books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

Hmm. So, not the best imo. Here’s what I think this book was trying to be:
✨ a gritty fantasy in a futuristic-meets-historical Asian, Walloon-style setting
✨ an Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare retelling
✨ The Hunger Games

Which sounds amazing right?

I think it succeeded with the setting. The alleys, the market stalls, the mixture of swords and computers, the CCTV, the Asian vibes to everything—it was cool. I thought the body-jumping and qi based magic system was great. It wasn’t perfect (could have fetishized poverty less, for example) but I’ll take it.

The retelling part of it? I’m not a Shakespeare-ologist, but I’d say this was a fail. I don’t know if I would have even clocked it as an Antony and Cleopatra retelling if their names hadn’t been Anton Makusa and Calla Tuoleimi (and August, Pampi, Galipei etc). It was kind of the worst kind of retelling—aka, close enough to the source material that it spoiled plot points I wish it hadn’t… But so completely unlike the source material that it wasn’t bringing any actual Shakespearean pathos to the table.

Plus, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra were 🔥 but in this book Anton and Calla had absolutely zero chemistry and that “romance” plot was making me physically cringe.

And then The Hunger Games part of it was thoroughly meh. For me, THG is a critique of plutocracy (government by the wealthy) first and a deadly game second. And making all our POV characters members of the ruling class really missed this point. By a mile.

But even as a deadly game, it was just okay. It didn’t feel as high stakes, the reasons why characters joined didn’t make the most sense, and the Ru character in here kinda flopped for me.

On one level, this was a perfectly good ‘hot bounty hunter alien guy saves our human lady and promises to return to earth except they’re both catching feelings for each other’ story. Which always slaps, in my books.

The crew was especially fun. And our hero was panicking because he felt he didn’t deserve her. Love that.

But there were a few things that made me pause. Our heroine was such a virgin that it bordered on cartoonish. Then, the original abduction was maybe too dark for the rest of the story’s tone? It was giving ‘first few chapters of IPB’. And what made our heroine so desirable was that she was “pure human” in a universe where most aliens had some mixed human ancestry… which was a choice.

I picked this up because I loved a novella by this author in the Supra Velum anthology last year (a very hoa hoa hoa vampire-alien story) so I have hope that I’ll find another story I love by them.

This historical romance novella was wild. It was so ubputdownable. Had me in an absolute chokehold.

Angsty. Bonkers. Twisty. Swoony.

185 pages (!)

Scottish brogue. A kilt. A Clue-esque house party. It started out with some Again the Magic vibes except the situation was 100x more uh oh (in a good way).

There was a trope in here that was just… wut? 😆

I was living! I didn’t read the blurb or any other reviews. And that’s how I’d say you should go into this one—totally blind.

I see why this gets five stars from almost everyone.

These characters were so well-rounded and lovely. And yes, this mid-century New York M/M romance had some angsty moments—but then it kissed them all better. And it was just so freaking cozy.

Also, I’m so picky about third person present tense writing. And I feel like M/M is third person present tense on hard mode? (Can’t say “he” all the time so we get way more “Andy walks… Nick says… Andy is…”). But this writing was nailing it. I was impressed.

The only reason why this wasn’t a five star is because I’m a bad person 😆

Let me explain.

This book tied up all its loose ends. Which is great—if you’re the kind of reader who loves long epilogues and/or side character mini-stories and maybe is an Enneagram Six or Two and/or an Earth sign or a Cancer…

But that’s not me 😆 Blame my Air sign, that I’m an Enneagram 5, or I would take a long Author’s Note (with bibliography) over an epilogue any day of the week.

Every little part of this story was wrapped up and resolved. And though, rationally, I understand that this is excellent writing; irrationally, I was just thankful that the cat didn’t have kittens or something because that would have added at least 50 pages of finding them all loving homes.

Kudos to this book for making me care about all these loose ends as much as it did. But sometimes… I didn’t care much as much as I was meant to 😆

This book was perfect.

An alien cowboy guy, of the strong silent type variety. An absolutely clueless (truly, remarkably clueless) virgin MMC. A chatty but resilient heroine with a hilarious internal monologue. And a hint of late stage intergalactic capitalism critique.

I was living my best life reading this book, honestly. I laughed (like, actually laughed out loud), I swooned, I stayed up way too late reading.

Highly recommend!

Loved it!

🫶 This book was hot (we had primal and switch Dom/sub dynamics)

🫶 The twisty overarching plot of the series just got dialed up to a 100 (seriously, what is happening? Who are even the bad guys?? Things are getting so intense)

🫶 And I love an arctic survival story

But mostly, how this book approached Dom/sub sexy times was so cool—that I can’t stop thinking about it.

Here’s the setup: our heroine Roz was a human sex doll. Literally, a robot (that’s just cool all by itself). And our hero Fásach was an alien whose species is prey-predator fluid, their bodies transforming based on their role. 

And the plot of the story needed him change from Prey Daddy to Predator Daddy in order for them to survive. Cue the delightfully campy ‘we need to bone in order to live’ trope.

