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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Books

Book 729: Star Wars: Ahsoka – E.K. Johnston

This book reads a lot like a multi-episode arc of Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show (IMDb link), which is great because that’s the reason I read the book. When I started the TV series I was not a fan of Ahsoka, but she grew on me as a character and I desperately wanted to know what happened to her after the incredibly wonderful series finale of Clone Wars. I knew I needed to read this before I watched (or got too far into) Star Wars: Rebels and I did.

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Books

Book 720: Camp – L.C. Rosen

So, this is apparently the LGBTQ+ young adult book darling of summer 2020, or at least that’s what it feels like. I’ve seen it on so many lists, numerous bloggers/instagrammers I follow have already read it and sung its praises, and I know it’s already been optioned for a film.

Honestly, though I don’t get it. It was good but it wasn’t that good, even if it is all about fighting toxic masculinity. It reminded me a lot of the early 2000s teen RomComs, specifically She’s All That and Never Been Kissed. AND there are so many other books that have similar strains of finding your happily ever after by pretending to be someone you’re not and everyone overcoming the shock factor to just say omg yes, we’re in love. My response is of course rather vague so as not to spoil too much of anything if you decide you want to read it.

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Books

Book 719: Wheels Up (Out of Uniform #4) – Annabeth Albert

I’m not sure if this is Albert’s first foray into kink, but honestly it was a little underwhelming on the kink front. The only reason I mention this and start my review with it is I feel like there was a warning or a mention of it in the front matter and I was like oh this should be interesting.

Maybe I’ve just read works with a lot more kink in them, even though it’s not my usual fare, but this one just seemed so tame. Either way, Albert continues to bring beautifully written character driven romances to my world, tugging at my heart strings will making me blush constantly.

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Books

Book 709: Arctic Heat (Frozen Hearts #3) – Annabeth Albert

In the final book of Annabeth Albert’s Frozen Hearts series, she takes the heat and turns it up in a winter setting! I felt this was one of the only things missing from the previous two entries in the series (Arctic Sun and Arctic Wild), especially because the protagonists living in Alaska put so much effort and emphasis on whether the mainlanders would survive an Alaskan winter.

Arctic Heat introduces us to Quill, the stoic ranger who was part of the team who rescued Toby and Reuben in Arctic Wild, and Owen, a cancer survivor checking things off his bucket list which included volunteering for a winter in Alaska. And if there’s one thing about this series that Owen nails in one line, it’s the opening line of this novel: “Come for the snow. Stay for the ranger porn.” So maybe it doesn’t fit the entire series, but I guess if you put “rugged outdoors man” instead of ranger you’d get it in one.

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