Summer 2024 Reads!

[tjs_whatnot]

July and August Reads!

Did I ever mention that I took a 3 week vacation to New Zealand in July? Did I mention that when I returned, I had a week to pack up, say goodbye to the life and the people in it for the last 25ish years and take me, a UHaul trailer and my bb!SUV across the country to the town I was born and raised, but haven't lived in for over 30 years? And now I live here, and work here and how weird that is?

So yeah, those things happened. And reading happened, but me coming here and sharing any of that fell by the wayside as it sometimes does, even though I try really hard for it not to.

So, first books, then everything else:





I seriously can't believe how much I read while trekking through New Zealand! It helped greatly that my bestie and my sherpa redsnake_05 is also a great reader. So we spent our days hiking and eating and our nights reading. Plus, she did all the driving, so I read in the car too when there were breaks between New Zealand just being generally and constantly breathtaking.

Here are short (very short) reviews of the books:

Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Two young men go to the mountain to find themselves. Find each other. Lose each other. Find themselves. Find each other again.

That makes it seem overly simple, but it was a very character driven book and these characters were delightful. It's part of a series of books, but you don't have to read all of them, or in order. The characters from “Love and Other Disasters” show up, but they, or their story are not integral to this story.

Read it if you like the outdoors, if you like nature and if you like stories of dudes finding themselves and each other. ❤️

Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I found this on my Libby app during Pride Month and it was mostly good, but IDK, I just think I found one of the main characters sort of annoying? I can't remember. I just remember wishing I liked it more than I did because I really want more sapphic stories to cherish, YA know?

Everybody on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Not as good as the first one. But I imagine real mystery lovers will enjoy it.

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

* sigh * How amazing is Alexis Hall? Like, I can't with how extraordinarily he jumps from genre to genre and the care and thought he puts into his prose. I was leery at first because reading a story about transness not written by a trans author is always going to make me nervous, but then I read about his reason for writing the story he did--a Victorian story about a trans character, where their transness wasn't the central problem of the story. And that he had a trans woman do the narration and on the cover.

If you like Jane Austen and the like, but wish it was slightly more queer, this is the book for you. ❤️

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

I just can't get enough of Cat Sebastian's writing style, the way they write characters. Plus this one had a bit of epistolary elements that I'm a complete nut for. I read them out of order, but I will read the one I missed (along with everything else they've ever written).

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Another book I found at my library during Pride Month, and since I needed a intersex book for my Queer Bingo card, I thought it would be a good read since I was unfamiliar with the term and it was written by a doctor.

But, it very much reads like it was written by a doctor who might have never before even read a novel-- or spent anytime in a school in the last decade or so. It felt overly preachy and behind the times. But it did help me understand the term.

Tell Me It's Real by TJ Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

*sigh* I just love TJ Klune so much (which isn't new info and you'll probably grow tired of me saying in the coming months). While reading this I kept thinking Paul-- the main character in this book-- crawled so that Gus-- How to be a Normal Person's MC-- could fly. I can very much see that Klune really, REALLY likes characters who are a lot ridiculous and also are full of immense love. This was a ridiculously cute story.

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Historical Fiction in Queer Lit is depressing AF! (And it's also weird to call it historical fiction as it takes place in the 80s and happened in my lifetime, but yeah…). This is another book I found on display that filled a Bingo Square (MENA Author), but unlike the other one, I really enjoyed this. You could tell this time and these characters really meant something to the author. It felt very real and it made it even that more powerful.

His for the Summer by Ezra Dio ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Summer counselors. One gay and doing the summer camp thing to get his parents off his back. One bi and rich and uses summer camp as an escape from all that's expected of him. Borderline PWP, but hey, that's not a bad thing… 🤣

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

When I finished The Music of What Happens last year, I saved all the other books of the authors into my gut-punch category. And then I sort of just left them all there, but this wasn't nearly as heavy as that was and it was actually a really cool premise. A kid who is tired of being the posterboy for being out and proud in his super progressive and accepting Colorado town decides to go to a New England prep school and go back in the closet and play straight. I'm sure you can imagine how well that goes. 🤣

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I was not expecting to like this as much as I loved A Marvellous Light, but I found it just as delightful as the first in the trilogy. I liked the continued mystery and suspense, but I also really liked the begins of a gang, co-horts. Plus the featured couple of Maud and Violet are little firecrackers who sizzle together. Plus, I started to really like a character that I've been led to believe will be super important to like in the last book (more on that later).

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by MacKenzie Lee ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

And yet another Middle book of a trilogy that is all about the ladies-- and I am NOT sad about it. I loved Felicity and tagged along with her in A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and it was even better in this. But, it could have been tedious if that were the only plot point of the book, if her problem with the world were the only one, but it wasn't. Not even close. There were three ladies and their varied wants, needs and mysteries and even a vague romance-type thing that I can no longer recall. Sorry. Plus, a bit more Monty and Percy, which was delightful.

