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thereadingchallengechallenge's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is so queer and unique and fun and I don't know why more people haven't read it??? If you've ever wanted to read a book about a baby drag king, find yourself a copy of this!
There's a disaster lesbian, a questioning trans girl, the fiercest and friendliest of drag queens and great things to hear about the complexities of friendship, family and forgiveness. And a really cute dog.
There's a disaster lesbian, a questioning trans girl, the fiercest and friendliest of drag queens and great things to hear about the complexities of friendship, family and forgiveness. And a really cute dog.
librarygxrl's review against another edition
1.0
noooooooo i wanted to like this book so bad as the main character is a biracial queer girl and its DRAG for gods sake but the main character was so pathetic from beginning to end and ALL of her relationships with people made me uncomfortable and seemed a bit predatory and gordon's arc was completely forced and aaaahhhhh why
nat008's review
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
A cute coming-of-age story about a 17yo lesbian girl stepping into the queer and local drag community. Very wholesome story with some cringy moments as we are dealing with a teenager exploring her own limits. I liked the quiet acceptance from all the side characters, letting Nima explore her queerness on her terms. I loved Deirdre, she was just awesome.
I did find the love story a bit questionable though, because Winnow seemed too grown-up for Nima I guess? Taking a naive, unexperienced, underage girl to parties as an 21yo seemed kind of weird to me. The storyline with her mom also felt unfinished somehow,why did she even have to show up to leave again after five minutes and still no explanation? I'm also not a fan of the "the bully is actually just repressed" storyline, but in this book it wasn't too bad I guess.
All in all a cute book with some nice representation.
I did find the love story a bit questionable though, because Winnow seemed too grown-up for Nima I guess? Taking a naive, unexperienced, underage girl to parties as an 21yo seemed kind of weird to me. The storyline with her mom also felt unfinished somehow,
All in all a cute book with some nice representation.
nona_the_first's review against another edition
2.0
Important Notes and Bottom Line:
1. Biracial kinda-messy-lesbian main character
2. A lot of drag world mentions
3. A lot of POC in the book
4. Perfect (in my opinion) representation of queer people
5. Very light on the heart and has a lot of humor
6. Awkward main character slowly gaining confidence through drag :)
7. Overall very good book if you want something diverse, inclusive and colorful, fluffy and quick, cute romance and a few mistakes, and a lot a lot of beautiful friendships!
8. Interesting plot, but this is definitely a character driven book so don’t go in looking for a powerful plot.
aoosterwyk's review against another edition
5.0
Loved the acceptance in this book, for self and others. Relationships take work, there are hurdles, and forgiveness. Just lovely to see these young people taking risks to grow and become their best selves. And I wish for everyone a friend/mentor like Deirdre!
jesseonyoutube's review against another edition
5.0
Synopsis:
Nima's life closely resembles a wildfire. She's in love with a straight girl, her mom split (leaving both her and her loving, goofy dad), and she's bored to death with her life - but when a chance encounter with a dazzling drag queen sends Nima head first into the drag scene, Nima discovers just how incredible - and complicated - life can truly be.
Review:
Are there even enough "wows" or "stars" for this book?! Besides the jaw dropping cover which is *truly* fab, I fell in love with the casual, comedic writing style which flawlessly carries a cast of incredible characters on their singular but conjoined journeys. We have Nima's straight best friend, Charles, who is just as awkward and misfit as Nima himself... Gordon, the sullen bully who is hiding more than anyone imagines... and Deidre, the incredible queen who nurtures and mentors all of these incredibly mixed up characters while also infusing the story with TONS of personality, wild antics, and giggles. I mean, Deidre is responsible for some of the best moments and funniest dialogue in the story. "Sugar, you will never be-lievethe dexterity of the doctor who gave me these boobs!"
Kings, Queens, and In Betweens gives us everything that is missing from many "G" and "L" stories (gay and lesbian). it gives us LGBTQ characters who are of color, questioning, nonbinary/trans, AND it normalizes use of gender neutral pronouns, along with eye opening conversations about the assumptions we make about one another and the boxes we love to squeeze people into. One of my favorite side characters is a very masculine man of ambiguous sexuality who loves to perform drag. "I just hope you understand, sometimes the clothes do not make the man"
I loved seeing rep for a masculine male character who is comfortable wearing makeup and performing femininity. I also fell pretty hard for Nima's dad - who takes it all in stride when Nima begins to hang out with trans individuals and learn about drag culture. I was fully ready for tons of triggering scenes full of transphobia, always waiting for this book to turn into one of the many "queer tragedies" I've read. Instead, it gave me meaningful and complex conversations but tons of laughter and queer characters having fun. I needed that.
