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becandbooks's reviews
1118 reviews
Bang by Barry Lyga
4.0
Trigger warning: suicidal ideations, infant death, Islamophobia
This is such an important book. This book will make you ugly cry.
With gun control being such a debated topic in the current world and media, this book strikes you right in the heart muscle, no matter what your experience.
Lyga gives you insight into every nook and crevice such an event can crawl into, even 10 years on. From the most expected nooks, such as personal guilt, family dysfunction, and mental health; to the way society looks at you, to relationships, to sharing you're background, and even to school.
Sebastian's friendship with Evan was a nice backdrop to his everyday life - a friendship with differences of both background and financial wellness and the difficulty when Evan's parents silently disapprove of Sebastian and his background.
Sebastian's friendship with newly moved in Aneesa, is also a wonderful story in itself of learning from one another's differences. This relationship is a special one.
I understand the criticism around Lyga's choice NOT to focus too heavily on Aneesa's Musilm background and the experience of racism and the fear of. But honestly, I kinda LOVE the idea that such a thing can be mentioned, and discussed but does not have to be the focus. It is not ignored or downplayed or left out entirely by the author. Instead it is acknowledged and discussed when appropriate with the story line. I actually truly appreciate this in itself.
I do wish Sebastian's mental health, or perhaps even his parents', had more discussion. Sometimes trauma is just trauma, but when an author sets an MC with unstable mental health and yet chooses not to clearly define it, readers and reviewers tend to choose and label with diagnosis terms that may or may not be accurate.
All in all, this book tells a powerful and important story. Also, a warning, it will make you hungry.
This is such an important book. This book will make you ugly cry.
With gun control being such a debated topic in the current world and media, this book strikes you right in the heart muscle, no matter what your experience.
“Harry Potter is the boy who lived, and I’m the boy who killed.”
Lyga gives you insight into every nook and crevice such an event can crawl into, even 10 years on. From the most expected nooks, such as personal guilt, family dysfunction, and mental health; to the way society looks at you, to relationships, to sharing you're background, and even to school.
Sebastian's friendship with Evan was a nice backdrop to his everyday life - a friendship with differences of both background and financial wellness and the difficulty when Evan's parents silently disapprove of Sebastian and his background.
Sebastian's friendship with newly moved in Aneesa, is also a wonderful story in itself of learning from one another's differences. This relationship is a special one.
I understand the criticism around Lyga's choice NOT to focus too heavily on Aneesa's Musilm background and the experience of racism and the fear of. But honestly, I kinda LOVE the idea that such a thing can be mentioned, and discussed but does not have to be the focus. It is not ignored or downplayed or left out entirely by the author. Instead it is acknowledged and discussed when appropriate with the story line. I actually truly appreciate this in itself.
I do wish Sebastian's mental health, or perhaps even his parents', had more discussion. Sometimes trauma is just trauma, but when an author sets an MC with unstable mental health and yet chooses not to clearly define it, readers and reviewers tend to choose and label with diagnosis terms that may or may not be accurate.
“Popular culture woefully underprepares us for actual therapy.”
All in all, this book tells a powerful and important story. Also, a warning, it will make you hungry.
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
4.0
Ugh guys this book is adorable.
Honestly, this book just got me in the feels. I felt love and hurt and ambition and passion and anger and giggles. I'm done.
I don't think that I had a read a fiction about arranged marriage before this one. And I love Menon for giving me the chance. I love the complexity of culture and family and respect mixed in with being a teenager and 'fitting in' and choices and growing up.
I loved the food! I looooved all the nerdy stuff.
The only thing I didn't love was the predictability, but hey, you can't win them all. It still was an incredibly adorable book that made me fall in love and I am completely okay with that.
More reviews | Twitter | Pinterest | A room without books is like a body without a soul (M.T. Cicero)
“It was his damn fool heart. Ever optimistic, always looking for a sliver of sunshine in a sky clotted with thunderclouds.”
Honestly, this book just got me in the feels. I felt love and hurt and ambition and passion and anger and giggles. I'm done.
I don't think that I had a read a fiction about arranged marriage before this one. And I love Menon for giving me the chance. I love the complexity of culture and family and respect mixed in with being a teenager and 'fitting in' and choices and growing up.
“This is our life. We get to decide the rules. We get to say what goes and what stays, what matters and what doesn’t.”
I loved the food! I looooved all the nerdy stuff.
The only thing I didn't love was the predictability, but hey, you can't win them all. It still was an incredibly adorable book that made me fall in love and I am completely okay with that.
More reviews | Twitter | Pinterest | A room without books is like a body without a soul (M.T. Cicero)
Saga, Vol. 7 by Brian K. Vaughan
5.0
There are so many feels in this volume. By the last page there were definitely tears in my eyes.
I was a bit worried after Vol. 6, because I felt like some of the amazingness had worn off. And while Vol. 7 still wasn't the best so far, I feel like we are back on track with kickass parents, heartbreaking deaths, phallic objects pointing straight at your face and wonderful new characters that make you want to jump in a ship and go join an intergalactic war and go get your heart broken just to meet them in person.
This is still my favourite graphic novel series ever.
Hazel is growing up and following her parents footsteps of not giving a fuck about racial discrimination.
Sir Robot is still being... Sir Robot... but his good intentions are there.
The Will is all over the freaking place.
Gwen and Sophie are back and I'm still gunning for them to have a more focal plotline.
And I still can't pick a favourite character because the new ones are always so freaking incredible/adorable/floofy/kickass/bold-as-freaking-brass.
Vol. 8 is due to come out in December and I am so bloody keen.
Also look out for my upcoming review on this volume and the entire series so far over on my blog and more!
I was a bit worried after Vol. 6, because I felt like some of the amazingness had worn off. And while Vol. 7 still wasn't the best so far, I feel like we are back on track with kickass parents, heartbreaking deaths, phallic objects pointing straight at your face and wonderful new characters that make you want to jump in a ship and go join an intergalactic war and go get your heart broken just to meet them in person.
This is still my favourite graphic novel series ever.
Hazel is growing up and following her parents footsteps of not giving a fuck about racial discrimination.
Sir Robot is still being... Sir Robot... but his good intentions are there.
The Will is all over the freaking place.
Gwen and Sophie are back and I'm still gunning for them to have a more focal plotline.
And I still can't pick a favourite character because the new ones are always so freaking incredible/adorable/floofy/kickass/bold-as-freaking-brass.
Vol. 8 is due to come out in December and I am so bloody keen.
Also look out for my upcoming review on this volume and the entire series so far over on my blog and more!