books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)

This was, quite frankly, incredible.

I read this poetry memoire in one sitting. I told myself I would only highlight my absolute favourite poems—and then proceeded to highlight almost all of them.

I needed this book. I’ve been reading historians, philosophers, and journalists talking about Gaza. But it can all get so… removed. 

And this was the exact opposite. It felt close.

I’m not a poetry girl so I thought these would just be sad and overwrought? But they weren’t at all. The poetry part of it was just how ‘let in’ I felt as I read it.

It wasn’t just about grief or unfairness or how living in Gaza is like living in an irl Kafka novel… it was also kind of existential? It reminded me of The Stranger by Camus. And not just because of the setting. 

And like every book I’ve read about Palestine, I was overwhelmed with déjà vu.  With the way that this book felt like it was set in Gaza right now but it was published in 2022, about events that had taken place over the author’s entire life.

He said in an interview: “The word for poetry in Arabic, sha’ir, doesn’t refer to a particular form, it only has to do with feeling. So you have to be an expert in showing your feelings…” 

And yeah, the man is a poet.

I’m mostly impressed that this alien romance was also a Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol retelling.

And like, quite a good one. There were so many references (we even had a Tiny Tim); three events that got to the heart of the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future; and it was more anti-capitalist than I’d dared hope for.

I just wish we’d had more of a sci-fi alien culture. The Dickensian vibes might have gone a bit far, for me (these aliens had fireplaces and ice skating, for example). I don’t like my alien societies to be this brought down to earth, so to say.

But the festive-ness was off the charts and who knew Scrooge (or should I say Skruj) would be this bang-able? 

Next time you’re looking for a holiday alien romance, I'd say make it this one!

This book had The Thing—

The Thing that I’m looking for in a lighthearted contemporary romance, except it’s so elusive that this kind of book only accounts for around 1% of my yearly reading—because I just can’t handle the disappointment. 

The Thing, being: a contemporary romance managing to keep it light, yet also hitting me right in the feels.

Because this was adorable. Sapphic childhood friends to lovers, fake dating, bi-awakening. A demisexual MC. One MC with ADHD, one MC with autism—but not in a twee tokenistic way, in a real and complicated way. This book said “Heck No” to miscommunication or withholding information tropes and it was just refreshingly honest and mature.

And yet, I read the whole last third of the book with this —> 🥹 ‘aww’ wobbly face. Because, without any cheap tricks, this book made me care about these two. So much.

It was magical. Especially because this is just a little 4.5 hour audiobook, like how? The audiobook was great, though. I love when a sapphic romance has two narrators, and they were killing it.

I feel like the world said, “You can either simplify the fantasy elements of this book or make the romance fluffier and less of a focus,” and the author just said, “…No.”

This is a Greek mythology inspired fantasy and a romance between a prisoner and captor who’ve been magically tethered to each other. There aren’t that many books I can think of that have this vibe—it’s truly a Fantasy. Romance. It has as much magic, politics, religion, cloaks, travelling on horseback, and sharpening your weapons around the campfire as any high fantasy. But it also has as much angst, bad boy, slow burn, spicy times with your captor, longing, trust building, and ILY as any dark-ish romance. 

I’ve been searching for another heroine like this since I read the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. Our heroine Cat has matured beyond “I’m a badass!” into “Ugh, when do I get to retire from being a badass?” Both Cat and our hero Griffin felt more mature than the typical fantasy romance couple and I’m here for it. I was also impressed by how non-info dumpy this book was. It really pulled off the balance between explaining what we needed to know and keeping us a bit in the dark, especially with who our heroine is and what she’s capable of.

Sounds perfect so why four stars? It’s because these kinds of xSTP-xSTJ relationships are never my favourite (even though I know a lot of people love them). They’re so antagonistic, emotionally unintelligent, and closed off to the idea of a relationship that I want to reach into the book and slap them. But I’m not deterred from continuing on in the series. This is the kind of couple who will move mountains for each other once they let go and fully let each other in.

Let me start off by saying: 

THIS was the weirdest peen I’ve ever come across. 

It was so weird, so monstrous, that it was borderline horrifying? Which was so much fun 🤣 Apparently there’s a 69 themed novella with this author’s newsletter and..😳 I’d read it.

If I had known that the most bonkers alien peen of all time was coming down the plot pipeline, I probably would’ve had a better reading experience. This is a book you read for the bizarre steam (think: every hole is a goal 😆), not for the sci-fi world building.

Most of the book was good. Our alien hero was a cinnamon roll (the sweet, over-thinking kind), our human heroine had a decent head on her shoulders, and we had some cute fated mates goodness.

But sometimes the way things were phrased was.. a choice, there was some repetitiveness, a few plot holes, and meh world building. I’m just going to chalk all that up to this being an independent debut author’s ARC and it won’t stop me from continuing on in this series.

In fact, I’d highly recommend this to someone going into it for the right reasons, aka bonkers peen.

I loved this book!

The first bit of magic was the way Lockwood and Nellie were just as reserved (him) and scandalous (her) as I expected them to be—having seen them as the star side characters of the whole series. And then, I loved how much complexity and vulnerability they gained as MCs. Plus, I loved their arcs.

The second bit of magic was how hawt this was 🥵 The sadomasochism? And the fact that they’re both switches? It made total sense that these two got so obsessed with each other, switch-y sadomasochists gotta stick together. I just loved their compatibility. Loved that our duke was a bossy boots in the bedroom but was also a masochist—why do we always associate masochism with being a sub? Masochist doms exist, so let’s read about them!

