books, books, books: 2019 apr-june

[meiface]

Let's take a look at the past three months of reading.

1. Cotillion by Georgette Heyer - A fullthroated reread and it just never gets old, especially as a change of pace from the traditional regency romance storylines. It's such a great subversion because it's done so fondly.


2. Blindsided by Eden Finley - Book 4, the first about two football player teammates. Really great premise, but I think there needed to be more emotional and sexual tension to really make it work. Definitely would've worked better written fic-style, I think. I did enjoy it and seeing the other couples in the background. Looking forward to book five with Jet's story!


3. Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa by Keni Miyazawa - Picked this up on a whim at the airport, a book of translated Japanese short stories. Apparently it doesn't involve his most famous story, but the ones that were translated were interesting. All involving nature in some ways, some a little morbid, some a little sweet, they spanned the gamut and made me thoughtful, even if I didn't love all of them.


4. Midnight Flit by Elin Gregory - Sequel to Eleventh Hour, a fun spy romp with the established relationship from the first book. The couple was cute but I was mostly reading it for the plot/adventure, which was fun enough. It's sometimes nice when the relationship isn't the focus, but what background relationship there is happens to be m/m.


5. The Wicked King by Holly Black - Sequel to The Cruel Prince and I think I enjoyed it even more than the first one, possibly because it's straight into the plot since I already know and care about the characters. Good buildup for the next book, and it's killing me to wait for it. I want to see how the political stuff gets resolved, how Jude gets back to her rightful place, how the relationship evolves.


6. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - Been hearing many good things about it and finally picked it up from the library upon a strong rec from a coworker. More of a character-driven piece than one with much plot, but the depth of those characters and their relationships, the subplots, were all interwoven well.


7. Sex Pistols by Tarako Kotobuki - So I discovered like 30 new chapters since I last read this, and figured that was a good time for a reread from the beginning. And it is just as ludicrous and ridiculous and enjoyable as before: basically fandom tropey a/b/o before a/b/o really became a thing. Animal hierarchies! Mating, heats, arranged marriages, and mpreg! What a convoluted world and family, but I did enjoy the two main couples. Turns out the new chapters had a new art style and a plot that went off the rails into less iddy fun and more "king of the world" with pointless maltreatment of the primary relationship...so yeah, less my thing. I'll stick with rereading just the beginning bits, I guess.


8. Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch - A historical romance with magic, essentially; not quite full historical fantasy, because it felt much more like a regency romance with added magic, though the world and system is never fully explored. Also I don't think it was quite regency period. But such was the feel of the book, focused primarily on the relationships between the characters than the plot, imo. Overall enjoyable, but did not quite make my favorites in terms of m/m historical romance or fantasy stories.


9. The Governess Game: Girl Meets Duke by Tessa Dare - Tessa Dare always writes charming and funny regency romances that manage to keep me from losing interest by being too funny, irreverent, or ahistorical. Obviously they're modernized to a degree and there's sex, but she does a good job with fun characters and plots, usually. The two daughters were weird in an endearing and memorable way,


10. Game Changer by Rachel Reid - Honorable mention to my DNF featuring a pro hockey player and a hot smoothie maker? It could've had potential but the hockey writing and world was bad, the instant love was unforgivable, and I didn't even make 30% through before I dropped it. I have heard the second book in the sequel is basically a Sid/Ovie (hockey rivals secretly fucking) story, so I may be intrigued enough to give it a shot. Give me more tension in the narrative and between the characters, please!


11. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman - I read this after watching the Amazon miniseries, and while that series was campy and a lot of fun, I do really still prefer books. It still stands up after all these years, though some tech references are dated. I think seeing the live adaptation did endear me more to the Anathema and Newt parts, which were never my favorite portions from the book beforehand. The Them are always fun though, as are the Horsemen. Crowley and Aziraphale remain a delight.


12. Persuasion by Jane Austen - This may possibly be my favorite Austen book now? I never enjoyed Sense and Sensibility much, and Emma was a slog (I only got through it by trying to see how Clueless adapted it). Persuasion had all the usual family and social shenanigans as the rest, but als featuring more growing up and pining that I think I appreciate more as I get older, with a little more wisdom of the world. Same can be said of Anne as a character. Lovely, aching, romantic. I'm glad they got their eventual happy ending.


13. Heart in Hand by salifiable - Look, it's a novel-length Sid/Ovie fic but she also stripped the names at some point to make it origfic (maybe self-published)? Idk, I'm going to count it. It was dramatic and angsty and pretty much like a soap opera where Sid totally invited that misunderstanding and misery upon himself, but I loved it. Dealt with, mostly realistically, the life of a closeted NHL superstar and why he would choose that route, though the reality show was actually less realistic. But it's good fodder nonetheless.


14. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - Ohh this was a fandom author who basically wrote an original modern AU and it is cute af. All the fandom tropes in the language, characterization, and romance, but it worked for me. The most common criticism in the reviews is that it's too political -- hi, the scenario is the son of the president of the United States in the midst of her reelection campaign secretly dating one of the UK's princes. How is that not political inherently even if you want to focus only on the romance? You can definitely see when it passed out of fandom-familiar audiences into regular-romance audiences. Anyway, it was a little angsty, it was fun, it was hot, it had a semi-realistic happy ending -- I'll take it. The thing that made me feel the most was a blue Texas (crying, we'll get there one day) and the thing that made me snicker the most was the careful writing of sex scenes to avoid ever having to use 'cock' because she wants to stay mainstream and not get written off as erotica. Well done.


15. Hot Head by Damon Suede - An m/m romance by a male author -- after Santino Hassell, I'm suspicious of everyone, but the prose and POV did seem to come off a lot more like a guy, given the various unpleasant/crude descriptions of dick and balls and sex. That said, there was an emotional arc to do this as well. I was a little hesitant with the opening chapter focused so much on 9/11 and how it's affected firefighters, but it moved on from that to being a story about the characters and their relationships. I guess I'm glad the porn guy was kind of a creep but also kind of a good dude? Like, depth in your side/background character, cool. Best friends hooking up but still pining, it's a proven formula.

Why am I still posting on LJ? Who knows, but here I am.