Destiny (howling libraries)

This was absolutely stunning. What a beautiful theme, for a young woman to utilize her nightmares to explore her own sexuality during the time of witch hunts and Puritanical murder. The art was beautiful and I breezed through the story with a level of investment I haven't easily found in books lately. 10/10 recommending this to anyone who enjoys folk horror and eroticism, historical witch hunt stories, and/or The VVitch.

So sweet. We didn't get to see the tension build up as much between the two characters since they had known each other for a while before the story began, but that also gave it a sense of believability that I didn't mind at all. I LOVED the bits about Peyton's disability and how it affected her, especially how Joshua treated her - being unafraid to touch her stump, not treating her as a fragile thing, understanding her fears without pitying or trying to coddle her.

✨ Representation: FMC with an amputated arm

✨ Content warnings: trauma, brief mentions of shark attacks, anxiety/panic attacks, PTSD, explicit sex

A cute, sweet, fun time. Heavy on the insta-love, but I've reached a point in my life where I don't mind it so much in fluffy romance novellas.

I love Bree Paulsen's books so darn much, and this was just as precious and wonderful as I hoped it would be. It's definitely heavier than Bree's Garlic books, given that our sibling main characters have one deceased parent and one terminally ill parent and they are living in the aftermath of a terrible war. That said, the love that shines through this family of characters is truly something special. It's a tense read at times, but it's worth the ride. I'm forever in awe of Bree Paulsen's stories and can't wait to read whatever they release next!

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also gifted an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: BIPOC and/or queer characters, transmasc side character, implied ace/aro character

✨ Content warnings: death of a parent, terminal illness, grief, war, violence

I generally enjoy all of Junji Ito's works, but this was one of my favorites of his collections! I loved the fact that these were all adaptations of a person's actual, true life stories, so they didn't typically wrap up neatly or end with any sort of explanation. I found each story to be at least slightly unsettling, with a few legitimately creeping me out. I'd be interested in reading the source material at some point in the future, perhaps, though Junji Ito did admit that he took some liberties, so they might not be as captivating! 🤣

I'm leaving a review without a rating because I think I would've enjoyed this as a young teen, maybe even loved it. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me, but I'm not the target audience here, either. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that I struggled with the levels of angst and how romance-heavy the story was (despite not personally feeling like the characters would be a compatible pairing in the first place). I also found the villains to be very over-the-top and I predicted the twists very early in, which left me feeling irritated with the main character's total lack of awareness.

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also gifted an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: Andrew is asexual and gay; Thomas is bisexual/pansexual; multiple side characters are queer

✨ Content warnings: violence, gore, death, body horror, grief, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, verbal abuse from authority figures, physically abusive parents, mental illness, anxiety/panic attacks, disordered eating, self-harm

He’d dragged me out of the gray world I’d been living in and taught me how to see colors again.

Look, I didn't know what to expect going into this book because honestly, it felt like there was a really good chance it wasn't going to live up to the hype for me. I didn't even think I liked stalker romances that much! I guess Aly and Josh weren't the only ones learning new things about themselves here. 🤷‍♀️

Lights Out is literally one of the funniest, most delightful books I have ever read. There were times where I was listening to the audiobook after my family went to bed and literally was sitting there in the dark with TEARS streaming down my face from how hard I was trying to stifle my laughter, and I honestly don't know if that has ever happened to me with a rom-com. 10/10, no notes. I can't wait for book 2.

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also gifted an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Content warnings: graphic sex, BDSM, kinks, stalking, voyeurism, violence, murder, discussions of rape/assault, home invasion, spying, hacking, death of a parent, grief, mentions of serial killers, mentions of cannibalism, vomit, medical content/settings

"I'm someone who hurt you and I'm despairingly in love with you and I canna bear to be both those things at once."

