Oh, Alice Oseman. I love your books so much. Maybe especially this one. I’m really thankful for this depiction of queer joy that dismantles stereotypes.

Reframes Mary in a really interesting way. It was incredibly gratifying to see her emerge from her poor self-image and become self-realised. Felt inspirational.

Probably one of the Dickens books I like the best, he’s not my favourite author overall, but this story brought so many iconic characters and is the embodiment of the kind of Christmas spirit that should be carried forward.

There’s a lot to love about David Copperfield. If you’ve ever read Dickens, this is possibly the most Dickensian of all—with eccentric characters, class conscious themes, and it feels very affectionate.

This is very typical YA in a neutral way. The themes feel shallow compared to her later works, but I love this world still.

Eh…Bernadine delivers a book conscious of minority women’s struggles enough to be interesting but with very little backbone. Seems to be in the tradition of I support women’s rights and wrongs (and occasionally non-binary rights and wrongs) because I have nothing meaningful to say about them. I just can’t fully get on board with it.

I’m never going to forget the colour purple. When I’m lying in bed and lying about lying that I’m well, I’ll think of the colour purple and remember I’m here for a reason.

I don’t really want to review this. Having read both authors I can tell you that all the best jokes probably came from Terry Pratchett.

I liked this collection. As a poet myself, I don’t care that it’s simple. And as a reader, I cared a lot. That’s all.

This may seem arrogant, but for a while I thought I was Alice, because we have the same name. It was through her navigating a confusing new world with wit and humour that I saw myself. But, now I understand that she belongs to everyone else too.