Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley, Edelweiss and publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in exchange for an honest review.

What a refreshing thriller this was! I requested this ARC mainly because I have a real thing for thrillers based around games and/or two people psychologically battling each other. This book mentions having both of those things in the blurb but the game aspect is very downplayed in reality. It's almost a shame because it's clearly used as a gimmick to draw people in (and it works) but there is enough going on in this story that the tenuous link to 'Never Have I Ever' is a bit of a baffling one. Calling the book and the game 'The Worst Thing I Ever Did' would be more accurate and is still intriguing enough in my opinion.

Thankfully as mentioned, this book has enough going on that I didn't even mind about the misnamed game. The plot is a new woman moves to a neighbourhood and tries to blackmail our protagonist over an event which happened years ago. You find out extremely quickly what said event was and indeed, the first half of the book is a very unusual reading experience. I was frankly a bit bored during it since there is almost no effort made to build tension. Anytime there is any sort of mystery, you are handed the answer almost immediately without any fanfare. There is also an annoying thing where our blackmailer (Roux) constantly compliments our protagonist (Amy) on how clever and unlike other housewives she is. I get what the author was going for but it wasn't done particularly well.

Having said all that, at almost exactly 50% of the way through there is a spanner thrown into the plot and I got my first big surprise of the book. I did not see this first twist coming and instantly my interest was reignited. Honestly I feel like this was the real start of the book and it's a shame it came so late because I was utterly hooked after that. It was genuinely brilliant to be surprised by this book not once but twice, and both surprises had the added bonus of not being completely ridiculous.

I mentioned right at the start that this thriller was refreshing and that is mostly down to the originality. Amy is a scuba diver and this is woven very well into the story to both add to her character and create some nice plot moments. She was utterly believable as a character to me and was much more dimensional than most thriller protagonists. I also fell in love with the relationship she had with her stepdaughter, which was far stronger than that to her husband in my opinion. The other characters were flatter but still reasonably fleshed-out and compelling to read about.

Overall, this was a really solid thriller after the halfway point. If I was just rating the second half, it would be a 4 star easily but I did knock some off for the somewhat dull opening. However, I was very impressed by the characterisation and it was brilliant to read a thriller that felt more unique.

Overall Rating:

.5

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Grove Press in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, where to start with this book. I have labelled it a 'DNF' but I did actually pretty much read all of it, I just wanted to DNF it so many times. I requested this book after reading an excerpt and I'm ashamed to say I wish I hadn't. The unusual writing style caught my eye and I thought the plot had huge potential. This is kind of a futuristic retelling of Frankenstein based around sex bots and AI? Honestly I don't know what was going on with this book. The plot became really hard to follow due to the writing style and there were flashback chapters to Mary Shelley which just made me confused and bored. There is however a much bigger problem with this book.

It's transphobic. Very transphobic.

Initially I was excited to read about a trans doctor as the protagonist. Unfortunately the language surrounding the discussion of this character is rife with unfortunate implications. Ry frequently describes himself as now identifying as a man (Ry is a female-to-male trans character) but then explains that he is a hybrid and still a woman and not a real man and aaaaah. Gender fluidity is absolutely a thing and I would happily read about a gender fluid character but this is done all wrong if that's what the author was going for.

This trans character is also specifically fetishised for being a 'hybrid' by his male doctor partner. There is a lot of discussion about genitals etc and this was extremely uncomfortable to read about. I really think more research should have been done because I found this book incredibly problematic so I can't imagine how it would read to a trans audience (Although I did float a few of the problematic things past my trans friends to check I wasn't being unfair. They all agreed that this sounded AWFUL).

Terrible transphobia aside, this book is just super dull. I did skimread until the end and at 80% through, nothing had really happened yet. It's such a shame because I could have really gotten into this book but ultimately, it felt like it was trying too hard to be literary.

