Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Sunburn

The prose in the book is very poetic. This book describes love and sorrow and portrays everything in a realistic way. Both Lucy and Susannah have their flaws but they are also both humans, trying to navigate life and out of being teenagers into adulthood. Do not read this book if you don't like reading about protagonists who make wrong or immoral decisions.

It's heartbreaking how having no choice but to survive can turn a person into someone they don't even recognize. I think that this story could have also worked as Lucy's villain origin story. I liked the happy ending, I just wish we could have gotten to see more of them now that they have met again. Though, I do understand that it will take them time to get together, since they're both different now.

Recommended songs to listen while reading this book:
Altar - Kehlani
Melt - Kehlani
Making The Bed - Olivia Rodrigo
Not Strong Enough - Boygenius
Good Luck, Babe! - Chappell Roan
loml - Taylor Swift
So Long London - Taylor Swift
Guilty As Sin? - Taylor Swift
illicit affairs - Taylor Swift
How Did It End? - Taylor Swift
my tears ricochet - Taylor Swift
Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? - Taylor Swift
Anti-Hero - Taylor Swift
High Infidelity - Taylor Swift
Is It Over Now? - Taylor Swift
Say Don't Go - Taylor Swift
I Know Places - Taylor Swift
cardigan - Taylor Swift
Dear Reader - Taylor Swift
tolerate it - Taylor Swift
coney island - Taylor Swift
ivy - Taylor Swift
October Passed Me By - girl in red

Content Warnings

jojothefool's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Literally if Naked in Manhattan and Good Luck, Babe became a book. I’ve just realized (again) I’m not like the biggest fan of literary fiction, there’s so many words per word. It creates some beautiful prose that really moves you and makes you think, but I’m basic and just like to know what conversations they’re having and the silly day to day trivialities. I also HATE in writing when dialogue uses the single apostrophe instead of the double quotation marks, but the novel was good enough that I could overlook it and read it like normal. Fun time, lovely sapphic prose, definitely recommend.

Content Warnings

hookerkitty's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I don’t think there’s a single person I’ve been attracted to, male or female, who made me obsessed with their spit or want to be masticated by them.

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lily_sutton's review

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

kers_tin's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

emisbooks's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i cannot put my thoughts on this book into words. it was truly incredible.

the writing is so beautiful. the descriptions of love and yearning are so raw. the main themes of queerness, growing up female, homesickness, places, platonic and romantic love are explored so deeply. this book is equal parts heartbreaking and uplifting. the characters feel like real people.

i feel really bad for martin. i have never seen a character be so dedicated to another only for that dedication to not be reciprocated in the way they want. ouch.

easiest 5 stars i've ever given. this is a new favourite book of all time for me. highly, HIGHLY recommend. i truly have no criticisms of this story.

Content Warnings

breanneporter's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This was an atmospheric read; a bit slow but there was some beautiful writing and meditation on first love and the struggle of coming out when your family and friends have a different idea of who you should be and what your life should look like. It follows the inner monologue of a 15-year-old girl, Lucy, from a small Irish village, as she falls in love with her female best friend and is torn between her passionate love for her and her peaceful platonic love for her childhood (boy) best friend. We see her through her final years in high school and her first few years of adulthood. It takes place in the early 90s, though there’s almost no reference to the Triubles (or any Irish politics of history from the er, which seems realistic since we’re completely inside the mind of a teenage girl in romantic crisis). Because the POV is solely Lucy’s, the other characters seem underbaked, by design. But there’s a lot of relatable stuff and I found my attention ebbing and flowing as I read. I’m not sure I’d recommend or read again but it was a pleasant enough voyage into the recent past.

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