Adrienne

I knocked off an entire star for pacing. I would never have finished this book if it weren't for my book club. It takes about 50% of the book to discover what the protagonists' problems are and 65% of the way through to get them all in one place.

The climax also feels a bit rushed, partly as a consequence of too many about faces.

I am not a reader who typically pays attention to chapter breaks, but at the beginning of the book, every chapter ending felt like an invitation to DNF.

All that being said, the world building is quite good, the characters are likable enough, the stakes were pitched high enough to be arresting without being so world ending that one could blindly assume the good guys would win. The prose is quite good without slipping into self conscious, literary fiction, might as well be poetry land.

I would 100% read a sequel. The change to the status quo at the end of the book is interesting, especially as it's a change it's not clear people would understand even if they experience it.

Trevor's depression written really well. I couldn't enjoy the arranged marriage trips as much as I wanted because it devolved into mutual putting, which I don't love. I wanted more fleshing out on the coming out storyline.

Took me months to actually finish because their basic conflict was stupid; it was very clear Apollo's sister was over Ridge too much to cock block.

The witch persecution storyline was pretty good, but the romance was mid because the characters didn't feel like they were really getting to know each other.

the cozy sff book ive been looking for

Dex is a character struggling with their luxury space communism. Their life is fine and they don't want it. They take action to address their ennui, they are mostly but not perfectly kind to those they encounter. Like a sitcom, I liked letting them briefly live in my head, and nothing big had changed.
Looking forward to book two.

you really had me in the first half

I am not an evangelical Christian and I think many aspects of that kind of Christianity are harmful to its adherents and the larger community.

I am a religious person and I am interested in the rise of Nones.

The first half of the book is an informative, evidence-based look at why people are leaving churches, often without actually losing faith in the Christian god.

The second half speaks specifically to inviting people back to Evangelical Christianity, using Bible verses for inspiration and very little research or experimentation. There are a few insights in the relational chapters which might prove useful to those outside their audience.

I do want to commend the authors for explicitly rejecting Christian nationalism.

2 minutes convo and there would be no plot

If mutual pining is your thing, this is the book for you. Its not my thing, the protagonists reasons for not clearly talking about their feelings in a marry or die situation were not compelling. it made even less sense when their friends got involved.

I was also frustrated that in a no homophobia queer friendly fantasy setting, we were so locked into soul mate=romantic love scenario, especially when that was clearly not a requirement of the magic law.

This book consistently surprised me. I was well seated within the protagonist's POV, and as events unfolded in ways she didn't expect or couldn't have predicted, I was caught off guard, too. This was great.

I also like very much that this book tells a complete story. It ends on a hell of a cliffhanger, but the problems this book centers on are satisfactorily resolved.

For a book about returning to an alien space fleet, the part of the book I wanted more of and didn't receive was personal relationships between Tina and the aliens. This is not to say that the characters were interchangeable or not well drawn, I just wanted more of them (and possibly a little less Tina introspection.)

A useful lens

This is a useful lens by which to view or relationship to responsibilities. It's written in a breezy, engaging style, with lots of examples. I'm most pleased that it offers insight into how people's tendencies may interact. Didn't take long at all, explained why I have so much difficulty keeping a planner or doing a personal project and my life gets better when I start working with a therapist, and then it falls off. (I'm trying to buy external accountability, they're trying to fix my mental health.)

Might have to give her other books a try

A book that is compassionate and loving and encourages you to know yourself well enough to be compassionate and loving, both towards yourself and towards other.

The simple English language mantras are deep without being mysterious. They're things that, without realizing, I've been waiting all my life to say and to hear

This book is difficult to read because of its specialized vocabulary. It is firmly situated in an academic audience, specifically a communications audience.

However, this difficulty does not mean the book is unclear. It's actually quite straight forward, once you've begun to incorporate its vocabulary into your understanding.

The description of intercultural communication features, barriers, and skills and attitude required was very helpful, and I hope to apply its insights more as I interact with others in my personal and professional life.

Bought this book for the interspecies non-monogamy, which turns out to be a relatively small portion of the book. Fairly decent world building, at once an ode to the power of art and a bit obscure about it, because it's almost entirely describing art I don't know which can't move me.

Very much a story about art being not something anyone can own, feels a bit like an argument that cultural appropriation isn't real.

Nonetheless, I almost really enjoyed it, but it had an extremely gross fathating portrait of the villain, all the more ridiculous because it the romantic interest was a giant snake.

Like looking into a loving mirror

There's one book that I've held close to my heart for 20 years because I turned every page and I saw myself or I saw the dyke I wanted to be, and that's Faderman's Surpassing the Love of Men.

Dr. Perry's Breathe is the second such book for me. I want to buy a million copies and hand it to every Black woman I know, even my enemies.

This book talks about loving ourselves while Black and loving Black people and centering love as a ground for justice.

It's written so beautifully, my Kindle version seems like it's now 50% highlights. I frequently found myself struck by the wisdom and craftsmanship of a sentence, rereading it, highlighting it, then after reading the following sentence, deleting the first highlight to make sure I got the whole paragraph in one piece.

This book is very thick. It is thick with kindness and support and lifting us up to do the work of liberation.

I will definitely be returning to it many, many times. It is a gift.

Just talk to him

This was extremely frustrating because the central conflict was one character refusing to tell another one something important. And then, one the secret was told, instead of seeing anything about how the characters dealt with the repercussions of the secret, we pretty much skipped to the moths on the future when it was resolved through therapy.

