I’ve been reading a lot lately, so it’s finally time for another book review round up!

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I Must Betray You

By Ruta Sepetys

Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force.Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves–or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe.

Cristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. But what is the cost of freedom?

Thanks to Penguin Teen for an eARC of the book. This did not affect my review at all.

Wow, this one is heavy and hit me like a ton of bricks, but it was amazing. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this book because I had very high expectations of Sepetys’s last book, The Fountains of Silence, and ended up being a bit disappointed by it – though it’s still a good read for sure.

I Must Betray You starts off a bit slow, but once it picks up around the 40-50% mark, things unfold very quickly. The characters are complex. They make mistakes and make choices you might not agree with but that is understandable and realistic. I found some of the secondary characters more interesting, and I wish we could get a companion novel or something about Cici, Cristian’s sister, but I also think that Cristian ended up being the best narrator for the book. I Must Betray You offers a look into what it might be like for children, teens, and young adults during conflicts, revolutions, etc. As I said, you might not agree with all of Cristian’s choices, but they make sense for a teen and in a situation where there is no easy or right choice – you don’t know what kind of choices you would make until you’re put in the same situation. Similarly, for much of the novel, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the romance subplot and the way it’s so central to Cristian, but again, it’s real that it would matter that much to a teen, even as you see it lead to devastating consequences.

The book really captured the feeling of fear and silence, of never knowing who to trust, even within your own family. It so clearly and viscerally makes you, the reader, feel the tight grip the Romanian communist regime had over the people, of the suffering and fear they must have felt. The structure of the book also lends itself well to this, even as it’s a bit too heavy-handed with the foreshadowing at times. Cristian constantly says things like “if only I knew then what was about to happen,” even when I don’t think it was needed. But it does build up the story and heightens the suspense and suspicion and uncertainty because you know something bad is going to happen, but you don’t know exactly how. It helps to build that uneasy feeling/atmosphere, which is part of what makes the book so good and so powerful.

I Must Betray You really shows the complexity of conflict and revolution. There are no clear black and white sides. There are no easy choices. Trying to survive can lead you to make bad decisions. The ending of the book really underscores this complexity. As Sepetys notes in her author’s note, while the somewhat open-ended ending might be frustrating, there are no neat and final answers. We can want a clear answer about what happened to Cici, but just as in real life, so many families never get that closure, never get those answers, or it might take decades for the truth to be uncovered. This reality is even more devastating but cemented for me the brilliance of Sepetys and her writing. I’ve been thinking about this book long after I finished it, and despite being one of the last books I read in 2021, it easily made it into my favorites of the year list.

The Heart Principle

By Helen Hoang

When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She’s going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better.

That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding Quan Diep comes in. Their first attempt at a one-night stand fails, as does their second, and their third, because being with Quan is more than sex–he accepts Anna on an unconditional level that she herself has just started to understand. However, when tragedy strikes Anna’s family she takes on a role that she is ill-suited for, until the burden of expectations threatens to destroy her. Anna and Quan have to fight for their chance at love, but to do that, they also have to fight for themselves.

This one actually was my last read of the year, and it was another great one. The Heart Principle wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it hit all the right notes for me – a solid romance plot and a very well-written family plot. While it’s classified as a romance, I would be hesitant to fully consider it that. There are some heavy trigger and content warnings, which I’ve listed below, and I think you should really be aware of it going into the book. It’s an incredibly emotional and great read, but it’s quite heavy for a romance novel, so don’t go into it expecting something lighthearted.

Hoang has noted that the book is “half memoir,” and I think her own pain and experiences really shine through and make this land. And not to be blasé about it because I really don’t mean it in that way, but it almost felt like a fictional version of Crying in Hmart. The book features complicated Chinese family dynamics and how Anna, the main character, navigates her autism and the caretaking role she’s asked to take on, even at the expense of her own health. I thought the family elements were handled well and that they were real rather than stereotypical. As an older sister, this was at times hard to read, and while I’m somewhat sad about how Anna and her sister’s relationship ended up, I’m glad that Anna stuck up for herself. The book powerfully asserts that we shouldn’t have to stick by toxic, abusive people, even if they’re family.

I do wish we got to see more of her relationship with her dad. Also, the book is at times a bit uneven – the ending could’ve been fleshed out more, and there were certain plot points that were introduced but not given much time. But, like I said, it’s a solid read, and the romance plot was fantastic. I’ve seen some people say that the family plot overwhelms the romance in parts 2 and 3, but while I partially agree, I didn’t find that bad or disappointing. Maybe it’s because I didn’t really have any expectations of the book going into it and didn’t know much about the plot and not necessarily looking for a light romance novel. Whatever the reason, Hoang actually does a great job of realistically balancing the two and showing the fallout of what Anna goes through. Plus, Hoang handles the parts about consent and pleasure exceptionally well. Overall, I really enjoyed the book, even though it wasn’t a fluffy romance. Just be aware if you’re going to pick it up, that it’s really quite heavy and hard-hitting.

