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books_ergo_sum's Reviews (933)
informative
😤 THE GENDER DATA GAP!! *shakes fist*
The data analysis was great. The politics could’ve used some work. Still recommend, though.
The data analysis was great. The politics could’ve used some work. Still recommend, though.
reflective
This (nonfiction) book about books, by a literary fiction author, puts forward the following dilemma:
Climate change is a part of reality, literary fiction is about the real world (unlike its genre fiction cousins sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc)—and yet including climate change in the setting of literary fiction almost immediately ejects it into genre fiction.
So, what the heck??
This is “the great derangement”—our inability or unwillingness to fully represent ourselves in the Anthropocene (with all its climate change reality) in our art. At least, in our “serious” art. In fact, he argues that literary fiction authors will be remembered—not for their artistic vision and their daring—but for their collusion in climate change denialism.
I recommend this for fans of Recognizing the Stranger by Isabella Hammad; Ghosh is to climate change what Hammad is to Palestine.
Climate change is a part of reality, literary fiction is about the real world (unlike its genre fiction cousins sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc)—and yet including climate change in the setting of literary fiction almost immediately ejects it into genre fiction.
So, what the heck??
This is “the great derangement”—our inability or unwillingness to fully represent ourselves in the Anthropocene (with all its climate change reality) in our art. At least, in our “serious” art. In fact, he argues that literary fiction authors will be remembered—not for their artistic vision and their daring—but for their collusion in climate change denialism.
I recommend this for fans of Recognizing the Stranger by Isabella Hammad; Ghosh is to climate change what Hammad is to Palestine.
informative
reflective
This book about neoliberalism blew my mind. A very ‘know thy enemy’ book about a little discussed form of neoliberalism: exit neoliberalism and anarcho-capitalism.
If you’ve looked at Brexit, tariffs, Peter Thiel, Dubai, or Prospera and thought: WHAT IS HAPPENING?! Then this book is for you. Because this new form of neoliberalism is so counterintuitive. Old school neoliberalism is about protecting capital from us plebs through privatization, international organizations (World Bank, IMF, etc), free trade, and globalization. We associate it with the late 20th century rightwing (Thatcher and Reagan) but it’s become the consensus of most centrist (centre-left and centre-right) politics in almost every country.
And on the far right? There’s a new game in town: exit. Literally, swapping Milton Friedman for his son, David Friedman. Regulations that protect workers, the environment, or food safety cutting into your profits? Exit. Want to re-introduce slavery as extremely precarious workers? Exit. Do some illegal medical testing? Exit. Want to integrate crypto into your monetary policy? Exit.
Enter the Special Economic Zone (SEZ), free ports, charter cities, and the dream of the “network state.” Something that looks, on the surface, like the complete opposite of globalization. But in reality, it has the same old neoliberal motivation: privatizing the wealth, externalizing the harms of capitalism, and protecting the capital of the extremely wealthy from being curtailed by democratic laws. Aka, protecting billionaires from us.
Annddd of course, this neoliberalism is gaining ground. Milei in Argentina, Trump in the US, Reform in the UK or the AfD in Germany… Dang it
This intellectual history was well-written and engaging. I thought it was especially poignant that the book begins and ends with Hong Kong. I learned a lot!
If you’ve looked at Brexit, tariffs, Peter Thiel, Dubai, or Prospera and thought: WHAT IS HAPPENING?! Then this book is for you. Because this new form of neoliberalism is so counterintuitive. Old school neoliberalism is about protecting capital from us plebs through privatization, international organizations (World Bank, IMF, etc), free trade, and globalization. We associate it with the late 20th century rightwing (Thatcher and Reagan) but it’s become the consensus of most centrist (centre-left and centre-right) politics in almost every country.
And on the far right? There’s a new game in town: exit. Literally, swapping Milton Friedman for his son, David Friedman. Regulations that protect workers, the environment, or food safety cutting into your profits? Exit. Want to re-introduce slavery as extremely precarious workers? Exit. Do some illegal medical testing? Exit. Want to integrate crypto into your monetary policy? Exit.
Enter the Special Economic Zone (SEZ), free ports, charter cities, and the dream of the “network state.” Something that looks, on the surface, like the complete opposite of globalization. But in reality, it has the same old neoliberal motivation: privatizing the wealth, externalizing the harms of capitalism, and protecting the capital of the extremely wealthy from being curtailed by democratic laws. Aka, protecting billionaires from us.