But do you know what this book *did not* do? Buy into any of the “strong = dominant = man = good / weak = submissive = woman = bad” nonsense. 

Because for Roz, advanced illegal “living code” technology (plus an accident) meant that she had autonomy and selfhood. Being willful felt reassuring—following orders, on the other hand, took enormous strength of character. And for Fásach, prey and predator were both himself, neither one stronger or better than the other.

I can’t wait for the next book. I need answers!

The perfect novella doesn't ex—

I loooved this!! It was perfect. Why didn't anyone tell me that Courtney Milan writes kinda angsty stuff?

(I know, I know. Everyone has been telling me. But I'd only read The Duke Who Didn't [which is lovely, just thoroughgoingly lighthearted] so I didn't believe you 😝)

A "ruined" heroine. A working class hero. Some 'screw rich people' storyline.

And LETTERS. Horny-yet-hostile letters.

When I started this, l'd just DNFed the most lame-o enemies to lovers Reylo epic fantasy book. And this novella had more enemies to lovers storyline in its pinky toe.

Kudos for making this hero kinda evil (gimme evil heroes who fall hard for our heroine and start being evil FOR her). Kudos to him being the most tender consent king, that sexy time was everything. And kudos for making our heroine such a strong character.

Plus, a free novella, who doesn't love that?

This was a four star memoire, but I actually 10/10 recommend it. If that makes sense.

Because I can't stop thinking about its topic, namely:
✨ The way a certain (progressive, empathetic, university educated) type of White person's commitment to being "the right kind of White"...
A) leads inescapably to toxic White Saviourism in advocacy for marginalized people, and
B) causes them to turn their back on other struggling groups-just because they're also White (but poor, less educated, possibly bigoted).

It reminded me of a quote from a book (Too Late to Awaken by Zizek) | read earlier that also stuck with me, of an Australian Aboriginal woman saying to a
"rich white compassionate liberal":
✨ "If you have come here to help me, then don't waste your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then come, let us work together."

What made this memoire so good was how earnest and intimate it was. What made it so important was its topic: how a White person who wants to make the world a better place can actually make the world worse—but not the way you'd expect.

I just wish this book had drawn a sharper conclusion.
Because I think everything it needed was already there.

Garrett Bucks did all the right things. He was so committed to progressive activism that he became a Quaker, studied intersectional feminism at university, and worked full time in various activism organizations. But he was too aware of his white cis male privilege-and White Saviourism crept into his work despite his best efforts. And, he was too aware of his small town midwestern upbringing-and he stopped caring about certain people's struggles despite his commitment to compassion.

The events that turned this all around (BLM movement misadventures, getting a debilitating chronic illness, recognizing the seed company logo on a hat of a Trump rally supporter) were really interesting. I just wanted a firmer conclusion. Because I actually think he's more correct than he believes.

I love Judith Butler. And I love when philosophers reflect on Zeitgeist-y moments like the pandemic.

But this book was just okay.

It did something I expected: it applied my favourite part of Butler's philosophy, grievability, to the pandemic. That is, their ideas about how some people live a life with the knowledge that their death doesn't matter, that society won't grieve them. The way that the economy was prioritized over people's lives, the unequal access to medical care, Zoom funerals—Butler talked about it all.

But, I don't think greivability was explained as deeply in this book as in their other books, The Force of Nonviolence especially. And Butler seemed to agree (there was a lot of 'see The Force or Nonviolence for more info' going on). So, the book didn't add a ton to the way l'd already mentally applied grievability to the pandemic going into this.

And the book's main focus was a part of the pandemic mindset that... I don't think has persisted, unfortunately. That is, the concept of a post-pandemic radical permeability of the self and interconnectedness of society. Like, a concrete awareness that we all breathe the same air, for example.

And, I don't know. Has this stuck around? I feel like we've returned (since this book was published in
2022) to the fantasy of liberal individualism pretty hard, ngl.

This book asked the question: Did colonialism benefit India in any way?

And the answer was just: Absolutely Not. **

The secret sauce of this book was its ability to teach me—a complete noob (if it wasn't in the Gandhi movie with Ben Kingsley, I didn't know it)—about India's colonial history.

And it was because this book was the complete opposite of one of those 'here's a laundry list of facts; draw your own conclusions' books. Instead, it had a suuuper tight argument (it was based on an Oxford debate that went viral online).

So all those history facts? Directly into my brain. By going through every single benefit supposedly brought by the British-democracy, newspapers, railroads, education systems, naval technology, textile industry-and ripping them to shreds...

(either because the British destroyed what was there and replaced it with something worse-like education, the textile industry, and nationalisms-or because Indians were so thoroughly excluded-like politics and the navy— that you can't say the British 'gave' them anything, or because the supposed benefit was just thinly veiled exploitation-like trains and basically all industries)

... I learned so much from this book.

And it wasn't just historical curiosity. Learning about the Partition of India and Pakistan when politicians are discussing a Two-State Solution somewhere else or historical forms of colonialism when we're questioning modern day forms of colonialism... this book felt extremely relevant.

I highly recommend the audiobook. I devoured it.

** with the exception of bringing tea cultivation and cricket to India 😆