Down with this Ship by Katie Kingman

 I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Flux in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like this but unfortunately, I just couldn't get into the story. Down with the Ship is the story of Kole, a girl who enjoys writing romantic fanfic for a popular sci-fi TV show. Her fic wins a prize online and she is thrust into the limelight, having to deal with haters and her fellow pupils finding out she writes it.

I think this book was just a bit too...simple? I couldn't really get into the story or characters, even 50% of the way through. Kole has two love interests; the hot guy who just moved in next door who she has nothing in common with, and the snarky guy who admires her work and her mind. Whoever will she pick?

I stopped when there was a classic 'bully blackmails Kole into being his date' because, even though it was not because he likes her, I did not want to read that scene or any of the ensuing drama. I did read the last chapter and it seems everything got tied up perfectly, which just kind of confirmed my concerns. 

I think if you're on the younger side of YA, then there's probably a lot to be enjoyed here. The issue is YA has become a catch-all label so I would typically expect something a bit more involved. But I liked the idea of the premise and I don't want to fault a book too harshly for not conforming to my expectations

Overall Rating:

NR

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

I go back and forth on Stephen Graham Jones as an author and sadly, this was one of the misses for me. I am giving it 3 stars because I think a lot of the reasons it wasn't for me are just personal, and I definitely urge you to give it a try if you like his other work.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is the story of Jade, a teenage girl obsessed with horror films. When a new girl arrives at her school, Jade dubs her 'a Final Girl' and becomes excited that a real-life slasher event is about to begin. The story mostly focuses on Jade trying to determine the nature of the slasher she's in while she copes with finishing school and other aspects of her unhappy home life.

I got about 40% of the way through this book before giving up and skipping to the last 20%. I enjoyed it immensely at first, but there was just too much unfocused rambling and not enough plot happening for me. Normally I love character-focused books (especially with horror) but the writing style made it hard to tell what was going on, something I've struggled with from this author in the past. I liked the elements of horror tropes that were brought up and discussed, but I think the interesting parts did get bogged down by the writing.

Overall, I think if you've enjoyed other stuff by this author then this is definitely worth a try. I loved The Only Good Indians but I think I will stick to trying the shorter works from now on. For me, this book had some great ideas and a lot of promise in the plot, I just sadly didn't gel with the execution.

Overall Rating:

We Were Restless Things by Cole Nagamatsu

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher RB Media in exchange for an honest review.

I am going to be relatively kind to this book because I think I realised fairly early on that it wasn't for me. Because it was an audiobook, I didn't DNF but I'm not sure that was the right decision. We Were Restless Things is the story about a group of friends who are dealing with the fact their other friend drowned on dry land. There is some magical realism stuff but mostly it seems to be character-focused stuff, which would be fine if the characters were interesting or compelling. I can honestly only remember details about Noemi and Jonas, and I didn't particularly like either of them.

I really really don't like the romance in this book. Noemi is asexual and some aspects of that are portrayed very well, but I am uncomfortable with the fact she is narrated as being very flat and emotionless. Maybe it reads different in the text but I didn't like the association between asexuality and emotional flatness as, while sometimes the case in real life, this is also the stereotype I see most in the media. That aside, the romance is with her step sibling and that's the part I really hate. Sure, they meet as teenagers but I dislike the fact that two teenagers in fiction can't meet and have a platonic relationship, especially when a romantic one is pretty inappropriate. She even uses the 'stepbrother' label to push him away when she's worried about her asexuality which...gross.

Honestly that's all I have retained about this book sadly so I can't say much more. There seemed to be some good magical realism/ghost type stuff but those moments seemed very infrequent. It's a shame because I think this book could have been great if the characters were a little more distinct and interesting. Having said that, if you enjoy magical realism then you will probably get a lot more out of this than me. I was hoping for a Raven Boys-style conversion for me but alas that wasn't to be.

Overall Rating:

Dead End Drive by Ian Kirkpatrick

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Steak House Books in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this book was a mess. Originally I was going to give it 2 stars for having a decent premise, but having found out that it's based off a boardgame, that means the only things I liked about it aren't original at all.

Dead End Drive is about a family where, when someone dies, the battle for inheritance is a literal battle to the death. After the reading of the will, the person left alive in the morning will inherit everything. How can such a premise go wrong? Well, for starters the premise isn't actually introduced well within the book itself. People just start killing each other with no real explanation, which would have been very confusing if I hadn't read the blurb recently before starting it.

This book has two major problems. Firstly, the writing is not great. The pages are littered with both actual editorial mistakes (understandable for an ARC but there are a lot, far more than any other ARC I've ever had) and just poor writing choices. The characters are bland and, in the worst cases, harmful stereotypes. There is a gay stylist who constantly uses the word 'honey' and who, after murdering a black woman, insists on fixing her 'coarse dark hair'. I'm almost certain the racial implications of this were accidental but yikes.

The pacing is similarly poor. You get introduced to all the characters in very repetitive chapters, and then the one with the most personality instantly dies so you don't have a character you have a connection with. Far from being a bloodbath, the rest of the deaths are then paced very oddly. There is no real sense of tension or fear and none of the characters seem particularly scared or bothered by their situation. Again, the only character who wasn't aware of the bloodbath beforehand is murdered straight away so you don't get the benefits of following an outsider in this horrible situation.

Overall, I sadly can't recommend this book. I ended up skim-reading everything after 50% as I just didn't care enough. It's a shame because a book like this has such potential and some of the humour/horror elements were alright. It just had too little going for it.

Overall Rating:

If We Were Us by K.L. Walther

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.

If We Were Us is the story of two teenagers, Sage and Charlie. They have been best friends for years and everyone assumes they will eventually date. This plan is complicated by the fact that Sage actually likes Charlie's brother Nick, whilst Charlie has started to fall for the new boy at school, Luke.

This book was fine but there really wasn't enough to keep me compelled, and I ended up skim-reading half of it. I don't know if it was because I wasn't super invested or whether it was the writing style, but it felt like there was a weird sense of the story skipping over details and scenes kind of blending together. Charlie is not a nice character and his dating patterns were just weird. The whole school thinks he is a ladies man because he only dates girls for two weeks and then dumps them, but this in itself is handled weirdly with none of the girls he dates referring to it. I get that it's meant to be a cover up for him being gay but it seems more suspicious for him to dump his girlfriend when he is falling for Luke, rather than keep dating her. And dating someone new every two weeks without sleeping with them does not seem like it would gain him that kind of reputation.

Overall, this book wasn't really for me. It had potential but I couldn't get invested and it felt like it needed a little more polish. I can see some people getting more out of this but I couldn't get into it.

Overall Rating:

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: