Toward the end of January 2024, I was coming out of an intense January term course and entering my final semester of grad school and I needed a break so I leaned HEAVILY into graphic novels. It started a random evening when I passed the bookshelf in our bedroom where my graphic novels live on the top shelf. I was like “OH I could read all of #Hockey! tonight as a palate cleanser.”
Book 1,032: Something Like Summer (Something Like . . . #1) – Jay Bell
I have had this book on my radar for as long as I can remember. Definitely long before the 2017 adaptation (which I still need to watch), but I’m not sure when or how I heard of it. I’m sure it was back in the early 2010s not long after it was originally written, and I was desperate to find LGBT love stories. What a world we’re in now where there’s a plethora of all genres and all tastes!
Something Like Summer is the tale of the tumultuous relationship between openly gay Ben who is a total nerd and artsy and the new kid Tim who’s moved to town and immediately falls in with the popular kids. What starts out as an unrequited crush quickly turns into a DL friends with benefits and Bell takes it from there through a lifetime.
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Book 1,031: Speak of the Devil – Rose Wilding
OMFG. I can’t believe I waited as long as I did to read this. I accepted an ARC ages ago from the publisher, but then school and life got in the way and I blew past the publication date.* Then there were so many MM Holiday Romances I just had to read, and this is where we ended up me reading it in January 2024, six months after publication, and then finally getting the review posted almost a year to the date after publication (six months after I read it but back-scheduling). OH, THE SHAME.
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Book 1,030: Idol Minds (Idol Romance #1) – K.T. Salvo
I’m not sure when I discovered this novel, but when I did, I was SUPER excited. When we first got Barnaby—@BarnabytheBernedoodle on Insta—I got really into the BL shows on Viki Rakuten. And this novel was made to be one of those shows and or happen while one of those shows was being made so of COURSE I was going to read it—see the first quote below. Plus, I’ve always needed to do better about diversifying the protagonists of the books I read, especially the MM Romances.
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Book 1,029: Racing into Love (Cut to the Feeling #1) – Noah Steele
Oof. Steele is hit or miss for me, and this was a HUGE miss. After reading Heartthrob back in late 2022, I knew I wanted to read more by Steele, but it seems he’s only just hit his stride with Heartthrob, because this one was just not good and the middle one Catch Me If I Fall was mediocre, and I think that had more to do with timing than the book itself.
On the surface I should’ve loved Racing Into Love, awkward bookstore owner Aiden, is forced to face his fears when he meets athlete/race car driver Derrek, in order for them to be together.
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