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** spoiler alert ** This is definitely one of my favorites among the "food books" I've read! I loved the characters (Raggedy Ann and Ken Carson included)! Even though Kayla is a pessimist (which I usually dislike in a character), her personality is the perfect formula in the story. Kayla is the school rebel, she wears unusual clothes, makes fun of the "popular" crowd in school, and she only have one friend in school---Nicole. Lately, things have been changing around her. Her mother barely talks to her and her best friend is dating her long-time crush Ben! On her disastrous 16th birthday party, she made a wish to make all her birthday wishes come true. The following day she wakes up with a pink pony on her backyard! The next day it was a room full of gumballs, and the next her Raggedy doll Ann was brought to life! She figured out that her birthday wishes are coming true and she have to find a way to stop it before her 15th birthday wish comes true---which is a kiss from Ben! I really had fun reading it. It reminded me a lot of my childhood and my silly wishes. I might have wished for a one year supply of chocolates or a new BMX bike before, LOL! Also, there are a lot hilarious events that occurred in the story. My favorite is definitely Ken's dancing pecs! haha! The story ended abruptly though. I wish we found out what happened to Ann, Ken, the pony and the rest of her wishes...instead of Kayla waking up the following day with them gone. Overall it was a quick read. If you are looking for something light and fun, this is perfect for you!

** spoiler alert ** "You are what you drink." I'm a huge fan of coffee but I don't buy my coffee in Starbucks or other coffee shops because I find it expensive. If you drink too much coffee like I do, it's economical to make it myself. LOL. So, I'm not very familiar with the kind of coffee and lattes being mentioned in the book. However, I find Jane's match making skills amusing. It sound unreal but interesting nonetheless. Jane Turner is a teenage employee of Wired Joe's coffee shop. She's been working as a barista for a while now that she can predict a customer's order just by looking at them. She keeps a notebook where she writes her observations. One day, one of her favorite regulars broke up with his girlfriend and Jane got an idea to set him up with her co-worker's friend. She finds the two suitable for each other because of their usual coffee orders and their personalities. To make the story short, her boss found out about her unusual hobby and used it as a promotion for their shop which became very successful. Jane is an unusual character, she's been skipping school and stopped going to the community college for her college credits because she find school "boring", but she wants to get in to a fashion school...totally unrelated to coffee (and matchmaking) business right? Anyway, what I didn't like about her character is her un-professionalism at work. She gives away free drinks to cute guys (Will and his friends) and she power trips (sending her co-worker to do bathroom duties for a month because she ratted her out for giving away free coffees). That was totally uncool. Being an assistant manager doesn't allow you to do such thing to your co-workers, it only shows that she's not the best person for the position. Jane is a great friend though, she consoled her broken hearted best friend Em and quickly tried to apologize when her matchmaking plan backfired on them. This is a fun and cute read. Perfect for YA Chick Lit readers and coffee lovers.

Roar is one of my favorite characters in Under the Never Sky and I'm so happy to read his story. Roar is usually the happy and out going kind of guy but in this book we see his serious side. This novella left me wanting for more! I felt so bad for Liv and Roar...I hate Vale! How could he sell his own sister?!? Anyway, I hope Roar finds Liv in the next book!

** spoiler alert ** If you feel like travelling to Europe and you don't have the money for it, read this book and you'll experience the beauty and madness of Europe! When I read Aunt Peg's first envelope, I thought this is just a simple adventure she made up for Ginny. I thought she just want Ginny to loosen up a bit and try to have fun. However, as I continue reading her little blue envelopes, I realized that Aunt Peg want Ginny to get something more than just fun on her Europe escapade. Sometimes I find Aunt Peg's instructions crazy and unsafe...not bringing a cellphone for example, how can you call for help in case of emergency? And that one where she instructed Ginny to ask a guy out in Rome---she almost got raped by that guy! Anyway, I find Ginny's character admirable. You can see how much she loved and trusted her Aunt that she followed all the instructions in the letters and left the US with only $1000 in her pocket. I would never go anywhere without my phone or laptop! I wasn't very satisfied with how things ended in this book. I was disappointed when Ginny lost the 13th envelope. Sure we learned that Aunt Peg married Richard, they sold her expensive art, etc.. however, we never knew what her final words were. =( I wasn't crazy about the Keith and Ginny "romance" either. Overall,it was a good read---perfect for summer reading!

3.5 stars I read and enjoyed the first two novels from this series and I have to say that in this book I miss the "sporty" part of this supposedly sports contemporary novel. Anyhow, I still liked it and there were a lot of lessons pertaining to faith and religious belief. I have nothing against Christian novels, I read them occasionally and enjoy them most of the time. On this particular novel though, you have to understand that the heroine is a teenager and is in a process of finding herself. You have to be patient with Kate and keep an open mind as you read a long because she's a little confused. She's also re-evaluating her choices and decisions made in the past few months. Kate was raised in a Christian family and have been a regular church attendee of Forrest Sanctuary all her life. (Note: In Stealing Parker, Parker used to go to the same church as Kate's and was shunned by the said church members after her mom's "scandal"). Anyway, Kate have been carrying a guilt for assisting her best friend to go through abortion. She felt like she and her bestfriend needed saving and tried to involve Emily to find forgiveness through prayers. However, Emily had a change of heart since her abortion. She no longer share the same faith as Kate's thus their misunderstanding. When Emily's family found out about the abortion, she was kicked out of her house and had to work to support herself. She's supposed to go to a summer camp as a councilor with Kate, but due to her current situation, Kate had to go alone. There she reunites with Matt, the first and only guy she kissed. Kate's character wasn't very easy to like. She's uptight and judgmental. However, I understand where she's coming from. She is what she is because of her upbringing. She's a good kid and she just followed what her parents and her church says. Matt on the other hand is a laid-back college student. Even though he's a Christian, he joined a fraternity, drinks beer occasionally and hangs out with non-Christian kids. He's sweet and kind though. Despite their differences, they were attracted to each other. Most of the time, Kate's actions and thoughts were annoying but I'm glad she learned a few things in the end. She became open-minded about other people's belief and learned to respect them. I think the main lesson in this book is for us to understand that religions and churches are not perfect. I'm a Roman Catholic and I have friends who are from different religious groups (INC, Mormons, Baptists, Born Again, Muslims, etc) and I never had a hard time talking about religion with them. In fact i'm fascinated with the similarities with the religions. Respect and open-mindedness is very important when you deal with people who have different values and religious beliefs, otherwise, you'll have problems like Kate had. Anyway, this was a good read. I only recommend this book to YA readers who don't have issues in reading books about religion.

Blaire Wynn didn't want to ask her dad for help. He left when her sister died in a car accident and never called back when she informed him about her mother's cancer. There is no love lost between them, but he is the only family she have left. Her mother died just a few weeks ago and she have to sell their house to cover her mother's medical bills. With only 20 dollars left on her pocket she drove from Alabama to Florida to live with her dad and his new family. Unfortunately, when she reached Rosemary Beach, she learned that her dad is away on a trip with his wife. With no money, no gas, and an empty stomach, Blaire was ready to fall apart. However, when her silver-eyed stepbrother offered her a place to stay, she immediately accepted. Rush was rude, insensitive, and a certified player... but, he's also sexy as hell! How long can Blaire ignore her attraction to her step brother? She's innocent, he's worldly, she's poor, he's insanely rich. He is definitely out of her league, but are those reasons enough to stay away from him? "I didn't fit in with them. I'd never fit in at my high school either. My life was just one big awkward moment." - Blaire This book started so well, Blaire came to Rosemary Beach packing a 9mm gun. I was like woah, this girl is a bad ass! Also, Blaire have been through a lot--her twin sister died in a car accident, her father left them, and the most recent one is her mother's death from cancer. Blaire is independent and works hard to support herself. With that in mind, I was expecting her to be different. I thought she can handle herself around Rush and give the guy a hard time chasing her, but no! Just one look at Rush and poof, the fierce Blaire was gone. Despite that, her character isn't that bad. She's a good girl and a hard worker. I also liked her friendship with Bethy and Jimmy. "I know my actions don't appear to back that up but if you'd just let me explain. God, baby, I can't stand seeing you in so much pain." - Rush Rush is an intriguing character. I liked him in the beginning because he's hot! However, as I read along, I realized that he doesn't have any other admirable characteristics. Sure he was a great brother (to Nan at least) and he's protective of Blaire, but I don't know... it felt like he's not showing his feelings correctly, probably his secret is affecting his behavior. Anyway, there's one character I really loved in this book--- Woods! Even though Blaire didn't even try to get to know the guy, Woods was nice and decent. He's always looking out for her and helps her whenever he can. I think he's the only guy who have an actual job in this book! LOL. I'm looking forward to read his story! This is a fast-paced, hot and addictive read. Highly recommended to New Adult Fiction readers. PS. Thanks to my GR friends who informed me about the cliff hanger ending! =D PPS. I'm reserving my comments about Nan for my review of Book 2. On to the next book...

2.5 - 3 Stars WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! I've been waiting for this book to come out since last year. I loved the first two books in this series even though the second book ended with Emma leaving Evan. I wasn't able to read Out of Breath as soon as it came out because I joined a reading challenge and I actually have to follow a reading list. So, when I finally got around reading it, there are a lot of reviews in GR already and being a natural curious, I read them. Unfortunately, the reviews are not what I was expecting. A lot were disappointed, and even though it pains me to say this: I agree with them. The book is written in 2 POV's- Emma and Evan's, but majority of the chapters were written in Emma's POV (Chapters 1-14 are all written in Emma's POV). Okay, here it goes: It was bad. Not the writing style, but the story. It was painful to see Emma like that. She's self-destructive. I think I liked the Emma before despite the abuse and battery she experienced because I can offer sympathy to those kind of characters. It wasn't their choice to be in that situation in the first place. However,in this book, Emma was almost always drunk, she makes out with guys she doesn't know, and does other impulsive stuff. She's really in a bad place and I can't stomach what she's doing to herself. And then she met Cole. I didn't like Cole, but I didn't hate him either. He seems like a nice guy, but I like Evan too much that I couldn't make myself to like him. He was patient with Emma, and he somehow helps her forget her issues. They slept together, a LOT, but get this, THEY ARE NOT DATING. I pretty much skimmed ALL the parts whenever Emma uses Cole as her distraction or as her anesthetic, and by that, I meant them having sex. I'm just so mad at Emma at this point, I almost gave up reading the book and then FINALLY Evan showed up on Emma's mom's funeral. Honestly, Evan is the only reason why I continued reading this book. I was very curious about what happened to him after Emma left. It wasn't revealed in an instant but there were hints that he was really messed up when Emma left. (grrr Emma!) I didn't like his decision to spend the summer in California because it's obvious that he's not over Emma. Plus, Cole and Emma are together even though she says they are NOT DATING. I also think his 2 week deal with Emma was really stupid. I felt really bad for Evan because it's painful to see some one you love with another person. I even wished that he hooked up with Nika, or any girl just to get back at Emma (I know, I sound so immature *sigh*). However, when he finally revealed what happened to him the past 2 years, I was actually RELIEVED that after Emma, he was with Analise. I was relieved because at least he wasn't alone. He had someone who loved and cared for him even if he was at his lowest. What else? Hmmm...I didn't enjoy the epilogue. I also found the switching of POV's a little confusing. Ugh, there's so many things I didn't like about this book. Let me type some things I liked instead: Sara - I love her character. She's a great friend. She kept on taking care of Emma even when she was in France. Emma is so lucky to have Sara as a best friend. Emma and Evan took their time before getting back together - thank God! After so many pages of Emma and Cole having sex, I really didn't want her to get intimate with Evan, at least not until Emma spill out her secrets and forgive herself. I liked that they tried to get to know each other again and started communicating about their feelings before committing in a relationship. HEA - Even though I didn't like Emma here most of the time, I still think that her story deserves a happy ending. I'm glad that Emma and Evan found healing, forgiveness, strength and happiness with each other. I heard Ms. Donovan is writing a novel about Jonathan (the guy Emma left with at the end of Barely Breathing). I don't like Jonathan, in fact I hated it every time Emma mentions or remembers him. So, I probably won't read his book. What I want to read though is a book about Evan. His life two years ago, while he was with Analise... while he was in Yale. We always see Evan as this sweet, caring, understanding guy... I want to see the other side of him, his life without Emma, where he acted out, when he was angry, sad, and confused. This may not happen of course, but IF the author decided to write one, it will make me REALLY happy. 3 out of 4 books I've read this week didn't meet my expectations, I hope the next one on my list is good. *fingers crossed*

4.5 Stars "You know that feeling of deja vu people talk about? I live it. Every. Single. Day." This book is about a 16 year-old girl who can predict her next day through dreams. Nara Collins lives her day twice and she finds it boring. One night before she went to sleep she wished for just one "surprising" day... she woke up the next day regretting her wish and decided to do something to prevent her dream to happen. I read this book for a reading challenge that I joined and I wasn't expecting much about it. I thought it was just another YA paranormal book, but I was wrong! I had a hard time putting it down. It sucked me in after reading a couple of chapters. I loved the plot, the writing style, the pacing, the characters... I think I liked almost everything about it, LOL! Nara isn't your typical YA heroine. She's tough, independent and athletic. She's not perfect though. When she stopped dreaming her future we learned that she's misusing her gift...she started failing her classes, not performing well as a soccer goalie, and to top it off, her relationship with her best friend became shaky. Through all of that stuff, there's one guy who unexpectedly became her ally. Ethan Harris is a mystery to everyone. He has a bad reputation and keeps to himself until she met Nara. They became good friends and later developed into something more. The chemistry between this two is undeniable, they are just perfect for each other! *sigh* As they get to know each other, their secrets are revealed one by one. The mystery is one of the best things in this book...*note: AVOID READING SPOILERS!* it will make you want to read more. Also, the twists in the plot and the action will keep you on the edge of your seat! There's one thing I didn't like on this book though --- Nara's friends, including Lainey. I think I'm more hurt and annoyed than Nara when Lainey believed Sophia about the whole Jared thing. The way they turned their backs on her when she wasn't performing well on their soccer games made my blood boil. And the pranks...arrgh, thank God for Ethan Harris! Anyway, I am so glad that I have a copy of book 2 handy because the book ended abruptly, there were a lot of questions left unanswered. I immediately jumped to Lucid as soon as I hit the last page of The Brightest Kind of Darkness. I had to find out what happens next! If you plan on reading this, make sure you buy Lucid too. =) This book is highly recommended to readers who like action romance and mystery on their YA books. =)

** spoiler alert ** 4.5 Stars Holy crap! It's only the 10th but I'm already stacking books on my February top reads shelf. This one is definitely one of them. Rieux, France - Scarlet Benoit's grandmother have been missing for three weeks. The detectives didn't find any signs of violence and assumed that her grandmother left on her freewill. Scarlet refused to believe that her mother will leave without notifying her. Everything about it felt wrong, she knew that something happened to her grandmother. As she try to find ways to get information about Michelle Benoit's whereabouts, she encountered Wolf, a shy and handsome street fighter. When her father came back rambling things about being captured, Michelle's secrets and tattooed men, she immediately thought of Wolf and the tattoo on his arm. When she confronted Wolf, the street fighter swore that he has nothing to do about the kidnapping and promise to help her find her grandmother. New Beijing, Eastern Commonwealth - Cinder was able to escape her prison cell with a cadet in tow. With the use of her new hand provided by Dr. Erland and her Lunar abilities, they were able to escape the prison unscathed. The Cadet... er Captain Carswell Thorne proved to be useful when he told Cinder about his spaceship. Though stolen, it was perfectly safe and undetectable. Together they were able to travel without being found. Cinder felt that it's time to learn about her past and her first step is to look for the woman who helped with her adoption. She needs to go to France to find Michelle Benoit. Cinder and Scarlet may have different motives but they both have the same goal. Their paths will eventually cross and will be the beginning of an epic journey. The book is a fairy tale retelling of The Little Red Riding Hood with heavy aspects of sci-fi. In the beginning, I wasn't very interested with Scarlet... I care more about Cinder and Kai, (thank God for the multiple POV's) but as I read along she started to grow on me. Her character isn't hard to like, she's opinionated, strong and independent. Wolf on the other hand was timid and awkward, but he's physically strong and handsome too. I also liked the addition of Captain Thorne and the return of Iko. "You're ... rather handsome, Captain Thorne." Cinder groaned. "And you, my fine lady, are the most gorgeous ship in these skies, and don't let anyone ever tell you different." The temperature drifted upward, until Cinder dropped her arms with a sigh. "Iko, are you intentionally blushing?" The temperature dropped back down to pleasant. "No," Iko said. Then, "But am I really pretty? Even as a ship?" "The prettiest," said Thorne. LOL! Iko and Thorne are the constant source of humor in this book, I love them both! I also liked the romance between Scarlet and Wolf (sorry, no Kai-Cinder romance this time) Wolf's expression iced over and he looked away. His tone became uneasy again. "I know you must want nothing to do with me. I don't blame you." Wolf scrunched up his shoulders, and met her with an expression full of regret. "But you're the only one, Scarlet. You'll always be the only one." Her pulse fluttered. "Wolf--" "I know. We met less than a week ago and in that time I've done nothing but lie and cheat and betray you. I know. But if you give me a chance ... all I want is to protect you. To be near you. For as long as I'm able." Awww, these two are so cute they made Iko blush--- "Maybe next time we're on Earth you can pick up some sensors? I feel like I'm eavesdropping having the audio on all the time. It's becoming awkward." "Awkward?" The running lights brightened, reminding Cinder of a blush. She wondered if it was intentional. "Scarlet and Wolf are saying gushy things in the galley," Iko said. "Normally I like gushy things, but it's different when it's real people. I prefer the net dramas." LOL Iko! Anyway, like what I've said no Kai-Cinder romance this time. I felt bad for Kai because he's confused and unprepared for the events that occurred. He felt so betrayed for what Cinder did, even more when he found out that Dr. Erland somehow assisted with Cinder's escape. I hope everything works out between them on the next book. I have to add that I liked Chapter 45! Meyer added Queen Levana's POV. Even though it was only a chapter, we get to be inside her head to learn her motivations and fears. Yep, I had to use Lana Parilla's evil queen image from Once Upon A Time because I think she's perfect for the role of Queen Levana. =D Scarlet is fast-paced, engaging and action packed sci-fi romance. With how things ended, I'm expecting more action in the next book. It pains me to know that Cress wont be available until next year, however i'm excited because my favorite fairy tale character will be featured on the next book: Rapunzel and Cinder in Sahara!!! I can't wait to read it!!! PS. Before reading this book, I recommend that you guys read The Queen's Army for you to better understand Wolf's background and his behavior.

REVIEW CONTAIN SPOILERS! Just like any other Immortals After the Dark fan, I've been counting the days for the release of this book. So when it came out two days go, I immediately read it and pull an all-nighter to finish the book. It was entertaining. I was able to keep my eyes open and finish the book until three in the morning. However, there are some things about the new IAD book that I find disappointing. One. The cover. I know, do not judge the book by its cover... blah blah blah, but if you've been reading the series for quite some time, covers are important! When the cover was revealed, I was a tad disappointed. Still, I love the Lykaes and I kept my fingers cross that the content will compensate for the not-so appealing cover. Unfortunately, it didn't. Two. The characters. Like I said, I loved the Lykae heroes on the IAD series but Uilleam is probably an exception. Ugh, he was very stubborn and cruel. I can't stomach what he did to Chloe, he's such a jerk! Chloe's character on the other hand, was very promising. I liked her in the beginning. She's physically strong (she's a professional soccer player), independent and doesn't take shit from no one. However, when her true nature was revealed, she changed completely. From Ms. Athletic and Independent, she became Ms. Pathetic Succubus. Her situation was frustrating because other than dying, her only choice is to stick with Uilleam. She couldn't leave because everyone in the Lore wants a piece of her-being Webb's daughter and all. Also, her Succubus nature made her dependent to Will: No sex, she dies; sex with an unwilling man, she dies. I'm not kidding! She's probably the most helpless heroine in the entire IAD series. Three. The story. MacRieve is mediocre compared to other IAD books. It's pretty straight forward and a little predictable. It revolved mainly on Chloe -Will romance, and Will's traumatic past. I find the conflict resolution anticlimactic. The book left me dissatisfied and it felt like the book was just a filler or a novella despite it's total word count. It's definitely not your usual KC novel. Compared to it's predecessor Lothaire, it lacks action, complex story line and shocking plot twists. I think MacRieve was not intended as a stand alone novel, you'll definitely get lost if you haven't read the earlier books in the series. If there's one thing I absolutely enjoyed in this book, it's definitely Nix' cameo. She's one of my favorite character in the entire IAD series and I'm truly grateful that she appeared in the first few chapters in the book. She's so funny! I love her SLUT shirt. I still think that KC is one of the best paranormal romance author out there. I have no complaints about her writing, and I will continue reading her books-- fillers or not. Honestly, MacRieve isn't that bad, thus the 3-star rating. However, if you've read Lothaire before reding this, it's hard not to be disappointed. Lothaire was a really good read! Hopefully, the next book will be better than this one.

** spoiler alert ** I have always loved Ms. Glines' Sea Breeze series and this book is not an exception. After reading While It Lasts, I couldn't wait to get my hands on Just for Now to read more about the Sea Breeze boys and their partners! Still, after reading this book, I realized that Cage York will always be my favorite Sea Breeze guy! LOL. Don't get me wrong, Preston is really hot, it's just his lifestyle turned me off a bit. Amanda have been crushing on her brother's best friend since she was 16 years old. She tried so hard to make him notice her, but he never looked at her in that way (atleast that's what she think). One night, Preston surprisingly noticed her which ended in the storage closet and Manda losing her virginity. To make the matters worst, Preston thought he dreamed the whole thing! Preston have never been attracted to any woman as much as he did with Amanda. However, he couldn't make a move towards his best friend's sister, she's off limits. Also, his job isn't really something he can be proud of. Selling his body to earn for money is not his job of choice, but he needed the income to provide for his siblings. How can an innocent woman like Amanda can love a guy like him? Preston believes that he will never be good enough for Amanda Hardy. Preston Drake. I already mentioned how Preston's life as a man-whore turned me off but the guy have some redeeming qualities. I like the caring brother Preston. He's such a bear when it comes to Daisy! He really just want to make his brothers' and sister's life less miserable. Amanda Hardy. I admire Amanda for being so brave. Being with Preston would be difficult. Let's face it, Preston was a gigolo. He may have changed his ways, but people would still see him as that guy who slept with rich and older women for money. I want to see Amanda's mom's reaction once they tell her that she and Preston are back together! LOL. Jason Stone. OMG, I am hoping that we get to read a book about Jason! He seems like a great guy, and he's been a great friend to Amanda even though he knew that she's in love with some one else. While It Lasts is still my favorite Sea Breeze book, but this one is also an enjoyable read. =)

** spoiler alert ** 3.5 stars. This is the fourth and final book in the Significance series. Though it's sad to see the series end, it's still nice to know that Caleb and Maggie finally got their HEA. The book starts with Maggie being bombarded with issues--- Lynne and Kyle's abilities not manifesting, Rebecca and Ralph's accident, the vision about Jen and Bish, etc. They had to cut their London visit short to attend Becky and Ralph's "funeral service". They found out later, through Maggie's vision, that Marcus planned Beck's accident and that it's possible that the two are still alive. Caleb and Maggie immediately took off to search for their friends. With their wedding coming up and Caleb with new responsibilities as a champion of the Jacobson's clan, there are still things that needs to be taken cared of. With Marcus still around and making trouble for their clan, things will not be easy for Caleb and Maggie. Likes: Caleb's POV, finally! I also liked the happy ending, the epilogue was cute. Dislikes: Okay, I have to say that I was a little disappointed with how things ended. I was really looking forward to their wedding but it didn't meet my expectations. I know the Aces wedding is different from the regular human wedding but, idk, I just didn't like that they were married with 3 other couples. Even though they were their relatives, it's just... different. It didn't feel special to me at all. Sorry! Also, I really missed the action. I was expecting them to encounter some more powerful ace or something but they only had a fight with Marcus who was no longer an ace and powerless. Although it was a little heart pumping because Maggie almost died, it wasn't as good as the epic battles in Accordance and Defiance where they used their supernatural abilities. Hmmm, what else? I think the issue about Maggie's mom (her showing up and the telephone conversation Maggie heard) just came out of nowhere and wasn't really resolved. Oh, i almost forgot, Becky seriously annoyed me in this book! I probably wont forgive her if I were Maggie...Becky called Maggie a freak when she learned about her abilities. This is after Maggie saved her and Ralph. What an ungrateful cow! Well, since I'm a Significance series fan, I still read and enjoyed the book. It may not be as awesome as the other 3, but it was still a good read.

