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mautadite · 5 years

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july book round up

19 books this month, while means that i’ve finally pulled ahead and am 3 books ahead of schedule! YAY ME. i finally finished that training course for work and i’ve been making it up to myself big time. late in the month i took a subscription to audible escape :3 so expect a LOT of schmoopy romance on the horizon.

jane doe - victoria helen stone ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ good! i’m always up for a tale of a woman and revenge. this did do that whole ‘oooooh~ psychopathy is scary and sexy ooooh’ thing but not to a degree where it became unbearable. for me at least! your mileage may vary. triggery as hell and difficult to read at times, for all its lack of subtlety. i still enjoyed it.

the way of a man with a maid - rose lerner ⭐️⭐️⭐️ i realised i hadn’t read this story set in the universe of one of my favourite rose lerner books. it was enjoyable! a good illustration of how people often didn’t know each other (or ANYTHING) when they got married but that doesn’t always spell (permanent) disaster.

temeraire 1: his majesty’s dragon - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ i’ve been threatening to reread this series for years and ingrid finally gave me the impetus and i’m so happy. I LOVE THE BABY DRAGON AND HIS AWKWARD STUFFY SOUL MATE OF A HUMAN. the first book of the series is probably my favourite; nothing beats watching these nerds fall in aromantic love.

go tell it on the mountain - james baldwin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ BEAUTIFUL PROSE, so good it made me want to tear out my hair. i listened to the audiobook as read by adam lazarre-white, who is jacob taylor’s VA, so, you know. i was flipping out the whole time.

temeraire 2: throne of jade - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ or, baby dragon turns into social justice dragon. loved it.

no strings attached - harper bliss ⭐️⭐️⭐️ this was a cute, late-in-life coming out lesbian romance. i can’t say i’ve ever read a book with this EXACT plot but it was very simple. no alarms, no surprises.

kidnapped by the pirate - keira andrews ⭐️⭐️ i thought this would be good, tropey and fun, but it was only one of those three things. and hey, i like tropey. but nothing stood out about this, and i didn’t get the sense that the author went through the trouble to deeply research her setting. god save me from white people writing about the caribbean.

skybound series - fae sutherland ⭐️⭐️⭐️ the result of what happens when world-building is overlooked in favour of character interaction, and then the resultant character interaction isn’t very good. each of these three books held its own certain charm, (the romance in book 2 was really sweet) but they also all disappointed me in some way too. especially the third one. i can’t think of anything less satisfying than a character assuming an identity to escape one they don’t like/want, only to backpedal because another character thinks its cowardly or w/e.

temeraire 3: black powder war - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ four stars, but it technically deserves 5, since this is the book that introduces tharkay, and he is my boyfriend. kind of a damper sometimes tho.

london calling - clare lydon ⭐️ lesbian romance that meandered hopelessly, had an irritating writing style, and a ‘nothing happens’ plot. (which i usually don’t mind!) DNF; the protag uses a transphobic slur unchallenged, and i absconded.

temeraire 4: empire of ivory - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️ this is where people start saying that the series feels like a travelogue, but fuck it, i like travelogues. fuck riley tho. though i didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first two, the world-building around the tswana dragons and the slave trade is some of my very favourite.

blood is another word for hunger - rivers solomon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ really intriguing and fantastically written short story about a recently freed-by-her-own-hand slave who births a human being for every one she kills. i’ve mentioned that i love women taking revenge; i also love slaves taking revenge. great mix of history and magical realism.

the fall - robin alexander ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ favourite book of the month!!!! (barring the temeraire series.) really sweet lesbian meet cute romance, with family drama and hijinks, REALLY cute characters. one of the few books that sells itself as a ‘romantic comedy’ and really is; it was actually genuinely funny at times. listened to the audiobook which had a fantastic narrator, which made it all the better.

temeraire 5: victory of eagles - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️ god this book made me sad lol. :( necessarily so, because it had to deal with the fall out of the previous book, but agh. it was so much at times. definitely enjoyed it more on the reread tho. loved the dragon stuff, didn’t care about the war stuff.

the man on the third floor - anne bernays ⭐️⭐️⭐️ a historical m/m romance that was heavy on the history and light on the romance. which i don’t mind per se, because it was interesting to get into publishing house drama and post wwii society in the eyes of a jewish protagonist. but the character interaction was so terribly sparse. i don’t think we started getting to know barry as a person until the very last chapter.

temeraire 6: tongues of serpents - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️ KULINGILE. ALL IS WELL. 😭😭😭 (tharkay is in this book too so yay.)

temeraire 7: crucible of gold - naomi novik ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ one of my very favourite books since the first read!!!!! and tharkay’s not even in it!!!! i loved the incan dragons; i don’t know, they’s something very charming about people hoarding. i keep thinking back to the first one they met, and how jealous she got when she saw all the sailors temeraire had in his netting like ‘THOSE ARE ALL YOURS???’ and how she tried to hide her own humans from him like ‘YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY OF MINE...’ plus fun hijinks and my faves coming out and getting more screen time and riley fuckin dying at last... great book.

for august, i look forward to finishing my temeraire reread, finally reading the ninth book, and perhaps starting an HDM reread. and more sappy romance lol. currently rereading blood of tyrants, the 8th temeraire book, and listening to a cute lesbian romance: just jorie.

#book talk #long post

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