Bro do NOT judge by the cute summery cover…. 300 pages of  intergenerational trauma and neocolonial corporate exploitation. VERY poignantly told with vivid characters

Listen. I know these books aren't for everyone but I feel like this one was QUEER and not just gay if that makes sense, at least re: how STUPID sapphic women are in dating and "omg does she like me" and what have you. Then again Stevie was engineered in a lab for me to love so like maybe take this a grain of salt. Also maybe some of the best sex scenes I've read in a romance novel (IN MY OPINION) (BECAUSE OF MY PERSONAL PREFERENCES) (NOT SURE IF REAL) ... kind of like the Eve Brown of the series in that it's the most relatable, sexiest (

esp bc of how they're kind of trad-pub nonconventional... yay sex toys!!!!

), and the third one that wraps the whole thing up. Ending with

the Delilah/Claire wedding

was lowkey lame tho...

I get we as readers are meant to be excited for them but having that be the epilogue makes this a bit harder to recommend to people as a standalone, which imo you should be able to do with romance series. previous couples should be a fun easter egg! i would have loved if the epilogue was Iris going to go see Stevie at the Delacorte

. Now if only Blake could write POC as main characters instead of side characters that get introduced like "so-and-so was [race], [optional: sexuality, or gender if trans or gnc], and a total badass"!

To students in Intro to Postcolonial Literature classes in anywhere between 15-45 years this will probably be a banger. As of right now it felt like doing my college coursework, scrolling through Twitter, and occasionally getting texts from friends about their situationships, but like in a way where everyone has a little bit of that Smith College insufferableness going on, including the reader. Like I'm both smart enough and chronically online enough to get this (not as in understand but as in read and be like "omg wow Mithu Sanyal you are cooking," and like sometimes I was but other times I was like ok... and...) But I finished this several days ago and I still don't know what to think about it to be very completely honest because while I love the concept of a novel like this -- one that's very much in conversation with academia and academic texts -- , I was intrigued by the premise, AND I absolutely flew through the first half... the second half literally just became people sitting around and talking in what felt like a void. Like everyone was their own Possible Postcolonialist Perspective, insane white woman included, and they would Conveniently walk into the room and sit down on Saraswati's saffron-yellow couch and Express Their Perspective on the Conversation they walked into. The ending being inspired by a REAL

mass shooting

also left a bad taste in my mouth, no matter how symbolically poignant it was that

German officials and media actually called it a racist hate crime.

 
Somewhat unrelated, but made me want to read WAYY more Turkish-German literature especially re: race, racism, & identity!! I know they're more racialized in the context of German society than I am in the US but damn that would be good to put myself in contact with re: identity formation!!

3 stars to an Alexis Hall during pride month..... things are dire I fear.

Maybe I'm overly critical or should have had different expectations going into this, especially since Hall's historical romances DO vary wildly in tones.... but I don't think all the elements of this book came together, and the ones I did enjoy overstayed their welcome.

I didn't buy into the central love story to begin with because, tbh, I found Georgianna to be kind of whatever when we first saw her, and didn't end up warming up to her ever. Like I can see why Maelys would be attracted to her but not why they'd be together forever and forever and have a love strong enough for

both of them to willingly potentially die facing an ancient pagan god.

Speaking of Maelys why the fuck was she put through the meat-grinder to find (as mentioned, underwhelming) love? The curse itself, having to figure out how to break it,

finding out the purpose of the curse is for her to ultimately lose her bodily autonomy, being kidnapped at the threat of rape, having to drown a man with her bare hands, getting leprosy and gout and chlamydia and i think syphilis too because of a DIFFERENT curse... AND all of this while going after a woman who she kind of had to convince to date her, who was very much ready to kind of just keep her around for sex when Maelys was clearly unhappy with the arrangement, AND who really needs to improve her communication skills around said sex because I'm sorry you cannot look at a virgin and be like I'm actually gonna tie you to the chaise lounge without your explicit consent about it, this is how I like to have sex, accept it or leave it.

