This is the first book in a while I actually have to give up on. I was not enjoying myself while reading this. Whilest I loved the representation - diversity and a plussized MC! - the story itself was so... Boring. Its so slow and we get way too many descriptions of the MC's make up and outfits. She also keeps reminding us thats she's not into geek things and is not like the other girls, on top of constantly reminding us she's goth by using the word 'goddess' all the time and praying to Edgar Allan Poe. The descriptions of the conventions were incredibly weird as well - who pays 20 bucks and then doesn't walk around at a convention? Who changes into their outfit in the bathroom of a convention?

But the part that actually made me stop reading immediatly - I literally had just settled down in the sun to read a bit - was the chapter where our MC compares LARP to Schizofrenia - or not knowing what is real and what isn't. Thanks for insulting a huge part of the geek culture.

Thank you to Netgalley, North Star, and Lindsay Zrull for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Since the age of seven, Jess has moved from foster home to foster home. So, she knows better than to put down roots anywhere. Almost immediately, she’s an outcast at her new Michigan high school. No one notices her except Oscar, the nerdy kid. He wants to recruit her for his cosplay group because of her fashion, makeup, and sewing skills.

When Jess starts getting messages from someone in New York claiming to be her biomom, Oscar and his cosplay might be Jess’s ticket to get there. Things start to get complicated when Jess finds she enjoys cosplay–and the company of her new friends and foster mom.

Thanks to NetGalley and Flux for an advanced copy of this to review! I always enjoy reviewing books set in Michigan, and I love the cover on this book. It’s such a fun cover! Plus, the story of foster kids isn’t told a lot in YA, and I was glad to see that in this book.

The main thing this book has going for it is the voice. Zrull absolutely nails Jess’s voice right from the beginning. You can tell she’s felt pain in her life, and she’s guarded with all the people she meets. But! We get to see her evolve throughout the book. Seeing her make new friends and relationships was such a treasure. And I absolutely adored her foster mom, who was doing everything in her power to make Jess comfortable. It was adorable.

There is really just a great cast of characters overall in this book. Jess’s little cosplay group embraces their nerdiness, and they make some excellent costumes in the book! At least, from what I can picture. It kind of made me want to get into cosplay!

My only complaint is that the ending felt a bit too abrupt. There was a lot of build up to the climax and it all got resolved rather quickly. I just would have liked a little more resolution there at the end.

All in all, this is a great debut, and I can’t wait for other people to get to read it!

I received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 stars.

A dedication to all goth girls out there and a heartfelt tribute to mental illness, in all its various forms.

This story has wit, sass, nerdy fun but it also has really deep and meaningful conversations throughout. It truly highlights the highs and lows of being a foster child and the desperate need for connection that can sometimes come from those situations.

I truly adored the characters growth throughout and the very raw and real ending.

I. Loved. This. Book. I was sold on the description alone (a goth girl in foster care who joins a cosplay team in order to go to NYC to find her birth mom), but the execution of the story was awesome. I loved all the characters, they were all so endearing and well-developed. Jess’ internal thoughts and worries were so accurate and insightful that it was like speaking to many of the kids dealing with foster care/trauma/mental illness that I have worked with (former child therapist, here). The author handled mental illness in such a thoughtful, compassionate way. Not only was I smiling like a goober while I read this book, but I was so happy that a story like this is out there for kids to read and feel understood, or gain understanding of what others experience. Also, the geekery was so fun!!

This book was a lot different than I expected it to be, but I ended up really enjoying it. The side characters were fun and the pacing kept things interesting, and the plot itself was perfectly geeky and heartfelt. I especially liked reading about Jess and Barbra's relationship; I think that was the standout storyline. There was also some great diversity in the main cast in terms of body type, sexuality, and race. It took me a while to warm up to Jess and her narration style, but by the halfway mark I was all in.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

While adorable, I think the cover and title of this book are pretty misleading. They kind of imply that 1) the book will have anything to do with goth culture and 2) that the story will be kind of cutesy. Either of these were true.

Goth Girl, Queen of the universe follows our main girl, Jess,who is a foster teen that gets roped into the cosplay world in a bid to reconnect with her biomom. The author was a foster teen, so that aspect of the story felt really authentic, and there was solid representation in this, if you look for that.

