willaful

#WhatchaReading ? I finished You Say It First by Katie Cotugno, which I seem to have liked rather more than most romance readers. I thought the mix of romance/coming of age was well done and appropriate for YA, and I liked how much the opposite-attract couple grew from being together, even though it was a somewhat fraught relationship.

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My daughter loved How to Excavate a Heart! What sapphic YA romance next?!

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Doing a reread of Naked in Death at #Litsy and just realized the main characters are a cop and a billionaire. Wow did that not age well. 😂

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#WhatchaReading ? I started Early Morning Riser... I'm not sure it's romance? But I really like the voice and I'm pretty sure a romance reader rec'd it so am hoping for the best.

Also read Four Weeks in Winter by Jane Donnelly, which is available from the Internet Archive. Enjoyable oldie, with the main character's boss acting as her fake fiance to protect her from a jerky old flame.

Started the new Olivia Atwater but I don't seem to be in a gothic mood.

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#WhatchaReading ? I read the We Could Be So Good epilogue, "Bells are Ringing," which was perfect. They're exactly themselves, yet somehow they've also grown. Funny and awwwww.

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#WhatchaReading ? I read A Mother for Christmas, a kindle freebie. A bit mawkish, but I can't say I wasn't warned by the title. The prose was quirky and had some personality to it. Could have used more payoff at the end.

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#WhatchaReading ? I read How to Excavate a Heart, a YA sapphic romance, which starts off frothy but goes to some darker places. This is a good one for readers who get frustrated when people say they prefer same-sex romance because it doesn't have all the gender politics.

Also, the first book I've ever read that doesn't just acknowledge being written on native land, but offers suggestions for reparations.

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#WhatchaReading ? I listened to Handmade Holidays by 'Nathan Burgoine after @herhandsmyhands 's rave ( https://herhandsmyhands.wordpress.com/2023/12/18/handmade-holidays-by-nathan-burgoine/ ) & she was not wrong. :-)

Such a tender and funny story of queer found family, friendship & love, and the structure is simple & elegant: each chapter is a different Christmastime, and we see everything we need to see about what happened in between. (Except at the very end, where I felt I missed out.)

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#WhatchaReading ? I'm still sniffling after finishing Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender. Painful but beautifully tender and hopeful m/m romance that explores how abuse and trauma can negatively impact a relationship. Checking the CWs highly recommended!

Excellent full cast audiobook, which does justice to the partially epistolary "multimedia" structure. One of the narrators seems to be NB, though both main characters are apparently cis.

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#WhatchaReading ? I didn't love the style and tropiness of Eight Dates and Nights, but I did love reading a Hanukkah book that was really focused on Hanukkah. And it's really cool to read about Jewish history in a rural area of Texas.

Favorite moment: It's not a queer romance, but the MMC has a bumper sticker with a Pride flag and the words "Shalom Y'All Means Y'All."

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#WhatchaReading ? I finished the most waste of time old Harlequin, The Wild Side by Diana Hamilton. One of those awful misogynistic old skool books that's pretty fun if you're in the right mood -- but then there's the most lukewarm ending! Why did I suffer through all that angst?! Where is my payoff?!

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#WhatchaReading? On my third try, I finally finished The Wake Up Call. I liked it fairly well by the end, but I don't read Beth O'Leary for tropiness and this was all trope all the time. And I'm just not that fond of the "she's a childish pain in the ass and somehow he loves her for it" relationship dynamic. There was some nice tenderness and angst... the supposedly stoic MMC really gets punched in the gut, poor sweet baby.

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