How strange, he thought. How strange indeed, that the world suddenly became more real, more crisp, the colors sharper about the edges in the slow span of breaths it took to wait for Summer to answer.
Good gods, where do I even begin with how utterly trash I am for Cole's characters, and how wholly captivated I am by this story?
But in certain circumstances, someone's name could be a love word. Intimate and shivering, rolling off the tongue.
As I've found to be the case with everything I've read from Cole so far, this isn't a fluffy, easy romance — it's soft and slow-building and even a little bit painful at time, because these are three-dimensional characters with aches and memories and traumas that have shaped them — but it is an incredibly rewarding romance, and you can rest easy knowing that these soft, broken men are still going to get the happily ever after they deserve... they just might have to fight for it. But that's my favorite part, truly.
Suddenly the stone of Iseya wasn't forbidding, but instead... stable ground. Stable ground that made Summer's world stop spinning out of control, that held him in place and grounded him until he could stop feeling like the floor was dropping out from beneath him.
Whether it's Summer's anxiety and past traumas or Iseya's loss of his first love and the way he's hidden from his grief for so long, there are a lot of heavy moments in this story. There's a depicting of loss and depression so deep it broke my heart, but there are light, sweet moments of domestic tenderness that patched it back up. Summer is such a brave, eager young thing despite his anxiety; on the other hand, stoic Iseya is tough as nails on the outside and fragile on the inside, but watching him slowly recognize that he deserved to give himself another chance at happiness? That was everything. Not to mention, his incredibly emotional Buddhist rituals and his gradual return to his love for herbalism? I loved these quiet moments of insight into his character so much.
Everything had that feeling of old spaces, of haunted spaces, quiet and whispered; the kind of place that had lace curtains and ghosts and a fifth step between every floor that creaked when the shades walked on it at night.
I'm reluctant to stray from rambling about how much I cared for the characters, but I have to also gush about the writing. Cole's way with words is absolutely brilliant and I'm already craving a return to the dark, cozy atmosphere of Albin Academy. I'm so pleased that it looks like we'll be spending more time in these halls soon! I also have to give a mention to the brief nod to Khalaji and Summer's time in Baltimore, as I'm such a sucker for authors who let their series cross paths here and there. ♥
Everything felt odd to him, as if he were an ancient and rusted machine whose circuits and pathways had gone dormant for so long that the first surge of sizzling lightning pouring through them was just a painful rush, electricity searing and burning and singeing fine and fragile things to ash because they just couldn't handle it anymore.
Lastly, I can't review this without addressing the fact that there are elements that some readers are probably going to find a bit taboo in this story. Summer is a former student of Iseya's (though nothing whatsoever happened while Summer was younger), and Iseya is more-or-less Summer's supervisor. I'm not a romance reader who has many triggers or topics I consider taboo, to be fair, but I still feel wholly confident in saying that Cole executes these tropes brilliantly, without playing into power dynamic problems or imbalances. As long as you don't expect the pairing in and of itself to bother you, I can't recommend this gorgeous romance highly enough!
✨ Representation:Summer Hemlock is queer & has anxiety; Fox Iseya is biracial (Japanese/white), queer (implied bi/pan), & has depression/suicidal ideation
✨ Content warnings for: (view spoiler)[depression, anxiety, implied suicidal ideation, previous loss of a spouse, bullying, negligent parents (hide spoiler)]
All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Carina Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
How strange, he thought. How strange indeed, that the world suddenly became more real, more crisp, the colors sharper about the edges in the slow span of breaths it took to wait for Summer to answer.
Good gods, where do I even begin with how utterly trash I am for Cole's characters, and how wholly captivated I am by this story?
But in certain circumstances, someone's name could be a love word. Intimate and shivering, rolling off the tongue.
As I've found to be the case with everything I've read from Cole so far, this isn't a fluffy, easy romance — it's soft and slow-building and even a little bit painful at time, because these are three-dimensional characters with aches and memories and traumas that have shaped them — but it is an incredibly rewarding romance, and you can rest easy knowing that these soft, broken men are still going to get the happily ever after they deserve... they just might have to fight for it. But that's my favorite part, truly.
Suddenly the stone of Iseya wasn't forbidding, but instead... stable ground. Stable ground that made Summer's world stop spinning out of control, that held him in place and grounded him until he could stop feeling like the floor was dropping out from beneath him.
Whether it's Summer's anxiety and past traumas or Iseya's loss of his first love and the way he's hidden from his grief for so long, there are a lot of heavy moments in this story. There's a depicting of loss and depression so deep it broke my heart, but there are light, sweet moments of domestic tenderness that patched it back up. Summer is such a brave, eager young thing despite his anxiety; on the other hand, stoic Iseya is tough as nails on the outside and fragile on the inside, but watching him slowly recognize that he deserved to give himself another chance at happiness? That was everything. Not to mention, his incredibly emotional Buddhist rituals and his gradual return to his love for herbalism? I loved these quiet moments of insight into his character so much.
Everything had that feeling of old spaces, of haunted spaces, quiet and whispered; the kind of place that had lace curtains and ghosts and a fifth step between every floor that creaked when the shades walked on it at night.