** spoiler alert ** ""You...love my brother?" My chest hurt at the desolation in his voice, as if he never expected to love again, couldn't really even believe in it anymore. "Yes." Opal started with Dawson lurking in Katy's room...despite being back with his siblings, the old Dawson was gone. He will never be the same again without Beth. Katy fully understand how Dawson feels specially now that she's fallen in love with Daemon. She is going along well with the two boys and even enjoys their zombie movie marathons! Dee, however, is a different story. Still mourning and bitter over Adam's death, Dee and Katy's friendship is falling apart. Worst, Dee is hanging out with Andrew and Ash also known as the "Bitch Squad". With her mom still communicating with Will, Beth being held by the Daedalus, and Blake showing up in school again, things are even more complicated than it was before. Likes: I have one word for you: Daemon! hahahaha. Although Dawson is also a likable character, there will be only one alien I will always love, and that is Daemon, LOL. Katy is a one damn lucky hybrid! Seriously though, I liked how the relationship between Daemon and Katy developed. They became more open to each other in terms of communication before they become physically involved. I also liked the fact that Katy wasn't very annoying in this book, hehe. For some reasons, I 'm also glad that they were able to rescue Beth despite what happened to Katy in return. I'm happy for Dawson and Beth, but my heart hurts for Daemon... Oh, I also liked the change that happened with Ash and Andrew...I just hope it lasts. Dislikes: Blake. When he came back I just knew that he's going to f*ck them all over again. That part was a little predictable and bleh...and what was the deal with him sleeping in Katy's bed?!? What a psycho! I hope not to see Blake again in the next book, or if ever he will re-appear, I hope it's his death scene, haha! Of course I hated the ending! Waaaaah, I need the next book now! "I love you, Katy. Always have. Always will," ---Daemon To all Lux series fans, this book is a little frustrating but you'll like it. I promise! If you want to get a dose of alien hotness and a little bit of action, this is perfect for you! =) PS. I hope that the next book will be written in Daemon's POV...

Measuring Up was a light and quick read for me. I've read and loved several Nyrae Dawn novels and I think this one is pretty enjoyable. Not her best, but still an entertaining read. I liked the story, it's simple and well explained. The characters were so real and easy to relate to. Annabel is a 17 year old with body image and self-esteem issues. Teagan on the other hand, is an 18 year old fitness trainer with daddy issues. When they first met in a gym where Teagan is working, there was an instant attraction between them. However, Annabel's insecurities made her believe that there is no way Teagan will like a girl like her. I liked the relationship between the two, I loved the banters and their work outs. It reminds me of my own attempts to lose weight! =D This is the "relatable" part. I'm actually the same height with Annabel and even though I never reached her weight (which is 168 lbs, my heaviest weight was 135 lbs), my BMI is still overweight. I understand her frustrations and fear of failing. It takes a lot of commitment and self control to reach your goal in loosing weight. Annabel is lucky to have Teagan to push her to her limits and encourage her to lose weight. I did it on my own and it was so freaking hard! I did met my goal like Annabel did, of course her's was better because she received a bonus--- Teagan! I have to add that I loved Teagan's loyalty and sense of responsibility to his family. Even though he's trying too hard to make up for his dad's absence, I still think that Teagan is a good kid. Speaking of families, I hate Annabel's mom! I wish she tried harder to get to know her daughter and understand what she's going through. Parents are not perfect, but they should at least try right? I love Teagan's Mom and brother though. I recommend this book to those who are struggling with their body image and self-worth. This is a perfect weight loss success story, it can motivate you and push you to try harder to meet your goals. The love story is pretty good too! =)

** spoiler alert ** Accordance begins with Caleb and Maggie in California with their chaperons (Bish and Kyle). Now that the couple have ascended, Maggie is now a Seer but Caleb's ability haven't manifested at all. With Kyle's constant attempt to make Maggie like him, Bish being overprotective and her new found role as a Visionary, Maggie can no longer handle the pressure on her own. Together with Caleb and the rest of the Jacobson's, they will find ways to get used to her abilities and face the trials ahead. Likes: Caleb! He's so sweet, caring and selfless. Even though he thought that his ability will not manifest, he never got jealous over Maggie's abilities and Visionary role. I was also relieved that they finally shared the Aces' secret to Bish. Atleast now he'll stop being a paranoid and overprotective of Maggie. I'm also glad that Maggie finally got rid of Kyle, hahaha. I loved the fight scene on the last chapters when we finally realized what ability Caleb has. His power reminds me of Peter Petrelli of the TV Show Heroes, hehe, he borrows the supernatural abilities of people around him. It's pretty cool! Dislikes: It annoys me everytime Kyle tries to get Maggie's attention, why can't he just let go? His efforts were useless because Caleb and Maggie's soul chose each other, there's no way he can get Maggie away from Caleb. I can't tell you how thankful I am when he finally found his significant! haha. I was also disappointed about the Jenna - Bish situation. "Don't touch me," she begged, "I have a daughter and I have to think of her. Please, don't touch me." Poor Bish and Jenna. Hmmm, I think I maybe be the only one who doesn't approve of Maggie and Caleb's engagement. I think it's too early for them to get married! I mean, sure we already know that they are going to be together anyway, but why rush it? Maggie isn't even 18 yet... Anyway, this was a great sequel! I'm going to re-read the next one...

** spoiler alert ** I'm re-reading the series while waiting for the 4th and final book...INDEPENDENCE! I'm addicted to this series and I can't wait to read the last book! Maggie is a really smart seventeen year old who is graduating a year early from high school but she's having her worst year. Her mom left, her adopted brother is in New York and she is stuck with her depressed Dad. Also, her boyfriend dumped her 3 days after her mom left. She was forced to work so that she can support herself since her father was sacked from his job. Boyfriend-less and no plans for college, she attended her graduation day with no expectations. Her long time friend Kyle asked her to have a date with him that night, since she's been rejecting his invitations for the entire year after her break up with her long time boyfriend, she finally agreed. Night came and she found herself saving a guy from being trampled by a truck, a guy who will change her life. Caleb was saved by the girl he was ogling at the stop light, she was beautiful and charming, funny too. Apparently she was his cousin's (Kyle) date. Who would've thought that the girl he just met will be her significant for the rest of his life? Caleb belongs to a non-human family. They are called Aces because they have supernatural abilities. The manner of marriage is made through "imprints" the imprint chooses their soul mates. However, there was no imprint that occurred for the past 20 years, thus, many Aces are single and powerless (because they only get their supernatural abilities in the process called ascending AFTER they imprinted). This is the reason why Maggie and Caleb's imprinting created a buzz within the Ace community---it brought hope to others and envy to enemies. Also, the fact that Maggie is a human and only 17 years old made things more complicated. Usually imprints occur for Aces that are on their early twenties which is of marrying age in the Ace community. I liked pretty much everything in this book! LOL. Like what I've said, I'm addicted! I loved the story, the characters as well as the writing style. Some people might hate the "insta-love" between Maggie and Caleb, but I actually loved it. Maggie and Caleb are perfect for each other, nuff said. Caleb was an amazing significant, he's just so sweet and caring. Maggie is not bad either, instead of giving up when she was held in captivity by the Watsons clan, she stayed strong and managed to escape. Plus, Maggie's ability is pretty awesome! Did I say how addictive this book was? If you're a fan of paranormal romances you have to read this! And make sure you have the 2nd and 3rd book available because you'll want to read the next book as soon as you finished the first one, lol! "He can't keep you from me. No one can. I told you I'll always find you."--Caleb

This is the nth time that I re-read this book and I'm sure it wont be the last. A Walk to Remember is the first N. Sparks book I read and will always be one of my favorites. The story begins with Landon Carter reminiscing his senior year in Beaufort High. The year where Landon, a politician son fell for Jamie Sullivan, a pastor's daughter. Destiny brought these two different personalities together which changed their lives and the people around them forever. Likes: Everything! When I first read this book, I was completely awed by how good it was written considering the fact that it was in a male's POV. The writing was simple and poignant. What I really liked about the story is how pure and innocent the love is between the main characters. Sure they were young, but what they had was real. The characters are also likable. Landon was flawed, he's insecure, and probably not the brightest kid in school but deep inside he's a good guy. Jamie was the good girl but her goodness seems to repel people. In other words, she's a social outcast. I love the character development. We saw how Jamie changed Landon and how his experience made him a better person. Dislikes: I couldn't think of anything... This book is highly recommended to those who are addicted to tear-jerkers and bitter-sweet endings.

Okay, so this happened.I was absolutely spellbound from the first page. I missed these characters and their crazy (so unbelievably crazy!) antics. I had an incredible time reading this. It was so much fun being swept up in that whirlwind, I can't wait for the next book. Especially since I have a new couple I love and ship. That being said, it has not improved skill-wise. Like the book before SJM had a ton of ideas and just put them all in, whether they make sense, fit the natural progression of the story or add to the ebb and flow a book should have. She just stacks one thing on top of the other,throws in every trope she knows, people switch sides every other chapter, it's crazy. Like I said, entertainingly crazy, but still. It's the book equivalent to an over-the-top soap opera and I really wish she would leave a little bit of it on the cutting room floor. I mean, (view spoiler)[the end image of Feyre and Rhys flying over Velaris would be so beautiful but of course she's wearing lingerie. Did they forget that? Did Sarah? Come on! (hide spoiler)] This is also the book where SJM noticed that people want more LGBT representation and proceeds by randomly introducing LGBT people. I had the impression that she literally put all the sexualitys and names in hats, drew some and decided to just go with whatever fate told her. I'm also pretty sure that a lot of shippers are mad about one choice she made here... Until neyt year,fellow readers, when the crazy continues. My prediction: Feyre gets pregnant by the end of it, (view spoiler)[Elain is caught in a love square, Mor and the cursed princess get it on, hopefully Nesta and Cassian make some progress (I'm so invested, there are no words. how did this happen to me?) (hide spoiler)], more people switch sides all the time and all the things we've learned so far are revealed to be false. It will all be very shocking and i'm gonna enjoy all of it giddy with a bag of popcorn.

Absolutely amazing conclusion to the best duology I've ever read. If you've read the first one you know how great the worldbuilding, characters and action in these books are. Thoug the (hilarious and natural) banter is the best part for me, it's hard to have an ensemble cast and do everyone justice but Leigh Bardugo manages it starting at the first page. I loved it!!

The best book I have ever read. Hands down. I could not stop reading and when I finished I wanted to read it all over again. There's such an amount of suspense, believable romance, humour (where is that humour coming from? It's a very serious storyline and yet I laughed 'til I cried so many times), surprises and tragedy in this book, it's insane. All brought to you wrapped in beautiful prose. I can find not a single flaw apart from the fact that the ending is abrupt and the promised short stories are still not out.... So basically, my only problem is that it was over much too soon. Absolute perfection, recommended to everyone. I will never get over it. OTP. Put this down for all the awards.

This was the most atmospheric book I've ever read. The clothes, the food, the culture - you can almost smell the spices. What a good idea to read this in the summer heat. I was not swept away by the romance the way others were but the writing had such an amazing flow, its world was so enchanting, I really didn't need a perfect love story. Looking forward to book 2

Oh my. I keep thinking I should not love this book as much as I do simply because most of it is based on "everything you've been told up to now was a lie" and that's just not very elegant. And yet it actually works simply because the new facts are so much more interesting than the ones established in the first book, just like the new characters are so amazing they make you glad we switched to them. Also kudos for the focus on ptsd everyone deals with! No, this is not a perfectly crafted story (the forementioned retconning and the fact that a lot of things are just too convenient) but it's so much fun to read I'll forgive anything. Part 1 was nice enough but after part 2 I cannot wait for the next book (and also would not mind for this series to be more than a trilogy). GIVE IT TO ME NOW

I got headaches from crying so much while reading this book. 5/5. Would recommend. Fuck everything.

Hilarious, clever and absolutely adorable - I couldn't put it down! I've just finished reading and now my face hurts because I've been grinning so hard. The characters are amazing, the pop culture references are all wonderful (and you get recced for a lot of great music) and the ship is so freaking amazing you can't help but want them to get together now! Right now! I was yelling at the text. Absolute feelgood read. Would reccomend. 5/5. I can't even.

"I've been thinking about that book about the boys who crash on an island." "Lord of the Flies. What about it?" "You know how you said it wasn't a true measure of humanity because there were no girls and you wondered how it would be different if there had been girls?" "Yeah?" "Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one's watching them so they can be who they really are." Full of dark humor, sarcasm, rightous anger and glitter, Beauty Queens sets out to empower girls and make fun of a society that tries to push girls into being perfect little dolls. Just a wonderful read.

I'm sorry, Bree. I think if I started listing all the things I hated about this, the things I rolled my eyes at and made me facepalm then I would exceed the character limit (okay, no, it's gonna bother me if I don't list anything. The weird feminism: "We girls need to help each other." "Actually, I don't trust any women and the girl who likes my bf is the DEVIL. That weird and unneccessary love triangle. How we are told Celaena's a badass assassin. Seriously, so skilled and brutal. But instead are shown a spoiled brat who comes across as like maybe 12 years old? etc etc etc). I will say that I liked the idea behind it. And I like the cover (the badass one, not the beauty pageant one). But that's about it. Luckily I know a series by this writer that I really enjoy so I'm gonna look forward to the next book in the acotar series!

This book was provided for free by the author via IndiGo Marketing & Design in exchange for an honest review. This was a fast, tightly-written romance with two very likable leads who have great chemistry. I only wish it was a little more fleshed-out! Isaiah, a widower with a 14-year-old gender-fluid son, is a professional football player who is immediately attracted to Victor, a Russian dancer who may face persecution from his home country if he cannot stay in the United States. The men share a night of passion but they both realize a relationship isn't in the cards for a man who is still grieving his husband, so they agree to be friends and nothing more. But when Isaiah learns Victor may be sent back to Russia if he can't find work, they hastily agree to marry to keep Victor safe. It's going well for a little bit since Victor and Isaiah's son, Evan, hit it off quickly and Victor falls easily into their home life, but when both men realize they can't stay away from each other, the situation gets sticky. The biggest flaw in this story is how we were deprived of that delicious build-up from fake lovers to real lovers. The sexual tension was relieved within the first 10% of the story and these two couldn't keep their hands off one another to save their lives. It never felt like the stakes were high enough for them. Isaiah's deceased husband, Stephen, never feels like a full enough character in the story to make us feel Isaiah's grief--a book that pulled that off much better is Robert Winter's September. And I expected there to be at least some sort of sub-plot about someone being onto the marriage scheme, but that point of tension just sort of fizzled. I found the ending to be anticlimactic for such a good plot idea. Also, for the two main characters being a football player and a dancer, there's very little of either sport in the story, especially football. We get a few good glimpses into Victor's dancing life, but if we weren't explicitly told several times Isaiah was an athlete, we'd be none the wiser. This is a fast story with fun characters. I read the book very quickly and liked the writing. It just needed to be longer and we needed to get to know the characters better for us to really get lost in the story.

This book was hard to pin down but enjoyable nonetheless. If I was 14 and blind-browsing a bookstore for a new read, I'd probably be disappointed picking this one up. It requires you to have read both the Harry Potter books (a given for most) and Rowell's amazing contemporary YA book Fangirl, and if you didn't enjoy either of those works, you won't enjoy this one. But since I liked them both, Carry On was a treat. If you've read Fangirl, you already know that Simon Snow and Baz Pitch are meant to be together, so it's the build-up from enemies to friends to lovers that we're all here for. It's a slow and lovely build that reaches a fever pitch (pun intended) and carries us quickly to the book's conclusion. The supporting female friends (Agatha and Penelope) were absolutely delightful and a part of me wishes it was their story, though their roles in the plot were great. I grew bored quickly by the older-generation sub-plots and intrigue (just because I love Marauders stuff doesn't mean lightning strikes twice), and I was disappointed by the fact that (view spoiler)[Simon never found out the truth about his parentage despite that being a huge plot point throughout the book. It sets the story up for a sequel, but the rest of the conclusion definitely doesn't (hide spoiler)]. I especially love Rowell's use of language as magic in the world of Simon Snow and the Watford School of Magic. We're used to wands and sing-song incantations from Harry Potter, but since Rowell assumes we're all familiar with Rowling's Wizarding World, she doesn't waste time on world-building a contemporary school of witchcraft. We already understand the setting, so Rowell takes a fun and imaginative twist by having these British witches and wizards use common household phrases like "a little bird told me," "out, out damned spot!," and "up above the world so high" to achieve little magical feats like learning secrets, washing clothes, or flying. A love of language is common among all authors, but Rowell loves it so much she makes it a cornerstone of her magical world. This is a cozy, fast-paced read for people looking for a new take on a beloved YA fantasy formula.

This was a hard one to rate. I hovered between a two and three-star rating because, while I really didn't enjoy the story, I know there will be a lot of people who will. It appeals to a certain mentality, and all in all, it's a technically sound piece of fiction. I just didn't connect with it on any level. The story takes place in the English countryside where working mom Marlene Greene is camping with her kids Charlie, Billy and Maggie, Charlie's best friend Peter, her sister-in-law Joni, and Joni's daughter Lola. Marlene starts as the stereotypical career woman who just wants a second alone with her Wi-fi while her poor neglected babies yearn for their mummy (let's just say this story doesn't look fondly on working moms). Her unseen husband is revealed to be absolutely useless as he is both unemployed and refuses to take part in any housework or childcare--(view spoiler)[the only time we see him, he's dead, which doesn't change much for the family dynamic (hide spoiler)]. Marlene is ready to get back home, but when they get out of the country, they discover that all of urban England has fallen to a mysterious plague and they're safer in the wilderness than they are in cities. So they all head back into the forest, and the story really begins. Judging by the title and synopsis, Marlene sounded like an interesting character. I imagined a woman who was never truly called to motherhood but finds herself as a stand-in mother to all of these abandoned children (who include Peter, an unnamed child they call Lost Boy who adds nothing to the story, and a group of campers from a boy's school) during a crisis. It sounds like a story rich in possibility for a non-conventional female character. But the thing about Marlene is that she's already an amazing mom--we're just told she's not a good one. Page after page sees her capably handling shit while the wishy-washy American Joni breaks down, and she also finds time to be nurturing, tough, and resourceful when the situation calls. If Marlene is the Worst Mom who needs an apocalypse to start appreciating her children, then the whole of Britain must be flush with Stepford Wives and super-moms. It didn't help that Marlene's kids, especially Billy and Maggie, were totally intolerable shits throughout the story. All they did was cry, scream (If I read "Mum-may" one more time, I'd have joined them in disgruntled screaming), destroy food and medicinal supplies, cling to Marlene, and generally get in the way. I just wanted Marlene to explode, even just once. I wanted her to lose her shit and put the fear of survival into her kids' minds. But even though we're supposed to get this idea that Marlene re-bonds with her kids over their shared pain and fear, there's a constant disconnect between them all. Marlene works to keep them alive, but I never felt any real intimacy between them. There were some sickly-sweet moments of snuggling and hair-stroking while they were asleep, but it read as very generic. Instead of being endeared to Marlene and her children, the purple prose and uncomfortable bouts of gushing over how sweet and beautiful her kids are was more eye-rolling than emotional. It didn't succeed in making me care about Marlene's arc as a mother--in fact, it felt completely forced. Marlene's development was apparently that she learned to sacrifice everything for her kids, but by the end, all I wanted was for her to take care of herself and put herself first once and for all. It all just fell flat for me. The story feels dated--I could see it working for audiences thirty years ago as a response to feminist backlash. But nowadays, we know that women struggle to maintain their identity and individualism after having kids and that there are many story possibilities to be gleaned from that struggle. It feels like a waste of a story for the "moral" to be selfless love for your children (there's even a moment when Joni blatantly says "we only matter because we matter to our kids"...like, ugh. How bleak). The best parts of the book were when the plot pushed forward and the stakes were high. I liked the parts with the "Cleaners" and the turning point in the story when we realize (view spoiler)[the characters are not going to be rescued, and, if anything, they'll be exterminated to prevent spread of the disease (hide spoiler)]. I actually liked Marlene best when she wasn't with her kids, when she was out on her own and trying to figure shit out. I also thought the (view spoiler)[brutal injury and death of Peter was an emotional high point and showed some gritty development for both Marlene and Joni (hide spoiler)]. I'm sure there are a lot of people who will get something out of this book. Unfortunately, I was not one of them.

I often dread mental asylum plots in fiction, especially historical works. Maybe the American Horror Story: Asylum scarred me for life. Maybe it's because, as a mentally ill lesbian, I'd almost certainly be in one myself if I were living 150 years ago. Either way, they always leave an unsettled feeling in my belly. However, for once, this book, the third full story in the "Whyborne and Griffin" series, (view spoiler)[provides a very satisfying conclusion to a 1890s mental asylum (hide spoiler)]. Instead of our boys nabbing the one man they know for sure is innocent and calling it a day, (view spoiler)[they free the entire asylum, making sure the prisoners either go to state hospitals that will give them better care or get back to their homes and families. If there's a little demonic sorcery involved, well, when isn't there in good 'ol Widdershins? (hide spoiler)]. I was dreading the moment Griffin stepped foot into the Stormhaven Lunatic Asylum. As a reader of both LGBT romances, historical fiction, and horror fiction, the only logical next step would be (view spoiler)[poor, tortured Griffin being restrained by his previous captors and tossed into a dungeon while the heavy doors are slammed and locked in his distressed lover's face (hide spoiler)]. But, since this is Jordan L. Hawk, that never happens. Her mysteries are easily contained in one book with outreaching plot tendrils rather than huge, cliff-hanging overarching plots, which I really like about her works. The subject matter might be scary, but I consider the "Whyborne & Griffin" to be a quintessential cozy mystery series with a backdrop of Lovecraftian horror. At times, I almost feel like these stories are too safe, but the bigger part of me is happy to just settle in and enjoy them for what they are. Whyborne does need to get his shit together soon, though. The poor guy is so self-conscious that he can't imagine why Griffin would like him, and soon, he's just going to have to accept he's hopeless and adorable and everyone loves him.

