Read in November

November was sadly another busy month for me, which meant little to no reading time (also, I completely did not manage to take a pic of the books that I read, but that's okay). This month I signed up for a three month trial on Audible, which has meant that I've been listening to a lot of audio books recently. Also, I asked for (is this even what it's called?) a book on Netgalley which wasn't available to request in Sweden and got accepted for it, happy times! I did not have time to read that one in November, though, which means I gotta tackle it in December but that's also okay.

Okay, onto the actual wrap up!

# of books read: 6

- Life Underwater by Matthew Metzger ~

- Darius The Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
- The Summer of Jordi Perez by Ami Spalding
- Freddie Mercury by Lesie-Ann Jones*^
- Somebody To Love: The Life, Death and Legacy of Freddie Mercury by Matt Richards*
- What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

~ denotes an ARC
* denotes an audio book

^ denotes a reread

Best book of the month: Darius The Great is Not Okay, which featured a lowkey, lovely plotline, a very likable main character and amazing writing. This is seriously such an underrated book in the bookish community and I definitely feel like this book deserves more hype in every possible way.

Worst book of the month: Life Underwater, there were things about it that I wasn't crazy about but there wasn't anything objectively wrong with it. It sure must be a hit for the right kind of reader, though!

Review: The Summer of Jordi Perez (And The Best Burger in Los Angeles)

TITLE: The Summer of Jordi Perez (And The Best Burger in Los Angeles)

AUTHOR: Amy Spalding

RELEASE DATE: April 3rd 2018

RATING: ★★★★

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This is what I would describe as a YA lesbian chicklit. It's fluffy, nothing too heavy, nothing too memorable and very easy to read. And I loved (nearly) every bit of it! 

In this book you're following Abby, who's interning at her favorite boutique in LA during the summer. Interning at the same place is Jordi, the complete opposite of Abby. Where Jordi is dark, brooding and mysterious, Abby is bubbly, sparkly and dresses in bright colors. Abby runs a popular blog focusing on plus size fashion, her mother drives her insane from being very anal about her own blog, and Abby's (according to her) suffering from being the only lesbian at school and also from her stupid crush on Jordi. That is, until Abby realizes Jordi might be into girls, too. This is basically the whole entire plot of this novel. 

If you came here looking for a complicated, deep story then I suggest you keep looking. There are plenty of those books out there. This novel fills a gap in the market, in my opinion. The YA WLW options out there aren't that many and a lot of them are nowhere near as fluffy and light as this one is. I feel like the YA market really needed a novel like this and hopefully this will be the start of publishers finally putting out a wide variety of WLW novels out there. 

I loved Abby, I loved the light and summery feelings I got from this book (this would make the perfect summer read), I loved the whole premise of this book, really. The romance was cute and I loved the fact that a fat sapphic girl got to be the star of a romance novel. There were two things that sort of bothered me a little; the main conflict seemed very dumb to me and to even include it in this novel in its current form didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The other point that sort of bothered me was how everything just went a bit too smooth in this novel (which I know is a part of the genre and therefor not really I could/should criticize).

All in all, I recoomend this novel to anyone who wants to read a light and fluffy WLW romance!

Review: Darius The Great Is Not Okay

TITLE: Darius The Great Is Not Okay 

AUTHOR: Adib Khorram

RELEASE DATE: August 26 2018

RATING: ★★★★★

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"Suicide isn't the only way you can lose someone to depression"

Darius is a self identified fractional Iranian (i.e. half American, half Iranian) teenager who lives in Portland with his mother, father and eight-year-old sister, Laleh. Darius's biggest hobbies in life are talking about tea and watching Star Treck with his father. He's gay, overweight, has unruly hair and is constantly being bullied by his two frenemies at school. One day, his grandma in Iran calls his mother up, telling her that Darius's grandfather has a brain tumor and doesn't have long left. His family packs their bags and travel to Iran, where Darius discovers things about himself and his family.

