Books

Book 754: The Friend Scheme – Cale Dietrich

I’ve honestly stopped keeping track of where I see books. I just add them to a list or request them at the library and then when they come in I read them and spend 10-15 minutes trying to find out where I found them. In essence, I have no clue where I saw this, but thank you to whoever put it on my radar.

If I’m honest, the cover art drew me to the book, I like the graphic identity and the clean lines and with both their eyes closed it just made it that much more pleasing to the eye. You can sort of read the stress in Matt’s posture (right) and Jason kind of looks above it all.

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Books

Book 752: Rough Terrain (Out of Uniform #7) – Annabeth Albert

I knew I was going to love Annabeth Albert’s Out of Uniform series when I read Save the Date her military crossover with Wendy Qualls Heart of the South series and boy was I right!

I’m not going to spend this entire post waxing poetic about the series, but suffice to say the entire series was wonderfully written with great characters and engaging storylines. And this was a wonderful finale to the primary stories.

I’m sad that I’m finished, but only a little bit sad as I know I have SIX short stories that feature these characters to read at some distant point in the future.

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Books

Book 751: Tight Quarters (Out of Uniform #6) – Annabeth Albert

I think this might be my least favorite from Albert’s Out of Uniform series. Maybe it’s because the others were so great, but this one just didn’t do it for me.

It’s not bad, it was just sort of middle-of-the road steamy MM romance for me. It could be that I didn’t really identify with either Bacon/Del (the Navy SEAL of this book) or Spencer (the silver fox journalist—hello Anderson Cooper stand in), but it just fell a little flat for me even though I rated it pretty high because it was still a great story with super-hot sex scenes.

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Books

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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Books

Book 740: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (To All the Boys #1) – Jenny Han

We watched this adaptation on Netflix when it was first released and when I noticed the second in the trilogy was released I realized I wanted to go back and read the source. And really, there weren’t that many differences which was refreshing.

The move rarely strays from the book and I enjoyed the opportunity to revisit with Lara Jean and her dramatic junior year of high school. The book, more so than the movie, better captured the emotions of the three young women growing up without a mother at what is obviously a momentous time in their lives. And I really enjoyed the extended family information and few interactions.

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