A review by se_wigget
Love Letters for Joy by Melissa See

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

TW, CT: acephobia, panphobia, homophobia, Christofascists, manipulative frenemy, ableism.... Actually, the novel has an excellent list of content warnings in the front of the book. Hmm, maybe I should do that in my books, too.

Every time a book with an asexual protagonist gets published, all acephobic bigots lose a year of their lives.

Imagine a high school in which there are purple chairs and purple walls. If it were in Florida, Governor Wrong DuhPsycho would make it illegal for schools to have anything purple or lavender on the premises.

Page 54: On one page, Franny's sweater is green... and a few pages later, it's red. I don't think she changed clothes.

Page 60: Now I'm craving rainbow cookies! I have rugulach in the freezer--that will do....

Page 152: Andrew? Don't you mean Arthur?
Andrew/Arthur. Green sweater/red sweater. I'm surprised nobody caught this before publication. This book needed one more round of proofreading.

Page 253: Nathaniel's fascist bigots parents need to spontaneously combust or be eaten by a dragon. Fuck these fucking fuckers.
Oh, fucking wow. Christofascists, no less. #bechoppedupintobloodylittlebits

Page 257: What kind of parents would kick their kid out? Many anti-LGBTQIA+ POS parents do it. There's an anthology about it called Kicked Out, edited by Sassafras Lowrey. I attended the book event at In Other Words years ago.

Maybe I just think this because of my family, but it seems like it would be more realistic if at least one of Nathaniel's siblings was a flying monkey for his POS parents.

Whew, this has a satisfying ending!
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