#sasha laurens

[therefugeofbooks]

Currently reading Youngblood by Sasha Lauren’s

[ryndraws2manythings]

Just got two new books!!

I have started reading Youngblood and it is amazing

[a-moorcita]

The best shield against other people's judgment is to be aggressively yourself, all the time.

Youngblood, Sasha Laurens

[niharikaaa2]

Hello fellow Desi bloggers. Today I'd like to bring to your attention this very real paragraph in an YA novel. It's called Youngblood by Sasha Laurens. And it talks about how colonialism isn't that bad actually!!

Cherry on top, it also has, A buttload of other problems!! And before anyone says that "they're not saying colonialism isn't bad 1!1!1!" Yes they are. The phase "He spent years pursuing her till she agreed" is extremely gross in the context of literal colonialism. Especially in the context of how east india company officers treated brown women. "it's not as messed up as it sounds". Ah yes, the east india company that is responsible for hundreds of atrocities , including forcing farmers into indigo cultivation, torturing and r*ping their family members when they wouldn't comply, executing millions, torturing more. The East India company, that sowed the seeds for partition, and destroyed the flourishing Indian economy, destroyed industries. The East India company that looted India dry. The company that is responsible for so many crimes. The aftereffects of their crimes haunt us to this day. It's been 75 years, and we are still recovering. Stop retconing our history. It is not yours to vandalize. Our pain, our past is not yours to sugercoat. Shame to the author who sat down and wrote this, shame to the editor who didn't edit this out, and shame to the publisher who decided to publish this.

@inc0rrectmyths @melancholicmonody @ma-douce-souffrance

[triada-literaria]

Reseña Sangre Joven

A favor, tengo que decir que es una lectura sencilla, que se lee relativamente rápido, con un planteamiento interesante en lo que se refiere al virus fatal para los vampiros que algunos humanos portan en la sangre, una segunda mitad bastante entretenida y unos personajes que no están del todo mal, salvando los momentos en los que te gustaría darles un guantazo.

En definitiva, el libro da lo que promete: internado elitista lleno de jóvenes vampiros y con una pequeña trama de misterio y asesinato de fondo. Ahora bien, eso de «la nueva generación de vampiros queer» que pone en la cubierta del libro es bastante relativo. Hay representación sí, pero si lo lees por el romance sáfico déjame que te diga que este tarda la tira en aparecer.

El principal problema que le veo a este libro es que, a veces, tienes la sensación de vivir en el día de la marmota. Puesto que gran parte del libro se resume en: Kat hace lo que sea y manda a paseo sus principios con tal de encajar con los niñatos pijos-discute con Taylor por esto-Kat se da cuenta que los niñatos pijos son idiotas y les encara-lo arregla con Taylor-Kat cambia de nuevo de parecer y quiere formar parte de la élite- se vuelve a cabrear con Taylor. Este tira y afloja está bien para un rato, pero llega un momento en el que cansa. La trama del asesinato, que se comenta en la sinopsis, no aparece hasta pasadas las 200 primeras páginas del libro.

Tampoco entiendo que haya tanta homofobia entre los vampiros, quiero decir no hay nada más poco hetero que un vampiro. Taylor es la «única» lesbiana en todo el instituto (spoiler: mentira). Es bastante triste que sus relaciones sean siempre a escondidas con chicas que solo quieren experimentar y que mantenga una relación tan tóxica con otra vampiresa que la trata con desprecio pero que luego la quiere para ella, siempre que nadie más se entere. Y Taylor lo acepta, cosa que me cabrea. Kat es la única que supuestamente va de aliada del colectivo LGTB, pero luego empieza a comerse el tarro de una forma tremenda y a hacer cosas raras cuando empieza a darse cuenta de que quizás le gusta Taylor. Quiero decir, ella siempre está hablando de que prácticamente todas sus amistades forman parte del colectivo y de su activismo, entonces no sé por qué se queda medio atontada al darse cuenta de que pueda ser lesbiana o bisexual. Que a ver puedes tener dudas y un poco de pánico, pero ¿tanto?

