nerdinthelibrary's Reviews (926)

1) SLAM! Vol. 1 ★★★★

content warnings: violence, injuries
representation: asian-american sapphic main character, main interracial f/f relationship, main interracial relationship, side characters of colour

This was just as fantastic as the first volume. I understand some people not liking this one as much because it is more character-focused due to the two leads not participating in roller derby at first, and then even when they are it focuses a lot more on their personal relationships. But I really like the characters and enjoyed seeing their personal lives. In particular, I really liked Jennifer's relationship with her grandmother and the budding romance she has.

I wish there was more of this and would highly recommend it!

I was excited going into this anthology because I really like age differences in relationships and there's an Austin Chant story. Unfortunately, that Austin Chant story was one of his published novellas I'd already read, but oh well. My thoughts on each individual story are as follows:

After the Dust by Eleanor Kos [2/5]
I don't know if reading the Out of Uniform series has just spoiled all m/m military romance for me, but this was incredibly lackluster. I didn't care about either of the main characters, and therefore didn't care about their romance. This is about a Navy SEAL whose brother has just died and he meets a younger friend of his brother. Pining ensues. I appreciated that the protagonist was explicitly Jewish, but that was pretty much all this story had going for it. Also, and this might just be because of my skimming towards the end, but it felt like that sex scene really came out of nowhere??

Coffee Boy by Austin Chant [4/5]
I've already read and reviewed this.

One Last Leap by Helena Maeve [4/5]
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. It's about Philip, the oldest in this collection at 50, who's getting his house renovated and has the hots for his Polish contractor, Ivan. This had a lot of really frustrating tension in the best way possible and the romance was super cute. Yes, it's super unrealistic that they're literally in love at the end but I don't care, it was still adorable. The setting also made it feel like a very quiet story and I'm all for characters drinking tea together.

A Corgi Named Kilowatt by C.C. Bridges [3/5]
This was started out phenomenally, with a great premise (young college TA falls in love with older student) and a cute romance, but then it felt like the author needed to stretch it out to be a full novella. The angst was super unnecessary in my opinion and didn't really make much sense, to be honest. I still really liked the romance throughout but I kept rolling my eyes anytime there would be conflict because, while realistic, it felt really contrived. Maybe part of that is the fact that the author skipped through the months of their happy relationship. Overall, it was still good, but the second half was very meh.

The Memory of You by Erica Barnes [3.5/5]
This is the only f/f story of this entire collection (a truly sad thing). This one is about Maddie, a twenty-five year old who meets Claudia at the movies. They sit together while watching a romcom where Claudia reveals herself to be a massive cynic, and they then don't see each other for months until a chance meeting brings them back together. At first I wasn't really loving this, mostly because I wasn't liking Claudia very much and thought she and Maddie had no chemistry. But as the story went on I started liking it more, and by the end scene I was melting from cuteness.

Runner by Sam Schooler [2.5/5]
I should have loved this one but I just... didn't. It's a werewolf m/m romance with a trans protagonist and an arranged marriage, all things that should work for me, but I didn't really like the writing style. The romance was really slow-burn, which was good at first but got tiresome when by the end they still weren't really together. The entire thing was just really meh for me.

So, my ratings for each individual story together came to 3.3 stars altogether, which is about right. Honestly, I would only recommend reading Coffee Boy, One Last Leap and The Memory of You.

1) Meet Marly ★★★★
2) Marly's Business ★★★★

content warnings: racism
representation: vietnamese main character, vietnamese side characters, egyptian side character

A middle grade book about a court case involving a goat should not make me so emotional, but here we are folks! I love this series so hecking much and the fact that there's only one left makes me legitimately sad.

content warnings: misogyny, ableism, intrusive thoughts, self-harm
representation: main character with OCD and GAD


“Mental illnesses grab you by the leg, screaming, and chow you down whole.They make you selfish. They make you irrational. They make you irrational. They make you self-absorbed. They make you needy. They make you cancel plans last minute. They make you not very fun to spend time with. They make you exhausting to be near.”


This book was fine. It wasn't anything too special, but wasn't anything horrible either.

Am I Normal Yet? follows Evie during her first year of college. She's determined to have a new start after being known almost exclusively for her breakdown in secondary school.

The biggest praise I can give this book is its depiction of OCD. While I don't have it myself, I do have GAD and I've seen many other reviewers with OCD praise this book. Evie's mental illness is a big part of her life because of how much it impacts her day-to-day activities but at the same time the book makes sure that you know her OCD isn't her entire life. I also loved the emphasis that while recovery is incredibly important, relapse is never failure.