Obviously I'm not out here being like lesbian stories should only ever be sunshine and rainbows and bunnies and picnics and oh the love of a woman is SOFT and PURE and INNOCENT, I just wish she didn't have to suffer more than Jesus!! Speaking of purity and innocence, the sex... Alexis Hall. I'm pretty sure you're a gay man? But still you have had characters who aren't men fuck nasty before.

The last book I read by you ended with an extremely explicit foursome. If you insist on your characters making such a point about just calling it fucking instead of using polite ladylike terminology... SHOW ME THE FUCKING!!!

. Final complaint is that it was simply too long... with strange pacing. I honestly enjoyed the fucking around portion way more than the "x event is life and death and we have to do all these things and blah blah" parts, so I really wish we fucked around,

got to when Maelys was at Georgianna's house, and, can I be honest? Had a THIRD ACT BREAK-UP because what they want out of a relationship just doesn't seem to match, Maelys leaves heartbroken, period of separation apart, and Georgianna has to come back and grovel like she's Mr Darcy and she actually doesn't just want casual sex and is willing to, like, emotionally let Maelys in. And A PROPER MONOLOGUE!!!. None of this "my family is genuinely cursed cause my dad is an asshole so everyone I love will die except like hes dead? so why is this still active? anyway lets break the curse" followed by "ok the curse was broken they kissed the end" shit.

That said I really enjoyed a lot of the worldbuilding, and Maelys' two friends Lizzy (spelling? I read the audiobook) and John, and also the narrator (both of the audiobook and, like, Robin's narrative voice)! But some of these elements overstayed their welcome (Lizzy went to the Laios Touden school of bringing up her special interest when it's not appropriate and relevant and when her friends are going through life-threatening peril, and Robin.. ily.. i do not have to know about the fairy world during dramatically tense moments in the narrative.) All this being said the next book is JOHN'S and I love him and his being constantly exasperated by the shenanigans of the women in his life and how he has like gay drama with all his gay friends in the underground gay scene... yea dude I'm gonna be reading that shit

Marcille slayed, Senshi served, Chilchuck ate, and Laios devoured

The most story ever. Reading it first felt like being wrapped in a blanket and then like I was repeatedly being shot through the heart but in a good way and now I'm like grieving the fact that I can't stay up to read this every night anymore. Saw them more often than I did my family and I might love them as much too tbh. Rip the possibility of obsessing over anything else this summer, you'll have a hard time dethroning dunmeshi

Wow!! I have too much to say abt this but really wow!! Im actually kind of really mixed on it because while I wasn’t necessarily always gripped (some sections I found my eyes just kind of glazing over, like with Ayesha’s leading the pilgrims to Mecca) and not everything necessarily came together for me but wow am I in eternal awe of Rushdie’s way of using and playing with words — it’s just so joyous and fun, like you can tell how much this man enjoys writing. The weaving of the stories too, though ultimately with so many threads there were definitely sections I was more excited to read (a lot of Saladin’s stuff, and OHH MY GOD the Mahound chapters?? Putting aside the balls this man has to write all that, i was literally transfixed and read both of those sections in one sitting each) vs ones I kind of had to sigh and power through. Idk if this makes sense but Rushdie’s writing always feels very Auteur Filmmaker to me, especially Wes Anderson, not in content or tone or anything but in how particular their control over their respective crafts are and how they seem to stylize with such ease but you can still see the artifice of what you’re reading/watching because of the heavy stylization, which is just another part of the joy of experiencing their art. I hope that makes sense? But in the same way I think both can overstay their welcome a bit, and I think this book could be some 100 pages shorter. That being said the highs really ARE high, to where I was sometimes convinced i was reading one of THE novels of the ages, like something that could be studied in schools a century from know and something that will endure the millennia. This is LITERATURE

I didn’t expect to like this that much at all so im very pleasantly surprised! Honestly paranormal still isn’t my thing but ngl Ali Hazelwood understands why VAMPIRES are hot. But I didn’t like how limited the worldbuilding was (“The City”? Really?) and I got annoyed by the third act breakup because there was LITERALLY conflict outside of that. We didn’t need it. Anyway surprisingly Knot bad at all (haha). 

That being said idk where I got in my head that this was ABO but im a little bit like damn… I still want to read that. I think the sequel teased in the epilogue will be