También son bastante racistas, porque casi toda la élite (como no) está compuesta por vampiros blancos. En el instituto parece haber como un cupo de vampiros racializados. Kat es la única que intenta criticar este sistema, pero en cuanto le dicen mira tenemos x vampiros de otras razas, así que aquí no hay racismo, ella se calla. La defensa contra el racismo dura dos páginas.

En definitiva, que al final el mensaje que la autora intenta dar contra el racismo y la homofobia es bastante pobre. O esa es al menos mi impresión.

Con todo creo que es una lectura entretenida para pasar el rato.

[marsmachtmobil42]

Title: Youngblood

Author: Sasha Laurens

Page length: 416

Synopsis: For fans of Vampire Diaries and dark academia, two queer teen bloodsuckers at an elite vampire-only boarding school must go up against all of Vampirdom when they uncover a frightening conspiracy on campus. Kat Finn and her mother can barely make ends meet living among humans. Like all vampires, they must drink Hema, an expensive synthetic blood substitute, to survive, as nearly all of humanity has been infected by a virus that’s fatal to vampires. Kat isn’t looking forward to an immortal life of barely scraping by, but when she learns she’s been accepted to the Harcote School, a prestigious prep school that’s secretly vampires-only, she knows her fortune is about to change. Taylor Sanger has grown up in the wealthy vampire world, but she’s tired of its backward, conservative values—especially when it comes to sexuality, since she’s an out-and-proud lesbian. She only has to suffer through a two more years of Harcote before she’s free. But when she discovers her new roommate is Kat Finn, she’s horrified. Because she and Kat used to be best friends, a long time ago, and it didn’t end well. When Taylor stumbles upon the dead body of a vampire, and Kat makes a shocking discovery in the school’s archives, the two realize that there are deep secrets at Harcote—secrets that link them to the most powerful figures in Vampirdom and to the synthetic blood they all rely on.

[starrlikesbooks]

Check out these books for some summer reading! Here are just a few of the great books dropping in July.

As always, check under the cut for more on each~

The Society for Soulless Girls by Lauren Steven is a sapphic YA retelling of Jekyll & Hyde with some dark academia thrown in! The whole aesthetic of this book seems great!

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher is also a retelling! But this one is adult, and adapts Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. As a big Poe fan I'm looking forward to seeing what Kingfisher does with this! That's also just such a striking cover it makes me need to hold it.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia has the Mexican Gothic author taking a spin at the story of Doctor Moreau and his unethical, somewhat magical experiments. I've always had sort of a strange fascination with Moreau, and I'm sure Moreno-Garcia's lush and haunting writing is going to make this a whole experience.

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey is the first non-retelling or adaptation on this list! This is a haunted house story of complicated, tainted love for killers, and if that wouldn't be enough to get you excited, this is by the fabulous couldnt't-miss-to-save-their-life Sarah Gailey!

Youngblood by Sasha Laurens is a sapphic vampire story of social pressure, mystery, and friends-to-enemies-to-lovers! It's also one of the few books on this list I've already read- and the recipient of one of the two 5-star ratings I've actually given this month!

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows is another I've already gotten to read! This is a queer (mlm) romance between two princes in an arranged marriage, dealing with no just the newness of each other and their relationship, but assassination attempts and one of their slow healing from the trauma of assault. This is heavy at times, but if you want good communication and a healthy relationship, look no further.

Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen could easily fit into the "retellings" category, but it doesn't actually retell one single thing. This is a dark, romantic fantasy inspired by multiple fairytales, creating a new one altogether. If you like the morally gray and seeking power girl and dynamics similar to the in The Cruel Prince, you'll probably fun with this!

The Witchery by S. Isabelle is a YA debut with 6 witchy main characters setting out to fight monstrous Wolves. This is a diverse fantasy full of secrets and hefty consequences.

[thepeculiarbird]

I've been thinking of my next read and still can't figure out which book I wanna read so that's why I'm doing a poll.

I couldn't find the english title of the first book so here's the cover.

[illustration-alcove]

Kevin Wada’s ( @kevinwada ) illustrated book cover for Sasha Laurens’s Youngblood.

[black-is-beautiful18]

This is an excerpt from Youngblood by Sasha Laurens, a white author, who thought it would be a good idea to downplay the seriousness of the British colonizing India and the effects of the British East India Company…

All I have to say is wow. Once again: sensitivity readers exist for a reason! Also, his dad not “making off with some helpless village girl” still makes it bad. This book is apparently on some white savior bs as well so…yeah.

