Book Review: A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll

What species of Shark is the whale species of Dolphins?

A KIND OF SPARK tells the story of 11-year-old Addie as she campaigns for a memorial in memory of the witch trials that took place in her Scottish hometown. Addie knows there's more to the story of these 'witches', just like there is more to hers. Can Addie challenge how the people in her town see her, and her autism, and make her voice heard?

I found out about this book on Twitter by following a fellow Autistic book reviewer who had been sent a review copy. So I immediately ordered it once I found out it was Autistic own voices. Frankly, there are not enough own-voices Autistic books, especially as the biggest ones were written chapter by chapter or the idea of an Autistic protagonist is how the author realised she was autistic when she did more research for the book. This is a middle-grade book which I didn't know because I did no research. I actually didn't read the summary of this book, I knew masking was discussed but that was it. I figured it was children's somehow by the cover.

The main character Addie is Autistic and eleven-years-old. This book deals with Ableism that that Autistic kids face, often by the adults who are meant to support them the most. Teachers.  I wasn't diagnosed with Autism as a child but I did face ableism from my Dyslexia diagnosis and my Autistic traits made it so that teachers were terrible to me.

This book is a lot more sympathetic than I would ever be to those teachers (ableist teachers in my novels end up being possessed by demons and its hard to tell when the procession started).

This book does slightly deal with internal ableist, with Keedie, Addie's older sister. It's not in great detail but as this book deals with a lot of Ableism that Autistic people deal with, I think it was just the right touch with this book. Especially, as this Addie's story. I do want Keedie's story, but mostly because I just want more Autistic protagonists in general. I did relate to Keedie too, being an older sibling to a fellow Autistic person. I went through a ton of Ableism and then my sibling went to the same school. Somehow it's gotten worse.

There's a lot of little nods in the books to how Autism has been a thing all along and not just recognised till recently. Also multiple Autistic femme characters.

The plot of this book is Addie learning about Scotland's Witch Trials and how her home village inspires her to do something about it. This went really well with the themes of the book, while

Friendship is a touch on a lot in this book. At the start of the book, Addie is newly Friendless as she has been abandoned by her long time friend Jenna and gains a new friend Audrey whose just moved to the school from London. Friendships are complicated for Autistic people due to us missing out on social clues and not knowing the rules to the game.

This a kinda spoiler but not majorly since this isn't a plot book. It's definitely about the characters.  This book has a trope I really don't like and it's kinda Ableist if not treated right and I don't think this book does enough. I get the reasoning, however, I don't think it was dealt with enough. I talked about it in my Goodreads initials thoughts if you don't care about mild thoughts.

Addie is very relatable to me, I've done a few things she did at the same age.
The only unrelatable thing for me, is Addie doesn't know what is dangerous about the world and my special interest has been true crime a few times, even as a kid. Obviously, not actual criticism.

I really loved this book, I do take issue with one part of this book, which is why I probably rate this 4.5 really. Maybe 4.8 if we're going against the GoodReads system anyway. I think this is a really important book for anyone to read but especially for Autistic kids. This is a book I had wished I had as a kid (even if I don't think I would have looked past a certain trope then). Even if you're not diagnosed, your traits still get you treated badly. In a way. this was a hard book to review because I mostly want to just scream read it and then come discuss it with me.  I think this book proves just why Disabled Own-voices are important.

Read: 11/6/2020
Reviewed: 11/6/2020 –4/7/2020
Medium: Paperback
Published Date: 04/6/2020
Publisher: Knights Of
Source: I brought it.
TW: Ableism, Ableist slurs; Internal Ableism; discussion of being institutionalised, casual racism (challenged), mild discussion of torture;

Crossposted to my other website: strangenessbooks.wordpress.com/

Book Review: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

I just wanted a well rounded dyslexic character kicking butt, bonus if not a boy.

Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives.

Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties.

A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.

I have no pressing reason to review this book as it's not by a British writer or book I received for free off a publisher/author. But like I said in my review of the first book, this series has rep that affects me and is hard to find. This review will have spoilers for the first book but I try best to avoid spoilers in my reviews of the actual book I'm reviewing.

So one of the characters is coded Dyslexic. Weasley is unable to read and his dad is a dick about it because he's evil. The rep is okay I guess. I mean, it's mostly Weasley wishing he could read so things would go faster and a little talk about the failure of him being taught. It's kinda raised that he could have been taught wrong. Dyslexic people do process information differently, meaning they have to be taught differently. It never goes into details and he has no other symptoms of Dyslexia except being capable of non-reading things.