Loved the hint of forbidden vibes (he *did* try to marry two of her best friends) and the ‘he falls first and hard’ goodness. Loved how the things that were holding them apart were so internal and subtle (and dare I say miscommunication-adjacent?)—I was feeling all this angst. I wanted to reach into the book and bonk their heads together, in a good way. I felt really invested, their building intimacy was compelling, and I just loved all the tension.

And then the cherry on top: this author’s excellent world building. Shupe’s Gilded Age New York is unmatched and I loved all the different settings we had for a scene.

What a satisfying final book in an all-time favourite series 🥰

What I liked: the sexy lessons trope and Welsh accents in the audiobook.

But.. rant incoming 🙈

This was not enemies to lovers!! And having the E2L thing repeatedly shoehorned-in ruined the story.

There wasn’t one moment where these MCs weren’t nice to each other. Vague allusions to a feud between their families (when actually they all hang out on the reg) does not an enemies to lovers story make.

This was childhood friends to friends with benefits to lovers, and nothing to do with enemies. What kept them apart was him thinking she wouldn’t make a good wife for his planned future (despite thinking she’s “the only woman he’d ever truly wanted”). And her not wanting to be with any man, ever, due to a disastrous encounter.

The transition to romantic feelings happened before the book began, which isn’t my fav. And, the heroine had ILY thoughts before the sexy bargain started, which isn’t how I like to see this trope play out.

Having the heroine propose “enemies with benefits” in the bargain convo while privately thinking, “she’d had feelings for him for years,” didn’t magically turn this into an E2L story. I wish we’d ridden the longing train through FriendsWithBenefitsVille to Pinetown. But the story was too busy insisting they were enemies to emphasize their years of longing.

Plus these characters were messy. For example, our heroine’s main personality trait was her interest in animal welfare. Yet, she routinely wore exotic animals and, more illogically, we’d get a scene like this: she liked her rescued peacock and was admonishing someone for joking about peacock pie… and then pulled out her peacock feather fan—harvested from a bunch of dead peacocks (!)—and joked about threatening her pet with it... Calm down, Cruella.

The story just didn’t hang together well enough for me. Too much Telling, too little romance.

Gotta love this story premise (I love it so much, I read two books like this in a row 😆). We had an impoverished duke, an American heiress, a bit of culture clash, Gilded Age/late Victorian setting, a Bluestocking heroine who didn’t want to get married, and a hero who could have picked anyone—except he picked the one woman who would turn down his proposal.

I really liked the flow of the writing. It even had me questioning my professed dislike of this audiobook narrator, because this was really enjoyable to listen to!

That said, I was getting four star vibes right away. The story was introducing a lot of plot and character elements but everything was staying too surface level to really draw me in. I wanted the book to return to something, at least give us a second scene with that idea, in order to flesh it out more (though maybe not the prizefighter duke plus cringy boxer name thing—that could stay superficial 😆).

I was so certain that at least one of the 10+ story elements introduced would be the third act drama thing; so certain that this four star feeling read would end the way I thought it would. So when a whole host of new things were introduced as the third act drama things… I had to bump it down to a three. It was too unnecessary and it left too many loose ends to the story—literally everything was a loose end. I have so many questions.

But I was having a good time while reading. I’m intrigued by the next couple and I plan to continue in the series.

This is the second fantasy romance novella I’ve read by Kati Wilde and, just like the first one, this story has me kind of shook.

All I could think about while I read this was how it gets at the core of what I’m looking for in a fantasy—this je ne sais quoi feeling of like.. I wish this was a video game, because I would definitely play it. It had a hero(ine)‘s journey, a dnd-ish world, and such a cool magic system. The fact that a magic system this cool fit in these short, very romance plot focused novellas blows my mind.

And I’m impressed that I enjoyed this romance as much as I did, given that it committed a fairly major faux pas imo: it started the story six months into their enemies-to-lovers forced proximity quest journey, many months after our barbarian hero had fallen in love with our noble-turned-adventurer heroine. So many things were skipped over that I wish I had seen! But still, I had a good time.

It was swoony and adventure-y, it was super campy (at one point, our hero risked his own life.. to eat her out 💀) and the way the quest tied into the romance plot made for a really good story.

I read this for The Ungovernables bookclub and I’m so glad I did, because I really enjoyed it! If one thing (that wasn’t even this book’s fault) had been different, I would be in with all the trash-for-angst queens who’ve given this five stars.

The best part: the way the author took two fairly unlikable characters, made me love them, made them love each other, and then made me root for them so dang hard.

The second best part: that excellent grovel.

Okay, also third best part: how horny this heroine was 😆

I need to read more heroine fortune hunter trope histroms because I just love the morally grey-ness of it all. Our heroine Louisa needed a husband wealthy enough to support her genteel-but-poor sisters. And though she wasn’t the most beautiful sister, she was the most conniving.

And our hero Felix was the biggest catch of the season. What started out as a ‘don’t think I don’t see how much of a conniving biatch you’re being’ turned into a delightfully horny back-and-forth, with some excellent banter (that walking stick moment?? 😳)

Also, I loved the time period! Having a heroine deliver lines like Blanche DuBois in a late 1880s, second-bustle period, Victorian setting was giving me life.

The second half of this book was flawless. The first half of this book was also great—it’s just that I very recently read a book (A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting) that did this same fortune-hunter-plus-Jane-Austen-allusions thing (only better imo) and I couldn’t help but compare them.

Still, I need to read more from this author!