Aminah Mae Safi

Set over the course of one day, Aminah Mae Safi's This Is All Your Fault is a smart and voice-driven YA novel that follows three young women determined to save their indie bookstore. Rinn Olivera is finally going to tell her longtime crush AJ that she’s in love with him. Daniella Korres writes poetry for her own account, but nobody knows it’s her. Imogen Azar is just trying to make it through the day. When Rinn, Daniella, and Imogen clock into work at Wild Nights Bookstore on the first day of summer, they’re expecting the hours to drift by the way they always do. Instead, they have to deal with the news that the bookstore is closing. Before the day is out, there’ll be shaved heads, a diva author, and a very large shipment of Air Jordans to contend with. And it will take all three of them working together if they have any chance to save Wild Nights Bookstore.

This Is All Your Fault

Sarah Sammis

Another failing or closing business story. Most similar to: Hot Dog Girl and This Time Will Be Different but shares themes with The Printed Letter Bookshop and Stay Sweet.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2020/comm...

Belle Ellrich

*I WAS PROVIDED A PHYSICAL GALLEY BY THE PUBLISHER IN RETURN FOR MY HONEST REVIEW. THIS DOES NOT AFFECT MY OPINION*

Wheww, there's a lot of things to unpack here. Before I get started, though, please know that this book contains the following content and trigger warnings: depression, attempted sexual assault, attempted sexual assault to a minor, possible anger disorder, anxiety/panic.

Now, onto my thoughts.

This book let me down *severely*. I requested this book because of, 1. It's by Aminah Mae Safi and 2. It's set in Chicago. I loved Aminah's previous release, Tell Me How You Really Feel, and I expected this one to be just as good, if not better, than it. That was, unfortunately, not the case.

For 90% of this book, the characters couldn't get along AT ALL. They're constantly fighting, and it's a wonder they've stayed coworkers for as long as they've said. Another unrealistic part to this book was the fact that there is a team of mainly teen employees. For those who don't understand why this isn't realistic, I'd suggest taking a quick moment to Google search ages that bookstores hire at. Barnes and Noble say they hire at 16+ but actually only hire 18+. BAM! hires at 18+. My manager had to call the owner of our bookstore to ask for permission in hiring me because I'm under 18. It's HIGHLY unlikely that there will be a FULL TEAM of just teenagers working in a bookstore.

Continuing on, there were some pretty serious scenes dealing with the mental health aspects of this book. Daniella--who may have an anger disorder from what I picked up on--was CONSTANTLY bashing Imogen for being depressed. Every time she did it, it was never addressed or brought up even as she did it again and again and again. It was faulty and it's harmful to readers like myself who deal with depression every day.

Another thing; this book is labeled as being LGBTQA+, but it's really not. Imogen has ONE SCENE, in which she's breaking up with her girlfriend, and that's it. I would not count this book as being LGBTQA+ when that's all that's really given.

Also, I can't help but feel like this book is very stigmatized with teenage stereotypes. ALL of the teens in this book were mentioned to have either drank alcohol or vape. The problem with this is that it's normalizing that ALL teens do this, when in reality, it's only a small percentage. It's really unlikely and unrealistic that the entire team of teenage employees vape or drink.

Don't get me wrong, the writing style and the diversity of the characters is really what kept me reading. But after everything else? It really threw this book down the gutter. I love Aminah, but this book is not her best piece and I wouldn't suggest it.

This Is All Your Fault

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