nerdinthelibrary's Reviews (926)

4.5

And with that, I'm finally done with the Dimple and Rishi universe :( These three books are some of my all-time favourites and while I look forward to reading Sandhya Menon's future books, these ones will always have an extremely special place in my heart. RTC in the next few days.

representation: entirely Moroccan cast
content warnings: colonisation, kidnapping, murder, loss of a loved one, grief, torture

“More than that, I hoped that Maram would think back on the words she’d helped me craft, and envision a world without the cruelties of her father’s reign.
It was a small hope, I thought, looking out over the crowd, but an important one – if Maram could be the ruler that her father had failed to be, that her mother had wanted to be, then there was hope for us – for all of us.
Wasn’t there?
I had to believe it.”

Finally, some good fucking food. I do really like YA fantasy but there are many seeming staples of the genre that I'm just not a fan of which stop me from reading it too often, which is probably the reason why this has sat on my shelf for two years. But I needn't have feared because Mirage in every way is a breath of fresh air that makes me want to devour all the fantasy on my shelves.

This debut is set in a Moroccan-inspired galaxy, specifically on the planet of Andala. Amani is the youngest in a family of farmers living on Cadiz, one of Andala's moons, and was born after the Vath empire conquered the planet. At her coming of age ceremony, Amani is taken from her village by the Vath and is held captive at the royal palace where she discovers that she looks identical to Princess Maram. Maram is half-Vathek/half-Andalan and is so despised by the Andalan's that she needs a body double, and Amani is forced to fill the role.

I haven't read a book this deeply emotional in a very long time. Everything that the characters felt left me with an ache in my chest, whether it was love, or grief, or joy. Some of this is Somaiya Daud's lush writing that made me fall in love with the book almost instantly, but a lot of it comes down to how much Amani experiences these emotions. She is a very sincere character who becomes good at hiding her emotions on the outside but on the inside is incapable of not feeling them to their fullest.

This book is told in first-person perspective exclusively from Amani point of view but every character around her is one that makes me feel just as much because of how well Daud writes them. Amani is a fairly perceptive character and that means that whenever a character she knows fairly well is experiencing anything, she picks up on it and immediately empathises with them. It's a clever tool to understanding and caring for side characters while also deepening Amani's character.

There are two things Mirage has that really make this my kryptonite: excellent relationships of all kinds, and SPACE FANTASY.

Now, space fantasy is not a very popular genre, mostly because a lot of people don't know it when they see it. Most people will see that something is set in space and immediately classify it as science fiction even when there's nothing scientific about it, to the point that Star Wars is still classified as a sci-fi even though it couldn't be further away. Admittedly, the fantasy in this first book is pretty light, the majority of the fantastical elements being only discussed as things that happened in the past or legends. The way this book ends makes me think that the sequel will have a little more fantasy, which excites me, but honestly I'd be happy if it remained mostly a thing of legend.

I'm pretty sure none of you care about the underrated genre that is space fantasy like I do, so let's just move right along to talking about relationships because they're amazing. Specifically the relationships between Amani & Maram and Amani & Idris.

Idris is Maram fiance who she is engaged to solely for political reasons. He becomes Amani's biggest challenge when she is imitating Maram as he arguably knows her best. Amani becomes romantically interested in Idris pretty early on and it blossoms from there. I went into this knowing there would be a romance and expecting to hate it, but Somaiya Daud really did the impossible and made me swoon multiple times over the course of reading this book. For one, a trope I hate in romances like theirs was subverted almost immediately so that made me already really on board for it. They also just have great chemistry and care so deeply for each other that I couldn't help but love their romance.

Amani and Maram's relationship is where my love for this book truly skyrockets, though. Maram is known for being unnecessarily cruel and does horrendous things to Amani when they first meet. But over time, Maram grows to trust Amani more and Amani realises how incredibly lonely Maram is. The Vath don't want her to be their Queen because she's half-Andalan and the Andalan despise her because she is part-Vath. Her father raised her to be a conqueror who hated the Andalan and so she did. But as she becomes closer to Amani, she learns more about her mother's people and the Andalan family she has who mourn her as if she is dead. The way her and Amani's relationship develops made me tear up in parts because of how lovely it was. The end of the book broke my heart and I need to read the next book immediately because I need to know where their relationship will go after what happened.

