: Caroline Mackenzie

Publication Date: May 14, 2020

Publisher: The Borough Press

Genre: Contemporary

Age Range: NA

Synopsis: After fleeing crumbling, volatile Venezuela, Yola Palacio wants nothing more than to settle into a peaceful new life in Trinidad with her family. And who cares if they’re there illegally—aren’t most of the people on the island? But life for the Palacios is far from quiet—and when Yola’s Aunt Celia dies, the family once again find their lives turned upside down. For Celia had been keeping a very big secret—she owed a LOT of money to a local criminal called Ugly. And without the funds to pay him off, Ugly has the entire family do his bidding until Celia’s debt is settled. What Ugly says, the Palacios do, otherwise the circumstances are too dreadful to imagine.

To say that the year that follows is tumultuous for the Palacios is an understatement. But in the midst of the turmoil appears Roman—Ugly’s distractingly gorgeous right-hand man. And although she knows it’s terrible and quite possibly dangerous, Yola just can’t help but give in to the attraction. Where, though, do Roman’s loyalties lie? And could this wildly inappropriate romance just be the antidote to a terrible year of Ugly?

In a single word, One Year of Ugly was unexpected. Initially, it was just one of the many e-arcs that I requested on Net Galley on a spree one random day, and I’ll be honest, I completely forgot about it until recently. But once I started, I couldn’t stop! It was an unexpectedly empowering, humanizing, and overall hilarious novel.

I’m actually gonna start this review at the end, more specifically the author’s note. For most authors that I haven’t heard of before, and for novels that don’t have many reviews from bipoc bloggers, I do as much research as I can, especially if the stories scream for an own-voices author. At first, I felt reeeeeeally weird about reading One Year of Ugly because as much as I was enjoying it, I saw that it isn’t an own-voices book, although Caroline is born and raised in multiracial Trinidad, she’s visibly White. I felt especially weird because it’s a book about undocumented immigrants. I got through the entire book, still feeling weird, but the author’s note helped a little. Caroline makes it clear that she has spoken with Venezuelans in Trinidad to gather their stories, and that their safety as refugees is the priority. Writing this story in a way that doesn’t hijack Venezuelan experiences, truths, or lives, and taking the care to write this note is much more than I feel other authors offer. And now, on to the review!

Things I liked:

My absolute favorite thing about this story was how honest and gripping and outright funny it was. The story starts with the death of Aunt Celia, who leaves a manuscript of her autobiography for her niece, Yola Palacio, who is also an aspiring writer herself. The bulk of the story is the inner dialogue of Yola who narrates the whirlwind of shit that Aunt Celia leaves for the Palacios, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I might even say that I enjoyed more of the narration than spoken dialogue. Even in death, Aunt Celia is one hell of a character, and it’s such an interesting parallel as we read about Celia through Yola. The characters really were at the heart of this story and they were all such full personalities, complete with a dark, bleak sense of humor that I couldn’t resist.

Another thing that I liked was that at its heart, One Year of Ugly is a love story. It’s about the familial love between the Palacios (Yola and her dad are so cute they make me wanna cry), the forbidden love between Yola and Roman, and the adopted love they share for their new home in Trinidad, along with some new friends they make along the way. Getting caught up with local criminal Ugly (yes, that is his chosen name), the Palacios are forced to carry on Aunt Celia’s debt by acting as a halfway house for other Venezuelan immigrants. While the family is reluctant at first (and honestly, throughout most of it), they find ways of making it work. Sure, at first it’s because they’re being blackmailed, but I saw so many similarities between the Palacios and my own mixed immigrant family, and Yola narrates how their lives change and how their own resilience has prepared them. But like all good things, there is also the bad and the ugly.

Things I Didn’t Like:

As much as I love the Palacios and their story as undocumented immigrants themselves, I couldn’t help but find similarities to my family. For immigrants, resilience is a survival mechanism and you can clearly see it in the Palacios. However, this isn’t what I disliked, but it was that the novel seemed to romanticize the struggle sometimes. Behind the humor and the undeniably charming stubbornness of the family, there was pain and a world of self-inflicted assimilation. This isn’t to say that it didn’t seem realistic at all; I couldn’t say what is realistic for a Venezuelan family of immigrants in Trinidad. I just think that they were really lucky to get a fairly happy ending.

