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Book 746: Best Laid Plaids (Kilty Pleasures #1) – Ella Stainton

If you don’t know this about me, I very much enjoy a pun. Unexpected, unplanned puns are the best, but any pun will do. So when Ella Stainton reached out to me about her debut novel, a book set in Scotland titled Best Laid Plaids as part of the Kilty Pleasures series, I of course said yes.* And then, when I finished it and saw the title of book two, Where There’s a Kilt, There’s a Way, clearly I was in pun heaven.

For a debut MM romance novel, it was pretty good. There were definitely some parts that could use some work, but overall, I enjoyed the read.

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Book 741: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong

I have no idea where this book came from. I was 100% certain it was a recommendation by Kat Chow on the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, but I can’t find a reference to it anywhere. I did, however, find this wonderful story (profile?) in The Atlantic written by Kat about spending an afternoon with Vuong, who happened to be a few years ahead of her in high school.

No matter where it came from I’ve been trailing this book from the BPL for months. I was on hold for a long time and then it finally came available at the same time they offered the ability to delay claiming the book, so I delayed for weeks. I knew I needed to be in the right mindset to read it, but I couldn’t remember why. Well, I finally felt ready to read it and I’m SO glad I waited.

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Book 735: The Jane Austen Society – Natalie Jenner

Talk about a change of pace! I kept putting this off when it came up from my library. I was loving all the MM romance and young adult books I’ve been reading, but I finally just said okay. It was 100% worth it to slow down and take the village life pace to read this and not rush through it like some of the high-intensity romances I’ve read recently.

I’m pretty sure I stumbled across this on bookstagram and new I’d get to it eventually. I don’t discriminate between books inspired by Austen’s works, life or legacy—they’re all fair game to me and each new one I read adds a new dimension to my understanding/enjoyment of Austen and her continued impact on society.

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Book 734: It’s a Steal – Arden O’Keefe

This is not a good book. It is not well written (story or characters) and it is definitely not well edited (any type, but especially copy or developmental). The shocking part, to me at least, is that I have to assume the author has paid an editor (listed in the front matter) AND a promotional group (Gay Romance Reviews) to produce this “final copy” version and I’m still writing this scathing commentary on it.*

If I were the author and read what I’m about to write, I’d demand my money back from the editor and politely ask the promotion company to pause all promotions while I paid someone else to re-edit it. But take my response for what it’s worth, the other Goodreads reviews have all rated it 3-5 stars and complemented the “cute story”.

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Books

Book 731 & 732: Date Me, Bryson Keller – Kevin van Whye

It’s so nice I read it twice—no, seriously. I finished it and then the next morning decided I wanted to read it again. That’s twice this year (excluding illustrated/graphic novels)! The other double read this year was Two for Trust and the real connection of the two is that they could both be easily turned into one of those wonderfully cheesy made-for-TV movies that whenever you see it you just leave it on and inevitably get drawn into it.

You could definitely see where van Whye got his inspiration for this #ownvoices story. He acknowledged he was inspired by She’s All That (IMDb link) from the 90s, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han. And this definitely deserves to be up there with these great coming of age stories.

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