more lightning book reviews!
Apr. 18th, 2024 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mozaikmageCatrin liked my last post so I'm doing this again! Books I have read recently:
Cleat Cute: I have given Meryl Wilsner a second chance. Maybe they learned, with their third book. Maybe they got better. Reader, they did not learn or get better. The only things that worked about this book were the sex scenes, which were genuinely very hot. The characters were bland. I wanted grumpy/sunshine, not slightly stoic/somewhat cheerful! Their disagreements were minor and too quickly resolved. Both main characters somehow had undiagnosed neurodivergencies as their entire personalities. Pacing was whack. There was one horrible page where the entire story stopped to tell you about the author's opinions on The Discourse.
As you can see, OP has never heard of a Show they couldn't Tell instead. Cursed.
Anyway.
The Centre: I liked most of it, but the ending really fizzled out, and the big twist was very well-telegraphed. I did think it was well-written, for the most part. Can't speak to the representation of Islam/Pakistan/India/Etc obviously, but I thought the unlikeable protagonist was pretty funny except she should've listened more to her gay thoughts. This book could have been improved with gay sex.
Martyr!: See, this guy listened to his gay thoughts and we got a really good book out of it!! I know it's only April, but this is on my Best Book of The Year list already. It's so good. It just does a lot of things, really well. And has gay people in it!
ETA I forgot Last Night At The Telegraph Club! I loved this book a lot, but it's not really a romance novel, more of a coming of age with a romance in it. The obstacles to the central relationship are all external (homophobia, being a lesbian in the 1950s), and the relationship itself is more conflict-free in contrast to everything around it, which I think works well for this story. Malinda Lo can fucking WRITE. Like, she's just a much better prose stylist than Meryl Wilsner, no offense. Clearer imagery, sharper language, more interesting and developed characters (in a fairly large cast!). I should read more of her work... even though I don't really like YA fantasy...
My own book progress: I have passed 30k words on my romantasy project and not worked much on anything else yet!
Cleat Cute: I have given Meryl Wilsner a second chance. Maybe they learned, with their third book. Maybe they got better. Reader, they did not learn or get better. The only things that worked about this book were the sex scenes, which were genuinely very hot. The characters were bland. I wanted grumpy/sunshine, not slightly stoic/somewhat cheerful! Their disagreements were minor and too quickly resolved. Both main characters somehow had undiagnosed neurodivergencies as their entire personalities. Pacing was whack. There was one horrible page where the entire story stopped to tell you about the author's opinions on The Discourse.
As you can see, OP has never heard of a Show they couldn't Tell instead. Cursed.
Anyway.
The Centre: I liked most of it, but the ending really fizzled out, and the big twist was very well-telegraphed. I did think it was well-written, for the most part. Can't speak to the representation of Islam/Pakistan/India/Etc obviously, but I thought the unlikeable protagonist was pretty funny except she should've listened more to her gay thoughts. This book could have been improved with gay sex.
Martyr!: See, this guy listened to his gay thoughts and we got a really good book out of it!! I know it's only April, but this is on my Best Book of The Year list already. It's so good. It just does a lot of things, really well. And has gay people in it!
ETA I forgot Last Night At The Telegraph Club! I loved this book a lot, but it's not really a romance novel, more of a coming of age with a romance in it. The obstacles to the central relationship are all external (homophobia, being a lesbian in the 1950s), and the relationship itself is more conflict-free in contrast to everything around it, which I think works well for this story. Malinda Lo can fucking WRITE. Like, she's just a much better prose stylist than Meryl Wilsner, no offense. Clearer imagery, sharper language, more interesting and developed characters (in a fairly large cast!). I should read more of her work... even though I don't really like YA fantasy...
My own book progress: I have passed 30k words on my romantasy project and not worked much on anything else yet!
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Date: 2024-04-23 02:39 pm (UTC)also, i got the title of that book my friend liked, it's 'the split' by laura kay. she said it was a bit beth o'leary specifically, maybe in part because they're both british?
more importantly, congrats on 30k words! that's so many! woooo
no subject
Date: 2024-04-24 01:55 pm (UTC)The Centre was a pretty quick read for me and I didn't hate it but it was just kind of eh overall I think.
Thank you! Still needs more words though we'll see how much I add while traveling this week.