Books

Book 1,047: Confessions of a Shy Baker – Masaomi Ito

When I went through my massive manga streak while slogging through the Hockey Ever After series, this was one of the ones that was immediately available via my local library. It had older characters who I thought might be nicer to read, there seem to be a lot of high school/university age character manga, with fewer adult and real-world overall.

This is the story of Toshimitsu, a real estate business owner who bakes in his spare time, and Gonta, a care giver, who have been together for some time. The story revolves around their day-to-day lives and the stresses at work (both business and personal) and their ability to relax at home.

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Books

Book 1,045: Scoring Position (#2) & 1,046: Winging It (#1) (Hockey Ever After) – Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James

Yes—I accidentally read these out of order. I didn’t realize Winging It was the first in the series and only figured it out 1/3 of the way through Scoring Position so of course I immediately had to download the first and start it right after.

Overall, this series was good, and these first two books were well written, and the stories were engaging, but OMFG they were all entirely way too long, or not well paced. More on that later.

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Books

Book 1,044: Winning Bracket – Annabeth Albert

In general, Annabeth Albert can do nothing wrong. She’s explored some kinks that weren’t exactly for me, and she’s written a few books that were meh overall, but every one of them contains well written character written romances and this one was no different. Winning Bracket was a bit of your standard nerd/jock trope added in with a bit of friendly competition and long suppressed feelings for each other.

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Books

Book 1,043: Northranger – Rey Terciero & Bre Indigo

I don’t know how I didn’t know about this one sooner. I mean, I do. Life has been incredibly busy and non-stop post-pandemic, and 2022-2024 was a blur of classes and life, which explains how this 2023 release slipped under my radar, but OMG I’m so glad I found it. Terciero takes Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and turns it into a wonderful MM romance while Bre Indigo does a fantastic job of capturing a Texas ranch in this adaptation.

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Books

Book 1,041: Would You Like to Be a Family? – koyama

Apparently, there are three stories in this one short collection, and I only remember one, so that doesn’t bode well. The biggest struggle for me was the style. I’m not the biggest fan of the super stretched out/tall bodies and super angular faces. I think it just makes them all look creepy.

The story itself was actually very cute (or least the one I remember) Takemura is a shy loner who had a bad bullying experience in high school, so he keeps to himself, but his coworker Natsui is outgoing and has tried to engage him before. They meet one evening in the grocery store and Takemura finds out Natsui has a kid and can’t get out of a dinner invite.

Before you know it, they’re all hanging out all the time. There’s even an awkward moment where Takemura has to go pick up the kid (cannot remember their names) and it goes well even though Takemura is SOO nervous. In the end the kid is the one that’s like hey you need to move in here, we’re always happier when you’re here. I’m 99% sure the book was sex free and that anything that did or didn’t happen was 100% off page and it was kind of refreshing knowing how edgy manga/yaoi/BL can get.

Recommendation: It’s a cute read. I’m a little concerned I have ZERO recollection of the other stories, but the entire book was pretty short, so they must’ve been even shorter. Illustration style wasn’t my jam, but I could see where others like it as there are quite a few in this style.