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Tournament of Losers by Megan Derr
Previous attempts at Megan Derr’s older books have been somewhat hit-or-miss, but the summary for Tournament of Losers sounded like something right up my alley, so I decided to give it a go. And that was an EXCELLENT DECISION, y’all! Tournament of Losers is the BEST Megan Derr book I’ve read yet! I think it’s a combo of increased writing skills + many tropes I adore + completely adorable characters + wonderful worldbuilding. One of my complaints about MD’s earlier books was the treatment/lack of women characters, how everybody’s white, and sometimes-weird chemistry between the leads. With her newer books, many of those things have been addressed. For instance, in…
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Love Lessons by Heidi Cullinan
I think this was my first New Adult book! Right? Or at least the first NA book I’ve recognized as NA since NA became a thing. College-age protagonists falling in love and causing drama and making new friends and moving away from home for the first time and presumably doing homework between making out and music club. Love Lessons! Yes!
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Spectr vol. 1 by Jordan L. Hawk
A novella series is tough to review; each book is just a little too short to write about on its own and trying to do the whole series at once is super tiring. But I really liked these books so I’m gonna give it a shot. Hunter of demons So basically all these books are short, but good. I do prefer full-length novels to almost anything else, but novellas are fun because you can finish reading them super quickly. They’re like bon-bons! Bon-bons filled with demons. SPECTR has a somewhat typical paranormal worldbuilding with demons, psychics, and special agents who solve paranormal crimes. Luckily I love all that stuff! This…
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Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett
I didn’t think there could be a more romantically-frustrating book than Luck in the Shadows, but surprise! There is, and it’s called Point of Hopes. Okay, sure, it’s not REALLY a romance. It’s a fantasy-mystery set in an alternative medieval Italy, a sort of police procedural with fascinating world-building and wonderful characters! I just really wanted there to be more kissing. My misunderstanding might have come from some Goodreads tags, which put it in m/m romance. I mean…it technically IS, but it took 200 pages for somebody to even THINK that somebody else was cute. That’s nearly half a book gone before there’s even any sly flirtation, and that definitely…
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Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
This was unexpected! And not in a good way. It felt like a very different book from Ancillary Justice, though the overall morality of the worldbuilding is the same. Unlike the first book, this one is set (mostly) all in one place, during one time period, with negligible character growth and no redemption arc/quest. It does add lots of interesting tidbits to the world of the Imperial Radch, like details about certain colonies and the people who live on them. It also delves more into class structure, racism/colonialism/classism, and how one person coming down from on high won’t fix everything, which I liked. Unfortunately, I didn’t like almost everything else,…
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There Will Be Phlogston, vN, The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
Desperately trying to play catch-up, as always! Here’s three tiny reviews of books I’ve read several months ago. There Will Be Phlogston – Alexis Hall I hated Byron Kae’s sister in previous books because she made her sibling’s life very unhappy, but it turns out she’s more complex than just “horrible bully.” She wants to escape her terrible parents! She feels stifled by society and its expectations! She wants to find love! And she finds it, alongside a super repressed gay guy and their boyfriend. Surprise! It’s a threesome! And way more complicated than that, of course, because Alexis Hall does nothing simple in his books. Anyway, I loved it.…
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Bound by Megan Derr
Scribd popped this up in my recommended reads (pre-romance purge) and I added it to my TBR mostly because a) the cover is pretty and b) stories about princes and intrigue and soldiers and whatnot are fun! And yeah, Bound turned out to be a pretty fun book. Its best feature is its characters, who are full of emotional depth and heartbreak, aka my siren song. They’re also fun because they have such great personalities, though there’s also plenty of plot to keep things interesting. There are disguises! Spies and courtly knightly people! Wartime camp stuff! Castles and myths and yearning! Slowly falling in love despite starting off on a…
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Necropolis by Jordan L. Hawk
This was a VERY exciting book! Not only because of the body horror human-animal hybrid situation, but because Whyborne and the gang get out of the country and head over to Egypt! Where it turns out Dr. Christine has a Secret Boyfriend! And there are, like, curses or something! It’s a little predictable in that I guessed at least two important plot points before they happened, but it was also super fun to read. Honestly, it reminded me of all the best parts of The Mummy, only with more than one female protagonist. Dr. Christine is there, of course, and she is forever my favorite of the series. She’s dealing…