The Long Run by James Acker ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don't want you to take my complete inability to recollect any of this book as a sign that it wasn't good. I remember being invested, in really enjoying the characters, but… I got nothing.

Maybe I read too many similar stories. 😭😭

Or maybe I just want to be finished with this month's collection of amazing things I read.

Moving on…

Let's see if I can do this before ANOTHER month goes on. It helps that I only read half the books in August as I did in July. Who knew that packing, driving cross country and settling into a new job (and new life) would slow down reading?

BUT, I did get my bestie apythia hooked on Green Creek in our 5 day trip across the country, so, I'll take the hit to my lack of new stories being consumed.

Now, on to the list!

August Reads!



The Bones Beneath My Skin by T.J. Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Like I said previously, you're probably going to grow weary of all the Klune in the months to come and this is only the first of two I read this month. I'm very much in my Klune Era. What I love most about this Era is that while he tends to lean hard into certain kinds of characters, all his stories are very much their own, very diverse thing.

This one is very much sci-fi and it is so very lovely. Imagine if E.T. was rescued by a soldier and that soldier accidentally broke into a man's house, kidnapped him and then fell in love with him while on the run from evil government types. That would be this book. But you'd also have to imagine that E.T. was a bit more sassy, a bit more human-like and a bit more teenage girl like. So fun and also so philosophical. So very Klune-like.

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

✔️Final in a trilogy!
✔️Found Family AF!
✔️Hot AF hate!sex
✔️Dissertations on class and station!
✔️A over-arching plot’s dramatic and satisfying conclusion!
✔️Recurring characters being even more adorable through New POV characters!
✔️Enemies to Lovers and SCORCHING!
*sigh*

We Burn Beautiful by Lance Lansdale ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Ugh. Like this small, independent author's other book I read a few months ago, I really wanted to like this more than I did. The other one was a ridiculous book that every once in a while tried to be serious, and this one was the opposite. It was serious and every once in a while tried (and mostly failed) to be ridiculous. And it could have been SO GOOD.

Great premise (second chance romance with a lot of religious trauma, past homophobic abuse and a really clever chapter titles that were super poignant), but just sort of was hindered by poor character development and failed humor.

And I think it both helps me understand where the attempts of levity comes from and hurts so much that it just didn't work because I know the author a little bit and I know how much he wants to emulate Klune (who is the MASTER of ripping your heart out while also being ridiculous). But… he's just.. not.

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

*sighs more* Another month, another Cat Sebastian book to fall hard for. This one, I was hesitant to read because there was no way I was going to live it as much as I loved the first in the series, “We Could Be So Good,” but wow, was I wrong! Mark and Eddie owned my heart just as much as Nick and Andy did, plus, it still had a 50s romcom feel to it, and the journalism vibe, the witty banter, the dissertations on being queer in 1960s America (especially in high profile careers), and the sacrifices that had to be made and the ways to circumvent them. Sooooo good!

The Lightning-Struck Heartby T.J. Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Speaking of fuckin’ ridiculous with a heart of gold. JEEEEEZUS! I can't even explain the weird of this book and how much I loved it. Having just finished his Tell Me It's Real, this sort of read like a fanfic of the MC from that, like a fantasy AU with magic and gay unicorns and queer dragons. It's also the first of a series.

The Unlikely Pair by Jax Calder ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

This is only the second book that I've gotten an ARC for and provided a review and felt all professional. So, to save time, I'll just share it again here:

I was worried to read this book because I haven't read "The Unlikely Heir" and while I know there are a few nuances I missed (and even maybe bits of the mystery of the book), it really did hold up all on its own.

This book more than many I've read before (I'm looking at you, "Red, White and Royal Blue") really did fully realize the enemies to lovers trope, along with the forced proximity trope that also occasionally gets misused. Then there is Only One Bed and GUHHHH! So many well developed tropes in one book.

But, it's also more than tropes, more than politics (though that was delicious too and easy to translate even for this American) and international intrigue. It's about two people who don't know who the other is at all though they have been forced to work together for years. They each have their own baggage, their own traumas, but it's when that is all stripped away and survival becomes their only goal that things heat up--figuratively and literally! And because it's dual POV, we get to witness the inner-turmoil become begrudging respect, the carnal expediency become something more from all sides. *sigh*

I was also worried that the mystery that ties this story together had been abandoned in the end, but I have every confidence that it will be resolved in the next installment. Let's just hope my patience can survive!

And phew! Done just in time for September's List. 🤣🤣 That one is (sadly) even shorter. And will have to wait, because I've missed talking of books with you all, so I want this posted. 😍 What are you all reading?

Comments

[tjs_whatnot]

So far so good. ❤️❤️