Reminiscent of Akwaeke Emezi’s “You Made a Fool of Death with your Beauty”, JADE IS A TWISTED GREEN ruminates on the similar theme of how to live while grieving someone you love. Jade is an incredible character and I loved to watch her on her journey. Each situation she found herself in was formative to her growth and as a woman in my mid-twenties myself, her emotions were viscerally relatable. I can’t recommend this gem of a book enough.

I requested this advanced copy because I read the synopsis and thought I would love the story and immerse myself in a different culture than mine. And I got half of what I expected. But I wasn't able to get past 55% of the book. My review should absolutely be taken with a grain of salt. But maybe my opinion can shed some light on why this didn't work for me or others.

I'd like to start with the pros, as they are the reason I give it two stars and not one, despite having DNF it. I really enjoyed the major theme of grief and discovering who we are, especially after a significant loss, whether it's a person or a very important part of ourselves. Besides Jade, almost all the other characters had losses of their own, and I felt the author tried to show us that through the different POVs. While I think the different POVs distort what one would expect of Jade's story, I appreciate the intent behind it. And because of that, fortunately, or unfortunately, I ended up connecting more with Tay. One of the last chapters I read from Tay's perspective led us to see a little more of her past, which broke my heart.

As for the writing style, I didn't particularly like it, but I loved the fact that the author wrote a significant part of the story in Jamaican Patois, an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. I wasn't able to understand everything, especially since English isn't even my native language and so I was doubly at a disadvantage, but I made the effort and found it easier to figure out than I expected. I enjoyed trying to understand the language, and I felt much closer to the characters because of it.

As I think I didn't get to the part that focuses more on the alleged polyamorous relationship, I won't elaborate on that; also because I am not poly, I am not in a position to talk about the representation of it. But from what I read, none of Jade's relationships sounded real. I couldn't believe she was in love because it always seemed like a way to deal with pain. The way Tay came back into Jade's life after being apart for so long felt forced. And I didn't have time to see enough of the relationship with Morgan.

Ultimately, I felt absolutely disconnected from the narrative because it felt like it was missing a backbone. I dragged out the reading and forced myself to move forward with no will, so I ended up accepting that this one was not for me. Reading should bring us at least a sense of excitement for what comes next, and that didn't happen for me. I also want to clarify that, although it wasn't for me, I'm pretty sure it will be for someone else. It's a spiritual and thought-provoking read in many ways.

I DNF'd this book after only 17%. The timeline was really jumpy and the writing style wasnt engaging me. The comparison to Honey Girl really reeled me in as that is one of my favorite books, but this just didn't do it for me right off the bat 🤷‍♀️

Jade is a Twisted Green, by Tanya Turto, follows the story of a young black, queer woman living in Toronto. The story follows Jade as she struggles with the grief and aftermath of losing her twin sister and discovering her sexuality.
Turton's prose whilst being beautiful and lyrical failed to mesmerise me. The writing was very drawn out and offered little world-building, which cut back on the experience of reading a coming-of-age story. The multiple POVs did not result in providing different visuals and thoughts but only took away from the flow of the story. Also, the addition of Roza's (her dead twin sister) POV didn't add anything to the growth of Jade and instead only increased the word count of the book. Regardless of these, Turton made some immaculate points about the process of grief and coping with it.

While I could ignore the writing and the plot holes, the biggest hurdle that stopped me from giving this book a good rating was its portrayal of polyamory. A polyamorous relationship only goes on the right path when both/all the parties included have given their consent or have agreed to certain things. But, Jade here was cheating on her partners under the guise of "finding things out". This portrayal soured the deal for me here, paints poly people in a negative way and does not do them justice.

Overall despite its beautiful cover and extremely well-written overview, the book did not live up to my expectations and this is why I am obliged to not give it a 5-star rating. The editing and the formatting of the book is another issue to bring up as it is evident the ebook was not well edited and formatted from the misplacement of the first letters of many words and the chapter separation, which only made the book more confusing. I hope that Turton and the editor pay heed to this and make it a more pleasurable read.

I really tried with Jade Is A Twisted Green. The blurb drew me in and I thought this was bound to be for me, especially as I’m specifically trying to read more books about Black Canadian characters. The prologue is great, but the tone doesn’t continue and the switching of points of view was both distracting and confusing. Turtle offers us Jade as this beautiful exciting rich messy character but we lose her personality and development in the writing structure. I was really grateful for the care with which Turton deals with losing a close family member but I wouldn’t recommend this specific book because the reading experience lacked a lot for me.

OVERALL
I really, really loved this book. I thought it was an excellent portrayal of real, authentic life and the characters are so vivid. The writing is excellent. I was very moved.

