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featherinthewind's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
First of all, amazing. This book deals with so much and it is centered around drinking and the complexity of relationships, and as someone who wanted to self destruct all the time as a teenager because of unstable coping mechanisms, I loved this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Outing, Gaslighting, and Alcohol
imstephtacular's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Wow this book is a kick in the teeth! It absolutely wrecked me and slowly pieced me back together. It’s hard but it’s beautiful
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, and Classism
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Mental illness, Racism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Outing, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Blood, and Cultural appropriation
dhatislandbookworm's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
How far would you go to be accepted, even if it’s self-destructive? Once again, Jas Hammonds is disrupting the young adult genre with their sophomore effort, Thirsty. It’s the summer before freshman year and we’re following 18-year-old Blake (aka Big Baddie Bee) as she tries to join the exclusive Serena Society — and the limits she’s willing to push herself to do so.
Reading this was like watching a wreck in slow motion — and I mean that as a good thing.
From the jump, we understand Blake’s motivation to join the Serenas and why she drinks so heavily. Her inner monologue is characterized so effectively that you do empathize with her and all the shit she’s going through. However,Hammonds ensures you’re still aware that Blake won’t find validation and the answers she’s seeking at the bottom of a bottle. As a result, you’re rooting for Blake (and cussing her ass out at the same time tbh) to make wiser decisions, drop the toxic people around her, and get on the track to sobriety.
Blake is one of the most complex teenage protagonists I’ve had the pleasure of reading, and Hammonds did an excellent job on making her feel genuine. And not only are there poignant conversations about alcohol addiction, but classism, racism, gender, peer pressure, and emotionally abusive relationships as well, which are handled with so much care. By the end of the book, tears were shed.
I loved We Deserve Monuments, but Thirsty cemented Hammonds as an auto-buy author for me. It’s been a week since I’ve read it and it’s STILL on my mind. I also want to give my kudos to the narrator who did an excellent job at bringing this cast of characters to life.
I’m excited to see what Hammonds has up their sleeve next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Cursing, Sexual content, Transphobia, and Outing
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
bookishmillennial's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
This is the story of the summer before 18-year-old Blake Brenner (biracial Black & white) goes to college with her longtime girlfriend Ella (biracial Filipina & Black) & their best friend, Annette, who is recently reeling over her mom leaving Virginia to pursue her career in NYC. Ella is the epitome of wealthy elite, being a legacy kid at their upcoming college and in the secret Serena Society that Ella's mom is an advisor for now. Meanwhile, Blake puts more and more distance between her and her family, especially her white mom who never put in the effort to learn what is necessary to raise a biracial Black child.
Blake's family is *not* wealthy, and this comes up a lot as the three besties rush for the Serena Society all summer, especially under the scrutinizing eye of Roxanne, a current Serena Society member. Blake confronts all the things she hates about herself: her behavior when she drinks, her family's class and lack of status, her white mom, her relationship with Ella, and more. Side characters explore their gender identities, familial dynamics, and more, and each character is layered, and cleverly nuanced.
Okay, as to not spoil this book for you, but to pitch it to you, and convince you to read it, I know that nothing I say will do this book justice. It is a privilege to have read it, and to have had the physical book in my hands, I'm serious!!!! To put it quite simply: This is one of the best books I have ever read. Jas Hammonds is a master of their craft, and I am quite simply in awe of their talent. I genuinely feel so lucky that I got to read an ARC of this?! Blake interrogates her feelings, both about herself and those surrounding her; she makes messy, painful decisions out of insecurity, spite, and fear; and though you may question her choices at times, no one is harder on Blake than Blake herself.
This delved deep into the shame, regret, pain, agony, grief, and self-hatred that one feels in the midst of alcoholism and addiction, but never painted them as a villain. Blake was just.... human. She was still worthy of redemption, of forgiveness, of hope, of something more. She still deserved better from those who claimed to care for her. Damn, this book wrecked me but then gently nudged me to remind me that it would be okay, and to believe in and root for Blake.