I loved this book so much. Lochlann has such a special place in my heart! His rage and anguish over the way his holiday was being treated, both from within and by outsiders, had me so deeply in my feelings. Don't even get me started on how hard he fell for our little anxiety baby Kris. 😭

Kris, on the other hand, frustrated me in the beginning, but then I realized that it was because his lashing out and depression hit TOO close to home. Once I set that aside, I loved him almost as much as I loved Coal in book 1. 🥺

Sara Raasch, PLEASE give us a 3rd book from Iris' POV! I need it! 😭♥️

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: bi/pan MC, queer love interest, queer side characters

✨ Content warnings: emotional/verbal abuse from parents, neglectful parents, alcohol, loss of parents, grief, explicit sex, anxiety/panic attacks

I always love Kealan's work, so I figured I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day by picking up a new-to-me read from my favorite Irish author! It was a damn good choice. I loved this collection. I'm fascinated by the idea of haunted pieces of art anyway, but also, I enjoyed that it wasn't only about paintings - the final story was even about music, which I wasn't expecting but really loved.

My favorite story of the collection was the first one, which was so sad and lovely, but all of them were fantastic! I highly recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys short horror stories, especially if you're looking to get into Kealan's work.

... I should have read the spoiler reviews.

I went into this book totally oblivious, knowing nothing about it except that it was very controversial. I'll admit that it piqued my interest and I bought the ebook from the author's site on a whim, wondering, "How bad could it be?" Well, friends, how bad it could be was that this entire book is a romance story between a 16/17-year-old girl and her dad.

Honestly, I think the worst part was killing off the mom a chapter in just to fridge her character and make room for these two to hook up, but really, there's a lot of stuff to choose from here that's frankly even more offensive than the incest. The entire book was a shitshow stacked on top of a trainwreck and I'll probably never reach for a K. Webster book again.

This odd little book has been a real source of discussion lately, and after reading it, I can see why. Told through the perspective of a child, there's a devastating sadness and unsettling nature to her upbringing that claws its way under your skin and remains there. I wanted to take Margot right out of these twisted pages and hold her, but she's far from an innocent little girl - and, somehow, her own terrible behaviors and thoughts about the world made me love her that much more. The ending of this book is going to stay with me for a long time to come, and despite how much heartache the entire story brought me, I'm already itching to read it once more.

This was adorable. I love a good, cute, gay rom-com and this definitely delivered! The holiday fantasy elements were a great backdrop to this sweet 'star-crossed lovers' romance, but what really stole the show for me was Hex's character. I mean, anyone who knows me at all would NOT be surprised to hear that I adored the Prince of Halloween, but that's beside the point. 🤣 He was SO funny and precious and soft, and I just loved him to bits! I can't wait to continue the series and I really hope we get cameos of Coal and Hex in future installments.

✨ Representation: bi MC, queer love interest, queer side characters, Mexican love interest, Black side character

✨ Content warnings for: loss of a sibling, loss of a parent, abandonment from a parent, grief, insecurity, emotional and verbal abuse from a parent, mentions of physical abuse, mentions of toxic relationships, alcohol, vomit, blackmail

I loved this. I'm suffering, but I loved this. 😭

I have to say I enjoyed this more than Iron Flame. I'm genuinely at a bit of a loss as to why so many people hated this installment or chose this moment to DNF the series. I respect opposing opinions, don't get me wrong... 😅 I just thought it was a really fun, likeable continuation of the series. It wasn't the best writing I've ever read or anything, but that's not really what I love this series for. I'm here for the characters and dragons I love and the fun battle scenes, and this one provided all of that in droves!

Buddy read with Misty! ♥️

This was mostly a pretty cute read, though it definitely wasn't perfect. I picked up this one out of the middle of the series, so there were a lot of characters that I didn't know but I assume I would have; that said, it functioned well as a standalone and I didn't feel like I was missing anything important by not starting at the beginning of the series.

Farrah was a likable enough FMC, though she suffered from the same problem all of the other characters did: she felt flat and one-dimensional at times. I enjoyed her most of all when interacting with her kids, because I felt like Hoss' writing shone in the motherly love depicted there. Gage felt pretty flat at times, too, but like Farrah and her kids, I enjoyed him most when spending time with his family.