I haven't been this pumped about a new release in a long time. A little illicit daddy kink here, a little family drama there, a whole lot of tattoos in the mix...what's not to love? I've read a few tattoo-related romances recently (Jove Belle's Bitterroot Queen had some hot lady artists on the side and I think Spencer Cohen, Book One by N.R. Walker had a very thin tattoo shop background), but this is the first one that has actually gone into detail about what it takes to become a paid tattoo artist. We learn a lot about how a shop is run, the technical aspects of tattooing, and how artists approach their work. I'll admit I was a little bored by the whole "graffiti is legit art" argument, only because I think it's a little dated, but I liked the themes of finding value in art where you need to find it. I don't think either Jericho or Poe are deeply-written characters by any means, but they work well together, inside and out of the bedroom. You can see the mutual respect blossom between them as their power dynamic in the bedroom shifts the opposite way. I couldn't stand Blue as a character, but I don't think we're supposed to be very warm towards him yet. Though I do think the erotica is kinky, it could've gone a little harder. The daddy-boy kink is actually named in the book rather than being one of those lame "oh my god I called him daddy this is sick and wrong God help us both" moments. Both Poe and Jericho recognize it as a kink and nothing more, which means I wish they explored it a little more. More subspace for Poe would've been nice. And a sin indeed was committed when (view spoiler)[paddling was mentioned in a one-line passing moment with no smut whatsoever (hide spoiler)]! What's a daddy kink without some down-and-dirty ass whuppin'? I was also hoping for a little more grit when it came to the dynamic between Poe, Jericho, and Landon, because I really love when healthy-but-complicated father/son relationships are examined in M/M fiction. A part of me sort of wanted Landon to knock Jericho's lights out, and a part of me wanted there to be a little more tension among these three grown men with a very, very tenuous relationship. It wasn't all sunshine and daisies, but I do think there could've been a bit more drama as Landon and Jericho butted heads. I like that Poe is written as pansexual with a preference for older partners in general. In fact, it seems like his previous dominant partners have mostly been women over fifty, which...I would not mind reading about at all. And how about we get Harriet, the no-nonsense lesbian desk clerk for Permanent Ink who doesn't date women under 30, her own book? I'd love to see her get a little mommy kink action herself. I'm guessing the next book is going to feature a (view spoiler)[Blue/Callum (hide spoiler)] relationship, which sounds alright but is nothing I'm super excited about. Riptide is proving to be a really inclusive publisher, though, so I'm hoping Harriet will get her kinky sequel. I'm also sensing that (view spoiler)[Landon and his yet-unnamed shop apprentice might have their own book? That could be interesting (hide spoiler)]. This was worth purchasing right when it came out. While the narrative itself isn't fully unique, it feels like a modern read with good kink. I'm excited to see which characters the authors focus on next.

This story had me on the edge of my seat. Hawk is great at fast, plot-driven paranormal mysteries, and I think I like the plot to this one better than I did with the first book. It felt like a nice, contained story that still furthered our affection for Griffin and Whyborne as a couple as well as supporting characters like Christine and Whyborne's mother. Even though some of the creatures, creepy-crawlies, horrid lab experiments, and cramped mining shafts can be terrifying, this series still feels cozy, like the characters welcome you back with open arms to go on adventures with them. Even though it is a common enough romantic device, I liked the conflict of "I don't deserve him" that both men feel. Griffin still feels like a broken man after he was committed to a mental institution after the death of his partner, and Whyborne still feels gawky and naive compared to his more worldly lover. The introduction of a shady man from Griffin's past doesn't help with the jealousy, but the stakes feel appropriately low in light of the, you know, (view spoiler)[demon alien creatures swooping down and body-snatching the citizens of a mining boomtown (hide spoiler)]. I also really got a kick out of how Griffin demands Whyborne tell him something only the two of them would know to prove he hasn't been compromised and Whyborne basically yells in a panic "YOU LICKED MY ASSHOLE LAST NIGHT." And Griffin was like okay, yeah, this is him. Hawk knows how to tell a great story while adding bits of romance at just the right times. Even when our heroes are saving a mining town from ruin or quarreling about past lovers, a perfectly-placed kiss, nuzzle, or "my dear" is enough to make it all right again. Only two books in and these have fallen into a beautiful domesticity throughout whatever they have to deal with. I'm hopelessly endeared by Whyborne's slightly fussy characterization, especially the way he won't even be outside the bedroom with Griffin in something as risque as shirtsleeves. Unbuttoning him is always a treat. I read this one very quickly and I am currently devouring the next.

I was in the middle of three or four very good books, but I had a deep and sudden craving for more of Maris Black's intense, dirty erotica. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe I'm ovulating. Anyone's guess. This book didn't quite scratch the itch as well as Black's Kage series did, but it was a decent read. It's definitely just as intense as her other works. Very erotic. Maybe a hair faster than the honey-slow build-up in Kage, but still very satisfying. Pinned takes place in a college setting that is very odd and very unlike how college was for me, and that's not including the intense homo-eroticism. For starters, we were not locked into our dorms after midnight--that sounds more like boarding school. And we didn't call our professors "teachers," which is one of my pet peeves in college-set books. It almost felt like Black maybe winged it on the college research? I don't want to sound like a dick; I just didn't get big college vibes from the setting. I kind of liked how Jeremy was put through the ringer a little as the cute new gay boy on campus. He's cocky and hot-headed (he and Beck are both what I would lovingly describe as "fuckboys" only because I, as a lesbian, don't have to fuck them) and wants to be "in" right away, but both the wrestlers and his gay friends have to show him the ropes in this new world. I liked the whole "poppers and public blow jobs" aspect of introducing Jeremy to the campus' gay culture. It felt really bad but weirdly real. I'm not a gay man, but I certainly was put through my fair share of queer-exclusive hazing when I met older lesbian friends. It isn't always GSA and rainbow flags. Queer kids come together in different ways, and not all of them are squeaky-clean--just like how the straight college students come into their own. Black definitely has a kink for dominant, possessive alphas who protect their partners with their life. And I have a kink for that too, so, neat-o. I thought that was a delicious dynamic between Kage and Jamie in Kage. But I feel like Beck isn't a fleshed-out enough character to have him be so fiercely possessive of Jeremy. The jock strap locker room scenes were super erotic, but (view spoiler)[when Jeremy was raped by the assistant coach, it seemed like Beck was more upset that the coach touched what was his than with the fact that his boyfriend was sexually assaulted. That really settled like a brick for me, and I didn't enjoy it (hide spoiler)]. It went a little too far and a little too fast in this book. I've seen a few reviews saying that Jeremy is too feminized, but I think he's too infantilized. Of course, in romance, the women themselves are often infantilized, so there's a whole can of worms we can open here. Jeremy does put on the pouty-lipped wide-eyed coquette thing, which is equally cute and annoying, but it just becomes baffling when you see his headstrong, hot-headed personality otherwise. I think these characters were drawn a bit too sloppy, but that doesn't mean I didn't generally enjoy them most of the time. What I really liked about this book was the group of very different college guys who are loosely "friends" because they're all trying to scrape by as gay men in a severely scrutinizing setting. Seth and Beck would never tolerate each other if they didn't have one very vital thing in common, and you can tell the core friendships between the guys are very strong. I'm excited to see them play out in upcoming books.

I read this series over about two days. It's exactly what a good romance series is supposed to be--fast, scorching, and fun. Originally, I read the first book, Kage, for the M/M Romance Author of the Month pick, and I ended up enjoying it so much I swept through the next two books. This book definitely took a turn into the crime genre for the last quarter or so, which felt a little rushed. By the time I was about 60% finished, I couldn't believe all of the loose ends would be tied up in time, and the conclusion was less than stellar. However, the last few pages were absolutely perfect, which made up for the poor execution before. (view spoiler)[I also thought it was a great way to end the series itself, though I heard Black was writing more books. Unless she uses different characters, I'm really wondering where she'll go with Jamie and Kage (hide spoiler)]. It has been a few days since I've finished these books and my fondness for them has only increased. They aren't terribly original or deep stories, but you can't help but become engrossed in Jamie and Kage's love story. I'm actually changing my star rating for the first book from four to five. One of my favorite romance moments I've read in a long time is when Kage knows he'll win the match and asks Jamie how he'd like him to win it, and as a prize, he'll fuck Jamie for the first time. It's slow and dirty and erotic, and it sticks with me as a pairing for the ages. There's a lot of anger and intensity with the characters and the story always feels heavy, even when the stakes end up being low.

For once in a blue moon (werewolf pun intended), I enjoyed the plot much more than the romance! I was excited to read this one after enjoying the first two books in Harper's contemporary Life Lessons series. She has a gift for tense storytelling and smart plotting--a lot of romance/erotica writers know readers would be more than happy with pretty bodies rubbing up against each other for a couple hundred pages, but Harper also knows a good story is vital to even the steamiest romance. And, in the case of this werewolf paranormal romance, the plot is much more interesting than the steam. I'll always have a weak spot for werewolf world-building. Maybe that's the former Teen Wolf fangirl in me. I love stories about pack dynamics, shapeshifting, the lines between man and beast. It's all ripe ground for good stories and character interactions. The fact that this book takes place in Minnesota (as many of Harper's books do) excites me even further, because I love the idea of werewolves hanging around the Twin Cities. Harper takes an honest and well-crafted approach to writing urban fantasy. She trusts we know the drill, but she also builds the mythology with her own unique spin. For the most part, I enjoyed the fantasy element, but I do feel it missed the mark in some spots. For one, it seems like there's no benefit at all in being a werewolf in a pack. Unless I didn't read carefully enough, it doesn't seem like a werewolf would die or go insane without a pack. They'd be lonely, but so are humans without a support system. They are subject to rigid social mores and dominance customs that tamp down their individuality. They could be murdered by their higher-ranking members for all kinds of social infractions. Yet wolves like Simon, who have received nothing but abuse from their pack, seem resigned to it. And his tepid interactions with other pack members don't go far in making be believe he loves his pack. However, the ending (view spoiler)[was a satisfying conclusion that put stock in a supportive pack while also doing away with outdated customs (hide spoiler)]. Secondly, Harper's treatment of women within werewolf mythology? Totally disappointing. There was just no point to it. There are no female werewolves and only "bonded mates" can be privy to pack secrets, meaning a large percent of the pack's wives have no idea their husbands are werewolves. They can have children, but only boys, and the non-bonded wives have no idea their sons could be werewolves (or that they will never have daughters). And if a non-bonded wife loses her husband or son to a werewolf-related incident, the pack lies to her about their demise. This really left a sour taste in my mouth to the degree that I immediately began reading Dyre: By Moon's Light just to get some lady werewolf action. Harper's treatment of women in her M/M books has always been lackluster, in my opinion, but I haven't read enough of her works to make a real judgment. Now, onto the actual romance. I definitely enjoyed the build-up of Paul and Simon's relationship more than I relished in the payoff. I adore the werewolf tropes involving Simon wanting to feed Paul and take care of him--super cute. I was less interested in Paul overcoming his Big Gay Panic, but his first kiss with Simon actually felt really organic and sweet. The rushed nature of their relationship is certainly a plot point and it does serve a purpose, but it still felt stilted, and I still get the feeling that Paul was a little coerced into the whole thing. Their romance itself ended up falling flat for me despite my genuine affection for both characters. Did anyone else think Paul sort of got the shaft at the end? The book really established him in the beginning--we got to know him and his work, his emotions, his slow coping with his past. Then the narrative sort of drifted to more encompass Simon and much of Paul's development was shown through Simon's eyes. I wish we got more of his POV towards the last half of the book. From what I've read about the second book, Unexpected Demands, I'm much more excited about the prospect of a (view spoiler)[Aaron/Zach romance (hide spoiler)]. I love May-December relationships and forbidden romances, so this seems right up my alley, and there's a lot more room for more world-building. Not my favorite M/M romance by far, but definitely satisfying as a werewolf story.

I'm not quite sure how I missed the fact that Damon Suede has written four other novels besides my favorite M/M romance of all time, Hot Head. I feel like I've been checking in on his author page here and there, and all of a sudden he has a bunch of stuff out I didn't even hear about! While exciting, I can't honestly say that this book is making me want to shell out out for the rest of them right away. I didn't devour it with the same hunger I did Hot Head, though it gave me quite a bit more to think about. Suede's writing, erotic and descriptive and grimy, is by-man, for-man. This feels like M/M romance that is not written for women, but written for the sexual enjoyment of men, which is shockingly rare for this genre. Before I read much M/M fiction, I was under the impression that it was for gay men while finding a decent audience of women on the side. I had no clue the majority of it was written by women for other women. Though Suede's books seem popular with both crowds, I get the feeling that he is writing for other gay men. So, pray tell, what is a 23-year-old lesbian doing reading this book? What could I possibly glean out of page after page of descriptions of cocks and pecs and assholes? Shouldn't I be shuddering at the mention of Patch and Tucker's meat/wads/bones/cranks/shafts/etc.? Well, a little. For the first time in a long time, I skimmed the sex scenes. The sex in this book is almost uncomfortably visceral. The smells, sounds, and textures of sex all come flying off the page and right into your face in the weirdest money shot of all time, and I found myself cringing under it a little (I mean, that sounds like what you'd normally do when ejaculated upon...I mean...I wouldn't know, but...). It is so incredibly kinky sounding, but in reality, Tucker and Patch's sex is pretty straightforward. The sex scenes are almost exclusively made up of (view spoiler)[edging, rope bondage, and rimming (hide spoiler)], which, while incredibly erotic under Suede's hand, were more repetitive than anything. The sex isn't the issue nor the crux of this book. Unlike the explosive, life-changing love scene in Hot Head, the scene that flipped the switch in my head that told me queer people could find true and everlasting love just as well as straight people, that queer love was just as heady and magnetic and real, the scene that became my framework for writing queer erotica (lesbian erotic included), most of the sex scenes in this book just made me want to give these boys a bar of soap and a bottle of mouthwash. It's a different kind of erotica--one that a lot of women, including myself, will shy away from. Patch (the early-twenties male-model-cum-DJ-cum-prodigal-son) and Tucker (the early-fifties deadbeat with a stolen trailer and a gallon of horse lube) do make a pretty pair, and their actual love story is excellent. Suede is especially savvy with romance tropes, because he knows how to use them and turn them around on themselves. Patch has all these ideas molded from his childhood sexual fantasies--that Tucker is the big-bad-daddy who wants to punish him and smack him around, that he's the perverted football coach, the stoic straight with a big cock and a mean streak--and Tucker is willing to fill those roles while breaking each of them down, one by one. He's a walking fantasy who urges Patch into reality (which is embodied in a chapter that feels like a fever-dream, it is such a colorful miasma of gay erotic stereotypes, including a handlebar mustache and some extremely public frottage). The themes tied into the sex are actually worth analyzing, which is so freaky coming out of a BDSM novel with a weird uncanny-valley cowboy cover. Speeding up, slowing down, waiting, taking chances...Patch might be hog-tied to a gorgeous brass bed (which in and of itself could supply fuel for a six-page literary analysis) getting edged to the point of oblivion, but at the same time, he's remaking himself, finding himself, and screwing himself over. He might be a romantic lead, but he feels very real and flawed, and he's just as fucked up as the rest of us. There's a lot of stuff, as a queer scholar, I adore out of this book. But in the end, this is a Dreamspinner romance, and in that respect, it didn't work for me. It's too heavy, too sad, too slow. You're not left feeling overly optimistic about the future of the two leads. I can't be the only one who was just plain depressed by this book, by the loneliness and sadness, the way the characters seem to only cling to each other because they're too lost to seek anything else. Patch spends most of the book reminding himself he'll be gone soon, back to a bigger life outside of the desolate Texas farm he'd escaped from years ago, and in reality, he really should have left. Maybe I'm just not romantic enough to enjoy this. Maybe I'm not the right audience for it. But I do believe in happily ever afters, and after reading this, I don't believe these characters will get theirs. That's why this book gets three stars from me. The quality of writing is an easy four, maybe even five,, but the fact that this is supposed to be an erotic romance nudges it down. I didn't rate for the sex itself, since I can't make judgments on a taste that just isn't my own. I just don't think romance is supposed to make you feel this...empty.

If all space operas were like this one, I'd be reading way more of them. This isn't your boy's club sci-fi. This isn't tech-heavy mumbo-jumbo you need Google and a set of blueprints to understand. This isn't grimdark or ultra-violent or edgy or brutal. It is intelligent, philosophical, carefully-rendered, entertaining sci-fi that is bound to become a cult classic for years to come. I read this for the Mary Sue Books and More Club BoM selection, the category being science fiction. I'd originally voted for a classic--Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey--because I'm not incredibly well-versed in sci-fi, at least not as much as I used to be. Now I can't imagine being satisfied with cardboard plots and archetypal characters. People who have read a few chapters of this book will immediately compare it to other things, namely Firefly, and namely because of the character Kizzy. Kizzy is basically Kaylee Frye. That's pretty much the biggest issue of the book, and one of the only issues I had with it. Everyone loves Kaylee, so it is easy to write her into our stories. She's also a hard ideal to live up to, and when she is copied in other works, it is very hard to miss. However, people who say the story copies more than this from other sci-fi (Firefly, all Trek incarnations, Farscape) didn't read it carefully enough or didn't give it a chance. Modern sci-f- tends to take a tight look at things. In shows like Firefly or Battlestar Galactica, we get to know the people on the ships very closely, and they are the "universe" of the story. In this book, the crew of the Wayfarer are important, but the author acknowledges them as hardly grains of sand on one beach on one planet in an entire galaxy. They aren't saving the world--they're actually just punching pathways between planets to make it easier for others to save the world. The scope of this book is huge. The main character, Rosemary, along with Captain Ashby Santoso, Kizzy, and fellow mechanic Jenks are the only human members of the crew. Sissix, my favorite character, is a from an ultra-affectionate race of reptilians with pretty-painted claws and a mane of rainbow feathers. Dr. Chef, the aptly-named doctor/chef, seems to resemble something like a centipede (who begins life as female and shifts to male in middle age), and he's easily the High Strung Dad of the crew who takes care of everyone. Their navigator is a blue-furred Sianat pair--a being that started as a "he" and was infected by an ultra-intelligent virus who turned him into a "they." There are hundreds of languages, customs, planets, and species that exist alongside each other, and it's relatively a normal thing, which makes it so we as readers don't have to bat an eye are today's issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia. This story takes place in a world lightyears away from all of that, which is amazing. (view spoiler)[Oh, and the cranky dude who bitches at everyone to keep the noise down and leave him be? He's actually an illegal clone. And one of the main love stories of the book is between Jenks and the ship's AI, Lovelace, and it will make you cry. (hide spoiler)] It would take me my entire life to think up characters this creative and loved. Though they are not all human, the main idea throughout the story is humanity. These are all very real people navigating a very real world, and they're trying to live and love and exist alongside each other in a vast cesspool of fear and ever-changing views. The kindest characters have been ravaged by war, the cruelest characters have heartbreaking pasts, the sweetest characters do the dirtiest work, and they are all trying to be good in a world that can be very, very bad. There are a lot of mini-stories and great bits of relationship and character exploration within the larger story of getting from point A to point B. There is romance, but it doesn't dominate. There are politics, but the characters are too busy to involve themselves in the nitty-gritty. The best parts are when the characters are playing and having fun with one another on the Wayfarer. I could go on and on, but honestly, I went into this book knowing nothing and I think you should, too. It'll sweep you off your feet.

There's a certain unsettling feeling I get in the pit of my stomach after I finish a really, really good book or series. Sure, part of it might be the simple feeling of sadness that I'm leaving behind great characters, but when it comes to LGBT fiction, it's something more. We all crave happy endings for the characters we love, but the LGBT community needs them, because happy endings have been few and far between in our history. Historical fiction like this series leaves me with a bittersweet feeling of dread, because I know authors like Charles are breathing a fictional life into worlds that have been in the dark for so long. I'm thankful for them, and I'm thankful we live in a time where stories like this can be read in general abundance. I fell in love with this love story before I even started this book. Richard is such a well-written character--he's the guy who fixes everyone else's problems and tries very, very hard to have none of his own. He dotes on his friends and nieces and nephews, giving them all the comforts that he can bring them, and goes to his bedroom at night where he silently, achingly, and miserably pines after his beautiful valet who vows to never lay a hand on. He's a man of principle and morality and genuine goodness, but he's also a mere mortal, and David Cyprian, "the great Cyprian," the most celebrated valet in society, will be his undoing. Now that's a love story. Even more so than the previous two books in this series does this book takes your expectations of a regency romance and twist them around until the setting and stories become wholly fresh and unique. Our common sense tells us that Richard is the employer and David the employee, one has the power and the other must submit, but every page, every conversation, every movement these two make plays with our very conceptions of power, wealth, dignity, and truth. Who is pulling the strings? Who can undo the other? And how in the world (view spoiler)[can a well-written story of decent length literally come full circle with Richard and David living as Lord and valet happily under the roof of a house of secrets and make complete and satisfying sense as a conclusion to the plot (hide spoiler)]? As far as the burn and smolder and panting sensuality of regency romance goes, Charles simply cannot be topped. A finger slipped beneath a shirt to undo a button, a palm pressed against a palm, a streak of wild red hair peeking out from beneath a uniformly powdered coif--what has become passe in other romances sizzles in this book. Seeing buttoned people become slowly and ravenously unbuttoned is one of the most satisfying romance reading experiences, and Charles knocks it out of the park every single time. Even the subplot is excellent. While the book would be satisfying as simply a story of two men finding their way to one another, Charles once again shows us how high the stakes are for these men (view spoiler)[by embroiling two minor characters, Ash and Francis, in a smutty letter-writing scandal that has Ash's twit of an older brother threatening their ruin if they do not bow to his blackmail and expose Silas Mason and Harry Vane as Radicals (hide spoiler)]. The ending climax allows us to see both Richard and David's strengths in full force and how well they work together even when he hardly see them interact on the page. This is an amazing conclusion to the series. It started with a newcomer and a dandy in A Fashionable Indulgence, boiled hotter with a Radical and his submissive lawman in A Seditious Affair, and ended with the leader of the Ricardians himself getting the happy ending he deserves. The characters come alive more and more with every bit of dialogue, every background movement, every interaction. Julius and Richard are two of the most well-done male romantic leads I've read in a long time and I only regret there isn't more of them to cherish. This book has earned a spot on my 'favorites' bookshelf and will be visited again, many times I hope. Ever since the start of this series, I've wanted to write about the diversity in Charles' writing and why this makes her a leader of the genre. Charles always makes an effort to feature minority characters in her historical works, which is absolutely vital and done with great love and care. She proves that just because they did not have the language at the time, people who differed from the norm have always existed and could be treated with respect, kindness, and compassion, even if the greater world would scorn them. In this series, (view spoiler)[Will Quex, owner of the exclusive gambling hell of his own name, is a trans man. David's mother has syphilis ("the pox") and it is treated as a chronic illness rather than a shameful damnation. Richard's respected elder brother is illiterate (possibly severely dyslexic) and relies on his wife and Richard to help him with business and correspondence. Richard himself is demisexual, not caring to have sex with a man who he does not care for. And there are several characters of color who work respected jobs and have personalities, humor, and characteristics of their own (hide spoiler)]. This shouldn't be a big deal, but in a romance fiction world full of white, able-bodied cis folks, diverse historical fiction is immensely valuable. It would've been so easy for Charles to take the traditional route, but she doesn't, and I love her for it. I have the rest of Charles' books all set to read on my Kindle. I can't imagine going the rest of the summer without reading them.

