romance

Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

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Started: 8/28/23
Finished: 1/10/24

Yay dragons and fighting and conspiracies and sure, some romance while we’re at it! I had a little bit of a hard time right at the beginning, but then it started moving and it was BRUTAL. I didn’t expect the deaths (it seems like a pretty terrible way to train your military – can’t they be moved into the infantry or something?), but I suppose it helped set the tone. And we have dragons with personalities! That makes me so happy.

The second book continued the story in a satisfying way, and while I wasn’t quite as devastated by the end of it as it seems the internet was (don’t they know how second books in trilogies go?), I’m very much looking forward to the third book. More stuff about the dragons, please!

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield

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Started: 10/17/23
Finished: 10/22/23

Yay for main characters who are actually adults (and over 30!), but otherwise this was just okay. Enjoyable enough, not great, sometimes annoying. Writer for an SNL-like show tries not to fall in love with the hot musical guest man because he’s too famous, he’s too attractive – she’s too insecure. Whatever, they work it out, and if they make a movie out of it, I’ll see it.

From Blood and Ash, A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire, and The Crown of Gilded Bones by Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Started: 9/15/23
Finished: 10/17/23

We don’t all have the same taste in books. Obviously. Sometimes I need the reminder. And it’s okay to quit even if a friend says you should read it.

Premise: pretty interesting. Plot: not terrible. Writing: acceptable EXCEPT that for reasons unknown to me (but I can’t imagine they would be convincing), she uses “vamprys” for vampires and “wolven” for werewolves. They are the SAME. THIS IS UNNECESSARY AND ANNOYING. And yet I stuck with it through three books. No more! The stakes are high, and that’s okay. The evil-doers are evil (pretty damn evil), and that’s okay. The main character has leveled up SO much and SO quickly and her upbringing was SO sheltered that this would be more interesting if she just had a total breakdown instead of rising to the occasion.

Also, I’m hesitant to take recommendations from the people who would recommend these. (I do not recommend these.) Not terrible, but not good.

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne

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Started: 9/23/23
Gave up: 9/24/23

Sometimes quirky takes on classic literature work for me, and sometimes they really don’t. This could have been cute – Victor Frankenstein has a scientist sister who can do everything he can do, but they’re a WEIRD family, so when she realizes she can’t find love the usual way, she decides to make her perfect man. Except she reanimates a real person, and then she gaslights him every time he starts to remember his actual family. So not cool. Maybe she realizes what she’s doing is wrong, tells him the truth, and he falls in love with her anyway? Or she lets him go (because what she’s doing is wrong) and her real love turns out to be someone she already knew? I’ll never know.

A Twist of Fate by Kelley Armstrong

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Started: 7/14/23
Finished: 7/19/23

You know how romance series pick up the next character in line to fall in love? They’re usually family members or friends of the characters who fell in love in the previous book? This one is no different. A woman who was part of a mystery in the first book gets her own story, but the more interesting part here is that her love interest is already her husband. Way to subvert the tropes!

A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, A Court of Frost and Starlight, and A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

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Started: 2/21/23
Finished: 5/19/23

These are the rest of the ACOTAR books (so far). I’m lumping them together because I can’t remember what happens in which books. These got SO much better after the first one – the story is better, the writing is better, and I just want to spend more time with the characters. I’m looking forward to the next one, and I probably will reread them.

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

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Started: 1/26/23
Finished: 2/10/23

And THEN I started her third series. The writing was IMMEDIATELY so much better, even though the mix of tech and magic was a little hard to get into in the beginning. But someone dies 50 pages in and I CRIED because I was already that invested, so I declare this series good.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

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Started: 1/16/23
Finished: 1/18/23

Yes, I started this series. The writing was okay, but this was clearly a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and I like fairy tale retellings. The hero seemed pretty great, except when he didn’t, and the answer to the “riddle” was so obvious I thought I couldn’t possibly have it right. But also I didn’t care that much. I finished it to see what the hype was about. It was okay.

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

Started: 12/1/22
Finished: 12/5/22

Big happy sigh. I really enjoyed this book. It’s a romance, and it’s a family story, and it looks like it cannot possibly have a happy ending (except that I TOTALLY called it before I reached the halfway mark, but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment in any way), and it was really nice. I cried. Twice? Maybe.

Just Like Magic by Sarah Hogle

Started: 11/25/22
Finished: 11/27/22

I don’t usually read holiday books, and I don’t read a lot of romance novels, and I certainly don’t read a lot of holiday romances, but I loved this book. The main character is pretty awful at the beginning, but the book takes a ludicrous turn FAST, and it’s funny, and I swear I cried TWICE before it was over. Super light read, super ridiculous plot, oversimplified resolution, and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

The Charmed List by Julie Abe

Started: 10/5/22
Gave up: 10/8/22

I read a Buzzfeed article about cozy fantasy books for the fall, and this sounded promising. Magic hidden in plain sight in Palo Alto, cute little romance. And sure, those things happen. But the characters are in high school, and I just cannot. I literally said, “Ugh, teenagers,” when I put this one down for good.

The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu

Started: 9/18/22
Gave up: 9/22/22

Giving up two books in a row is never a good sign for my state of mind, but I think I’m justified here. I made it to 72% before I got tired of the drama between 22-year-olds. It started out cute, light, good immigrant family stuff, but at the point where I quit, stuff that had barely been hinted at in the first three quarters of the book was all of a sudden brought out and OH, here’s the obstacle our characters have to overcome, and ugh, I don’t care. Not a good setup.

The Undateable by Sarah Title

Started: 9/6/22
Gave up: 9/6/22

I love Jo Walton, but I do not love all that she recommends. She likes to read a lot of romance, which is not an issue in itself; I like romance, too. I just don’t like the ones SHE likes. This is at least the second one she has really enjoyed that I have put down EARLY.

This one is about two people who fall in love despite bickering the whole book, or so I’m told. I quit before they even met. The woman seemed fine, character-wise, and the writing didn’t bother me, from what little I read, but the man! What an ass. And the writing suffered from his point of view. In a page and a half, I was hit over the head 6 times with how he lives with his little sister. His sister? No, his little sister. Who is an adult with a job. But you say he lives with sister? No, he lives with his little sister. Who cares? How is this important? It’s either bad writing or a deliberate choice to make the guy look like he’s intimidated by his sister’s success and covering it by reminding HIMSELF at every opportunity that he’s older. Either way, it makes me not like him, and why would I bother reading a romance featuring a guy I do not like? He has a job barely works at and doesn’t care about and then tries to get someone fired when she suggests that maybe she could do his job better. Anyway, I quit.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

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Started: 10/16/21
Finished: 10/20/21

Sarah Gailey LOVED this book, and Tor.com praised it, so I figured I’d try it. It’s a romance that falls into science fiction because there’s a time loop/stuck in time trope involved. The characters are good, the story is good, there’s nothing not to like, and yet I’m a little meh about it. There was a little too much ending.