Julia
Gifted from my aunt, who chose it for her book club. This was great! Sweeney is a generous biographer who nonetheless didn't shy away from the prickly sides of Laybourne's personality, and has such a deft mix of interviews with her colleagues, friends, and family with aviation history (truly, I had no idea bird collisions were such a big deal for planes!). This is a story you wouldn't think would be fast-paced, but it is, and I feel enriched to know about Laybourne's lifework. Also, really appreciated Sweeney's attunement for the sexism she worked upstream against her entire career, and his care not to make more of the fact that although she was clearly an adept professional mentor, she did not enjoy motherhood.
This was great in many ways! Nielsen's foremost achievement is clearly articulating how disability history is not adjunctive but central to the American story, particularly relating to our obsession over what a democratic citizenry "should" look like. I do wish there are times she'd done slightly deeper dives into some of the tidbits she unearthed (there'd be a fascinating sentence about someone...and then the text would move on!) or acknowledged when that wasn't possible due to lack of records. This was also written long enough ago that I longed for an updated version that moves the history through from disability rights to disability justice. Still, invaluable reading overall.
Contains spoilers
I should love this more, but didn't! Just liked it. I love when Kleypas chooses a FMC who isn't wealthy (this protagonist is a novelist for a living!), it was fun that the MMC is younger than her, and there's a bunch of "inside publishing" stuff from the historical time period that is of course interesting. I do think FMC used another nice dude with somewhat ill intent, so maybe that was it? But still! A pleasant romp! And one of her funnier meet cutes.
This was great! Also, listen to this. I heard Hawley do an author talk, and she finished Servant of Earth back in 2017, but was told at the time that there wasn't a market for romantasy. WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. I feel terrible for her! I can imagine a regular romantasy reader assuming some of this is derivative, when it's actually a great early exemplar of the genre! The world-building is much stronger than some other things I've read. Not Maas-style doorstops, but I really like the shards premise, and the love triangle here is subtly and deftly handled - fire daddy and shadow daddy wut. Also some great female friendship stuff and meditations on grief. Already ordered the next one.
Okay, on the one hand, I didn't even know Wallflowers #0 existed! I think this was intended to standalone, but on the one hand, I was THRILLED to hear about Westcliff's sisters (their "scandals" are referenced in Wallflowers), and also, when do we get TWO heroines?? My main issue is I just read Alice Wong's anthology Disability Intimacy so I was so irritated at the psychological hurdle one heroine has to get over. I suppose it's understandable internalized ableism and at the same time, I resented it mightily as the source of tension in that half of the plot.
Picked this up after hearing Marissa Meyer speak; she said Jest is her favorite character she's ever written. I agree, he's pretty great! I confess to dragging near the end of this one, because the "how she came to be" story of the Queen of Hearts is indeed very psychogically intriguing in Meyer's hands...but it's not a HAE for this poor romance reader! Still, well done, and I can imagine recommended this to a lot of friends with preteen kiddos in a few years.
I liked this, although I think Gong's Immortal Longings series is better (likely because this was her debut - it is an amazing debut). Somehow the pacing is smoother, while still at quite a clip. My curiosity about this book is that it's quite gory for young adult (certainly equivalent to IL), and although I like the fantasy element, it ended up adding A LOT of plot to the complicated Romeo & Juliet bones that already needed to feel emotionally urgent. I'll read the second one, and I would recommend people curious about Gong start with her adult stuff.
This was cute! I just heard Sarah Hawley talk yesterday, and she is so smart, funny, and thoughtful. Clearly as much of a romance reader as writer. I think that paranormal contemporary romance is not my jam, so I am more excited to try her romantasy (she finished "Servant of Earth" in 2017 but was apparently told there "wasn't a market" for romantasy lolllllzzzzz), but if this is your genre, this is pleasing! Good female friendships, complex family dynamics, concise but well-attended-to world building. I could have used more smut, but I can almost always use more smut.
Hospicing Modernity (https://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/) changed my life a few years ago. I honestly can't think of another book that's been so impactful. Outgrowing Modernity took me FOREVER to read (over 6 months!), but I think that's because of how much wrestling with ideas, feelings, and ways of being it demands, even more so than HM for me personally. I especially loved and was stunned by Machado de Oliveira's approach to AI, or Emergent Intelligence, as she calls it, but how could it have been otherwise, given her overarching ways of being - if we are inseparable from all things, that includes the new forms of intelligence we are now using at our peril or to our benefit, typically both at once. This philosophy rejects simplicity, embraces our complicity, and provides a compass, not a roadmap, for how to live in the time of metacrises. There are times the book gets a little bogged down in intellectual parts, but Machado de Oliveira acknowledges that herself near the end. And her goalposts for us should we choose them are crystal clear and lacking obfuscation: sobriety, maturity, discernment, and responsibility. I feel like Krista Tippett always has nice things to say, but her front cover blurb is just spot on: "A moral, intellectual, and spiritual masterpiece."