WHAT I LIKED
I really do love the prologue a lot, especially how it's talking directly to the reader.
I love how it switches perspectives from second to third person.
Also, the entire novel is so accessible and conversational.
The portrayal of grief is amazing.
The plot feels so natural, like none of the set up or anything seemed forced at all
THE LINES ARE SO POETIC AND GOOD. The combo of natural, well balanced tone and then an out of nowhere doozy makes it all the more powerful and genuine
The flashback felt a little late, but it was still really good and the dialogue felt a lot more natural between the friends.
I loved the dynamic and initial interaction between Morgan and Jade
The epilogue was also so gorgeous.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
I wanted more flashbacks initially into Jade's relationship with her sister, instead of just starting out with the grief. I didn't really feel Roze's character as a real person which made a lot of the heartwrenching scenes so much less powerful. I owuld love if the prologue began with a conversation between Jade and Roze or something, like little details specific to her were sprinkled in (ie mismatched socks) that made her seem as real as the living characters
Some of the intial dialogue between Jade and Tayja when Tayja comes back to the apartment feels super stiltled and I wanted more natural banter to show the whole second chance thing. Like, there are allusions to Tayja leaning into the familiarity but I really wanted to actually see that
I almost wish the entire book was written in first eperson
Sometimes time jumps felt natural, but a lot the time, they didn't

Unfortunately I didn't finish Jade is a Twisted Green and instead DNFed it at 23%.

I really struggled to get into the narration of the book and found the switching of perspectives unnecessary and even confusing at times. The vagueness of our Jade's words made it difficult for me to become invested, particularly as a lot of time was spent reflecting on the past, and it started feeling like a chore to read. In fear of entering a reading slump I had to put the book down. I think its definitely the wrong genre for me but I'm sure there are others out there that will appreciate the slow place and reflective style more enjoyable.

I really enjoyed this book - about a queer black woman in Toronto coming to terms with the death of her sister. The only thing that I struggled with was the changing perspectives as I really wanted to connect to jade more.

Yeah, so. The first thing I want to say is that I am Asian-American, raised in a mostly-white environment in the middle of the fucking Midwest.

In other words, I know very little about Black people and Black culture.

Was this book intended for an audience like me? Absolutely not. Did I love it anyway? Yes. Could I still relate to the characters? Probably not as strongly as a Black person could, but yes.

Because this book is about love and grief and struggle, and I understand those things fairly well. This book is about culture and heritage, and while it might not be about my culture and heritage, I still understood the importance. This book is about personality and queerness and acceptance, and as a queer person, I was fucking here for it.

So maybe I couldn’t really understand some of the characters when they spoke patois, and maybe I realized that I really need to educate myself more. But I still loved this book.

The writing style was so personal and deep and eloquent without being flowery - in fact, it kind of had this matter-of-fact vibe to it. But it was gorgeous in a unique way.

The emotions that this book gave me were so??? Much??? I felt so happy and so sad at times and the way things were phrased just made me feel.

And the characters. Oh, the characters. Jade was so relatable to me, as someone who both struggles with grief and wants to be a writer and most of the time doesn’t know what she’s doing. Tayja was beautiful inside and out. Amethyst was incredible and so much fun. Allison only confirmed to me that I am queer.

I could go on, but for the sake of my laptop battery, I can’t.

Basically, I could see so much represented in this book. It was so moving and it told me things that I didn’t realize I needed to know. This book made me happy and proud just to be. Just to exist. It let me know that it’s okay not to have things figured out.

This book might have been about love, grief, struggle, culture, heritage, personality, queerness and acceptance, but it was about so much else that I don’t know how to explain in words. There was a spiritual quality to it.

The main thing this is about is self-discovery. Jade’s journey was so raw, filled with so much pain and hope and pride, and I loved it so much. Maybe it wasn’t meant for me, but I’m glad to have gotten it all the same.

I was excited by the premise of a Jamaican college-aged girl grappling with her twin sisters death and on the road of self-discovery. Unfortunately, the narration felt unfocused and detached. The switching between Jade and her friends was disappointing. I wanted more Jade! I can see how perhaps the at times seemingly random flow of events throughout the narrative arc may be itself a metaphor for how some move through grief… but it personally didn’t work for me. I nearly DNF’ed a couple times and was not captivated by the book like I initially anticipated.

The description of the book sounded very interesting to me - coming of age, queer characters of color, grief, sexuality. Unfortunately I knew from very early on that this wasn't going to be for me. The formatting and the writing style kept me from wanting to pick it back up again and there was nothing within the first chapters that could hold my attention or make me want to read the story. I couldn't even tell you what happens.
So I'm very sorry to report that this is a DNF for me.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this eARC, I will not post a review on Goodreads or any other platform as I haven't read enough of the book.