I listen to the audiobook of this whole series, and Weasley voice actor sure did make a choice when it came to doing Kaz. He's an old man with him and Weasley has a bigger part than the last book so it never came up till now. I don't mind multiple voices in audiobooks but I do when the voice actors do completely different things for a character. It's very distracting. I guess it's meant to show how Weasley sees Kaz compared to the other characters.

There are high emotion moments, that I feel are meant to be devastating but I just felt whatever about. I don't understand the choice. I guess I just wasn't that invested. There is a lot of characters at play and I did feel for the most of them. That part just didn't have an impact for me.

Overall, I give this book and the series 4/5 stars for Sugar Eating. This was fun, dark read so my type of reading. The world-building was great and it's definitely great to have multiple Disabled characters in one series. Having read this series now, I'm really interested in reading Ninth House on how it had to be an adult novel. I guess maybe you get away with least in Urban Fantasy over straight-up fantasy.

Book Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

I want a cool cane but there are so expensive.

Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams - but he can't pull it off alone.

A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist.

Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction - if they don't kill each other first.

I had forgotten that I once upon a time that I requested a review copy of this book and I always believe in reviewing books that I do end up reading from my review pile. I only realise when I went to mark on my Spreadsheet of books that I had finished this book, that I found it on my NetGalley arc lists. This is all funny because as I was listening to it, I was like "Ha Ha I don't have to review this and can just go on to the sequel book." I suppose, now in 2019, people wouldn't have minded if I just fulfil the need to review this book by reviewing the whole duology as one. But here we are single again.

Yes, I have read the whole the Grisha trilogy and while liking the world, I did have issues with the solution to that series. Honestly, it's depressing as hell. This book does have sad things; that can be found in life right now. This is a heist plot at its core with a bunch of personal storylines that all the characters have.

This is a lot pairing off in our Six of Crows gang. It's basically made up of couples to be. They all fine, a decent Hate/Prejudice to Love thing and another too emotionally scarred to just being together. The relationships are fine, we do have Queer characters and there's a bit of pinning over the seemly straight ones. The characters are okay, they all have different wants and motivations. I feel for them,

The rep in this book is okay, there's a lot this book is meant to have but I never pay attention to character descriptions except for the weird Irish Stereotypes that I just sigh at now but won't say anything because it's not a weird Scottish stereotype and this is a technically a fantasy world originally based off Russia. I know how the characters look more because of the fan outrage over the casting than anything else. I know Nina is meant to be plus-sized a.k.a. fat like me. Nina is very obsessed with food so I don't love that about her but she is also very "sexy" which is nice to see with a fat character and her love of food isn't made out to be a bad thing.

Now for the rep that I actually care about it, because it affects me and is lacking in fiction. There are two Disabled characters in this book. Kaz is out there with his badly healed broken leg and then another character whose disability is a twist. I actually recently tweeted that there is so few dyslexic characters or even coded ones in fantasy and books in general. This is the most undeveloped character of the crew and I'm hoping that in the sequel they are more developed and more like actual rep.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for fragile Ice. This is a fun book about revenge and other things. Yeah, tons of sad things that play into the real world but in a fun way. We already discussed in other reviews that weird definition of fun books. Ableism would be easier to cope with if it came with magic and heists.

Update: I have now read and reviewed the sequel.

An e-arc was provided from Netgalley and this book was published by Orion Children's Books on 2 June 2016 (I'm not sure if this was the UK date or not since I brought it in 2015, but maybe I did pre-order it).

Book Review: Whispers in Graveyard by Theresa Breslin

This book might have been written for me if only for a few things.If it was Harder core and female lead.

They want me to join them. All I have to do is to reach out to them...

Nobody understands Solomon's dyslexia. The only place he feels safe in the old graveyard, under the rowan tree. But when the workment uproot the tree, a dark and terriflying power is released, and only only Solomon can stop it...

Whispers in the Graveyard won the Carnegie Medal, and has became a modern classic of children's literature.

This book has Graveyard in the title and main character dyslexia. If you've been playing attention then you'll know I am dyslexic (which explains weird spelling and grammer mistakes) and that if book has a graveyard in it I specifically tag it. Also Graveyards because character limits. It's a thing I have been doing since 13 February 2013. So of course, I checked this book of the library.

