books I read and how I felt about them

I usually either finish books or don't and enjoy them or not (and even if I don't finish or don't enjoy something, it's not necessarily a reflection on the book)

[ireadthisbookrecently]

Before You Say I Do - Clare Lydon

****

Suuuper light and pretty low-angst. I don't in general love "I've known you for a month and I want to declare my love for you" as a trope, but I recognize that's more of a bias of mine against people being hasty than a problem with the book. I liked the characters (including side characters) pretty well and appreciated that they mostly behaved reasonably--the useless best friend got less useless and both main characters took a degree of risk to get together. I kinda wished we'd learned more about the killed fiance; he just sort of remained a blank the whole time.

[ireadthisbookrecently]

Poppy Jenkins - Clare Ashton

*****

Ugh, I just love this book. I've read it before, but it never fails to make me smile--second chance-y modern Pride and Prejudice set in Wales with two main characters who I want to say share a brain cell, but really it's more like one has a brain cell and the other has an anti-brain cell and when they get close together they're both just obliterated by thirst. Legitimately hilarious, and the author published a playlist of YouTube videos of herself reading it earlier in the covidtimes.

[ireadthisbookrecently]

Blurred Lines - K.D. Williamson

dnf

I've read lots of positive commentary on the Cops and Docs series, and I have a soft spot in my heart for things that I'm pretty sure started as fic, but this just didn't vibe with me--I struggled a bit initially with suspending my disbelief that a surgeon would be so scandalized by cursing, and also a tiny voice in my head is always chanting "all cops are bastards", so eventually I backed off.

[ireadthisbookrecently]

The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson

*****

This was a blast! I liked the characters and how they grew; I loved the gradual unfolding of relationships and alternate personal histories; I liked the textures of the world and my own slowly increasing understanding of how it worked. I loved that queerness was just part of the baseline of the world.

[ireadthisbookrecently]

Painted Moon (25th anniversary edition) - Karin Kallmaker

****

I'm holed up at a snowy cabin with my wife, so it seemed like a good time to read this. I enjoyed it a lot--I definitely had a little bit of an "I'm not sure why these people like each other" feeling about the main characters a lot of the time, but that's often true with romances, and I thought the interior struggles of the main characters felt really real. Plus even though everyone was bad at talking about feelings they somehow managed not to make me cranky about it? Seeing some 90's queerness was also just a joy to me as a queer child of the 90's who was basically starving for representation at the time; it's incredible to see the progress we've made and also oddly validating to be reassured that my memories of what things were like when I was younger are real.

[ireadthisbookrecently]

Aftershock - K.G. MacGregor

dnf

Not a reflection on the book, really; I just wasn't in the mood to read a story with a focus on addiction/recovery, so I put it down.

[ireadthisbookrecently]

Without Warning - K.G. MacGregor

***

Enjoyed it! I think this was the first time I'd read the published "Without Warning" version and not the fic it originated with; I enjoy both, but this version definitely felt more polished. Fun and fluffy and kind of a nostalgic throwback (is it still a throwback when the book is actually from that era?) of when it felt like half of all queer lady romances featured a tall, dark-haired, broody person and a shorter, blonde, sunnier person.