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PUDDIN’ by Julie Murphy

“If Dumplin’ was about coming to terms with your own body, Puddin’ is about demanding that the world do the same. I wrote this book for all the fat kids who have waited too damn long for the world to accept them. Stop waiting. The revolution starts with and belongs with you.” - Julie Murphy

Puddin’ is the most unashamedly fat girl magic I have ever had a chance to read, and Millie is the one leading this singing parade down Main Street. I want nothing more than to join in, screaming, singing, crying, following her into the sunset or wherever Millie wants to go. She has become my own personal hero, everything I wish I could be, that positive and good force in the world.

Where Willowdean, the protagonist of Dumplin’, is quite sour, angry, and quick to come back with a sassy retort, Millie is just pure goodness. She is kind and good and thoughtful, and such a wonderful hurricane kind of a girl, that it seems almost impossible that this book should also be narrated by Callie, the semi-villain of Dumplin’. They’re such polar opposites you will spend half of the book in a comfortable blanket, and the other with a frown muttering under your breath. But Julie Murphy is an absolutely wonderful writer, and makes us feel so many feelings of joy and anger, and in the end I was just ready to pull everyone in for a group hug.

I loved Dumplin’ so much, but Millie was never the character that stuck with me the most. Willowdean demands so much space that Millie definitely played second, third, or even fourth fiddle to just about everyone else. But boy was I wrong! Millie is finally taking her earned centre stage, the close shot, and it was so worth the wait to see her shine. Everything about this book makes me excited to be me, excited to fight for me, and what I want. This is definitely the kind of book that will become worn and used, as I return to this story over and over again.

This books is so sweet and awkward and cute, and there were so many real moments that made me feel exactly like the awkward and confused teenager I was at that age. So many moments between the girls made me laugh, or cry, or hide my face in my hands. They were just so cute! Millie’s excitement and determination is so contagious, and I am 100% down for that ride.

Murphy is extremely talented at writing teenagers, but even more importantly than that, she writes FOR teenagers so well. Both Dumplin’ and Puddin’ are books I would have been absolutely blessed to have as a teenager, and both are books I want to push on every single teenager who feel like they don’t fit in, who feel like they need to change to be accepted, and who need to be allowed to find their own way in life. Both of these books should be compulsory reading for every parent with a fat child, every parent who ever made their children feel like they are not enough. Sometimes parents aren’t right, and reading girls like Millie taking the right to explore what they want over what their parents thinks they should do, is so freeing.

To be honest, I’m tearing up just thinking about the feelings this book inspired in me as an adult, let alone what it would have meant to me as a teenager. But I love it. I love everything this book made me feel, the tears and smiles and sighs, and while Dumplin’ brought Julie Murphy to my attention, it was Millie and Callie who ensured that I will be first in line to buy every single Julie Murphy book until the end of time.

– ⊿◥ Sarah △

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Did you miss our giveaway? Don’t worry, we’ll be holding many more of those in the future! In the meantime, why don’t you check out our review of @adamsilvera and @beckyalbertalli’s #WhatifitsUs? We absolutely loved this book and are so glad we got to share it with one of you! Link to Elva’s review is in our profile! (at Edinburgh, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpO_ovpBUBV/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ln2cljwzt234

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WHAT IF IT’S US by Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

“He laces our fingers and shrugs. And I’m dead. I am actually dead.”

As an Albertalli and Silvera fan, I had high hopes for this book. Like, extremely high. I wanted to love this book to the ends of the earth and back. Both Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera have a talent for depicting characters falling in love so nicely. It’s not always pleasant, sometimes it even hurts a little bit, the loneliness of liking someone and not being able to say it, the fear of being close, of rejection. All these authors’ books leave me with this warm fuzzy feeling that makes me dislike the world a little less. That make it just a tad easier to face. 

And reader, I was not disappointed. Not one bit. What If It’s Us is everything I hoped it would be: achingly cute, sniggering-into-the-pages funny, and refreshingly realistic love story between two boys, one recovering from a breakup, the other excited to fall in love for the very first time.

Anyone who’s read anything by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera will know they couldn’t be more different stylistically. Silvera is a master at turning a narrative on its head. You think you know what’s going on, then he rips the carpet from under your feet and you understand the story in a whole new light, new meanings shining through. The effect is unsettling at times, but incredibly powerful. Silvera’s approach is raw, honest, and often downright depressing. But his books sit with you--rage with you--through the storm.

It’s difficult to say what’s different about Becky Albertalli’s books. To me, they feel like a warm hug from someone who you know would never judge you. All that southern hospitality with queer anxious teens centre stage, like Arthur, the narrator of What If It’s Us.

Arthur is away from his home state Georgia for the summer, interning at his mother’s law office in New York City when he meets Ben, the boy in the post office mailing stuff to his ex-boyfriend. Arthur takes the risks most of us are either too afraid or too jaded to entertain. And Ben. Oh Ben. I don’t know what to say except I relate to this character so much. Ben who struggles with feeling like he’s not smart enough, who flunked school and has to fight his way back in, who hasn’t listened to Hamilton (I know, I know, I’m on it!)