This book was written purely for Dyslexia by a librarian. I also stopped at Dyslexia so didn't see the modern classic bit. So once I started I checked when this book was written which as 1994.  Two years before Dunblane shooting where at lot of laws changed. It's of its time, but not in a bad way, it was just odd going in thinking this was a modern contempory and not realising that is was when it came out 23 years ago. When I was tiny and cute. So I'm talk a little abit about Dyslexia during this time and whether it get's it right.

So I was dynosis when I was eight meaning sometime in 2001, but had been probably going through tests since 1999 so 5 years after this book was published. Solomon has his eyes tested, colour tested, and hearing. I don't remember getting my hearing tested (nor does my mother). But my eyes were tested several times and remember doing the colour blindness tests a lot. Dyslexia was the thing during time, then it was ADHD (my headteacher was convinced what I had, though I had none of the symtoms). Now it's Autism, which basically means people know what it is in theory but also not at all.

So the writer has done their research. Do I think it is captured well? Not really, but kinda of. So I was dynosised just for having Dyslexia when I was eight, but also then Autism when I was Twenty-Two so my symtoms overlap. The crumsness of Dyslexia is there, but he never get offically dysnosised. There's just a wonder teacher that realises his disability.

My worst compliant about this book is that there's speech by the Wonder teacher that says dyslexia is not a dysabily. Oh, honey I just wrote Disability completely wrong and I will forever miss-spell basic words. I live in a world with google and voice reconsigation software and you didn't know those things were coming. Dyslexia is a Learning Disability. It's a disability. Calling it a difficulty as those two thing don't mean the same thing in this situation, is missing the point. It's like getting upset when someone calls a novel a book. Yes, two different definitions. A book can be a non-fiction or a collection of short stories but novel always come in book form whether e-book, physical or a stack of maginze. Not that last one so much now and the best of those ended in up physical book form. It's ableism. A Disability is something about your body that makes life more difficult for you than people who don't have the disability, that can be how brain processes things or that you can't walk un-assisant. Being Dyslexia obvious never used be a big deal when most people were illiterate and didn't go to school. You were just clumsy and had bad joints (yeah, those are dyslexic symptoms). However, you can be a real disadvantage now. A lot of Daily Life is reading whether that's paperwork or just trying to watch YouTube videos. Disability is not a dirty word. I know this was written over 20 years ago but I don't think enough people realise that now either. I say this as someone who could just passes as a bad speller most of the time and can read most things unaided. It's re-creating the written word I mess up (then there's the Autism and the thing that making my hands go dumb as I try to write this).  Also Beslin made the main character a boy because Statistically more boys have it, so stereotyping then.

There's a lot of other issues going on. Solomon's mother has left the family home due to Solomon's father being abusive Alcoholic and then there's the ghost in the graveyard. Also this book is set in Scotland somewhere. Probably Central Belt. He love his local Graveyard, which is next to Kirk (church) which how I realise that this was set in Scotland. There also an evil entry connected to Scotland's past (go on guesss what it could be linked on, if you know anything about Scottish Supernatural history then you're get it, but I'll leave out because it kinda spoiler). There is a lot for a book less than 200 pages and some stuff does feel underdeveloped. The graveyard and Solomon's home life storylines don't fit that nice together. Hell, the evil enty doesn't even specifically want/need Solomon. Anyone in theory could have stopped it. The plot kinda works, but I think it just need more developed or more character agrency in the plot. Things just kinda come to point and that's that. This book is set in a Primary school so I probably should be less forgiving about the plot but I found it in the YA Section of the library. That was probably a mistake like the time I found R.L. Stine's one adult novel there too.

It has horror elements in it, but it's not scary hence the P5 main character (9 years-old). Horror didn't come to mind till I saw other people call it horror in the review. But I was already desenstive to any horror by the time I was in P5. The idea I like, the excuation not so much. It's fine, some of it works. Someone does die in this...so there's that.

Solomon is pretty defined by his Dyslexia. He doesn't have any other characterisation. The story is told in his POV. Even the Dyslexia side is surface level. No one really does have much characterisation. His dad is probably the one with the most depth. The wonder teacher is unrealistic try hard. Also shows up at student's house which also how you know it was written in the 90s. Pretty sure you can't just take a kid out of his normal class on a hunch, even if his teacher is terrible and kicks him most of the time.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Rowan Berries. I think the dyslexia is really all this book has going for it. Of the other Carnegie Medal winners I have read, it doesn't match up to them. I would like this book if his teacher had Dyslexia. I felt like it was building to that in places but she doesn't. It's an okay portrayal of dyslexia and his homelife is the better part of the book. The magic part doesn't work. I would love a book with magic with Dyslexia or any other disabled character published in the main steam but this wasn't great on the supernatural side. However, this book is less than 200 pages and is worth a read if anything that I have said interested you. While I wanted better it's fine for its intended age group, not amazing but worth the read. 