To sum it all up, I personally loved reading One Year of Ugly. It was enjoyable and light-hearted while also leaving necessary space for the weight of what being an undocumented immigrant means for some people. Often times the reality is ugly, and instead of shying away from it, Caroline Mackenzie takes the ugly and literally humanizes it, giving me different perspectives to consider, especially living in the “land of the free” that we call Ameri(k)a.

If you’d like to get to know the Palacios, you can find One Year of Ugly at the following links and add it on Goodreads.

Book Depository | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble

And for a little good/bad/ugly pun, I leave you with this: shout out to the people that don’t know what the opposite of in is 🙂

Review: The Sigil by Shakeil Kanish and Larissa Mandeville

3.5/5 stars

Title: The Sigil

Authors: Shakeil Kanish & Larissa Mandeville

Publication Date: January 27, 2020

Genre: Fantasy, LGBT

Age Range: YA

Love Yo Shelf received and epub of The Sigil from Shakeil in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Synopsis: After losing the person most important to him, Lake Smithson stumbles across a letter he cannot explain. A single brush of his finger and he is thrust into the heart of a mystery only to slowly realize that his obsession to be more, will unleash an evil that threatens all he has left.

A tragic death.
A dangerous obsession.
A desperate mission.

Faceless creatures, terrifying magic, unlikely friendships, and broken promises lead Lake and his friends to walk a tight line between the mage realm, on the brink of extinction, and the human realm, on the precipice of revelation. Will Lake become the first human to wield magic or will he be the last?

As someone who admittedly judges books by their covers sometimes, I gotta say, this one was not what I was expecting. I’ve never seen so many pop culture references in fantasy, much less a self-proclaimed darker fantasy like this one. When I first started, I was taken aback by the writing style and the mannerisms of the characters, but as I got to know them, the oddness of it started to fall away. At first, the characters themselves seemed kind of surface level, but as the novel progressed it was really cool to see how Shakeil and Larissa seemed to settle into their writing, which translated into the characters settling into themselves as well.

Lake is the boy with almost nothing left to lose. His whole story revolves around the idea that he wants more, or rather, he wants to be more. He feels stuck and lost and once he loses his best friend, those feelings only intensify. I think for Lake, grief and regret play a large role in how he makes decisions at the start, but it morphs into a sense of protection and stepping into his new role without his brother. Our other protagonist, Nova, uses her confidence as her shield and her attitude as her sword. While she’s insecure about her magical abilities, it stops there. Between the two of them, plus Knox and Jabeya, the eager, awkward kid and his invisible demon buddy, and Stone, the muscled football player whose silence comes with resentment and revenge, this Fab 4.5 couldn’t get any more chaotic, both in some good ways and less good ways.

For starters, I loved the illustrations of Lake and Nova at the beginning of their alternating chapters; I don’t think I’ve ever seen that and I thought it was really inventive. One of my favorite things about reading this was the small moments that made me stop and smile because the jokes were so out-of-the-blue, especially with Stone’s version of humor and Jabeya’s expressive grunts. On the other hand, the fact that it had a slow start and some parts felt rushed through made it personally hard to read. While I could sympathize with the characters sometimes, I felt like I didn’t know much about them. Overall, I did like reading it, it just wasn’t something that I would rush through.

At its core, The Sigil is a story of choice, potential, and fate. The novel draws on the tension between fate and choice in the context of new adulthood and loss. What I love about the novel is that the villain isn’t the classically evil; they’re angry and hurt (not to mention completely unexpected), and they show the process of what happens when you have nothing to lose. In that case, it was very clever for Shakeil and Larissa to write the antagonist in a way that directly parallels the protagonists in a sort of “Lake could’ve been ______ if he didn’t have/do _______” you know? The beauty in the potential of it all. Furthermore, the building of the magic systems and the play between mundane references and magic itself made this a pleasant read with lots of potential for part II.

If you’re interested in reading The Sigil to tell us about your thoughts, you can find it at the following links and add it on Goodreads!

Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Book Depository

All the love for you and your shelves,

Review: Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim

5/5 stars

Title: Scavenge the Stars

Author: Tara Sim

Publication Date: January 7, 2020

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Age Range: YA

First things first, Tara Sim is such a badass in all the best ways. Lauren and I were lucky enough to attend her author’s event while she was in Seattle, and it was such an awe-inspiring experience. After hearing from Tara herself about writing this book, I couldn’t wait to crack it open, and I absolutely devoured it. From the character dynamics, to the plot twists (and trust me, they certainly “rammed me with a truck”), Scavenge the Stars has become an instant favorite.

