Okay, so reading The Most Problematic Pirates was worth it for the lead in into this. Brigit and John are delightful, and sexytimes aren’t just for pretty people! Plus we love seeing atypical MCs— Brigit is a pockmarked Irish maid who can’t read, and John Bone is an older one-legged pirate cook who seriously was like a hot giant Santa in my head. It’s very instalove, but they’re both tentative enough about it that it worked for me. My one quibble is it really just ends out of nowhere, which would be an even bigger detractor if you hadn’t read the previous book, possibly skippable otherwise. I wanted more of these two!

Well, this is a problematic one. Which I was fully warned of going in— also pretty obvious from the synopsis— but it was still more… grape-flavored than I expected. And Adderly comes close to doing something almost interesting with it from the dude’s perspective— where he learns that having her willingly is better— but that gets thrown out the window later. And is the moral of the story that SA is okay as long as they’re attractive? The FMC’s interactions with the two guys outside of banging, either consensually or not, are so fleeting/unsubstantial that I can’t figure out why she’s willing to overlook all the bullshit. Sexy? Sure. Sexy enough to make up for it? Unsure. I will say, I started Bass-Ackwards while in the middle of this, and Adderly calls herself and this book out rather hilariously. I’m also interested to read the sequel, as I thought Brigit & Bone were just side characters.

I am known amongst my friends for my absolute Oz obsession— both the books and the movie hold their own special places in my heart. I started reading them when I was about five, so I was especially excited to start them with my own 5yo. We’ve been doing a lot of longer books as audio in the car, and Brooke Shields’ narration here is solid. This entry in the series is probably one I’ve reread the least, however, and rereading it now, I’m not surprised. It’s fascinating to see the beginnings of a lot of the lore from later in the series (Omby Amby and Jellica Jamb both make unnamed appearances), but a lot of it is inconsistent. And it’s kind of unsatisfying that we can clearly see our heroes had brains, heart and courage all along, but they never realize that themselves. It’s giving me a lot of ideas and I’m excited to keep going with the series.