Short and spicy. A little too insta-lovey for my particular taste but actually quite sweet.

Sometimes a book comes along and manages to wring all of the best emotions out of you with a seemingly simple premise. This was one of those books for me! Two men meet on the Pacific Coast Trail. They hike together and fall in love. Sounds so basic!! In Anita Kelly’s hands, this concept is transcendent.

Not only is this a love story between Alexei and Ben, this is a love letter to hiking, to the Pacific Coast Trail, to the beauty of the outdoors, to the exceptional peace that comes in being quiet with someone, to the goodness that can persist in a world full of hatred and loss, to finding family and friends, to siblings who show up for you, to birds (yes, birds!), to embracing yourself and allowing yourself to feel joy and pleasure, to allowing yourself to be fully weird but also fully loved and lovable.

As I have gotten deeper into my historical romance era, I have become extremely picky with contemporary romance. This one though, THIS ONE TICKS ALL THE BOXES. The MCs are believable, lovable, relatable and realistic. Alexei is struggling with some intense parental trauma, and I found his inner monologue emotionally deep and also very sad at times, but also incredibly touching. Ben is struggling with some past relationship trauma, and *his* inner monologue and his friend group were very sad and very beautiful. Most of all, I was struck by Alexei’s struggle to reconcile his faith in God with his awful experience with religion, and I appreciated that point of view, as it is one I know is common but is very rarely addressed with the level of nuance and gray area that Anita built into this story.

I dunno gang. No matter how much I tell you this book is incredible, I will not do it justice. Just read it.

Recommended. With my whole chest. 

This book made me sad and confused. 😭 But I enjoyed it and I am so ready for the next one!

Nona is very childlike, which made her a challenging POV, especially because yet again the reader is in a new place with new(ish) people. Additionally, she is friends with a bunch of kids, which for me, was emotionally challenging to read. My mom side was very activated the entire time I was reading, and that made the story sweet but also very hard to digest at times. The setting is very post-apocalyptic/refugee camp/war zone this time, so that was another layer of realism that made Nona an uncomfortable read.

Also we have more body swapping which like… 😅 I’m in desperate need of a diagram to track who is in which container. 

In White Tears/Brown Scars, Ruby Hamad investigates and elaborates on how white feminism has hurt and continues to hurt BIPOC the world over. Ahmad’s particularly compelling argument is that white women have simultaneously played both damsels in distress and arbiters of power since European colonialism began. A microcosm of this behavior is regularly captured in videos of white women who start confrontations with BIPOC as aggressors (calling the cops on people having a barbecue, for instance) and end the video in tears, claiming they are being threatened. The key takeaway for me here is that *this is not new behavior* and white women, historically, have clung to power first (through whiteness) and called on the “sisterhood” of feminism only when it benefitted their proximity to power. I have personally witnessed behavior like this many times and as a young person, was absolutely socialized to use my tears as a weapon. It’s something I continue to work hard to unlearn.

I enjoyed Hamad’s more global perspective. Most of the books I have read on racial and social justice have been centered on US problems and examples, so Ruby’s Australian voice was welcome. My biggest critique of this book is Hamad’s multiple references to Robin D’Angelo, who has shown herself to be pretty problematic, but on balance they’re not a deal breaker for recommending the rest of the book.

Poppy makes me want to die. I cannot be in her head for even one more page. JLA needed an editor here DESPERATELY. 60% and the main couple still not together? And what is this magic system?! UGH

Just not for me at the time

I have not been having the best week and I’m very drained, BUT this book was great. For once, I read a series in order and I’m glad I did. It’s highly necessary to really understand this second installment in the Midnight in Scotland Series. I know, I too am shocked by this turn of events.

👍🏻Recommended! If you like Scotty RoNos, super grumpy (actually kind of terrifying) MMCs who MELT for their love interest, EXCITEMENT, bananas plots and swoony spicy spice, this is the book for you! Read The Making of a Highlander first.

I have never had more fun being gaslit by a work of fiction. 

Harrow picks up where Gideon left off, kinda, and then we spend 400 pages asking ourselves if that’s how it really happened. New characters are introduced, lots of people swap and share bodies. People you thought were dead are not(?), others who you thought lived maybe died (?) or perhaps never existed(?). Gore and horrible people abound, and eventually, eventually…we get a few answers. Yes, this is a shrug emoji review. I apologize. 

A friend told me that this series really reminded her of The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin and I can see that! The magic is highly metaphysical and there are multiple planes of existence. The language is unique and opaque and arcane and still hilarious. You will feel like a wild conspiracy theorist trying to explain the plot of this book to anyone else. 

I’m going to attempt to tell you what this book is actually about in an effort to get you to read it. It is unique and so funny and now I can’t stop thinking about what it would have been like to be the publisher or editor who read this book the first time? 🤯 I understand the shrug emojis that come from Locked Tomb fans when asked what this series is about though, I really do. It’s hard to boil it down. Additionally, this is a book that makes you feel things and lots of that comes from experiencing the text itself (however you do that!!! Listening counts!!). Muir’s narrative voice is impossible to put into a blurb, but if the little outline below sounds interesting just know that Tamsyn takes this and makes it SO MUCH BETTER.

Gideon the Ninth is a creepy mystery set in a crumbling palace on a planet other than Earth. Gideon Nav, the main character, is an orphan/outcast who gets roped into attending a universe-wide contest as cavalier (warrior/bodyguard) with her necromancer (death magician), Harrowhark Nonagesimus, whom she hates. I mean they hate each other, for many reasons which are revealed throughout the course of the book. The cast of this book includes at least two people from each of eight houses (planets) in this universe plus some odd “staff” in the crumbling palace. The contest/mystery is basically learning how to become immortal but doing so by solving a series of puzzles. And then there are some murders. Okay, lots of murders.

This book is gruesome. It is violent. It is absolutely hilarious. There are reanimated skeletons everywhere, jokes from The Office and totally bananas banter. There are mysterious notes and threads hanging in the story just waiting to be pulled. There are SO MANY characters but you know them all by the end of the book (maybe?).

At its core, it feels like reading a detailed adventure/puzzle game similar to the feeling of playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild, just darker and with more emotions and way more laughs.

Pacing is super slow and can’t get into the characters.