Tootfinder

Just finished "To a Darker Shore" by Leanne Schwartz. It's a blend of fantasy (a genre I enjoyed a lot when younger but which I now feel is hit-or-miss depending on the politics of the author) and romance (a genre I'm currently a bit obsessed with) and I enjoyed it very much. The element of an #OwnVoices autistic perspective was interesting, and the mythology was pretty cool. Even though I felt as though monstrousness could have been explored from an even better angle, the complexity in this book was comfortable, and it to my mind successfully-enough avoided the veneer of racism that runs through the mainstream fantasy tradition.
#AmReading

Just finished "Statistically Speaking" by Debbie Johnson. It's coincidentally the second book dealing with adoption that I've just finished, though I suspect in both cases not #OwnVoices, which I also suspect matters somewhat. I was well-absorbed and enjoyed it immensely, but was left again with the reservation that I'm sure it may reflect only that small facet of real life which is pleasing and/or tolerable to a wide audience, and may thus in its own way make things more difficult for those whose realities it does not reflect. I find myself very glad to have also recently read Mama by Nikkya Hargrove, which is autobiographical and which as a result of having more real-world complexity drives its similar point about found family home with more force, to me (to be fair, Johnson's work has a decent amount of real life complexity, for a novel).
#AmReading

Just read Fat Girls Dance by Cathleen Meredith, yet another semi-random venture into the currently-popular novels section of my library, rather than my recent YA staples. It's excellent. Fascinating and well-written just as fiction, but also empowering and perspective-upgrading (and I'm a married white cis man who is only beer-belly fat, plus already well into #BodyPositive thinking).
It bridges really well with Mama by Nikkya Hargrove, and with Does My Body Offend You by Mayra Cuevas and Marie Marquardt, both of which I went through recently. Yet another home fucking run for #OwnVoices, which felt extra good to read after Dream State was so disappointing. It really digs into and helps the reader explore body positivity just like Does My Body Offend You does with feminism.
#AmReading

Just finished reading Dream State by Eric Puchner, and it kind of pissed me off. I think I can see exactly why it might be popular with a certain WASPy liberal "literati" type that probably includes a lot of influential reviewers, but to me, it's points about love & life, despite being much more complex, ring just about as hollow (and harmful) as a Disney movie.
I've got a lot of quibbles, but I think most galling to me was a throwaway line near the beginning about why platonic relationships get so much less glory in media than romantic ones, when so much of the plot proceeds to revolve around a stale agency-free romantic attraction model that's certainly more complex on its face than a Disney romance but which is ultimately just as misleading.
Go read Loveless or really any YA #OwnVoices romance (especially queer) and you'll be learning more & better lessons about the human condition.