I loved Nima most of all. As flawed as she is, I loved watching her figure herself out, and I live for her hilarious and sometimes self deprecating internal dialogue: "Christ in tights..." "dear god of everything gay.." But I also loved her 'real' moments and her journey. In this book, we get to see her grapple with being forcibly labeled as LGBT+ :
"That was the second time I'd heard 'dyke' over the past few days, both times in reference to me, both times making my heart stagger" but also deal with the generally MORTIFYING moments of embarrassment we all experience as teens: "I'd had plenty of time to replay the events of the previous night over and over again. Each time, I was able to remember some detail that made the whole situation even more horrifying..." The scenes in which Nima embarrasses herself in front of a crowd or the girl she likes were SO relatable that I had to physically PUT THE BOOK DOWN AND COVER MY FACE.
In short, this book is incredible and I want a sequel. I want to see what happens to Gordon - who has an INCREDIBLE development as a character and who you will love if you enjoy morally ambiguous characters. I want to see what happens to Nima and who she becomes later in life. I NEED A SEQUEL.
Representation and Themes:
1. Trans/Gender non conforming characters and of color
2. Breaking of gender roles
3. Parental abandonment
4. Coming of age
5. drag culture
6. platonic opposite sex friendship
7. healthy father-daughter relationship
8. Non masculine, cis men
9. Queer joy <3 (seeing HAPPY LGBT characters was AMAZING)
My only real critique is that Nima is 17 and is actively being romantically pursued by someone who is at least 21. 17 is the legal age of consent in many states but i still feel the age difference should have been clarified and addressed. Nima and her love interest literally never talk about the age gap and about consent and I felt that was a very important topic that should not have been left out.
Overall, this is a great story. You'll be missing out and doing yourself a great disservice if you fail to read it - so read it.
Nima's life closely resembles a wildfire. She's in love with a straight girl, her mom split (leaving both her and her loving, goofy dad), and she's bored to death with her life - but when a chance encounter with a dazzling drag queen sends Nima head first into the drag scene, Nima discovers just how incredible - and complicated - life can truly be.
Review:
Are there even enough "wows" or "stars" for this book?! Besides the jaw dropping cover which is *truly* fab, I fell in love with the casual, comedic writing style which flawlessly carries a cast of incredible characters on their singular but conjoined journeys. We have Nima's straight best friend, Charles, who is just as awkward and misfit as Nima himself... Gordon, the sullen bully who is hiding more than anyone imagines... and Deidre, the incredible queen who nurtures and mentors all of these incredibly mixed up characters while also infusing the story with TONS of personality, wild antics, and giggles. I mean, Deidre is responsible for some of the best moments and funniest dialogue in the story. "Sugar, you will never be-lievethe dexterity of the doctor who gave me these boobs!"
Kings, Queens, and In Betweens gives us everything that is missing from many "G" and "L" stories (gay and lesbian). it gives us LGBTQ characters who are of color, questioning, nonbinary/trans, AND it normalizes use of gender neutral pronouns, along with eye opening conversations about the assumptions we make about one another and the boxes we love to squeeze people into. One of my favorite side characters is a very masculine man of ambiguous sexuality who loves to perform drag. "I just hope you understand, sometimes the clothes do not make the man"
I loved seeing rep for a masculine male character who is comfortable wearing makeup and performing femininity. I also fell pretty hard for Nima's dad - who takes it all in stride when Nima begins to hang out with trans individuals and learn about drag culture. I was fully ready for tons of triggering scenes full of transphobia, always waiting for this book to turn into one of the many "queer tragedies" I've read. Instead, it gave me meaningful and complex conversations but tons of laughter and queer characters having fun. I needed that.
I loved Nima most of all. As flawed as she is, I loved watching her figure herself out, and I live for her hilarious and sometimes self deprecating internal dialogue: "Christ in tights..." "dear god of everything gay.." But I also loved her 'real' moments and her journey. In this book, we get to see her grapple with being forcibly labeled as LGBT+ :
"That was the second time I'd heard 'dyke' over the past few days, both times in reference to me, both times making my heart stagger" but also deal with the generally MORTIFYING moments of embarrassment we all experience as teens: "I'd had plenty of time to replay the events of the previous night over and over again. Each time, I was able to remember some detail that made the whole situation even more horrifying..." The scenes in which Nima embarrasses herself in front of a crowd or the girl she likes were SO relatable that I had to physically PUT THE BOOK DOWN AND COVER MY FACE.
