Matthew reads, I guess...

  This book joins the collection of books that I have no idea how they came into my orbit, I don't even remember whether this was one of the ones that was sat on my Amazon list for ages. I just got it at some point, I don't know. But still, it's Icebreaker  by A. L. Graziadei. There are a few content warning in the front of this book, so I want to mention them here: Depictions of depression, anxiety and disassociation. Mild suicidal ideation. Underage alcohol abuse. Brief marijuana use. Sports violence. Our blurb says that seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league’s top draft spot. The only person standing in his way is Jaysen Caulfield, a contender for the number one spot and Mickey’s infuriating (-ly attractive) teammate. Rivalry then leads to something more, forcing Mickey to decide what he really wan...

You know, some books just work their way into my atmosphere, and I have no idea how they got there. Every Word You Never Said by Jordon Greene is one of them. I genuinely don’t remember how I found out about this book. I know it was one of those that was sat on my Amazon wishlist – the wishlist that I use to keep track of when books are coming out – for a while… Other than that, I couldn’t tell you. So going into this book, I had no pre-conceptions about it, nor did I know what to expect. Also, since the book doesn’t mention any content warnings, I’ll put in some that I think would apply: Homophobia (particularly religious homophobia), bullying and ableism. Anyway, the blurb is a lot of text. There’s a little four-line thing on the top of the back of the book that’s like a little pitch, and then a whole paragraph for each of the characters – and I think there’s a spelling error on the blurb as well. Still, Skylar Gray is adopted, non-verbal, and feels most comfortable wearing skirt...

  I won’t lie, for the longest while, I had no idea what this book was even about. I saw that Janelle Monae was releasing a book, and I’m a fan of their music and I think they’re definitely a really strong lyricist, I was interested in what a book from them would be. And if I haven’t made it clear yet, I’m talking about The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae. Now, at first, I wondered whether this was an autobiography of some kind, or something to that effect, because that’s what the title suggested to me, but it’s not. What I would consider the blurb says a lot, so I’m going to try and cut it down. But in The Memory Librarian, Janelle Monae brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of their critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation – queerness, race, gender plurality and love – become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in suck a totalitarian landscape… and what the costs might...