• All Reviews,  Literature

    Book Review: True Letters from a Fictional Life

    22 December, 2018
    24485772

    If you asked anyone in his small Vermont town, they’d tell you the facts: James Liddell, star athlete, decent student and sort-of boyfriend to cute, peppy Theresa, is a happy, funny, carefree guy.

    But whenever James sits down at his desk to write, he tells a different story. As he fills his drawers with letters to the people in his world—letters he never intends to send—he spills the truth: he’s trying hard, but he just isn’t into Theresa. It’s a boy who lingers in his thoughts.

    He feels trapped by his parents, his teammates, and the lies they’ve helped him tell, and he has no idea how to escape. Is he destined to live a life of fiction?

    True Letters from a Fictional Life

    Kenneth Logan

    Rating: 4/5 🌈
    Published: 7th June 2016
    Goodreads
    Rep: gay mc

    I didn’t come up with the lie. It wasn’t mine. They handed the lie to me, and I tried like hell to make it work for a while.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    Book Review: The Pursuit Of…

    12 December, 2018
    39962903

    What do a Black American soldier, invalided out at Yorktown, and a white British officer who deserted his post have in common? Quite a bit, actually. 

    • They attempted to kill each other the first time they met. 
    • They’re liable to try again at some point in the five-hundred mile journey that they’re inexplicably sharing. 
    • They are not falling in love with each other. 
    • They are not falling in love with each other. 
    • They are… Oh, no. 

    The Pursuit Of… is about a love affair between two men and the Declaration of Independence. It’s a novella of around 38,000 words.

    The Pursuit Of…

    Courtney Milan

    Rating: 4/5 🌈
    Published: 26th June 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: gay mcs (lgbt author), black mc

    Henry held John’s hand throughout, clutching it as if it were the lowest rung on the ladder to heaven.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Pulp

    10 December, 2018
    cover150827-medium

    In 1955, eighteen-year-old Janet Jones keeps the love she shares with her best friend Marie a secret. It’s not easy being gay in Washington, DC, in the age of McCarthyism, but when she discovers a series of books about women falling in love with other women, it awakens something in Janet. As she juggles a romance she must keep hidden and a newfound ambition to write and publish her own story, she risks exposing herself—and Marie—to a danger all too real.

    Sixty-two years later, Abby Zimet can’t stop thinking about her senior project and its subject—classic 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. Between the pages of her favorite book, the stresses of Abby’s own life are lost to the fictional hopes, desires and tragedies of the characters she’s reading about. She feels especially connected to one author, a woman who wrote under the pseudonym “Marian Love,” and becomes determined to track her down and discover her true identity.

    Pulp

    Robin Talley

    Rating: 2/5 🌈
    Published: 13th December
    Goodreads
    Rep: lesbian mcs (ownvoices)

    This is still a harsh world we live in, but you’re lucky you’ve found each other.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    Book Review: Alice Payne Arrives

    21 November, 2018
    39332603

    A disillusioned major, a highwaywoman, and a war raging across time.

    It’s 1788 and Alice Payne is the notorious highway robber, the Holy Ghost. Aided by her trusty automaton, Laverna, the Holy Ghost is feared by all who own a heavy purse.

    It’s 1889 and Major Prudence Zuniga is once again attempting to change history―to save history―but seventy attempts later she’s still no closer to her goal.

    It’s 2016 and… well, the less said about 2016 the better!

    But in 2020 the Farmers and the Guides are locked in battle; time is their battleground, and the world is their prize. Only something new can change the course of the war. Or someone new.

    Little did they know, but they’ve all been waiting until Alice Payne arrives.

    Alice Payne Arrives

    Kate Heartfield

    Rating: 4/5 🌈
    Published: 6th November 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: lesbian mc, lesbian li, black mcs (not ownvoices), possibly autistic li

    Kiss me, and then take my hand, because I don’t know what happens next.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Girls of Paper and Fire

    16 October, 2018
    39898847

    Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It’s the highest honor they could hope for… and the most cruel.

    But this year, there’s a ninth girl. And instead of paper, she’s made of fire.

    In this lush fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most oppressed class in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards still haunts her. Now, the guards are back, and this time it’s Lei they’re after – the girl whose golden eyes have piqued the king’s interest.

    Over weeks of training in the opulent but stifling palace, Lei and eight other girls learn the skills and charm that befit being a king’s consort. But Lei isn’t content to watch her fate consume her. Instead, she does the unthinkable – she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens the very foundation of Ikhara, and Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide just how far she’s willing to go for justice and revenge.

