ARC, Books

Book 728: Where the Boys Are – Christopher Murphy

I took quite a few days before writing this review because I wanted to be thoughtful in my critique and honest in what did and didn’t work.

It’s always a little bit harder to write a response to a novel when it’s the author who reaches out to you to review their work.* I know how much of themselves authors put into their books and to then put it out in the world, I mean come on that’s more nerve than I’ll probably ever muster, so kudos to all of you out there brave enough to do it.

I’m going to start with what didn’t work, and then end on a high with the things that I really enjoyed about this work. So, stick with me because there were DEFINITELY some highlights!

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Book 667: Firewall – Eugenia Lovett West

I’m not going to lie, when I read the first line of this one I got super nervous. The last time I read a book from a non-major publishing company that was set in Boston, I was VERY disappointed. So it was a good thing I was pleasantly surprised by this one—especially as it came from the same publicity company!*

Firewall is actually the third in the Emma Streat mystery series and I wouldn’t usually take on a book mid-series. However, West’s story of not getting published until she was in her 70s and then again in her 90s (Concord Monitor News) was intriguing and the blurb for this was just interesting enough to tempt me.

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Book 595: Tableau Numéro 20 – Est Em

I came across this on Grace’s blog, Books Without Any Pictures, and her description of it being out of the normal for manga pulled me in. It didn’t hurt that it was short stories, which I’ll talk more about later. I requested this one because of the Spanish title and story names. The other I requested from the library was Don’t Be Cruel (#1 & #2), just because…

I was surprised the library had it, but then I remembered that it was yaoi and not bara (like Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, which is SO much 100% more sexually explicit. This was the first yaoi I’ve ever read and it was interesting and honestly the part that caught me most off guard was the authors mention of her blood type in the afterward – I was like wait WTF?

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Book 583: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (Fantastic Beasts #2) – J.K. Rowling

Of course I was going to read this. It actually arrived in my mailbox the same day we saw the film (the first time :-D). If I’m honest, I’m impressed I only saw it twice AND it took me this long to read it. There was a lot to take in and with so much dialogue, reading this sooner would’ve helped A LOT.

With this being a screenplay, I can totally cop-out and say read this review of the film, ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald’: Beasts? Check. Crimes? Check. Fantastic? Not Quite. from NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour blog because Glen Weldon NAILS it.

I’m not planning to go into the major spoilers of the franchise so you should be okay to read as long as you don’t highlight the closing line of the book, but if you don’t want to know ANYTHING, then don’t read this! You’ve been warned.

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Book 543: The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

We moved last month and I had to shuffle books around and needed to pull one of a certain size off my shelf and this one was it so I figured might as well read it and I’m glad I did! I honestly thought this was on my Classics Club list, but apparently it wasn’t when I went to document it on my lists.

Apparently, I picked it up as part of my re-read books from high school that you didn’t like to see how they/I have changed after attending a panel at the 2012 Boston Book Festival. Although I didn’t read this one in high school, I read Ethan Frome, which of course I was disgruntled about because it wasn’t Star Wars or fantasy. Now I am again interested in the retelling that I mention, so who knows I might revisit this sooner than I think. Continue reading “Book 543: The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton”