Books

Book 736: Romantic Renovations – Blake Allwood

I stumbled across Blake Allwood on the MM Romance Reader blog with their review of Love by Chance and thought I’d give him a chance (ha!). Allwood isn’t a five-star read for me yet, but there is a lot of potential. I will say though, if he doesn’t hire better developmental and copy editors and proofreaders he’ll never get there for me.

Rather than diving directly into the Chances series that MM Romance Reader reviewed I thought I’d start with a stand-alone. It didn’t hurt that this one was set on a home renovation show.

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Books

Book 733: So You Want to Talk About Race – Ijeoma Oluo

Like everyone else, but mostly the white people, in America should be doing, I’ve taken some time over the past few months to further educate myself on systemic racism and oppression in the United States. From discussions at work to dozens of articles and books, it has been 100% worth it to self-reflect and be reminded of things I knew and be introduced to things I didn’t.

I was first introduced to Oluo when I read, “The Heart of Whiteness: Ijeoma Oluo Interviews Rachel Dolezal, the White Woman Who Identifies as Black”, a powerful and frank wide ranging interview and reflection on race, privilege, and white supremacy in America. If you haven’t read it yet, go read it.

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Books

Book 726: Must Like Spinach – Con Riley

After finishing His Horizon, and absolutely adoring it, I knew I had to seek out more works by Con Riley. Thankfully I recently received a Kindle Unlimited membership (to Tim’s regret at this point I’m sure) and I found quite a few books by Riley on there. We all know more will be forthcoming, but I am trying to show some self-restraint.

I chose this one out of those available because it was a standalone. And more importantly it had an adorably quirky title that just called to me even though I’m not the biggest fan of spinach.

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Book 703: The Names We Take – Trace Kerr

By no actual planning on my part I’m posting this on the release date of The Names We Take, which never happens. To be completely honest, the publisher sent this to me months ago and I just now got around to reading it, but hey things work out for a reason.* I liked the idea of the publisher, Ooligan Press, which is a student run press at Portland State University that concentrates on Pacific Northwest Writers and because the blurb was interesting and they’d clearly spent some time perusing my blog I accepted the galley.

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Book 676: Sense of Wonder – Bill Schelley

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I said I’d take a look at this after the publisher reached out to me about a review copy.* As much as I love the MCU and the various graphic novels I read (especially LGBTQ+ ones), I haven’t read comics since the early 1990s when I read a ton of Star Wars comics at the local Borders, I was going into this blind when it came to comic fandom.

Sense of Wonder is a deep dive into comic fandom from its earliest moments to the colossal behemoth it has become today all through the lens of Schelly’s life and experiences. I had no idea that fanzines were a thing back in the 1960s (oh hey, internet generation) and thanks in part to Schelly’s wonderful writing style and the methodical yet meandering journey he takes you on in this work, I now long for the days of pre-internet community building via snail mail, rides from parents to other parts of town, and collect phone calls.

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