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JAMZ

JAMZ

Joined May 2016

My taste in books is all over the place.
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Something in Between by Melissa de la Cruz
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JAMZ
This Was Our Pact | Ryan Andrews
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This graphic novel sits at that stage where you realize you have the agency to be mean, to exclude who you want to, and the ability to separate groups out. It hurts, and this book captures that struggle so well. Fantastic, in all definitions of the word.

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JAMZ
Loveboat, Taipei | Abigail Hing Wen
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This was such a juicy read!! Perfect for Jenny Han and Sarah Dessen fans, this had such a perfect amount of drama and development. I LOVED it!

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JAMZ
Pumpkinheads | Rainbow Rowell
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Cute! Love the goat.

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Trick Mirror | Jia Tolentino
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INCREDIBLE. Two essays in particular really struck me in a sea of excellence: Pure Heroines and I Thee Dread. Tolentino writes about being a woman (& especially a POC) in ways that are frighteningly accurate and thoughtful.

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JAMZ
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I don‘t typically read romance, but I am SO GLAD I picked up this book. It covers so many social issues - being an independent woman, gaslighting, being forced to make ends meet - with a sweet, utterly considerate romance that feels honest and true. This book wasn‘t an escape, it was a modern fantasy that fit right in with my own political and moral opinions and left me swooning. INCREDIBLE.

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JAMZ
My Plain Jane | Jodi Meadows, Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand
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I liked My Lady Jane better, but this was such a fun, satisfying romp that was filled with so many knee-slappers and modern references. You can tell the authors are having a blast and I love the book for the feel of it all. Read if you need a pick me up, love alt history, and can‘t resist cute romances.

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JAMZ
Bloom | Kevin Panetta
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Such a well-paced graphic novel. The teal throughout was perfect, and my heart just rose and fell throughout. A beautiful coming out and growing up story.

4 likes1 stack add
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JAMZ
City on the Other Side | Mairghread Scott
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So overwhelmingly excellent. Sweet, with an incredible message and so beautifully and carefully researched. I cried within the first 13 pages, it‘s such a perfect story of family and belonging and misplaced loyalties and FORGIVENESS and oh, please read it.

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JAMZ
The Little Barbarian | Renato Moriconi
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One of my favorite picture books of last year. Unexpected, child-perfect, and as an adult I so deeply empathized with the ending that I still feel a little sore for the guy.

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JAMZ
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I read Shaun Tan to experience a particular feeling, a weighty floatiness that I can‘t quite pin down. It‘s like some huge realization is lurking right behind you and you‘re almost there, but not quite. That is what reading this book feels like, and like all his other work, this too is extraordinary.

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JAMZ
Convenience Store Woman | Sayaka Murata
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I want to put this next to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - it has a similar feel.

6 likes1 stack add
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JAMZ
Less: A Novel | Andrew Sean Greer
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This book is tender, almost a comical love song. Oh god, read it. It‘s a mistake filled Eat Pray Love gone awry but with so much packed in every page. Even now thinking of how it could be interpreted, I want to start crying a bit. To be loved, flaws and all!

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Attachments: A Novel | Rainbow Rowell
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SO GOOD. Like Bridget Jones meets Nick Hornby but sweeter. The dialogue knocked me off my chair several times, I kept laughing and having to read it aloud just to savor each line.

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JAMZ
Ghost Boys | Jewell Parker Rhodes
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So, so incredible. I picked this up without reading what it was about, and oh my god - just what an emotional wallop. So good, this is a book that everyone needs to read to understand what prejudice and racism DOES. Is 2018 so different from 1955? Let‘s work to make it better.

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Inspiring read!

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As a kid, I was obsessed with Tetris. My mom was too, and when she‘s play I‘d watch over her shoulder. This was a nice non-fiction boost to a heavily fiction reading jag I‘ve been in, and I was really shocked to see all of the drama behind what I thought was a relatively innocent game. A really cool behind-the-scenes look at one of the big parts of my childhood.

Booksblanketsandahotbeverage Tetris is the best! 6y
JAMZ @BookHoarder32 I couldn‘t agree more! 6y
4 likes1 stack add2 comments
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JAMZ
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I‘m going to be mulling this over for a while, especially the SVU story. A few of the reviewers compare her to Kelly Link, and I agree. This book makes me think of what we want, what we desire, and what can be made possible or impossible. Who is telling us how to be this way, even in fantastic circumstances?

ephemeralwaltz Great review!!! I also enjoyed the SVU story. I couldn't put it down halfway through it! Disturbing at times. 6y
6 likes1 comment
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JAMZ
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So good, I‘m both tearing up and going ‘awww‘ into eternity. I just love how this isn‘t the typical together forever romance. The italicized chapters challenged my assumptions, and it was so thought-provoking and beautifully done.

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Ship It | Britta Lundin
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INCREDIBLE INCREDIBLE INCREDIBLE. As a huge shipper myself, I couldn‘t resist this book. It‘s sweet and contemporary, and points out hypocrisy, privilege, and gender issues in such a thoughtful and perfect romcom wrapper. This will satisfy so many reading itches!!

6 likes3 stack adds
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JAMZ
Hazel Wood | Melissa Albert
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This book felt like it was somewhere else in the best kind of border-blurring Kelly Link kind of way. It wasn‘t what I expected, and it was better and more subversive than I could have imagined. It was a fairy tale in the most original, pre-Disney sense of the term, and so worth reading.

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Monstress | Marjorie Liu
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SO SO SO GOOD. Steampunk feel, fabulous mythology, and such a dark and empowering tale. Maika knows herself so well and also struggles with herself, and I found that to be something so incredibly true and honest, no matter what your form is. I adore all of the side characters (especially Little Fox and Professor Tam Tam). I‘ll say it again, this book is DARK AS HELL but amazing. I‘m getting the rest of the series ASAP.

