Oliver Moss

Like Real People Do by E L Massey - I finished the book, sort of. I knew there was a sequel, but I didn't realize that it's part of a four book series and the first two books are basically part 1 and part 2 of the same story. Like Real People Do picks a stopping point rather than having a solid ending, but that's fine with how the book is structured.

It's about a college kid who is a serious figure skater trying to navigate a seizure disorder. He winds up dating a closeted NHL hockey prodigy. I enjoyed it, but might take the rest of the series a book at a time.

It's very medium stakes. Nothing is high drama, but there are serious issues in both of the MC's lives that grounds the romantic fantasy elements. It's really well written, just not exactly my cup of tea. But, definitely the palate cleanser I needed after Goaltender Interference.

I don't typically like YA, anything involving teens, or meant for teens. One of the characters struggles to deal with his emotions in a way that feels real for his age without milking it for drama or making him feel unsafe to be around. I also liked how the characters are trying to handle a difficult situation and be mature about it, but every once in a while the far-more-mature character is just done with trying to be an adult and decides to just make out or lets himself sound a bit whiny. Basically, he goes easy on himself sometimes and gives himself permission to not try to be perfect, and that lets both Main Characters relax and keeps stress from building in the relationship. A lot of things are just really well handled.

Hockey score - I am going to give all hockey romances a hockey score from now on. It's decent! Doesn't really get much into hockey culture or crunchy things about hockey, but does get into the realism of things like minor injuries. There is no Major Injury plot point or drama, but the Hockey Player Main Character being banged up, run down and also on medication after a bad hit messing up his life a bit was a nice bit of realism. Massey definitely gets a point there. The Hockey Player Main Character being a captain at nineteen without someone wearing the 'A' to either support him or help mentor him into the role feels very unlikely, especially since he's a mess. He's not a mature young man, he's got underage DUIs. Making part of a leadership core and giving him the C symbolically would make more sense. But, it's part of the set up the author was going for so I'm not bothered. The unlikely-but-not-impossible bits are there for a reason.

Also, I really liked that the author understood the difference between hockey skating and figure skating, like that certain figure skate moves don't work in hockey skates. One reason I was very reluctant about trying this book was other authors ignoring all that, sometimes aggressively ignoring skating physics for cute moments.

Huh, it doesn't look like I ever posted about Delay of Game... or any of the Ari Baran hockey books. Having taken a posting break has things disordered.

I've read 3 of the 4 books in the Penalty Box series: Game Misconduct, Delay of Game and Home Ice Advantage. I've had multiple people recommend the fourth book in the series, Goaltender Interference, to me. I do like goalies being interfered with, in certain ways. So, I am excited to get to it... but I've also got book club books to read first and I also like to alternate hockey books with non-hockey books.

Series so far overview: Ari Baran's books are the only hockey romances outside of Rachel Reid's that I've really enjoyed. Some other hockey books I've read can best be described as 'books that exist'. The first book is good, but also a bit rough... in every way: writing is rough in places, sex is rough and scenarios under-negotiated, dark side of hockey very leaned into. Later books are less rough, but if they have a editor I would like to give them notes. Ari has a weird habit of repeating sentences and ways of describing things. The instances of repetition are far apart in the book, but still it's something that should be caught. First book is good but rough, second book... drags a bit get is very good by the end, third book is solid all the way through. Endings can feel a bit abrupt.

* Game Misconduct - ( Read more... )

* Delay of Game - ( Read more... )

* Home Ice Advantage - ( Sideplot spoilers )

* The Murder Between Us by Tal Bauer - I don't have to have Tal Bauer fomo anymore! A lot of m/m fans love his work, but most of the summaries were off-putting to me. No more fomo, I do not like his style. Melodramatic AF

* Snake Eater by T Kingfisher - I want to read more by Kingfisher. I liked this, but I DNF'd her earlier work Paladin's Grace. She's just going to be hot or miss for me and that's okay. Is it just me or ( Spoilers )

* 3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years by John Scalzi - My first Scalzi book. I've heard odd things about a few of his books so I never read them. This was more of a novella and it was an Amazon First free read so I nabbed it. At first I thought it started with an expo dump, but then things begun to click. It stayed with me a bit, I kept thinking about it. I liked it.

* The Most Unusual Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish - Another established m/m author I'd never read. It was overstuffed, tried to do to much, wound up a mess. The sex scenes involving an AFAB trans person were great and didn't feel like the writer was trying to explain things to me, the reader. But yeah, pass.