    Girls of Paper and Fire

    Natasha Ngan

    Rating: 5/5 🌈
    Published: 6th November 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: wlw mcs (ownvoices), South-east/East Asian characters (ownvoices)

    I know it now with a certainty that has fitted into the lost core at the heart of me, as hard and angular as my hope was soft and shimmering. The King will not have me.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: In The Vanishers’ Palace

    8 October, 2018
    41724928

    In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land…

    A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village’s debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world.

    A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference.

    When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn’s amusement.

    But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets…

    In The Vanishers’ Palace

    Aliette de Bodard

    Rating: 4/5 🌈
    Published: 16th October 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: Vietnamese mcs (ownvoices), bi mc (fairly sure ownvoices), lesbian mc, non-binary side characters (not ownvoices)

    And then she’d wake up, gasping, trying to breathe, raising her hands to her face, remembering Vu Côn’s touch on her skin, as wet and as cold as the oily river.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts)

    5 October, 2018
    40609443

    Meet Jack Rothman. He’s seventeen and loves partying, makeup and boys – sometimes all at the same time. His sex life makes him the hot topic for the high school gossip machine. But who cares? Like Jack always says, ‘it could be worse’.

    He doesn’t actually expect that to come true.

    But after Jack starts writing an online sex advice column, the mysterious love letters he’s been getting take a turn for the creepy. Jack’s secret admirer knows everything: where he’s hanging out, who he’s sleeping with, who his mum is dating. They claim they love Jack, but not his unashamedly queer lifestyle. They need him to curb his sexuality, or they’ll force him.

    As the pressure mounts, Jack must unmask his stalker before their obsession becomes genuinely dangerous…

    Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts)

    Lev A. C. Rosen

    Rating: 3/5 🌈
    Published: 30th October 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: gay mc and side character (ownvoices), black side characters (not ownvoices), two sapphic side characters (one bi, one not stated)

    My first time getting it in the butt was kind of weird. I think it’s going to be weird for everyone’s first time, though.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: What If It’s Us

    2 October, 2018
    39704614

    Arthur is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it’s that the universe can deliver a showstopping romance when you least expect it.

    Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things.

    But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them?

    Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated.

    Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited.

    But what if they can’t quite nail a first date . . . or a second first date . . . or a third?

    What if Arthur tries too hard to make it work . . . and Ben doesn’t try hard enough?

    What if life really isn’t like a Broadway play?

    But what if it is?

    What If It’s Us

    Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

    Rating: 1/5 🌈
    Published: 9th October 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: gay mcs (one ownvoices, one not), Puerto Rican mc (ownvoices), Jewish mc (ownvoices), mc with ADHD, side character with anxiety, side non-white characters

    I don’t know if we’re in a love story or a story about love.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Love Like This

    1 October, 2018
    40183920

    Sometimes the most imperfect match is the most perfect surprise. 

    Hadley Cooper believes in happily-ever-afters with her whole heart. Described by her friends as a wide-eyed, eternal optimist, she looks for the bright side in most any situation. However, when her job as the assistant manager of Silhouette, a posh boutique on Rodeo Drive, is on the line, she realizes it’s time to pull her head out of the clouds and find a way to turn business around, and that just might mean partnering with the most stubborn up-and-coming fashion designer she’s ever encountered. 

    Spencer Adair has a passion for fashion, but hates the fact that it rhymes. She’s serious about her designs, fiercely protective of her work, and is waiting patiently for her big break. What she didn’t plan on, however, was the unsolicited opinions of that overly friendly blond boutique manager. Or the way her heart beats faster every time she’s around.

    Love Like This

    Melissa Brayden

    Rating: 2/5 🌈
    Published: 16th October 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: lesbian mc and li (ownvoices), Latina(?) li (not ownvoices, also never specified)

    Her soul soared, her heart sang, and her life could go in so many different directions.

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    Book Review: Almost Like Being in Love

    30 September, 2018
    239092

    A high school jock and nerd fall in love senior year, only to part after an amazing summer of discovery to attend their respective colleges. They keep in touch at first, but then slowly drift apart.

    Flash forward twenty years.

    Travis and Craig both have great lives, careers, and loves. But something is missing …. Travis is the first to figure it out. He’s still in love with Craig, and come what may, he’s going after the boy who captured his heart, even if it means forsaking his job, making a fool of himself, and entering the great unknown. 

    Told in narrative, letters, checklists, and more, this is the must-read novel for anyone who’s wondered what ever happened to that first great love.

    Almost Like Being in Love

    Steve Kluger

    Rating: 4/5 🌈
    Published: 11th May 2004
    Goodreads
    Rep: gay mc and li (ownvoices)

    And as long as I’m being brutally candid, I only wound up teaching American History because I followed a cute ass into the country-and-western section at Barnes & Noble (…).

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