From the time I started the first book in this series, A Fashionable Indulgence, I knew I was going to really enjoy the next two books as well. The characters are delightful, the setting is intense, and the language and dialogue flows right off the page. I enjoyed this next book even more because it had a perfect balance of romance, erotica, plot, and intrigue that many romance writers can never seem to achieve. We were introduced to the quiet, agreeable Dominic Frey in the first book as Richard's best friend and a man of the Home Office, yet he kept showing up again and again with mysterious bruises around his wrists after his secretive Wednesday night meetings. We learn in this book that Dominic has a masochistic streak a mile wide that can only be satisfied by a man as rough and willing to treat him just as roughly as Silas Mason, a known Radical and wanted Seditionist. Dom and Silas are absolutely scorching together. They play with fire in a myriad of ways--not only do they both face hanging if discovered, Dom would be accused to aiding a traitor, though they are careful to never talk too deeply about future events. But they also mesh so well together in the bedroom that Silas even indulges (view spoiler)[Dom's desire for lack of a safeword, which he does so gently and with great caution despite his own apprehensions (hide spoiler)]. Though Silas is a rough man with a rough past, he's a man of principle, and his principles follow him into the bedroom without without the high-society additions of upright morality. Speaking of principled men, I really like the tenuous friendship between Dom and Richard. Richard is a fantastic character, layered in amazing (yet very different) ways just as Julius Norreys proved to be in the first book, and when we find out that (view spoiler)[he and Dom were very much in love but Richard has no taste for rough sex or BDSM (hide spoiler)], it actually strikes a real emotional chord. Charles writes about sexuality in a very real way along with her own scorching brand of erotica, which is an admirable quality. She's one of the best in the genre for it. Sex can never just be sex, even in good fiction, and she writes about in a layered and sensitive way in every single book. I can't think of a current author who writes about sex and kink in a better way. Though the sex and romance is excellent, the book also excels in plot. The stakes are incredibly high in these stories and it is even more felt in this one than in the last book. Half a dozen friends in a room might mean a fun night out with the dudes on one page and a meeting to decide how to keep a man from the gallows on the next. We're never not aware of the fact that all of these men--Dominic, Julius, Richard, and Harry and even Silas as an extension--are constantly being seen by the world. They are expected to be the arbiters of morality and good taste as well as following the king's law. So how do they do this while still following their hearts' desires? I have even more good stuff to say about this series as a whole, but I will safe it for my review for the last book. I can't recommend this series enough. It's smart, fast, lush, and steamy historical romance at its very finest.

This book is sweet, refreshing, and perfect for a summer day--just like a strawberry! Spanning over a little less than a decade, this love story chronicles the on-again, off-again romance between Margaret and Courtney, two girls who meet within the small community of Tanner's Peak, California. It starts when they are still in high school and ends when they are delving into their adult lives. It might sound formulaic, but there's so much affection and humor written into this story that it is anything but generic. Margaret could've been the sheltered farm girl who is awed by city-girl Courtney, but those archetypes are stripped away quickly as we get to know them. I remember reading another review stating that this is a rare romance in which the characters actually talk to each other, which is incredibly refreshing. They might be lovers, but they're also friends, and their honesty and dialogue jumps off the page, even when things get rocky. They have very distinct voices and personalities, and they show immense growth throughout the years. Margaret is a very fun protagonist. She's full of self-deprecation and she's more than a little salty, but she's genuine and has a big heart. Not only do Courtney and Margaret steal your hearts, the supporting characters are fantastic. Margaret's family is especially heartwarming, (view spoiler)[and her coming-out scene was laugh-out-loud hilarious. It wasn't too corny or serious like in other books--it hit the mark just right (hide spoiler)]. The fact that Margaret's mother is a romance writer is great--her family feels very real, and they aren't afraid to enjoy each other's company and conversation. The book nailed that small-town feel very well. It didn't come off as stifling or overly conservative. It felt more like a great, big, nosy family. I was surprised by how hard I was hit by (view spoiler)[Clay's death (hide spoiler)]. It was a death that comes out of nowhere...senseless, heartbreaking, and life-changing. It was so unfair. But I think it was a really bold and well-written move on Brayden's part. In romance, death is almost always reserved for elderly mentors or those who were ill for a long time, and it almost always serves to bring the romantic pairing closer together. In this case, death was much more realistic--it had a huge impact on the plot, characters, and romance, making it impossible to be wished away by hugs and kisses. It was a literary death that worked very well for the story and it had a huge emotional impact. Out of the many books I've read, I can't recall a romance that touched on grief so realistically. (In the scheme of lesbian literature, I totally lost it at the book club scene where all the lesbians are discussing the pros and cons of The Well of Loneliness. Not only are all use nerdy lesbian bookworms having a field day, it actually says a lot about happiness and what we think we deserve in life, which was very touching and came at a perfect time in the novel). I do wish Courtney would've just said she's bisexual. I know some people don't like labels, but I guess it just gets old in F/F romance sometimes. I thought a writer as savvy as Brayden would go beyond the "I don't like labels" trope. Besides this, there's very little to complain about with this book. It's sexy, sweet, earnest, modern, and just plain good. I can't believe I haven't read Melissa Brayden before!

This was definitely a new type of book for me! I like paranormal romances and I like gay romances, but this fell more into an action/adventure/X-Men story, which is pretty new territory. Janeylou over at LGBTQIA Fantasy Fiction chose this for me for the March M/M Pick It for Me Challenge, and while I was a little late, I'm glad I finished it. Chase, the main character (who actually becomes less and less of the main character as the book goes on) has just been fired from his job and is dealing with a new apartment, a new financial situation, and an old battle with his controlling dad. His neighbor, a weirdo named Seven who wears tin-foil hats and rearranges his potted plants constantly, catches his eye, and they have a steamy hook-up that ends with Chase deciding this dude is just too weird for him. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Seven is one of many (makes me think of Star Trek: Voyager's Seven of Nine, though there's no "we are Borg" here), and they are all part of an illegal human genome experiment that is creating mutant-like super-men who can read minds, communicate telepathically, and stop time (among many other things). Others include Nine, who is in a vegetative physical state but can communicate through electronic waves, Eighteen, who is basically a weaponized brain floating in a tank, and Three and Four, lovers who were engineered to compliment and tone down each others' "gifts." They are all under the thumb of the cruel Dr. Stone, who pits them against each other in an attempt to monetize their powers. While this story did get better as it went, I felt it moved way too fast for us to become attached to the characters. I was also more invested in the side characters and relationships than I was in Chase and Seven. I was really hoping the next book was going to be about Three and Four, who I found to be the most compelling part of the story, but it is apparently about Thirteen, the one character who I found to be the least interesting. Adrienne Wilder does catch you off guard with steamy love scenes and emotional moments, especially when Chase is forced by the Others' powers to confront past demons and his future with Seven. It's fast-paced drama that keeps you guessing, but a lot of this frenetic storytelling is sandwiched between more lengthy telling-not-showing and running, running, running. And there's a whole lot of quick plot explanations and talk-as-we-run type scenarios, making it hard to keep up with the story and the world building. If the story moved at a steadier pace, it wouldn't be a hardship to take in the world's elements and understand the gravity of the "Others'" situations. While I felt this was a decent action story with an alright romantic subplot, it wasn't one that kept my interest for very long. I'm not sure I'll retain a whole lot of the story elements, either, but I still may give the second book in the series, Thirteen: Part One a try.

I started reading this book about half an hour before I had to leave for work, and man, that was a long shift to get through! I was immediately enamored with the story and characters. I have an infatuation with video store settings (and I was thoroughly disappointed by the last book I read with such a setting, Universal Harvester), and I love naive characters who don't realize just how irresistible they are. The fact that Zach owns a video store and knows jack shit about movies is awesome. I was also immediately fond of the dialogue style between Zach and Angelo. It is a realistic, stilted, learning-each-other type of dialogue, which is the kind I tend to write, so it really endeared me to the characters. I enjoyed the alternating POV between Angelo and Matt, and I liked the difference in writing styles between them. Despite a rougher background, Angelo is obviously incredibly intelligent, sharp, and strong, which contrasts nicely with how Zach is sweet, gentle, and a little oblivious. And I know this might be an unpopular opinion these days, but I totally eat up the "old asshole boyfriend comes in and stirs shit up and the new boyfriend protects his man's honor" trope. It's so old hat, but I adore it, and this book totally delivers that. I mean, fuck Tom, am I right? Fuck that dude. The last quarter of the book plodded by a bit for me. It was a sudden change, with A to Z (view spoiler)[relocating to Coda, and it was a bit jarring to be taken away from the quirky cast of side characters who worked in the same complex as Zach after so much of the book was spent introducing them (hide spoiler)]. It also suffered a bit of Heavy Introspection, and even though Angelo's anxiety was warranted, I felt a little bad for Zach. For a while, it seemed to be one of those stories where the characters seem to like each other less and less as time goes on (which is why I could hardly finish the Faith & Fidelity series), but the ending is lovely and I definitely felt like their bond got stronger. It wasn't a perfect romantic arc, in my opinion, but it left me excited for their next story. I wanted a little more discussion about sex between Zach and Angelo. M/M romance has a complicated relationship with safer sex, and I'm more than willing to overlook modern norms of safer sex for the sake of a romance, because it's a fantasy. It doesn't have to be realistic to be a good story. But when a book like this establishes that Zach has safer sex (view spoiler)[and is then ignored when Tom does not use a condom to penetrate him (hide spoiler)], it doesn't sit well with me when he and Angelo don't discuss that later. Angelo seems to be diligent about safer sex himself, and I expected a conversation about protection between them, especially since (view spoiler)[Angelo's mile-wide protective streak would provide some great romantic tension when he finds out Tom went against Zach's wishes to use a condom. It might be a little barbaric for me to crave that, but I'm only human (hide spoiler)]. I wish the author would've picked one stance or another--no protection for sake of romantic fantasy, or diligent talk of safer sex between all characters. You definitely don't have to read Promises to enjoy this book. We do get Matt and Jared as side characters, but (view spoiler)[the majority of the book takes place outside of Coda (hide spoiler)] and we don't need to know anything about Matt and Jared to enjoy their new friendship with Angelo and Zach. To be honest, I enjoyed Promises, but I found the story to be pretty generic M/M romance, so I didn't remember much about the characters anyways. This series is cozy and familiar. It isn't about high drama or drastic measures or stellar stakes--it is about normal men finding love in their world. The first book kept my interest and this book held it tight!

I read this book for the M/M Romance Author of the Month challenge. Though N.R. Walker's books wouldn't be my first picks judging by their synopses, I nabbed this one as well as The Weight of It All because they were available on Kindle Unlimited. Though this story didn't sell me on Walker or the rest of their books, it was a short, sweet story with an optimistic ending and a very gentle, PG-13 tone. The titular Spencer Cohen, whose apparent full-time job is a man who swoops in and makes your ex-boyfriends jealous and want you back, is in a tricky situation--he's falling for his latest client, which is a big no-no for this no-attachments hipster. First of all, I'm wondering just how much he charges to be able to make this a full-time endeavor while affording his own apartment in Los Angeles. This is a short book, so I'm pretty sure I didn't miss any loopholes in this scheme, and the logistics of it were enough to have me scratching my head throughout the entire book. Said client, Andrew Landon, is a smart, educated, articulate cartoonist who wants to get his ex, Eli, back in his arms, which is just baffling to the reader because we get no inkling whatsoever as to why Andrew would want him back. Sure, we have Spencer himself as our unreliable first-person narrator, but there was a startling lack of conflict in a plot device that should be deliciously ripe with rom-com levels of miscommunication and general shenanigans. This story was pretty shenanigan-free and played itself pretty straight (pun intended), which was a little disappointing, especially since it is widely shelved as "humor." Spencer falling for Andrew did feel quite organic, and their relationship was sweet and playful. Flirty, fun-loving Spencer getting buttoned-up Andrew to kick up his heels a little was fun to read, and the quiet, hopeful ending suited them quite well. There's no steam in this book, making it a bit more Harlequin than Dreamspinner, but I imagine the next couple books (view spoiler)[that feature Spencer and Andrew as an established couple (hide spoiler)] will ramp up the drama, tension, and heat. I think this romance was a little too sweet for me. It reminded me a lot of Raine O'Tierney's Bowl Full of Cherries--the hipster characters, the quick dialogue, the quirky friends (though I'm getting a little worn out with the wink-wink pin-up girl BFF with unnaturally dyed hair trope, mostly because I think she would deserve her own book most of the time). I get burned out after too much of O'Tierney's trademark sweetness, though, and she tends to balance that with genuine humor and realistic characters. I think Walker's characters are just a little flat, and they weren't enough to keep my interest for very long. I'm not in a hurry to read the rest of this series, but since they are on Kindle Unlimited, I might give them a try someday when I need a soft, fluffy read.

I liked this book better than the previous N.R. Walker book I read (Spencer Cohen, Book One). It had a more satisfying romantic climax, a better sense of humor, and more three-dimensional minor characters. However, a lot of things I disliked about Walker's other stories came out in this one, too. It was repetitive at times and I don't think the first-person POV did a lot for the story. I also hated that ending. (view spoiler)[The last romance book I read with a proposal ending, Strawberry Summer, was even a little too much for me, and it actually made sense in that book, which was about inevitability and coming together. This book, in contrast, is all about slow progress and accepting that things take time, so a proposal just seemed like a sloppy, schmaltzy ending (hide spoiler)]. I did like Henry as a main character, even if I did find him a little irritating sometimes--and I think that's because he's a lot like me in the beginning, and someday, I hope to have a happy ending like him. He's self-deprecating and a little awkward, but he's also a sharp dude who loves his friends and wants to open himself up to change. I also want Melinda to have her own book. N.R. Walker should dip into lesbian romance, because her female characters are way too fun to remain as sidekicks! Since it it on Kindle Unlimited, I might continue Walker's Spencer Cohen series, but I'm starting to think she's just not the author for me. A little too much sweetness for my tastes.

Even though I read this book in late January, I already know this will be one of my favorite books I've read in 2017. Guys often claim works like Stand By Me or It capture boyhood so crisply, so true to form, and I feel like this book is one of the rare pieces of fiction that capture girlhood in a similar manner. The book closest to the type that I've read is Dare Me, but even that book, while excellent, is very stylized. My Best Friend's Exorcism isn't glamorous or scandalous in the vein of Gossip Girl stories, it feels real, and it shows that when the world gets super scary, the only person who will pull you out of the darkness is your BFF. These girls actually remind me a lot of my mother, who would be only a few years older than them. I was expecting this book to be more of a tongue-in-cheek horror comedy, something ironic and self-aware, and while there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments (the exorcist himself is a faith-healing bodybuilder who wears a neon-pink fanny pack and has to protein-load to get through especially nasty demons), this book doesn't sell itself short. It is earnest and honest and real, and in the end, it is a love story. Love, even between friends, conquers all--through a haze of 80's hair and rock ballads. Abby and Gretchen's story gets progressively more hopeless and upsetting until you think you've reached a fever-pitch of hurt and nothing will ever be the same again, but in reality, it's all just high school, man! With a demon. When (view spoiler)[a possessed Gretchen asks Abby to remove all of her makeup, her "armor," in the school bathroom (hide spoiler)], it's achingly vulnerable and heartbreaking. There are little unspoken rules of female friendship, and breaking some of them feels like...well, a sin. The ending itself had my crying like a baby. It made me think of what we could've had in The Female of the Species in that friendship can be the deepest, most enduring love of all. The actual exorcist in this book could've been played in so many ways--too serious, too corny, even with a fade-to-black. But instead, (view spoiler)[Abby invokes all of the important little things in her and Gretchen's friendship. Instead of the Holy Spirit, she invokes E.T., "Eye of the Tiger," and the Go-Gos. She uses their girlhood love to save them, and it works. (hide spoiler)] This book is also a great portrayal of how adults have such power over teenagers and refuse to listen to their complaints. There's a lot of awesome stuff about Satanic Panic, "say no to drugs," the Reagan administration, etc. Come to think of it, how could this book not have taken place in the 80s? I found myself missing this book after I finished it. I missed the setting, the characters, the atmosphere. It is the easiest 5/5 read I've tackled in a long time.

This might not be everyone's perfect book, but for me, at the time I chose to read it, it was pretty damn close. I'm actually not much of a steampunk person--I don't mind it, but I don't really seek it out after it had a huge resurgence in popularity ten or so years ago and all of a sudden everything was steampunk. It's like trying to find a decent vampire or zombie story among the thousands of self-published volumes of rubbish. Aside from Gail Carriger's Soulless series, most of what I read was underwhelming. But this book blends the best parts of steampunk fiction with believable alt-history, slight body horror, and a whole lot of found-family/friendship goodness that all combined to make an intense, sexy, and fast-paced drama. The main character, Cornelius, a hugely talented French tinker-surgeon and (deliciously) shameless slut, makes the split decision to save the life of a dying Austrian soldier, Johann, by gifting him the mythical clockwork heart created by his mentor, along with an intricate clockwork eye and limbs. Cornelius secretly teaches Johann how to live in his new body--and, of course, falls for him fast. I loved how high the stakes were in this book. It's definitely an adventure story. By bringing an enemy soldier back from the brink of death, Cornelius not only committed treason towards his country and his powerful father, he put a piece of priceless and potentially devastating technology inside the body of the man (view spoiler)[he falls hopelessly in love with (hide spoiler)]. The heart is almost literally a ticking time bomb--if enemies get a hold of it, they can copy the tech to make automatons of their soldiers controlled solely through the clockwork heart. However, Cornelius himself doesn't even know that (view spoiler)[the French side of the war has similar plans for a clockwork army, and he is betrayed by his own father to make it happen (hide spoiler)]. There's plenty of fast, twist-and-turn intrigue in the story, and that's not even touching on the romance aspect of it. I loved the dynamic between Cornelius and Johann. It started slow, since they didn't speak the same language (until they discovered they both knew English), but I definitely fell for the cliche of "the heart wants what the heart wants." Cornelius literally gave Johann a heart--I mean, come on. Perfection. I also liked Cornelius as the older, more experienced character who stills longs for a man stronger and bigger than him to dominate him a little, and Johann falls easily into that role. My god, this book can get damn dirty, which is great. There's a lot of (view spoiler)[exhibitionism/public sex, Total Power Exchange, spanking, menage (one-time events, not poly), double penetration (hide spoiler)]...you know what, maybe you should just read it. Bring a cold drink. Sit on a towel. There's a definite feeling of anything goes in this world--men and men, women and women, and any combination thereof is certainly possible. I do wish there was a little more talk between the two men about some things, especially since Johann is so young and inexperienced, but it never felt like a line was crossed. (This is so petty, but I feel like Samhain took more risks than Dreamspinner does, erotica-wise. They were responsible for the scorching Prince of Tricks books, too, if I recall. I already miss them). The supporting characters are also amazing. Valentin was the perfect annoying BFF character. I love a good annoying BFF character. The crew of the Brass Farthing is amazing and they all deserve their own books--I'm actually crossing my fingers for a possible (view spoiler)[Crawley/Valentin sequel. It seems pretty likely, and if I'm tossing coins into the wishing well, I'll also hope for maybe a Crawley/Heng/Valentin scene. And I'm not sure of Cullinan dabbles in F/F romance, but a Molly/Olivia story would be so amazing (hide spoiler)]. Princess Gisa and Cornelius' ex-spy mother were great female supporting characters, which is a plus in M/M romance. This is one of those books that I never wanted to finish, especially since a sequel hasn't come out yet. I can't wait to read what else Cullinan has in store for these characters and this world she has built.

I was really excited to read this book, but I didn't like it as much as I expected to. It feels a little like betrayal to say negative things about Fisher right now. I'm a big fan of hers and I think she was one of the most clever, innovative users of social media to date. However, I seem to laugh hardest at her humor when it comes in at less than 140 characters. Actually, her sense of humor isn't the issue here. Fisher is naturally hilarious--she's witty, flippant, brutally honest, and admirably self-deprecating. She tells it like is is, which is how her fans like to hear it. But so many other elements of this book didn't work for me. This book is known as "the book about Carrie and Harrison Ford's affair." That's definitely the major draw. But I didn't realize it would only be about that. About 75% of the book is dedicated to the way she and Ford had sex a few times during filming, while I hoped that would merely be a blurb within the much more interesting narrative of Fisher's life. It doesn't paint Ford in a good light at all. It actually made me actively dislike him, which sucks, because I'm a Han Solo fangirl. While Fisher was young, adventurous, and inexperienced at 19, Ford was in his 30s, married, and totally emotionally distant. The first time they hooked up was (view spoiler)[when Ford "saved" Fisher from a group of cheerfully drunk British crew members when Fisher was drunk herself, then he proceeded to not even make it back to the hotel before ravishing her (hide spoiler)]. If Star Wars fans were seeking a great romance between their childhood sci-fi heroes, they'll be disappointed. The actual "diary" parts of the book are nearly painful to get through. Imagine publishing your teenage poetry and song lyrics for the world to see. But I suppose that was her point...Fisher is nothing if not transparent. It's just that they aren't bad enough to be funny or nostalgic enough to be quality reading. They're just...not much. I skimmed most of it. These entries also eerily showcase what we now know but what she probably didn't know then--her depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder all come through her most vulnerable moments. This book seems very therapeutic. She even says that Star Wars was escapism for some people, and it makes me sad to think that maybe, this book was a way for her to escape. And this might be a polarizing opinion, but I felt Fisher's attitude towards her fans and her iconic Princess Leia role were a little sour grapes. Despite her constantly insisting that she loves Leia and is proud of playing her, she often makes fun of Star Wars and berates her more die-hard fans. Fisher is honest; she always has been. But that doesn't make these things sound any less...ungrateful? Fisher often apologizes for already telling certain stories or anecdotes, like how she got cast as Leia, which makes me think I should read her previous books. I might be a little harsh on this one, but that doesn't mean I think Fisher was an incapable writer. I should've started with her more biographical works. It is honestly hard to criticize this book for what it is because Fisher does a better job of that herself. She overshares? She admits to it. Her attitudes towards fans isn't great? Oh, she'll claim the poor-little-rich-girl title. I think Fisher knew this was more of a vanity project than anything. She's funny and self-aware enough to make it worth the read, though this isn't my most recommended book of the past year or so. This hits in at barely 3/5 stars, but I can already tell I'd like her previous works more. This feels like a collection of third-tier stories by a woman who had many top-tier experiences.

In a continuation of my usual habits, I waited a week or so after finishing this one to write a review. It's not laziness exactly, or is it the need to let the text simmer a bit before I write down my thoughts. It's more due to the fact that after I finish a really good series like this, I almost get sad, knowing that there's no more and there will be no more. I wanted to keep myself in Henrietta a little longer rather than write an outsider review. But in that time, I read another book--a YA book called This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp. It has nothing to do with the Raven Cycle series other than the fact that it is YA, which I don't read very often anymore. Nijkamp's book isn't a bad book, but throughout the story, I felt like she just didn't trust her readers. She didn't trust us with complex characters, with moral grey areas, with the sort of daily violence that makes you short of breath. For an incredibly heavy novel, it left me feeling remarkably clean at the end. It also made me realize how much Stiefvater trusts her readers of all ages. I've yet to encounter a group of more diverse, complex, and alive characters than the kids in the Raven Cycle. Sure, we've had four books with them, but it didn't take long to fall for Gansey, Blue, Ronan, and Adam. Even minor characters like Orla and Matthew make deep impressions, and characters like Henry, who were only introduced in the last quarter or so of the series, seem completely natural and unique. I, along with many other readers who heard the buzz about this series at far too late a date, was exhilarated when (view spoiler)[Adam and Ronan finally got together. Their first kiss at the Barns felt so natural and gentle and soft, just the sort of scene Ronan deserved after all his pain, and I'm so relieved they got a happy ending. Though Adam was not my favorite character throughout the series, his last scene was so deserved, and I felt Stiefvater really put her back into fleshing him out. It's the sort of writing that makes me so jealous. (hide spoiler)] Unfortunately, I think this is also the flabbiest of the four books. I was so uninterested in Laumonier and Piper's history, mainly because I only really loved Piper when she and Colin got to quip back and forth for a few pages, and these characters were being thrust in and out of dream states and dream worlds so quickly that sometimes I couldn't remember where anyone was. Despite this, I don't feel the ending was rushed, and I think it ended on a wonderful (if a bit clean) note. I was worried for a bit that all of our questions would not be answered, but I think after the initial breathlessness this book will cause, things really fall into place. I can't recommend this series enough, and to everyone. It will surprise you.