My DNF pile for the year includes Paladin's Grace, Him and Check, Please. I nearly DNF'd The Murder Between Us, but decided to push through even as I rolled my eyes more and more. Not finishing a book makes me feel like I have too many open tabs, so I finished it just so my brain could close that tab and not think about it, try to keep the plot fresh in my mind.

Not books, just book this time

I finished The Shots You Take (hockey m/m book) a few days ago and feel like posting about it before I've got any more other books done. This book was so good it both solved a problem and created a problem for me. I had been thinking just last week how it's annoying that I don't have a book that I can recommend without caveats, and nothing that hits that sweet spot of both being well written and having content and themes that appeal to me. This book solves that problem.

The problem it makes is that it's a m/m hockey romance by Rachel Reid that's not in the Game Changers series. I want to recc Heated Rivalry, Tough Guy and other books in the series, but all those books are weighed down by being in an series of uneven quality. Some amazing writing, and some not. Come join the TV show waiting room anyway, we have fic (I even wrote some), and one of the actors has been posting thirst traps to insta. Ignore that there is a much better book by her that's a stand alone and come join us.

I put off this book for a while because it's a second chance romance where one of the guys really hurt the other in the past. I usually hate these kinds of storylines. The problem is that authors like to make the past be really bad for drama and angst... and then either they start to hand wave how bad it was to make the story work or they have one side of the pairing basically have to take it in the teeth, choose the relationship over themselves. There is none of that in this book. I have literally no notes about anything in the novel. Nothing made me go 'ugh' or 'well it has to be like this for it to work'.

In general, Reid is really good having a sense that characters also need to look after themselves and have boundaries. Even if someone is being terrible, you need to find a way to communicate that, shield yourself, GTFO, etc. Placing value on having a sense of personal responsibility while also not not feeling like the narrative is in any way blaming either or both of the characters? A lot of stuff is just really well handled in the book.

Anyway, the book is about two hockey players from the same team who had a messy relationship they didn't really talk about reconnecting years later in a small town in Nova Scotia. MC1's dad just died and MC2 shows up to the funeral even though they hadn't talked in about eight years. I'd been putting off the book, the only one I hadn't read by her yet, because I just assumed something about the plotline would piss me off. I just assumed that was part of these sorts of stories. But I was wrong. Seriously good, 10/10, no notes.

I've finished Game Changers by Rachel Reid. No, not just the book called Game Changer, tho whole series which is called Game Changers. Getting through the whole series that fast is fine, probably. Anyway, tl:dr whole series review is that the books are of very uneven quality. Some people say to skip book 1, and I can see that. It's a bit more fluffy than some of the other books and some of her later writing is much better. But to me book 4 is just confusingly bad, and that can be skipped easily. The Ilya and Shane books (2 and 6) are fantastic and I also really, really liked 3 and 5.

One thing the writer really excels at is having a distinct feel to her characters. For example, most of them have reasons to be anxious with all the pressures they face, but that manifests in different ways in each character. How it feels to them, if they try to ignore it, how they handle it, etc.

The TV series will be based on book 2, Heated Rivalry, which is about Shane and Ilya. But book 6, Long Game, continues to story of Shane and Ilya and is excellent. It also wraps up the series very well, even though it wasn't the intended ending. The author has scrapped book 7 because it wasn't working, but honestly 6 feels like a great series finale. Maybe 1 or 2 scenes more would have been ideal, but the book pays off a lot of stuff and feels satisfying.

The quality of the writing varies a lot over the series, and also each book has a different dynamic. I am very glad I read it, but I think for anyone reading this series there are going to be books that don't click with as much.

Anyway, the individual books.

Book 1 - Game Changer: When I saw the blurb I was like 'oh, it's this book'. I remember this creating a splash when it came out. In spaces I was in, people were pushing this book hard. No matter what you asked for, people rushed in with this recc. There was a point where I really wanted people to shut up about this book. But, that probably says more about the spaces I was in than the book or the fandom.

It's the coffee shop AU trope, but as original fiction. ( Read more... )

Book 2 - I already talked about Heated Rivalry here

Book 3 - Tough Guy: This was very interesting as it dipped into the darker side of hockey as a business and also the impact of hockey injuries. ( major spoilers )

Book 4 - Common Goal: This is about a retiring goalie and a much younger character who is a friend of the couple from the first book. ( Spoilers )

Book 5 - Role Model: This book is about someone who was caught up in the toxic side of hockey culture. Again, bringing in some real stuff. The MC starts out spiraling because his best friend was accused of sexual assault and he has reason to believe the women. His life had just collapsed in a dozen ways. He gets traded and his new team has an openly gay social media manager who is lively, sweet and loves to bake. I really liked this one and how things developed between them.

