3.5 stars I can recognize a good book when I see one. The Absolutely True Diary… is touching, thoughtful, considered, and funny. It features a unique protagonist who is fleshed out honestly and whose diverse perspective (drawn from Sherman Alexie’s own experiences) is a valuable addition to the YA landscape. I came away from reading this book not just with an abstractly increased sense of empathy, but with an actual education. Should this book be widely read and roundly discussed? Yes, absolutely. Did I “enjoy” […]
An American in Oxford
I found The Royal We excessively charming, for all that it is — as others have mentioned — Will and Kate Cambridge fanfiction. Every major player in their IRL romance has a direct analog here as far as I can tell (though I don’t truly consider myself an expert) and though our protagonist, Bex, is American, she still comes from money as Kate Middleton did. All of the major events in their romance are covered here, and, cover illustrations aside, even the physical descriptions of […]
“My job is to be your loyal opposition.”
The progression of the Old Man’s War series has been pretty clever. On its face, the series is a story about humans in space fighting against the aliens who want to kill us. From the beginning, we suspected it couldn’t possibly be so simple, but while the first two books were tasked with introducing readers to the expanded universe, including the political and military branches that oversee and enforce human space activity, they only included speculation on the other races’ intentions toward humanity. Finally, in […]
If by “Legend” you mean “won’t be remembered next week,” sure.
There were two big problems with my experience reading Legend: first, I should have read it five years ago; second, I listened to the audiobook, which was so perfunctorily narrated that the cheesy-ness of the line reading just emphasized how pedestrian the prose and dialogue are. I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I had hoped to make more of a habit of it since my current job is well-suited for listening to them while I work. Unfortunately, I think there is something […]
Corset doffer
This erotic romance set in the Regency period caught my attention as one of the suggestions in the sex-positive romances post comments. While to the uninitiated, “sex-positive” may seem like a given in romance and particularly in erotica, these books were suggested by the more feminist, “rigorous” standards that these books not only contain sex between the leads, but that they don’t slut-shame other women who also have the audacity to have sex. Again, for the uninitiated, this doesn’t seem like a high bar to […]
“It’s horrid to be someone else’s vision of yourself.”
4.5 stars I am very sorry, Sarah MacLean. This is probably my favorite book of yours that I have read so far, but I waited way too long to review it, and now I’m going to have precious little to say about it. Here’s the Goodreads summary, which is as much for my benefit as yours: “A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at […]
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