In short, this book is incredible and I want a sequel. I want to see what happens to Gordon - who has an INCREDIBLE development as a character and who you will love if you enjoy morally ambiguous characters. I want to see what happens to Nima and who she becomes later in life. I NEED A SEQUEL.
Representation and Themes:
1. Trans/Gender non conforming characters and of color
2. Breaking of gender roles
3. Parental abandonment
4. Coming of age
5. drag culture
6. platonic opposite sex friendship
7. healthy father-daughter relationship
8. Non masculine, cis men
9. Queer joy <3 (seeing HAPPY LGBT characters was AMAZING)
My only real critique is that Nima is 17 and is actively being romantically pursued by someone who is at least 21. 17 is the legal age of consent in many states but i still feel the age difference should have been clarified and addressed. Nima and her love interest literally never talk about the age gap and about consent and I felt that was a very important topic that should not have been left out.
Overall, this is a great story. You'll be missing out and doing yourself a great disservice if you fail to read it - so read it.
briannareadsbooks's review against another edition
1.0
ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I'm sorry, but I just was not a big fan of this book. I--along with many others--was first interested in the book because of the diversity and amazing representation. This book features a cast of characters of different sexual orientations, gender identities, and ethnicities. The main character is a half-Sri Lankan queer girl, who's friends and love interest are queer people of colour. As a queer girl of colour myself, who binge-watches RuPaul's Drag Race on the regular, I was super excited for this book!
Unfortunately, the representation was the only thing it had going for it. (A few spoilers ahead!!) The writing was fine--I think decent for a debut novel. But some parts were just boring and weren't woven into the story correctly. An example that comes to mind is when Nima had to go to the car wash, and she went into the school to get supplies and spotted Gordon. Obviously, that whole scene was a set up to introduce Gordon's identity struggles, but why did the car wash have to be a thing? It wasn't needed. Scenes that barely contributed to the story were just so long (the whole festival before Winnow is introduced, everything with Ginny considering how insignificant Ginny was, etc). Also, I wasn't particularly drawn to any of the characters. It made me so so uncomfortable that Nima allowed someone literally over ten years older than her to stay at her house overnight after meeting them once! Deidre's age was never revealed until later on in the book, but I don't know, that set off a lot of red flags. I don't care how cool and understanding Deirdre was! A seventeen-year-old doesn't let a 35-year-old stay at their house after meeting them once!!
I didn't enjoy the relationship between Winnow and Nima. Similarly, with Deirdre, the age difference between Nima and Winnow made me uncomfortable. And, to be honest, it wasn't exactly the age difference (it was only four years), but the fact that Winnow was so much more experiences than Nima. The scene where Nima gets drunk with Winnow's friend because she's trying to keep up with the "cool, older kids" really stressed me out because I just felt so bad for the girl. As someone who was just coming to terms with her identity, I don't think it would be beneficial for her to date an older, more experienced girl, who is already sure of herself and her community. While I do think it's an important and common story that a lot of LGBT individuals assimilate into the community by meeting someone older, or more experienced... I really do not see that working for Nima. I think it's great to have an older mentor (like Gordon has with Deirdre), but I wish that Gordon and Nima would have maybe joined together to explore the LGBT community more, rather than Nima dating Winnow.
I knew that Gordon was going to be queer. But, I wanted more out of the whole Gordon plot. Gordon's identity issues were never addressed and quickly glossed over, as if the author hoped the audience would just understand that Gordon was trans?? I honestly don't even know if he is trans because it was not explained at all? It was kind of just hinted. It's really weird how the words "trans" or "transgender" were not used in the story at all considering two important characters are trans! And the thing was, I didn't even realize Dierdre was trans until literally 60% into the story. I don't understand why the identities of the trans people weren't just explained quickly (the readers would have understood!) and instead were just up for interpretation
Lastly, there was so much that was just not resolved. The plot line of Winnow's mother seemed like a bunch of loose ends, the fact that her dad and Jill never got closure, the fact that Ginny-who was apparently one of her best friends in the beginning- kind of disappeared throughout the book, the fact that Gordon's identity issues were not fully explained... these all just seemed like random story points that never got solved.
Besides that, what I did love was Nima's curiosity as she began to find herself and her community. I could definitely understand being in Nima's shoes, and I'm happy she found a chosen family to help her along the way!
I'm sorry, but I just was not a big fan of this book. I--along with many others--was first interested in the book because of the diversity and amazing representation. This book features a cast of characters of different sexual orientations, gender identities, and ethnicities. The main character is a half-Sri Lankan queer girl, who's friends and love interest are queer people of colour. As a queer girl of colour myself, who binge-watches RuPaul's Drag Race on the regular, I was super excited for this book!