TWs/CWs: gaslighting, emotional abuse, stroke, cancer, death of parent, infertility, ableism, suicidal ideation, toxic family

Kiss & Tell

By Adib Khorram

Hunter never expected to be a boy band star, but, well, here he is. He and his band Kiss & Tell are on their first major tour of North America, playing arenas all over the United States and Canada (and getting covered by the gossipy press all over North America as well). Hunter is the only gay member of the band, and he just had a very painful breakup with his first boyfriend–leaked sexts, public heartbreak, and all–and now everyone expects him to play the perfect queer role model for teens.But Hunter isn’t really sure what being the perfect queer kid even means. Does it mean dressing up in whatever The Label tells him to wear for photo shoots and pretending never to have sex? (Unfortunately, yes.) Does it mean finding community among the queer kids at the meet-and-greets after K&T’s shows? (Fortunately, yes.) Does it include a new relationship with Kaivan, the drummer for the band opening for K&T on tour? (He hopes so.) But when The Label finds out about Hunter and Kaivan, it spells trouble–for their relationship, for the perfect gay boy Hunter plays for the cameras, and, most importantly, for Hunter himself.

Thanks to Penguin Teen for an eARC of the book. This did not affect my review at all.

I had high expectations for this one – I am a sucker for a good YA novel about famous singers. Unfortunately, this fell a little flat for me. It’s a pretty evenly paced book, which is fine, but it also means it didn’t really ever build up, and I wasn’t particularly invested in either the plot or the characters.

To that end, I liked Hunter and could understand what he was going through, but I also didn’t find him very compelling and was more interested in the side characters. I would’ve preferred seeing Kaivan’s POV more than Hunter’s. Additionally, most of the side characters were just in the background, especially the other band members. They all sort of blended together and were used to further Hunter’s own story.

That said, Hunter does learn and grow a lot over the course of the book. Even though the book at times comments on the fact that he has a very privileged white boy attitude towards his problems, it still feels extremely white gay boy-esque the whole way through in a way that I think undermines some of its strengths. We didn’t see much of the other boys’ experiences/struggles with fame, though we were occasionally told about it. I also wish we would’ve seen more / gotten a more complete arc about Hunter’s songwriting – to see Hunter actively be writing or engaged in the songwriting process.

I also appreciated the commentary in Kiss & Tell about fame and parasocial relationships, and I thought it was a particular strength of the book, even if it’s not very subtle about it. Not all the articles scattered throughout the book are/seem necessary, but it helps to get the point across and a lot of it was cleverly / well done – the think pieces, the critiques, how people talk about celebrities and celebrity relationships, the fans and fandoms, the trolls, etc. All of that just felt SO on point to me. All in all, it was a good read, though not my favorite. I think people will enjoy it and resonate with it.

People From My Neighborhood

By Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Ted Goossen

A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps doll’s brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever heard of. These are some of the inhabitants of People from My Neighborhood.In their lives, details of the local and everyday–the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color and shape of the roof of the tax office–slip into accounts of duels, prophetic dreams, revolutions, and visitations from ghosts and gods. In twenty-six palm of the hand stories–fictions small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand and brief enough to allow for dipping in and out–Hiromi Kawakami creates a universe ruled by mystery and transformation.

This was my first dive into translated Japanese literature, and it was an interesting one! I really had no expectations but have been wanting to more intentionally read translated works, and there seems to be quite a lot of Japanese translated lit. People from My Neighborhood features strange, semi-interconnected short stories about a neighborhood and the people in it. They’re slice-of-life-esque but because they’re partially inter-connected in that character show up across stories, I thought it might lead somewhere in particular. It did not.

It honestly took me forever to finish the book, and the book felt like it was much longer than it was. I didn’t find any of the stories particularly compelling, and it wasn’t the easiest to pick up. That said, I would recommend reading it as completely as possible in a sitting or not spacing out the stories too much because it’s a bit hard to follow the interconnections. It might not even be necessary to do so, but it frustrated me when it would mention a previously mentioned character, and I would try to piece together who exactly they were. It was hard to get any sense of characterization when read across a longer period of time, and I think it might have been more interesting if I had remembered some of the characters more. All of that said, it was a good read and different from what I usually read, and I definitely intend to read more translated Japanese literature.