What would Ula read?

3 out of 5 🌟Interesting ideas with poor execution Mayhem and her mother Roxy have fled their abusive stepfather/husband from their house in Texas to a family home in California. Roxy hasn't been to Santa Maria, CA since the day she left to start a new life. Yes, there's a dark secret involved. The book comes with a trigger warning about rape description but it does not include all the other things that threw me off when reading. This supposed to be a young adult, hence I didn't anticipate the number of expletives I encountered while reading and yet, that wasn't the worst part. I was unpleasantly surprised with gruesome descriptions of homicides and * Spoiler Alert * the fact than they were committed by "good" characters in the book and also treated as something noble (what!?). People cheering, giving presents to the murderous vigilantes... Is that still a book for teenagers? Plus, descriptions of doing drugs endorsed by the family members and friends. * Spoil...

5 our of 5 🌟Confronting my cis-gender privilege First things first: I don't feel I could ever rate someone's life story, hence I won't that. My review is based on the book's structure and how it made me feel while reading. All the testimonies in the book are real people's accounts and they are equally valid. The book editing is excellent. The introduction includes an abundant explanation of terms used in the book and cultural context to all of them. The testimonies itself are divided into sections by themes like 'The Life Course' or 'Communities' to better grab the context. The editors have done an awesome job in explaining what being non-binary really means with all its various shades. Each of the narrations is different, some of them are more lyric and some more down-to-earth or including two or more people. The title consists of thirty distinct narrations overall and, like many short stories, I liked to read them separately with some time to refl...

4.5 out of 5 🌟 OCD, indigenous people and a hint of magic I stopped reading middle-grade books when I was probably 12. I've promoted myself to the young adult shelf and avoided 'childish' books for long, long years. And here I am, in my early thirties, reading that genre again. And one thing I know for sure, there are children books about more 'serious' topics and containing more in-depth life knowledge than in many adult-ish books. And 'The Brave' is one of these books. 'The Brave' has probably one of the most interesting synopsizes I've ever heard of. It's a story about a boy with a very specific type of OCD - counting each letter in sentences directed to him. It's caused a great issue for his peers, who bullied him, and his father, who sent him away to live with his mother. Collin's mom is an indigenous woman living in an Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota and that's a tremendous life change for a boy from South California! Colli...