Books

Book 670: A Weekend with Mr. Darcy (Austen Addicts #1) – Victoria Connelly

Hello, TBR pile, it’s been a long time. I picked this e-book up EIGHT YEARS AGO. Who knows why I didn’t read it that summer, but I finally read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

When I picked up the book, there were only three books in Connelly’s Austen Addicts series, but since then it’s increased to six. I’m not sure I’ll read past Mr. Darcy Forever since it looks like Connelly may have switched publishers and those last three covers are frightful, but never say never right? It’s also probably a good thing I didn’t read it eight years ago when I had more time day-to-day because Connelly introduced me to the Republic of Pemberley, a Jane Austen message board/forum. I did a cursory look over it and yeah, I definitely would’ve gotten lost in that quagmire!

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Books

Book 648: Honestly Ben – Bill Konigsberg

This one was pretty forgettable for me, which is sad because it’s actually a good book. I think the problem is that I read Openly Straight, basically the first half of this book/story a little over five years ago. If I would’ve read these back to back I would’ve probably had much stronger feelings about this one.

Let’s start with what didn’t work: the swimming analogy. The book opens with Ben, the protagonist, going to swimming lessons for the first time and sinking to the bottom of the pool. Konigsberg uses this as a very clunky metaphor for Ben’s life and thoughts at the start of the book. I was honestly hoping it wouldn’t resurface at the end of the book—which isn’t totally fair because I would’ve been more pissed if he didn’t complete the metaphor—but it did and it just made me sigh and shake my head.

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Books

Book 636: Bloom – Kevin Panetta & Savanna Ganucheau

[Check out my updated 2024 response.]

SO MUCH CUTENESS!!!!!!!!

Seriously though! With the second volume of Ukazu’s Check, Please! being pushed back to April 2020, I needed more adorable gay comics/graphic novels in my life so I went searching at the local library and found this one. I’d seen it at a few bookstores in LGBT young adult sections, but hadn’t given it a second thought.

Bloom is the story of Ari Kyrkos and Hector Galea. It’s a coming of age, coming out, coming together, teen rom-com type book and it was wonderful. You’ve got the meet-cute, the miscommunication, the driving passions of each of them, the drama-point, and then the adorable make-up/happily-ever-after.

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Books

Book 630: Kade & Cameron (Something About Him #6) – A.D. Ellis

And I’m done. I actually read part of the acknowledgments, but only to confirm that Ellis does use beta readers and apparently has an editor/reading group, but I’m still suspicious. She also thanks someone for creating the covers for her and I’m still in awe that she loves them. I know you’re not supposed to judge, but they’re just bad.

95% sure it wasn’t worth the hate read, but at least it got me through them and I don’t feel like I wasted money on them. I just have to keep even more vigilant about self-published works, especially on Amazon.

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Books

Book 629: Ryker & Gavin (Something About Him #5) – A.D. Ellis

I think this is the one I hate-read the most. I say this because apart from the opening and closing lines, I only highlighted two lines/passages and one of those was because of its reappearance after an absence, but I’ll get to that.

Ryker’s mom kicks him out when he comes out. She gets a gay bff and then tries to reconcile with Ryker. Gavin is the gay bff who happened to be balls deep in Gavin a few days before said reconciliation. They decide to give it a go, don’t tell mom/bff, and shit hits the fan. Oh yeah and there’s a 14 year age difference that is a “big deal”.

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