Book round-up
Aug. 31st, 2022 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daemonluna I just released a significant stack of unread books off my coffee table back into the library ecosystem. (Sorry Dead Collections, you deserve my full attention when I have an attention span again in about a month when my major project for the year wraps at work.) I've read a couple things lately that have been hit and miss for me.
Docile by K. M. Szpara. Capitalist dystopia slavefic m/m romance. Why.... am I reading tropes I don't enjoy? I can see it finding its niche, just not with me. I can understand why it got slammed for being set in the US and ignoring anything about race at all when it's about state-sanctioned debt-based slavery. On the other hand, it's 100% id-fic. (shrug)
A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. Historical romance, trans female lead, male lead with PTSD. I liked some things about it, but it didn't 100% land for me. Maybe something about the pacing? He's good a great cast of secondary characters, and I kind of think they're more interesting than the leads. (I did not really enjoy Something Fabulous at all, his last historical.)
Husband Material, also by Alexis Hall. Also... I enjoyed it but not as much as the first book. Loosely based on Four Weddings And A Funeral in that there are... four weddings and a funeral. I only clued in once we hit the funeral after wedding number three. I am not really sure that we really needed to revisit these characters? Again, I enjoyed hanging out with the supporting cast a ton, but. The book was spinning its wheels a bit to fit the premise, I thought. His last few have been only okay...ish for me.
I am currently reading A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland. High fantasy romance between a prince and his bodyguard, swoony with tropes, and wonderfully queer. I'm about a third of the way in, and we'll see how it all comes together. The bodyguard is a little bit Lan Zhan in his stoicism, which shouldn't surprise me, because I found the book via the author's Untamed fic.
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. Enjoyable! I didn't love it, but I really liked it. Some clever play with fairy tale tropes and structure. Not as dark as her horror titles. I like her books a lot! They're interesting, and I appreciate her practical down-to-earth main characters. I have not yet pinpointed why many of her books are strongly like but I don't love it enough to want to reread it. (I am a compulsive re-reader.)
Docile by K. M. Szpara. Capitalist dystopia slavefic m/m romance. Why.... am I reading tropes I don't enjoy? I can see it finding its niche, just not with me. I can understand why it got slammed for being set in the US and ignoring anything about race at all when it's about state-sanctioned debt-based slavery. On the other hand, it's 100% id-fic. (shrug)
A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. Historical romance, trans female lead, male lead with PTSD. I liked some things about it, but it didn't 100% land for me. Maybe something about the pacing? He's good a great cast of secondary characters, and I kind of think they're more interesting than the leads. (I did not really enjoy Something Fabulous at all, his last historical.)
Husband Material, also by Alexis Hall. Also... I enjoyed it but not as much as the first book. Loosely based on Four Weddings And A Funeral in that there are... four weddings and a funeral. I only clued in once we hit the funeral after wedding number three. I am not really sure that we really needed to revisit these characters? Again, I enjoyed hanging out with the supporting cast a ton, but. The book was spinning its wheels a bit to fit the premise, I thought. His last few have been only okay...ish for me.
I am currently reading A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland. High fantasy romance between a prince and his bodyguard, swoony with tropes, and wonderfully queer. I'm about a third of the way in, and we'll see how it all comes together. The bodyguard is a little bit Lan Zhan in his stoicism, which shouldn't surprise me, because I found the book via the author's Untamed fic.