[pridepages]

Built for Longing: Youngblood

I just finished Youngblood by Sasha Laurens. I have thoughts.

Here there be spoilers!

To be human is to want. We long for fulfillment in forms like accomplishment, belonging, and love. But sometimes we are taught to shove that wanting down, until it becomes the source of our suffering. Youngblood is all about allowing ourselves to want...and to dare to achieve.

The novel is set in an alternate reality where a covert society thrives beside humans. A select few ‘youngblood’ vampires attend an elite boarding school in upstate New York. Two of them are scholarship student Kat Finn and her former friend: out-and-proud lesbian, Taylor Sanger. Friends-turned-enemies-turned-unlikely allies must work together to solve the murder of a beloved teacher.

And they were roommates!

All jokes aside, the most significant underlying theme of Youngblood is that of wanting. Kat arrives at school wanting food security, opportunity, and achievement. Coming from poverty, Kat yearns for a sense of belonging among the elite and a chance to change her life. Kat struggles with a sense of inferiority, of being closed out from the world of wealth and privilege--she realizes that even if she goes to the same school, she will never have the same entitlement as the others. She will never truly be part of the club. Meanwhile, Taylor may belong to the club of wealth and privilege, but she is set apart by her openly queer identity. Lonely and longing for companionship, Taylor accepts scraps of connection from other girls who use her as an experiment or an outlet for their sexuality. Affection and power dynamics become so twisted up in Taylor that she cannot bear to accept closeness from others. Taylor comes to believe that she is unworthy of love, so she simultaneously accepts mistreatment while pushing away intimacy. 

The arc for both of these girls is to allow themselves to want. They resent their needs as weaknesses: Kat struggles between what she thinks she should want (status symbols like a heterosexual relationship with a golden boy who represents the epitome of wealth and power) and what she actually wants (a queer relationship with a girl she desires). Taylor struggles with finding the self-esteem to stand up and ask for what she wants (a healthy, loving relationship where she is treated with respect and value). 

Kat and Taylor are written so believably because so often queer people, particularly queer women, are made to feel undeserving of what we want. That want becomes twisted up inside, a source of intense pain, to the point that ‘yearning’ is a queer joke. But why should it be a joke? Our wants and needs are just as real, and we are just as deserving, as anyone else. We deserve to ask. And when we are answered, we deserve to receive.

Let’s unlink queerness from yearning. We may be built for longing, but we are just as capable of reaching out, accepting, and being satisfied.

[astralbooks]

Youngblood - Sasha Laurens

Read: 15/07/22 - 21/07/22

Rating: 2/5

Rep: lesbian main characters, f/f relationship, gay side character, biracial British Indian side character, Chinese side character, non-binary minor character

CW: racism, antisemitism, homophobia, bullying, violence, murder & attempted murder, death of a parent (in backstory), food insecurity, toxic relationship, depiction of a panic attack, underage alcohol consumption, emesis

Review:

I was supposed to be on a blog tour for this book, but the tour was cancelled due to problematic content. Having now finished reading this book for myself, I can see why.

This book is trying to be a look at how the capitalist upper class do not care about and actively exploit those who they see as being beneath them, and that even the rich people who aren’t actively involved in hurting others like this are still passively accepting this system and perpetuating that hurt in the process. That’s what it’s trying to do. Taylor and Galen just not getting it whenever Kat ran into a roadblock or couldn’t take a certain risk due to her precarious position because they’re used to things being easy for them because they’re rich vampires who’ve never had to worry about where their next meal would come from came close to being a decent allegory for class differences in reality. However, Kat always fell short of putting it into words that these two, especially Taylor as she got angry with Kat more than once over Kat’s unwillingness to throw everything she had away, could never fully understand what her life had been like and so why she felt like she had to act a certain way as a result. Also, the reveals near the end of the book undermined this whole message, so. Never mind, I guess.

