WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU by Marisa Kanter

4.5 stars

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

This book was cheesy and stupid and ridiculous and overdramatic but I loved it with my entire heart. This was a book about a YA book blogger, and (even tho I don’t really blog anymore) I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever felt so seen.

This community, this messy wonderful community, means the world to me, and seeing it in a book was just… mind blowing. The magic and the petty drama, the difficulties and the triumphs… you can tell this was a book written for us.

What I Like About You is far from a perfect book. It has a lot of uhhhh lack of communication, which is never a fun trope to me, and omg some of the plot points were STUPID and CHEESY and I was FED UP and wanted to smack Halle a lot, but also like . . . I loved it anyway?? somehow??

Maybe it was the characters. Halle had her issues, but the side characters were all fantastic. Maybe it was the writing, which was so engaging and fun. Maybe it was the fact that it made me long for cupcakes.

Or maybe it was that so much about this book was incredibly relatable. I know I already mentioned how much I loved how it portrayed the book community (and let’s be real here, I’m ALWAYS a sucker for any book about the internet in general), but it was more than that too. Sure, I wanted to smack Halle now and then, and sure sometimes things were a little flukey or lucky, but this book was just also such an accurate portrayal of teenagers. They were a little messy, but aren’t we all?

This book is far from perfect, but I loved it with my entire heart anyways.

SOMEBODY TOLD ME by Mia Siegert

4.5 stars

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

It’s been almost a month since I finished this book, and I still have no idea how to review it. I think this is for two reasons. (1) reading Somebody Told Me was honestly such a surreal experience and I don’t entirely know what to make of it, and (2) this book focused so heavily on extremely personal experiences that I quite frankly cannot speak on

That said, this book was utterly fantastic, so while I’m going to keep this short I’m going to list a few things that I loved about it:

– Aleks/Alexis’s voice was so strong and absolutely carried the book. I’ve rarely read any book with this strong a voice, and it utterly blew me away
– The discussions on religion and abuse of religious power it had, without villainizing religion in any way
– The side characters were so wonderfully fleshed out and alive
– The discussions on fandom and how it can be toxic sometimes
– I also thought the character growth we see in Aleks/Alexis was so powerful and beautifully written

[su_spoiler title=”Trigger Warnings:” icon=”chevron”]sexual assault, child sexual abuse, mention of grooming, mention of conversion therapy, homophobia, transphobia, internalized homophobia and transphobia, murder and attempted murder, misgendering[/su_spoiler]

Have you read either of these? Are they on your tbr? What are your favourite books about fandom or the internet?