Annddd of course, this neoliberalism is gaining ground. Milei in Argentina, Trump in the US, Reform in the UK or the AfD in Germany… Dang it
This intellectual history was well-written and engaging. I thought it was especially poignant that the book begins and ends with Hong Kong. I learned a lot!
emotional
I loooved this!!
Roman Gaul, specifically Narbo aka Narbonne (I love the Roman history in this series). Childhood friends to lovers, second chance, he thought he didn’t deserve her, she was married to someone else at the opening of the book (!!) and—
The yearning these characters had for each other was so palpable that it was giving me irl goosebumps 🥰🥰
I loved these characters! And I loved how compatible they were. I loved the role they played in each other’s character growth. I loved how sometimes we would do the thing his way and sometimes we’d do it her way—it was just such a clear on-page demonstration of how perfect they are for each other and how happily ever after they’d be. Ugh, my heart 🥰
Our MMC so thoroughly lived in the moment that he was almost an unreliable narrator (shoutout to dual POVs books with different vibes to each narrator). And he maybe had ADHD? He was so chill but then he’d have these ADHD-like “tornado modes” where he would just get everything, even borderline impossible tasks, done in a day. And he loved his horse, like a lot.
Our FMC was very Miss. Prim and Proper (or Mrs. because again, married 👀). And she was a Taurus. I can’t explain it any better than that. Steady, grounded, quietly stubborn, kinda superficial (but also girl, get that bread), and loyal.
And I loved the impact they had on the plot. Our heroine steadily chipped away at the drama, our hero would do almost nothing and then everything all at once… and I genuinely had no idea how this book was going to end. It made this such a page-turner!
Sidenote—I think I’m realizing something. All of this 👆 is my Favourite Thing in a book. Well crafted characters, yes. But specifically: when the story FEELS like the characters. And it definitely did here.
dark
Ava Reid’s Lady Macbeth thinks it’s a feminist retelling of Shakespeare’s play… But I think it’s a misogynist retelling. In a way that has me concerned about us, as a society, tbh 😅
Let’s get into it—
Shakespeare’s Macbeth has got:
✨ Lady Macbeth, the OG badass FMC
✨ Lady Macbeth and Macbeth committing murder, Bonnie and Clyde-style, until their guilt drives them mad
✨ THE iconic “double double toil and trouble” witches and their wild magic versus the oaths and fealty of polite society
👉 In Shakespeare’s play, when Macbeth receives a prophesy that he’ll be the king of Scotland, Lady Macbeth’s response is basically, ‘hell yes! and don’t you chicken out on me, Macbeth!’ She’s ruthless, strategic, and can host a feast as easily as she can cut a throat. And yet Shakespeare wrote her as a morally grey FMC, not a villain.
Reid’s Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, was weirded-out by the prophesy. She had no agency, was aged down, made a foreigner, turned into a victim (so much SA, holy crap), and given supernatural beauty powers? 🥴 That she uses to seduce male characters… who, in turn, all randomly saved her again and again.
Is the feminism in the room with us right now??
👉 Shakespeare’s Macbeth is all about regret and guilt. And yet Reid’s Macbeth walked around like a shirtless extra from Braveheart covered in blood, literally saying, “I do not regret” and her Lady Macbeth was kind of a rat. But she also transformed Shakespeare’s honourable victims into losers (with a hint of ableism)… so the murders were fine? What was the message here??
👉 And Reid does the witches so dirty!! They weren’t communing with Hecate as agents of eerie chaos, in Reid’s version they were trapped in the basement doing Macbeth’s laundry?!?!? In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the witches’ wild freedom contrasts with noble Scottish ‘polite society’. But Reid’s Macbeth was Conan The Barbarian, all the Scots total brutes. Cartoonish and insulting?
Last I checked, feminism doesn’t tear people down (especially witches!) for the ‘vibes’.
Reid’s book wasn’t a modern retelling. But I do think it was a Zeitgeist-y retelling. In a reactionary, anti-feminist way, unfortunately. And what does this say about us? Why did we turn one of the most badass heroines OF ALL TIME (literally!) into such a passive FMC? We removed her agency, introduced a plot elements about youth and beauty, defanged her completely, and made the setting more misogynistic than even a 16th century audience could imagine. Why did we have to tear down the other characters? And why did we make the evil—not banal (à la philosopher Hannah Arendt) but—cartoonishly psychotic?
