Amplified by Tara Kelly

Amplified is about a girl named Jasmine who moves to Santa Cruz, CA to try to make it as a musician, despite facing opposition from her dad and dwindling finances.

I like that the book is a realistic look at what it’s like to chase your dream and struggle to make it. Jasmine really is struggling in this book. Her car breaks down, she barely has a home or a band and half the time she doesn’t know if she has friends. Her relationship with her dad is rough too. I really enjoyed the parts about her playing guitar and playing with the band.

The book was pretty good up until the last 100 or so pages when I felt like too many side stories were added in. Most of them weren’t really dealt with, so it just took away from the story for me. I gave this a 3.5 and I’d read the sequel.

Les Be Honest by Sarah Robinson

Les Be Honest is about a woman named Yasmeen trying to open a lesbian bar that also does haircuts. I really liked that concept. She meets and unexpectedly falls for the property manager, Tyler, along the way. They face some opposition and drama and try to work through it. It just felt very dragged out at times.

I honestly thought I was going to like this more, but I just ended up having issues with it. The main character over explains a lot and (it might be me) is stuck on what race everyone is. She’s been to her Filipina friend’s house, the old people are the “palest of the pales,” her gf is “melanin deprived.” I don’t know if the author didn’t know how else to describe the other characters or what, but I was like ok… Also, the sex/fooling around scenes were cringey.

I really like Yas’s relationship with her family. It was very cool to see a family who was accepting of an openly gay family member. Her friend group was cool too, especially Isa. She was amazing. That was the highlight of the book for me.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This is a 2/5 stars from me.

Femme (Lorimer Sidestreets) by Mette Bach

Femme is a hi/lo book for struggling readers that I received for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

It’s about a girl named Sofie who isn’t doing very well in school. She’d rather spend time on the internet, play Candy Crush and hang out with her boyfriend, Paul. When she’s paired with smart over-achiever (and out lesbian) Clea she finally starts applying herself and things change for her.

I feel like the book tries to tackle a lot of subjects in a short amount of pages and just kind of touching on each of them, which has been my issue with all of the Lorimer books that I’ve received. Some of the issues that are talked about in this book are expectations (personal, parental and societal), labels (from society and oneself), bullying/cyberbullying, friendships, coming out, relationships and graduating. The bullying here is basically done and over with once they find out who did it. It’s not quite realistic.

I do like how the relationship between Sofie and Clea develops. I think that part of the book was well done and realistic.

Love is Love by Mette Bach

The characters in this book, with the exception of Jude, are ridiculous. The book starts off with Emmy hooking up with a classmate because she thinks it’ll make her popular (it doesn’t) and arguing with her mom, who sends her to live with family in Vancouver. Emmy lives in a closet at their house and her snotty cousin, Paige, introduces her to Jude, who she instantly falls for.

There are a lot of issues in the book and none of them really get resolved. It’s mentioned that Emmy’s taking anxiety medicine, but she “comfort eats,” over-analyzes everything and stalks Jude online. As someone with anxiety, I don’t think that’s anxiety. Then there’s her cousin, the stereotypical mean girl, who keeps misgendering Jude and saying he’s bad and crazy. Nobody ever explains what bad things he does or has done and it’s just really rude.

I feel like more could’ve been done with this story. I do like that Emmy was accepting of Jude.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.