ARC Review: This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

Title: This Book is Gay
Author: Juno Dawson
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: September 4th 2014
Page Number: 279

Summary:

THIS BOOK IS GAY offers a guide to answer all the questions you were afraid to ask, alongside testimonials from people across the gender and sexual spectrums. This frank, funny, fully inclusive book explores subjects from sex to politics, how to pull, stereotypes, how to come-out and more.

 

 

 

 

 

Review:

"A book that every school should be handing out to their students. Intelligently written, educational and humorous. A perfect book for every sort of human." bookbitchreviews.blogspot.co.uk

When I saw this book on Goodreads I was dying to have it. Being gay myself I wanted to see what other people thought about the whole topics, plus it was kind of like a self-help book, so when Hot Key Books emailed me and asked if I wanted it, I jumped for joy and replied straight away.

There aren't many books that I've stayed up until three am to finish reading, but this was one of the books. Every page was educational, but it wasn't hard for the brain. The comical touches made the information so much easier to soak up, plus it came with awesome illustrations.

This book is Gay looks at different topics, such as coming out, how to meet people like you, and to deal with haters. It also tells you some popular gay icons and has true opinions and stories from other people, which I specifically loved.

Coming out for me was both a good and bad experience. I was 15 and came out on the Thursday to my friend and my parents. By Monday everyone had found out. People were okay with it at first, but three weeks after everyone turned on me. I suffered homophobic abuse every day and suffered from a few slurs off teachers who thought it was funny. However, it hurt me really bad.

Today I am a very open person. I wear my depression like a badge and I want people to know that if they are struggling to never give up. Every time I feel like I'm about to cry I say my quote over and over 'My tears are like diamonds; they're too expensive to waste.' and it is true. Why cry over people who mean nothing to you. You live your life the way you want to and don't let anyone change that.

This Book is Gay is going to so helpful to a lot of people. Gay or straight. One of the thing James touches upon is that not every school teaches their pupils about gay relationships and sex. My school was the exact same. It was always straight sex and I felt out of place. This book is one that every school could read with their students or even hand it out to them and let them really sink the information in.

Every topic was amazing and I can't wait for it to hit the selves, because it's going to be HUGE. And of course I gave this book a freakin' 5 STARS! Absolute perfection! Ps, sorry about this messy review. It's hard to review something in perfect detail when words won't describe how good the book really was.

ARC Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

   Book Name: We Were Liars
   Author: E. Lockhart
   UK Release Date: 15th May 2014
   UK Publishers: Hot Key Books
   Summary:

We are liars
We are beautiful and privileged
We are cracked and broken
A tale of love and romance
A tale of tragedy
Which are lies?
Which is the truth?
You decide

Praise for E. Lockhart:

'Thrilling, beautiful and blisteringly smart, We Were Liars is utterly unforgettable.' John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars

'Spectacular.' Lauren Myracle, author of Shine

'We Were Liars may be Emily's best book. And that is saying something, because Emily is without a doubt one of the very best fiction writers writing today.' Maureen Johnson, Author of The Name of the Star

Review:

It's extremely difficult how to tell you what this book is about because it is a YA Contemporary with hints of Mystery, but what I can say is that whatever you do. Lying may just be the best option, well in this case anyway.

Page 5 was without a doubt the best page in that entire book for me. The metaphor was gripping and beautiful and saddening all in one and it's one of my favourite metaphors without a doubt.

Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound, then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth.

At first I was like 'What. The. Heck?!' but I understood after. It describes how she's feeling about what's happened and how it feels for her in the sense that she may not recover from this. It's beautiful, yet sad. Perfectly described in the situation.

Another thing I loved about the book was that the chapters were short even thought they may focus on the same day. It worked well because another mystery would unfold or Cadence would remember something.

However, there were quite a lot of flaws in this book. The writing is probably one of the major factors that I disliked. At most times it was okay, but it got into the point where it'd be like

and I saw Gat,
and I saw that rose in his hand,
and in that one moment, with the sunlight from the window shining in on him,
etc, etc, etc.

It became too much and sometimes it felt like it was a more important point to the story than it actually was. My biggest hate in this book, however, was the fairy tale re-tellings. They side tracked me away from the actual storyline and if anything they were extremely boring and didn't actually have to be in the book.

Overall, I did enjoy my time taking part in the #WeWereLiars read-a-long. It was great fun and I read a full book something I haven't done in a while due to a reading slump. Anyway, I gave this book a 3/5 Stars! It was good. Could have been a bit less predictable, but other than that and the faults I had with it, it was a fun short read.

My Quote:

'Beautiful and mysterious: one thing something should never be. But works.' Bookbitchreviews.blogspot.co.uk