 Hey guys, it's Tilly and today I'm doing a book review on Meet Me at the Intersections as I own voices anthology written by Australian authors, which is edited by Rebecca Lim and Amblin Quaimolina. First I'd like to apologize for any pronunciations I get wrong in this book. There is quite a lot of authors to pronounce and story titles if I do go through them and I am pretty terrible at pronouncing anything in general. So if you guys do know the correct pronunciations please let me know down below so that I can at least get them right in the future. So this book is a huge advocate for diverse reading. In fact, the two authors on the front here, Rebecca Lim and Amblin Quaimolina, both had this discussion where they wanted to create a book that was filled with characters that they wanted to read. And that is the aim what this anthology is and whether it is a memoir, a poem or a short fiction, these authors have put a piece of themselves into these stories which are either based on their own life or people that they know or they have created as whole fiction situation and it's just something that came from their heart. It's basically a piece of their soul and we all get the privilege to read all in this book. I'm usually not a big fan of anthologies so when I went into this I didn't really know what I was going to get and I actually really, really enjoyed this one. I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars and the only reason it didn't get the full 5 stars is because some of these stories kind of like on a level to the other ones weren't really as great. That sounds really mean but I just mean that like there's some stories in there which I fell in love with and I did not want to start reading. I was so upset it was a short story and I wanted to read anything else by the author and I wanted to know where that story continued to go and then there were other stories in this where all I wanted to do was kind of like go back to that other story and I just think that it might be the writing differences or my own preferences when it comes to the book but that's the one problem that I have with reading like short fiction or poetry books is that it always goes so quickly and I always want more. So there's quite a lot of stories in this book. We have a whole list of authors so I'm going to read them out once again. I'm sorry for any mispronounced names. So you have Mimi Lee, Jordy Kerr, Rafith Ishmael, Amra Pejalik, Graham Ackhurst, Omar Sakia, Olivia Muscat, Ellen Van Nierven, Ezekiel Quay-Malina, Jess Walton, Kelly Gardner, Wendy Chen, Michelle Ongtin, Melanie Rodriguez, Evette Walker, Kyle Lynch and Alice Pung. So all of them have put a small part of themselves into this book and it is just fantastic. The one thing that I really really liked about how this book was put together is that at the start of everyone's own piece of work it gives you a description about the author and it also tells you a bit about why they wrote what they did into this book and different experiences they've had. So this is an own voices anthology. So that means that it is written by people who are First Nation, people of colour, LGBTQIA+, or people living with disability. And I really love that. It's what it does Australian. It is done by free mental press. So we should show more support for authors and publishers like this. The artwork on the front was done by Amberlynn Quay-Malina. That one is just fantastic. I absolutely love the final cover of this book and it just really brings it all together. So I'm not going to go through each individual story. I can say that some of these are memoirs, some of them are poetry and some of them are short fiction. And there's a baby about four that I loved so so much. I really loved E. Heels' poem in this. The poem is called Embers. It was a very very emotional one. Although it is very short, it is very very powerful. Olivia Musket came in here with Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages. So it does mix a bit of like everyone's most loved book with this new story and it is fantastic. In Olivia Musket's one it centers around a young girl who is going blind and it broke my heart. It was fantastic. I loved reading it and it was just so raw and full of emotions. Rafif wrote Al-Mitra Amongst Ghosts and that one too. Her writing is fantastic. It's probably one of the best ones that I've seen written in this. I absolutely loved her writing and I would love to read anything else by her. It was so so amazing. So this is what Rafif had to say about her story. She goes, I hope the story highlights that there is no single refugee story, queer story, migrant story, African story, Muslim story etc. The danger of a single narrative is that it leads individuals vulnerable to dehumanization and that it is at the core of all institutions of oppression. And the last one that I really really love is one by Rebecca Lim and it was once again just filled with absolute raw emotions and like when I finished this book my heart was aching and I just think that that was the perfect story to end this anthology on. So guys please go out there and support these guys. It is an amazing book and I really really enjoyed it and I hope that you guys do too. Pick it up, read about it, review it and let me know how you guys like it because I really really enjoyed this one. Thank you guys for watching and I'll be back with another video again soon. Bye. Surprise, surprise, I bought no books. Do you guys really expect anything different from me?