The side characters are gorgeous, from Ben’s best friend Dylan who falls in love on impulse and whose panic attacks helped me understand my own a little better, to Arthur’s office pals, the dry-humoured, Namrata and Juliet. New York City is a character in itself, and it was a delight to see the city through Arthur’s wide eyes, eager to see everything, afraid if he blinks he’ll miss something amazing. And then through Ben’s, who has lived in the city his whole life, for whom the city is a map of memories.

Both Albertalli and Silvera write about mental illness often. I love books that make me want to taste life for myself; that cut through the anxiety and everything else and make me feel strong enough to charge into the battles big and small. This book did that for me. Arthur and Ben are so kind with each other, and it’s catching. It’s important for readers to see characters talk through their issues with compassion and honesty; to see teenagers portrayed in fiction who learn to respect themselves and the boundaries they need to feel safe and loved. The lives of these teenagers are tangled and chaotic. There are missed connections, missed communications, and a thousand what ifs. It’s about holding hope, knowing that it’s precious, but it’s also about knowing when to let it go.

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◤▿  THE BINDING by Bridget Collins  ▼ ▷

“Emmett  is suddenly flung into a work which is much more dangerous and romantic than he would ever have imagined, and we’re right there with him, entranced by the new world we’re discovering.” 

Read the full review here.

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The Binding by Bridget Collins

“Imagine you could erase your grief. Imagine you could forget your pain. Imagine you could hide a secret. Forever.” - Goodreads

I had a chance to read an early copy of this book, and I have never been more lucky.

The Binding introduces us into a magical world, where memories are tangible, and books are much more read than we could ever imagine. We’re introduced to Emmett, a farmer who is still recovering from a severe illness. He is suddenly flung into a work which is much more dangerous and romantic than he would ever have imagined, and we’re right there with him, entranced by the new world we’re discovering. 

I came into this novel on a bit of a spoiler I won’t repeat here, but that did not in any way lessen the experience of this book. It is a world very different from our own, but Collins still manages to give us just enough of home to feel as if perhaps it’s not so far away after all. Her worldbuilding is so rich and beautiful you’re easily immersed, and I can’t help but wish that Collins would write us a million more books set in this universe. I don’t want to leave Emmett behind just yet. 

I was kept at the edge of the seat through the entire book, every page bringing with it new answers and more questions I just had to have answered. I would have finished it in a single sitting if work hadn’t stood in the way, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it until I was done. Even now, months after I finished, I still find myself thinking back to two days I was absolutely swallowed up by this novel. It left a mark on me, and I want everyone I know to read it too. 

The very heart of this book is love, I think. What you would do to keep, or lose, the love you had. This book is clearly for those of us to whom books are alive, and to whom books have meaning beyond just words on the page. Bridget Collins has written a truly remarkable book, and I will be shouting about it from every rooftop long after it’s publication day!

⊿ ◂ Sarah 

The Binding by Bridget Collins is not only one of my favourite books this year, but one of my favourite books of all time. In this magical story, memories may be forgotten through the process known as binding, committed to the page and bound into a book. What if you could forget your most traumatic memories? What if you could live without the burden of painful memories? I don’t want to say too much--the less readers know going in the better--but it’s an alluring premise, and with themes such as self-erasure, denial, and shame, it’s one that really chimed with me, as I imagine it will chime with many readers from marginalised backgrounds.

And it is stunningly written. Reading this book is a little like stepping into the luscious, tangled countryside in which it’s set. You never know when you’re going to stumble upon an old, rusty deer-trap, or if you’ll step through the trees into a gorgeous ruin gilded by sunlight instead. I adore Emmett, a poor farmer apprenticed to a Bookbinder after a period of illness leaves him unable to tend the farm. This is a rich and raw historical fiction interwoven with magic and mystery, and though it’s bleak at points, reading it felt like a flame in the darkness.

Like Sarah, I was lucky enough to read this book in advance, and I cannot wait to pre-order my copy and read it again after publication in January 2019. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Emmett (always the sign of a good book), so revisiting his story is a must. This book is a puzzle, deeply captivating, and I suspect it that takes on new meaning with each read.

◤ ▾ Elva 

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◥⊿▹Refracted’s Agenda▴▼▻

Refracted Reads sprung from many conversations about books–the ones we fell in love with and the ones that frustrated us beyond belief, those few books we’d happily throw off a cliff-edge or cast into the fires of Mount Doom. For the record, we won’t be talking about those particular books too much. Our agenda is simple: to read more diversely and spread the word about the incredible books we discover along the way.

It’s almost indescribable, the sensation of opening up a book and seeing pieces of yourself reflected back at you. Or escaping your reality and submerging yourself in another world, one in which you get to be the hero of your own story. Reading creates empathy. It connects people. Books are the boats between islands. We chose Refracted as our name because, despite meaning broken or altered from an original path, the results are beautiful–a rainbow of light. It connotes setbacks and hardship, but ultimately, resilience, hope, and pride.  

For a peek into what you might find if you follow our reviews, here are some of our all time favourites.