This book is fast. The pacing, the story, the drama, the interactions between characters--everything flies up and off the page, making your heart pound, making you want to read impossibly faster. It's excellent and exhilarating and quite possibly the best book I've read in 2016. If The Raven Boys was Blue's book, this one belongs to Ronan Lynch. He had one of the best moments in the previous book at the very end when he told the group that he pulled his pet raven, Chainsaw, out from a dream, making him a legendary being called a Greywaren. This isn't exactly a game-changing moment--we already know magic exists potently in Henrietta after entering Cabeswater and reviving the ley line. But this type of magic is so otherworldly, so impossible and dangerous, especially in the hands of a fantastic character like Ronan. And Stiefvater writes it so damn well, especially when Ronan spirals into a disastrous relationship with a fellow Greywaren, Kavinsky, who uses drugs and manic violence to get whatever he pleases out from his dreams. The image of Ronan and Kavinsky's destruction paired with the image of Ronan's childhood home, all asleep due to the fact that it was dreamt up by his now-deceased father, is like the best kind of fairy tale--darkness mixed with pure, gentle light. I had a lot of favorite parts in this book. I'm hopelessly in love with the dynamic between the women of 300 Fox Way and the Aglionby boys. Maura, Calla, and Persephone would've been mishandled by a less capable author, but Stiefvater breathes such life into them, makes them powerful, humorous, and important to every aspect of the series. I cried at the scene between Blue and Noah, where he gives Blue her first kiss, the only safe kiss she can ever have. The hopelessness and sweetness of it was so much better than anything I could ever write. And, as someone who reads nearly exclusively LGBT books, I'm very eager to see where we go with Ronan. When I was a teenager, the only fantasy books I had with gay characters were Cassandra Clare's books. I'm glad there is much more to choose from now.

In my review for the previous book in the series, The Dream Thieves, I said that I liked the fast-paced plot. Everything seemed to race off the page, but instead of flying over my head, it just kept me breathless from beginning to end. In this book, the pacing is similar, but I didn't retain quite as much of it. For the first time, this series felt a bit rushed. Stiefvater's prose is beautiful, as usual. She has a knack for writing dialogue that is clever and humorous without drifting into Cassandra Clare or Joss Whedon levels of eye-rolling, ultra-dry snark. I do feel that her efforts were wasted on characters whose place I'm still not sure of in the series. For example, I absolutely love the dynamic between Colin and Piper Greenmantle, but as I was trying to enjoy them, all I wanted was to know what Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam were doing. I wish they were in a separate book altogether--preferably not YA, so we could get a little more of the grit and naughtiness Stiefvater squeaks by. My biggest issue with this book, and the only reason why it did not get five stars like the first two, is that the magic is starting to wear thin. I'll never forget the moment in The Raven Boys when the group finds Cabeswater for the first time and realizes it isn't a normal forest in a normal place. That's when not only the characters realize they're dealing with powerful forces, but when we realize it, too. Now, it almost seems like magic is commonplace for every character. Adam, now a "magician" (though his powers seem to align more with the psychics at 300 Fox Way than anything), can't get a moment of peace, with Cabeswater always wanting something, always making the world shift around him. Ronan is practically a dream factory. And who the hell knows what's going on in the attic of 300 Fox Way with all those mirrors! Some scenes I particularly enjoyed: -Blue and Gansey's nighttime drive, especially when she takes a turn at driving the Pig. The entire scene left me breathless, and there was hardly a scrap of dialogue for pages. I could feel every second. -Mr. Gray holding up the Greenmantle home. It would play off as fake tension in other novels, but in this one, it just reeks of humor and cleverness and humanity. -Ronan showing Adam his softer side at the Barns (this romance is slow as hell, but I feel like it's going to be worth it in the end). -Everything with Malory, because he's so insufferable and British. There's a lot going on here--more than I feel can be summed up in one book, since the series ends at four. I'm not particularly interested in what happens with Artemus, only because none of the other characters seem particularly interested in him. Gwenllian annoys the shit out of me, but I'm invested in her role in finding Glendower. As this series concludes, I'm hoping to find some answers, and I'm nervous as to see what those answers will be. I'm definitely not ready to be done with these characters yet!

This book heads in the direction that I've been longing YA to go in for the longest time. It shows that the genre is willing to take more and more risks as it develops. It is a violent, difficult, sad novel about high school, rape culture, and what it means to be a "good" girl, turning so much of the whipped-cream sweet YA books of the past 5 or 10 years on their heads. I'm not going to forget this one for a long time! The book begins with one of the best opening chapters I've ever read in a thriller, and it cemented Alex Craft as one of my favorite young protagonists of all time. She's an anti-hero in all respects--feared and revered, an outcast and a myth, the girl who reluctantly starts to form attachments right as high school comes to a close. There's something about a teenage girl with bruised knuckles, perfect diction, and a weakness for baby animals that makes me fall in love fast. While the focus of the story is how Alex has gotten away with the vigilante murder of her older sister Anna's murderer and rapist, it isn't the center of her narrative. In fact, it would've been the easy way out--Alex misses her sister and wants to avenge her. In reality, Alex was born violent and born ready to fight, and Anna was the one reining her in. With Anna gone and her murderer acquitted, Alex got the reason she'd been waiting for to let go. Alex is the most rounded character, but the other two female main characters are so well-done. Peekay, the preacher's kid ("PK"), is used to reigning in her anger and hiding the fact that she "knows what a dick smells like" from her close-knit community. One of my favorite parts is when Alex steps in and teaches Peekay to control her anger and stop her from lashing out, because we don't really see that sort of relationship between girls. We get screaming matches and catfights and passive-aggressive freeze-outs, not complicated relationships of confusion, rage, sadness, and helplessness. Alex and Peekay's friendship is a perfect breeding ground for new YA narratives and new takes on teenage girls. A minor female character, Branley, the girl you loved to hate in high school, is slowly realizing her oozing sexuality and "cool girl" status isn't going to carry her much further than senior year. She's a hot mess, but instead of asking for judgment, she gets our sympathy. Branley and Peekay the golden girls in their own ways, and they're both total messes inside, and Alex is the one to make them realize it. This book tackles difficult topics, but not in an After School Special way. The aftermath of Peekay's sexual assault by Ray Parsons is brutal--the pouring of rubbing alcohol over her scratched vulva, her compulsion to have all of herself back, to wish her skin was not under his nails. It hurt like hell to read, but it was really great writing. In the aftermath of the story, we get snippets from other girls whose lives were destroyed by assault in this small town ("a broken necklace, a frayed bra strap, a pair of underwear with I was fourteen written on them in permanent marker"). We do get a little PSA'd here and there (Peekay's "ultra cool" religious parents, the schmaltzy school assembly), but they didn't feel ham-fisted as much as...necessary. Though the ending itself is depressing and totally made me cry, I understand it. (view spoiler)[Alex had an ideal character arc...she died protecting those she loved, a gun in her hand, looking up at the stars. What a way to go. (hide spoiler)] I let this one sit with me for a bit, and even though I gave it an easy five-star rating, it isn't a perfect book. I felt little attachment to Jack, the only main male character and one of the POV protagonists, mainly because his entire role could've been taken over by Peekay. He's the love interest, and he does have a redemption arc, but he doesn't feel needed in Alex's story. Peekay shows love, friendship, vulnerability...she could've opened all the same doors for Alex (romantic or platonic, it wouldn't matter). Is this the ugly, bland part of YA telling us we still crave stories with at least one shoehorned romance? Because I know that a lot of girls just don't need it anymore.

My YA book choices this past year have been knocking it out of the park! While I got this book for my birthday last October, I got around to reading it now for the YA LGBT Books March 2017 Book of the Month, which I also nominated for the group read! Out of all the LGBT YA books I've read so far, this one is topping the list. It's fresh, contemporary, sensitive, and has the feelings of a new queer classic. Though it is a fairly long book, it reads quickly and kept me interested from start to finish. Joanna, the main character, is swept up in such a unique plot that I just wanted to give the poor girl a hug, but she's a character written with such a great level of humor, grace, and reality that having her as a protagonist is a joy in and of itself. I talked a little bit about the characters here on the discussion page for the BoM, but I'll definitely say that I enjoyed the entire cast of characters and the roles they played in the narrative. The author could've easily fleshed out only the main characters and left the friends and family as two-dimensional plot devices, but they are all carefully rendered and obviously loved, from the guy friend who becomes a convenient beard to the loving step-grandma who insists on being called "Tater" ( and I dare you not to adore BTB the second he's introduced). While this is definitely one of those "JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER" books where a bit of good communication could've saved everyone the hassle, there are a lot of layers to the lies and secrecy. Joanna, who is openly gay, has to fake being straight in her new school in conservative Rome, Georgia while falling in love with Mary Carlson Bailey, (view spoiler)[who is a closeted lesbian who wants to come out with gusto (hide spoiler)]. Joanna made a promise to her father that she wouldn't come out until after she graduated ((view spoiler)[a shitty promise that really pissed me off, but he redeemed himself by the end (hide spoiler)]), but she also knows it isn't fair to ask Mary Carlson to stay in the closet for the sake of a big 'ol lie. There are too many people to please and let down, too many people she wants to see happy, and really, there's no clean way out of a tangled web like this. It certainly is fun to see her try, though! For readers who are sick of coming-out narratives, abusive families, and teens agonizing over their blossoming sexuality, this is the book for you. Instead of making gay the problem, the problem arises from what happens after gay is said, in a matter of speaking. This book is unabashedly queer, unafraid to use gay slang and have colorful queer side characters, unashamed of steamy make-out scenes and flirting and discovering love for the first time. While those more dramatic coming-out narratives exist for a good reason, this book is for those kids who are out and just want to read stories and drama about people just like them. Don't let the "religion" tag turn you away from this book. I'm pretty sure I'd never willfully pick up and read an "inspirational" book, even one with LGBT themes, and for me, this book does not fall under that category. Just like how Joanna is a teenage girl who happens to be a lesbian, she is also a teenage girl who happens to be a faithful Christian, and while both of those parts are vital to who she is, they do not drive her as a person. I actually found the parent-child dynamics to be much less cloying than that depicted in The Female of the Species, another recently-read YA book about a preacher's kid, and I especially enjoyed Joanna's developing relationship with her stepmother. This is just a good book, for teens and adults alike, and it deserves a spot in the lists of best YA and best LGBT romance of 2016.

It took me a while to finish this series, but in the end, I was really happy with it. Lucien is a really fun character to follow around for three books--he's so perfectly flippant and exhausted and sick of your shit all the time, and Stephen is an excellent match for him. This is a series couple I felt had a really, tangible connection throughout the plot. I felt that the plot was tied up nicely at the end of this book, if a little quickly. The final connection between the two leads was gorgeous, and their love scenes throughout were scorching. Charles knows how to write those wonderfully contrasting characters who come together with a spark. I'll definitely be reading the other books set in this universe!

This book seemed to pop up out of nowhere. I constantly mistook it for one of those "Raven Boys" books that I see all over Tumblr (all of which I have on my to-read shelf) due to the whole homoromantic male BFF themes with a lot of angst and smoking and casual violence. I decided to give the series a try. Well, this first book was nothing like how I imagined it would be. It's odd, surreal, and incredibly minimalist. There's little in the way of description or exposition. It's a character-driven story at heart where the rest of the world is background noise to the group of supremely fucked-up college kids who play a made-up sport called Exy that is apparently popular enough to fill enormous stadiums and be featured on national morning talk shows. The thing is, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. Our main character, Neil, is a runaway with an incredibly dark past who gets caught up in the tangled world of college Exy, including a reunion with Kevin, a boy from his own dangerous past. All of this regular new adult drama plays out either in anticipation of or on the Exy court (field? I don't remember). Because of this, I was tentatively labelling this book "sports gothic," but the further I read, the more I realized Exy is a conduit for these kids' aggression and anger and hidden cleverness, their prejudices and secrets, the ways they wish they could interact with each other but can't. I don't care about Exy. I can't tell you a damn thing about it because I didn't pay attention to the sport itself. But you bet I was holding my breath during the big game towards the end--with every glance and shove between characters, there were more words left unsaid. As anyone who follows my reviews knows, I'm a fan of queer romance, so I was left a little confused by the book's tags of "m/m." Spoiler alert--we get very little of this, if any, that is not flirting/homoromanticism between characters who I don't think are going to become romantically involved in later books. I can sense an incredible, dangerous, and complex spark between Neil and Andrew, the self-destructive doped-up protective goalie of the team, but if they're going to get together, it's going to be a long journey. At this point, I'm certainly willing to wait for it. There are a few things I find it hard to get lost in when it comes to the story choices. There's simply so much hostility and violence between these characters that I find it hard to buy the whole found-family dynamic everyone seems to love about this series. They completely loathe each other to the point of barely being in the same room together without physical and verbal violence. There's no feel-good element and practically zero humor from start to finish. I have to admire Sakavic's choice to make up a sport on the spot, because she allows us to see a type of teamwork/brotherhood dynamic that butts up against our pre-existing notions of sportsman camaraderie. They are not football or hockey or lacrosse players, they're Exy players, and maybe we need to see them all in a new light to buy their dynamics with one another. Maybe this book is just a total warm-up for what's the come. Either way, this book baffled me enough to keep me interested and interested me enough to keep me guessing about what will come next.

I've read many K.J. Charles books and I've enjoyed each one. But I think this series stands as some of her most mature, intelligent, in-depth writing by far, and, in my opinion, it is only half a step away from being studied literary fiction. I may have just revealed all my cards in showing I'm a total and complete snob, but I stand by it--if this was not (excellent, steamy, scorching) gay romance, it would be considered literature. And that makes me...sort of sad? But I digress. Taking place in high-society London that is still reeling under the shadow of Waterloo and Bonapartism, this is the first book in a three-book series about the men of an eccentric, exclusive gentleman's group called the "Ricardians" after their principled leader. They are all respected society men with one common secret--the admittance to being a Ricardian is a taste for men, and if you're in the club, you're under Richard Vane's protection. One of these men, Julius Norreys, a known fop whose ambivalence towards anything and everything is matched only by his garish fashion sense, soon finds himself entrenched in a My Fair Lady scheme helping Richard's long-lost cousin, Harry, become a proper gentleman. But Harry, orphaned at a young age and raised by Radicals, prefers a warm bed and a good day to any of society's ideals. To us, the stakes seem low. But to these men, appearance and blood means everything, and Harry's paternal grandfather Gideon's large inheritance means the difference between a life of comfort and one of ruin. All Harry has to do to get his money is be a good boy. But, alas, he finds out about the Ricardians and knows a life of a quiet marriage and good choices is not for him. This book takes into account everything awful about being a person of means in 1810s high society. Money is important, but so are morals. And morals are important, but so is pleasure. And pleasure is important, but so are appearances. And mind your manners. And protect your friends. Don't wear that waistcoat, don't talk to that woman. Don't be seen on this street or stay out too late. And of course, don't let anyone let on you prefer your own sex or you'll hang for it, no matter if you're a Radical from the stews or a distinguished Lord. I've read a lot of LGBT historical romance, but Charles instills more of an urgency in her works. We feel immersed in the beautiful clothing and impeccable mannerisms, but we also feel the overwhelming pressure of this world. It's an intense reading experience. There's a lot I want to write about this series in general, and it will come in my reviews for the next two books because I enjoyed the dynamics between the central love interests more. I thought Harry was one of Charles' thinner-drawn characters, though Julius is a delight. Their romantic and sexual chemistry felt very organic but never very explosive, which is one of Charles' trademarks. And while this book focused more on money and family in society, the next book in the serious gets deeper into politics, which I prefer.

After finishing In the Middle of Somewhere, my biggest question at the end was, "What happens with Colin?" I knew this book was going to follow a different couple (as in most romance series), but I actually had a few ideas for who that couple might be (Leo and Will, even the coffee shop owner's son and the town mechanic). I was definitely hoping for more of Colin and his big, mysterious boyfriend, and this book delivered in spades! I was a little wary at first that most of the novel would be a coming-out story. Anyone who follows my reviews knows that I usually get bored with coming-out narratives, especially within series that contain fully out characters who get way more interesting storylines. And from what we read in the first book about Colin, he sounded like a truly unpleasant character, and I was wondering how long the book would take to get me to like him. Fortunately, Colin is a fully-fleshed character who is incredibly sympathetic. His pain is written with such emotion and grace--we get his side of things just as well as we got Daniel's in the previous book. It takes a talented author to take the time to write both sides of a story like that, especially with a character like Colin, who is so steeped in self-loathing and secrecy that we wonder how he's going to pull through. And, of course, Rafe helped a lot. He's not my favorite romantic love interest--I think he's a little self-righteous, and so much of his dialogue felt a little tinny (and towards the end, pretty repetitive). But for all his flaws, he really is a perfect match for Colin. He can kick Colin's butt into gear when he needs it and he can hold him close afterwards. He's realistic, but he also knows when to be hopeful. And the love scenes? Rafe is super dominant and Colin is hella closet-submissive, and when they get together, there are sparks in every word. The sex is better in this book than in the previous one between Daniel and Rex, which is saying a lot. It actually sort of reminds me of the big love scene in Damon Suede's Hot Head--the sensuality, love, emotion, and eroticism meld together and come to an absolutely sizzling climax (pun intended). These two characters just work together so well, which makes up for any shortcomings in the characterization. I really did like the prison narrative as well. For anyone who is a bit squeamish about prison situations, it happened before the novel, but it still affects the characters quite a bit. Even if I didn't agree with the message in every way, Parrish does a good job of writing difficult, tricky situations in ways that make the reader totally understand and sympathize. I also enjoyed the youth group kids a lot--especially Ricky and DeShawn. They felt like real kids, and if Parrish did some sort of YA spin-off book, I'd be totally into it. I can't wait to read what comes next for this series! Definitely one to keep an eye on.

What a fun, sweet, gorgeous reimagining of the classic cartoon! I always loved the colorful cheesiness of the Jem cartoons, and the brightness and playfulness come across even more in Kelly Thompson's writing and Sophie Campbell's art. I'm especially fond of the varied body types, new canon queer characters in Kimber and Stormer (and, though it isn't in the text, a trans character in the new original character Blaze), and Jerrica's characterization. I was always more of a Misfits fan when I watched the cartoons (and I still love them, especially due to the way Pizzazz is drawn and written), but this time, I feel like Jerrica is more of a fleshed-out, strong main character. I can't wait to read the next issues! This TPB is really gorgeous, looks great on a shelf, and includes bonus material. Definitely worth the purchase.

If I recall correctly, it took me forever to read this one because I just felt like the two main love interests couldn't stand each other. They reminded me of David and Keith in the later seasons of Six Feet Under...you want to root for them, but not if they're so miserable all the time. Great writing, still. Will definitely continue the series.

The sheer number of times Leo (the dom) refers to Alex (the sub) as "boy" made me want to give this book one star. Any number of idioms ran through my head as I struggled to finish this book (if a dom calls his sub 'boy' and there's no one around to hear it, is the protagonist still as bland as oatmeal?), but I'm especially fond of the idea of exchanging every "boy" with "old sport," Gatsby style. This book is just dull. There's no life to it. I didn't buy this romance at all. There's no spark between these two. Alex is so utterly bland and irritating with his unbelievably awful family, inability to lock his bedroom door, and post-grad sadness, and Leo is...well, Leo is big and growly and for some inexplicable reason, adores this kid. I don't get much more from either of them. The whole waiter-patron slow-burn romance worked wonders in Warrior's Cross, but in this one, I was just bored for the first 30% or so while they simpered around each other. Was the sex hot? Eh. Some of it was. But it's not hard to write a sex scene that will hit your readers' kinks when you put every single kink in the last four chapters (seriously--St. Andrew's Cross, flogging, barebacking, butt plugs, voyeurism, pick your pleasure and Leo will be doing it to Alex). I skimmed most of the sex scenes in the last quarter. The dirty talk that was supposed to be a show of trust and devotion between dom and sub would've felt more appropriate for a one-night stand outside a bar between two total strangers. There was no real conflict in this story. Everything was neatened and summed up within a few pages. And towards the middle, there's an epistolary POV shift that is pretty much the emotional climax of the story told in the laziest way possible. I can forgive zero chemistry and snooze-worthy love scenes, but laziness in erotica is a sin.

It is not secret that Roux's Cut & Run/Sidewinder books are my favorite gay romance series. They're intense, well-written, unbelievably erotic, and instantly memorable. It has been well over a year since I've revisited these guys, but the characters came back to me right from the first page (the plot, less so, but luckily we've never had to rely too heavily on the action plots to get by with these books). The one flaw these books have always suffered from is 20/20 hindsight. These characters have grown and developed so much, but Roux seems to want to chalk it all up as fate in the weirdest ways. I hated the part in Touch & Geaux when it is revealed that Ty was the mysterious man in the New Orleans cabaret Zane fell for so many years ago because it was too perfect for a series as gritty as this one. Now, in the beginning of this story, Nick is on the mend when he finds a box of memorabilia from their deceased Sidewinder brother Elias Sanchez. He reads a letter in which Elias instructs him to get all the guys back together for one last adventure. In this letter, he also reveals that he knew Nick was bisexual, to the degree that he teases Nick about flirting with a male nurse in the hospital. On one hand, why not? Sexuality is natural and Elias was obviously not offended or surprised by it. But such a big part of these books is secrecy, why Ty, Zane, Nick, and Kelly were not out their entire lives. Roux so wonderfully writes a non-cheesy coming out process for older men who want to live the rest of their lives openly, so it feels a little too easy to have Elias acknowledge this openly in a letter that was written many years before Nick even came to terms with his own sexuality. Despite the destiny plotlines, this addition to the series is scorching as usual. Roux always delivers on that front. Kelly and Nick's "language of touch" is inherently erotic and a nice bit of characterization for them. And Elias' "no sex" rule on the cross-country road trip might be the oldest trope in the book, but it does lead to some scorching tension. I have to say, though, I feel like Roux was watching some weird porn filmed on, like, an iPhone camera where you can't see everyone's limbs fit together, because half the time I couldn't tell where poor Kelly's leg was or how the hell he didn't have a broken neck with the way Nick was contorting him. Sexy, but weird. I can work with that. I also adore the way Roux writes masculinity. I eat it up. You have Kelly Skyping their very straight friend Owen to talk about relationship woes, and sure, Owen is a little bewildered by the mechanics of gay sex, but he ends up dispensing good, honest advice because he values their friendship. Then there's Ty and Nick heading out to the season opener in Boston not only to cheer on their team but to mend their fragile relationship and talk about their sweeties. The relationships between male friends in these books are what I'd describe as queer-platonic--there's a lot of cuddling and sleeping in the same beds and nicknames that are incredibly intimate without being implicitly romantic. I wish more men in both reality and fiction felt comfortable being this way. I can imagine some readers not liking it, thinking it is unrealistic for grown men to act this way, but I disagree. It is only realistic to expect them to act 100% masculine, 100% of the time. Not only is Roux's grasp on masculinity excellent, her take on divergent sexualities is also refreshing. (view spoiler)[Digger ends up telling the guys he is asexual, and Kelly comes to realize he is demisexual, and they just are. They talk about it and hash it out, but these books do realize it is a new age, and these identities are real. (hide spoiler)] If this was a Ty and Zane book, I probably would've finished it the day it came out. I'm less attached to Nick and Kelly as a couple, though I do enjoy the development they've had. Nick's character was always too closely tied to Ty's experiences, and he's the type of self-sacrificing character I tend not to gravitate towards, though that is turned around in this book, because the main point is for the guys to remind Nick he deserves to be love, even after all he's done. I also like how the other guys boot Nick out of his black-and-white view of the world--these characters live in shades of grey, but Nick was the only one who couldn't accept it. It makes the story feel a lot more real and flawed than it has in earlier installments. Kelly never seemed to become as fleshed-out as the other guys. For example, towards the middle of the book, Kelly admits he's apprehensive sometimes because of an anger issue that causes him to hit first and ask questions later, and that left me scratching my head...since when? Did I forget about this established character trait, or is this just a lazy example of telling rather than showing? I know Kelly was originally supposed to die early in the series, which might be why he lacks the characterization Roux so lovingly gives the other guys, but at this point, he still doesn't feel as full as I'd like him to be. This isn't a perfect part of the series, but it is a good read. Some of it made me long for more Ty/Zane stuff, and some of the high-drama aspects (physical fights, teary conversations, angry sex and make-up sex) does make me zone out a bit. It gets a little old after a while, especially since Roux is capable enough of a writer to create drama without melodrama. As for the ending, I really was surprised (view spoiler)[ by Elias' confession that he had a son who would now be in his early teen years. I'm also really invested in Owen's vow to find him, even though I'm not sure how that would work as a standalone story, because Roux only writes M/M romance/action and Owen is straight. (hide spoiler)] I'm not sure what is next for this series, but I'm always ready for more.