Why did we remove the transgressiveness of the original Macbeth play for a modern audience? Aren't we supposed to be beyond this?
Let’s get into it—
Shakespeare’s Macbeth has got:
✨ Lady Macbeth, the OG badass FMC
✨ Lady Macbeth and Macbeth committing murder, Bonnie and Clyde-style, until their guilt drives them mad
✨ THE iconic “double double toil and trouble” witches and their wild magic versus the oaths and fealty of polite society
👉 In Shakespeare’s play, when Macbeth receives a prophesy that he’ll be the king of Scotland, Lady Macbeth’s response is basically, ‘hell yes! and don’t you chicken out on me, Macbeth!’ She’s ruthless, strategic, and can host a feast as easily as she can cut a throat. And yet Shakespeare wrote her as a morally grey FMC, not a villain.
Reid’s Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, was weirded-out by the prophesy. She had no agency, was aged down, made a foreigner, turned into a victim (so much SA, holy crap), and given supernatural beauty powers? 🥴 That she uses to seduce male characters… who, in turn, all randomly saved her again and again.
Is the feminism in the room with us right now??
👉 Shakespeare’s Macbeth is all about regret and guilt. And yet Reid’s Macbeth walked around like a shirtless extra from Braveheart covered in blood, literally saying, “I do not regret” and her Lady Macbeth was kind of a rat. But she also transformed Shakespeare’s honourable victims into losers (with a hint of ableism)… so the murders were fine? What was the message here??
👉 And Reid does the witches so dirty!! They weren’t communing with Hecate as agents of eerie chaos, in Reid’s version they were trapped in the basement doing Macbeth’s laundry?!?!? In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the witches’ wild freedom contrasts with noble Scottish ‘polite society’. But Reid’s Macbeth was Conan The Barbarian, all the Scots total brutes. Cartoonish and insulting?
Last I checked, feminism doesn’t tear people down (especially witches!) for the ‘vibes’.
Reid’s book wasn’t a modern retelling. But I do think it was a Zeitgeist-y retelling. In a reactionary, anti-feminist way, unfortunately. And what does this say about us? Why did we turn one of the most badass heroines OF ALL TIME (literally!) into such a passive FMC? We removed her agency, introduced a plot elements about youth and beauty, defanged her completely, and made the setting more misogynistic than even a 16th century audience could imagine. Why did we have to tear down the other characters? And why did we make the evil—not banal (à la philosopher Hannah Arendt) but—cartoonishly psychotic?
Why did we remove the transgressiveness of the original Macbeth play for a modern audience? Aren't we supposed to be beyond this?
reflective
I went into this book with off-the-charts expectations and it still managed to exceed them so, excellent book. I appreciated how detailed it was, how zoomed-in it was, and how it focused on racism as well as wealth inequality. Also media, which I didn’t expect.
I was also really struck by the Forward to the 10 Year Anniversary edition that I read—where she discussed how unpopular her message was in 2010 (it was the hopeful Obama years and people just wanted to put racism behind them).
It made me think about how books that don’t hold back, that say the thing that needs to be said no matter how unpopular, hold up so well. It’s a lesson that nonfiction books that are instantly popular upon release could be telling us what we want to hear, not necessarily what we need to hear 🤔
I was also really struck by the Forward to the 10 Year Anniversary edition that I read—where she discussed how unpopular her message was in 2010 (it was the hopeful Obama years and people just wanted to put racism behind them).
It made me think about how books that don’t hold back, that say the thing that needs to be said no matter how unpopular, hold up so well. It’s a lesson that nonfiction books that are instantly popular upon release could be telling us what we want to hear, not necessarily what we need to hear 🤔
reflective
partly great, partly terrible. Idk, I wanted more grovel lol
The first two essays were good. But we’re all here for the third essay: Coates on the apartheid in occupied Palestine—it’s most of the book and all of the drama.
That essay was two things imo:
▪️ insights on apartheid
▪️ a confession
The insights? 10/10. This was great. He saw, in the apartheid and occupation, a techno-dystopian version of American segregation and discussed the ‘oppressed-to-oppressor’ pipeline he noticed. On point.
The confession part? 1/10. Nope. Coates used to write for The Atlantic, and—
TL;DR if that sentence doesn’t make you hiss like a vampire in the sun then it’s a 1/10.
The impetus for this essay was The Case for Reparations, the cover story Coates wrote for The Atlantic in 2014 where he argued that African Americans should receive reparations (a good idea) like Germany gave Israel and Israel is great (Israel last invaded Gaza in 2014 btw) 🥴 This was controversial, even then. Because he linked the Black freedom struggle—not to Palestine—but to Israel. In opposition to, say, Angela Davis in Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (2015).
Tbh, this is The Atlantic’s whole MO—their pro-Israel bias (its editor is an Israeli former IDF guy and Islamaphobic nut) manufactures consent for Israel’s militarism with Americans who might oppose it (ie. anti-racist Dem voters). And Coates stuck to this pro-Israel side for years. In 2017 Cornel West even wrote an essay in The Guardian titled ‘Ta-Nahisi Coates Is The Neoliberal Face of the Black Freedom Struggle’ condemning his defense of Israel.
Like, how do you come back from that??
That’s a genuine question. Because incredibly, I think Coates IS coming back from that. And that’s THE story here. And idk, we flubbed it.
But, was this essay flawed or ingenious—because it’s actually a Trojan Horse? Well, I think it’s the former, for two reasons:
▪️Trojan Horses need soldiers to come out at the end. And none did. A person could love The Message and not think twice about reading The Atlantic because where was the critique?
▪️ a Trojan Horse argument would’ve been crafted with Atlantic-reading Dems in mind, something Coates is against.
Reason 1: I was really struck by this because the day I finished this book was that Signal-Gate day—where the editor of The Atlantic was accidentally added to the Yemen bombing group chat. That article was widely discussed, but rarely with a critique of The Atlantic itself. Especially since the role that editor plays in manufacturing consent for wars against Arab countries is VERY relevant to why he was in the group chat in the first place. And why he might have delayed his article until after the bombings had already occurred.
Reason 2: Coates has been vocal about how he didn’t have Atlantic-reading Dem voters in mind when he wrote The Message and that he’s against strategic (and Trojan Horse-style?) writing. In a Novara Media interview, he said: “This wasn’t like I’ll write the thing that white liberals love and they’ll buy a lot of copies… I don’t have a ‘who will get angry with me’ perspective when I write,” and later: “whether [white liberals] will be upset about what I say about Palestine is wholly irrelevant—any writer who does that [writes with their audience in mind] is no longer a writer.”
Bonus rant-y thought: Coates quoted Benny Morris and I’m still not over it. Coates’ essay is not a history book. But it is the kind of book that could introduce new readers to the idea of Palestinian liberation. So when the first (and only) time Coates quoted a nonfiction historian author who could be a kind of ‘further reading’ moment and it was BENNY F*CKING MORRIS?! I couldn’t believe it, honestly. Morris is the only pro-Israel New Historian (couldn’t have picked pro-Palestinian New Historians like Ilan Pappé or Avi Schlaim?) and he’s openly racist. Like, one of the most openly racist people I’ve heard speak in a long time? He literally went viral last year for proudly saying “I’d rather be a racist than a bore” and then the crowd turned it into a song 😦 What was Coates thinking? There was a little (blink and you’ll miss it) critique of Morris at the end. But it sucked and was too subtle. The person looking for further reading already added Morris to their TBR, their library hold on a Morris book comes in next week, and I’d bet money they didn’t even notice that little critique at the end.
The first two essays were good. But we’re all here for the third essay: Coates on the apartheid in occupied Palestine—it’s most of the book and all of the drama.
That essay was two things imo:
▪️ insights on apartheid
▪️ a confession
The insights? 10/10. This was great. He saw, in the apartheid and occupation, a techno-dystopian version of American segregation and discussed the ‘oppressed-to-oppressor’ pipeline he noticed. On point.
The confession part? 1/10. Nope. Coates used to write for The Atlantic, and—
TL;DR if that sentence doesn’t make you hiss like a vampire in the sun then it’s a 1/10.
