Adele
This has long lived in my mind as one of the more realistic and emotionally resonant M/M romances out there, let alone ones where past abuse plays such a huge part. A re-read happily confirmed this impression. Recommend for readers looking to explore the dark side of BDSM. The prose is unobtrusive and clear, the characters feel alive and like they've seen life, the relationships are deeply believable. It's a slightly bittersweet read but a worthwhile one to anyone interested in the genres it belongs to.
A solid exploration of complex grief in the context of an equally complicated F/M/M D/s relationship. I really felt for Gould here and found his floundering surprisingly relatable. I haven't been the biggest fan of this series - I find the humor relentless and grating - but this final installment is much more sober and introspective, with only minor appearances by the rest of the ‘Club'. Knowing the other characters helps but I wouldn't say reading the series in order is necessary. JA Rock reliably delivers more realism and nuance than most in the genre. I enjoyed the femdom aspect here.
This is published as a romance novel but it lacks the “emotionally satisfying ending” typical of the genre. The structure is a bit odd: you think it's winding down towards a happy ending but then there's a burst of action and an unraveling of the central relationship that most of the novel is spent establishing. It all gets wrapped up rather quickly.
Content notes: complex grief, suicidal ideation, mention of an attempt in the past, references to fatphobia, references to drug use, internalized fatphobia, degradation play, a scene with a gun. Also contains a scene with a ‘racist dog' where the one black character is asked to help retrain him not to be scared of black people. This is intended to be a lighthearted humorous moment.
In part deeply validating in its grief and fury and love, in part annoying in its desire to claim everything as distinctly BIPOC Autistic/Neurodivergent/Disabled experience (I love the term echotextia though). I'm glad this exists but it wasn't as revolutionary as I'd hoped - I don't feel I got much from this to actually move forward with. I haven't read all of Care Work yet but hope it'll be something I could recommend more broadly to my disabled kin.
Glacially slow and you kind of have to at least half give a shit about the politics to enjoy it, but I found the characters delightful and the sense of milieu well done. The disability representation is pretty good too: Nick's injury and chronic pain alters and informs how things happen in the novel, including the sex scenes. He has a lot of anger and shame and feels like a lesser man because of his disability and how his family has always treated him, but this is challenged on-page. I found Phoebe's no-nonsense, take-charge character an absolute delight as well. This series handles class divides well and is realistic enough to make for some of the best historical romance I've read.
Includes a scene of light bondage play with Phoebe in charge.
More interesting than enjoyable. Miles is a fine enough character though it has to be said the book has deservedly been called racist (largely because Miles' Blackness in no way affects who he is or how he is, and because there's definitely negative stereotyping of the one Latina chatacter). I couldn't stand many of the side characters or, crucially, the love interest. He's very much extra to a point of ridiculousness and their connection strains credulity. Miles' journey to fatherhood earns this an extra fraction of a star.
The humor in this series is immature and relentless and not at all my taste, and the main character whose head we're stuck in in this first book is the worst source of it. Other than that it's fairly realistic when it comes to descriptions of kink, which may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you're looking for from it, and decidedly unrealistic when it comes to descriptions of the community at large and how they'd be likely to react in the circumstances it depicts, which is definitely a bad thing. For some reason I've now read it twice and didn't hate it either time.
This review by Sam Schooler encapsulates my most significant issues with this book so well I won't spend too much time on them. Apart from the consent violations, I found this to be a sweet kink romance, if a little unpolished and edging towards vulgarity. I'm starting to learn that's just how this author's sex scenes read to me, though.
Messy. The first half lays out a richly imagined world and characters we need more of in literature, and deserves a higher rating. The second half gets tangled in its own plot threads, introduces an at best unnecessary romance, and misrepresents psychotic illness to an egregious degree, especially considering how carefully and sympathetically other kinds of disabilities are described. The whole of it is beautifully narrated by Cherise Boothe. Deserves a fuller review at a later date.
After reading (twice. Double dammit): I like the idea of magic being phrases loaded with meaning through repeated use, and that its political implications are considered to some extent. This makes the world feel a little less sketched in even though most of the story has already happened when the book begins. The end, after evil has been defeated and Simon suddenly finds himself without purpose, having to face the revebrations of all he's been through, is by far the strongest part of the novel. Otherwise, this falls somewhat short. The characters are flat, one of the sidekicks a shallow diversity pick and the other a downright misogynistic manifestation of feelings that in the hands of a different author might even be interesting, the big bad is obvious, the fight uninteresting, and the romance is indeed like bad fanfiction of an entirely unfamiliar thing - in other words, sudden and unbelievable.
This was darker than I remembered. Beautifully written and very intimate, but bleak for a genre romance, even a second chance one. This of course makes it very good at depression/anxiety/general ill mental health rep, and I think the first time I read the scenes set in therapy, I cried along with Aly though more out of hope than the pain of processing. The characters occasionally feel more like mood boards than distinct human beings, but I remember that improving in book 2. Overall, flawed but close to my heart, and some of the strongest disability rep I've ever read.
Lovely inclusive no-conflict novel with some very welcome polyamory and kink among the neurodivergents -rep. Everyone is perfectly considerate and benevolent and everything works out just fine, so this is absolutely a comfort read rather than reality. I wanted to know what happens and looked forward to the leads' scenes together, but the writing is clunky enough that I didn't actually want to read this, if that makes sense. The book also doesn't quite strike the balance between informative and entertaining - it's kink 101 but not enough to be useful, yet those scenes are drawn out too much to serve the novel. 3 stars mostly because I very much want soft books like this to exist, 2 for entertainment.
Does what it sets out to do and somehow manages to have moments of levity without feeling like the author forgot the book starts with an important funeral. I'm for this couple and what they do for each other emotionally, which is the most important thing - I just wish the book had gone through a few more rounds of editing to let the story breathe some, to polish up the prose, and to catch the little errors that always slip in.
I wanted to love this more but unfortunately, I found the sex scenes both vulgar and uninteresting and the fantasy aspect of sudden unimaginable riches rather trite. Ms Weatherspoon writes a lot of the kinds of representation I'm always hungry for (for example, both leads here are bi and the male lead is supposedly fat - WHAT and YES), so I doubt this will be the last I read of her nonetheless.
Apparently this is the best Andy Weir yet and I can see why he's popular: it's a nice balance of approachable dudeness (it's not sexist because he calls out sexism! He calls out racism only by contributing to it.) and sciencey smartness (math will get you out of any jam, as long as it involves no relationships). there's a little tension with zero reason for concern which I actually did appreciate, but also, the supporting characters are walking, talking stereotypes and the pacing flags for much of the middle. There's a lot of middle.