Unfortunately, I found the writing a bit on the juvenile side - more Middle Grade than YA - and found it really hard to connect with Jess.

TL;DR - This was legit, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I admittedly struggled through the first 30% of this book as I felt like the author was "talking down" to the reader, in a way. But I am realizing now that it was less of that and more just that the author tended to tell the audience how the main character felt rather than showing us. As I continued to read on, I started to understand that it fits the MC perfectly, but I think I generally have a personal pet peeve of telling vs showing in books. Due to that, I decided not to dock any stars as that's my own personal thing but I think I also struggled through the first 30% because I just struggled to like the MC, honestly. That being said, I fell in love with the MC, and honestly, the entire crew, as I read and her growth (and the rest of the crew too) throughout this book was absolutely amazing to see. This story discusses so many important topics like mental illness, mental health advocacy, the foster care system, and trauma. I also really appreciated that we got a lens into Jess's struggles with her feelings related to her biological mom.

I cried like five times throughout this story and laughed twice as many as that. So if you're struggling through that first beginning part of this story, I truly recommend holding on because I really did end up loving this story by the end. I also truly loved Jess's goth style and her advocacy for self-expression through her clothing and makeup. I think that's such an important thing and I know young me would have absolutely loved to see a badass goth gal in literature.

This books is about a girl Jess how moves about several foster homes. She ended up in foster due to her mum mental health problem. Her mum suffered from schizophrenia. Jess struggles with being bullied and her current situation with moving around foster homes. Jess and her foster mum Barbara begin to bond over her support for Jess. I would recommend reading this book. I just reviewed Goth Girl, Queen of the Universe by Lindsay S. Zrull. #GothGirlQueenoftheUniverse #NetGalley

i loved this!! it immediately reminded me of "my dress-up darling." i loved the MC and the mental health aspect. it was different to see absent parents in the form of illness rather than divorce, abuse, etc. but it was so adorable.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. I don't really know what I expected from this, but whatever it was, I didn't get it. It's listed as YA, but it reads more like MG. So maybe that was part of it.

As the story went on, I just found Jess insufferable. Her constant self-sabotage was annoying. In the beginning, it was understandable. She's been bounced between multiple foster homes, she has trust issues. I get it. She visibly has a good thing going for her and she constantly rejects everything. And for what!? I felt so bad for Barbra. The woman did not deserve how Jess treated her.

I also found it kind of strange that the story centers around conventions, but they don't do anything at the conventions. The group didn't actually go to any of the panels until the 2nd one, and then I don't think it was ever mentioned again. I know they were there specifically to enter the competition, but no one is gonna spend that much money on con tickets and not go to panels or do things besides "work the floor." I don't need a full page describing every minute detail of each member's outfits.

I appreciate the lgbtqia+, mental illness, and body positivity representation. Always nice to read that in a book. I don't think I'd recommend this book to anyone and I don't see myself ever picking it up again for a reread.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Jess was a compelling protagonist, and I enjoyed watching her relationships progress with her foster mother and the other members of her cosplay crew. The costumes and conventions took me back to my own cosplay days.

This story, about a goth teen in foster care who finds friends in a group of cosplaying geeks and develops a good relationship with her foster mother, despite a history that makes her wary of forming long-term attachments, is sweet, earnest, and thoughtful. The book got better and better for me as I went along--the emphasis on Poe in the beginning was, in my opinion, far less effective than the pivot to various geek subcultures (Star Wars, scream queens and classic camp horror, David Bowie) later in the book, and kept throwing me trying to figure out where it was GOING. But Jess' concern (which is not and cannot be resolved in this book) that she will inherit her mother's schizophrenia was well-handled and nuanced--what does it look like, Zrull asks, to work to not stigmatize mental illness while recognizing its tragedies and worrying about how it may affect us personally?

I read this book myself first as there were apparently some themes that I was not sure about , and did not want to read with the children until I knew the exact content. I need not have worried, although tackling some important themes, this book was a delight and I will be reading it with the family over the bank holiday long weekend. We try to read a range of books about different cultures and lifestyles and this fits our bill very well.

I really wanted to like it. But sometimes it felt too much too me, too cringy and trying too hard.
So i did not like it as much a si had hoped.

