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garbage_mcsmutly's Reviews (1.74k)

emotional hopeful fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

We love a historical romance with a social justice warrior! In this case, it's the FMC, and her cause is reproductive freedom. I'm very much here for it.

This was dual POV with two narrators, and they were both excellent.

3.5/5 There were a handful of explicit scenes.

There's a bit of class diversity in this book but no other diversity to speak of.

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emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

This was a lovely collection of essays from a queer indigenous (Coast Salish) author. It explores the author's identity and experiences--as a queer person, a two spirit person, a person of mixed race, a runaway, a punk kid, a Coast Salish person in a colonized world. It's an easily digestible selection of fairly short essays. I know she has a memoir as well that probably gets into these ideas in a lot more depth, but it was nice to have this more accessible entry point into her writing.

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

📚 This was a fun one. I really enjoyed Hannah Tate as well, so that's not surprising. I love the queer community/found family that they have in this small town and the side characters are all entertaining. There was a lot of emotional vulnerability in this story, as Zoe has always felt alone in her life. A very human story of two women finding love. 

🎧 This story is told in first person POV (Zoe's). No POV switches between the MCs. I thought the narrator did a great job with the material.

🌶️ 3.5/5 There were several explicit encounters and the book definitely doesn't shy away from sex, but I wouldn't classify it as like, spice-forward.

🏳️‍🌈✊ Everyone in this story is queer lol. The ones that aren't queer are allies. There's also a decent amount of ethnic diversity in the side characters (although both MCs are cis and white).

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was a super enjoyable listen. There were so many funny lines but also there was deep emotional vulnerability at times. The spice was good, the characters were relatable and felt very human. And the plot was very fun. 


emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

***NO HEA in this book. First in a 4 book series.***

📚 This book delivered spice and angst, two of my favorite things! The angst is for real and all over the place in this book. But I wish I'd known going in that it's only the first part of a four book series. It just ended abruptly with nothing resolved and I wasn't expecting that.

🎧 The three narrators were all pretty good. The only issue I had with the narration is that Levi's accent varied a bit with each narrator (each of them was doing a slightly different southern drawl).

🌶️ 4/5 There weren't a ton of explicit scenes but the scenes that were on page were hot. And one of the scenes involves all three MCs.

🏳️‍🌈✊ One of the MMCs is bisexual. I don't think there's much (any?) ethnic or racial diversity in this book.
emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

📚 This book was great! The characters were relatable, the plot was interesting and varied, the spice was spicy. There were emotional moments and funny moments. The FMC knows about birth control and has agency over her own body 🙌 Both MCs grow over the course of the book. No wrong turns, A+ all around. And there's a lovely and informative author's note at the end.

🎧 I switched from ebook to audiobook about 65% through the book, so I did get some exposure to the narrators, and they were both really good. Mary Jane Wells is always expressive perfection for me. And Will M Watt's voice was a delight. 

🌶️ 3.75/5 The spice wasn't super frequent but it was pretty hot in the encounters that were on page. Fairly explicit.

🏳️‍🌈✊ Two of the most prominent side characters are Black. There's class difference (Belle comes from a well-off family, Ethan has nothing to his name). I don't recall any explicitly queer characters.

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

📚 I loved this book. It fit my story interests, my sense of humor, my kinks, my politics. Ali Hazelwood deviated from her tried and true formula on this one but it still worked great. And wow Lukas is a perfect book boyfriend, my goodness. Just green flags all over the place.

🎧 Duet narration, even though the story is single POV (FMC's). And hoo boy, the Lukas voice 🥵

🌶️ 4/5 This was a spice-forward book but not like straight up erotica. The two MCs are kinky and they explore that on page in several scenes, since this is both of their first relationship with another kinkster. It's mainly power exchange (mdom/fsub) during sexytimes with some forcefulness, like advanced beginner level. No props or anything complex really.

✊🏳️‍🌈 There's casual mention of a queer character or two, and a couple mentions of POC. But mainly everyone seems pretty white and straight. The FMC is recovering from an injury, but she's fully physically recovered. She does deal with anxiety and PTSD from an abusive relationship in her past, and trauma from the time of the injury.

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adventurous emotional lighthearted fast-paced
emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

📚 This book was fine I guess? It was okay for the first 2/3 but then everything kinda goes off the rails. There's a huge
time jump
, a
Bury Your Gays
totally unnecessary plot point, and the MC
stays stagnant throughout a seven year jump. Zero personal growth.


🌶️ 3.25/5 There were a couple explicit scenes that were decently done.

🏳️‍🌈✊ Basically everyone in this book is queer. But other than that, not much diversity. Everyone is white and grew up in ballet culture which of course is quite privileged.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

📚 I enjoyed this one! It's a sort of sequel to The Duke Undone--the FMC in this book was jilted by the MMC in the last, and both MCs from book 1 appear in this book. Chaos reading would probably be fine though. 

I appreciated the personal journeys both MCs had to undertake and the book was funny and thoughtful and a little bit thrilling at points.

🎧 This was dual POV but only one female narrator. But that narrator was Mary Jane Wells, so. Need I say more? 🙌

🌶️ 2.5/5 There's really only a couple spicy scenes, this is a pretty low heat book overall (but it does get explicit in those scenes).

🏳️‍🌈✊ There's very little diversity in this book. I guess there's the class difference of the FMC's middle class/aristocratic world versus the more humble working class world of the MMC. But no diversity in sexuality, ethnicity, etc. as far as I could tell.

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