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My reading antidote to Super Bowl Sunday. This really made me think about how architecture functions in our lives, and how much we rely on things like air conditioning (& heating, for me). How can we live a more sustainable life while still keeping up with the lifestyles we are used to?

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JAMZ
Emergency Contact | Mary H. K. Choi
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A perfect book for how we communicate today-why is sometimes easier to reveal yourself over text? How does a phone make us feel safer than directly talking to one another? I absolutely loved this book, Penny and Sam are sweet and dysfunctional in their own ways and I loved them for it.

8 likes1 stack add
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Mehso-so

It took me a while to get into this, and I would have dropped it halfway if I didn‘t have this driving need to finish everything I start. I really enjoyed the latter half, but it was a slow start for me.

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Incredibly powerful. There were passages where it felt like there was a roaring behind my ears because she got it, so perfectly captured it. This was a book I‘m grateful to have read, and in its own way, listened to.

9 likes1 stack add
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I Have Lost My Way | Gayle Forman
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Took a little bit longer than I wanted for the plot to sharpen, but this book just reverberates in your person. Painful, but beautiful to watch this lone day where the characters right themselves and learn to accept.

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Henchgirl | Various
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Funny and sharp!

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I really loved this graphic novel - it made the People Power Revolution real for me in a way that I hadn't quite realized before, and it made me even talk to my parents about their own experiences during that time.

7 likes1 stack add
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SUCH a good book about depression, sexuality, and understanding what your body needs.

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Young Jane Young | Gabrielle Zevin
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So incredibly good. What does it mean to be a woman, what power do you have? Why does the branding of 'slut' last longer than a man's cheating? The characters are flawed because they should be, nobody is perfect. At the end, it was love emanating from each character, alongside acceptance and fierce determination.

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I'm glad this book exists, both for the kid that needs to read it and their friends who will need to understand. A moving novel.

3 likes1 stack add
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Spinning | Tillie Walden
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This is a solid heartbreaker of a graphic memoir. Tender and painful, it hurt to read. Makes me think about kids on the fringes, what do we do about them? How many people just need to be held and we don't know it? How many times do we ignore what we actually need and stay in a tense situation?

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Tea Dragon Society | Katie O'Neill
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This book is incredibly adorable and sweet. The illustrations are so cute, and the story itself is gentle and accepting.

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Magpie Murders | Anthony Horowitz
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I wanted to like this book as it seems like the rest of the population adores it, but the female voice was poorly constructed and tepidly believable. I liked the book within the book, but the ending felt too out of nowhere-did Susan really choose her morals, did she really have to say she would tell on Charles? Don't get me started on the character of Charles, as he is just plain uneven.

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Sky High | Germano Zullo
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SUCH an inventive picture book.

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Nine Stories | J D Salinger
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I adore this book.

6 likes2 stack adds
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Nicholas | René Goscinny, Jean-Jacques Sempé
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Starring a little French boy who is somehow always in trouble, this is the perfect book for when you'd like to laugh uncontrollably at childish shenanigans.

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This series ties together beautifully.

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Lola and the Boy Next Door | Stephanie Perkins
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Cute!

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Anna and the French Kiss | Stephanie Perkins
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Easily my favorite book of this series.

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Mehso-so

Not as good as her others, but still a decent read.

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Goldie Vance Vol. 1 | Hope Larson
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LOVE. The mystery is intriguing, the cast is very likeable, and Goldie is such a badass. Perfect summer read!

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Boundless | Jillian Tamaki
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I feel Super Mutant Magic Academy in the one-shots, the flinches in response to the social gaze, introspection that ends up stagnant. It was like staring at something you shouldn't look at for far too long. Jillian Tamaki's books make me feel unmoored, open. Beautiful.

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The Answer | Rebecca Sugar
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LOVE LOVE LOVE. The parallel story in the panels punched me right in the gut, such a beautiful retelling (no, that's not fair as this book can stand alone without the episode), no, it's a beautiful story period.

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The Raven Boys | Maggie Stiefvater
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Stunning. I can't get over how taut and necessary these books are, how everything happens for a very real reason. I want so badly to reread this but I'm too impatient to wait to read the second.

8 likes1 stack add
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JAMZ
The Scorpio Races | Maggie Stiefvater
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What experience did I just get to have?! That was all taut emotion, a slow broiling experience that I'm so happy to have finally read. So literary in a way that blew my mind - I wasn't sure what to expect with this book people have been recommending to me for years. Pick it up, explore it, give yourself a few days to let it sink in. I wholeheartedly loved it.

Leelee.reads Great review! 7y
JAMZ @Leelee.reads thank you!! It's such a good book, it deserves all the praise! 7y
8 likes1 stack add2 comments
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JAMZ
All the Crooked Saints | Maggie Stiefvater
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So lyrical and beautiful-makes you pine for the desert. Intergenerational story that involves pirate radio in the desert with true saints, I LOVED IT. I'm just so happy the ending essentially says communicate with one another. Pitch perfect magical realism.

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This book is the CUTEST. I'm in love with how hilariously it uses kdrama cliches, and to see some of my favorites namedropped throughout was incredibly fun. I actually guffawed (oh, it was a noise) several times through this book. A must buy! #ownvoices

5 likes1 stack add
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JAMZ
After the Quake: Stories | Haruki Murakami
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One of my favorites. I love these stories, they hit from all angles. Strange and familiar all at once. So many of the stories are like a gasp for air.

7 likes3 stack adds
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JAMZ
The Upside of Unrequited | Becky Albertalli
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Forgot to take a pic before I returned my borrowed copy, but it was SO good. I loved Molly, I loved Reid, and I loved how the characters found their way towards being comfortable in their own skin.