I generally don't care for political intrigue but this managed to do even that really well, I think largely because of how personal everything was made. The politics all concern Amani directly and so both she and I care about decisions the Vath make about their colonised planet. The politics are also tied very closely to Maram and her future, which makes it far more interesting as I sat on the edge of my seat wondering where she would fall on different things her people planned to do.

At its core, Mirage is a deeply emotional character-driven story that still has a heavy focus on plot as it relates directly to our characters and their relationships. The ending is one of my favourites I've read all year and I need to find the sequel. This book reinvigorated my love for YA fantasy, and fantasy in general, but I worry that the next few I read just won't measure up to how much I loved this.

Also, shout-out to Somaiya Daud for writing a fantasy that was just over 300 pages. So many fantasy authors nowadays seem to think that good = long, when usually it's more like long = boring. I do love a hefty fantasy but there's something to be said for how much short fantasy can pack a punch, and Mirage absolutely did.

content warnings: discussions of past parental neglect and physical abuse, violence, underage drinking, graphic sexual content, infidelity, death of a friend

“I want to know everything about him. But maybe, I figure, we’ll keep having a reason to find each other if we save some things for later.
And right now, I’m desperate to see what else his mouth can do other than talk.
Touch me. Please.
Kiss me.”

This is a kind of book that seems like it was written for me and I'm always a little wary about those kinds of books because it seems too good to be true. I've been burned too many times by mediocre books that seem flawless and yet I keep reading seemingly perfect books. Thank god I do because then I can find masterpieces like this.

Birthday Girl is my first Penelope Douglas book, and definitely not my last. It follows Jordan, a college student who, after her boyfriend Cole fucks up, is forced to move into his dad's place until they can afford a place of their own. Jordan quickly starts falling for Cole's dad, Pike, who in turn is falling for Jordan.

That is an extremely cheesy and tropey setup that can absolutely be written badly, but Penelope Douglas makes you almost instantly forget how ridiculous it is. Everything about this book feels surprisingly realistic even though if you think about it outside of context it obviously isn't. I think a lot of this comes down to how well-written the characters are. They're unlikeable sometimes, but incredibly consistent in their characterisation so it's never a huge surprise whenever they do anything. This means that the relationships they form also feel more authentic than many others I've read in new adult romances.

Jordan is such a fantastic main character. She's only nineteen but spent her childhood being neglected by her parents and was forced to grow up way too soon. She's spent her entire life worried about money, and that hasn't stopped since she's moved out; if anything, it's gotten worse. She's fairly mature for her age, but it never felt to me that Douglas was writing her that way to justify her relationship with Pike, just that this was who she envisioned Jordan to be. Douglas also doesn't just boil her character down to a young person stressed about their future. Jordan has so much personality that shines through at every moment, full of optimism and life, and it's easy to see why Pike falls in love with her so quickly.

Pike is a polarising character and I understand why. Honestly, it's shocking I don't hate him. He's aggressive and reacts irrationally in ways that I normally hate in male romantic leads, and yet. I spent every second of this book rooting for him and hoping he would end up with Jordan. I think that at least part of this is that he's actually shown to acknowledge his shitty behaviour, which doesn't make up for it necessarily but already puts him miles ahead of most similar characters. And, I dunno, maybe I just thought he was hot.

This is a long book, clocking in at just over 400 pages, and it's also a slowburn. When I heard that I physically recoiled, assuming that it would spend 300 pages being boring and then 100 pages of hot sex. Don't worry, that's not true at all. Sure, there isn't a lot of sex in the first half (though it's certainly not devoid of sexual content) but it's full of tension that's almost better than sex. By the end of the first chapter, there's already something between Jordan and Pike, and it doesn't go away for the whole book.

Obviously this is an erotic book. It's full of incredibly written sex scenes and sensual descriptions, all of which I loved, but something that struck me as I neared the end of the book is how deeply romantic it is. It isn't obvious when you're reading most of the book because the connection between Jordan and Pike is so carnal but as the ending draws near, the sex just kind of falls away? No, that's not the right way to describe it because there is still sex, but it's different. You're rooting for these characters to fall deeply in love with each other instead of just getting into each other's pants, which I think is what made me okay with the ending. The last chapter and epilogue of this is normally exactly what I hate in romances and normally would make me take off a star, but in this I was so in love with the character's love that I swooned over it.

This not being Penelope Douglas' most well-regarded book makes me so excited for my future of reading her books, especially since one of my friend's loves so many of her other books. Birthday Girl well and truly exceeded my expectations, and I kind of want to reread it already.

I stan one (1) disaster witch and her cat :')

content warnings: gore, violence, self-mutilation, poisoning, death
representation: sapphic main characters, f/f main relationship

“Red’s letters she keeps in her own body, curled beneath her tongue like coins, printed in her fingers’ tips, between the lines of her palms. She presses them against her teeth before kissing her marks, reads them over when she shifts her grip on motorcycle handles, dusts soldiers’ chins with them in bar fights and barracks games. She thinks without thinking, often, of what she will name Red in her next letter―hides her lists in plausibly deniable dreamscapes, on the undersides of milkweed leaves, in shed chrysalis and wingtip. Vermillion Lie. Scarlet Tanager. Parthian Thread. My Red, Red Rose.”

This might be my favourite book of the year. I also totally understand if you don't like this book. At not-even 200 pages, This Is How You Lose the Time War is a strange, difficult book that has no interest in making itself accessible. You're thrown into a world you don't know with characters you know nothing about but it seems as if you've been with them for years. There is not a word of dialogue spoken for almost 100 pages. The little description you get of our lead characters is clearly inhuman. Terminology is used that you know nothing about and is never explained.

And I loved every second of it.

I can't describe this book in any way that will do it justice, so I'm going to give you the most simple description possible: Blue and Red are on opposite sides of a conflict and begin to write secret letters to each other, at first to taunt but it quickly becomes more.

That's it, that's all you need. Not only is this book near-impossible to describe, it's also one you should go into knowing as little as possible. The plot ultimately isn't what's important, anyway. It's all about the gorgeous romance between these two lead characters.

I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers and one of my favourite flavours of that trope is two people on opposing sides of a war so I was predisposed to love this. The majority of the book is told in letters between Red and Blue as they get to know each other, both always suspicious but slowly lowering their guards as time goes on. I adored them both. We ultimately know very little of their lives and are missing many big details, but the things we do know are so much more important. We know the small things they dare to share with one another, the minuscule things that seem inconsequential but are vital in understanding them. So as the book goes on, we fall in love with them as they fall in love with each other.

This book is so short but so effective, and I honestly want to reread it already. I was vibing with it from page 1, not caring that I had no idea what was happening and just along for the ride. Some people can't do that and I get it. This is exactly the kind of book that some people will read and not get the hype, and others will read and fall in love with. I definitely fall into the latter category. Expect this on my Best of the Year list.

1) Theirs for the Night ★★★★


content warnings: attempted murder, mentions of fatal poisoning, mentions of past alcoholism and drug abuse
representation: mlm main characters, m/m/f main relationship

“Maybe it was narcissistic to think that I should be king. I have you. We have Meg. We have more money than we could spend in a lifetime. Why the fuck do I need a country, too?”

You guys might not see me for a while because I'll be off binge-reading all of Katee Robert's books. It's only taken two books in the same series, but she's already ascended to favourite smutty writer territory (it helps that I've heard her other books are incredible).

A few months have passed since Theirs for the Night and Meg has decided that her fun night with Theo and Galen will be nothing but that, a fun memory (that may have ruined sex for her). She's already struggling with paying her tuition so she can try to escape the life her mother had, she doesn't have time for Theo and Galen's bullshit. Theo, however, hasn't given up on Meg and wants her back; Galen just wants to keep him (and Meg, though he'll never admit it) safe. All their plans go wrong, but maybe in the best way possible.

This is obviously a lot longer than the first book, and thank god for that because I surprisingly got super into the plot. Of course the sex is still the focus, and it's fantastic, don't get me wrong. But Theo and Galen trying to find a loophole so they can get Theo restored as Crown Prince (and now King, with his father dead) and find proof that Theo's uncle screwed him over ended up being super interesting! They spend a lot of the book travelling across Europe trying to find the evidence they need, meeting new characters and getting into life threatening situations. Meg's involvement in it also ends up really interesting, especially because she and the boys ultimately don't know each other very well and end up clashing in what I found to be very realistic and compelling ways.

I also became extremely invested in the romance, which is nice because there's a lot of erotica out there that doesn't really care about the characters and their romance, instead only caring about the sex. That's fine, I guess, but my time of reading smutty fan-fiction has made me find way more enjoyment in erotica where I'm actively rooting for the characters to have sex with each other instead of them just doing it. The end of this book was wonderful, and definitely doesn't call for a sequel but I'm excited there's one anyway because god do I want to see these three just being a domestic couple who aren't running for their lives and have the weight of the world on their shoulders.

I'm surprised I'd only heard of Katee Robert recently because, honestly, nobody's doing it like her (except for maybe Sierra Simone. I don't know if it's just because I read a Sierra Simone right before this but they give me similar vibes (and not just because of how much they both love writing menage, but also we love to see it)) and every erotica reader should start reading her books right now.

ContemporaryAThon: read a fun book.


1) When Dimple Met Rishi ★★★★


content warnings: fatphobia
representation: fat Indian-American main character, Indian main and side characters, mlm Black main characters, side m/m relationship

“He wanted to tell her he’d never felt as happy, as at peace, as he did when Sweetie was with him. He wanted to tell her he was changing, becoming a better person, a gentler, kinder person, all because of her.”

I can say, without a doubt, that this is one of my new favourite books. I was already on the Sandhya Menon train because of how much I enjoyed When Dimple Met Rishi, but this masterpiece of a book has converted me to a full-on stan. I will read anything she writes because if it's even half as good as this, odds are I'll love it.

Speaking of When Dimple Met Rishi, this is a sequel/companion book to that, taking place after the events of that book and following Rishi's younger brother, Ashish, who has since broken up with Celia, the girl he started dating in WDMR. Feeling like Celia ruined him for all other girls, he agrees to let his parents set him up with someone like they did Rishi: enter Sweetie Nair, a fat girl who is one of the best track runners in the state but whose health is still constantly questioned.

We all know I love a good romance book, and this might be one of the best. I hadn't even hit 100 pages when I realised I would be content with the rest of the book being just Ashish and Sweetie hanging out, kissing occasionally (or a lot). Both characters were so easy to love, and having the book be written in both their perspectives I think really helped with that. Ashish screams fuckboy but is actually a cutie who loves his friends, family and basketball, and is nursing a broken heart. Sweetie is one of those people who can't find it in herself to hate anyone and always looks for the best in people without ever letting people walk all over her. In many ways they're complete opposites, as they point out at one point, but they're opposites in a way where they completely gel with each other.

The entire supporting cast is also A+. I continue to love the Patel's, who just become even dorkier parents in this book, and I adored both the main characters' friend groups. I'm very happy that the next book is going to be about Pinky because, unsurprisingly, she was my favourite.

This book isn't just a cute romance with lovable characters, though. A lot of the book focuses on Sweetie being a fat girl and how this impacts her day-to-day life. Her mother is determined to make her daughter thin, disregarding that Sweetie is in no way unhealthy because she's so terrified that her daughter might be mocked for her weight. Sweetie is at a place in her life where she's stopped feeling ashamed for her weight, but there are still lingering insecurities that have been drilled into her by practically everyone in her life. For their first meeting, Sweetie has Ashish race her so that he can see that she's incredibly athletic and not lazy because she immediately assumes that will be his first impression of her when he sees that she's fat.

Don't worry, none of the fatphobia in this book comes from Ashish, and all of it is challenged in some way. Some of the scenes could definitely be triggering for some people, though, so proceed with caution. There are scenes of people commenting on Sweetie's body, people trying to control/shame her for her eating, and people policing what she can and can't do because of her body, all of which is challenged in different ways.

Despite how much this book deals with fatphobia in a very real and raw way, Menon has worked it expertly into the narrative and never detracts from the light tone this book ultimately haves. It's a perfect blend of seriousness and sweetness (pun intended). If you're looking for your next cute contemporary romance, look no further than this series because it is spectacular.


17/10/18: I don't think anyone understands just how much I love this cover.
It is my favourite cover in existence.
I want it tattooed onto my eyelids so I can see it forever.
This cover makes my heart go (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

“I wasn’t sure why I loved myself as much as I did. Never really questioned it.
Of course, my self-confidence could be flighty as a bee whenever it felt like it. [...] But I loved myself. I knew and felt it deep in my bones. Even on downswing days when living and being happy in my skin felt impossible, I knew I could rely on my true self to come back around to save that struggling version of me.”

Guys, this book is so! damn! good! I really liked Let's Talk About Love but it didn't blow me away; it was a nice, cute contemporary from a perspective we don't often (or ever) get in contemporary YA. So I figured this would be good. What I didn't expect was for it to make me so emotional.

This is a summery contemporary about Winnie during the summer between senior year and her first year of college as she works at her grandma's diner Goldeen's. But things get a bit complicated when she gets crowned the Summer Queen. That sounds like a fun, light read, right? Well, kind of.

There are many moments that are just sweet and fun; scenes at different town events, hanging out with Winnie and her small group of friends, small moments between characters. But this isn't just cute and funny, it also tackles some very serious things. Racism, sexism, fatphobia, homophobia, abuse.

There's two of those things I want to especially touch on because they in particular were handled extraordinarily, in my opinion. First is the fatphobia. This book never lets you forget that Winnie is fat, from her mentioning altering her uniform to commentary on how the world perceives her. There are several scenes in the book of people, some subtly, others not, scrutinising Winnie for her weight and therefore her health. There was one scene in particular of her in a doctors office where two separate doctors ask her to weigh herself and she refuses. Instead of respecting her wishes, they rattle off reasons why they need to know it (even though they don't) and all horrible things that could happen to her if she doesn't lose weight. Winnie loses it in a semi-monologue that filled me up with so many emotions I honestly don't know how I could express them with just words, and yet is still the one seen as in the wrong. The book has so many open, honest discussions about fatphobia, particularly in medicine, that were all done so wonderfully I nearly cried.

Now onto abuse. For the first time in her life, Winnie is clashing with her beloved grandmother who seems determined to have her be perfect, expectations she doesn't put on Winnie's brother or cousin. Throughout the book their fights get bigger and bigger, and it becomes more obvious that while Winnie isn't handling it perfectly she is still being emotionally abused by her grandma. She constantly criticises her in ways that sound caring, will blackmail her while unwittingly using Winnie's brother and cousin, throws her out when she doesn't want to engage with her, her word is law and no one must ever challenge her or she will reign hell. Some people may not see this as abuse. That's fine. But I definitely did. By the end of the book

Spoiler

Winnie is no longer speaking to her grandmother after being kicked out again. There's an acknowledgement that their relationship might be repaired in the future, but also that Winnie's grandmother is the one who needs to apologise and Winnie can't be the person to make the first move yet again.

But now let's talk about an amazing family dynamic because Winnie and Winston, her brother? The new best literary sibling duo. They annoy the shit out of each other and purposely get on each others' nerves, but they would also do anything for each other. A lot of Winnie's motivations revolve around Winston, and I love that we're getting a brother-sister relationship that isn't hostile. Especially one where the sister is the older of the two.

The relationships in this book in general are great. Even the bad ones are so well-written and realistic. Winnie and her ungirlfriend, Kara, are adorable but I also love that they have serious issues they have to work through over the summer. Throwing in Dallas, a boy from the town who Winnie maybe has a crush on, just makes the dynamics even better, and there are so many amazing and honest discussions of queerplatonic relationships involving these three.

Despite some of the heavier things this book covers, it still ultimately is a light, summery contemporary that deftly weaves these heavy topics in. The only thing stopping it from getting the full five is that the first five or six chapters are pretty slow as they set up the characters and town. I would say the turning point for whatever reason is the blow-up at the doctors, which luckily isn't too far in. Please read this because it's so good, even if you didn't like Let's Talk About Love I still think you should check this out.

“I didn’t fit in one perfect little box. Boys? Check. Girls? Check. Did gender really matter to me? Eh, probably not. Calling myself queer felt like standing under a kind stranger’s umbrella in an unexpected rainstorm. I might not use it forever, but at the moment, it was exactly what I needed.”

content warnings: fatphobia, diet culture

“Your body is perfect. Yes, yours. Exactly the way it is, right now in this second.

Don’t ever forget it.”

This is an anthology that I've needed for a very long time. In some ways it's been a great year for fat representation - Ned Leeds has now been in two Spider-Man movies without there being a joke about his weight, Barbie Ferreira is starring as a sexualised fat girl in HBO's critically acclaimed Euphoria, Kristin Chirico got her own show on Facebook Watch - but in a lot of other ways it's been a terrible year for fat people - Thor's fatness being a punchline in Endgame, Insatiable somehow got a second season that premiered this year, Grace Randolph just a couple weeks ago made certain, ahem, comments about Florence Pugh and Rachel Weisz in the Black Widow trailer. So reading this anthology was the exact medicine I needed for all the bullshit I have to deal with on a daily basis, both personally and generally.

The Other F Word is an anthology full of personal essays, poetry, illustrations, letters-to-younger-selves; everything you could imagine finding in an anthology, it's here. And it's all focused on fatness. This is also an anthology made up of an incredibly diverse group of people who all offer incredibly different perspectives.

On a more personal note, after almost every section there's a photograph of the person who wrote it and a bio of their life and accomplishments beneath it, and there was something so incredibly wonderful seeing picture after picture of happy, thriving fat people.

Some of my favourite pieces included: Brighter Than Starlight by Jiji Knight, Fat, And by S. Qiouyi Lu, Write Something Fat by Sarah Hollowell, Fatness & Horror: The Match Made in Not Heaven by Hillary Monahan, For the Love of Ursula's Revenge Body by Julie Murphy, Losing My Religion by Jess Walton, To All the Pizzas I've Loved Before by Laina Spencer, and Baltimore... and Me by Amy Spalding. But believe me when I say I genuinely loved everything included in this anthology.

This is a must-read for everyone. It's funny, it's sad, it's angering, it's inspiring. There are recommendations of films and TV shows to watch, books to read, models and activists to follow, stores to shop at, all with fat people in mind.

I'm not sure how coherent this is, or if it even gets across my immense excitement over something like this existing in my lifetime. But know that I am overjoyed at this books' existence, and I think you should all read it.

Buzzword readathon #10

I first read this two years ago and was worried going into my second read that it wouldn't live up to my expectations. I shouldn't have worried because I loved it even more the second time!

This is maybe the most underrated series and team in comics history, and I'm not over-exaggerating. The Authority are on the surface just a gritty version of the Justice League, but underneath that there's a lot of really smart commentary about power and some amazing characters.

I really love all of these characters. Jenny Sparks is the leader of this hodgepodge team and I love her so darn much. I forgot that while being a badass she's also a really funny, caring character, and just generally a lot more well-rounded than I remembered her being. I obviously love Midnighter and Apollo - I have a Midnighter sticker on my laptop for a reason - but I also genuinely love all the other members of the Authority.

The art is also so much better than I remember it being. While I don't love the way that Angie is drawn (do we really need to be seeing her nipples at all times??), the rest of it is so well done. The close-ups are particularly great, especially Jenny at the end of issue 2.

I just really love this comic and am dying every day that DC doesn't adapt it. Come on guys, Vanessa Kirby would be the perfect Jenny Sparks but she's not going to be age appropriate forever! I'm now going to read the next volume and despair at how my favourite series was ruined.