books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

This book has So. Many. beautifully written five star reviews already—what can I say?

It’s two essays. One, a letter to his nephew about being Black in America. The other, memoire-y thoughts about his early experience in the (Christian) church and then the Civil Rights era Nation of Islam.

They’re the kind of essays where you highlight everything. Where you start quoting it in casual conversation. Because it’s both incredibly written and… really getting at the heart of the human experience.

It’s really short. Together, the two essays are less than 100 pages. And I’d 10/10 recommend it, if you haven’t read it already.

This little histrom novella had a great premise: a marriage of convenience (literally—no consummation, he ‘continues his lifestyle’ in London while she lived in the country) between childhood sweethearts.

Him, a rake in trouble. Her, an on-the-shelf spinster who needed help. A second chance, but just as friends. What could possibly go wrong? 🥰

I particularly enjoyed how we doubled down on making him a selfish idiot. Though, our heroine was maybe too perfect in comparison.

What I didn’t enjoy was something I can’t quite explain… but, there was a too ‘on the nose’ writing style in here for me. Everything was stated a bit too plainly? A bit too modernly? I wanted more vibes, I guess? I wanted to feel a bit more unsure about how the story would go down?

Judging by other reviews, I don’t think this writing style bothered anyone else. So it might just be a me-thing.

Well. Hated that.

Fantasy romance is a big tent genre. Very box of chocolates, never know what you’re going to get.

This particular book was in the vein of that other Sarah-named fantasy romance author…

And maybe that’s not for me? This one took inspiration from my least favourite parts of that other-Sarah: the Orientalism of those ‘tanned’ batboys, a certain snarky assassin FMC from the mines, and that plot-monkey the Suriel 😅

And then it just had too many of my personal pet peeves. Let’s get into it.

The pet peeves:
▪️ literally. zero. on-page falling in love. The beginning was that ‘enemies-to-lovers, actually instalust’ thing I hate. Then the second half was… whatever that was
▪️ calling guys ‘male’ instead of a man? I’m over it
▪️ this wasn’t queer-baiting but it was dragon-baiting
▪️ there’s a fine line between fun banter and being insufferable—and we blew passed it (especially with the “insults” that were just thinly veiled reassurances for the reader that his dong was indeed large)
▪️ my least favourite rationale for POV-switching: doing whatever will manufacture the most twists, story be damned
▪️ a franken-character FMC who was both ✨so bad✨ / stabby but also devoted to helping others; particularly victims, children, and cute animals plus gives all her money to charity. Sure, Jan
▪️ the plot was utter nonsense—we kept falling off literal and figurative cliffs into different stories (why were there cavemen??)
▪️ “Moonbeam”
▪️ that villain: so cartoonish, so dropped from the story whenever we felt like it
▪️ the sexy times were making me physically cringe
▪️ the writing was sooooo overwrought. Normal glances “slayed”, questions were “barbs”, words “cut with a serrated blade”, looks “chilled to the bone”—all on the same page (of a not-that-exciting scene). It was too much

But here’s the thing: all of my pet peeves don’t matter if you—like me!—love a campy and derivative riff on an old favourite. The other-Sarah this was riffing on just wasn’t enough of an old fav for me, I think 🤷🏻‍♀️

I loved it!! This was such a me-book.

This novella had two tropes I am so weak for:
▪️ she was supposed to be setting him up with other ladies but none of them compared to ✨her✨
▪️ she was about to accept another (very incompatible with her) man’s proposal and he was ✨jealous✨

She was his best friend’s sister—in the only way that I like it: no chauvinistic older brother, just lovely trust and family outings where these MCs really got to know each other. Plus, my favourite thing ever: the TED talk Author’s Note. I’m obsessed with the research that went into this Anglo-Indian hero. Did you know Persian was the lingua franca of parts of pre-colonial India? Because I sure didn’t

This was so immersive and it squeezed my heart. Highly recommend!

I enjoyed reading this so much that I devoured it in one sitting. It had a few plot points that resolved too quickly, maybe. But I still had such a good time with it.

It had a specific trope I love:
✨ the ‘jaded and practical eldest sister of a large impoverished family, meets our hero while husband hunting—he sees through all her schemes, yet falls for her anyways’ microtrope

This one was particularly delicious because we added a little secret identity trope in there, so our heroine thought he was too poor to help her family.

Also, there were letters.

This romance? It’s hard to even put into words just how cute, sweet, cozy, and emotional this m/m romance set in mid-century New York was. And the characters! This was the epitome of a golden retriever (our baseball bro) x black cat (our jaded journalist) romance. They were both adorable.

Plus the writing?? Third person present tense in an m/m (or an f/f) romance is writing on hard mode imo (way more proper nouns and present simple tense than English speakers typically use in regular speech). But when it flows this well? It’s like watching the Olympics. Of writing.

So why four stars? Well, I think I’m a bad person. Because, like the first book in this series, this tied up alll the loose ends. Teammates, managers, other journalists, friends, everyone had their chapter in the sun. Sometimes I cared (the interactions between baseball bro and his mom 😭) but sometimes I didn’t care 😅 Because I might be a heartless jerk.

My favourite part of this anthology was how immediate, ‘day in the life’, even mundane these stories were. I only wish it had flowed a bit better. The stories were all organized loosely by theme, instead of by mood. And it made the tone shift between stories feel jarring at times.

I can’t get enough of these alien cowboys and their human mail-order brides! This book was so freaking cozy. I loved how much we leaned into this golden retriever alien hero (so dumb, so sweet). He fell first and there was just a cute, no-drama romance plot in here.

And the couple for the next book? I NEED.