tjs_whatnot | (no subject)

September Reads!

~~Look at me, not even a month behind the times…yet.~~Haha! I might have written this post in time, but completely forgot to actually post it. Oooops.

This month was pretty light. But I did really enjoy what I did get a chance to read. Or at least have really complicated feelings about them. Let's begin:

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The writing in this, I loved. The characters, the situations, just the reflection and the language of it. It was like a lot of my two favorite things: native storytelling and queer storytelling. But that's where I also had some difficulties with, the story itself seemed to be all over the place without tying up the past and present in any concrete way. There were plot points and character development that contradicted itself, and left me unsatisfied. Still, well worth the time and energy and the MC will stay with me for a long time. But, yeah… complicated feelings.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Also loved a lot but with some complicated feelings. For the most part, I really loved it. The first half I wanted to love more than I did. I mean the travel of it all, the food and booze of it all. GUH! But just sort of got tired of Theo's sort of self-sabotage and itty-bit cluelessness about feelings of any kind. And maybe it was the ace in me, but yikes there was a lot of seamlessly meaningless sex. Like, a lot--a lot.

But then we get Kit's side. And JFC he's just too precious for words, and we get to really see Theo, the real Theo. Not the self-sabotaging, self-loathing, but the strong and capable and the kind of person who is deserving of the level of devotion that they have inspired in him. And that's when I fell hard, for both of them.

Slippery Creatures: The Will Darling Adventures Book 1 by KJ Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Oh wow, but I really love KJ Charles! There is always scorching sex, and great chemistry with complicated characters, but there is also intrigue and mystery and I can't wait to read more.

The Guncle Abroad by Steven Rowley ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So fun! It was weird to be reading this and The Pairing at the same time as they were both very touring Europe and both so VERY different experiences. I think I liked the first book better, though, I liked the further exploration of grief and living with it and how we can move on and still honor those we've lost. But, well two things, first I think Rowley did a good job writing children in the first one, and did I good job aging up the older girl to make her a proper angsty teenager, but I don't think he did a good job at getting the nephew from 6 to 11.

The other thing that I thought could have been better--especially as it becomes important later-- is his break up with the man he met and got together with in the first one. I would have liked to be more connected with that relationship and its loss.

And that's it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I haven't read The Pairing yet. I've finished the May releases, so I'm still 5 months late. Trying to keep this rhythm for a few more months. I have SO MANY October releases, it should take me 3 months to read them all. Ha ha ha! And then I'll be 7 months late...

Oh wow, I couldn't imagine trying to keep current with all there is out there every month. I mean, I have a handful of authors that I try to stay current on--McQuiston, Hall and Klune--but even that is too much sometimes.

♥ ♥ Can't wait to hear your thoughts on The Pairing... in the months to come. ;)

Well, obviously I don't manage it any more. What I do is that I list everything I'm interested in, and when the time comes to buy the releases of a given month, I only buy the ones that interest me the most, and sacrifice all the other books (well, some move to the backlist, but I make very little progress on the backlist, so it's just for the sake of not deleting them completely from the list). XD

4 books in a month is a perfectly respectable amount to me, haha. I'm glad you enjoyed Slippery Creatures :D Hopefully you like the rest of the series when you get to it. If I had time I'd definitely do a re-read of them, but there's just so much to read out there...

It definitely was my favorite read of September and I'm looking forward to reading more in the series. I have this bad habit of reading the first in a lot of serieses though and then it takes me forever to get to the next. I've just now started the 2nd in the All for the Game series and I read the first one MONTHS ago. 😭😭 Why am I like this?!

I'm really bad with series too, I have to like, plan to read a whole series at once otherwise I'll get distracted with new releases I want to read in between or whatever. But as long as you remember what happened in the previous book(s) I guess it doesn't matter how long it takes lol