Though this is not the type of book I'd normally read on my own volition, I was really taken with the language of it. The dialogue between Bethia (the bright daughter of a Calvinist minister in Puritan-era Martha's Vineyard) and Caleb (a young Wampanoag man whose education in Cambridge pulls him away from his culture) is absolutely gorgeous, the words flowing right off the page--I almost found myself play-acting them as I read. Since the book is modelled after a "spiritual diary" format, there is a heavy religious theme throughout, which was tough for me to get through. But the excellent writing and compelling heroine made this a great read. Of all the books my prof. chose for pre-Civil War American literature, I'm glad she chose a historical fiction novel such as this.

I think I'm starting to realize that I like romances that include parent-child relationships, but I don't care for romances that are about parent-child relationships. This is definitely a book that let the actual "romance" take a back seat to the "suddenly acquired child," and it just wasn't my sort of book. First of all, this book is shelved as an M/M romance here on GoodReads and Dreamspinner is widely a romance publisher, but this book really isn't a romance at all. In fact, despite being together since high school, Hen and Sam don't even really seem to like each other all that much. They're downright mean to one another most of the time! They seem a lot more like friends or brothers than lovers, broken only with Sam wanting to play with Hen's "pecker" once in a while. This isn't all bad--there's a sense of intimacy about them. They've always been close, always a twosome, always Hen-and-Sam, and I think that effortless connection is well-written. But we just never got the idea that they made a very good romantic duo, even if they made excellent fathers. The drama of two gay men trying to take care of a young disabled child in the conservative South is not lost on me, but it didn't feel like something I haven't read before. It feels like an exercise in futility--Hen has to bite his tongue and turn the other way at the endless abuse, homophobia, racism, and Islamophobia of his town because he wants custody of his nephew (view spoiler)[who, it turns out, it also his younger brother due to his deceased father raping his sister when she was 13 (hide spoiler)]. He subjects himself to mass because of his faith, but the church (save for a kind nun) just shuns him at every turn and makes him feel unwanted. It's more a story of "let's see how much we can make these men suffer" than anything. Maybe I'm just jaded. Maybe I'm exhausted by it. But is anyone else just tired of these narratives? But just because I didn't like the story doesn't mean Wilgus is a bad writer. He has a great knack for dialogue and setting. Even when his minor characters make me want to scream, they feel real, and there's a deprecating sense of humor about it all. I feel like it is distinctly southern in a way I will never understand. This isn't my favorite read of 2017, and if you want a light romance with a no-strings-attached HEA, this won't be for you. But the writing quality is decent enough to warrant checking out the author.

As one of the first non-series YA books I've read in a while, this book reminded me why I gave up the genre during college. It was a good idea, and one that should've worked--we get the alternating perspectives of four different students during a 54-minute school shooting and we find out how all of them are connected to the shooter. However, I ended up wishing for a lack of connections. So often this type of violence is so random and angry and meaningless, but there was such control in this plot. The pieces just fell together too neatly. There are some significant plot points I won't spoil, but I will say that all of the characters (athlete Claire, troublemaker Tomas, and sweethearts Autumn and Sylv) have such an intricate connection to Tyler, the shooter, that it read like more of an intrigue or thriller than what it should've been, which was a character study. Tyler, as the most antagonistic of antagonists, needed so much more attention from the author. He didn't have a very unique voice (he actually came off as more of a Bond villain than a tired, angry teenager), his motives were muddy at best, and I never even came close to caring about him as a character. My two favorite characters were Tomas and Sylv, siblings who find themselves separated by a single door and Tyler's gun. I would've read a whole book about them, about their farm and their loving grandpa and ill mother, about their patchwork relationship that only finally heals in a moment of trauma. Since I'm a fan of queer fiction and Sylv and Autumn's relationship was one of the biggest emotional motivators in the novel, I wanted to root for them, and I did, to a degree, though Nijkamps' romance writing was a bit flat. They were in love, but why? I had a better grasp of the dull romance between Claire and her BFF-turned-boyfriend than I did on Autumn and Sylv's romance, which was supposed to be one of the most important aspects of the book. Very disappointing for a lesbian reader, though their ending scene was lovely. I think Autumn and Tyler's interactions were the most disappointing for me. Autumn came off as a very contrived character--she's the girl who lives to dance and must dance to hide her pain from a broken home. A little melodramatic for my tastes. Sibling relationships are a huge theme in this book, but while Tomas and Sylv's came off as very real and tender, I had no reaction to Autumn and Tyler's. Their father is an abusive alcoholic, but attempts at trying to get us to understand Autumn and Tyler's plight came off as clumsy and generic. Tyler was never once sympathetic, not for one page, and that ultimately hurt his interactions with every other character. All in all (and I already said this in my review of another recent YA novel I read, The Raven King), I feel like Nijkamp just didn't trust her readers. She didn't trust us with the sensory details of panic--the stink of it, the rot, the bitterness of fear--even when we should've been on the edge of our seats. She didn't trust us with complex characters who made us angry and passionate and heartbroken. And I don't think she did very well with this topic in her hands. I would, however, read more of her fiction about sibling and family relationships. Siblings, especially brother-sister dynamics, aren't written enough in YA fiction, and Nijkamp writes familial loyalty and the duty we feel towards our families quite well. I go back and forth with how I feel about Nijkamp's handling of teenage characters. You have Claire and Chris, who are basically teen spies going all rogue to try and get help, and then Tomas and his friend Fareed, who try to play hero. I believe their motives, but not in the way they're written. One scene that was particulary well done, though, was when we're introduced to Mr. Jameson, a beloved teacher who (view spoiler)[is shot and killed by Tyler as he tries to talk him down (hide spoiler)]. The students around him all go tense and silent when he attempts to get up and speak, showing how kids do know when enough is enough, when words won't help, and how they do know when not even adults can successfully manage a horrible situation. One aspect that did not work was the forced integration of social media--Twitter posts, blog posts, and text messages all come up at the beginning of each chapter, outlining the event in real time. That's one of those things that either has to be all or nothing, and in this case, it felt half-assed. While this book was capably written and touched on topics and themes I don't see too often in YA fiction, I wouldn't really recommend it. In one scene, Claire describes how at the end of the track finish line, there is a sign that says "WE MAKE HISTORY", but unfortunately, I don't think this book will do the same. I do hope Nijkamp continues writing diverse queer characters, though, and I'd be interested in where her ideas take her.

I haven't been able to really get into a good romance since last year, but when I saw this book on sale on the Dreamspinner website, I knew it would hit the spot. City boy and lumberjack getting together in a cozy mountain cabin? Sold. But I certainly didn't expect the depth, humor, and warmth that infused this story from start to finish. First of all, Parrish is a great writer. The story unfolds organically and neatly, secondary characters feel fleshed-out and likable, and the first person POV has rarely felt so natural in a romance. I found myself enjoying Daniel as the main character more as the story went on--he started out as the pretentious, displaced city-boy off to teach the country folk a little sumpin' about the Real World, but it was soon clear that he was anything but. He's flawed and realistic, and he works as the narrator. I also enjoyed Rex as the love interest. I'm getting a little sick of the close-lipped, gruff, rough men in romances who take three books to share their feelings and cause more pain than they do happiness, so Rex was a breath of fresh air. He and Daniel are an obvious physical match (the sex scenes are scorching, and they're some of the best-written I've read in a long time), but they also come together so well with their emotions, needs, and wants that they had me smiling from one page to the next. I liked Parrish's sense of humor throughout the book. These characters can totally fail at communicating (I especially liked this bit--"Me (determined to use any word but "great"): Great!"), but that's okay. While sometimes dialogue in romances can feel a little overly slick and sweet, the easy way the characters interacted always felt natural in this book. Despite the realism, this is definitely a romantic book, filled with emotion without lingering too much on the sap. (a dude gets finger-banged up against a tree in one chapter and adoringly watches his man cook dinner in the next; what's not to love here?) And Ginger! Ginger is amazing, and if Parrish wanted to dip into hetero romance and write something about Ginger and Christopher, I'd totally be on board. She isn't reduced to that awful stereotype of female best friend who only pops up once in a while to give guy advice to the gay protagonist--she feels real and totally well-matched as Daniel's quirky, tough bestie. And she has some awesome lines, like when Daniel assumes all girls like the same stuff: Daniel: (about men's arms) "I totally agree, I just didn't know girls liked them too." Ginger: Oh, yes, Daniel. All girls like forearms. Every single one. No really, I've asked all of us and we all agree. I definitely adored this book, and I can't wait to read the next one, especially with the twist towards the end of In the Middle of Somewhere. I'm invested in these characters and the careful crafting of story and style make me eager for more!

This is one of those books that you know is good--good characters, good story, good writing--but it feels almost too real. Uncomfortably so. Claustrophobic, almost. Because it holds up a mirror to those invisible illnesses that many of us have never seen in the light--even if we have them. Split between two narrators, this is a story of struggling with mental illness while finding someone to safely struggle with. Well, maybe struggle is the wrong word. Emmet isn't so much struggling with his autism as he is struggling to prove to everyone else that there is no "normal" and that he's just as real as anyone else. But Jeremey, who has severe depression and anxiety, is certainly struggling with the world around him, and Emmet is devoted to helping him. I like how the romance almost came second to the personal drama yet still didn't feel unimportant or insubstantial. Once Emmet saw Jeremey across the railroad tracks, he knew he wanted him--he just had to make it happen. And when it turned out that Jeremey's mental illness was so severe he could barely leave his house, Emmet, in all his logic and pragmatism, was right there to make it work. At first, I hated Jeremey because he was too much like me, and people like us tend to hate other people like us, because we hate ourselves. There's some depression humor for you. In reality, I don't hate myself, but I hate what depression and anxiety does to me, and it was very hard reading about Jeremey's struggle. I've had so many days where even taking a shower felt like a victory or going to the grocery store felt like climbing Everest, but at the same time, I felt like yelling at Jeremey, "Get your ass up and deal with it!" Because that's what my parents told me to do. Now that I'm on medication and see a therapist, I can cope better, but those old ways will always stick with me. In the back of my mind, a tiny voice will always be telling me I'm weak, useless, lazy. How scary is that? In a way, this book was an extension of my therapy. I'm trying not to be so afraid of seeing myself in fiction anymore. I really, really enjoyed Emmet's POV. I've read several books with autistic characters who were babied by the authors, even if the author meant well, but that wasn't the case with Emmet. Emmet is intelligent, mature, and sexual--and no one allows him to be, he just is. He's very much in control of his life while still knowing he can ask for help when he needs it. He's Jeremey's rock in so many ways, and seeing their devotion towards each other is amazing. I do wish the narrative took half a step back sometimes. It felt a little too close to a veiled PSA here and there when Dr. North was involved. The message wasn't bad, but I feel like it could've been delivered in a less clumsy well--maybe Jeremey going about his day while trying to take Dr. North's advice rather than us sitting in on them talking. The book was pretty fluid for the most part, despite a few clunky moments. I also didn't really care for the mini-flash-mob thing in the Target, mostly because it was sort of corny. No matter what, I hate corniness, even if it delivers a kick-ass message or idea. I read two Heidi Cullinan books this week and they were both on the opposite ends of the fiction spectrum--one an adventure steampunk erotica (Clockwork Heart), and one a contemporary new adult love story. Both were excellent reads for different reasons and I am very excited to continue reading her works. I can tell she puts a lot of love and care into her work.

This book is as good as everyone says it is. Man, it has been a long time since I've been able to say something like that. After a string of unfortunate heterosexual romance/erotica excursions, I set my sights pretty exclusively on LGBT fiction and non-fiction for a long time, ignoring some of the most popular bestsellers of the past couple years--especially YA bestsellers. In doing so, I've read a lot of great stuff, but I've missed out on books like this. You're lost within the first chapter of The Raven Boys--maybe even within the prologue. Blue Sargent, our female lead, daughter of a psychic and dismally non-psychic herself, attends a St. Mark's Eve ritual with her half-aunt Neeve, in which she has an encounter with the boy who will fulfill the prophecy she has known since childhood--she will kill her true love. If she kisses her true love, he will die. Soon after, we meet these eponymous Raven Boys--Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah. One of them is Blue's true love, and one of them will die. So, of course, the reader falls helplessly in love with them all. As a lesbian, my affection for male characters is a distant thing, something real and true but held to a different standard than my love for female characters. I can safely say I've fallen for all of these boys, just as I was meant to. Though Steifvater's prose can list into the telling-not-showing slump that is so scorned these days, it is simple and beautiful, painting these characters as flawed and lovely all at once. From the first chapter with Gansey and his fated car, his Epi-Pen in the glove box, his prickly friend and his sweet friend, his singular obsession, his WASP-ish good looks and kindness and politeness, I was so locked into his story, his life, his goal of finding Glendower and the favor he will bring. As I write this review, I've finished the second book of the series, The Dream Thieves, and I'm well into the third book, Blue Lily, Lily Blue. I can safely say that Steifvater has a gift for both characterization and story, something rare and valuable. I'll often read books with fantastic ideas and plots but weak characters, or compelling character studies with very little plot. There are clear goals and objectives in this series, things the characters want and need and strive for, but there is still time for us to learn exactly who they are and what makes them tick. And that makes a good story. (Also, now that I've read these books I've heard so much about, I'm realizing how inspired Nora Sakavic was by them when she wrote The Foxhole Court. I'm still compelled by both series, but it's interesting to see how quickly these trends are formed).

This book was an instant breath of fresh air in a long line of dull and/or distressing LGBT books I've been reading. It's such a smooth and flowing read that gets us invested right away and makes it impossible to put down. The characters feel unique and vulnerable from the first chapter on. Even the minor characters, like Liz and Josh, are so fun to read (and Liz would absolutely need to be played by Lucy Lawless, hands down). I especially like how the "front relationship" trope is switched around a little bit, making Josh not a villain but a good friend to both Robyn and Caid. In a less fleshed-out story, the characters would be hard to pull off. Caid would come off as needy and Robyn as callous. But Lane is good at making us sympathize with both these women and what they are going through, and even when they make bad decisions, we're right by their sides. The romance and love scenes are beautiful. Robyn calling Caid "baby," them waking up next to each other, them barely able to keep their hands off each other in public...so completely slow and scorching and sensual. The entire book feels specifically and lovingly designed for lesbian readers (right down to the erotic descriptions of hands). This is definitely a mature romance for readers who want sophisticated ladies who go about getting what they want. And Lane knows how to bring the drama--(view spoiler)[when Caid was attacked, I literally gasped and didn't put the book down until I was finished (hide spoiler)]. Even though Caid and Robyn are perfect for each other, this isn't quite a perfect book. By the time it reaches about 75%, their constant back and forth starts to wear. It makes storytelling sense, but it also falls into the fan fiction trap, as this story was originally Xena uberfic. With fan fiction, writers don't have deadlines or contracts. They have unlimited time and freedom with their writing, meaning that they can keep writing until they feel they're finished. Loyal readers will eat up their chapters, even if it is just a couple thousand words of repetitious dialogue. There isn't such a luxury with original fiction. I think this book could've been edited down by a good 5,000 words or so--just removing some of the less integral arguments and long paragraphs of pining. All in all, I'd recommend this as a staple lesbian romance to anyone. There's nothing terribly out-there or daring about it (two well-off, successful, thin, beautiful women falling in love), but it is a slow and believable romance that jumps right off the page.

Well, I finished the series. After nearly abandoning Cut & Run after not having the time to finish it during my school semester, I ended up diving back into it when I came home for summer break, finishing the entire 'verse in less than two weeks. There were some major good times (the trope-ridden wackiness of Fish & Chips, the kitty-cat adventure in Stars & Stripes, some major sexy times (Cameron and Julian's slow-burn romance in Warrior's Cross, Nick finding out Kelly can come just from--ahem--in Shock & Awe), and some major devastating times (the big secret reveal and subsequent fight in Touch & Geaux, (view spoiler)[Preston's death in this last book (hide spoiler)]). I thought coming to the end would destroy me, but, to be honest, I'm feeling pretty okay with how things ended. I'm not specifically a huge fan of this book, mainly because it's completely major-arc rather than episodic, which I feel Roux is not the best at managing, especially when Nick and Kelly took on main character roles in the whole 'verse. It took me longer to finish this one than the others, mostly because I knew how it would end. No matter how much drama our guys get into, how banged up and bruised they get, this is romance/genre fiction, and it needs to have a happy ending by law. There were really no surprises, and I felt we were denied a little more time with Cameron, Deuce, Livi, and some of the other supporters we've liked so much in the past, all in favor of having more things blow up and more shots taken. And Liam Bell never made any damn sense to me in this series, so he annoyed me at every turn. This is the first crime/mystery book series I've read with a central gay romance, and I'll never quite forget that. These sorts of books are damn hard to come by. We get our action and intrigue, and the guys who blow shit up get to be married to each other while they do it. They get to be complex, strong, vulnerable, and bad-ass, too. Are these books flawless? No. But they have a special place in my heart.

Unfortunately, this the first book in the Cut & Run/Sidewinder 'verse I was just sort of meh about. I still stand by my love for Nick and Kelly--they're not a grand love story like Zane and Ty, but they're awesome in their own ways, and I was glad to see some more of their interaction in this book (and their between-the-sheets interaction, wink-wink). However, I was not happy to see Julian Cross again, because the only way I find him interesting is when he's with Cameron(view spoiler)[(who was MIA due to an unfortunate plot device) (hide spoiler)]. When he's alone and doing his shady-ass thing, he just feels like the multitude of other shady, mysterious men who have come and gone in this series (Burns, Liam Bell, etc.). He's lost his charm and overstayed his welcome, especially when he isn't interacting with Ty and Zane, either. There's already too many main characters in these books and a lack of the ones everyone cares about most (the Grady family, especially), and this book just never quite settled to a focus. One really weird aspect I totally loved was the fact that Nick and Kelly are going on a wacky cryptozoologist adventure with Ty's cousin Emma and her team of wacky adventurists. Now that's a book I want to read! I enjoyed Nick and Kelly's problem-solving partnership in this book and I want to see some more of it in another setting. I didn't mind the treasure-hunt mystery plot in this book, but it fizzled out hard by the last fourth of the story, and I lost interest. If Roux can work on her plotting as well as she works on her character development, I'd eat up half a dozen more books about Nick and Kelly solving crazy shit together. With one more book in this 'verse to go, I haven't yet lost interest, but I'm certainly ready for a break. (And I want more of Alex so bad, she seems like she's got so much potential. And maybe a little romance with the tour guide girl? God, I'm so gay.)

I really don't understand the hate this book seems to get here on GoodReads! Sure, it's a little fluffier than the previous sandbag, Touch & Geaux, and the plot is a little zanier (pun intended), and there's a lot more focus on Nick and Kelly than expected, but to me, this was the perfect mix of sweetness and action-packed intensity. I certainly never expected to feel this bad for Nick, I must say. He was always sort of a non-entity from the first time he appeared in Divide & Conquer (that was the first time, right? I don't even know...), but this book really shined a light on his struggles after coming home from his deployment and how much he depends on Ty and the rest of Sidewinder to get him through it. (view spoiler)[And, of course, I'm a sucker for marriage proposals, so I'm over the moon for both couples, even though I know that fucking Liam Bell is going to put these babies through a world of hurt in these next two books before the series ends). (hide spoiler)] I'm in love with this series and I've had a blast reading it, but I'm definitely ready for a conclusion to Ty and Zane's story. They've been through enough already. It's time to give them a little peace and quiet.

Roux has a knack for rich characters and slow, careful romances, but I always thought her settings could be better, even in the fantastic (co-authored) Cut & Run series. Despite being on the road in the American West with a couple of grumbling lawmen and their dirty outlaws, I never felt like I landed in a certain time or place or really got a feeling for the surroundings of this book. While the story itself was pretty slow (and the action and fight sequences were generally skim-worthy), the details felt rushed, like the entire point was from A to B. I was never fully submerged in the wild, wild West. I also didn't fall very hard for either romance, though I was more invested in the burgeoning feelings between Flynn and Wash than I was in the quick affair between Rose and Cage. Was I the only one who really thought the romance was going to be between Flynn and Rose for the first half of the book? Cage felt like such a side character that I was almost startled when he and Rose kissed for the first time. I wish Roux would've gone with a more traditional romance approach to these characters and gave Rose and Cage this book and Flynn and Wash a sequel. I'm not sure what audience this story was seeking, because it is marketed as a romance, but it reads more like the type of story my dad would like, minus the gay sex. I don't think I'll lend this to my dad. Though I do think he'd enjoy Bat Stringer. That being said, it's a capably-written Western. It's dirty and violent and full of double crosses and questionable motives. I enjoyed Dusty Rose as a character but I also wish we got more of the lawmen themselves in the narrative, including a little more backstory about Flynn and Wash. Rose was the only character I saw clearly throughout the story--Roux definitely favored him in detail, voice, and character arc, which is fine, but it often made the story feel unbalanced and the other three men less dimensional. And if you're looking for romance, (view spoiler)[you'll have to wait until the last 10% of the book for a satisfying conclusion (hide spoiler)]. This isn't my favorite book of the year or my favorite by the author, but there's an ideal reader for it out there somewhere!

Well, I finished it. I finished it and I am cranky and sad, and I want chocolate and a blanket and maybe some wine and also to punch something. Remember my sunny little review of the previous book, Stars & Stripes, and how I knew it was the calm before the storm? Well, I was right--it was the calm before the absolute shitstorm that rocked this entire series off its foundation (for at least the duration of this book). Now that I'm finished and I have some time to reflect a bit, I'm wondering if all that drama towards the back half of the book was really necessary. I'll touch a little on the big secret reveal below in a spoiler cut. (view spoiler)[I'm especially wondering about the fallout of Ty's big secret that he was assigned after their first mission to look after Zane and make sure he didn't defect. It really doesn't resonate as a life-altering realization. It would've been different if the emotions weren't real, or even if Ty was assigned to Zane before they even met, but it sounded to me like Ty took the assignment because he couldn't stand being apart from Zane. The way Zane reacted made me fear him for the first time in this series, and the way he used his alcoholism and sex as a weapon was so heartbreaking to read. It just felt destructive, and it was so unpleasant, and I had to put the book down several times just to regroup. It is such an 180 turn from the last novel, and their relationship can never be the same. (hide spoiler)] To make matters worse, there were no superfluous Gradys or Garretts to be seen, and that was a little disappointing. And for the first time in this series, I was completely lost by the plot itself. For the last half, I felt like I was watching a straight-up blockbuster action movie, which I'm not a fan of. I just felt like the substance was drained out a bit. I don't believe at all that (view spoiler)[Zane first became attracted to men after seeing Ty undercover in New Orleans years before, because it seems a little too ironic for my taste (hide spoiler)], though it is romantic, and I couldn't care less about Liam Bell or the Gaudet family. I might've if we'd been introduced to their importance to Ty several books before, but their introductions felt so rushed and ham-fisted that I couldn't really get attached. The ending destroyed me and I am not happy, especially since I committed to Shock & Awe before continuing on with the next Cut & Run book and I want is some Ty/Zane sweetness to get me through what I know is going to be a shitstorm. So much for feel-good series of the summer! I might as well curl up with some Hemingway and break out the absinthe!

