kj468's reviews
402 reviews

A Very Harry Christmas by Lisa Henry, Sarah Honey

lighthearted fast-paced

4.0

Cute snippet of Harry becoming more comfortable with Jack’s family after making such a bad first impression 

How Tristan Got His Groove Back by Lisa Henry, Sarah Honey

lighthearted

4.0

A good follow up snippet to Tristan’s story. Though I would have liked to see him stick with drag! I think it would be a good way for him to bring the more wild side of his youth into adulthood. 

Terribly Tristan by Lisa Henry, Sarah Honey

funny lighthearted

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Loveeeedddd this one!! Tristan was such a fun character to read about and it was amazing to see Leo blossom out of his shell from being a straight-laced gay guy striving for heterosexual approval to being… well, not that, but I’m not going to spoil his journey for you!! I love how many out and proud queer folks there are in this book, especially the presence of queer elders and the way the younger members of the queer community value and respect them and turn to them for guidance. It was also great to see the younger members (late 20s) of the community start to find their footing in beginning to be that for people younger than them. 

The ending was spectacular! Chaotic and fun and hilarious — if you’re a fan of Alexis Hall (specifically boyfriend material), this is a good book for you! 

My only minor complaint is that for the first ⅔ or so of the book, their relationship was one of those that when I really thought about it, I didn’t know what they talked about or like did together other than sex. I knew what (besides sex) they liked about each other - but only because they told me, not because I saw it on page. But it was written in a way that it was kind of easy to forget that, and I didn’t feel that way in the last ⅓. 

Tropes/tags: no third act breakup, insta love, reformed fuckboy, bad first impression.

Horribly Harry by Lisa Henry, Sarah Honey

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Loved this so much!!! Both do the MCs were wonderful, but I especially loved Harry. The ace rep was phenomenal, deeply relatable at many points. Plus I loved Jack’s reactions to Harry’s ace-spec-ness. It was never a point of drama, he never once had a negative thought about it, never begrudged what Harry did and didn’t want to do. He just felt really grateful and special that Harry had feelings for jack that he never had for anyone else. 

Awfully Ambrose by Lisa Henry, Sarah Honey

funny lighthearted

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

I enjoyed it! It was fun and a bit bananas in a good way. I like both MCs. Liam’s family were all very entertaining and good characters. Will read the next in the series 

Update: I devoured the other two books. This series is so fun and despite having the same premise - one MC working as a bad boyfriend - they are all incredibly different books with very different plots, love interests, and MCs. What they have in common though: hilarious, low angst, no third act breakup (though the first one is more of a slow burn and has the third act drama of finally getting together, awesome side characters, positive queer community 

The Last Guy On Earth by Sarina Bowen

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Totally consumed me. I listened to the whole thing in less than 24 hours. I accidentally was up until 1:30 am listening to it. 

Tons of emotion, excellent characters. Pining and anger and love and forgiveness. I liked that the first half or so of the book was told in two timelines, it really made the emotions deeper. Definitely will reread. 

CW for addiction and suicidal thoughts in characters who are not the MCs. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Trade Deadline by Jodi Oliver

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I dnf'd this book at 30% last year, but my notes were just that I forgot what was happening and vaguely remembered being bored by it... so in a moment of desperation, I picked it up a second time. I should not have.

This book might be the single most egregious case of insta-love I've ever read. Insta-love is a trope I usually can tolerate somewhat okay, especially if the writing helps the falling-in-love process feel longer than it actually is if you look at a calendar. I'm willing to suspend disbelief and accept that relationships often move at a pace that I would be outraged by anyone in my life moving at. But wow. This book. Insta-love reached for the stars and found a whole new level.

Some background: the hockey player guy is a notorious playboy & sleeps around a lot; I'll call him player. The love interest is not a player and has had his heart broken by athletes before and, at the beginning of the book, is ostensibly afraid of dating another athlete because they always cheat on him and has sworn jocks off. The love interest turns down the player initially, and the player doesn't really take no for an answer. He keeps pestering the LI to say yes and is pretty cocky about how he's going to get the LI to say yes. There are several times where his refusal to take no for an answer feels pretty boundary-crossing.