Sidenote: I think it's fine to just read the Shane and Ilya books, but Role Model does leads into the last book in some interesting ways. A chunk of both books overlap timewise and the MC from this book is on Ilya's team. I really enjoying getting the additional perspective on things.

Book 6 - Long Game - Time to see how Shane and Ilya are doing. Shane and Ilya are such great characters. They are really in a different and have been stuck watching other couples come out and able to love openly and get married and by truthful to their friends. Lots of amazing call backs to the first book and building on things that happened in it. ( Read more... )

* Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch - It was cute! I did not guess where it was going, but once it got there it made a lot of sense. And then thinking back on other details from the book, that all clicked. There are a few moments where I wasn't sure which POV that bit was in, but that's okay.

* I am soft-DNFing Per Sanguem by Ashlyn Drewek. I do want to get back to it, but I am drowning in books and series I am trying to finish and also want to be more on top of my bookclub reads. Part of why I've put it down is that some bits read like editorial notes were left in? (I don't think they are ChatGPT prompts, tho authors putting books with their prompts hanging out has been going around.)

I am back and both exhausted and also slammed. It might be a minute before I have a spare brain cell to do photos, so I will start with getting caught up with books

No spoilers, I just added in a few LJ cuts since this got long.

The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

The book: Simple, short and effective description of the toxicity and entitlement that runs rampant in Connecticut

Me: OMG, this is so nostalgic!

I picked this up based on a 'judging you based on what your favorite book is' video. the quip for this one was something like 'your ideal TV show is Buffy, but without Xander' It's an urban fantasy based on Yale, which is a honestly a great UF setting. For those who don't know, they do have some secret societies and major politicians have come out of Skull and Bones.

I loved this book, but partially because it really nails where I grew up. I read this while on the train headed east, and that was a wild experience, especially as I started to recognize the scenery outside of the train.

( Read more... )

I love the writing so much. I was instantly on board with picking up more my the same writer. When I was looking to see if the author had written anything else, maybe if the next book was out yet, I saw that one of her books is called Six Of Crows. I was like “That’s funny, that’s the same title as…. Oh wait.” So, everyone who told me I should read the books of Grishaverse, guess what?

Smoke & Shadows by Tanya Huff

I was very confused reading this because with every page turn I was like, I've read this before... but I don't remember the overall plot. But I was pretty sure I’d bought it recently and Kindle had no record of me having started it. I don’t have the physical book or audiobook. So, I searched my email inbox and found a very old DW post of mine where I said that ‘Audible made this seem like book 1 in a series, but it’s book 6. At first I was impressed by how complex the relationships of the characters are, but then I realized I was missing stuff I as supposed to know and looked into it’ At the time I was only doing audiobooks due to an injury and the earlier books were not available as audiobooks. So, I’d returned it.

I’ve now bought this book twice thinking it was the start of a series due to how it's listed. Holy fuck. I am actually going to read this from the start at a point. As I am writing this I am in NYC, so I’m moving onto another book I have for now.

The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune

It was okay. It’s a good take on the ‘young girl with powers wanted by government’ trope. The plot and lots of things about it were very good, but the main character is just sort of numb and non-reactive for too much of the story. Being like that at first? Sure, but after a while it starts to feel like he’s missing from his own story. Especially since it's supposed to be a thriller and he's supposed to have certain skills, I really came away from it feeling like he was just checked out and never really chose to be part of things.

I’ve seen this book described as ‘Stranger Things if Steve and Hopper ran off with El’, but it’s really not. ( Read more... )

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Oof, I wanted to like this. It’s a bit disjointed and jumps around a bit. I don’t typically do this, but I did look up other reviews of the book before posting just to double check that certain things just weren’t resolved. I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed something. Also, I was switching between the ebook and the audiobook and wound up re-reading chunks to make sure that I hadn’t missed stuff due to syncing issues. I hadn’t. I put a chunk of effort into making sure I hadn’t like accidentally a chapter.

( Read more... )

A Rival Most Vial by R. K. Ashwick

It’s Lit-RPG but also gay romance.

