Book Review : NetGalley Mini Reviews

It has been a while since I’ve posted a review. But I have neglected my NetGalley obligations for too long and have set out to right that today. Here are some amazing books I’ve been fortunate enough to read and some of my thoughts on them.

Title : Never Look Back
Author : Lillaim Rivera
Genre : Retelling, Magical Realism, Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages : 320
Own/Borrowed/ARC : eARC provided through NetGalley
Publication Date : September 15th 2020
GoodReads Link

Trigger warnings include attempted sexual assault, mental and emotional abuse, PTSD, underage drinking.

This beautiful retelling took on a lot more than just its original material, it gave me magical realism, depictions of grief and being displaced. Insta-love is something that I always have an issue with, so that’s nothing new here. The pacing of the story was something I didn’t enjoy. In the beginning it was slow and building nicely then towards the middle and to the end we’re in this underworld with deities and moving through that a bit too fast. To me it felt like two different stories combined into one. We also were lacking scenes of their relationship evolving and developing, we only get two scenes where she opens up to him about what she’s going through and then it’s just mentioned later that they get together a lot to talk. I would have loved to read more scenes of them talking than just being told that they did it. Overall, I enjoyed the story that Lilliam gave us. While I didn’t fall in love with this book, I do like it immensely. It was a modern retelling that did not shy away from topics such a gentrification, mental illness, displacement and many different types of grief that someone may be going through.

Favorite Quote:

Why am I here? I’m here because I am unmoored. I keep floating from one city to the next, hoping to find a sense of refuge-a lie I tell myself. My home no longer exists, and safety is a myth.

Rating:

Thank you again to Bloomsbury YA and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

Title : Tender Is The Flesh
Author : Augustina Bazterrica
Genre : Horror, Fiction, Contemporary, Speculative Fiction
Pages : 224
Own/Borrowed/ARC : eARC provided through NetGalley
Publication Date : August 4th 2020
GoodReads Link

Trigger warnings include cannibalism, murder, violence, animal cruelty, rape, graphic slaughterhouse deceptions, slavery, just a lot of dark and triggering things, I will briefly mention some of them here in my review so please skip if that makes you uncomfortable.

All I can say is, wow! I had been hearing so much about this novel everywhere and when I that I had been approved, I could not wait to read this for myself. Marcos lived through the virus scare and witnessed how quick the world around him was fast to make new laws about meat and how everyone became okay with eating other humans. He walks this fine line in morality about what is right and what is wrong to him specifically, after all he does work in the meat industry himself helping produce this “special meat” that everyone wants. But after the loss of a child, loss of his father and the distance between his wife and him, we watch the hypocrisy of the world around him and himself build up and the shreds of whatever humanity he had slowly deteriorate. You watch him call out his sister for having a ‘cattle’ in her home that she cuts up herself for consumption, while he himself has a ‘cattle’, that he was gifted, at home that he rapes. I do call it rape as these humans that are being breed for consumption are genetically modified to not have vocal cords, as to not be able to speak, and mostly have low intelligence, thus I don’t believe she’d be able to consent. I can’t say that I didn’t see the ending coming, after you spend this time with Marco, you can tell what his reaction to what happens is going to be. What I didn’t expect was the reaction that his wife gave, which I shouldn’t have been surprised at given the world that they all live in and the mindset that they all have about it, but it did.

This book is one that I would love to recommend to everyone and anyone but of course I can not. It is not for everyone and you must have a tough resolve to get through it, but this is definitely one of those reads that will follow me forever will revisit in the future.

Rating:

Thank you again to Scribner and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

Title : Ignite The Stars
Author : Maura Milan
Genre : Science Fiction, Young Adult, Space Opera, Fantasy
Pages : 338
Own/Borrowed/ARC : eARC provided through NetGalley
Publication Date : Sept 4 2018
GoodReads Link

Trigger warnings include racism, self hate, death, genocide, suicide mentions, physical abuse, colonization

Space, science fiction, and an outlaw, yes please! I was so excited to read this one, as most of you know science fiction is one of my favorite things to read so when I read the synopsis for this I was revved and ready to go. I enjoyed the world building and would have loved to explore more of it but I understand that this is the first book in a series and maybe the next book explores it a bit more but I would have loved to learn more about other planets and races. I did have my issue with the government just taking Ia in as a student to show that if you rebel you will be caught, as opposed to just making her a martyr if she died but I feel like if you have a dangerous criminal in your school, you’d have better security and making sure that she didn’t have a roommate to keep her under your thumb, but that’s just me. Brinn was a wonderful character, as someone who hates who they are and has blended in to appear to be something else than what they are to further their lives and slowly coming to terms with being proud about herself then hiding it. I loved the friendship that bloomed between the two girls and how it changes both of their lives. I also loved that this book didn’t shy away from colonization and the racial/social divides it would build and would have loved to explore that a little bit more especially with that cliffhanger.

This was a fun ride and I would love to see how this progresses in the next book.

Rating: