alyssamakesart's reviews
338 reviews

My Brother's Husband: Volume 1 by Gengoroh Tagame

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challenging emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A Map to the Sun by Sloane Leong

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challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison

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challenging informative slow-paced

4.0

This is short but very dense. I listened to the audiobook and that helped, but I will be picking up a physical copy to reread and take notes. Must read for those studying Literature, especially American Lit or anything post 1500.

Content Warnings

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine by Maritza Moulite, Maika Moulite

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adventurous funny informative mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Grieving Mall by R. Alan Brooks, Sarah Menzel Trapl

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challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

In Real Life by Jen Wang, Cory Doctorow

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challenging emotional informative mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

Great book, only issues were the fact that no one in the novel except

Raymond and his fellow workers

was white. Everyone in game and even in the background at school and in public. The main character lives in Arizona which has a large Latinx and Indigenous population. There may have been some non-white characters but if so they were white passing. (Like the protagonist dad maybe.)

Also I feel like the way the conflict was framed had a whiff of white saviorism. The author tried to address it after the fact but didn’t pull it off well.

This isn’t the second Jen Wang project I WANT SO BAD to give 5 stars but I can’t ignore these issues. Both this and the other one do more harm than good. These issues were smaller than making King Lepold look like not a genocidal king.

Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced