This is an insanely long and complicated double campaign and our group didn’t get far in before we decided to make a change of pace but reading through the story - it’s definitely a classic.

Another read aloud with Max

I read fantasy romance genre novels like it is my job. I love elves, halfings, witches, and wizards; I love rough and tumble adventures with ‘hero’s journey vibes;’ I love love stories. Simon and Baz in Rainbow Rowell’s trilogy is the best love story I’ve read in years. Their story - not to mention their ridiculous stop at the Renaissance Faire we love in Omaha Nebraska in the second book - is one of the truest, most brutal and gut wrenching, and beautiful stories I’ve read. These teenage to young adult men had me laughing, crying, and relating. If you enjoy love stories and have limited your reads to strictly heterosexual story lines, you’re missing out on some rich, meaningful story telling. So your sex looks different? No matter. We can all relate to being in love and all the beautiful issues that come with it. Thank you Rainbow for giving us these characters.

Rowell has a knack for making what are generally absurd storylines and outcomes that seem unfathomable, feel so relatable, true to life, and human. I am endlessly a sucker for a good love story and she puts out the best.

This book had consistent laugh out loud reflections on our culture but was also a scathing commentary on the state of millennial womanhood. It wasn’t indulgent, as in I don’t believe the author thinks she was above the same bullshit as her characters, but was instead sadly reflective of what 2010 to 2021 has been. To be sure Maren and Devin were exaggerated caricatures but both of women I know and traits and habits recognize in myself.

These are first chapter books Eleanor (age 6) wants us to read out loud to her - which thrills me as we embark on a new part of our bedtime routine with much longer books but admittedly these are… well they’re fine for what they are