Book Review: Daughter of Burning City by Amanda Foody

Especially, if their don't have physical eyes.

Reality is in the eye of the beholder…

Even among the many unusual members of the travelling circus that has always been her home sixteen-yea-old Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years.
This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all of their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the Festival's Freak Show.

But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that—illusions, and not truly real.
Or so she always believed…until one of them is murdered.
Now she must unravel the horrifying truth before all her loved ones disappear.

This book was rather disappointing. The concept is cool, but the execution is poor and weird. Information is repeated at nausea and is even on the same page sometimes.

I personally found the world building to be problematic. Up-mountains are religious and unenlightened. Here I am Up-mountainer, that sure sounds like propaganda about Northern people in Europe. It hard to win these things as I don't think the author is likely to have realise this. This probably could have been solved by being more creative and more fantasy based than Up-Mountainers a.k.a. you mean the North and the main character is from the East so Asian or the middle East. It's backed with how the characters are described as look as well. Others might not read into this. On the fantasy front, it's always the ones that live in the mountains that savages and uneducated, so it just stereotype carried from others' works. Other parts of the world building were interesting such the idea of the traveling city and aspect of the magic.

This book is a murder mystery, with conspiracy, the ending of this book is dumb, but also really sad and depressing. (also, Spoiler: incesty). The main character generally comes across as being sad. She has no friends her own age and spends most her time with people she made up and therefore, how much control does she actually have over them.

It's told from Sorina Point of View, she an okay protagonist. The characters are fine. I don’t care much about characters that died or were threatened.

There's some diversity with different Sexuality with lesbian and a character hinted at as Demi-sexual. A first, but you can also read into badly if wanted due to how this book ends. The Traveling city is also meant to be diverse with different people, but mostly Down-mountainers. A lot of characters have deformities, some magical and some if not for magic would be a disability. The main character has No Eyes, but can still see. I guess it fine and does talk about how Sorina is treated.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Lamest Show in the City. This book was either going to be amazing or disappointment with the cool concept it had. Sadly, it was a disappointment for me. I didn't enjoy the reading process of that much and some of the author's choices I really didn't like. It was an okay read.

This book was rather disappointing. The concept is cool, but the execution is poor and weird. Information is repeated at nausea and is even on the same page sometimes.

I personally found the world building to be problematic. Up-mountains are religious and unenlightened. Here I am Up-mountainer, that sure sounds like propaganda about Northern people in Europe. It hard to win these things as I don't think the author is likely to have realise this. This probably could have been solved by being more creative and more fantasy based than Up-Mountainers a.k.a. you mean the North and the main character is from the East so Asian or the middle East. It's backed with how the characters are described as look as well. Others might not read into this. On the fantasy front, it's always the ones that live in the mountains that savages and uneducated, so it just stereotype carried from others' works. Other parts of the world building were interesting such the idea of the traveling city and aspect of the magic.

This book is a murder mystery, with conspiracy, the ending of this book is dumb, but also really sad and depressing. (also, Spoiler: incesty). The main character generally comes across as being sad. She has no friends her own age and spends most her time with people she made up and therefore, how much control does she actually have over them.

It's told from Sorina Point of View, she an okay protagonist. The characters are fine. I don’t care much about characters that died or were threatened.

There's some diversity with different Sexuality with lesbian and a character hinted at as Demi-sexual. A first, but you can also read into badly if wanted due to how this book ends. The Traveling city is also meant to be diverse with different people, but mostly Down-mountainers. A lot of characters have deformities, some magical and some if not for magic would be a disability. The main character has No Eyes, but can still see. I guess it fine and does talk about how Sorina is treated.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Lamest Show in the City. This book was either going to be amazing or disappointment with the cool concept it had. Sadly, it was a disappointment for me. I didn't enjoy the reading process of that much and some of the author's choices I really didn't like. It was an okay read.

I got this book off of NetGalley for Review and it's published by HQ on 7th September 2017.