Messy and flawed and honest.

When Amaya rescues a mysterious stranger from drowning, she fears her rash actions have earned her a longer sentence on the debtor ship where she’s been held captive for years. Instead, the man she saved offers her unimaginable riches and a new identity, setting Amaya on a perilous course through the coastal city-state of Moray, where old-world opulence and desperate gamblers collide.

Amaya wants one thing: revenge against the man who ruined her family and stole the life she once had. But the more entangled she becomes in this game of deception—and as her path intertwines with the son of the man she’s plotting to bring down—the more she uncovers about the truth of her past. And the more she realizes she must trust no one…

Scavenge the Stars is, at its heart, a story about revenge. But, what’s so genius about this story is that this revenge evolves at the same pace as Amaya herself. When we first meet Amaya, she’s called Silverfish, the name given to her by Captain Zharo to strip her of her identity. As Amaya grows out of some of her Silverfish habits (and into some new Countess Yamaa ones), she finds more and more pieces of the truth, and knowledge has a price. It turns out that the steeper the cost of the truth gets, Amaya’s need for revenge grows.

I can honestly say that Amaya might be one of my favorite characters this year. Made of salt water and steel, and despite being hardened by Zharo, Amaya is still able to find her way back to who she was before Silverfish, but recognizes that Silverfish might always be a part of her. So many of us struggle with different versions of ourselves, and like Amaya, we even create new ones in order to get what we want. Unapologetic in her goal of revenge, yet wary of collateral damage, Amaya is a refreshing take in the world of YA revenge plots.

For a moment, she felt as if she, like Trickster, were encased within a star. Bright and hungry and eager to right the wrongs of the world.

One of my favorite things about this book was the way it was written. At some point, Amaya considers the bond she shares with Cayo and marvels at the confusing way in which their lives seem to be clashing together. Despite coming from entirely different worlds, the story is written in a way that reflects their ever-changing relationship; there’s a push and a pull, and somewhere along the lines the two collide in the most beautifully chaotic way. Both are plagued by some heavy ass burdens, yet Tara doesn’t hesitate to remind us that underneath it all, they’re still teenage kids. I think at some point, I was so exhausted for them, and found myself begging for the world to give them a break.

Like most revenge plots, Scavenge the Stars features betrayal and misdirection, but Amaya’s story highlights the difficulties that lie beneath; she may not know who to trust, but she also isn’t sure who she’s willing to betray.

Scavenge the Stars is the perfect read for a free day (or in my case, a semi-free day where everything else can be moved). If you like reading about corrupted cities with hidden secrets, and heroines with a strong grip on your heart (and the will to cut it right out of you), and healing teens trying to fix everything in their world, you can find Scavenge the Stars at the links below! Let us know how you like it!

Book Depository | BooksaMillion | Better World Books

Review: Eubeltic Descent by Nadine C. Keels

3/5 stars

Title: Eubeltic Descent

Author: Nadine C. Keels

Publication Date: August 23, 2018

Publisher: CreateSpace

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Age Range: YA

Thank you to Nadine for requesting this review and sending us the epub. All opinions expressed are my own.

Your soul will remember.

Abigaia Grena wasn’t born mute, but in a world of people who aren’t very interested in hearing what she has to say, she loses her voice in more ways than one. Growing up with her father’s stories about her royal Eubeltic descent, Abi has always dreamed of traveling to the Eubeltic Realm in search of any traces of her ancestry.

With her ragtag group of friends, she uses her silence to master thievery, but soon grows to hate it as the guilt builds up. However, it seems that fate has heard her and brings her to Diachona, a Eubeltic town, where her hopes are set ablaze once again, even if one of her closest friends considers her dreams a waste of time. Clinging to her father’s stories when she was young, Abi prays that her soul will indeed remember who she is.

By the end of the book, I was pleasantly surprised, mainly because the cover set some very different expectations (yes, I judged the book by its cover – I’m sorry, I’m only human!). The beginning of the story starts off slow, and doesn’t pick up until about a third of the way through, though there were a few parts that were fundamental for understanding later events. That being said, the slow beginning took me a few days longer to get through and I wasn’t particularly invested in any of the characters until I finally got a more well-rounded sense of Abi as herself, instead of who she wishes she was, or instead of how others saw her.