Well, damn. This one may be my new favorite in the series, topping even Fish & Chips, which I absolutely adore. Stars & Stripes feels like a deep breath of fresh air after the intensity, drama, and violence of Armed & Dangerous, focusing more on the relationships between Zane and his family, much like how Sticks & Stones dealt mainly with Ty's family. Consequently, both books deal with big cats(view spoiler)[though Ty gets a much better deal in this one (hide spoiler)]. There are a few spoilers coming up just in this paragraph, but they're addressed pretty quickly in the book. Both Zane and Ty come out to their parents in this book with mixed results, with Ty's coming-out being one of the most tense, amazing, heartbreaking coming-out scenes I've ever read. Zane's strained relationship with his mother causes him a lot of pain, though, and it doesn't meet a neat ending, but the resolution with his father and younger sister is lovely. I like this book because it's mainly just fun. Ty and Zane are definitely in the honeymoon phase here--they can hardly keep their hands off each other, which allows for happy readers and a mind-numbingly hot Texas bar storage-room hookup scene that had me fanning myself at two in the afternoon. They're so hopelessly and disgustingly in love with each other, and after five books of these two floundering with their feelings, I'm more than happy to indulge in the sappy romance. I can't help but feel that the other shoe is about to drop, of course, since these two can't stay still for long, but I welcome the interlude. The plot was pure fun in this one, too (anything involving lassos, trick shooting, and a big cat sanctuary can't be anything but a riot). It doesn't have much to do with the overall arcs of Zane and Ty's FBI careers and it took a backseat to the family drama and romance. In this instance, I think the balance is perfect.

This was definitely the most intense book of the series so far, with seemingly much higher stakes than the ones before (which is saying a lot for the shit Ty and Zane get into). I was excited for this based partly on my love for Julian and Cameron in Warrior's Cross, the side novel in the same 'verse that can be read right before this book, but I was a bit disappointed in their involvement in the plot. However, as an action/crime book, Armed & Dangerous is rife with tension, violence, and unexpected humor. Since I've been labelling these books with keywords and phrases to separate them easier, this one will be Road Trip. It's another one of my favorite romance tropes (I will never be ashamed of my life for that terrible Gerard Butler/Jennifer Aniston movie), but I'm still trying to decide if I loved the execution or not. I'm not super happy with Cameron's characterization in this book. I thought it would be a chance to further flesh him out, but instead, he sort of came off as a ditz, which I really didn't see him as in Warrior's Cross. I like his moments with Julian, especially in contrast to Ty and Zane's beautifully dysfunctional relationship, but I feel like if people didn't like him much before, they won't like him now. I didn't really like how Zane and Ty treated him as a civilian. In law enforcement themed fiction, it says a lot about a character by the way they interact with civilians (Olivia Benson, BBC's Sherlock, and the folks from Criminal Minds are all diverse examples), and I thought there would be a bit more compassion for Cameron. I can't totally complain, though, because the ending where they all part ways is adorable, and they did end up going out of their way to give Cameron a bit of agency. Maybe it's too much to ask to really find Cameron interesting when he's not the narrator, because all of a sudden we're thrust in with Ty, Zane, Julian, and Nick, who are four of the most intense human beings in fiction. We all know what conversation between Nick and Zane changed this series forever,(view spoiler)[and gave us an idea of how Ty must deal with the fallout of lack of sexual agency, rape threats, and the lines between sex and love (hide spoiler)] and even though it was almost too painful and heartbreaking to read, I do hope it gets addressed later in the series between Ty and Zane. I almost thought it was a bit of a breach of trust on Ty's part, but a further examination of it would be interesting. We also got the most sensual, romantic love scene of this story so far, a scene that transcends sex and smut and shows us how far these two have really come. (My dirty little secret with this book is that I am a complete and total sucker for the jealous lover stereotype, and I really did expect Zane to sock Nick in the face at some point. I can't decide if I'm happy or not that he refrained.) I'm excited to continue this series, and even though I have a special place in my heart for Julian and Cameron, I'll be happy with the focus back on our guys. I'm also excited to start the Sidewinder series as well!

I've started compartmentalizing these books with different keywords so I remember which events happened in which book. The first one is referred to as One, of course. The second one is Mountains. The third is Cruise. And this one is Bombs. To be honest, I kind of like that I can do that. Each book in the series works so well on its own like a ten-episode cycle of TV--they flow together with similar themes and conflicts, but each one contains its own themes and conflicts. I was less excited about the subject matter of this book than the previous ones, mostly because it strays the furthest from romantic tropes--we had the whole love/hate relationship to start, then the stranded-together, and then the fake relationship. This one was a big more grim and way more violent, which is saying a lot for these two nerds who keep almost dying every five seconds. The bombing plot was heavy, but it did lag a bit for me at the end. I wish we would've got just a bit more of the perpetrators before the ending. I liked that Ty and Zane are back in their real world,(view spoiler)[ or were, judging by that devastating final sentence or two (hide spoiler)] working the cases and bantering with their co-workers. And call me clueless, but this was the first time I realized that there were two spinoff titles I needed to check out, so the formal introduction Sidewinders was a lovely and welcome surprise (though I'm still getting a feeling for Nick as a character). I felt that the bits of romance and love we got between Ty and Zane were so tender and well-written, and Ty's coming-out process with Sidewinders was equally hilarious and heartbreaking. I know this book is a few years old now, but the one thing that didn't settle with me was the whole reaction to the people rioting. In this day and age, it's hard to see our favorite characters on what I believe is the wrong side of the protest, especially when they threaten rubber bullets against water balloons. It comes off as Ty and Zane almost...not abusing their power, but being blinded by it. They may be queer men in a traditionally masculine field, but they're still white, well-to-do men with power, and that will always be in the back of my mind when it comes to how they interact with civilians. I took a little detour to read Warrior's Cross before the next book, and now I'm super pumped to see both these sets of characters in the same story.

Oh my god. Oh my god, I am such a nerd for these books. This series is fast becoming my summer guilty pleasure series, and my greatest solace is that there are nine books in the series so far. I started this one immediately after finishing Sticks & Stones, and as I sat in the bathtub with my marshmallow bubble bath, glass of Moscato, and world's messiest top-knot, I was literally splashing and giggling with joy at the first few chapters when Ty and Zane's mission is introduced. They have to fake being married. On a cruise. As a high-rolling hot-shot and his arm-candy boyfriend. I don't care what book I'm reading--gay, lesbian, straight--I am going to adore this plot. It is my kryptonite, my greatest romance weakness, and I had no idea my two fave FBI assholes would get thrown into such a wonderfully devious situation. Fake married! Forced PDA! Pet names and appearance changes! Fake feelings become real feelings! This is my big gay romance wonderland and I never want to leave! Also, with this installment, this series is slipping a little more heavily into the erotica category, which was unexpected and totally welcome. I enjoy the sexual politics between Ty and Zane. They're not repressed--there's no 'hey man, that's too gay' shit going on here. They're too hot for each other to trifle with that BS. But they're still treading unfamiliar territory, and they're going to have a hell of a lot of fun navigating it together. Which is, of course, awesome for us. I was a little worried at first about Ty's role because he's such a masculine character having to play a more effeminate man, but there was no internalized homophobia, none of that. He discovered things about himself along the way, actually. These men don't play around. Zane's alcoholism also comes into play a bit more in Fish & Chips and is dealt with in such a natural, empathetic, heart-wrenching way. He's an alcoholic, Ty is not, and they have to work together to deal with alcohol on missions--yielding some initially unpleasant results. There's heavy material going on here, and the authors don't shy away from it. The end didn't taper off for me, per se, but I did feel like there could've been some better ways to tie up loose ends. I wanted a little more of the real Corbin and Del Porter, especially when we find out their secrets, and I was expecting a much bigger payoff when it came to the mysterious backup team and their shifty assailant. I also sorely missed the Grady family and am hoping they'll make appearances soon. The very ending between Ty and Zane is absolutely perfect, though, and a perfect way to wrap up a zany, fast-paced plot. (view spoiler)[Yes, we get an 'I love you,' and it is fucking perfect. (hide spoiler)] On to the next one, and then the next one, and so on...

Wow, this was way shorter than I thought it would be! I was expecting a full book but it is more like a novella, and it only took me a couple hours to read. I also got the story "Bait & Switch" on my Kindle copy as well, balancing the slow-burn of Kelly and Nick's relationship with the heat of their short reunion. Unlike with Ty and Zane, I feel like we're rushed a bit on these two guys. I felt like Kelly pushed a little too hard at first, and Nick gave a little too easily, with a very brief conversation about his long-held feelings for Ty that we've known about for the past few books. I get them, though. They in their time in their life where they're ready to settle down, and they look at each other and think, hey, I like you, maybe we can do this together. It's not totally believable, but I'm not worried about them. I think an intense character like Nick needs a sweetheart like Kelly. The one thing that clicks all the way for me is their physical chemistry. Nick has a dominant streak a mile wide and Kelly's pretty much the sluttiest closeted bottom ever, so let's just say there's no trouble on that front. Or back. Or sides. Roux never feeds to deeply into the bottom/top dynamics, which I appreciate, but when characters prefer one to the other and find that out in the hottest way possible, I'm certainly not complaining. This was a great, gentle read after the traumatic Touch & Geaux, but to be honest, I'm more than ready to be back with Ty and Zane.

Okay, yeah, I should've finished the first Cut & Run book a long time ago, because then I would've got to read this one, and this book is freaking amazing. Here's why--seriously, I'm racing through these books so fast I can barely put together a decent review: Four men go on a hiking trip together and get trapped on a mountain. Our emotionally-constipated faves Zane and Ty are a couple on the DL, of course, Ty's brother Deuce is a psychiatrist, and Ty's dad Earl is an ex-Marine. This is a story that I'm immediately invested in. What better way to force conversation and resolution than this exact set of circumstances? And to add more to the soup, we have booby traps! We have cougars! We have flooded rivers! Peril! Excitement! Way less sit-around-and-talk-around-our-issues than in the first book! Hooray! Deuce is a delight compared to Ty and Zane, and I hope we get more of him. He's a little dorky, and clever, and shifty in a different way than his brother, and he's a fully-realized sibling character I can get behind. Earl Grady is a father figure I'm used to seeing in gay romance novels, but I don't think he's a stereotype. (view spoiler)[Zane and Ty don't come out to him as a couple in this book, but there's no inkling Earl is prejudiced or homophobic. (hide spoiler)] Earl loves and respects his boys, and the tenuous relationship between him and Ty is played out gorgeously. This one is a bit lacking on the love scenes, (view spoiler)[(and since I finished the third book, Fish & Chips, already, I know we're not being left in the dark) (hide spoiler)]but the two good ones that we do get are smoking and work so well within the plot (let's just say I have a dirty little jonesing for hushed-sex-in-childhood-bedroom). I'm quickly becoming a total slut for bottom!Ty. I usually don't get hung up on the whole bottom/top thing (as a queer woman, I know how so much of it is heteronormative BS), but Ty is just the sort of character you want to see taken care of by his man sometimes, and Zane is just the man to do it. I really don't get the feeling that Ty and Zane are slogging through their emotions like so many couples in romance novels...they're making legitimate efforts to be good partners and lovers to each other, and the little things go a long way in showing that. I would like to see a few more ladies in these books. Mara Grady, Ty's mom, reminds me so much of my friend Alex's awesome grandmother, and she definitely has a bit of a bad-ass streak in her that I feel wasn't fully represented in this story. This is such an isolated, claustrophobic setting, though, so I understand the high testosterone levels. Like I said, I'm tearing through this series and coming up on #4 already, so you know I'm in deep!

Though I did enjoy this short book, I do agree with a lot of the other reviewers here on Goodreads: It reads like a long Reddit post, which hurts its format as a book in the long run. They very intro few pages to the story with the narrator explaining about how we can't remember everything exactly as it was in our childhood was a strong start, and I trusted the voice. However, the story didn't live up to the promise. The language is formal and clinical, giving away nothing personal about this narrator whatsoever. This broke the illusion of realism that the original Reddit/blogs/videos probably gave off. The story itself--about a child's school assignment gone wrong and eventually leading to a murderous stalking lasting years--isn't bad. There were some amazingly creepy high points of tension, like when the boys find the dead animals under the old house and hear something above them, and I did feel for the narrator's doomed relationship with Veronica, one element of the storytelling I fully bought. I also think the narrator's mother was a really interesting, fully-formed character, though I would've definitely liked some more insight into her later years. This was a quick, decent read, but if you're looking for some realistic, believable, well-written scary stories, I'd just stay online.

This is another one of those books I waited way too long to read. Everyone and their mother has read Ari and Dante, and now I know why--it's just a really, really fantastic story. When I read YA regularly about ten or so years ago, we didn't have books like this. And by that, I don't mean LGBT-themed works, which were rare--I mean books about tender, loving, and admirable parent-child dynamics that reflect more of the real world than we think. We're so obsessed with stories about teenagers who are left to their own devices, who spend their time pining and whining and doing what they can to rebel against mom and dad. In this case, Ari Mendoza may do his fair share of teenage pining and self-discovery, but he's not doing it out of rebellion--he's doing it because it's a natural stepping stone in life to distance yourself from yourself and ask who you are and what you stand for. I actually expected more of a romantic element to this, (view spoiler)[but it was so slow and subtle that I half expected some sort of Perks of Being a Wallflower not-gay moment to spring up out of nowhere, just because that's a common narrative these days--being an ally is great, but not at the expense of queer character development. (hide spoiler)] This book's gentle, youthful romance blew past all expectations I've ever had for YA books, especially ones published by mainstream houses. There are a lot of wonderful moments in this book, parts so quiet and poignant that they make you warm slowly from the heart out. I especially loved the relationship between Ari and his father. It's a rare relationship, one written with so much care and love. Ari's father holding and rocking him when he's sick. Them reading in silence together and sharing books once they're finished. The relationship between Ari's mom and dad is also really beautiful, especially through the lens of Ari's POV. And I knew it was my sort of story when Dante admitted to Ari that he never ran away from home because he just loved his mom and dad too much--it sounds like something I would've said when I was 15. This is undeniably a coming of age story. I loved the moment when Dante's father asks Ari to call him by his first name instead of Mr. Quintana when the boys are 15 with Ari shyly refusing, and then when they have a heart to heart after (view spoiler)[Ari beats up the boy who assaulted Dante when they boys are 17 (hide spoiler)], Ari then acquiesces into calling him Sam. It's such an important moment of growth that I feel like a lot of young people take for granted--that bridging between reverence and equality with adults. There's not a lot I can say about this book that hasn't already been said. I'd recommend it to anyone. It's a perfect story of family, first love, finding oneself, and appreciating the unique beauty of summer as a teenager.

If there's one celebrity who I could pick who everyone likes at least a little bit, it would be Amy Poehler. She's funny, smart, down to earth, and takes no shit. She's a comedian, actress, and performer. She's part of one of the most popular comedy duo-friendships of all time. And, as we discover from Yes Please, she's a pretty decent writer. First of all, I must say that this is a gorgeous hardcover book. The paper is thick and glossy and blindingly white, and the photographs pop off the page. 5 stars for presentation, which we all know is important. I also know that if I didn't get this for Christmas I would've waited for the paperback. Content-wise, this is a good read, but it bites of a little more than it can chew. I certainly think Poehler, who outlines how writing a book is super freakin' hard, has no plans to ever write another book. Yes Please is a personal memoir and career biography, and I wish we could've had two distinct books about each subject because I find them both interesting to read about. She tells stories from her Upright Citizens Brigade early years with fun, gentle nostalgia, and she writes about guest hosts and cast members from SNL with the perfect amount of humor, gentle ribbing, and tact. There's an especially good section where she just has a few lines about working with Chris Farley that is so touching, and I'm glad it was so short. It hit all the right notes. Her anecdote about meeting her childhood idol Jon Bon Jovi made me laugh out loud. And I also got some insight into one of my favorite sketches of all time, the "I'm No Angel" pregnant bit with Josh Brolin. I also enjoyed Poehler's frank reveal about her past recreational drug use and her honesty about it. She was never an addict, and hey, she sort of enjoyed drugs. She's a pothead (was? I don't know if she does it anymore). But she's also a mom now and knows kids should steer clear of that shit, especially pills, because as she puts it, "teenage bodies should be filled with Vonnegut and meatball subs, not opiates that create glassy-eyed party monsters." There were a few cringe-worthy spots. Poehler is privileged and always has been, and she's also pretty aware of it, but she still slips up. Her chapter on her travel to Haiti was a little awkward and came off as white-savior prose, even though she tried hard to avoid it. Some of the chapters could've been cut down a little, something I think Tina Fey did well in Bossypants. All in all, this one is worth it. A classic read for any big 21st century comedy fan.

This was one baffling story filled with baffling choices on the author's part. It didn't really start or end strong, the characters were just on the brink of being compelling, and if you put a gun to my head, I still couldn't tell you what the hell was going on with the plot. Micah is an ex-soldier who is battling depression and anger after losing his job as a police officer, so he takes a 'cupcake detail' as a bodyguard to Chris "Kit" Auberon, a wealthy recluse who has not left his home since leaving a mental hospital fifteen years prior. Little does Micah know, Kit's family history is steeped in crime and secrecy, and he's going to be in the thick of things when they come to a head. I was drawn into the set-up right away from reading the blurb. Bodyguard/client tropes are a major weakness of mine, and Micah and Chris seemed like a wonderfully matched odd couple. But ex-soldier Micah is absolutely the worst bodyguard in the history of bodyguards. He doesn't carry a weapon, he's no physical match for his client, he's always a step behind anything happening inside the house, and he freaks out at the smell of blood...he literally has zero function within his job. Was that annoying for anyone else? After reading the super-competent characters in Roux's Cut & Run series, Micah was practically a caricature. This book was in dire need of an editor. I could complain about the technical errors until the cows come home, but no amount of comma splices or sentence fragments (and there were a lot) can make up for poor storytelling. There were so many unneeded lines and situations. Why would Micah ask Sam the butler if there was WiFi in the house when he knows Chris is a game developer who is constantly online? Why would they let people come and go so freely in the house if there was an attacker out there? Why does the author use vocal inflection and convoluted word choices when writing as Chris' voice simulator or sign language, which is totally unnecessary and lazy writing? One of my biggest issues with this story is the treatment of Chris. He's literally everything at once. Super-strong but oh-so fragile, brilliant but clueless, sweet but callous, erotic but asexual...he changed from one page to the next to suit Micah's character, and not in a developing manner. He knows martial arts, he paints in a creative fervor then smashes his art, he's an infamous video game developer. But really, he was just a slippery little fucker I never got a hold on, and if I were Micah, I'd be hauling ass out of that place, no matter how gorgeous Chris was. I also didn't like (view spoiler)[the end-game for Chris' disability. I would've been more interested in a mute character who remains mute and is still able to love and communicate with his boyfriend. This disability-disappearing-through-love bullshit does not make a compelling or likeable story (hide spoiler)]. I had a better grasp of Micah, but I wasn't as invested in him--I didn't care at all about his family woes, and I don't think his relationship with Heath (view spoiler)[which was basically abusive and involved coercive rape (hide spoiler)] was properly addressed. These characters do not speak realistically to one another, either. Every conversation in the last third of the book was a two-page declaration of love and devotion. Slow-burn was not an option for them. There was zero subtlety, which is necessary for all good romances. Was this book all bad? No, there were some parts that kept my interest. I got a little misty-eyed when Micah's siblings told him their late father wouldn't have cared if he was gay or not. I enjoyed the aspect of the (very detailed) family history which involved Sam as a secret lover to the Auberon estate's founder, leaving him in a caretaker role after his death. That was one of those sad details that really highlights how far queer characters have come. And one line about Chris really made me feel for him: "He tried to make [the situation] a joke, because he was afraid that next time they'd lock him away for good and bury the key." This goes a long way in explaining Chris as a character--he lives in a state of constant fear and confusion. He's mentally disabled by PTSD. This makes him a compelling character I was to see succeed. But the execution of Micah being the one to 'pull him out of the dark?' Not as compelling by a long shot. I've read Celeste's story Six Ways From Sunday before and I liked it well enough--mainly because the sex was sexy, the situation was interesting, and it was a very quick read. Light from the Dark, however, is quite long for a romance novel, which ends up hurting it in the long run. Sure, the sex in Light from the Dark is pretty hot, especially when Micah gives Chris the control he desperately needs, but I was so burned out from the convoluted plot and from Chris' absolute cluster-fuck of a characterization that even the hottest love scenes left me cold. By the last fourth of the book, I had no clue what was going on anymore and I just wanted to finish it. I haven't given up on Celeste as an author, but this wasn't a great effort.

I sort of knew what to expect from this book. After reading Geek Girls Unite: How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and Other Misfits Are Taking Over the World a couple of years ago, my bar for fandom-related lit has been set pretty low. As Maggs herself said in this book, fandom changes so quickly--the ships, the lingo, the hangouts, the cons. Especially nowadays, things are never stagnant in the fandom world. So writing a book about it seems to be a fruitless task. Some of the fandom lingo/netspeak was embarrassingly outdated and cheesy, and I just kept wondering why Maggs didn't just write a series of articles or something. But unlike Geek Girls Unite, I don't think Fangirl's Guide is at all condescending or mean to anyone. It consistently celebrates geek girls and fangirls without putting down others. I loved the feelings of inclusiveness and sweetness and love emanating from the pages. As a fangirl, I just didn't need this book, and I feel like a lot of my fellow fangirls feel the same way. Also, the illustrator Kelly Bastow really should've gotten more credit on the book itself, because her illustrations are absolutely adorable.

I had a lot of issues with this one. While it was capably-written, had a compelling main character, and kept the action coming, I thought the plot was severely muddied and some of Jae's characterization exoticized him a bit. For the first few pages, this feels like a very run-of-the-mill M/M romantic mystery. Cole is an ex-cop-turned-PI with a chip on his shoulder, terrible eating habits, and a dead lover. He takes on the case of a wealthy Korean-American man found dead at the gay club Dorthi Ki Seu (a name that I cannot stand, no matter the translation--I just automatically assume it is making a "Friend of Dorothy" reference for some reason). It is ruled as a suicide, but when Cole interviews the man's closed-off, traditional family, he starts to second guess the truth. He also becomes enamored with the victim's "cousin" Jae, an intensely private young man with the habit of biting his bottom lip Anastasia Steele-style. Jae has a dark past (of course) and likes to push Cole away at every opportunity (of course), and he's so exoticized by both Cole and the author that I'm surprised he doesn't enter the room with [ORIENTAL MUSIC] in subtitles. This is so damn weird because Cole himself is half-Japanese. Jae is just adorable and pouty and vulnerable, probably going around with the collar of his sweater drooping off one shoulder, constantly putting himself in dangerous situations that Cole needs to help him out of. He has so little real characterization that I'm struggling to remember a thing about him a week after finishing the book. He exists purely as a tease and a temptation, never really connecting on any kind of equal level with Cole or the reader. This book is not poorly written in a technical sense. The action was decent, and (view spoiler)[the shoot-out at the house towards the end was super tense (hide spoiler)]. I also didn't mind Cole's character, as trope-y as he could sometimes get. On some level, I also get how he feels like an outsider because he's half-Japanese but has no connection to his deceased mother's culture, which would be hard. But I feel like he's supposed to be the masculine alpha male (and of course, fully Asian men simply cannot be bad-ass and masculine, so you have to make him mixed) who protects the poor, delicate Korean boy from his terrible culture. The whole thing just smelled off to me and I didn't enjoy reading it. I was also appalled at the treatment of the trans character who is referred to as a "ladyboy" (a term that in and of itself needs to be used carefully) and is not characterized any further than a Real Tough Bitch and a gorgeous temptress with a secret lover she can't be with in public. It's all just so lazy! I'd much rather read a romance between Japanese and/or Korean characters written by a Japanese or Korean author who sees them as more than their races.