A few examples to help illustrate what I mean, in case you are trying to judge if this book will be too insta-love for you or not.:

• I'm pretty sure the hockey player tells people (his team maybe?) he's seeing someone before the LI even says yes to a date.
• The player -- who has been a playboy up until now -- is like fully committed after one date.
  They go on their first date maybe like a week into knowing each other. The next day, the player complains -- on several occasions -- that he doesn't like roadtrips anymore because his "two favorite things used to be hooking up and hockey, and now they are hockey and Alex"
• At less than a month of knowing each other, they are acting like they've been dating for months or years. They're super serious about each other and trust each other implicitly.
  At less than a month of knowing each other, the LI spends Christmas with the player's family and it's treated like the player is bringing home his boyfriend of a year for the first time. The player has the "oh shit I'm falling for him" realization (again, it's been less than a month since they met). On this same day, the LI comments that the view from the player's apartment is beautiful and the player replies that it "used to be his favorite view until he met the LI". 
• All of the side characters totally normalize the insta love and act like it's normal and great.
  On Christmas, the player tells the LI he's falling for him. The next day, when the LI tells his best friend that the player said this, the bff responds very enthusiastically and then asks "So are you two official now?" and the LI says he "doesn't know but he's not seeing anyone else and he doesn't think the player is" which really just hammers in how insta love it is -- they're confessing love and they haven't even had a DTR talk

Also, the LI's best friend kind of totally disappeared from the plot in the second half of the book? To the point where the LI talks about how his brother and the player are his two most important favorite people in the world and literally doesn't even think about his best friend. 

Goaltender Interference by Brigham Vaughn

emotional funny lighthearted

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

I LOVED this book!! It’s a very safe, happy, cozy read. Highly recommend! 

Such a great relationship. Lots of interaction with the kids, the eldest kid even had a solid plot line of his own. The coming to terms with religion (specifically Catholicism) as a queer person/person who loves queer people was really well handled. Connor was such a good dad and Jesse was so good with the kids. Their relationship progressed so naturally and without unnecessary or immature drama. Good communicators, even though they talked about how bad they were at talking about emotions lol. 

Tbh I probs have loads more to say about this book when I look through my highlights. I hope an audio edition comes out because I definitely want it! 

Net Bet by Ryan Taylor, Joshua Harwood
Did not finish book. Stopped at 28%.

I tried hard to get into this one, especially since it was an arc, but it really wasn’t clicking for me. I think most of my issues were probably really personal and specific to me — other reviewers don’t seem to have the same struggles and I wouldn’t warn people off this book! It’s just not for me. 

A few reasons why:

• They’ve met several times now and the only real emotion they feel about each other is lust/horniness/sexual attraction. I’m aroace and romance is my favorite genre, but I always have trouble connecting with characters when the primary/only reason they gravitate towards the love interest initially is lust, especially in a book like this where the lusting after each other happens over several scenes (I can get through it better when it’s just a quick hookup).  I’m sure these characters will develop real emotions for each other eventually, but I’m personally just squirmed out by all the lusting when they know nothing about each other. To be clear, there’s nothing objectively wrong with it, I get that it’s a real thing that happens, it’s just not a plot line I enjoy reading personally. 
• There’s a lot of dialogue that has double meaning. A lot of it is sexual, but I think some of it is not. I struggle catching onto double meanings enough irl, and I realllly struggle with it in text form. I found myself spending more time and energy unpacking the dialogue, esp between the two main characters, than actually enjoying the scene when they were talking. This could also contribute to why I had a hard time picking up on their chemistry. 

Overall, I don’t think this is a bad book. I’ve read and enjoyed other books by these authors and will read books by them again. I just think the particular dynamics of these characters in the first 100 pages, where I am supposed to be connecting with them, didn’t land for me personally. 

Textbook Defense by Ashlyn Kane, Morgan James

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

This was one of my most anticipated books this year. There were aspects of it it I liked, but overall it was more angsty than I prefer, with a really heavy dose of miscommunication that drew out the getting-together too much for my taste. The actually getting-together part was pretty late in the book, especially for a book that isn’t a slow burn. Overall the pacing was off for me — there was a ton of page time in between the introduction of upcoming drama (

jordy finding out he’s going to get traded

) and the foreshadowed negative event happening. For me, this really drew out the negative emotions. 

I know there’s satisfaction in a hard-won happily ever after, but I didn’t feel that satisfaction here — perhaps because so much of the drama was caused by miscommunication. Between like 60-85% I basically had to power read because I was so unhappy about the third act angst that I knew I’d have a heard time coming back it it. A lot of the relationship drama and miscommunication felt really contrived.

I was frustrated that they decided to “just be together” for the week Rowan was visiting, with the expectation that Rowan would leave at the end of it and they’d break up then. It added a lot of extra angst to the end of the book and made it hard for me to enjoy the cute scenes of them during that week.

 

To be fair, I have a pretty low angst tolerance as it strongly affects my mood, so it’s possible people with better angst tolerances will enjoy this book more. But for me, there was so much miscommunication induced angst, and the happily ever after was such a short blip at the end, that i was left in a sad, slightly frustrated mood when I finished. Unlike some of the others in this series, probably not one I will revisit, even though I enjoyed the first half quite a bit.  Ultimately, I read these kinds of books like some people watch sitcoms — I want something safe and familiar that makes me happy. This book checked all of those boxes at some point, but not really in the last half, which is a dealbreaker for me