Arc Review: She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen

Rating: 5/5 stars

I hate you, I say. Then I kiss her and kiss her and kiss her.

Release date: April 20th 2021

Not to hype this book up too much when it doesn’t come out until like April 2021 but also omfg this was SO good. This is literally the fluffy gay enemies to lovers + fake dating book of my dreams.

She Drives Me Crazy is about two girls named Scottie and Irene. After they get into a fender bender at school, they are forced into carpooling. Scottie is still getting over her ex who dumped her when she moved to a rival school and Irene is trying to win athlete of the year, something unheard of for a cheerleader. When Scottie bribes Irene to fake date to get back at her ex, Irene plays along.

Rules for Being a Girl by Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno

Rating: 4/5 stars

But there are so many unspoken rules for navigating high school – for navigating life, maybe – that I can’t help but try to figure out which one I broke to get myself into this situation…. There are so many rules for girls.

Finally some good fucking food. I love YA feminist contemp novels so much and this little baddie right here is a prime example. This one doesn’t go as hard as some others I’ve read, like The Nowhere Girls but it still slaps.

Rules for Being a Girl is about a girl named Marin who is in high school. She’s a star student and editor of the school paper, with dreams of going to Brown University. Marin’s charismatic English teacher, Mr Beckett, admires her writing and likes to talk books with her. When he takes it too far one day and makes a move on her, Marin is shocked and horrified, thinking it was somehow her fault. When she tells the school administration what happened, they don’t believe her and she still has to go to his class but now he has an ax to grind. Marin isn’t going to back down and decides to fight back using the school paper and starts a feminist book club.

Elysium Girls by Kate Pentecost

Rating: 4/5 stars

The Goddesses Life and Death have begun a Game. They have given you exactly ten years to build your city. If your society has been irresponsible, then Death has won the Game. And every man, woman, and child shall be slain.

This was WILD and I really enjoyed it!

Elysium Girls is about a Game between the goddesses Life and Death in a small walled city called Elysium. One day a dust storm came in and cut Elysium off from the rest of the world and they are told they have ten years to build their civilization up to be judged as to whether Life or Death is the winner. If Life wins, they are free to join the outside world once more but if Death wins they all die. Sal is a girl living in the city, never fitting in but always wanting a purpose. When she is named Successor to the powerful witch in charge, she jumps at the chance to prove herself. Meanwhile Asa is a human obsessed demon in disguise who has been sent to Elysium. Together Sal and Asa make a mistake that leads them to be banished from Elysium, out into the deadly desert.

Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner

Rating: 4/5 stars

She hadn’t had to apologize out loud then, because her apology was changed behavior, never letting anything like that happen again. Jo needed to do the same. Emma has forgiven too many people in her life too easily. She was finally learning to stand up for herself.

This was so good I’m YELLING.

Something to Talk About is about Hollywood powerhouse Jo who gets photographed making her assistant, Emma, laugh on the red carpet. The tabloids instantly take over with a rumor that Jo and Emma are dating. As the gossip spreads, it starts to impact their lives with their coworkers treating them differently and paparazzi after them. With the launch of Jo’s film project approaching, Emma is getting ready to move to a different job. Soon they realize that maybe the rumor wasn’t so off, but acting on the spark would just created more gossip they aren’t sure they want.

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

Rating: 5/5 stars

It’s a midnight lie… a kind of lie told for someone else’s sake, a lie that sits between goodness and wrong, just as midnight is the moment between night and morning.

So I had this at 4 stars ever since I read it but I have decided to give the 5 she deserves.

MARIE, give me your address I just want to talk. I promise I’m not gonna jump you for that ending.

The Midnight Lie is about a girl named Nirrim who is of low status in her society and has to live in the Ward behind walls. People like her are forbidden from tasting sweets and wearing colors and if they disobey, they have to pay a tithe to the High Kith. Nirrim keeps her head down until she meets Sid. Sid is a rakish traveler and whispers rumors that the High Caste possesses magic. As she tempts Nirrim to seek that magic for herself, Nirrim has to completely give up her old life and trust Sid.

Six Angry Girls by Adrienne Kisner

Rating: 3/5 stars

Knitting can stitch us back together, but sometimes you have to tear things apart to move forward.

Six Angry Girls is about a girl named Raina who gets dumped by her boyfriend and her future plans are ruined. She seeks an advice column and ends up getting a new hobby and new friends at a local knitting store- one where they use their knitting for activism. Millie gets treated like a servant by her father and then gets dumped by her all male mock trial team. To fight back they decide to make an all girl mock trial team.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Rating: 5/5 stars

Sometimes she heard night-sounds she didn’t know or jumped from lightning too close, but whenever she stumbled, it was the land who caught her. Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.

TW: domestic violence, attempted rape

I can honestly say I haven’t cried this hard over a book in a while. Absolutely beautiful 😭😭

Where the Crawdads Sing is about a girl named Kya who has survived in the marshes alone for many years, with only nature to keep her company. She’s become a legend around town, known as the “marsh girl”. In late 1969, handsome and well loved Chase Andrews is found dead, and everyone in town suspects Kya.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Rating: 1/5 stars

Afraid of everything. If the people who were supposed to protect you played so fast and loose with your life . . . then how did you survive? Not by trusting them, that was for sure. And if you couldn’t trust them, who could you trust? All bets were off.

I will admit that when I heard that this prequel was going to be about President Snow, all my hopes and dreams for this book died in a blast of hellfire but still, I wanted to give it a try. I loved the Hunger Games trilogy and movies so much and I still do. But now I stand by my first opinion: This book did not need to exist and we didn’t need Snow’s story either. This book adds NOTHING of value to Hunger Games lore. Like one of my friends said, this would work better as a wikipedia entry and left at that. Not a damn 500+ page book.

They Went Left by Monica Hesse

Rating: 4/5 stars

None of these are the miracles I was looking for. But they’re miracles nonetheless.

The absence of pain is not the same as the presence of happiness.

Oh so you SAD sad 😭😭. This shit HURTED but I liked that about it.

They Went Left is about a girl named Zofia who has just been liberated from a concentration camp in 1945. They said the war is over but nothing feels over to Zofia whose body has just begun to heal but her mind feels broken. Three years ago, her and her younger brother Abek were the only ones in their family sent right- away from the gas chambers. Eventually they were split up but now that they are out, Zofia wants to find him. The search for a missing boy is near impossible though as she meets new people at a refugee camp.

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer

Rating: 5/5 stars

My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?

Stephenie Meyer has single handedly saved 2020. Twilight isn’t that bad, y’all are just mean and this was GOLD.

Midnight Sun is the long awaited book of the Twilight series but from Edward’s POV. I gotta say I’ve been waiting for this one ever since the drama around it happened and I even read the leak. While I felt like this book was a bit long and emo Edward would never shut up, I still had a lot of fun reading this book. Twilight is such a point of nostalgia for me and I stand by that this book wasn’t bad, and Twilight never deserved the hate it got. Just say you hate teenage girls and go.