In the first half, Abi reminds me of Belle in so many ways: her father was the “crazy old man” with the strange daughter whose only solace is found in books, and the man who wants her hand in marriage has different plans for her life, none of which include going to see the Eubeltic Realm. It’s only when Abi gets to Diachona that she feels heard, and I love that she finally finds people who not only want to understand her, but who somewhat already do.

After Abi’s first conversation with a guard she meets on her trip, Daun, she finally comes alive to me. Something about her life back home in Reeh felt suffocating because there were so little choices she had, and I think that’s partly why it took me so long to get through it. Meeting Daun, who is the first person she meets who signs, and his deaf sister Valorie, changes her perception of everything and is the first time Abi feels a sense of belonging. I found myself constantly asking, who could we become if we were allowed to fully be ourselves? And I’m grateful to feel like the people in my life not only give me permission, but truly love who I am when I am myself.

There’s nothing wrong with finding a place you belong.

Something that I particularly liked about Abi’s story is that we don’t see her become this new person, she was most likely this person before, but was never in a position to show anyone what she could be. She is compassionate, and funny, and like anybody else, she has some healing to do, but we don’t know it until she finds a place to just be; sometimes all we need are friends who remind us who we are.

Along with all this self-discovery, Abi faces some larger social issues with Diachona. Far from a utopia, the town has poor sectors, and prides itself on the words of their ancient king: let prevailing law prevail. But as Abi becomes more comfortable with using her voice, and with a history of being a position where she couldn’t use her voice, she finds herself researching the true meaning of the phrase, and finds out that the motto is incomplete – it’s meant to be let prevailing law prevail in love. She concludes with a signed speech about how the law – and its enforcers – must love all of its people.

Overall, I enjoyed it as a lazy day read, and there were some good themes, but I felt like they weren’t fully committed or as fleshed out as I would’ve liked them to be. As a sucker for characters who finally find a place they belonged, I resonated with Abi in her journey, and I really appreciated her perspective when it came to centering someone who is mute, and loved Nadine’s primary focus on this community.

Links for Eubeltic Descent:

Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble

Review: The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco

4/5 stars

Title: The Never Tilting World

Author: Rin Chupeco

Publication Date: October 15th, 2019

Publisher: Harper Teen

Genre: Fantasy, LGBTQ

Age Range: YA

A demoness is what men call a goddess they cannot control.

Excuse me while I yodel about this book for ten million years. 

Generations of twin goddesses have long ruled Aeon. But seventeen years ago, one sister’s betrayal defied an ancient prophecy and split their world in two. The planet ceased to spin, and a Great Abyss now divides two realms: one cloaked in perpetual night, the other scorched by an unrelenting sun.

While one sister rules Aranth—a frozen city surrounded by a storm-wracked sea —her twin inhabits the sand-locked Golden City. Each goddess has raised a daughter, and each keeps her own secrets about her sister’s betrayal.

But when shadowy forces begin to call their daughters, Odessa and Haidee, back to the site of the Breaking, the two young goddesses —along with a powerful healer from Aranth, and a mouthy desert scavenger —set out on separate journeys across treacherous wastelands, desperate to heal their broken world. No matter the sacrifice it demands. 

[Julie Andrews voice] These are a few of my favorite things…and they’re all in The Never Tilting World! There’s a great ensemble cast, diverse representation, snark, magic, a f/f bodyguard and charge romance, an enemies to lovers romance, AND an important message about climate change on top of that? Rin Chupeco, you get me. You really get me.

For the briefest second we were the only two beings in the world, human and monster. For the briefest second I was uncertain which of us was which.

The characterization in The Never Tilting World was so fascinating to read. The book is narrated by Odessa, Haidee, Arjun, and Tianlan (Lan for short), and they all have distinctive voices despite every chapter being written in first person POV. I loved the way Rin Chupeco handled everyone’s arc, but Odessa’s was especially interesting to me as she slowly travels in the opposite direction as the other protagonists. Towards the middle of the book, Odessa contends with a man found guilty of sexual assault from beyond the grave, but because her powers have grown, she still finds a way to communicate with him. This new side of Odessa made me think about justice – who gets to enact it, when, and how far we’re willing to go in our pursuit of it. 