To be honest, I know I completely butchered that summary but instead of going on about that, I'm urging you all to go read this book urgently! Seriously, this is such a nice addition to my list of fave YA books of all time (because yes, it managed to place itself up there among my all time favorite books!).

First and foremost, this book is extremely well written and Darius is multi layered and quite complex. This book touches on many deeper subjects which it handles very well. This book deals with a journey of self discovery, of finding out your roots, of finding out who and how your family are. This book was incredibly hard to put down and Darius felt very, very real. I know this story has run its course but I wouldn't mind reading more stories set in this universe.

Also, added bonus points for a running gag featuring a dancing fan (as in the thing that blows air around), it gave me many laughs!

Review: Life Underwater by Matthew Metzger [ARC]

TITLE: Life Underwater

AUTHOR: Matthew J. Metzger

RELEASE DATE: October 22 2018

RATING: ★★★

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E-ARC kindly provided by the publisher.

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World, meet Ashraf. Ashraf is many things. He's mid thirties and a lecturer in history at Newcastle University. He's a very serious dude, he also happens to be a practising Muslim. Ashraf is Egyptian-Italian and accidentally speaks Italian if he gets upset and doesn't watch his words. He's estranged from his family. He also happens to be trans and asexual. He used to identifiy as aromantic too but then he met and fell for the nonbinary hurricane that is Jamie, a Scottish PHD student studying marine biology at the same university where he teaches.

In terms of plot in this book, it's very mellow and slow paced. It's Ashraf trying to overcome his fear of water. It's Ashraf fighting a racist and transphobic educational system that's giving him shit for dating Jamie because they're technically a student (albeit not his!), it's watching his and Jamie's relationship develop and grow.

To be honest, at times this book did almost bore me a little because I guess I was looking for more plot than I got? Which honestly isn't this book's fault at all. In terms of plot, there isn't a lot but at the same time I feel like the aim of this book isn't to be action packed. Rather, it's a mellow study of a relationship and two people overcoming hardships and growing stronger together, both romantically but as people too.

For me, this book was very educational. Jamie is only the second ever nonbinary character that I've read and I have never read a book that has an asexual character in it before. I feel like after reading this book, I understand these issues better than I ever have before. Extra bonus points for this book actually portraying a healthy relationship; to be honest I had my doubts before picking this book but I feel like the age gap (because there is a large one in this book!) was handled well and that didn't creep me out one bit (and I'm usually really sensitive to large age gaps). Also, I really enjoyed the way this novel was written! The writing was lovely.

I feel like if you need your books to have a lot of action in them, you're better off skipping this book but if you like slow paced, character driven novels that have good representation, this is worth checking out! 

To be read in November

Hi guys! It's that time of the month again (no, I'm not talking about my period...!) and therefor I am about to list the books I'm hoping to read in November. Like I said in my last post, October was crazy at work and unfortunately November doesn't look that much better meaning I doubt I'll be able to read all these books...but who knows.

(please ignore the crappy lightning, it literally gets dark at 4 p.m. here now and I'm usually not home from work until five at least, hence why pictures like this happen).

# of adult lit books: 1


# of YA lit books: 3
# of books I own: 1
# of library books: 3



- What if it's us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli

This YA contemporary story featuring two different POVs and two gay boys is written by two of my all time favorite authors and I honestly am a bit embarrassed to even think about how excited I am for this book, haha.


- The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding

This is a YA contemportat wlw romance and I'm so looking forward to this one. I've had this sitting on my TBR for absolute ages and I feel like I really need to get to this one, soon.


- Darius The Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

This novel is about a fat American-Irani gay teenager that goes to Iran on vacation and apparently this book is amazing judging by everything I've heard from other people that have already read this book.

- Life Underwater by Matthew Metzger [E-ARC]

I got approved for an ARC which I've already started; if you read the blurb it sounds like it's m/m but in fact it's about a man and a nonbinary character and so far I'm enjoying it. All I know is that one of the characters is 12 years older than his partner, which might yuck me out later on, but so far I'm enjoying the writing, at least.