Other reviewers have spoken about the antisemitism present in this book, so I’m not going to be saying anything new here. One of the people involved in the plot to secretly control the world using blood is literally compared to a lizard at one point. I’m sure that Laurens didn’t intend to incorporate antisemitic tropes, but it’s something that authors writing about vampires need to be careful of, and the lizard comparison makes it blatantly clear that Laurens wasn’t careful.

When protagonist Kat points out that this super expensive and selective school, only attended by those deemed ‘the best of the best’ by the headmaster, only has seven students who aren’t white, and asks why this is, she get the response, from the other protagonist who we’re supposed to also be rooting for, that poc probably wouldn’t want to come to a school this elitist anyway. Not that the way the system has been designed means that poc are excluded from the opportunities that rich white people have, but that they wouldn’t want to come in the first place. And then the matter is dropped and never brought up again. Huh?

There are two major characters of colour in this book. One is Galen, the super rich heir to a shady family business, whose mother is Indian. His dad was with the British East India Company, y’know, that colonised and committed atrocities in India, and he harassed Galen’s mother for years into accepting his proposal, and this is apparently supposed to be ‘not as messed up as it sounds.’ The screenshot has been floating around Twitter recently, and it would be one thing if it was shown that Galen is wrong about it not being messed up or that he’s trying to convince himself that it’s okay when it’s not, but that’s not what’s going on here. Kat drops the discussion, and doesn’t think about it any further, and it’s never addressed. I don’t believe that if a character says something in a book that automatically means the author believes it, but this revisionist history being left entirely unchallenged in a YA novel is at best irresponsible, especially when coming from a white author. Later on, Galen is asked why he’s not in the school’s society for students of colour, and he brushes it off saying that it’s not really for people like him. What’s that supposed to mean? He’s not white, but not so not white that he considers it to be an important part of him, and he seems to view himself as being above poc who do see it as important. Again, this comment is made without note and is left unchallenged, and while there could be room for a story exploring this disconnect in his identity, this story doesn’t get explored here, and shouldn’t really be tackled by a white author anyway.

The other major character of colour is a girl specifically described as being Chinese named Lucy. Lucy is a social media influencer and forms half of a mean girl duo with white girl Evangeline. Lucy’s role in the story is to introduce the concept of vampiric charisma to the reader, that’s how she got all her followers after all, and to cause a major incident in the book. Lucy throws a party at which she brings along some humans for the vampires in attendance to drink from, which is shown to be an unambiguously violent and horrific thing for her to do and for people to be participating in. The Chinese character is the most actively violent and has amassed a large following through mind control. Um??? 

The endings for both of these characters are also worth mentioning. Galen is left in a difficult position, with his future looking uncertain and unstable, and the main characters wonder if they could’ve done more to help him before ultimately shrugging it off. Lucy and Evangeline both tormented Kat and Taylor throughout the book, but at the end of everything Taylor is still in contact with Evangeline and they’re on kinda good terms, while Lucy is despised by them both and Kat’s going around telling her human friends that Lucy is ‘problematic’ and that they should unfollow her. First, I died a little inside at the Twitter-style phrasing, which Kat said out loud, because of the level of understatement there. Second, and more importantly, the white girl can be forgiven for everything she did, but the non-white characters can’t and either have to be left in a worse position than they started in or have to be completely villainised. Why is that? Why were these characters written in this way? I mean, we know why. It’s unacceptable, and frankly it’s gross.

There’s a minor running theme through this book that being apathetic and constantly judging everyone around you aren’t good things, and spending your life thinking you’re better than everyone else is only going to make you and the people around you miserable. Except this is first said by characters (Lucy and Evangeline) who don’t take their own advice, and Taylor never seems to learn it either, and right at the start Taylor was girl-hatey about people who hadn’t done anything to her except exist in her proximity, and in the end I could see what Laurens was trying to do but I think she seriously missed the mark.