While Odessa’s spiral down was my favorite arc to read, the character that really stole the show for me was Arjun. If you’re familiar with Avatar: The Last Airbender, Arjun strongly reminded me of Sokka. Not only was he the most sarcastic character of our main four, but he constantly had to take new and magical changes in stride, treating it all with a Well, I guess we’re doing this now kind of attitude. From the start, he’s not quite sure what to make of Haidee, but he believes in her and her mission enough to stick around and see things through, because he trusts that she can create the future he hopes to see. He proves himself to be a valuable asset and friend, even if he may not know what’s going on all the time or understand the most magical aspects of their journey.

Our four main characters differ in personality, abilities, status, etc., but they are all driven by their desire for a better world. They contend with the fact that the Breaking (the destruction and subsequent splitting of the world) is none of their faults in various ways, and every one of them resolves to fix what the generation before them destroyed because they know that they deserve more. I loved their individual arcs and the different kinds of growth in their relationships with each other – and good GOD can we talk about how well Rin Chupeco does slow burn romance?? The pining…the yearning…it’s about the yearning.

…they deserve a better world than this. And just because the people in charge screwed everything to hell and beyond doesn’t mean we can’t find a way to take back what we’re owed.

Characters aside, the premise of The Never Tilting World is unbelievably crucial and current. Odessa and Haidee, along with their originally unwilling guides, are fighting to combat horrifically destructive climate change that was brought on by the generation before them. I think it’s so so so fitting that the average age of the narrators is 17 and they’re leading the charge for a better world than the one they live in. They have to navigate through numerous obstacles and awkward, newfound love along the way, and I honestly just love the fact that this is a story about a group of kickass teenagers taking on climate change.

Rin Chupeco’s world-building is to die for, and I loved learning more about gates and how they were limited based on the environments people were living in. I think it was a really unique spin on elemental abilities that tied in to the message about how climate change affects everyone, whether they realize it or not. The concept of using gates to channel elements in different forms was creative and aside from Arjun’s similarities to Sokka, I could actually see quite a few parallels to Avatar, which is an automatic win for me.

While I loved the world-building, characters, and relationships throughout the book, I was a little let down by the ending. There was a lot of build up leading into the last few chapters, but I personally felt like more time could have been spent on the actual climax and aftermath. I was mostly invested because of the characters, and I just felt like the ending didn’t give me what I was looking for. But hey – that’s what sequels are for, right? And I think a less impactful plot can be forgiven for the sake of a really strong, relevant message, and amazing characters that are an absolute joy to read about.

Links for The Never Tilting World

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository | Indie Bound

Don’t forget to add it on Goodreads!

Have you gotten a chance to read The Never Tilting World yet? Who’s your favorite out of the core four?

Review: Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali

5/5 stars

Title: Love From A to Z

Author: S.K. Ali

Publication Date: April 30th, 2019

Publisher: Salaam Reads

Genre: Romance, contemporary

Age Range: YA

Maybe that’s what living is—recognizing the marvels and oddities around you.

If I had to pick my favorite YA contemporary of all time, it just might be Love from A to Z. It contains so much heart, humor, unabashed discussion of Islamophobia, and validation for any person of color living in the current political climate. While it is a romance novel (with a swoon-worthy, realistic romance to boot), Love from A to Z goes above and beyond with its approach to how to be an ally, how to engage in difficult conversations with friends, and how family ties into the way we move through the world around us.

A marvel: something you find amazing. Even ordinary-amazing. Like potatoes—because they make French fries happen. Like the perfect fries Adam and his mom used to make together.

An oddity: whatever gives you pause. Like the fact that there are hateful people in the world. Like Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are.

But Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, isn’t bad. She’s angry. When she gets suspended for confronting her teacher, and he begins investigating her activist friends, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha, Qatar, for an early start to spring break. Fueled by the guilt of getting her friends in trouble, she resolves to try out a newer, “nicer” version of herself in a place where no one knows her.

Then her path crosses with Adam’s.

Since he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in November, Adam’s stopped going to classes, intent, instead, on perfecting the making of things. Intent on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his little sister. Adam’s also intent on keeping his diagnosis a secret from his grieving father.

Alone, Adam and Zayneb are playing roles for others, keeping their real thoughts locked away in their journals. Until a marvel and an oddity occurs…

Marvel: Adam and Zayneb meeting.
Oddity: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

Love from A to Z is an unapologetic story about being Muslim in a very Islamophobic world and how to navigate teen romance in the midst of activism, chronic health issues, and rocky family dynamics. I absolutely loved reading the interactions between Zayneb and Adam and their respective families, but what I loved most were the moments with Adam’s group of friends in Doha.