Overall Rating:

The Tea Dragon Festival by Katie O'Neill

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Oni Press in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this just about melted my heart and I am so so happy I read this. The Tea Dragon Society is an absolutely lovely graphic novel/webcomic that you can read entirely online for free (you can also buy a bindup). It tells the story of a young girl who is learning to be a blacksmith when she stumbles upon another potential profession-caring for these small creatures called tea dragons. The Tea Dragon Festival is the followup to that story, though it is not a sequel and you don't need to read the first one for this to make sense. Instead it is merely set in the same world and features some of the same characters.

In this story we follow Rinn, a nonbinary person who loves foraging ingredients and supplies for their town. This village communally cares for a group of tea dragons who are the adorable titular creatures. One day Rinn comes across a real dragon called Aedhan who has been asleep for 80 years. With Rinn's help, Aedhan must now assimilate back into village life and find the creature who caused him to sleep for so long.

I'm not sure how many times it is appropriate to use the word 'adorable' in one review but it perfectly encapsulates this whole graphic novel experience. The art style is absolutely gorgeous, the characters are likeable and the story is compelling. After reading this I was just filled with so much joy and love for the world the artist had created. I could read a thousand stories in this world and never be bored. It is the ultimate feel good experience.

The representation in this is also topnotch and it makes me so happy to see so many concepts in a children's work. I think people of all ages could enjoy this graphic novel but it is definitely kid-friendly as well and I love how effortlessly the artist incorporates diversity. This is how it should be done!

There's not much to be said about this apart from I loved it and I want as many people as possible to experience the joy this work brought me. If you're looking for a cute graphic novel, this is the perfect example. If you like dragons, tea, fantasy worlds, slice of life stories featuring a ton of diversity, romances that aren't overt or take over the plot, compelling characters or beautiful artwork, then please please read this. You will not be disappointed.

Overall Rating:

The Honeymoon by Rona Halsall

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this was a rough read. If you ever want a textbook definition of 'idiot plot', then sadly this is it. I was pretty excited to read this book because it sounded like a brilliant atmospheric thriller. Having married a man after only two months with him, Chloe goes on her honeymoon and things take a scary dive. I expected from the blurb that this would be a book about a husband holding his new wife hostage and, while that's kind of true, that's not what the focus of the plot is on. Instead of a hostage story you kind of get a back and forth between Chloe being determined to try and make her marriage work and her almost freaking out at her new husband's behaviour.

I say 'almost' because the biggest problem this book has is without a doubt the characters. Not a single character acted how a real person would and it made everything very hard to swallow. So Chloe has just married Dan, a man she doesn't know very well. Immediately after their wedding, he changes their honeymoon destination without telling her. He then takes away her phone, refuses to let her open the windows and behaves very oddly in general. Chloe chronically undereacts to everything. Even when pretty life-altering stuff is happening later on in the plot, she never reacts more than someone would to discovering they were out of milk. This is not, as I first thought, an attempt to accurately portray how some women can act in an abusive situation. This is just poor characterisation.

The same goes for Dan. He repeatedly claims that he needs to 'keep Chloe safe' but refuses to explain anything to her, just so the reader can go on wondering if he's paranoid or if he really is a good guy. There is zero romantically appealing about him and that makes it tough to sympathise with Chloe to any degree. Chloe also has a gran who is possibly one of the most selfish people ever. When Chloe seeks her out having had some pretty awful things happen to her, her gran just waves her off back to her new husband and tells her to leave her alone. Granted her gran isn't meant to be ideal but she's a lot worse than the narrative seems to imply she is.

The real unbelievable nature of it all comes to light with the sheer amount of insanity that happens in the last few chapters. In the space of a few pages HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILERS Chloe is threatened by a madman, kills him, has a child, gets back together with Dan, Dan murders her gran for the money, Chloe leaves him again and then Dan is hit by a car. You keep expecting the story to end since it feels like it has come to its natural conclusion and then another thing forces the plot to keep on going.

Overall, I would sadly not recommend this thriller. Maybe it could have worked with stronger writing or characterisation but the plot itself is fairly weak and I'm not sure it would be worth salvaging. It's a shame because I love summer-themed thrillers but there are far better examples out there than this one.

Overall Rating:

.5