Has Laurens ever met a teenager? The school doesn’t have a set of rules, instead it has an ‘Honor Code’ that students are expected to apply to every situation and magically know whether they are or aren’t allowed to do something according to it, with them potentially getting in a lot of trouble if they guess wrong. When I was in year 12, so when I was the same age as the characters here, my school had a dress code. The intention behind it was for us to dress smartly, but it was pretty specific in weird and unnecessary ways, especially for girls, disallowing some things that were perfectly workplace appropriate and allowing some things that were decidedly not. Of course, this led to many people making sure to wear things in the latter category. We ended up having an assembly telling us that we needed to dress ourselves according to ‘the spirit of the dress code’, a phrase which became an instant school-wide meme because of how ridiculous it was. If it wasn’t specifically written down in the rules, and sometimes even if it was specifically written down in the rules but we disagreed with it, then it wasn’t getting obeyed. Kat worrying about the Honor Code made sense, but any other student in that school citing it at any point absolutely did not. They wouldn’t care. Have you ever met a 16/17 year old who’s that pressed about not making their school look bad? Over ‘rules’ that aren’t even concretely written down anywhere? I certainly haven’t.

I’m aware that the Harry Potter reference in the arc is changed into a Star Wars reference in the final version of the book, however this reference shouldn’t have made it this far in the first place. Rowling showed her hand long enough ago that it’s baffling that Laurens included it at all. Plus, the reference is in the context of negatively describing how somebody looks, so either way it comes off as mean spirited and not strictly necessary.

I enjoyed the way that the scene detailing Kat’s queer crisis was written, with her spiralling thoughts being intercut with what she was physically doing at the time. I appreciated that it was highlighted that while some queer people always know that they’re queer, some queer people do not, and the belief that queer people always knew who they were from the moment they were capable of forming thought can do more harm than good to people who are questioning. I liked that Kat figured out that she liked girls, and thought that she probably didn’t like guys, but ultimately put the label question to the side as her actively liking girls, and specifically Taylor, was the more important thing. Taylor calls herself a lesbian many times, so this wasn’t a case of a weird aversion to the word lesbian, but for a lot of people it’s not that simple and it’s not that clear cut and all they’ll achieve by trying to pin themselves down immediately is extra stress. Kat is most likely a lesbian, but her figuring out that she’s definitely attracted to women, and deciding that figuring out for certain whether she’s attracted to men too or not is a problem for another day, was an approach that I did enjoy.

It doesn’t make up for any of the racism though. Not even a little. And the relationship between the girls didn’t quite hit for me, either. I would not recommend this book.

Thank you to Razorbill, TBR and Beyond Tours, and NetGalley for an e-arc of this book

[melissentee]

The only thing men hated more than girls crying was when we didn't cry exactly when they expected.

Youngblood by Sasha Laurens

[clichesadmusic]

"...being in love with Katherine Finn was the stone I'd spend my immortality pushing up a hill, just so it could roll back and crush me again, and again, and again." - Sasha Laurens, Youngblood.

[publishedtoday]

Youngblood - Sasha Laurens 

Kat Finn and her mother can barely make ends meet living among humans. Like all vampires, they must drink Hema, an expensive synthetic blood substitute, to survive, as nearly all of humanity has been infected by a virus that’s fatal to vampires. Kat isn’t looking forward to an immortal life of barely scraping by, but when she learns she’s been accepted to the Harcote School, a prestigious prep school that’s secretly vampires-only, she knows her fortune is about to change. Taylor Sanger has grown up in the wealthy vampire world, but she’s tired of its backward, conservative values—especially when it comes to sexuality, since she’s an out-and-proud lesbian. She only has to suffer through a two more years of Harcote before she’s free. But when she discovers her new roommate is Kat Finn, she’s horrified. Because she and Kat used to be best friends, a long time ago, and it didn’t end well. When Taylor stumbles upon the dead body of a vampire, and Kat makes a shocking discovery in the school’s archives, the two realize that there are deep secrets at Harcote—secrets that link them to the most powerful figures in Vampirdom and to the synthetic blood they all rely on.

tw: ableist language, antisemitic tropes, biological warfare, blood, death, homophobia, murder, racism, violence Several reviewers have mentioned that some overarching issues like racism, homophobia, and antisemitism are badly handled, so please be careful/aware

[tymp3st]

Youngblood

It’s odd how nice it felt writing this. I’m still not sure I’m back in the groove of things, but this feels like a good start. This one is thanks to the cool folks at Penguin. Here’s Sasha Laurens’ Youngblood. Enjoy! Kat Finn is desperate to avoid spending eternity living hand to mouth, barely able to afford the blood replacement, Hema, that all vampires need to survive in a world where most…