One of my favorite things about Love from A to Z is that it represents and validates the diversity of experience within the same marginalized group. Not all people of color are going to have the patience to explain why something is racist, and not all people of color are going to have the emotional and mental capacity to do so either. Some people are able to let things slide in favor of saving their energy; others can’t stay silent in the face of bigotry – all of these reactions are valid, and I was honestly floored that Love from A to Z talked about this because it’s something I feel is underrepresented in all forms of media.

Seeing her totally okay, completely comfortable in life, made me tear up.

Zayneb is an absolute powerhouse of a narrator – after all, one of the very first things she does is get suspended from school for standing up to her teacher. But she’s also a young teenage girl who is unfairly hated for her religion and the color of her skin, I think it’s important that we see the vulnerable side of her. It’s hard and exhausting to be angry all the time, but it’s just as exhausting to look around you and know that no matter what you do, you’re never going to have it as easy as the blissfully unaware white child coloring on the plane.

Zayneb deserves to be treated with the same concern and care that the flight attendants show the white girl her age on the same exact flight, and she knows it. But while it’s perfectly acceptable and endearing for a white child to color on a plane, Love from A to Z highlights the automatic suspicion brown folks have to endure for doing something as simple as journaling.

Like, why be different, why be Muslim, why be anything that society tells you isn’t normal if you can’t actually be it freely? Why do we have to suffer to be us?

Love from A to Z highlights the macro and microaggressions that Muslim people especially face on a daily basis. It’s hard enough when you know you’re unwelcome by strangers who know nothing about you; it’s harder still when it comes from people you want to be friends with. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, and I really admire Zayneb for always standing up for what’s right despite all of that.

Overall, I think Love from A to Z has so much to offer. There’s so much for marginalized people to relate to throughout the book, and there’s so much to learn for allies as well. The heart, humor, and hopeful tone at the end of the novel have earned it a permanent place as one of my favorite books of all time.

Links for Love from A to Z

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository | Indie Bound

Don’t forget to add it on Goodreads!

Review: A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy

4/5 stars

Title: A River of Royal Blood

Author: Amanda Joy

Publication Date: October 29th, 2019

Publisher: Putnam

Genre: Fantasy

Age Range: YA

Queens ruled in Myre and killed for the right to do so.

A River of Royal Blood follows Princess Eva as she grapples with the magick of blood and marrow that runs through her veins, magick that has a dark history of its own. The last person to wield blood magick was Queen Raina, who used it to kill her sister on her way to the Ivory Throne, consequently starting the Rival Heir tradition. Five generations later, Eva must face her sister in a battle to the death, despite her mother’s favor of Isa, and her fear of her own power.

An attempt on Eva’s life sparks her first (accidental) use of her power since she was a child, and forces her to turn to Baccha, an immortal fey who worked for Raina, and happens to know the secrets to blood magick. As she learns more about her magick, there are more assassination attempts and Eva figures that it’s not just Isa out to get her; family secrets have gotten out, and with Eva being one of the last to know, it could cost her life.

Amanda Joy masterfully weaves together magick and its role in Eva’s journey of self-discovery, and it had my heart racing the entire time. One of the major themes that struck me over and over again was that Eva is so reluctant to become a murderer like the Queens before her, none like Queen Raina who is one of the only people to share her magick, and this blood magick only seems to make killing easier. The irony creates a fascinating contrast that begs the question: is our destiny written for us?

The truth is, we all have the capacity to do terrible things. But we so often forget that that same capacity can allow equally wonderful things, if we will it. One of the reasons I loved Eva so much is that the entire time, she’s fighting her magick because she believes that it controls her nature, but as the people around her are constantly trying to teach her, it doesn’t control her nature, it reflects it. Just because her magick is tied to a ruthless ruler does not mean that they are one and the same.

Another swoon-worthy character is khimaer prince, Aketo. As he supports Eva — both physically and emotionally — he helps her come to terms with her “monstrous” powers as he tells the story of his own. For centuries, the khimaer have been a race of people so hated that they are forced into Enclosures, which is both ironic and heartbreaking once you get to know Aketo. His story provides a fantasy- based commentary on racism, and has an even more powerful effect written by a Black, bisexual author.