I'm reluctant to stray from rambling about how much I cared for the characters, but I have to also gush about the writing. Cole's way with words is absolutely brilliant and I'm already craving a return to the dark, cozy atmosphere of Albin Academy. I'm so pleased that it looks like we'll be spending more time in these halls soon! I also have to give a mention to the brief nod to Khalaji and Summer's time in Baltimore, as I'm such a sucker for authors who let their series cross paths here and there. ♥
Everything felt odd to him, as if he were an ancient and rusted machine whose circuits and pathways had gone dormant for so long that the first surge of sizzling lightning pouring through them was just a painful rush, electricity searing and burning and singeing fine and fragile things to ash because they just couldn't handle it anymore.
Lastly, I can't review this without addressing the fact that there are elements that some readers are probably going to find a bit taboo in this story. Summer is a former student of Iseya's (though nothing whatsoever happened while Summer was younger), and Iseya is more-or-less Summer's supervisor. I'm not a romance reader who has many triggers or topics I consider taboo, to be fair, but I still feel wholly confident in saying that Cole executes these tropes brilliantly, without playing into power dynamic problems or imbalances. As long as you don't expect the pairing in and of itself to bother you, I can't recommend this gorgeous romance highly enough!
✨ Representation:Summer Hemlock is queer & has anxiety; Fox Iseya is biracial (Japanese/white), queer (implied bi/pan), & has depression/suicidal ideation
✨ Content warnings for: (view spoiler)[depression, anxiety, implied suicidal ideation, previous loss of a spouse, bullying, negligent parents (hide spoiler)]
All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Carina Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!...more
I haven't seen a lot of D/deaf representation in fiction in general, much less in manga, and I don't believe I've ever seen any representation at all that follows a character who is currently experiencing their hearing loss increasing over time. While I have an auditory processing disorder, I can't actually speak to the representation shown here, but I can say that from my perspective, I really appreciated some of the things this story touched on, like the way people (especially femme people) like to pity disabled people or feel as though they can "help" that person with their love and attention, or how frustrating it is for many people in Kohei's position to be told "nevermind, it isn't important" instead of the other party simply repeating themselves and allowing Kohei to feel included in the conversation. It was heart-breaking, some of the casual things people said and did that you could see were wearing down Kohei's self-confidence and his desire to be social with anyone aside from his mother and Taichi.
As far as watching the romance slowly bloom between Kohei and Taichi, if this tells you anything about how invested I am, it took me all of 10 seconds between reaching the end of this book and borrowing the ebook for the sequel from the library.
I haven't seen a lot of D/deaf representation in fiction in general, much less in manga, and I don't believe I've ever seen any representation at all that follows a character who is currently experiencing their hearing loss increasing over time. While I have an auditory processing disorder, I can't actually speak to the representation shown here, but I can say that from my perspective, I really appreciated some of the things this story touched on, like the way people (especially femme people) like to pity disabled people or feel as though they can "help" that person with their love and attention, or how frustrating it is for many people in Kohei's position to be told "nevermind, it isn't important" instead of the other party simply repeating themselves and allowing Kohei to feel included in the conversation. It was heart-breaking, some of the casual things people said and did that you could see were wearing down Kohei's self-confidence and his desire to be social with anyone aside from his mother and Taichi.
As far as watching the romance slowly bloom between Kohei and Taichi, if this tells you anything about how invested I am, it took me all of 10 seconds between reaching the end of this book and borrowing the ebook for the sequel from the library....more
There was some good info in here, but it also read very much like a long essay (even down to the in-text citations). I have a strong hunch that this mThere was some good info in here, but it also read very much like a long essay (even down to the in-text citations). I have a strong hunch that this might have been someone's thesis turned into a self-help book, and that's fine if so, but it wasn't a super entertaining or exciting read. There were also a LOT of tips that promoted what I like to call "doom boxes" ("Just throw everything in a bin and deal with it later!" ... only 'later' never comes for most of us, lol), which feels supremely counterintuitive for a lot of neurodivergent folks IMO. That said, the writing was kind and enthusiastic about self-compassion, which I appreciated, and I learned some fun facts about the physical signs of ADHD in brain matter and chemistry.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.
I loved this so, so, so much. The chemistry, the banter, the ghosts, the endometriosis rep... all of it! I'm so happy to have finally read a Jen DeLucI loved this so, so, so much. The chemistry, the banter, the ghosts, the endometriosis rep... all of it! I'm so happy to have finally read a Jen DeLuca book and to have seen for myself why she's such a beloved author, and I'm especially happy I got to read it with my best friend. ♥ Full review coming later!
This was heavy, but good, and VERY relatable as another millennial who grew up in the same time frame and dealt with a lot of the same disordered eatiThis was heavy, but good, and VERY relatable as another millennial who grew up in the same time frame and dealt with a lot of the same disordered eating and body image struggles. The art was cute, too! I definitely recommend this for anyone interested in reading about the difficulties of growing up AFAB in the 90s and 2000s and dealing with the impact that misogyny and diet culture had on us.
