• All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Blaine for the Win

    9 April, 2022

    After reading and loving The Sky Blues in 2021, Blaine for the Win was one of our most anticipated reads of 2022, and it definitely didn’t disappoint. Trust us when we say you don’t want to miss out on it. But if you need a few more reasons than that, check out our review below!

    And don’t forget, you can follow Robbie on twitter.

    High school junior Blaine Bowers has it all—the perfect boyfriend, a pretty sweet gig as a muralist for local Windy City businesses, a loving family, and awesome, talented friends. And he is absolutely, 100% positive that aforementioned perfect boyfriend—​senior student council president and Mr. Popular of Wicker West High School, Joey—is going to invite Blaine to spend spring break with his family in beautiful, sunny Cabo San Lucas.

    Except Joey breaks up with him instead. In public. On their one-year anniversary.

    Because, according to Joey, Blaine is too goofy, too flighty, too…unserious. And if Joey wants to go far in life, he needs to start dating more serious guys. Guys like Zach Chesterton.

    Determined to prove that Blaine can be what Joey wants, Blaine decides to enter the running to become his successor (and beat out Joey’s new boyfriend, Zach) as senior student council president.

    But is he willing to sacrifice everything he loves about himself to do it?

    Blaine for the Win

    Robbie Couch

    Goodreads

    Rep: gay mc, Vietnamese American bi li, Black sapphic character, Latina sapphic character, gay side characters
    Release: 12th April 2022

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: LGBT Books That Make You Feel Feral

    24 March, 2022

    Specifically, I mean, they make you the personification of this gif:

    Because sometimes that’s what you want from a book, right? You want it to make you feel ever so slightly (or maybe not slightly at all) insane. Well I have good news for you! Each of the 10 books here will provide just that. So, enjoy!

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

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  • All Reviews,  Literature

    Book Reviews: Gay Books for the Soul

    21 March, 2022

    A while back, I did a post titled lesbian books for the soul. Well, it just so happened that I had 3 books to review (two backlist, one out in May), which all happened to be gay, and so was born this post. These are all books that I enjoyed reading, so I really hope that this post convinces you to pick at least one of them (if not all of them!) up. And feel free to let me know if you do!

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: LGBT Books With the Vibe of The Raven Cycle

    18 March, 2022

    There comes a time (usually after you’ve read all the fics) when you want to read a book similar in feeling to your favourite, but also different enough that it doesn’t just seem like a reread. Something to hit you right in that nostalgic spot.

    That’s what I have here today: 10 LGBT books that kind of feel like The Raven Cycle. A lot of different themes going on, so let’s explore!

    Related: quietly magical LGBT books & LGBT found family
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  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: 2022 Middle Grade & Picture Books

    23 February, 2022

    This is the last of our big releases posts of the first half of the year. Here you will find 62 middle grade releases, and 25 picture book releases, all of which feature LGBT main characters! Everything I know at this point in time (give or take a couple that I’m waiting for clarification on). This list will get updated as I find more books, so if there’s one you know that’s not on here, feel free to mention it.

    And as ever, 🌈 means the author IDs as LGBT.

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  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Ownvoices Achillean Books of January-June 2022

    20 February, 2022

    A list of ownvoices m/m books in the sense that they’re all written by achillean authors. They’re not even all strictly m/m romances, some have little to no romance. But they all have achillean main characters.

    Also worth noting is that last year’s post had barely 69 books, but this year it’s over 100! Let’s hope this number keeps growing with each year.

    There are no rainbow emojis, since all the authors are achillean. But there are plant emojis for nonbinary authors.

    And hey, a lot of those titles are available on Scribd, so if you want to check out that service but don’t have an account yet, use my invite code to get 2 months for free! (This also gives me one free month.)

    See also: ownvoices achillean books of January-June 2021 & of July-December 2021; releases by rep
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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Adult LGBT Books with YA Crossover Appeal

    15 February, 2022

    You know when you want to read a YA book, but actually you don’t want to read about teenagers, because you just got back home from your day job & you’re in a different head space? I got you!

