alisarae's Reviews (1.65k)

The story concept--The Bachelor falls in love with a producer instead of one of the contestants-- is such a cute idea on its own, and the characters are amazing follow through. Both Charlie and Dev struggle with their personal histories and mental health problems in ways that complicate their relationship with each other, but they put in effort to grow and become better.

One of the elements I most loved in this story was multiple characters learning about their sexuality later in life, experiencing romance for the first time, and being okay with not understnding everything about themselves and their feelings. It's something that is usually shown in YA books when the characters are teens, but to have people in their late 20s or 30s still figuring that out is really nice to see!

Audio production was good! And if there is a "season 2" I will definitely want to read it :)

I adored the characters! Tiffy has a spunky, funky personality. In spite of having the worst crazy ex-boyfriend popping up all the time to ruin her life, she keeps trying to enjoy herself, her friends, and even her work. And Leon is such a sweetheart, too.

I think the story was a sweet friends to lovers with leaving each other notes on post-its—think how cute You've Got Mail is except these characters never hate each other. Justin, Tiffy's ex, really was the most irritating thing ever, ruining the romance and stirring up drama at such inconvenient times (well..... convenient from a writer's perspective, ha). I don't like when characters are hung up on their ex, and this book was no exception, but at least the overall story and characters make up for that.

Good audiobook performance, too.

Please please stick with this book past 20%. It is slow and confusing to set up, but once it gets going, hold on tight.

The plot is essentially a mystery: Robin's predecessor at work (he's brand new to his position of magic liaison for the government) has gone missing and foul play is suspected when Robin himself is cursed by a shadowy gang of magicians. Edwin works as an informant for the office, and tasks himself with finding his missing boss and ridding Robin of the curse.

Robin (muggle, athletic, outgoing) and Edwin (squib, bookish, painfully reserved) are a fantastic pair. I couldn't wait for them to get over themselves and their hangups so they could just be together. The romance is a slow burn, folks, but incredibly worth the wait (btw: open door!!)

The magic system is interesting and mature, but poorly explained. Even though there is a perfect opportunity to teach the reader about it via the muggle initiate Robin, the lack of an explanation is one of the most discouraging things throughout the book, especially at the beginning. Even Edwin, a scholar of magic in his own right, shows little understanding of its potential—creating an opening for a couple different Deus ex Machina, erm Magica, plot points.

I am very excited to read what happens next, and once again I'm kicking myself for starting a series and then having to wait on the sequels.

I actually got this from the She’s a Beast newsletter on the subject of how to eat more food, because an athlete’s appetite is one of the most expensive aspects of working out. I personally eat *double* the amount of food on days that I run.

But it’s actually the best starter cookbook I’ve ever seen? Perfect for people who are just starting out on their own and need easy, fast, cheap, and healthy recipes. Plus it has the added bonus of being very light on animal protein.

I read a criticism of how the book doesn’t really accomplish its goal of being designed for SNAP users, mainly bc many SNAP users are stuck choosing between 7/11 and Whole Foods, and there’s a generalized lack of food education. Okay, fair enough. When I was on SNAP, I got the maximum benefits, didn’t live in a so-called food desert, had a stable housing situation, and was basically vegan, so I didn’t have problems and I wouldn’t have had problems using this book.

So let’s change the target focus to someone who just barely overqualifies for SNAP but has trouble making it until the end of the month. This cookbook is perfect for that kind of situation. Also great for: asking your spouse to cook a meal when you are usually the one in the kitchen, weeknight meals, weekly prep in bulk. I’m sold on it and I hope I have the opportunity to share it with more people.

Nearly all the recipes rely on a canned, frozen, or packaged item so taste results are going to vary a lot depending on what brand you buy. Some other reviewers mentioned the recipes are quite bland, since canned food has barely any flavor and that’s the base for most recipes.

For a variety of reasons, I don’t really have access to pre-made food like that, so these recipes would end up being less than bare minimum for me and hardly worth going to the effort of picking up the slack.

As I was reading Matrix, I kept thinking, "Why has Marie never once changed?" The book follows so tightly over her shoulder from age 17 until her death in her 70s, and her temperament never changes. She is always a solemn, steadfast giantess of a woman who never errs in her judgement, always invokes fear and respect, never speaks out of turn. The world and its seasons spin around her, but she remains firm and still.

Then, near the end of her life, the narrator reflects that Marie has changed her opinion of the abbey where she lives in one way: she has grown to love it. It is not a prison; it is her fortress filled with love. This change happens from one page to the next and I didn't catch a sense of it when I was reading—the narrator literally laid it out in black and white for me.

Although the line craft was beautiful, the imagery was powerful, and a story of the magician's helper being stabbed in a box came full circle in an ingenious way, the "camera" held so close to Marie that I hardly saw anything around her and I wish Groff had expanded and given a bit of breathing room to the entire story. I think the author had a vision of Marie the heretical nun who crafted a home for herself and that was the extent of the idea. At the end, when the new abbess goes into Marie's study and remembers her as a younger abbess is one of the best scenes in the entire book because finally the camera zooms out a bit to show the entire room. If only the whole story had been written from the perspective of one of the other women—now that would have been interesting.

This book works much better in print than audio, I tried both.

Girl gang gets revenge on sicko guys, plus a sapphic romance! I wish the story had been a bit more fleshed out and nuanced….imagine if it was like We Ride on Sticks and told as a group. Anyways, the art was fantastic and I loved the story concept.

The concept and characters are so cool! I wish I could be one of them. I’m excited to read the next part!

All I want is for Murderbot to be with favorite hooman having fun adventures together around the universe.

I love Murderbot’s personality. Somehow it is endearing, even though they repeatedly claim to be thoroughly disinterested in everything and everyone. The little details like “my humans” tells you that being blasé about how things turn out is just a lie Murderbot tells themself. <3