Books

Book 789: Summer Lessons (Winter Ball #2) – Amy Lane

After finishing Wolf Hall, I knew I was going to need a bit of a breather and where else to turn but the next book in a romance series I’d already started and the library just happened to have?

I enjoyed this one a lot more than the first one, it had a lot more humor, but it also brought to light a few more things about Lane’s writing setting that I’m not so sure I’m a fan of. There’s just one aspect of these books that has forced me out of the story at key plot points and that is NEVER a good sign.

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Books

Book 787: Winter Ball (Winter Ball #1) – Amy Lane

Oh how the tides of turned, these days I’m like GIVE ME ALL THE MM Holiday Romances, whereas when I first read Lane’s Christmas Kitsch back in 2013 I was much more cautious and actively staying away from them. At last check as I write this, I have over 22 books tagged with holiday romance. HA!

I have no memory of that first book I read which mostly tells me that it wasn’t bad. Looking back over my review and my rating of three-stars just reiterates it was a middle of the road book with no major problems and I kind of feel that’s where this one ends up too: probably not the most memorable book, but nothing so egregiously wrong that I’ll remember it only for that.

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Books

Book 777: Ben’s Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle – Penelope Peters

If you want to know how to piss me off when it comes to a book put the setting in Boston but don’t do your research and don’t have the book copy edited or proofread. That’s a guarantee to piss me off. This could’ve easily been a 4.5-star book because of the hilarious hockey kids trying to be matchmaker for their coach, but nope.

I apparently put this on hold when I was in the middle of my 12 Books of MM Holiday Romance binge, but forgot about it until I was notified on January 3 it was available. I went ahead and read it as I’m making my way through Timothy C. Winegard’s fascinating tome The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator, because let’s face it as fascinating as it is, that book is dense as hell. Continue reading “Book 777: Ben’s Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle – Penelope Peters”

ARC, Books

Book 761: Mediocre – Ijeoma Oluo

As soon as I heard that Oluo was releasing another book I immediately sought out a copy. I couldn’t wait until it was released so sought out a galley ASAP.* I will buy a copy as well, because she’s wonderful. My response is definitely messy, but it’s because she makes me think so much about so many things and I just sort of try to regurgitate all of my thoughts at the same time instead of cohesively sharing them.

First, a diatribe about the early reviews I saw on Goodreads: If you ever needed a reason to read books like this (you don’t), you should take a look at the reviews for this one on Goodreads. Not only have a lot of the 1- and 2-star reviews totally misunderstood the entire book, they have attempted to explain their ratings with the thinnest of reasons that frankly annoyed the shit out of me. Not only are there the men (god fearing Christians if they’re to be believed) who completely missed that Oluo isn’t saying all white men are mediocre, just that the racist-ass systems built by white men reward the most mediocre of them, they straight up appear not to have even read the book, let alone tried to understand it.

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Books

Book 748: Full Domain (Nice Guys #3) – Kindle Alexander

This series could’ve stopped with the last book—it wasn’t bad, just underwhelming.

This picks up immediately after Full Disclosure and jumps right back into the story focusing on Kreed Sinacola (Mitch Knox partner from the second book) and Aaron Stuart (Mitch’s gaming friend). Aaron’s been called in to help with the case that started in Double Full and was “solved” in Full Disclosure, but he poked holes in the tidy package that wrapped up the case. So, it’s a problem he created for himself.

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