“Feelings often left no space for the person she desired to be.”

Tanya Turton’s debut novel Jade is a Twisted Green is a feel-good (and feel emotional and feel warm and fuzzy and feel pride and etc.) coming-of-age story that deals with grief, self-discovery, and queer identity as experienced by Jade Brown, a first-generation Jamaican woman living in Toronto.

After the unexpected death of her twin sister, Jade has been struggling to figure out who she is without her other half, and what (and who) she wants in her life. Throughout college and young adulthood, Jade has had friendships and relationships that helped to ground her, but now she struggles to find that same solid ground on her own. As her 25th birthday approaches, Jade embarks on a journey to surrender the heaviness of her trauma and embrace her whole self.

I really enjoyed reading this book, from the very beginning I was pulled into Jade’s story, wanting her to get her happy ending as if she was my lifelong friend. And her actual friends, while they played a supporting role in the telling of her story, all stood out as fully realized creations, important to Jade but also important to themselves, and lived their own lives alongside hers.

The queer friendships depicted in the novel felt like a comforting hug, and were a highlight of the story for me, watching Jade navigate those friendships, and the often blurred lines between them felt genuine and added realism to both the plot and Jade’s internal journey of self-discovery (and self-love).

The setting, Toronto, Ontario, came to life on the pages, and ended up being more special to me than I had initially considered; I read the last 30 pages of the book while navigating the Toronto subway system, a location that plays a larger role in Jade’s story than is initially apparent.

I haven’t experienced a loss like Jade’s, but Turton’s writing was dynamic enough that I was still easily able to empathize with her grief, and even as she made decisions throughout her processing that were different than I would have made, I still understood where she was coming from and why she made the decisions she did. Connecting with the main character in that way is one of my favorite parts of reading, and this book absolutely nailed that.

I struggled a little bit with the novel’s pacing, particularly around the middle. Jade’s story takes place (not including flashback scenes) in the summer before her 25th birthday. Sometimes that summer felt too long, with passages feeling dragged out or unimportant to the greater plot, while other times a week passed in the universe and it took me two pages to realize. The draw of the characters and the desire to know how their stories were going to go kept me engaged enough to work through the occasionally odd pacing, but it did jar me at times.

I can’t say enough about this book, it would have me teary-eyed and then giggling in the span of a chapter, and even a week after finishing it, I’m still thinking about Jade and her emotional journey to 25 (especially poignant as I skyrocket towards 28…). If you like your contemporary self-discovery with a gorgeous side of romance, this book is absolutely for you.

I loved her writing style. The prose was beautiful. I enjoyed following Jade on her journey through grief and figuring out who she is and what she wants as a black and queer woman in her early 20's.

Though, her waffling decision making drove me crazy... sorry.

Mixed bag for me! The cover is amazing though!

Thank you to Rare Machines and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

The themes of grief, identity, figuring yourself out, especially after the person you lived your whole life with is gone, different kinds of love and relationships, and various cultures, were all written very well and I enjoyed reading about these a lot.

This is a coming of age story that is so beautifully written. I sympathize with jade so much, not knowing who you are and trying to figure it all out. Not only that but also trying to live with grief and not being able to cope with it at first.
Like I said this story is beautiful, is it life changing? No but still worth a read

So many things went wrong with Jade very early on: The multiple point of views that cut the narrative into so many pieces I couldn't put any of it together. The prose that felt so clunky and cheesy. And worst of all: how not one of the characters could wriggle its way under my skin except in a terrible way. So, sadly, I did not enjoy this book.

I thought this sounded great, I am always interested in books set in Toronto because I spent a couple of weeks holiday there quite a few years ago, and have fond memories of it. Unfortunately I just didn't connect to the main character or the story in this book, and I struggled with the writing style. Really sorry, but not for me.

Unfortunately, I had to stop reading this book as I could not push through due to the writing style. Thank you so much for the eARC.

I was so excited about this, what doesn't sound more exciting than a coming of age story of a queer black woman that lives through the stages of grief after losing her sister. Now what threw me off the most was the change of narrative, it feels like it wasn't necessary. Because we follow so many different points of view it felt like Jade's story somehow just got lost, in the end, I didn't really care for Jade.

I enjoyed this idiosyncratic contemporary exploration of grief, race and sexuality - through the eyes of a contemporary main character with highly relatable issues and anxieties. The portrait of a group of Toronto friends on holiday is sassy, out-there and fun and the main character's overall journey to get over her personal grief is compelling. This suffered slightly in comparison to You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty which I read at a similar time and touched on many of the same themes - I found the writing style of this not very sophisticated, the main character's motivations and actions somewhat confusing at times, and the ending / closure much less satisfying - but it felt like a fresh voice and highly readable. Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.