I've long gotten weary of the type of fantasy stories with characters who live for hundreds of years and cause trouble along the way, but I didn't get any of those cliches or tired tropes in Wild Seed. After a long break from fantasy-science-fiction, this book was a refreshing return, and I can't wait to read the rest of the series! First of all, I chose this book to read for my African American literature class. I wanted to read a book with three criteria--genre fiction as opposed to literary fiction, female writer, and fantasy elements. And who, besides the amazing N.K. Jemisin, would be a better choice that Octavia E. Butler? This is a perfect example of great contemporary sci-fi for a few reasons, namely the scope of the series. I love series that start long ago and bring it to modern times, encapsulating an entire world and mythology--I was especially interested in the idea that Wild Seed was not the first book written in the "Patternist" series and it is more of a prequel. But before I go any deeper, a few details. The main character is Anyanwu, a woman of Igbo descent who is an immortal shapeshifter. She is found and seduced by Doro, another immortal who keeps his immortality by basically body-hopping whenever his current physical body cannot carry on. Because of this, Doro has lost his sensitivity to human deaths and emotions, and cares only to breed with other "sensitive" people to create a group of descendants with special powers (mind-reading, telekinesis, etc.). He chooses Anyanwu because he believes they can create children that will never die like them, thus allowing them more companions for the future rather than an endless string of mortal friends and lovers. She moves to his plantation where he holds people like slaves, only people who are useful to him--until they aren't anymore, then they are disposed of. Doro's glib attitude towards mortal life makes him an antagonist to Anyanwu, whose talents for healing make her extra-sensitive to human pain and suffering. They struggle for years finding a balance in their relationship--Doro desires absolute power and a God-like status to his followers and feels threatened by Anyanwu's immortality, and Anyanwu fears retaliation on her and her children from Doro if she steps out of line. My favorite theme in this book is personal identity. The appearances of both Doro and Anyanwu are completely fluid--Doro changes bodies constantly, and Anyanwu can change into anything from a man to a leopard and lives many years as such--but they both still identify as black people, which influences their attitudes towards creating new lines of children. Doro's taking of special people into his cult-like compound closely mirrors alien abduction as well as slavery, and his practice of breeding certain people together like animals eerily echoes eugenics. Race is always present in the novel even when the black characters look like white folks or birds, which is really amazing, since the genre even today lacks equal racial representation. Also, black womanhood is a huge topic, especially because Anyanwu feels like a black woman even when her appearance cannot show it. She becomes angry when Thomas, a telepathic man she is chosen to breed with, asks her to change into a white woman before they have sex, showing how Anyanwu never comprises who she really is, even though she has little control while under Doro's thumb. There are also some really harrowing and heart-racing scenes involving the transition from human to super-human life, sort of like puberty. One scene is particularly heartbreaking, involving an extremely sensitive young girl who threatens Anyanwu's life and brings the downfall of Anyanwu's beloved husband (and Doro's favorite son) Isaac. You won't be able to put the book down at some parts! Unfortunately I got a really crappy copy of the book at the library--whoever edited this edition needs a pay cut! It was rife with spelling mistakes, missed words, and weird formatting. I think I'm going to ask for the full set of books for Christmas!

I haven't normally rated comics on Goodreads before, but since I just spent a chunk of change at Barnes & Noble on some beautiful trades and it's the New Year, I figured, why the hell not? They're books, and they're just as valid as any other form of literature! I hadn't read Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel before picking up this trade--in fact, I'm in the middle of reading Ms. Marvel's first late 70's run with Carol Danvers as a feminist journalist working for J. Jonah Jameson and being friends with MJ. Kamala keeps all the heart and identity struggle of classic Ms. Marvel without the heaps of cheese and weird costumes. She's young and confused, dealing with wanting to make her Muslim parents happy and still go out to parties with her friends, and she only gets more confused when she has a vision of Ms. Marvel after stepping through some weird urban fog and transforms into a super-human, fast-healing, ultra-bendy shape-shifter. No Normal, which includes Marvel NOW! Ms. Marvel #1-#5 plus a short, does a great job of establishing Kamala as a budding heroine without sinking us deep into a big bad or major tragedy. This is also very much Kamala's story, with no sightings from the Avengers--yet. I won't pretend I'm a huge comics buff, and I'm not a huge collector who knows a ton about all the storylines and characters. But I know I'm invested in Kamala and her family and friends, and I'm excited to see where she ends up. I loved the coloring, too, especially the lovely yellows and greens of Kamala's house in issue #2, and I was excited to see that Jamie McKelvie popped in for a few covers (he's one of my favorite artists of the moment). In my opinion, this is a must-read volume for any new comics fan!

Though it is one of my favorite sub-genres, LGBT historical fiction is hard to perfect. Us queers have a time of it today, so putting our LGBT characters back in time just seems like an exercise in cruelty, doesn't it? In the other hand, historical settings make for perfect romances, no matter what the characters' preferences. They are full of secrets and intrigue and rules. A simple touch or look can convey whole chapters of emotion. This book embodied everything I love about gay historical romance. The story is undeniably English (with the nearly incomprehensible accents and wording to prove it) with Crimean War veteran Sir Alan Watleigh purchasing the services of free-spirited prostitute Jem Brown for a night of fun before he commits suicide. But when Jem opens his mouth (and legs), Alan is immediately drawn to him and decides to...hire Jem as his valet, of course. The set-up itself is enough to keep me reading, and I would've happily settled into a novel about Jem and Alan getting up to no good in a big mansion while dodging the keen eyes of the servants. I would've still been happy with small conflicts like (view spoiler)[Jem attempting to steal a chess piece on their first night together (hide spoiler)] or (view spoiler)[Jem's friends popping by for a surprise social call (hide spoiler)]. But this is a smart, fast-paced book that pulls us in with romance and keeps us with an excellent action-packed plot. Alan's righthand man and fellow veteran Badgeman discovers that the young daughter (Annie, or the "Major") of a deceased army friend has fallen into the hands of a cold, untrustworthy field surgeon who may mean to cause harm to her. Alan and Jem must eventually bring themselves to the countryside to extract the girl from the surgeon's sadistic clutches and bring her home, (view spoiler)[where they care for the traumatized child like doting parents (hide spoiler)]. The plot works perfectly with the main character's personalities and romantic dynamic. Alan knows war and can get himself into upper-class places, and Jem isn't afraid of sneaking around and telling tall tales to get what he needs. This isn't necessarily a crime or mystery story, but a crime indeed comes to a close because two men are so perfect for one another that they solve what they set their minds to. It's just a good story, and you can't put it down until the last page. If you're a little squicked by the inherent power dynamics that come from class differences, I'd still give this one a shot. While there are plenty of obstacles to overcome, (view spoiler)[Alan and Jem begin to see one another as equals, and they move to Alan's country estate with Badgeman and Annie where freedom to love one another comes a little easier (hide spoiler)]. I really liked a part at the end that compares the ways both lower and upper classes feel like prisons with their unspoken rules and regulations. Jem thought money would've made it possible for Alan to love whomever he chose, but he soon realizes it only makes remaining unseen even harder. I know Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon are very prolific M/M historical romance writers, so I am very excited to continue reading their books.

I won't write an extensive review for this book because I'm pretty much the last person in the world to read it and you don't need my opinion on it, but I must say that it really had me from the first page--I had no idea where the hell the story was going, and I was damn shocked at at least three parts along the way. A solid mystery. Not fantastic writing by any means, but the characters are good and feel very real to me.

I've always thought Malinda Lo was a little too hyped as a YA author. She writes good stories and has diverse characters, but she appears on almost every single LGBT must-read list out there and I struggle to see exactly why her works are must-reads. Her two fairy tale re-tellings, Ash and Huntress, were decently-crafted but ultimately forgettable. And only a week after finishing this book, I can't see myself wanting to revisit the characters or continue their story. I thought the book started out strong. Reese, a high-schooler coming home from a disastrous debate loss with her teammate (and crush) David and their teacher, becomes stuck in a national emergency involving flocks of birds flying into plane propellers and causing major airlines crashes. The first fifteen percent of the book involves her and David struggling to get across state lines back to their families as the region is plunged into near-anarchy, and since I didn't know much about the book going in, I thought it was going to be a gritty, intense post-apocalyptic story. Not the most original, but a story I could certainly become invested in, especially since Reese and David are painfully average teenagers in an entirely unique situation. But the story gets weirder and weirder. I did like how we never quite know what is going to happen and how we're just as in the dark as poor Reese--for a little bit, we think Reese might be going nuts, but soon we're embroiled in a B-grade sci-fi plot that just didn't keep my attention. Once Amber moved in on the scene, the red flags were flying, and I knew she was trouble. This is one of the first books I've read in a long time where I do not want (view spoiler)[the girls to end up together--Amber's betrayal was too large, especially since Reese is a bit younger than her and very inexperienced. Alien or not, I don't trust Amber, and David feels like a much more logical choice for Reese. It almost doesn't settle right with me--Lo has proven to be a diverse and inclusive author, so I trust her storytelling choices as an LGBT writer, but the whole thing still has shades of "evil sapphic woman corrupting young, confused high schooler." But maybe that's my own hang-up (hide spoiler)]. I wasn't bored with this book like I was with Lo's previous works. It kept the suspense going and had a lot of tense moments. The story and characters just failed to hold my interest after a while. I don't think I'll continue with this series.

There were some great ones in this book ("Butterflies," "Homeade," "Last Day of Summer," and "Conversation with a Cupboard Man" being my favorites), and as a set, I enjoyed them. I thought the commentary was a little too heavy-handed in "Cocker at the Theatre" and I was bored with the title story and "Disguises," but I enjoy McEwan's prose and I thought the stories were built with steady tension, interesting characters, and bold themes.

Yeah, I loved this book. I have little to say and little to review because I swept through it so fast--it's a romance novel through-and-through, one that is sensual and slow-burning and rife with romantic tension between the two leads. It didn't read quite as well as the Cut & Run books, but I feel that it's on a whole different plane--the other series is made up of action books mixed with romance, and this was a romance mixed with action, if that makes sense. I just know I loved it. This takes place in the Cut & Run 'verse and I read this one purposely before the fifth book, Armed & Dangerous, because I realized the characters would be featured in the plot. I'm pretty sure I finished it in about five hours total with plenty of time to start another book. If I read a character like Cameron outside of this series, I don't think I'd be as enamored with him. He's a pretty basic character to start with--an unassuming server with four fluffy puppies who has a major crush on the brooding guy who he always serves on Tuesday nights--but we see him shine most in the restrained moments when he has to think fast, keep his mouth shut and figure out how to make things right. He's cool under pressure. And best of all, in this series, he's just an average guy. He's not an assassin, hit-man, FBI Agent, Marine, genius, etc., he's just a dude in way over his head. And hot damn, I want so badly to see him interact with the rest of the guys in this series. I'm also shamelessly in love with him and Julian as a couple. They just work for me in a way a lot of other romance pairings fall flat. They have sex within the first third of the novel (which is still brimming with buildup and tension and absolutely gorgeous seduction), so there's no will they/won't they or Big Gay Panic. They're just drawn to each other, and they have to deal with the consequences of that. (That fact that I, for whatever inane reason, see Nick D'Agosto as Cameron and Jim Caviezel as Julian may or may not help ramp up the sheer hotness/sweetness/emotion of this couple). I just needed this book right now. It hits all the right buttons for an awesome, action-packed summer romance read.

I've read Megan Abbott before, but I've never read this Megan Abbott. Her excellent book Die a Little was similar in tone but the plot itself was much less memorable. Her modern classic Dare Me is a masterpiece of a completely different genre. But this book, based off a previous short story of Abbott's, is ideal in length, tone, plot, and language. It never lingers too long on a description or keeps you guessing for too short a time. It's easily one of the best noir books I've ever read and probably one of my year's favorites. For the first few pages, I thought the unnamed narrator was male, because this is such a commonly male story. Abbott excels at writing women's stories that don't rely on cliches or tired tropes, which is especially difficult in a genre filled with femme fatales and ill-fated gun molls. We never get the feeling that the narrator is a naive waif, even when she is, which establishes her quickly as an unreliable narrator. From the first chapter, our protagonist flings herself into a new hard-boiled world of book-making and numbers games, of hitting the casinos and the tracks, of being "the girl" of Miss Gloria Denton herself, a legend of mobsters days past. She becomes enamored with Gloria and wants to please her, knowing the only way to survive this game is to be as effortlessly chill as her mistress. But then she falls in with the wrong guy and it all starts to unravel. There are so many amazing moments that make up this tight, cohesive little story. It's something that could easily be made into a Tarantino movie, it's so fresh and violent and full of rich characterization. We're dunked deep into the fantastic setting (a bit grittier than the glossy exterior of the 1950's in Die a Little), but it never feels foreign or cheap. We're with the characters every step of the way, through every cigarette and Manhattan and long car ride with a trunk full of jewels. And when the climax hits, I absolutely dare you to put this book down. This is a short read but it'll stay with you for a long time. An excellent piece of crime fiction that should set the modern standard for the genre.

Well, what can be said about Eleanor & Park that hasn't already been said? I love it. This novel, quite simply, is just a good story. The characters are multi-dimenstional, interesting, and sympathetic, the storyline keeps us interested, and even the dozens of pages that include nothing but teenage musings and stumbling dialogue had me on every word. I get this feeling that Rowell wrote a book with many purposes--kids will like it, adults will like it, reviewers will like it--but she never lost the teenage feel in her prose. Eleanor and Park fall in with each other so quickly--in a dozen or so pages, we go from slight animosity and annoyance to total admiration between the two lovebirds, and the many mentions of Romeo and Juliet in the story certainly don't exist without deeper meaning. But I think this is a valid love story--modern yet classic, vulgar yet sweet, dripping with the innocence of young adulthood but steeped in the sadness of coming from something broken. I'm tired of 50 Shades and Beautiful Disaster, I'm bored with the drippy Twilight and Halo heroines. I'm ready for nice guys and complicated girls, people with real emotions and realistic problems. In that sense, Eleanor & Park is damn near perfect.

This is a good book and I'm glad it was written, but it didn't leave me feeling any more optimistic or go-getting than I felt before I read it. In fact, it just made me feel more pressured...no matter how many times Sandberg says women "can't have it all" and we should avoid that saying in the first place, she sort of does have it all. Money, a supportive partner, a high-influence job, and Ivy-league education...not to mention, she's an able-bodied married white American woman. I think this book is marketed a little too broadly, to be honest...everyone I talked to about it claimed it was the feminist book of the year. Instead, it's only really relevant to professional women--rich, ambitious, high-power professional women. Sheryl Sandberg is doing great stuff, but she's not exactly one of us. There are some highlights--she has some pretty frustrating personal stories regarding sexism in the workplace and classroom that are eye-opening, and she stresses that women need to help and support each other, which I think is an important point. I just wish we all had the leeway that Sandberg has.

After reading 50 pages of Little Bee, I thought for sure I'd be giving it 5 stars. The language of this novel is beautiful; I love the syntax, the metaphors, the descriptions, the characterizations. On a technical level, this is a simply amazing novel. But about halfway through the book, I felt like the plot fizzled a little on me and it never had the booming, climactic ending I feel this novel deserved. I was initially wary about this novel because it blatantly portrays the White Savior. Sarah is in a place that is not welcome to her, she doesn't belong, she doesn't understand this world, yet she believes she can save everyone there. This is not really a new plot, and I don't think Cleave treated it as such. But this also doesn't mean it didn't make for good storytelling (that first scene on the beach left me completely breathless, it was so well-written). Cleave had a lot of obstacles when writing this book--he's a white man writing female protagonists, a female protagonist of color, characters whose first language isn't English, etc. And by my standards, he did it quite well--I absolutely loved Yevette and her characterization leaped off the page; it didn't seem stereotypical or forced. But I honestly enjoyed Little Bee's POV chapters more because this was her story and I wanted her to be the one to tell it (I'm glad she had the final chapter). Sarah was an intriguing character--brave, multi-faceted, flawed--but we've read Sarah a million times. Little Bee was so new and unique. I wasn't a fan of the end, but that's a personal opinion.

This has been one of the books that has sat the longest on my to-read shelf. It has everything I love about a good paranormal romance--a mystery, a weird little town, a great historical atmosphere, and a charming romantic pairing. But it ended up slipping through the cracks of my reading lists until Tiffany over at the M/M Romance May Mini Monthly Gang Bang Challenge plucked it out of my to-read pile and set me on the right track of this awesome historical-paranormal romance. I've already ready the short prequel and first book of Hawk's Hexbreaker series and I really enjoy her fluid and flowing writing style. I also liked the setting of those books, and since Widdershins takes place in the same decade, they have similar tonal atmospheres and language use. However, I think I liked the New England setting even more because of the historical significance of witchcraft and religious cultism of the area. Hawk really uses the setting to her advantage and creates a beautifully moody set-up for this book. I was immediately drawn to the world of the museum and all of the petty arguments of academia that go along with it. Whyborne is a unique and sympathetic main characters whose introverted personality and awkward demeanor only increase my affection for him--but he's also a total lionheart, which is my favorite character trope. I'm very glad this series has many books to come because this is definitely just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the lovely, slow-burning romance between Whyborne and his tough, troubled ex-Pinkerton Griffin. I was hoping for even more romance between them, but unlike a lot of recent M/M romances, this book is very plot and action-driven. That's fine with me only because Hawk is very good at it. A lot of authors can't pull this much action off without boring romance readers. Was the plot totally cohesive throughout the book? Not exactly. It was a relatively quick read and there was a lot of info-dumping about the town's history, those involved in the resurrection plots, and the Brotherhood itself. I'm sure there will be much more to come, but I may need a refresher before going into the next book, because all of the backstory got a bit muddled between bits of romance and actual crime-solving. This was a refreshing M/M paranormal story that reads smoothly and quickly and never falters in quality. I'm eager to read the next books and I hope they flesh out some of the more complex info we were given in the first story.

This book hit me a lot harder than I thought it would. It started out so slow, and it never really picked up in pace, but by the end, I was so fucking depressed in the best way possible. Lin Kong is an army doctor who was trapped into an arranged marriage at a young age to a woman named Shuyu, who he does not love. She is a constant embarrassment to him due to her bound feet, which are decades out of fashion. Soon after his marriage, he feels that he's falling in love with a hospital nurse named Manna Wu. For twenty years, Lin carries on a chaste affair with Manna while desperately trying to seek a divorce from Shuyu, despite pressures from everyone from his brother-in-law Bensheng to his daughter Hua to his long-suffering Manna. The whole novel is a waiting game, and the ending is exactly what we didn't want but exactly what we knew would happen. This novel is so wonderfully frustrating, because I absolutely hated the protagonist and I adored the antagonist. Lin is selfish and immature and he doesn't deserve either woman, but watching him fumble his way through life just makes me enjoy my own sorrows and confusions. At least I don't have it as bad as that guy! This book is so deep and rich and slow, and even though the next page is much the same as the last, you'll be up late reading to see what happens next.

I've always meant to read this one, but it was never a story I was particularly excited about. Victorian romance is so subtle and chaste in general, so I figured a Victoria lesbian romance would deal in shades of grey, with a lot of friendly kisses and cuddles and declarations of gal-pal love. I also knew that it would only bear a surface resemblance to the beloved webseries it eventually inspired, so the original work would most likely disappoint me. In many ways, this odd little story surprised me. It actually gave me the creeps while reading it. It spares flowery detail and language for a stark setting in rural Austria. The narrator, Laura, recalls childhood memories of a strange, beautiful woman visiting her at night and how the same woman comes to live with her and their father in their remote schloss near the mystical Karnstein family ruins. Laura's description of her new friend Carmilla do make you smile, because Carmilla is so obviously feeling some sort of sexual love for Laura while Laura's innocence prevents her from seeing that as a possibility. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Laura does indeed eventually recognize that Carmilla sees her in a romantic light and is both attracted and repulsed by the feelings she has for her new friend, which are feelings still common in lesfic today about women coming into their sexualities. This story is indeed ahead of its time in so many ways. Of course, the ending isn't happy--(view spoiler)[the owner of a neighboring castle joins with Laura's father to avenge his niece, the woman who fell victim to Carmilla's blood-lust before she arrived at Laura's doorstep. Carmilla's body is destroyed and the last line breaks our hearts as Laura admits she still hears Carmilla's footsteps in the home. It's an apt ending for a Victoria horror story and it still holds up as a great tragedy today (hide spoiler)]. While the basis for the story is intriguing do to content alone, it's actually quite a dull read. Laura herself isn't much of a player in the story. She mostly sits back while her father and General Spielsdorf figure out the mystery of Carmilla themselves. I was hoping for just a little more agency and intimacy involving Laura and Carmilla's courtship. I can see how this was an alarming story in a pre-Dracula era, but nowadays, we tend to skim the supernatural bits because we know it all so well. This is a fast, easy read that gives you a glimpse of where the iconic "lesbian vampire" trope came from, but it's better as the trope-originator than it is a consistently decent read. Also, if you're hoping for some insight into the webseries, you won't get much. Some characters are completely original to the webseries (like Danny Lawrence) while other translate in name only (Perry and LaFontaine). The story itself is completely different. And the women don't bear much personality in the book, so it's actually kind of fun to imagine modern Laura and Carm within Le Fanu's world.

** spoiler alert ** Needs more lesbians. Like, way more lesbians. I don't know why, but I feel like a secret Coach/Beth relationship would've kicked me in the face harder than the whole stupid Sarge/Coach/Matt French debacle. I was so heavily invested in the outcome of the whole crime mystery--what was the crux of the drama, where would the climax hit? What could happen in this young girl world that would shake me to my core? Well, marital drama between a high school coach, her husband, and a military man certainly didn't boil over into the drama and tension I expected. I just kept wishing for more, for something more devious, something stickier, something dirtier, since these girls are painted in such a beautiful and grotesque manner all at once, all sweat and glitter and puke and flat bellies and pretty hair. There was such a heavy, cloying femininity in the way Abbott wrote Dare Me, which I absolutely adored. That's why I'm giving this one four stars--the language itself stunned me, the way she described these girls like fearsome aliens from another planet rather than the kids we see at basketball games. But the situation doesn't match the tone, the tension doesn't match the diction. And that majorly disappointed me. I could see the Addy/Beth relationship a mile away, but I was really hoping for that harsh slap in the end, the kicker. And it just didn't come. Honestly, I think Abbott played it safe, and she can do so much better.

So, in addition to being incredibly ho-hum, this short story also has the worst Kindle cover I've seen in a long time. It looks like they used a stock photo from a 90's Gap advertisement. We don't expect much, but c'mon. I feel bad for giving this one 2 stars because it is such a harmless little story, and it was free. It took me about half an hour to read, too. But it was just so dull! The characters had no personality, the sex was passable but ultimately lifeless, and it was written in such a bored, detached tone that the whole story sounded like a summary of a longer story. Like I said, More Than Friends has no bark or bite--you won't lose anything while reading, and if you love the "gay for you" types of stories (which have never been my thing), it might satisfy your craving. But I'd skip it unless you're really desperate.