The impetus for this essay was The Case for Reparations, the cover story Coates wrote for The Atlantic in 2014 where he argued that African Americans should receive reparations (a good idea) like Germany gave Israel and Israel is great (Israel last invaded Gaza in 2014 btw) 🥴 This was controversial, even then. Because he linked the Black freedom struggle—not to Palestine—but to Israel. In opposition to, say, Angela Davis in Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (2015).
Tbh, this is The Atlantic’s whole MO—their pro-Israel bias (its editor is an Israeli former IDF guy and Islamaphobic nut) manufactures consent for Israel’s militarism with Americans who might oppose it (ie. anti-racist Dem voters). And Coates stuck to this pro-Israel side for years. In 2017 Cornel West even wrote an essay in The Guardian titled ‘Ta-Nahisi Coates Is The Neoliberal Face of the Black Freedom Struggle’ condemning his defense of Israel.
Like, how do you come back from that??
That’s a genuine question. Because incredibly, I think Coates IS coming back from that. And that’s THE story here. And idk, we flubbed it.
But, was this essay flawed or ingenious—because it’s actually a Trojan Horse? Well, I think it’s the former, for two reasons:
▪️Trojan Horses need soldiers to come out at the end. And none did. A person could love The Message and not think twice about reading The Atlantic because where was the critique?
▪️ a Trojan Horse argument would’ve been crafted with Atlantic-reading Dems in mind, something Coates is against.
Reason 1: I was really struck by this because the day I finished this book was that Signal-Gate day—where the editor of The Atlantic was accidentally added to the Yemen bombing group chat. That article was widely discussed, but rarely with a critique of The Atlantic itself. Especially since the role that editor plays in manufacturing consent for wars against Arab countries is VERY relevant to why he was in the group chat in the first place. And why he might have delayed his article until after the bombings had already occurred.
Reason 2: Coates has been vocal about how he didn’t have Atlantic-reading Dem voters in mind when he wrote The Message and that he’s against strategic (and Trojan Horse-style?) writing. In a Novara Media interview, he said: “This wasn’t like I’ll write the thing that white liberals love and they’ll buy a lot of copies… I don’t have a ‘who will get angry with me’ perspective when I write,” and later: “whether [white liberals] will be upset about what I say about Palestine is wholly irrelevant—any writer who does that [writes with their audience in mind] is no longer a writer.”
Bonus rant-y thought: Coates quoted Benny Morris and I’m still not over it. Coates’ essay is not a history book. But it is the kind of book that could introduce new readers to the idea of Palestinian liberation. So when the first (and only) time Coates quoted a nonfiction historian author who could be a kind of ‘further reading’ moment and it was BENNY F*CKING MORRIS?! I couldn’t believe it, honestly. Morris is the only pro-Israel New Historian (couldn’t have picked pro-Palestinian New Historians like Ilan Pappé or Avi Schlaim?) and he’s openly racist. Like, one of the most openly racist people I’ve heard speak in a long time? He literally went viral last year for proudly saying “I’d rather be a racist than a bore” and then the crowd turned it into a song 😦 What was Coates thinking? There was a little (blink and you’ll miss it) critique of Morris at the end. But it sucked and was too subtle. The person looking for further reading already added Morris to their TBR, their library hold on a Morris book comes in next week, and I’d bet money they didn’t even notice that little critique at the end.
adventurous
fast-paced
Book two in a trilogy I’m loving. A very Vampire Diaries-eqsue OTT teen drama fantasy. It’s stupid. It’s chaotic. It’s More is More. And I love that.
And, on the Not-Middle Book Syndrome-y Scale™️? She gets a 10. A remarkably un-middle book syndrome story. We introduced plot stuff and my jaded-by-trilogies butt just thought “uh huh, none of this will get resolved until book three…” but no! We just barrelled ahead and this ended up being an exciting, fast-paced book.
I read it in a day. Very unputdownable.
But, there was one but. Our heroine, so dumb in the first book that she was basically an unreliable narrator, was wising up in this book: growing into her powers and learning from her (very dumb) mistakes. Character growth (and honestly, for most readers, this growth will be much appreciated). But I missed our dumb-as-bricks FMC from book one!
And, on the Not-Middle Book Syndrome-y Scale™️? She gets a 10. A remarkably un-middle book syndrome story. We introduced plot stuff and my jaded-by-trilogies butt just thought “uh huh, none of this will get resolved until book three…” but no! We just barrelled ahead and this ended up being an exciting, fast-paced book.
