abbie_'s Reviews (1.79k)

I started this audiobook on a whim after seeing it in @librofm’s ALCs this month (thank you for my free copy!), and it was surprisingly enjoyable! I dip my toes into romance every now and again, and I do love fantasy, but it’s very rare for me to read a romantasy novel. Since it was gay and had mermaids, I feel like this was a nice choice to ease me in! You can tell there’s a lot of research gone into the historical aspect as well, and I loved the sideshow setting with the most wholesome found family. There is enough inclusion of deeper topics to keep me from growing tired of surface level romance, such as racism, ableism and homophobia, but it’s not a tragic story. These elements are woven in seamlessly, acknowledging them within the historical context but we still get a lovely happy ending for our queers 🥰

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There was one aspect of the book I wanted a teeny bit more info on, but perhaps we’re being set up for a sequel!

This book is probably better suited to a chilly December night rather than a balmy spring May day, with its snowy highland setting and witchy chills. I wanted a little more witching to be honest, but it did have a good atmosphere overall, managing to be menacing without being your usual scare tactics. It’s one of those reads where I enjoy it as I read it, but once finished I know I probably won’t think about it much again.

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The big reveal towards the end regarding the main character’s ‘scandal’ as a teacher was underwhelming to say the least. I was left with asking ‘well, what of it??’ The ending of the present day story was a bit more satisfactory, with a sinister air that leaves some questions left unanswered - which I did not mind!

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I hadn’t realised that hares and witches were so closely bound in Scottish folklore, so that was cool to learn about. Overall the atmospheric vibe was effective, but I think the author could have been more daring with the supernatural aspect.

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Probably a 2.75, creeping towards a 3 ⭐️⭐️💫💫

Set between Egypt and Canada, What I Know About You is a sparse yet impactful novel about a forbidden love and how much it costs to live a life without lies. Tarek has his whole life mapped out for him, following in his father’s footsteps to become a doctor, wife and eventual kids. But when he meets Ali, he realises what’s been missing.

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The subject matter is obviously right up my alley, and I did love the characters, but the story is told in the second person with a ‘mystery’ narrator and unfortunately it didn’t quite work for me. I don’t usually have an issue with second person narration, but for some reason I found this one to be jarring. It thankfully didn’t pull me out of the story completely, and I still found myself moved by the characters’ plights. I’ll always be down for a queer story that isn’t UK- or US-centred.

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I did notice that the reviews in French were overall a lot higher than the English reviews on StoryGraph, so I wonder if there’s a big difference in style between the original and the English translation. I thought the writing was sparse but still lovely, so I can imagine that in French it’d be even more poetic.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for my digital ARC of Liquid! A chaos bisexual, freshly minted with a PHD but no teaching prospects and armed with a spreadsheet seeks a rich spouse. But when a personal tragedy takes her to Tehran with her mother, her plans go awry. I really enjoyed this book, the narrator (unnamed) is witty, sharp, self-aware, apathetic - I can see her dividing readers, but I personally couldn’t get enough of her.

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I definitely preferred the vibe of the first half, the narrator’s dating escapades were hilarious, and pretty tragic in their own rights. The second half, where she travels to Tehran, was also interesting and engaging, but also had the feel of a slightly different book. The narrator is Indian-Iranian, and I appreciated the commentary on how her mother, an Indian woman, is treated in Iran. I also loved the little peek into the underground queer community in Tehran.

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I feel like it lost a little steam towards the end, lost a bit of its vibrancy. But still overall, thoroughly enjoyable!  If you enjoy novels centred around academia such as History. A Mess and The Idiot, plus messy bisexuals and family dynamics, consider Liquid!

I picked this one up because it was queer and had vampires, but the second part literally could have not happened. It was probably the least vampiric vampire novel I’ve ever read. It focuses more on Noelle’s emotional and religious trauma, which overall is fine! But don’t promise me a sexy queer vampire tale only to have them actually be disparate storylines and the most anticlimactic vampire you’ve ever met.

I did enjoy the setting and overall vibe of the book - Noelle takes herself off to a tiny Scottish isle to recuperate and work on her second book of poetry. Cue lots of sad girl vibes, heightened by Catholic guilt over queerness and a desperately troubled relationship with her mother. All of this is shit I’d usually eat up, and did for the most part, but I just have to agree with other reviewers pointing out that this isn’t what the book is marketed as. It’s not what I went in expecting, and so I ended up a teensy bit disappointed. 

The narration is wonderful, would recommend the audiobook and if you go in not expecting a gay af vampire novel then you’ll probably have a great time!

My second Peirene book in as many weeks, as I’m trying to prioritise a few of my translated unread books. I didn’t like this one nearly as much as The Empress and the Cake, which was already a bit of an odd one. Dance by the Canal is a disjointed and jarring story that flips between coming of age and the downward spiral of a once prosperous doctor’s daughter who finds herself living under a bridge. I think part of the reason this novella didn’t work for me was that I’m not fully familiar with the historical context. I stopped reading a lot of German historical fiction years ago as I found myself tiring of it, oversaturated. This book is strange and unnerving, confusing and not in a good way, I did enjoy the writing and some of the coming-of-age passages, but overall I’d say underwhelmed. 

I can’t find an audiobook to hold my attention for the life of me at the mo! 

The storytelling is not holding my interest unfortunately. 

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my free digital ARC! I read Jeanne Thornton’s Summer Fun back in 2023 and I absolutely loved it, so I was really excited to be approved for her latest offering on Netgalley. Unfortunately I found A/S/L to be lacking the spark I so loved in Summer Fun. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m just not a video game person, but I struggled a lot to maintain my interest during pretty much the first half of the book. The second half did pick up, but I’d go so far as to say the first half is a slog.

I did love the inclusion of emails and instant messaging threads - I was not in the internet in 1998, but in her afterword Thornton says she used real message archives to get the tone down and it shows. Some of the group text threads were EXCRUCIATING to read, perfectly encapsulating the feminine experience in male-dominated internet spaces. PhilippeDarke, a curse upon your family. 

Sash, Lilith and Abraxa do sort of make up for the monotony of the video game aspects, especially Lilith and Sash. But sometimes the POVs (often using the second person) got blurred and confusing. It has so much potential but it feels just too stilted and bogged down in technicalities to garner more than 3 stars and I’m sad about it 😭

This book was so very odd, the most vomit I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across and yet strangely compelling and sort of fun? A woman is accosted by an elderly woman and her lady-in-waiting (?) to help them eat some cake. Before long, this old woman has completely grasped control of the younger one’s life, essentially kicking her out of her apartment, and forcing her to steal a bunch of shit from museums. Honestly, rarely knew exactly what was going on but it was definitely unique!

But amid the sort of (sinister) silliness and heists, there is the dark heart of disordered eating. If you have any sort of sensitivity around EDs please look after yourself and stay away from this book, as it’s extremely graphic about bingeing, purging, and restrictive eating habits. At its centre, The Empress and the Cake is all about control, or a lack thereof - the things we think we control but which actually have us in their grip.

I didn’t fully grasp the parts in italics scattered throughout, which were about an Empress named Sissi. There were some parallels with the three main characters, and I wondered if it was a runaway/empress in hiding situation? But I am not fully sure, that part remained nebulous.