Book Review | The Paper and Hearts Society: Read with Pride by Lucy Powrie

Hello my lovely bookworms. Happy Wednesday! On Monday I was talking about Books and Books and I’m so excited to read the sequel to The Paper and Hearts Society. I literally just finished Read with Pride last night and I have so much to say about it, so here is my fangirly review, I hope you enjoy it. I loved it!

Read with Pride (The Paper & Hearts Society, #2) by Lucy Powrie
Published by Hodder Children's Books on May 28, 2020
Genres: Contemporary, LGBTQ+
Amazon | Book Depository | Waterstones
Goodreads

The much anticipated second book in The Paper & Hearts Society series by Booktuber Lucy Powrie. Will you be the next recruit for The Paper & Hearts Society book club? For fans of Holly Smale and Super Awkward.
Olivia Santos is excited for her last year at secondary school. But when a parent complains about LGBTQ+ content in one of the books, the library implements a new policy for withdrawing books. Olivia is distraught - she's demisexual and knows how important it is for all readers to see themselves represented.
Luckily, she's the mastermind behind The Paper & Hearts Society book club, and she knows exactly what to do: start a new club, find ways of evading the system, and change the policy for good!
With two book clubs to run, exams to prepare for, and a girlfriend, just how long will it be before Olivia burns out? After all, creating a book club and trying to get the #ReadWithPride hashtag to get noticed is going to take a lot of energy.
Sometimes, when you're in too deep, it's up to your friends to look out for you ...

My Review

In The Paper and Hearts Society, I found me people, I found my inner Tabby, she is my teenage self. Read with Pride spoke to me in a different way, from the point of a librarian and I love that. I think it will be another book where teenagers and readers will really relate to the characters and to reading with pride too.

Olivia Santos, fresh from a summer of  new found friends, a brand new bookclub – the Paper and Hearts Society book club, and finally with Cassie, her girlfriend. Her best friend Tabby is joining her and Henry for their final year in secondary. The year that will change their lives. When she heads to the library to take a book out, she realises that they have to get their parents to sign a permission slip to take books out, because a parent was disgusted by the fact her son was reading a book about two boys kissing. Olivia is fuming, how LGBTQ+ books have warning labels, so she wants to stop censoring and start a movement, another bookclub of friends bound by this common interest, but also to explore who you are proudly. With two bookclubs and the most important year ahead of her, is she taking too much on?

So I want to get this off my chest first, I share a common interest with this book being a secondary school librarian. I’ve had this experience first hand and I admit, it’s not our fault, we have to follow a code by the school and it’s not easy. Being a librarian and a book blogger it’s bloody hard because I have opinions too. Books shouldn’t be censored, but it’s so frustrating, I empathise with Miss Carter, the librarian in this book. We never want to turn away a student with a book, when I know that books change our lives. As Rocky says –

“…Reading is one of the best ways to build empathy and understand them.”

Especially books when they give you meaning, comfort and most of all an understanding for who you are and that we aren’t alone. That’s why Olivia is fighting, especially for the LBGTQ+ community who find being themselves stereotyped, bullied, misunderstood and judged. They just want to be accepted for who they are not a label. Everyone wants to find that book that completes them and that is Olivia’s goal.

Olivia’s character illuminates the book in rainbow light, her passion to make a change, her passion for fighting for people, for books, for her school library sings to my heart. It’s the light we all need, want, share in our lives. But sometimes a light like that can shine so brightly it can over take you. Olivia is a power house, she doesn’t know her own limits, it’s once again her courage and passion to admit it to yourself. She is character like no other I’ve read because she feels real to me, like Tabby in book 1.

I missed The Paper and Hearts Society gang so much. It was one of favourite books last year and once again, reading about Tabby, Cassie, Henry and Ed it melts my bookish heart. Ed, my lovely Ed, I’m so proud of him in this book that I squealed. Ed is someone I would love to have as my best friend, he actually reminds me someone who I was friends with at school. He need’s his own book because I need more Mrs Simpkin’s (his cat) and Ed in my life.

Lucy’s books always brings out the emotions in me, the tears and this huge sigh of relief and happiness. It’s like her books can see into your soul because your so drawn in by the storyline, which is all about books and bookclubs so who wouldn’t be. Her characters that fill you with so much joy to read about. Read with Pride, I feel is her personal best, she radiates so much passion in her writing, her skills for representing the LGBTQ+ community, the inclusivity of the characters. Which if I’m honest hadn’t come across before with the language for those who are non-binary or trans. I felt it was an education, an acceptance to share her stories, the many stories of her character through the campaign that added such emotion.

‘We’re a team of vigilantes,’ Rocky said, leaning forward, ‘brought together by our collective queerness, ready to take on the world on rainbow at a time.’

I loved how relatable The Paper and Hearts Society series is, being in Year 11, exams, stress, and basically everything else like reading, friendships, relationships turn to dust. We’ve all been through that, so once again it’s like Lucy is inside your head, empathising and writing something that is so very real that we need this book in our lives.

Lucy Powrie, I can call a friend, has put her heart into this book, and I think all readers will relish in this rainbow bookish delight of this book. That’s why every teenager needs to read this book. At it’s very core has the message we all need to hear, find your people and read with pride.

The best thing is you won’t have long to wait. It’s out TOMORROW!