nerdinthelibrary's Reviews (926)

content warnings: gaslighting, suicide, issues of consent, harassment, infidelity, grief, death, tragic house fire

This book is a pile of garbage in every way imagineable. Honestly, I don't really want to go into it too much because I just listened to this entire audiobook in one day and it took a lot out of me so I'll give you the highlights:

- The audiobook narrators weren't great. Like, they're fine when speaking as their characters but when they do voices for other characters it's hella cringey
- I don't mind problematic media, as long as it's entertaining, and with very few exceptions this wasn't
- The writing was fine?? I guess???
- I hated the romance, and this entire book hinges on that so :/
- Ben is a fuckboy and he can choke
- Fallon's entire arc is dependent on Ben telling her that she's beautiful (which is lowkey ironic when you know the ~~twist~~)
- Also, Ben gave me real Wilhell (from SKAM) vibes, especially in the scene towards the start with the dress
- I'm convinced no one in Fallon's life cares about her because they all are totes cool with her fucked up relationship
- They're literally saying they love each other even tho they've only known each other for less than three days wtf guys
- Their third Nov. 9 was real weird
- Ben's tragic backstory is Garbage
- The plot twists are bullshit
- There's literally a part where CoHo is justifying her plot twist to the audience and it's done without any subtlety
- There is no fucking way that Fallon's mum is crying for that douche canoe after reading that fucking manuscript
- Tbh, if you love soaps (as my Emmerdale-lovin' heart does) and you know the big spoilers of this book, you'll probably find some enjoyment in the drama, but otherwise don't waste your time

content warnings: homophobia, religion-based hatred
representation: colombian-american side character, gay jewish side character, korean-american side character, lesbian side character

I really enjoyed this book! First of all, Michael Crouch is a fantastic narrator and I would highly recommend the audiobook (he was also the narrator for Rufus' chapters in They Both Die at the End).

I also feel like I need to preface this review by saying that this book does not look down upon religion. I'm aware that the concept of an atheist attending a religious school and joining a group called Heretics Anonymous who are against their schools practices sounds like it will just be about the main character making fun of religion, but I can promise you that this book doesn't do that. While the main character is an atheist and doesn't understand a lot of aspects of religion, he isn't purposely disrespectful. At most, he says something ignorant and is immediately corrected. In fact, his entire character arc centres around him understanding and respecting religion, even if he doesn't practice it himself. Despite this, the book does criticise a lot of things about Catholicism and the contents of the Bible, in particular the hypocrisy of many Catholics in their practices. The book never makes out the Church or the Bible to be bad things, though, just flawed things.

The religion aspect was one of my favourite things about the book, other other being the fantastic characters.

➽Michael is the protagonist and admittedly my least favourite character in the book. I enjoyed his narration and character arc, but I really wasn't a fan of the romantic subplot and the way he treated his romantic interest at times made me feel very uncomfortable. In particular, after a conflict between the two in which he was in the wrong he never wanted to make things right because he acknowledged he had done something wrong; he wanted to make things right because he missed his girlfriend and wanted forgiveness. It made me really not like him as much towards the end :/

➽Lucy is a Colombian-American Catholic feminist, and was wonderful to read about. She's the only Heretics Anonymous member who is Catholic, which means that she understands both the good and the bad in her religion better than any of the others. She wants to be a priest, something she can't do because she's not a man, and there are many things about her religion that she doesn't agree with (their views on LGBTQ+ people, abortion, etc.), but she also loves being Catholic and finds comfort in her religion. I loved that her Colombian heritage is an important part of her character, from her occasionally speaking Spanish to her explaining certain customs to Michael, but it was also not something that was the most important aspect of her character.

➽Avi is gay and Jewish, which, as you can imagine, causes a lot of conflict. In particular, one of the teachers at the school gets fired because she marries her girlfriend, something which is an important part of the book for Avi as he attempts to go to serious lengths in an effort to right this wrong. His religion is touched on multiple times, but Katie Henry has incorporated these discussions naturally and without ever feeling forced. Neither his sexuality or his religion makes up the entirety of his character, which I really appreciated. He also works on the school paper, which is important to him particularly towards the end of the book, and he is never reduced to the Gay Best Friend.

➽Max is Korean-American and Unitarian, a sort of subset of Christianity, something which is explained at length in the book and to be honest I can't explain that well so you should probably just google it if you don't know what it is. Max was a really fun character whose main motivations is his wanting to wear cloaks (literal cloaks) during school hours, something which is against school rules and makes him want to wreak havoc on the dress code. As with all the other characters, he is never reduced to a stereotype and was a great side character.

➽Eden is a Celtic Reconstructionist Polytheist, which is a form of paganism, and the book goes to great lengths to make sure that both Michael and the reader don't believe misconceptions about her beliefs. You witness a ritual she undergoes, and she speaks often about what her belief system is. She's a driving force behind Heretics Anonymous trying to ensure that the school doesn't just cater to its Catholic students and is instead inclusive of all religions, and honestly she was probably my favourite character.

Katie Henry has created a fantastic cast of characters, making her characters have intelligent discussions about morals and beliefs, but also allowing them to be dumb teenagers who make rash decisions they instantly regret. She also allowed her characters to argue without it seeming over dramatic or friendship-ending, something which is expected of a group of friends with such different belief systems.

The different schemes Heretics Anonymous came up with were honestly fantastic. The things they protest are never too petty, always stemming from real injustice, such as the shitty and offensive sex ed. many religious schools have, and the sexist and humiliating ways in which female students are forced to prove they are following the dress code.

I really enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a fun contemporary that is full of deeper themes (a favourite sub-genre of mine).

DNF @ 36%

I'm sorry to the many, many, many, many, many people who love this book with their whole heart and soul, but I don't get it. Honestly, the only reason why I made it so far into this book was that the audiobook narrator, Jim Dale, was incredible and I'm quite excited to get my hands on his Harry Potter audiobooks at some point.

This book just didn't do it for me. The world was beautiful, and the descriptions were absolute magic, but the characters and the plot were very meh. I was expecting a lot more from the premise of opposing magicians but it was incredibly lackluster and the characters involved weren't interesting enough to hold my attention. The narrative jumps through time and shifts perspective a lot and it was hard for me to keep track of characters and events when it wasn't about the main warring magicians plot.

I was excited for this, but I just don't get it and I'm probably going to sell my physical copy of the book.

I spent a long time agonising over whether or not I felt comfortable giving a star rating to someone tell stories from their life. Ultimately, I've decided that yes, I will give star ratings for biographies, memoirs, etc., or at least I'm going to give a star rating to this one.

If you're planning on reading this book, please, if you can, listen to the audiobook. Listening to it makes it seem as if you're sitting across from Carrie Fisher, you've just asked her to tell you her experiences in Star Wars, and she's decided to chat with you for five hours about it (with her daughter chiming in for part of the story).

Honestly, this book just made me miss Carrie even more. It's uncensored and, I can't think of a better way to describe this, so completely her.

I will warn you: there are multiple times when she jokes about her dying, and literally every single time she does you will burst into tears. Sorry.

content warnings: grief, loss of a parent, breast cancer mention, age difference
representation: fat main character

“The illusion was broken. I was no longer his best friend’s daughter. I was a woman, pure and simple. I was a woman he wanted so badly he didn’t care what lines got blurred.”

The perfect example of something that is just pure fun, Sugar Plum is about a college student who's in love with her dad's best friend who, unbeknownst to her, has been in love with her since she was eighteen.

As far as erotica goes, this is pretty down the middle. Some of the sexy scenes are great (the first one in particular), some are pretty lackluster. The plot is obviously not too important but up until the end it's perfectly serviceable. At the end it gets extremely cliché in a way I didn't enjoy because this is a novella so I'm nowhere near attached enough to the characters to excuse the sappiness.

It's on Kindle Unlimited so if you already have it and want to see a fat girl getting the sexy times she deserves, check it out!

1) Darkling
2) Undertow


content warnings: death, blood magic, blood play, discussions of past abusive relationship, past infidelity
representation: main m/m relationship, gay main character, mlm main character, bisexual main character, non-binary side characters, sapphic side character of colour


“You say my name like a prayer.”


Brooklyn Ray just keeps killing it with these books! This is a side novella in the Port Lewis series and follows Michael, a human who has just moved to Port Lewis with his sister to start college. The house they move into is kind of creepy and turns out that that's because there's a demon inhabiting it; a really hot demon that Michael ends up fucking.

Let's start there: this main relationship is so cute. I was expecting some kinky monsterfucking, and you do get that, but there are so many sweet moments between Michael and Victor where they're just cuddling or baking and it made me feel real soft. Their relationship does happen very quickly - as in, by chapter two they're already fucking - but your feelings on that are really going to depend on whether you buy into it or not, which I did.

The sex was also So! Good! We already knew that Brooklyn Ray could write a killer sex scene, but she's outdone herself with these ones. They're kinky as hell (lot's of bloodplay, even for Brooklyn Ray's usual standards) and are genuinely some of the best I've ever read. There's also really good BDSM etiquette in this, though, with normalisation and use of a safe word, depictions and discussions of sub drop, aftercare, and explicit consent given. I'm going to hold all new adult smut to an entire new standard and it's all Brooklyn Ray's fault.

There are a few new side characters introduced in this with Janice, Michael's sister, and Corey, their roommate, and while neither were anything spectacular I still enjoyed them whenever they were on the page. Janice and Michael's dynamic in particular I really liked; they have a strained relationship but both desperately just want to reconnect with the other one, and I loved it. There are also cameos from familiar Port Lewis characters, most notably Thalia towards the end, and that was fun.

I can't get over how great these books are! They're witchy, sexy and diverse, and I love 'em with my whole heart and soul. If any of that appeals to you and you haven't picked this series up yet, you need to right now because they genuinely are fantastic!


I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

content warnings: death of a loved one, mentions of a fatal car accident, references to homophobia, mentions of major workplace injuries
representation: lesbian main characters, f/f main relationship, sapphic side characters, f/f side relationships

“Jude definitely didn’t want to kiss me, which was fine. That was her right. It made things a little difficult since I wanted to kiss her more than I’d wanted to kiss anyone in my whole life. I wanted to kiss Jude more than I wanted…well, just about anything. Not more than I wanted to leave Maine, that was for sure, but I wasn’t comfortable with how close those two were in the race for what I wanted.”

This is my first Chelsea M. Cameron and, I gotta say, I really wish I had liked this more. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed it and would recommend it. It just wasn’t really what I wanted.

The Girl Next Door follows Iris, a woman who moved to Boston for college with no intentions of returning but has been forced to by circumstance. She’s now living with her parents again in the small seaside town of Salty Cove and can’t wait to leave again. She’s not the only person who’s come back home, though. Jude Wicks is now living alone in her parents’ house next door to Iris’ where she’s content to live out the rest of her days as a lobsterman after a tragedy that’s closed her off to the world. The two women start to reconnect and, unbeknownst to the other, begin to fall in love.

I’m always excited to read a sapphic romance, and in that regard, this was a slam dunk. Iris and Jude have amazing chemistry and I loved to read about them getting to know each other as adults. They have so many scenes where it’s just the two of the them talking, and it’s a little awkward but also nice because they start to realise that they’re the only people they feel comfortable around in this whole town.

On that note, I also loved the discussion of queerness in small towns in this. I love that there’s no overt homophobia but references to people being different once you come out and being scared to come out in high school because you have to spend every day with these kids and if they can make fun of you for something they’ll make your life a living hell. There are also moments between Jude and Iris where they mention how nice it is to talk to another queer person who has some understanding of what it’s like being a queer person in this town and feeling so alone. My favourite bit regarding queerness, though, was when Iris found a queer club and discovered how many queer people there were in her town. Because queerness isn’t something that you can generally tell just by looking at someone, it’s easy to feel isolated and like no one understands your struggle, so finding out that there are so many other people who have an idea of what you’re going through even if they’ve never gone through it themselves can be really nice.

In general, I was really loving the first two-thirds of this book, with the flirting between the two leads, references to Jude’s mysterious past, and Iris dealing with living at home again. But (spoilers, I guess) once the two main characters got together, I found it a lot less interesting. I thought the last third or so wasn’t well-paced and lots of things felt like they were being skipped over. I also wasn’t a massive fan of the sex scenes. When I first read them, I thought I just wasn’t in the mood to read something smutty but then I read a smutty book literally right after and was really into that, so I think I just didn’t love the writing of the scenes here.

But, to end on a positive note, here are two small things I loved so goddamn much: Dolly, Iris’ adorable dog that made me want to cuddle my own dog, and Iris’ dad, who can’t work anymore after a serious injury and now spends all his time reading various Young Adult books which just charmed me to no end. (None of the books are ever named but if you’re well-versed in YA you can definitely pick out some references. I’m almost 100% sure that Six of Crows and Ash were both featured in here).

I do wish that my first experience with Chelsea M. Cameron had been more positive, but I’m still excited to pick up some of her other books that seem right up my alley. I would also still recommend this because those first two thirds are really good.

I received an ARC of this book for free as part of a blog tour in exchange for an honest review.

4.5/5


content warnings: death of a spouse (past), grief, suicidal ideation, bullying
representation: gay main character with anxiety, biracial (Japanese-white) mlm main character, interracial main m/m relationship

“‘You could be soft with me, if you wanted.’
Fox quirked his lips. ‘I don’t know if I have any softness left in me, Summer.’
‘I think you do,’ Summer said. ‘Or we wouldn’t be like this right now.’”

I picked this up on a total whim, never having heard of it or the author before, and it blew me away. I adored this kind of entirely in a way I haven’t adored an adult romance in a while.

This is the first in a series and follows Summer Hemlock who is returning to his hometown after getting a TA position at his old high school. There he sees Professor Fox Iseya and realises that the crush he’d had on him as a teen hasn’t gone away. I’m not going to spoil what happens from there but it is fantastic and had me gasping in delight by the end of the first chapter.

I love both of these main characters. One of the few flaws of this book is that every other character (maybe with the exception of Summer’s mum) is pretty two-dimensional, but I ended up not caring because so much time and care is put into you investing in Summer and Fox. Outside of their romance, they both have clear arcs that I loved: Summer needs to stop letting his anxiety overwhelm him and be brave, and Fox needs to properly deal with the death of his wife years earlier. They support the other in achieving these goals but they still ultimately do it on their own. Even when the two leads are madly in love and extremely clingy, there’s still a refreshing lack of codependency that’s often found in this genre.

The exploration of grief I found particularly beautiful. We get to see the way his wife’s death affected Fox from multiple perspectives, with Summer only knowing a grieving Fox while his mother used to be good friends with him before his wife’s death and saw him close himself off afterwards. The book makes it clear that there’s a difference between honouring the death of a loved one and drowning yourself in grief and guilt, a distinction I think isn’t made enough. There’s also never an annoying moment when Summer feels inferior compared to Fox’s wife. Multiple times throughout the book I began cringing in anticipation of uncomfortable scenes that never came; Summer is always respectful of Fox’s wife, her memory and his relationship with her, but he also encourages Fox to continue living and facing his own fears. This is honestly one of the most raw, painful and honest depictions of grief I’ve ever read.

Pivoting to a happier topic, the romance in this is top notch. As I said, I was gasping in delight by the end of the first chapter, something I don’t think I’ve ever done in a book before. I think Cole McCade wrote what could have been an iffy power dynamic very well with how he framed their relationship; the opening chapter being in Summer’s perspective as he remembers his teen crush on Fox and realising that some feelings are still there before we switch to Fox’s perspective as he remembers who Summer is and becomes intrigued by him. It’s also crucial that Summer is the one who makes the first move and, especially at the start, tends to be the instigator of everything. (For the record, while there is an age difference Summer is fully an adult who is out of college and Fox never had feelings for him before the events of the book).

I loved everything about this in ways I could have never expected. This being a series makes me so happy because I want to read so much more about Summer and Fox’s lives. I realised that I have some Cole McCade books on my TBR already and those are now getting pushed towards the top because he definitely has the possibility to become a new favourite romance author for me.

I received an ARC of this book for free as part of a blog tour in exchange for an honest review.