This was such a sweet book that, for the first time, gave me a true understanding of the often heartbreaking experience of being put through the foster care system. No wonder, the author is herself a former foster youth and peppers the book with very funny Pro Tips.. Jess is wonderful and likable main character, struggling to overcome her fear of abandonment and suspicion of her new stepmother, Barbara, while her erratic biomes reaches out through social media. It sounds heavy, but there's so much lighthearted fun in Jesses' relationship with adorable Oscar, who pulls her into his cosplay troupe to compete in local competitions. And Jesses' relationship with Barbara deepens as Jess begins to let her guard down and let Barbara in. An engaging debut by a writer to watch, highly recommended!

It's a fun and touching book, but the heroine is too much is "not like the other goths" vibes. I totaly get were she's coming from, but her behavior create a distance with me. But the other characters are sweet cinnamon rolls.

I’m left speechless for how incredible this book is. The characters you cannot help fall in love with, the plot and adventures along the way are great, pacing and writing is well done. But the thing I loved most was the open discussion about mental health.

There are multiple characters with different struggles, and we see from all perspectives and it’s a main point how mental health is an important factor that deserves recognition and help, the book helps break harmful stigmas. Characters are shown dealing with and living great fulfilling lives even with illnesses the media tends to show as evil and life ruining. Jess as a main character was amazing, she’s a teen and she makes mistakes but she learns and grows and she’s an absolute badass.

I have nothing bad to say about this book, phenomenal new must read.


I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review

What made me want to pick up this book was that it was about a foster teen written BY a former foster teen, and I was so happy with the rep in this book!! I am *very* passionate about the fact that all types of families need to be represented in YA (I mean, like, I wrote a whole entire 80-page paper about it), and I was especially happy that it was written from an insider's perspective. This book also did a great job with its representation of different mental illnesses and also pointing out how harmful the things people say or the media we consume can be in influencing implicit biases toward people living with mental illness.

The reason why I knocked my rating down to four stars is that some of the prose rubbed me the wrong way, and didn't feel authentic to how a high schooler would describe themselves (mainly how Jess described her body and her makeup). It felt very Torrid-ad crossed with early 2000s fanfic at some points.

It was also very obvious that this book was written by a librarian (which is not an insult!). The portrayals of libraries were very accurate and contributes toward a counter-argument to the people who say we just sit around reading books all day.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

***4.5 stars***

Thank you to the author, Flux, and NetGalley for a copy of this book to review.

Let me start off by saying that YA makes up about 20% of my annual reading, and I am typically disappointed with it. I frequently find the characters too immature, one dimensional, and too perfect (even when they are written as stereotypically imperfect). I was drawn to this book because of the beautiful cover and overall theme. I've never read (or even seen) a similar book surrounding cosplay, cons, and geek culture. I was surprised to find just how deep this story was, and how complex the characters were. The characters were not served on a silver platter, and instead developed and grew over the course of the story. If I can use one word to summarize this book, it is REAL! This was one of the best depictions/discussions about mental health that I have ever seen in a YA book. It didn't sugar coat it, and was really smart about how it portrayed things given the intended audience of the book. It didn't talk down to it's readers, and I appreciated that.

As I was working my way through the book, I stopped and did some research about the author. To find that they are a former foster kid lends so much credibility to the story. I thought it was written in a way that was so authentic, and gave me insight into something I have no experience in. More books about foster kids please! We all need to see that and get that perspective from those who have experienced it firsthand. That representation is just as important as highlighting other marginalized groups, and they seem to be forgotten in literature quite frequently.

My only con is that I think there were some areas that could have been trimmed down a bit. Some things got a little too descriptive for me (like the LARP scene), and I think tightening that up could have helped the pacing. I didn't rush to finish this book, but it was a good time as I was reading. I'm glad that the book had a neat ending, but the outcome wasn't perfect.

💥 Schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety, LGBTQ+, and foster care rep.💥

I'm speechless with this book. I couldn't put it down. It was such a beautiful story and extremely well written and y'all need to read this. Jess' story was so emotional and raw. I think the way Zrull discusses the topics of mental health, foster care, and cosplaying were also really well done. Now I have so many great quotes about these topics! I thought the cosplay aspect was fun to read about and now I want to check out a con. Overall, this book is spectacular so please read it.

6/5 Stars