It’s a very solid book, I just don’t know if I fully click with Lit-RPG, or maybe this style of Lit-RPG? A lot of cozy fantasy rubs me the wrong way, and this doesn’t. That aspect feels more solid and earned than in anything else I’ve read in the cozy genre. I don’t want to damn it with faint praise, I think for some readers this might be The Book they’ve been looking for. In a lot of ways it’s fantastic, just not quite my thing.

Basically, if you wanted to like Legends and Lattes but didn't, maybe had some 'not sure about that' type reactions, I’d highly recc at least giving this a look.

Children of the Night by Mercedes Lackey

This is actually a prequel to her earlier Di Tregarde stories, setting up Lenny, Andre and some Guardian worldbuilding, and also retconning earlier world building. I wish I'd made notes on the retconning, but I actually started this right after Burning Water, but my collapse of interest in playing GW2 meant less time listening to audiobooks so I wound up with a big gap between when I started and now.

She was very early to the urban fantasy trend especially when it involves grittiness and smooching vampires. I've been told my whole life that other authors pioneered the genre, but when I read those earlier UF books they are pretty much portal fantasies. A lot of the weaknesses of the book are just from being a very early example of something that later became a very developed genre. There is still a lot of off-screen stuff, most notably the Nightflier situation, but when I was younger I liked the feeling that these books existed in a larger world and that there were more stories out there. The romance has unusual pacing, but I kinda like that about it.

However, she is still very weird about Romani people. The book isn't as moralistic and know-it-all as Burning Water, but it's still got that while also not being consistent. It's like the book wants to speak from a strong viewpoint on how the world works, but hadn't actually figured out that viewpoint yet. Also, weird jabs at people into BDSM again.

It was a weird book to revisit, as I read it so much when I was young that at times I remembered what the next sentence was going to be. How much she'd impacted how I write is like... while I was listening to this I felt like I was going back to an old, overly wordy, style of writing (and maybe talking?) like... like a New Yorker hearing a New York accent and falling back into it.

Audiobook specific note: I overall love Traci Odom's work on the series, but I hate her voice for Andre. She really vamps up the French accent.

A Gentleman's Gentleman by TJ Alexander - The short review is that I am glad this book exists, but it just stopped clicking for me the further I got into it. ( No plot spoilers )

I have made it through Gideon the Ninth, and for the rest of the month I can read non-book club books. I need to make a bookclub tracker spreadsheet for myself.

How much of my life is book clubs? I have acquired a Book Biffle, which is a item to safely carry a book to a book club in your bag, so it doesn't get scuffed:



( Short, non-spoiler response to Gideon the Ninth )

( Longer non-spoiler reaction )

* Ravensong by TJ Klune - This book starts right in the middle of events of the last book and expects you to remember every character and relationship. I was able to get on track, but The Green Creek series is not meant to be read very spaced apart. So, my current book is Brothersong. I didn't go right into it from Ravensong, but only had one book in between.

( No plot spoilers, just structural stuff )

* The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle - I read this for Horror Book Club, knocking a book off of my must-read list. The writing was amazing. I loved the story. It's set in NYC, I think 1930s, from the perspective of a black man living in Harlem. Amazing descriptions and I love the idea of the reality of NYC versus what people expect. ( It's sort of based on another book, but I didn't know that going in. It's not a spoiler, but I am cutting anyway in case anyone else wants to go in fully blind like I did. )

* I am soft-DNFing Deviant Desire by Jackson Marsh - This is a recc from the gay men reading gay books group I was in on FB because the site became unusable for me. I liked reccs from there because I was seeing titles I was not seeing elsewhere, including searching Amazon and Goodreads. It wasn't a totally different eco-system, but a chunk of what I saw there I didn't see elswhere. I may pick it back up, especially since Amazon keeps trying to give me ads for the sequel and the sequel is on a train... but it's just not very well written so far. I was having trouble sticking with it when I only have so much time for non-book-club-books. When I go to reread the blurb because I am very confused on who the eventual couple is supposed to be that far into the book, not a great sign. Also, WTF even where some of those interactions? A few sections were well written and I liked them, but not the parts with people interacting...

* Edge of Fate by SJ Himes - Wasn't into this one, but kinda expected that from a book based around Cian. Just, not my vibe. The next book is the final in the series and I hope I really like it. I would rather have gotten [character's] POV on meeting certain other characters over anything that happens in this book, and at first it looked like we'd get that POV sprinkled in? And then we didn't.