I read it in a day. Very unputdownable.
But, there was one but. Our heroine, so dumb in the first book that she was basically an unreliable narrator, was wising up in this book: growing into her powers and learning from her (very dumb) mistakes. Character growth (and honestly, for most readers, this growth will be much appreciated). But I missed our dumb-as-bricks FMC from book one!
adventurous
This two stars feels like a bit of bad luck and I’d actually try this author again. There were just some story elements which—though not objectively bad—were not for me. Let’s get into it:
A Greek mythology-inspired modern setting fantasy romance, with almost an X-Men feeling. Lots of social tension between ‘regular’ people and people born with magic (and a critique of segregation). Our heroine had a crime to solve and her crime-solving-partner was her fated mate—he just didn’t know that yet.
I liked the magic system, the Greek-inspired mythology references, and all the complicated relationships between the characters. The Greek-inspired setting was immersive and our heroine felt refreshingly un-generic.
But, I disliked:
▪️ not the book’s fault, I just happen not to love mysteries and crime procedural-esque plots. I didn’t realize how much of this book would be that. Oops.
▪️ this fated mate situation. She’d known he was her fated mate for a long time and had gotten comfortable with not pursuing him? It made the romance plot (especially as a single POV) feel really ‘settled.’ I wanted more anguish and yearning!
▪️ this was VERY tell-not-show when it came to interpersonal relationships. Our heroine’s magical ability was seeing (and cutting) the threads that bound people together—so interpersonal relationships was a major part of the story. But in a… impersonal observer of threads way, which wasn’t my fav.
Still, there was a ‘je ne sais quoi’ to this fantasy writing that I can’t quite put into words but I enjoyed. If this author writes a more up my alley fantasy romance story, I’ll jump on it.
A Greek mythology-inspired modern setting fantasy romance, with almost an X-Men feeling. Lots of social tension between ‘regular’ people and people born with magic (and a critique of segregation). Our heroine had a crime to solve and her crime-solving-partner was her fated mate—he just didn’t know that yet.
I liked the magic system, the Greek-inspired mythology references, and all the complicated relationships between the characters. The Greek-inspired setting was immersive and our heroine felt refreshingly un-generic.
But, I disliked:
▪️ not the book’s fault, I just happen not to love mysteries and crime procedural-esque plots. I didn’t realize how much of this book would be that. Oops.
▪️ this fated mate situation. She’d known he was her fated mate for a long time and had gotten comfortable with not pursuing him? It made the romance plot (especially as a single POV) feel really ‘settled.’ I wanted more anguish and yearning!
▪️ this was VERY tell-not-show when it came to interpersonal relationships. Our heroine’s magical ability was seeing (and cutting) the threads that bound people together—so interpersonal relationships was a major part of the story. But in a… impersonal observer of threads way, which wasn’t my fav.
Still, there was a ‘je ne sais quoi’ to this fantasy writing that I can’t quite put into words but I enjoyed. If this author writes a more up my alley fantasy romance story, I’ll jump on it.
emotional
Love's Labor Lasts:
A was a very “I’m not crying, you’re crying!” bonus epilogue for Convergence of Desire. Tommy and I were holding back tears literally the entire time (because we love Harry so much).
As for the other books in this collection:
💜 Convergence of Desire is my favourite histrom of all time
💜 Clandestine Passion is my favourite age gap (she’s older) with the most uniquely paced romance plot I’ve ever read—also it’s the only book with a heist-y subplot I’ve ever given 5 stars
💜 A Perilous Flirtation (also a 5 star fav) has a pining Scottish virgin MMC, need I say more?
A was a very “I’m not crying, you’re crying!” bonus epilogue for Convergence of Desire. Tommy and I were holding back tears literally the entire time (because we love Harry so much).
As for the other books in this collection:
💜 Convergence of Desire is my favourite histrom of all time
💜 Clandestine Passion is my favourite age gap (she’s older) with the most uniquely paced romance plot I’ve ever read—also it’s the only book with a heist-y subplot I’ve ever given 5 stars
💜 A Perilous Flirtation (also a 5 star fav) has a pining Scottish virgin MMC, need I say more?