Trying to figure out why this worked for me when Mortal Follies lowkey didn’t and I think here’s why
1. Yes the romance is not at all central but it was nice to have it as either a constant the characters can rely on having OR a source of like…. frankly b-plot drama. The stakes are already life & death, I’m glad John & Orestes didnt also have to suffer for any part of their love for more than like one day of wallowing
1b. yes down to the lack of on-page sex both because i already know that this series doesn’t go there and because

if they already bang in chapter 4 and puck is just like yeah they banged good for them right that kind of signals to me what we’re not building up to anything and i like having that narrative expectation set

2. the caesars are easily the most interesting set of characters that we know intimately in this world so on top of me really liking john from the first book when i realized this was gonna be more of an ensemble moment i cheered
2b. bc of this im not really mad that john’s role as “main character”’ is less “guy whose love story this is” (though it is still that!) and more “narrative and emotional glue”
3. i love when a book is about siblings and how it’s so confusing sometimes to be a sibling ❤️ so i love how central john mary & anne’s relationships were to the plot
3b. mary caesar i love you
4. i continue to find puck as the narrator so entertaining in terms of sheer style while at the same time Kind Of wishing we the reader didn’t have this constant Wall in this romance novel… again didn’t bother me as much this time because the romance was ultimately subplot and it was mostly  “let’s do high stakes silly historical fantasy with a lot of heart”. but anyway puck narrating worked a lot better for me when the romance was a little less central
4b. i think confounding oaths also had the advantage of not being framed in my head as “my favorite historical romance author is writing his first sapphic romance”. still waiting on the sapphic alexis hall book with like very crazy lesbian sex (and if you’re gonna point me to something extraordinary

the fingering in that was very mild. good for them for having lovely fun if a little boring lesbian sex but that book also had highwayman roleplay and redemption-arc-via-spanking-and-humiliation-kink

5. probably listening to mortal follies with my ears and reading confounding oaths with my eyes had something to do with it…………… im placing the library hold. we’re going in for round 2.

Went from “I thought people only got tuberculosis as a comorbidity (?) due to an already weakened immune system” (even though i literally have the tuberculosis vaccine scar) to “it’s insanely evil that people still get tuberculosis”

Cute! Sad! Wasn’t necessarily here for the romance because I didn’t really like Logan (every endearing thing was followed by some act on the asshole spectrum even and especially since she wasn’t doing it on purpose, like she had her sweet moments but ultimately. :/) BUT what kept me reading was Joe & his chemistry with the girls. He’s iconic for

forcing his multi-decade ship to take him on a road trip and then putting them in his fucking will to give them A HOUSE

!! surprisingly appropriate pride month first read. And this cover is god-awful but alas 

Library loan expired :(

While the structure and general confusion had it so I felt a bit less invested than I was with Gideon the Ninth…. the layers and layers of mysteries sucked me in (and felt like a good anchor in an otherwise very VERY confusing book) and im so impressed tamsyn pulled all that off.

cheered when gideon was back!!!! i had an inkling of what happened with her / what was going on with the 2nd person narrative but it felt awesome to be right and instantly get 5 more puzzles to solve

. finishing this felt like defeating some ferocious beast only to find out it actually has a mom and the mom might fuck you up worse (and by The Mom i mean Nona the Ninth). i kind of really want these books on-screen in beautiful animation and 24-episode seasons. 

This was awesome give me 50 more of them. Thoroughly thrilling and just fun the whole time!! I love a crew who has a long and storied history together, I especially love Amina and how the whole thing is much more of a return to adventjre than a call to adventure, I love how all of them just care for each other so much. thank you Shannon Chakraborty a new favorite white woman im picking up all your book. Also you know who I adore and need to see so so much more of next book? JAMAL

:( can’t write a review rn because if i think too hard about pecola i start crying

Kind of not very good at all, not because of just how gratuitous the violence is but like… because it’s just boring? Because the dramatic rhythm is just not there yet for ole Bill, because the pacing is so weird af, because ultimately I WAS BORED!! Exception? 4.2. Aaron was the only one serving. And like you can obviously say the play is thematically rich (it is!) but that doesn’t make up for the fact that it just mechanically does not work. Like take the final banquet: feels like it should be a huge gaggy confrontation but everyone just dies in the span of a page without much fanfare. Like sorry… i genuinely only gaf about Aaron

Found the LA section to be boring and quite honestly vapid, but the Tehran section was a very welcome shift from that — I would have slightly thought that was the point if not

her ending up with Adam, which like i get it but isn’t that boring af?

Mariam Rahmani is lucky her prose is beautiful and fun to read because if it hadn’t been I would have never pushed through that LA section especially because GOD the narrator’s capital-C Cynicism and capital-E Ennui was so repellent to me. Weird case where I ultimately don’t like the book very much but will probably be on the lookout for whatever Rahmani puts out next 

A bit messier pacing-and-plot wise than I would have liked but I can’t help but be charmed by Alexis Hall’s writing so sue me. Yes, about 30% of the page count is regency banter that’s just there to be silly goofy, but I loved it. Yes, there really isn’t that much plot, but who cares? I love how Alexis Hall is genuinely willing to push the boundaries of romance as a genre (because as much as this follows the structure of a romance novel, I feel like it Is actually kind of insane the degree to which Rufus & Belle’s platonic love for each other IS the love story — not “they’re married but find One True Love with other people outside of that and then kind of function like a polycule and they’re “just” besties. I love that there’s no “just” about any their feelings for each other even if they’re strictly platonic in a genre where Romantic And Sexual Love Is King and those two things come hand in hand and even the most love-aversive hero/ine eventually gives in and falls.) Now *I* want to be in a lavender marriage with my platonic soulmate and live in a huge house we’re renovating and raise a pig and have freaky sex on the side (with other people never with each other). Who’s getting friend-married with me????? What are WE naming our pig????