January 2025 Books Read

[tjs_whatnot]

I can't believe February is almost halfway over already. Oh well, better late than never (basically my epitaph, I guess).

Into This River I Drown by TJ Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

I wanted this book to be the last one I read in 2024. My year of Klune. The first two books I read in 2024 were me discovering the depth and scope of his style and his characters. I wanted to end there, too. But this book had other ideas. It would not be rushed. It would not come easy. It didn't want to end. That was also my realization that the Year of Klune was not over.

I'm very much still in my Klune Era.

I also felt like this was in some way a companion piece to Under the Whispering Door as they both dealt with loss and grief and how hard it is to move on. But, this book (which I think in the timeline of the author and his personal life it makes sense) is much more brutal and heartachy with a much more earned HEA.

A Little Bit Country by Brian D. Kennedy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cute.

I already talked about the phenomenon of Queer Country Music HERE, and, this reads very much like the movie those songs would be the soundtrack to. ❤️

Dearest Milton James by N.R. Walker ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Cute.

I have accidentally started reading a LOT of books with epistolary elements and I am NOT mad about it. I love it. I had once thought them incredibly rare, so cherished them as precious jewels.

And while I'll always love a book that is told in some part by correspondence, this one could have been SO MUCH more. I've just had to resign myself that a lot of story is missing when you tell low stakes stories, like Walker does. And that's okay and does serve a low stress, cotton-candy-feeling distraction. So, YAY FOR THAT. ❤️

It Takes Two to Tumble by Cat Sebastian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

*sigh*

I just love Cat Sebastian SO MUCH!!

And while I loved these characters, the history and sense of place of the story (and have even learned to appreciate the narrator now that I've played around with listening speed) I mainly read this author for vibe, for humor, heart and happy, happy, joy, joy. I think you should to, then come and squee with me! ❤️

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really did like this book. I just came to the realization that maybe I need to take a break from Young Adult for a while. This main character kept on making decisions that I just had a hard time making sense of. I kept on having to remind myself that I'm not a kid -- and I'm not trans-- so maybe I should ease off on some of the judgments I had about choices made. After that talk with myself, I really enjoyed this book a great deal more.

Love Always, Wild by A.M. Johnson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Another (much better) epistolary story about second chances and coming out.

Wilder and Jackson were together in college. Jackson goes home to tell his family he's gay, and never comes back. Fifteen years later, Wilder writes a book about it, and Jackson reaches out as a fan to see if Wilder is the same man he'd been about to uproot his life for, and if he'd ever be able to forgive him if he knew what happened all those yearsago. *sigh* It's lovely.

How to Bang a Billionaire by Alexis Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Haha. The only thing I hated about this book is the title. It was the thing that had me keep putting off reading it. But I'm glad I did. I guess I understand the motivation to why (he set out to tell a less toxic, much gayer 50 Shades of Grey), but IDK, it seems much more than that (but, what do I know? I never read that series) and deserves a title that reflects all that is is.

I just really like Hall's characters a lot! Though Arden did start to seem a tad unreasonable there towards the end. Still, I'm anxious to continue the series of badly named books. ❤️