This was another fantastic story from Ruth Anna Evans that reminded me of how well she can keep me entertained and wreck me emotionally.
Do Not Go in TThis was another fantastic story from Ruth Anna Evans that reminded me of how well she can keep me entertained and wreck me emotionally.
Do Not Go in That House follows a podcaster named Maggie who desperately wants to go viral and thinks she might have found her ticket when she has the opportunity to dive into a cold case about a terrible, brutal child death from a decade earlier.
The premise is worrisome enough on its own, but we quickly learn that Maggie has been off of her mental health medications for a bit and mania is setting in hard. Not only does her mental illness add a layer of complexity to Maggie's character, but her mania symptoms and history also go a long way in helping us to understand why she powers through red flags that many people might have ran screaming from.
(As a side note, I don't have bipolar disorder and don't experience mania the way Maggie does, but I have numerous other mental health disorders and a lot of experience with close loved ones' experiences with unmedicated bipolar disorder; for what it's worth, I thought Ruth Anna Evans handled the portrayal very lovingly and honestly!)
All in all, I really enjoyed this story — it might even be my favorite of this author's works so far! The setting was truly unsettling and I enjoyed Maggie as a character. No spoilers, but this story ran my heart through the wringer in the best way, and I can't wait to read more from this author soon!
Thank you to the author for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.
✨ Representation: Maggie has bipolar disorder
✨ Content warnings for: (view spoiler)[unmedicated mental illness, mania, depression, intrusive thoughts, suicidal ideation, thoughts of self-harm, brief mention of hospitalization, description of child death, violence, gore, endangerment of a pet cat, ableism (hide spoiler)]
Forgive me if I unlearn pretty and learn vicious in its place.
Trista Mateer has been cemented as a favorite poet for me, thanks to this collection.
Forgive me if I unlearn pretty and learn vicious in its place.
Trista Mateer has been cemented as a favorite poet for me, thanks to this collection. A mix of poetry and multimedia art, Artemis Made Me Do It takes life experiences for so many women—harassment, assault, insecurity, toxic relationships, having her queerness questioned and erased—and melds them with the infamous tale of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.
I AM THE GOLDEN ARROW. I AM ANGER CAUGHT IN THE THROAT. I AM WHAT PROWLS THE WOODS AT NIGHT. I AM WHAT WANTS AND DEVOURS. I AM THE HEART ON FIRE.
There is so much pain, and grief, and anger, and vengeance in these poems, and it both soothed and stoked the flames of a primal rage that I, like so many others, live with every day. Have you ever tried to review a piece of media that hit so close to home, you can't fully express your thoughts on it without flaying yourself raw, too? That's how I'm feeling right now.
The question is not whether you will be hurt by this life. You will be hurt. The question is: What will you do in the aftermath? Will you swallow grief or will grief swallow you?
If you enjoy angry, emotional poetry with a focus on trauma, grief, and healing, this is for you. If you enjoy feminist rants and a fiery need for a better world, this is for you. If you enjoy tales of deities, both kind and unkind, and the ways in which their stories still continue to shape the world around us and how we view it, this is for you. I adored this collection and cannot possibly recommend it highly enough.
I grabbed this from the library on a whim, though I wasn't sure I would be into it. I'm glad I gave it a chance, because I ended up really enjoying itI grabbed this from the library on a whim, though I wasn't sure I would be into it. I'm glad I gave it a chance, because I ended up really enjoying it!
I felt so bad for poor Jen, especially dealing with her dad, and I'll admit that I cringed a bit to see that he never really dealt with any repercussions for being such a jerk, but unfortunately that's the reality of these situations most of the time and I did appreciate how candid that portrayal was.
At its core, Stepping Stones is a tale of a kid having no control over their situation and trying to find ways to survive and make the most of it regardless, and that's exactly what Jen does.
✨ Representation: Jen is implied to have dyscalculia (based on the author's experience)
✨ Content warnings for: (view spoiler)[loneliness, homesickness, bullying from family members and figures of authority, divorce, parents fighting (hide spoiler)]
This was my first book of Irby's after having a lot of friends recommend her books to me for years, and I had a pretty good time with it! I definitelyThis was my first book of Irby's after having a lot of friends recommend her books to me for years, and I had a pretty good time with it! I definitely feel like I benefited from listening to the audiobook, and if she narrated her other books too, that's the format I'll choose for those as well.
I'm not sure if I would have finished this book if it weren't for Irby's engaging narration. While there were several moments that made me smile or even chuckle a little, they were all at the very beginning of the book, and then most of the following essays kind of lost my interest. I'll most likely check out another of her books to see if it was just an issue with this one, but I was a little let down. I'm hoping it's just an issue with Quietly Hostile because Irby strikes me as the kind of author I want to love, so hopefully the next one will be a better fit for me!
Thank you to the publisher and LibroFM for the audio review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.
✨ Representation: the author is fat, disabled, chronically ill, Black, and queer
✨ Content warnings for: (view spoiler)[mentions of chronic illness, fatphobia, toxic relationships, kinks, terminal illness, death of parents, COVID (hide spoiler)]