An incomplete argument

This book makes three arguments

1) Universalist history is ignored or downplayed as we talk about UU history and theology
2) We should lean into the Universalist focus on Christianity as a source of language, practice, and theology in UU spaces
3) The best UU theology is drawn from the Universalist tradition, rather than the elitist, humanist, detranscendent Unitarian tradition

This book has really clearly drawn characters, both the heros and their families and friends. There's a strong sense of community and of why the two men are attractive.

A little less clearly drawn is why they're attracted to each other. Once the relationship is established, the kind of care and appreciation they have for each other is clearly drawn, as are the relationship issues they have, which are firmly grounded in their personalities and histories.

I'm not Dominican or an immigrant, so I don't speak to the authenticity of Nestor's portrayal in that sense, but the presentation of it felt good to read, with Nestor's background being foundational and present but not substituting for a characterization for him or anyone in his family.

One big plot thread is the Christian homophobia of Jude's family, and one thread is the weaponized xenophobia of the cartoonish villain of the piece. (She's not cartoonish in that she's over the top, but in that every interaction with our heroes is the result of her being petty, spiteful, or mean, so there's no indication that she has any pleasant human relationships, and one wonders how such a terrible person hasn't been fired and divorced.)

I really liked this book

Warm with self generated angst

This is a very nice threesome romance. There's a sense of the relationship between each pairing within the threesome that I really appreciate. The boys treat each other well and want to be kind to each other, they just have some pretty bad communication habits.

Warning: There's an emotionally brutal coming out as part of this book

I enjoyed this book, laughed in a few places, and stayed up way too late breathlessly waiting for them to get back together.

Warning: this text may contain spoilers This is pretty run of the mill without being bad.

Both characters are competently drawn without either being very attractive or interesting to me. It's not very clear what the heroes love about each other, since their emotional connection was forged 8 years before the book started.

The conflict between the heroes is largely caused by poor communication and assumptions, fueled by cartoonish homophobia from relatives.

Some color is added by a light gesture at the issue of homelessness, but while the hero who had been homeless occasionally tells us that he has seen some shit, it is always a non specific, detail free assertion. Neither does he seem to have been affected by having been homeless, except that we're told he's more distrustful than when he was kicked out as a teenager, but his distrust doesn't seem remarkable for an adult.

If you like small town gay romance with a bit of feel good defeating homophobia thrown in for good measure, that describes this book.

...Makes Avengers “Most Ambitious Crossover of all time “ joke, months and months too late.

Anyway, this is FAN SERVICE, the novel.

Did you like reading about these guys being in love? Did you like reading about them being friends with these other guys you liked watching fall in love?

Here's some more friend times and some more hot sex.

I'm not so attached to Innes' characters that I really want to go back and revisit them beyond the point where they've HEA'd, so these are a bunch of post-HEA bonus scenes that didn't really tickle my keys. But if you really liked her characters on an individual character basis, it would be kind of fun.

It was like fanfiction for a show my mom watches, where I know the characters but I'm not personally invested in them and their happiness, so the book didn't speak to me on that level.

And because there wasn't exactly a relationship problem (will the littles have a fun playdate or will it all end in tears was, honestly, sort of low stakes for even the most nervous of the littles), I didn't care about it on that level either.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you're an actual fan of the settings and characters of the ABDL college stories MA Innes writes, this will be great for you. If you just find them to be reliably satisfying romance novels on Kindle Unlimited, this is not actually a romance novel, and you probably want to skip.

This book is more hopeful and less sad than Volume 1. It seems like she's starting to manage her depression instead of being defeated by it

Definite mixed bag. The coloring on Etta Candy goes wonky at one point, like Romulo Fajardo Jr forgot that she's Black.

I didn't care for the Steve Trevor story, but I liked the Vita Ayala story and n Stephanie Hans' are; too bad it wasn't the same story. Okay, but a definite step down from the Rucka stories

Sweet romance about an older couple. Not much plot, and what there is involves the hero not talking about his feelings, but not in a protracted nonsense way.

I really liked the clearly drawn characters, the way that the heroes came to appreciate the traits in one another that had been annoying at first, the emphasis on how hockey affected their relationship.

The issue of race (Mori is Japanese American and Army is Black) was treated sensitively, and their families portrayals were informed by race but weren't stereotypical.

Honestly, my biggest complaint is that there wasn't more book. This was a comfortable, happy works to sink into, and I could have spent more time there.

Merged review:

I really liked the clearly drawn characters, the way that the heroes came to appreciate the traits in one another that had been annoying at first, the emphasis on how hockey affected their relationship.

The issue of race (Mori is Japanese American and Army is Black) was treated sensitively, and their families portrayals were informed by race but weren't stereotypical.

Honestly, my biggest complaint is that there wasn't more book. This was a comfortable, happy works to sink into, and I could have spent more time there.

What I liked: the characters had distinct personalities, they had problems outside of their relationship, the story demonstrated what they liked about each other and why we should find it attractive, their relationship problems flowed from their previous emotional history, they could acknowledge when they were being a little bit ridiculous (for good or ill), the sex was hot but there wasn't too much.

What I didn't like: the queer subplot was about coming out, I would have liked to see more interaction with grandparents and parents, Lichtenbourgiesh was kind of a silly blend of French and German, so much news from Looking Glass Daily but nothing from Girls with Glasses

The glass pictures don't do a great job of capturing the light in the installation. Too many distant pictures of these installation, too few pictures of individual forms. Too little explanatory text