Some other things that stood out to me that are kind of spoilers, enjoy these unstructured thoughts:
This is the story of the summer before 18-year-old Blake Brenner (biracial Black & white) goes to college with her longtime girlfriend Ella (biracial Filipina & Black) & their best friend, Annette, who is recently reeling over her mom leaving Virginia to pursue her career in NYC. Ella is the epitome of wealthy elite, being a legacy kid at their upcoming college and in the secret Serena Society that Ella's mom is an advisor for now. Meanwhile, Blake puts more and more distance between her and her family, especially her white mom who never put in the effort to learn what is necessary to raise a biracial Black child.
Blake's family is *not* wealthy, and this comes up a lot as the three besties rush for the Serena Society all summer, especially under the scrutinizing eye of Roxanne, a current Serena Society member. Blake confronts all the things she hates about herself: her behavior when she drinks, her family's class and lack of status, her white mom, her relationship with Ella, and more. Side characters explore their gender identities, familial dynamics, and more, and each character is layered, and cleverly nuanced.
Okay, as to not spoil this book for you, but to pitch it to you, and convince you to read it, I know that nothing I say will do this book justice. It is a privilege to have read it, and to have had the physical book in my hands, I'm serious!!!! To put it quite simply: This is one of the best books I have ever read. Jas Hammonds is a master of their craft, and I am quite simply in awe of their talent. I genuinely feel so lucky that I got to read an ARC of this?! Blake interrogates her feelings, both about herself and those surrounding her; she makes messy, painful decisions out of insecurity, spite, and fear; and though you may question her choices at times, no one is harder on Blake than Blake herself.
This delved deep into the shame, regret, pain, agony, grief, and self-hatred that one feels in the midst of alcoholism and addiction, but never painted them as a villain. Blake was just.... human. She was still worthy of redemption, of forgiveness, of hope, of something more. She still deserved better from those who claimed to care for her. Damn, this book wrecked me but then gently nudged me to remind me that it would be okay, and to believe in and root for Blake.
Some other things that stood out to me that are kind of spoilers, enjoy these unstructured thoughts:
Ella's motivations were driven by this need to uphold the status that was already placed onto her perfect lil' head at birth, but I found her character to be so fascinating. It shows that you do not have to be white to uphold systems that do not serve people of color, even if they are seemingly targeted towards them? Like the Serena Society is specifically for young women of color, but it also perpetuated problematic messaging that you needed to drink, be friends with the "right" people, and have the right clothes / job / partner / etc. in order to fit in. That's just subscribing to what colonialism and white supremacy taught us, and Ella makes decisions based on upholding Black excellence, when it is only depriving herself of genuine, authentic connections with herself and others; and it's actively harming those around her who are struggling. Wild. JH, you making Ella half-Filipina was the right move because Ella's people-pleasing, gaslighting, toxic positivity, and fear of not delivering perfection was *wildly* authentic. The conversation between Blake and her mom about her comment that Mariah Carey was "only half Black" was a reckoning. I appreciated that Blake held her mom accountable for microaggressions with that as a salient example, but still gave her the chance to do better. Blake seemingly wrote her mom off with Ella's influence, as Ella called Blake's mom "so hopelessly white," and like sure, that can be true. However, you can also name those feelings and invite your mom to do better if you feel like the relationship is salvageable, and instead, Ella just posited her mom as perfect and Blake's mom as irredeemable, which is interesting because Ella actually felt almost irredeemable to me for a lot of this book (but she isn't, she just needs to go on her own unlearning journey). I fear I may never recover from the carnival family day where Blake just left. I cried and shook my head, I yelled at the book, and I got such deep secondhand-shame. JH's writing is phenomenal. Stellar. Unbelievable. I could feel the heartache through the page. Still recovering. Still tearing up thinking about this scene! It is indelibly seared into my brain forever.
I am simmering in the pure wonder that I have as I ruminate on how JH does what they do. I'm speechless at how moved I was by this. I sobbed into my pillow, took breaks to hug the book, and whispered, "Blake baby, noooooo" so many times. I cannot properly express how monumentally this book affected me (okay wait, do you get it? Because JH's other book is named "We Deserve Monuments" ?! GET IT?! okay, I'll stop being corny)
Check content warnings below, and take care while reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism
Moderate: Sexual content