Always feels a bit presumptuous making notes on books LOTS of people have read and of course appreciated. But! Timothy Synder deserves all the acknowledgement he gets that this short book is concise, prescient, and powerful. Useful and I'm sure I'll review it again. Wish I didn't have to, but here we are.
Contains spoilers
I think my star rating would be higher if I had read this closer to its publication and earlier in my journey as a romance reader. I do like the concept, and find it very funny that this is listed in the recent NYTimes romance glossary under kink - look, yes, it's about a big blue alien, but the big blue alien is humanoid and obviously hot, so I just don't think it's that kinky! It's still spicy, though. I think my main quibble is that we get literally NO backstory of the protagonist, so I sometimes really wondered about her choices...like I would actually say there's a breeding kink in here, but it seemed at odds with what little breadcrumbs we'd gotten previously.
Loved this! I appreciate Lewis' warning that if we believe that history repeats itself, then we should be really concerned by certain historical examples, like how British suffragists turned to fascism (literally) after WWI. She is also so clear-eyed and incisive about how so much of feminism is really white feminism, taking turns with racialized capitalism to mutually forward their agendas, and I loved the framing that "enemy" and "comrade" are fluid states we should base on our actual politics, not labels. Also such a great chapter on TERFs. This book was divisive in book club, though - none of my friends disagreed with any of her arguments, but felt the "call out" tone was not their jam (I'm salty, so for better and worse appreciate others' saltiness). There are hints of another world - the one Lewis dreams for, not the one we have - when she talks of cyborgs and "monstrous affinities," and we did all agree that's the book we want to read. I have a copy of "Abolish the Family" I'll read next, which may be exactly that book? Either way, I wish anyone calling them a feminist would read this book.
Noticing that I'm at odds with the overall star rating here for this novel, and I don't care! I loved every second of this novel. Leave it to Lily King to make me nostalgic for the worst parts of waiting tables. I think probably the highest endorsement I can give for her snappy writing and bravery about the writing process is that I gave this novel to an aspiring 20-year-old writer who has been struggling with whether to pursue this dream, and this was her verdict: "I loved this so much I hate you."
This was fine! But did not sell me on the rest of the series. I love a "marriage of convenience" trope, but not really with characters this young, and although I'm fine with virgin protagonists when it's true to historical romance, it bugs me a little in contemporary romance. Still, if you're looking for some charm you'll cruise through easily, this hits all the marks of a solid romance. I like the mains! I just wished them better plotting a few years in the future!
Glad I read this series! I like Ash better now. I think the huge strength of this series is how Simone writes kink - this series finale even includes a beautiful defense of kink from Ash's perspective that I think contextualizes and deepens the meaning of everything that came before. I didn't love the demise of the villain (didn't ring psychologically true to me) and really don't think this happily ever after will withstand the test of time due to life logistics (won't say more as not to spoil), and yet I know I'll be thinking about this series for a long time. I especially loved Simone's afterward on Arthurian legend.
I'm behind on reviews, so have already finished American King, as well. I'm not sure what I would have written just at the end of this one. From the series as a whole, I think I like Embry best of the three mains because of his moral/personality complexity. Kudos to Simone - this one was just as spicy if not moreso than the first, and good plot propulsion toward a series finale.
I co-sign the blurb on the back that reads, "The only thing hotter than a character written by Chloe Gong is a betrayal written by Chloe Gong." Yes, yes, yes. This sequel is a real psychological thriller as a bunch of compellingly nuanced characters try to figure out whom to trust and what is true. And just like Immortal Longings, a cliffhanger of an ending that I was exhilarated by instead of mad about. One thing I've also noticed reading this series is that Gong also excels at world-building that happens almost completely unobstrusively. San-Er is quite the crumbling empire, and yet my knowledge of that was never gained at the expense of speed/plot tension. Interested to see how this series concludes!
I can see why people have been raving about this, and definitely want to read Writers and Lovers now. I mean, this opening!
"You knew I'd write a book about you someday. You said once that I'd dredged up the whole hit parade minus you. I'll never know how you'd tell it. For me it begins here. Like this."
To me, the first two thirds were stronger than the end, but I'm not sure how sure I am of that, or if King just captures how college learning and love feel SO WELL that other life epochs pale a little in comparison. Either way, this is beautiful and I loved it.
A friend of a friend recommended this after hearing our spicy pepper book club liked "Kiss of the Basilisk" (while also finding it ridiculous!). This book is SPICY in a way that almost makes up for some considerable flaws - an initial age gap that was almost a dealbreaker for me, pretty wooden writing, and a protagonist who lacks confidence in an almost parodic way (think Rachel Leigh Cook in "She's All That" if you're millenial). That said, spice covers a lot of sins for me! If this book was written now, it'd almost certainly have content warnings. I also appreciated Simone's observations about jealousy, which was also when her writing was the strongest. Will for sure read the whole series.