    Just so we’re clear, though, I’m not saying those books should be shelved as YA, I’m not saying those authors didn’t know what they were writing, I’m not saying those authors have no idea how to write adult books… I’m not here to infantilise anyone, I’m simply offering you books with the vibes you’re looking for.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Books With Less Than 400 Goodreads Ratings (IV)

    29 January, 2022

    As ever, when I run out of rec list ideas, I turn back to this one. Books which I consider underrated (where “underrated” is specifically defined as “less than 400 ratings on Goodreads. Yeah, Goodreads is not the be all and end all, yeah, 400 is pretty harsh comparably, but it’ll do. At least until I run out of books and need to increase the number haha). I’ve done this 3 times already, so this rec list marks the 76th-100th books (round of applause please). Hopefully, there’s something here for everyone.

    And don’t forget, you can also check out the previous posts: find the first post here, the second one here and the third one here.

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  • All Recommended,  Book Recs,  Literature

    Book Recs: Indie, Small Press & Self Published Books

    16 January, 2022

    This is a post I’ve been meaning to do for a while. We all know about all of the Big 5 books, the ones that appear on most rec lists most often, that get more marketing (comparatively speaking) and which more people know about. So, today’s rec list is specifically the opposite of that. Today, I’m reccing you books by independent publishers, small presses, and self-published authors.

    For ease, the definition of indie here that I’m using is “not Big 5 or an imprint of Big 5”. That is, not Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, or Hachette. Since the indies range in size beyond that, I’ve split those into two sections: smaller and larger (generally decided by output).

    A little key before we start:

    💛 = sapphic
    💚 = achillean
    💙 = trans or nonbinary
    🌻 = contemporary
    🌿 = historical
    🐚 = fantasy
    🌺 = mystery/thriller
    🍂 = paranormal/horror
    🍃 = science fiction

    For this list, I stuck to a single book by each author (although there are many where I’d rec multiple books) because I figured, hey, this can be a series! So, check back later this year for more, I guess!

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  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Contemporary (January to June 2022)

    31 December, 2021

    It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!

    In this post, you’ll find the collection of contemporary books that we know about from January to June of 2022!

    Looking for the other posts?

    Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Looking for July to December?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

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  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Historical (January to June 2022)

    31 December, 2021

    It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!

    In this post, you’ll find the collection of historical books that we know about from January to June of 2022!

    Looking for the other posts?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Looking for July to December?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

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  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Fantasy (January to June 2022)

    31 December, 2021

    It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!

    In this post, you’ll find the collection of fantasy books that we know about from January to June of 2022!

    Looking for the other posts?

    Contemporary | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Looking for July to December?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

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  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Mystery/Thriller (January to June 2022)

    31 December, 2021

    It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!

    In this post, you’ll find the collection of mystery and thriller books that we know about from January to June of 2022!

    Looking for the other posts?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Looking for July to December?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

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  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Nonfiction (January to June 2022)

    31 December, 2021

    It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!

    In this post, you’ll find the collection of nonfiction books that we know about from January to June of 2022!

    Looking for the other posts?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Looking for July to December?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Read More
  • All Releases,  Book Releases,  Literature

    Book Releases: Paranormal/Horror (January to June 2022)

    31 December, 2021

    It’s a new year and, since the number of book releases we know about per month is just tipping into unwieldy (June alone last year had 150 books to add to the post, not to mention the 50+ more we found later), we’ve decided to change up the way we’re doing releases posts. We started organising releases posts by genre around halfway through last year, so we’re sticking with that here. The major difference? Each genre gets its own post, which will eventually cover a period of 6 months. So, like with our various other releases posts (although those go up all at once, whereas here we’ll add each month), these are more easily edited and added to! Which means, even if we miss a book, we can better come back and add it to the post. A win for everyone!

    In this post, you’ll find the collection of paranormal/horror books that we know about from January to June of 2022!

    Looking for the other posts?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Looking for July to December?

    Contemporary | Fantasy | Historical | Mystery/Thriller | Nonfiction | Paranormal/Horror | Poetry | Science Fiction

    Read More