Overall, A River of Royal Blood is a celebration of the strength and power of women and is refreshing in the world of YA literature. While it moves quite quickly, it has easily earned a permanent place on my bookshelf.

Power has always inspired fear.

But it doesn’t have to. Your power, your control.

Links for A River of Royal Blood:

Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble

Review: Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao

4.5/5 stars

Title: Our Wayward Fate

Author: Gloria Chao

Publication Date: October 15th, 2019

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Genre: Romance, contemporary

Age Range: YA

It’s Taiwanese and resilient, just the way I like it.

Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao, pg. 65

As soon as I read the synopsis for Our Wayward Fate, I knew it was going to be one of my all-time favorites – and I’m happy to say I wasn’t wrong. It is exactly the kind of book that I needed when I was in high school, when I was still struggling to overcome the subconscious shame in my identity that developed when I was going to a very white-centric elementary school. Our Wayward Fate is about complex family ties as well as who we are individually, and is jam packed with a refreshing sense of humor that doesn’t detract from the ways in which people of color can be isolated in a supposedly tight-knit town.

Our Wayward Fate tells the story of Ali Chu, a Taiwanese-American teenager living in a suburban (white) community in Indiana. To fit in, Ali has to snuff out even the most minute indicators of her culture that set her apart from everyone else. She has to learn to ignore casual – and not so casual – racism and stay silent about the assumptions people make about her, including the pronunciation of her name, which is supposed to be Āh-lěe instead of Allie. Her tentatively peaceful existence is disrupted when Chase Yu arrives at her school, and people automatically push them together because they are both Taiwanese. As much as Ali and Chase try to ignore the way everyone else believes they belong together, they inexplicably form a bond over their shared culture and the inside jokes and comfort that come along with finally being able to be exactly who they are – Taiwanese pineapple cakes in the midst of dry toast.

My mom believes in magic penises.

Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao, pg. 1

I can honestly say that no book has ever made me laugh as much as Our Wayward Fate. From the very beginning (literally, since that quote is the first line of the book), Gloria Chao’s voice comes across strong and clear. This book was something I could only ever dream of coming to life, and holding it in my hands was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Gloria Chao embeds wit and sarcasm into Our Wayward Fate so seamlessly, while also tackling the significant amount of racism that Asian people face on a daily basis, even from people we consider friends. I think one of the things that’s so special about the book is that it can resonate with people on so many levels, whether it be about the emotional distance felt between generations, feeling too American for some and too Asian for others and therefore not knowing quite how you fit in anywhere, or holding on tight to something that makes you feel grounded in your culture in a sea of dry toast.

“She called you a turtle’s egg,” Chase answered honestly, leaving out that he was giving the direct word-for-word translation and not what the term actually meant to Chinese folks, which was, for some reason, “son of a bitch.”

Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao, pg. 98

I don’t think I knew just how much I needed this book until I saw the Mandarin on the page, accents and all. Back in middle and early high school, and before I got so overwhelmed by school I couldn’t make time for anything else, I was devouring books as fast as possible. I would read 3-4 books a week, and still want more. But among all of those books, no matter how much I related to a character or wanted to relate to them, there were very few who actually represented me as a whole person. Because of that lack of representation, for a long time, my standards weren’t very high. I’d latch onto the bare minimum, including artificial sounding Mandarin with no tones, spoken by a half Chinese character written by a white author. Our Wayward Fate showed me that you can have it all. You can have jokes in two languages, and Asian characters who are feminist and badass, and vulnerable, and frustrated, and flawed, and so much more – because we are so much more.

This book was made for me. In many ways, I was like Ali at the beginning of the book, keeping my head down and letting what I thought were insignificant microaggressions pass over me because it was too exhausting to call them out and explain how racist they were. I swapped my own congee for plain, white bread sandwiches when I made the switch from a classroom of other third graders who looked like me to a classroom where I was one of three Asian kids, who also happened to always sit together. I’ve had friends tell me I should date the Asian boy who just walked into the room, despite them not knowing anything about him other than the fact that he was Asian. Like Ali and Chase, I don’t like talking to my non-Asian friends about my parents, or anything else they might find “restrictive” about my culture, because in doing so, they think they have an invitation to criticize something they know nothing about. I saw so much of myself and my friends in Our Wayward Fate, and I’m absolutely overjoyed that a book like this exists.

Links for Our Wayward Fate:

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository | Goodreads

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