watermelleon's reviews
250 reviews

I threw myself in the deep end with this one! I had no idea what to anticipate in the life of malorie blackman, but this woman has so much resilience. 

I did not expect for this to be the memoir that hit home the most for me so far, many of our life experiences  unexpectedly interconnected. There were times when I would start the audio book and immediately begin crying. 

One experience I'm willing to share. When I was 17, I met writer Juno Dawson for the first time. She talked about her own books, but also the importance of ones with queer characters in them. I'm only 25 and it may seem bizarre to hear, but hearing her talk about it was the first time I had even thought of that as a possibility. She had printed out paper lists of books with queer characters written by queer writers for us to take home, and she knew why that was needed. As I began to devour the entire list, I reconciled with the reason why books like twilight and the hunger games made me feel such an emptiness. 

The second time I met Juno, I was able to thank her at a book signing. And the funny thing was, she barely remembered the list! 

the ways that malorie searched for so many years for her representation absolutely broke me. Her resilience and drive filled me with so much admiration that I have seen before. Writers and books truly can, and do save lives! 

Mix that with her tales of poverty, homelessness, medical negligence, sexism and racism in every corner and industry, her love of learning, her analysis of the uk school system and it's funding cuts, her struggle to get a publishing contract, her reflections on her lost cultural connections, the impact of growing up with parents from the Windrush generation, the most horrifying miscarriage, and the societal perception shift she started receiving after marrying a white man. I'm only scratching the surface. 

So much love to malorie: an incredible, stubborn, fire-fuelled inspiration. 

"how not to write an unreliable narrator: a guide" 

I initially was enjoying the world building and the dark academia setting, however the rest did not live up to expectations. The mystery fell quite flat and was overstretched, I didn't feel very attached to the characters and at times found them somewhat frustrating! The plot felt a bit scattered and too fast at times. Whatever was going on with the narrator had potential, but became unclear in the least smart way and unreliable became unlikeable very quickly. Lots of potential and very little payoff. Ultimately I was left reading through the rest very quickly to hope that any interesting twists or answers were picked up, which is probably a bad sign that your mystery isn't very good. 

Lesson learned: a good mystery is about the journey as much as the payoff. 

Probably a 2 but the beginning DID give me some inspiration in writing my own book, but it's the first dark academia thing I've really read and there is probably definitely a better version out there. So I don't think I can fully credit it for that. 

Whizzed through this one!! 

An excellent memoir, with a surprising amount of nuance.  I was somewhat cautious it would be told in a more spiteful way (which would be completely valid!), but it was fascinating to hear about the queerer aspects of the quran and the endless struggle of religion vs culture, and amrou's relationship with and journey within Islam. I have had so many conversations with Muslim people about this exact topic, and it was wonderful to have such a detailed account. 

I felt a lot of interpretations closely mirror actions of other religious family groups which receive far less stigma in britain, which amrou was able to address delicately with a lot of thought. This was very intelligently written! 

It has been a great experience reflecting on my own queerness and whiteness, and the in depth experience of queer Muslims which I so often look for but rarely find! 

Definitely recommend this, marked as a 4 as the writing style at times felt perhaps a little too overwhelmed with metaphors and overblown artistic style that wasn't quite to my personal liking (but seems very in line with the writers character!) 

Also absolutely loved the absolutely bizzare likening of Allah to some sort of sadistic DM at the beginning, and how religious trauma can be processed through the queer and kink scene. 

This book has taken me a loooong time to finish. Nothing that the book did, it was very easy to dabble in and out of and then the covid years hit. 

A fantastic memoir that left me double checking it wasn't ghostwritten - Mara has such a tallent for storytelling! So many things resonated with me on a deep level, and I feel like I learned so much more than just some gossip from her childhood acting days. Some parts were extremely intelligent and funny, others so dark and sad that I was in tears and had to put the book down because it was so intense. 

All in all, a very honest and refreshing memoir and I loved it! 

It's everything I need in a pretty package! 

Enemies to lovers
Stunning drawings
An incredible unfolding mystery 
Intense moments that made me struggle to sleep 
Dark difficult grit about human nature
A bit of philosophy for good measure
And the power of friendship

This upset me in the best way. I couldn't put it down and I'm craving the next season! 

This was a high 4 until I read chapter 61. Nightmare fuel that I was not expecting. 

The art is just incredible! Some great philosophical moments and great character development and relationship building at the heart. Impossible to put down, can't wait to see where this continues! 

Didn't realise I had already moved onto season 2! Hard to rate this accurately as a result but the art and story have been so incredible so far 😊

I (mostly) finished this last year, but couldn't bear to finish the last few pages until today. What an incredible novel. 

Reason why I read this:

I had no book and I must read 

Feel pretty sick now ngl