This is a book about feminism and its unapologetic about that, but personally I would recommend this as more of an introduction to feminism. AINY? has lots of explanation of feminist concepts due to Evie being largely uneducated on them, such as what the Bechdel Test is, and a lot of discussions of big issues that feminism is trying to tackles, such as the reclaiming of sexist slurs and the stigma surrounding menstruation.

But while this book would be a really good first look at feminism, the feminism it presents is still seriously flawed. The book comes across very white feminist-y due to Evie, Lottie and Amber all being allocishet white girls. This is especially obvious when they're discussing periods and completely fail to mention trans/non-binary people.

This book was okay, but I don't think I'm going to read the other two books.

content warnings: death, grief
representation: sapphic main character, side mexican-american bi/pan character, side latinx characters


“We were nostalgic for a time that wasn't yet over.”


Sorry guys, but this book is genuinely terrible. I love Nina LaCour (Everything Leads to You is one of my favourite YA romcom's) and I can appreciate how personal this book must be for her, but guys, it was so bad.

The book revolves around Marin over the course of a weekend of her winter break during her first year at college as her friend, Mabel, comes to visit her. The two haven't seen each other since a tragedy occurred and Marin ran from home to college.

As you can probably guess, this book doesn't have a plot, which is fine. I love contemporaries that aren't really about much and focus more on themes than events. But if you're going to write a plotless book, then you need to make sure that your characters are interesting enough to keep the story going. This is the main area where this book completely falls apart.

There is not a single character with anything even resembling a personality. Marin's entire personality throughout the entire book is Sad, which, while being a Big Mood, makes for a really shitty protagonist. Then every other characters personality and story all revolve around the way they feel about Marin, with Mabel being the most egregious example.

When you don't care about the characters and there's no plot, that makes your book unbearably boring, to the point where I skimmed the last half of the book. If it wasn't so short I would have just DNFd it.

Now, let's get into nitpicks, because y'all know I have them:
- Personally, Mabel being Mexican felt a lot like tokenism.
- There are a few really uncomfortable passages about mental health. One in particular was Marin comparing a woman she believes to be mentally ill to Bertha from Jane Eyre, i.e. Mr Rochester's ~~ crazy ~~ ex wife he keeps locked in the attic.
- I get that Marin loves English, but her constant name dropping came off as so pretentious sometimes. I was fine with her constant references to Jane Eyre and the discussions about literature, but when it got to them talking about how great Sylvia Plath was and only mentioning Lady Lazarus and Daddy, aka two of Plath's most well-known poems, it felt a lot like LaCour was just trying to prove to us that Marin liked English So Much.
- Are we still using the Esk*mo slur, really??

Don't waste your time on this, read literally any of Nina LaCour's other books instead.

1) Goldie Vance Vol. 1 ★★★★

content warnings: violence
representation: biracial sapphic main character, side black characters, side sapphic character

If you enjoyed the first volume, you definitely won't be disappointed by this one! It was just as cute, with a ridiculous plot and great friendship and cute romance and fun hijinks.

“It was Silver’s voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone.”

There are two things you need to know about me: 1) Treasure Planet is one of my favourite movies. 2) Black Sails is one of my favourite TV shows. If you don't know what those are or what their relevance here is, Treasure Planet is an animated Disney adaptation of Treasure Island set in space, and Black Sails is a four season-long prequel of Treasure Island. So I was both predisposed to love and be disappointed by this, and in the end it's a bit of both.

This follows Jim Hawkins as, through a series of extraordinary circumstances, get's wrapped up in a hunt for the famed Captain Flint's buried treasure. Robert Louis Stevenson invented many famous pirate tropes with this one novel, such as X marking the spot of buried treasure and talking parrots perched on the shoulders of one-legged pirates, so no matter my feelings on the book as a story I will be forever indebted to it because it's given me the many pirate movies and TV shows I love.

The writing here is nothing special, being extremely matter-of-fact and impersonal, so the story and characters are really what carry the book. The first half of the story is incredibly fun, with Jim meeting various pirates and hearing tales of their various exploits. But when Jim starts having pirate exploits of his own I begin to lose interest, and lose interest quickly. It didn't take long for me to start constantly comparing it to Treasure Planet and how much better I thought it handled various plot points.

I genuinely don't know how I feel about the characters. I love Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver, but not because of this book. I love Jim Hawkins because he rides around on hoverboards and clings to any male authority figure because he needs a father; I love Long John Silver because of his development from coward to quartermaster to legend. I love them because of the adaptations they've been in that I love. So while I enjoyed them here, they pale in comparison to other versions of them I've seen.

Maybe if I wasn't so attached to Treasure Planet and Black Sails I would have enjoyed this more. Based on my enjoyment of the first half of this, though, I think that whatever added enjoyment I would have had would have been marginal. This book isn't bad, I just thought it was okay. I would recommend watching Treasure Planet or Black Sails instead of reading this, but I wouldn't discourage you from reading it either. I understand its significance in culture and how others could like it even if I mostly didn't.

content warnings: fatphobia, food poisoning, cheating
representation: biracial (white-mexican) chubby protagonist, interracial main f/m relationship, biracial (white-mexican) main character, mexican main and side characters, gay mexican main character

“Ethan Thomas is doing something weird to my emotions.”

Christina Lauren singlehandedly invented romance and we're so lucky that they exist. This is my third read of theirs and the third 4-star I've given them.

This steamy adult romance centres on Olive, quite possibly the unluckiest person alive, who is the maid of honour at her ridiculously-lucky twin sisters wedding. Amy's luck means that she wins every contest she enters, including one for an all-expenses paid honeymoon to Maui. But then at the wedding reception everyone gets food poisoning except two; Olive and the groom's brother/Olive's arch-nemesis, Ethan. Now Olive and Ethan have to pretend to be a married couple so they can go on Amy's honeymoon, and maybe they'll fall in love along the way.

I truly loved everything about this. The characters, the romance, the setting, the themes, the familial relationships, all of it. While Olive and Ethan are no match for Josh and Hazel in terms of me loving them individually, they definitely win in the flirty banter department. It's probably no secret that I'm a sucker for a good enemies-to-lovers romance and, oh boy, did this deliver. There literally wasn't a line of dialogue between Olive and Ethan that I didn't absolutely love, and I truly think that this might be the best banter Christina Lauren have written so far.

Something I'm also a sucker for in romances is some good family dynamics, something which Christina Lauren apparently knew because they delivered in spades. Olive and Amy's relationship was so real to me as someone who doesn't have a twin but does have five sisters, two of who are twins. And their entire massive extended family was so fun to read about that I was actually sad we didn't get more scenes of the entire family just crowded into someone's apartment to provide kind of judgmental but always loving support. This was also contrasted super well with Ethan and Dane's relationship, as despite them being brothers they're not that close and don't tend to talk about the serious stuff with each other. Seeing how the brothers fit into that dynamic was also super fun, especially seeing Ethan and Amy in the few scenes they had together.

I would say that if you're a romance fan you're probably going to love this; more specifically, if you're a Helen Hoang fan then I think this could definitely be up your alley if you want your even split of big, overbearing families and swoony romance. Now please excuse me while I go out and immediately read whichever Christina Lauren book my library has.

Review also found on my blog.


content warnings: homophobia, explicit sexual content, forced outing, family member with cancer
representation: bisexual main character, gay main character, m/m main relationship, gay main and side characters

“Fuck, he’s good-looking when he smiles. So much so, I’m wondering if my family will call bullshit on our little act. Clearly, if I was with Damon for real, I’d be punching above my weight.”

Well damn, this was much better than I expected. Hearing the premise of a guy pretending to be gay to break up with his girlfriend and then years later having to get a fake boyfriend to go with to her wedding, I was skeptical to say the least. But Eden Finley fucking pulled it off.

I really liked both the main characters, and pretty much all of the supporting cast, which is good for a book like this for two reasons. The first is because if you don't care about the two mains then you won't care about their relationship, making the book completely worthless. The second being that there are several more books in this series, many which follow side characters from this book, so either you like them or you stop reading at this book.

Maddox and Damon, the two main characters, have really good chemistry. From fake boyfriends to friends to actual boyfriends, they're dynamic stays amazing throughout and I really enjoyed getting to see their relationship develop.

As with all romance books, especially smutty ones, there has to be some big conflict, and odds are I'll hate it. This was the case here, but Eden Finley was smart and knew to keep the conflict simple and not have it last for too long, which made it far more bearable than usual. Going from a not-so-positive to a positive, the sex scenes were really good. Honestly, don't really have much to say on that front other than they were really well-written.

If you're looking for a good smutty male/male romance, then I would definitely recommend this one. I don't think I would recommend the audiobooks though because even though the narrators were really good at playing their characters, their voices for others characters (particularly women) kept taking me out of the story.

“We’re not gonna throw away the past as if it meant nothing. See? That’s what happens to whole neighborhoods. We built something, it was messy, but we’re not gonna throw it away.”