Unfortunately, the representation was the only thing it had going for it. (A few spoilers ahead!!) The writing was fine--I think decent for a debut novel. But some parts were just boring and weren't woven into the story correctly. An example that comes to mind is when Nima had to go to the car wash, and she went into the school to get supplies and spotted Gordon. Obviously, that whole scene was a set up to introduce Gordon's identity struggles, but why did the car wash have to be a thing? It wasn't needed. Scenes that barely contributed to the story were just so long (the whole festival before Winnow is introduced, everything with Ginny considering how insignificant Ginny was, etc). Also, I wasn't particularly drawn to any of the characters. It made me so so uncomfortable that Nima allowed someone literally over ten years older than her to stay at her house overnight after meeting them once! Deidre's age was never revealed until later on in the book, but I don't know, that set off a lot of red flags. I don't care how cool and understanding Deirdre was! A seventeen-year-old doesn't let a 35-year-old stay at their house after meeting them once!!
I didn't enjoy the relationship between Winnow and Nima. Similarly, with Deirdre, the age difference between Nima and Winnow made me uncomfortable. And, to be honest, it wasn't exactly the age difference (it was only four years), but the fact that Winnow was so much more experiences than Nima. The scene where Nima gets drunk with Winnow's friend because she's trying to keep up with the "cool, older kids" really stressed me out because I just felt so bad for the girl. As someone who was just coming to terms with her identity, I don't think it would be beneficial for her to date an older, more experienced girl, who is already sure of herself and her community. While I do think it's an important and common story that a lot of LGBT individuals assimilate into the community by meeting someone older, or more experienced... I really do not see that working for Nima. I think it's great to have an older mentor (like Gordon has with Deirdre), but I wish that Gordon and Nima would have maybe joined together to explore the LGBT community more, rather than Nima dating Winnow.
I knew that Gordon was going to be queer. But, I wanted more out of the whole Gordon plot. Gordon's identity issues were never addressed and quickly glossed over, as if the author hoped the audience would just understand that Gordon was trans?? I honestly don't even know if he is trans because it was not explained at all? It was kind of just hinted. It's really weird how the words "trans" or "transgender" were not used in the story at all considering two important characters are trans! And the thing was, I didn't even realize Dierdre was trans until literally 60% into the story. I don't understand why the identities of the trans people weren't just explained quickly (the readers would have understood!) and instead were just up for interpretation
Lastly, there was so much that was just not resolved. The plot line of Winnow's mother seemed like a bunch of loose ends, the fact that her dad and Jill never got closure, the fact that Ginny-who was apparently one of her best friends in the beginning- kind of disappeared throughout the book, the fact that Gordon's identity issues were not fully explained... these all just seemed like random story points that never got solved.
Besides that, what I did love was Nima's curiosity as she began to find herself and her community. I could definitely understand being in Nima's shoes, and I'm happy she found a chosen family to help her along the way!
goodsewp's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars.. It was a good message and honestly it wasn't a bad book. Usually how I rate is 5 is I loved it and I will never stop thinking about it 4 is I loved it and I'm glad I own it/wish I owned it, 3 is I like it, 2 is god this was a drag to get through but I did it, and 1 is a DO NOT read. This one was more in the middle. I enjoyed most of the characters but so much of the drama was unnecessary plus I don't think the mom thing was ever really resolved. I don't know, glad I read it but also glad I didn't spend an hour of my life and then some to purchase it myself.
magnetarmadda's review against another edition
4.0
I generally enjoyed it, and it was a fairly well done book. I have a couple of complaints, but only one is serious to me: Nima never admits to anyone that she’s still legally a minor, and so there are a LOT of situations I’m sure would have gone differently. It’s important in light of the fact that, for all we know, almost every other character in the book is a legal adult, with most somewhere between 18-24, but their ages are largely unknown. For friendships, I don’t think age gaps are an issue, but with the romantic relationships explored in this book? It could definitely pose a problem, and I really wish that’d been addressed.
The other minor complaints are the few very cringe-y scenes, and the fact that Nima is especially prone to tears with what seems little provocation, despite an early statement that she’s not a teary person.
In general, I enjoyed this coming-of-age book with an unusual standpoint for queer teenagers. It’s by no means a coming out book, and it was nice to read a book where the main character didn’t struggle with their sexuality.
The other minor complaints are the few very cringe-y scenes, and the fact that Nima is especially prone to tears with what seems little provocation, despite an early statement that she’s not a teary person.
In general, I enjoyed this coming-of-age book with an unusual standpoint for queer teenagers. It’s by no means a coming out book, and it was nice to read a book where the main character didn’t struggle with their sexuality.