• ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Cheer Up! by Crystal Frasier & Val Wise | ARC Review

    10th August 2021
    Cover of Cheer Up! (Crystal Frasier & Val Wise)

    Cheer Up! Love and Pompoms by Crystal Frasier, illustrated by Val Wise

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    Content warnings: transphobia, outing, sexual harassment

    This was so cute and wholesome!

    Annie Ginter has excellent grades and doesn’t care about having no friends, but she needs extracurricular activities for college application. Her mom suggests cheerleading and Annie is not happy. But when Beatrice Diaz (trans) decides to take Annie in on the team, the pair start spending more time together. Beatrice helps Annie make friends on the team and Annie speaks up when people mistreats Beatrice. They grow together, and so does everyone else around them.

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  • a banner art of the ghosts we keep from hear our voices book tours
    ARCs,  Blog Tour,  Book Reviews,  Bookish,  Fiction

    Blog Tour: The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver

    26th May 2021
    Cover of The Ghosts We Keep (Mason Deaver)

    The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver

    • Publisher: PUSH
    • Release Date: June 1, 2021
    • Genre: Young Adult
    • Page Count: 235 pages

    preorder links on author’s website! | content warnings on author’s website | author’s playlist on Spotify

    Hi, I am Hsinju (she/they/他), a queer Taiwanese book reviewer and blogger currently residing in Illinois. Today (May 26th, 2021) is the first day of Hear Our Voices Book Tours for Mason Deaver’s sophomore novel The Ghosts We Keep, a story about the nonbinary, gay 16-year-old Liam “Lee” Cooper (he/they) struggling with the death of their older brother Ethan.

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  • Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo [EN/ZH-TW]

    22nd March 2021
    Cover of Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Malinda Lo)

    Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, read by Emily Woo Zeller

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    AUDIOBOOK REVIEW IN EN & ZH-TW | 有聲書書評（中英對照）

    EN

    Content warning: racism, homophobia, manipulation, mention of miscarriage, alcohol (underage drinking)

    She couldn’t find the right words for this dammed-up feeling inside, as if she were denying herself something absolutely vital, and she didn’t know why.

    Last Night at the Telegraph Club is less about the romance between Lily and Kath but more about Lily trying to grasp her identity as a Chinese American lesbian in the 1950s.

    In the prologue, four years before the main story (1950), thirteen-year-old Lily Hu (胡麗麗) and her childhood best friend Shirley Lum attend Miss Chinatown Contest with their families. I’d say this one chapter is the summary of the entire book in one way or another as we see Lily becoming aware of skin and bodies and the interactions between her and Shirley.

    When Lily stumbles upon an ad for male impersonator Tommy Andrews’ performance at the Telegraph Club (1954), she is mesmerized, not quite understanding why. But she keeps the clip along with a few others in her copy of The Exploration of Space. All her dreams in one place, I think. As the new school year starts, there are only two girls left in Advanced Math—Lily herself and Kathleen Miller, who dreams of becoming a pilot. Their orbits never coincide until this very moment, and it makes all the difference.

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  • Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

    5th March 2021
    Cover of Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

    Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth, read by Xe Sands

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    AUDIOBOOK REVIEW

    Content warnings: death (including drowning), gore, insect (yellow jacket), hallucination, internet trolls, alcohol (recreational, abuse), fat-shaming, murder, manipulation, PTSD (maybe)

    I listened to the audiobook of Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines narrated by Xe Sands. The narration itself was, without a doubt, 5 stars. I don’t think I would enjoy the book as much if not for Sands’ performance since her voice, always with a slight tremor and purposefully distorted in hallucinations as well as under curses, made this horror story feel creepier than it would have been on paper.

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  • Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

    26th February 2021
    Cover of Record of a Spaceborn Few (Becky Chambers)

    Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    ‘I am seventy-nine years old. If I want dessert twice . . . I get dessert twice.’

    Tamsin

    Content warnings: catastrophic spaceship accident resulting in ~44k deaths, bodies, death of prominent character, equivalent of underage smoking of weed?, PTSD?

    When I read a few reviews stating that there is virtually no plot in this installment, I was excited that it must be very character-driven. Sadly, there were a bit too many characters, similar to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (my review here) but with looser bonds. Since it took me a month to read the book, that could also be a reason why I failed to connect with any of the characters and felt that the plot dragged a little. That being said, I love the pureness of them all and also the philosophical questions Record of a Spaceborn Few decides to tackle.

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