I had a handful of minor problems throughout the book, like stilted bits of dialogue, but my biggest problem definitely boiled down to the third act breakup. It absolutely enraged me and I had a hard time forgiving Gage for his actions, even though the story tried to force in this ideal that he was doing it "for the greater good". It was so aggravating and ultimately led to my being unable to care much at all about the end of the book, even though the breakup was such a short portion of it overall.

I hate being negative about indie romance books, especially ones that don't have a ton of ratings, but I didn't enjoy the writing in this at all. It was a classic case of an author attempting to cram a full novel's worth of back story, angst, and personal traumas into a 50-page short story and it did not work.

update: february 8th, 2019:

That was just as magical and beautiful and sweet the second time. I have to say that Luca and Imre are one of my favorite OTPs of all time, and I just don't think I'm ever going to stop gushing about this incredible story. ♥

——————

first read: june 16th, 2018:

When I first heard about this book, the author was accepting ARC requests, and I immediately had to send one in. Feel free to judge my long love of this “taboo”, but I have loved age gap romances ever since I was a preteen. My favorite theme in age gap pairings is when the older individual is this sort of mature, caring, stoic type, while the younger is still wild and angsty and trying to find their place in the world… which basically sums up Imre and Luca, but there’s so much more to it than that, too.

Some people were born with a thick skin; some developed it over time. Luca had been born with skin like paper, and a crystal heart.

Luca, the younger man, is a gay 19-going-on-20-year-old, and is an utter wreck inside. He’s got a turbulent home life, and he’s desperate for love and attention, especially from Imre, who he swears he’s been in love with practically his entire life. I know, there’s a lot of potential for the relationship to come across as “grooming”, but let me go ahead and put your mind at ease: nothing in this coupling felt inappropriate or pedophilic to me whatsoever, and Imre is honestly as innocent as they come.

He’d had massive hands, hands that could crush granite to dust, this great dark earthen god with the strength of stone, but he’d handled everything—from his tiny, bleating goat kids to the smallest clover flower to Luca himself—with a gentleness that flowed from his hands like water, imbued with a living warmth. And Luca had been in love with him, the way only little boys could be.

For every place that Luca warms my heart with his fragility and tenderness, Imre turns me into a damn puddle with how kind and gentle and honest he is. He’s a goat farmer, but he loves and cherishes all of his animals so much, and he’s just the most ridiculously precious “gentle giant” sort of character that I’m a complete sucker for. He constantly deals with this internal warring over his growing feelings for Luca, and sometimes, his perspectives are so hard to read because you can just feel the agonizing guilt in his chest.

That was the problem with Imre; he was so honest, so rawly and quietly true, that his honesty seemed to ask for the same from everyone.

Beyond the romance and Luca’s coming-of-age story, there are a few underlying currents that I loved: 1) Imre’s demisexuality, which Luca speaks frequently about how much he respects and how terrified he is of violating; and 2) Imre’s Romani heritage. There’s a scene where he mentions feeling like his culture has been watered down and erased due to the forced displacement of his ancestors, and it is absolutely heartbreaking and so incredibly necessary. Romani rep is something that I feel like we see so rarely, and I loved Cole for adding those pieces in to Imre’s fabric.

He would destroy himself for this kiss.

It’s a long book, clocking in at just under 600 pages, but it’s such a fast read, and so addicting; I literally read this in one day, and could not focus on anything else until I finished it. It is a sloooooow burn in the best way, and the payoff is passionate, sweet, and worth every moment of building up. AND there are baby goats, sooo…

Luca and Imre are my new favorite adult contemporary OTP, and I strongly encourage every single fan of contemporary romance to pick this book up ASAP! ♥

I love Darcy Coates' ghost stories so much that sometimes I forget how great she is at writing suspenseful mysteries, too! I LOVE murder mysteries like this, with a group of strangers trapped together in the middle of nowhere, and I was honestly on the edge of my seat for quite a lot of the story. The ending did feel a bit rushed to me, but not enough to dull my enjoyment!

