#bookrec

Oops! Clearly, my listening comprehension skills still leave something to be desired ;-;.

Here is a reuploaded version. 🖤 Apologies! @nicosraf

Rafael Nicolás - Angels before Man

Gallagher Girls is a fun, fast-paced YA spy series that mixes boarding school chaos, teenage friendships, covert missions, and secret-agent training into something that feels like if a teen comedy and an espionage movie had a daughter.

The series follows Cammie Morgan, a student at the Gallagher Academy — which looks like an elite girls’ boarding school but is actually a training ground for teenage spies. Cammie and her friends learn everything from codebreaking and martial arts to surveillance and undercover operations… while also dealing with crushes, school drama, and the fact that normal teenage life becomes kind of impossible when you know at least a hundred ways to disarm someone.

One of the series’ biggest strengths is its tone. It’s clever, funny, and genuinely entertaining without taking itself too seriously. The friendships between Cammie, Bex, Liz, and Macey are easily the heart of the books — supportive, chaotic, and believable in a way that makes the emotional moments hit harder than expected. A lot of readers also love how each girl has a distinct personality and skill set instead of blending together.

The romance is lighter compared to modern romantasy or darker YA. Cammie’s relationship with Josh in the first books is sweet but messy, while later books introduce more emotionally layered dynamics. The romance never completely overtakes the spy plot, though, which is honestly part of why the series works so well.

The books do get stronger as the series progresses. The early installments are very middle-grade/young-YA in tone, but later books become darker and more emotional, especially once the stakes around Cammie’s family and the spy world start escalating. Some readers still find parts of the plot simplistic or repetitive, but the charm and characters usually carry it through.

Overall, Gallagher Girls is an iconic comfort-series for a lot of YA readers — funny, clever, and ridiculously bingeable. It’s less about ultra-realistic espionage and more about friendship, growing up, and teenage girls being cooler than literally everyone else.

I swear, every time I pick up an April Kerner book, I tell myself I’ll take it slow and then end up binging the whole thing in one night. Her stories just hit different—they’re emotional, messy, and so real that I feel like I know her characters personally.

After reading Boys with Secrets, I thought, “Okay, there’s no way she can make me feel this much again.” Then I read Boys with Braces, and now I’m just sitting here, fully invested in these fictional people like they’re my actual friends. Lazar? Riley? John? I’d defend them with my life.

I love how Kerner doesn’t shy away from difficult topics but still gives us those heartwarming, swoon-worthy moments that make me believe in love again. Her writing has this effortless way of making you feel everything—the angst, the joy, the absolute devastation (because yes, I did cry).

The writing is quite good.

I enjoyed gradually discovering the point of the framing device.

The vast majority of the expats are adorable.

Really wish portions of the plot didn't require the protagonist to stop asking pertinent questions and become deeply passive in the middle of the plot.

Truly wild that Barack "the arc of history is long but it bends towards justice and thus incrementalism my one true love is the path forward" Obama would recommend a book so firmly of the belief that there is not merely no arc to history but that one must firmly grasp the tiller to amend what has gone wrong.

All of the food Gore makes sounds very tasty.

Recommendation for the general public: it's not very long, and is quite an enjoyable read. It doesn't really care that much about how time travel works, so don't be turned off if you have trouble tracking multiple timelines.

Remember to take care of yourself and check the CW's for these books, especially the horror list.

19.10.24

Reading Japanese classics is so oddly comforting(?) I know it sounds insane as most of them consist of sensitive topics but sometimes some lines are so good, it makes you want to squeeze your own heart until it ruptures, it makes your head spin in circles leaving you numb and unable to think any further while the line that you just read echoes like a haunting whisper in the dark.

I am in a bit of a reading slump, and I need some good fantasy recommendations. What are you all reading?

"I can't hurt her with my existence. She fucking builds things for Olympus's sake. I am the Lord of Destruction. I can't destroy her too. Not her." Percy said, his voice calm but in sorrow now, a tired honesty in it. Eros smiled.

"How do you know she does not need somethings inside her to be destroyed in order to be better?" He asked and Percy turned to look at him, green eyes still in agony.

"Destruction is not always evil. I thought you should know that by now." He said, while Percy took a deep, shaking breath.

You can't run away from love forever.

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