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possibilityleft) wrote2025-12-27 07:21 pm
possibilityleft) wrote2025-12-27 07:21 pm
Freshwater, Girls Girls Girls, Heated Rivalry, Holly, Provenance, & 4 more
The holidays have come and gone, and it's nearly time for a reading recap and fresh goals for next year!! How delightful.
*****
Book reviews:
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi -- I read this for my queer book club and it was a very uncomfortable read. The book is full of self-harm and rape and mental health issues; it's certainly not something I would have picked myself but this was the last one before the changeover so we got through it.
Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blackensee -- A lesbian coming of age novel set in the 1990s, and beautifully centered in gay San Fransisco of that time. Two secret girlfriends drive across the country to SF to learn how to be gay adults. There's a lot of struggle here, but a lot of love. I really enjoyed it.
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid -- I did read the gay hockey book because I wanted to watch the gay hockey show and idk how they're putting that on TV lol even HBO. This book was better than the first one in the series, but the author's character work is still pretty weak and I found the ending really disappointing. The sex scenes were good.
Here for the Wrong Reasons by Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang -- Two of the women on an expy of The Bachelor end up falling for each other, but resist their connection in hopes of winning the show, until it all becomes too real. I liked this; I felt like the side characters were also well sketched.
Holly by Stephen King -- I don't think I've read anything Stephen King has written since around 2003 (not because I dislike him, but because there's so many books in the world), but a friend recommended this to me and I really enjoyed it. More of a thriller/detective novel than a straight horror book, Holly stars a smart, practical detective woman whose investigation of a missing young adult spirals out into discovering a serial killer. The book was entirely too long, but I will be reading more of the books where Holly is a character.
In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti -- A scandalous m/f romance novella in the same series as the Margo book I read last week. When Matilda's erotic art is manipulated to resemble a real, brooding widower, he confronts her, and then neither of them can get each other out of their minds. Sweet and sexy.
Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante by Monica Nolan -- A light-hearted modern pulp novel in which a temporarily-cut-off heiress has to join the working world and learn to support herself, while investigating odd mysteries to do with her inheritance and a mysterious hot butch woman who might be a mobster. This was very fun.
Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher -- A very cute short novel in which a very young mage and his armadillo familiar have to go on a quest to bring the rain back to his town. It's technically middle-grade but I really liked it anyway.
Provenance by Ann Leckie -- A political thriller set in the Imperial Radch universe, this reminded me a bit of A Memory Called Empire. There was only one POV character this time which I really appreciated. Ingray decides to take a big swing to impress her politician mother and finds herself embroiled in political scandals that could affect her homeworld and others. I could hardly put this down until I was done.
*****
Book reviews:
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi -- I read this for my queer book club and it was a very uncomfortable read. The book is full of self-harm and rape and mental health issues; it's certainly not something I would have picked myself but this was the last one before the changeover so we got through it.
Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blackensee -- A lesbian coming of age novel set in the 1990s, and beautifully centered in gay San Fransisco of that time. Two secret girlfriends drive across the country to SF to learn how to be gay adults. There's a lot of struggle here, but a lot of love. I really enjoyed it.
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid -- I did read the gay hockey book because I wanted to watch the gay hockey show and idk how they're putting that on TV lol even HBO. This book was better than the first one in the series, but the author's character work is still pretty weak and I found the ending really disappointing. The sex scenes were good.
Here for the Wrong Reasons by Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang -- Two of the women on an expy of The Bachelor end up falling for each other, but resist their connection in hopes of winning the show, until it all becomes too real. I liked this; I felt like the side characters were also well sketched.
Holly by Stephen King -- I don't think I've read anything Stephen King has written since around 2003 (not because I dislike him, but because there's so many books in the world), but a friend recommended this to me and I really enjoyed it. More of a thriller/detective novel than a straight horror book, Holly stars a smart, practical detective woman whose investigation of a missing young adult spirals out into discovering a serial killer. The book was entirely too long, but I will be reading more of the books where Holly is a character.
In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti -- A scandalous m/f romance novella in the same series as the Margo book I read last week. When Matilda's erotic art is manipulated to resemble a real, brooding widower, he confronts her, and then neither of them can get each other out of their minds. Sweet and sexy.
Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante by Monica Nolan -- A light-hearted modern pulp novel in which a temporarily-cut-off heiress has to join the working world and learn to support herself, while investigating odd mysteries to do with her inheritance and a mysterious hot butch woman who might be a mobster. This was very fun.
Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher -- A very cute short novel in which a very young mage and his armadillo familiar have to go on a quest to bring the rain back to his town. It's technically middle-grade but I really liked it anyway.
Provenance by Ann Leckie -- A political thriller set in the Imperial Radch universe, this reminded me a bit of A Memory Called Empire. There was only one POV character this time which I really appreciated. Ingray decides to take a big swing to impress her politician mother and finds herself embroiled in political scandals that could affect her homeworld and others. I could hardly put this down until I was done.