Eventually, I'll write reviews for these books, but the short of it is that I loved this so much more the second time around.

I think Jon Athan's books and I probably don't get along, and I need to accept that and stop trying them out. The plots always intrigue me, but the writing is less than ideal (and riddled with a heavy overuse of metaphor and simile), the characters are flat and self-contradicting, and the suspension of disbelief required to buy into literally ANYTHING that happened in this story was too much for me to handle. I like over-the-top gore and violence, but it has to be at least a tiny bit believable. Don't even get me started on how stupid literally every single character in this book was, either. 💀

Lucas is happy. This is a very provoking thing to the world. Because people aren’t supposed to be happy, they’re only supposed to want to be happy, because how otherwise are you supposed to be able to sell things to them?

I absolutely adored this. It was my first time reading anything from Fredrik Backman after years of having his books on my TBR and hearing people rave about him, and now, I can understand why. This story made me laugh, and then it made me cry, because it so succinctly nailed down several elements of loneliness, grief, personal growth, letting your walls down, and just... the human existence in general. I never expected this funny, odd little story with its incredibly bizarre premise to leave me weeping into my pillow near the end (in a good way, somehow?), but here we are.

Lucas is happy. It’s not as hard as one might think to become, the hard part is just to keep being it. It’s hard because it’s so easy to get in your head that if you are to be happy, you have to be happy exactly all of the time. And who in the world has the energy for that? Happiness can be exhausting. Honestly, it’s most often enough to just not be the opposite. So, Lucas isn’t unhappy. That’s the secret.

I love Pigeon Gazette and this was absolutely adorable. Very relatable, very cute, 10/10 do recommend.

This was a good time! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator's bubbly charm was really unique and fun for a horror novella. I'll be honest upfront and say that Ro aggravated me a bit, even though I could empathize with her - she wasn't a badly written character, just a little TOO real in some of her red-flag-ignoring nonsense. 😅 I guessed the ending ahead of time, but thought it was such a fun (and messed up) way to wrap things up.

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also gifted an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: queer (bi/pan/sapphic) MC and love interest, sapphic romance

✨ Content warnings for: violence, death, animal death (not Ro's cat), murder, kidnapping, imprisonment, mutilation, cannibalism, mentions of childhood abuse (verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual), mentions of infidelity

I had high hopes this would be really cute, but most of the comics fell short, reminding me of those bland one-liners I read in newspapers as a kid.

Like most anthologies, this was definitely a mixed bag for me. While there were some real gems, there were also an unfortunate number of stories that left me wanting more. I'd rather focus on the standout pieces, though, so I have to shout out a few favorites: 'Mr. Butler' by Clay McLeod Chapman, 'Nice' by Nat Cassidy, 'Thaw' by Rachel Harrison, and 'Ghosted' by Mercedes M. Yardley.

I'm not sure this anthology will stick out in my memory much overall, but I enjoyed my time with it enough to recommend it to any readers looking for some chilling, wintry horror tales.

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also gifted an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own.

Life was like a language I couldn't speak.

I've been meaning to read this for WAY too long, and I'm glad I finally did. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author and it was lovely! I love grief-themed horror stories and this one portrayed it beautifully. While the more horror-centric elements of the plot lost me at times, I kept being drawn back in by not only the protagonist's commentary on grief and loss, but also by her own mental struggles with simply existing. I thought the ending felt a little bit rushed and wouldn't have minded the novella being longer, but overall, I really enjoyed it.

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also gifted an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: sapphic Mi'kmaq main character, sapphic side character, portrayal of a sapphic relationship

✨ Content warnings for: grief, loss of a parent, terminal illness, suicidal ideation, erasure of Native culture, climate crisis descriptions, parental abuse (brief)