#may wrapup

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-Among the Wildflowers by Anita Kelly*

-Lights, Camera, Love by Natalie Murray

-A Grim and Sunken Vow by Ashley Shuttleworth (reread) 🎧

-A Wild and Ruined Song by Ashley Shuttleworth (reread) 🎧

-Graceless by Ruby Landers (reread) 🎧

-Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall (reread) 🎧

-Charlie by Diane Fox Downs & Lilian Obligado (reread)

-Love Looks Like Lola by Cody Daigle-Orions

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

-Ladies of the Knight by Fiona Marchbank*

-Never After by Alexis Hall

-Shapes of Love by LV Peñalba*

-Hold Me Like a Grudge by Celine Ong*

-Honour & Heresy by Max Francis

-Outdrawn by Deanna Grey

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-A Cruel and Fated Light by Ashley Shuttleworth (reread) 🎧

-Drawing Nudes While Making Other Plans by Zoe Gaetjens*

-Bad Queer by Gayathiri Kamalakanthan*

-Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

-Plumage by Alivia Fleur*

-The Reality of Us by Emma Mugglestone* 🎧

-The Boyfriend Clause by Bridie Blake

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

-I Could Give You the Moon by Ann Liang*

-The Paradise Pact by Anita Heiss

⭐️⭐️⭐️

-You Won’t Forget Me by Mazey Eddings*

-Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn 🎧

DNF

-Holding the Reins by Paisley Hope (78%)

-Her Sharp Embrace by Kate Koenig* (27%)

-Bump, Set, Sparks by Jennifer Moffatt* (18%)

-Embers of Analon by Paul Michael Winters* (37%)

-Little Wild by Laura Evans* (3%)

-The Perfect Matcha by Stevie Greene* (48%)

-The Mistral by Felix Mosse* (33%)

-Our Perfect Storm by Carly Fortune* (32%) 🎧

-Where Shadows Bloom by Catherine Bakewell (59%)

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Starling

In a Victorian AU world, Jane doesn't want to be stuck as a spinster figure of pity with her adopted family, so she agrees to be in a marriage of convenience with a surgeon named Augustine Lawrence. Things seem to be going great until on her wedding night, she is dropped off at the manor house he lives in...at the haunted manor house he lives in. Since Crimson Peak is one of my favorite movies and this book was inspired by it, I had to pick it up and I was not disappointed! Very much had the same vibes but is distinctly its own thing! I liked Jane and her practicality and I loved Augustine and how much of a pathetic meow meow and simping malewife he was for her. There is plenty of scary, gruesome imagery and I kept being so nervous, thinking "how is Jane gonna deal with this?" Plus there was a pretty darn good twist in the last third and I was genuinely surprised by the ending, without giving anything away The only thing is that sometimes the prose is so poetic that it becomes vague, especially one section right before the very end. But I loved it! 4/5

Bride

Okay, so in a nutshell, this is an arranged marriage story between the vampire Misery and the werewolf Lowe, since the vampires, werewolves, and humans have been in constant conflict. For what I liked, the book was really funny. I enjoyed Misery's sarcasm, snark, and badassery and the romance felt developed and real. This is infamous for the omegaverse elements in the smut, but it wasn't overwhelming for someone who hasn't read a lot and I heard it's TAME compared to fanfiction. I especially liked Misery's friend Serena and I ADORED her relationship with Lowe's kid sister, Ana, who is so adorable and funny. My only qualms are that the romance felt slow to start, there were a lot of bland, forgettable side characters to keep track of, and the climax felt rushed and unclear. 4/5.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Fawcett

My favorite book of the month! This tells of socially awkward, incredibly intelligent professor Emily Wilde in the early 1900's. She is a professor of Fairy studies and is off in a tiny Scandinavian village to study the fairies there. Who else should show up but her charming, rakish rival in academia, Wendell Bambleby. They realize how much the fairies have messed up the local villagers and plan to take action. Okay, I LOVE that the fairies and the fae feel so much like the fairy tales and folklore of yore. The author did her homework! These aren't the hot people with wings and six-packs of Sarah J Maas. They are inhuman, immensely powerful, and can bless you or curse you in a minute's notice if you take the wrong step. I adored Emily and she seemed very much coded as neurodivergent with her passion for fairies her fear of offending others by saying the wrong thing and her lack of reading into social cues. And WENDELL BAMBLEBY! My BambleBook Boyfriend. He is a mix of Prince Hal from The Henriad and Howl from Howl's Moving Castle. He is slutty, constantly inviting his Bambleby Booty Calls, and lazy, having his students do all the work, but he begins to genuinely fall for Emily and is as charming and sweet beneath it all as he can be with a subtle element of "touch her, and you die!" It's dryly hilarious and the third act was incredible. The characters were well-developed and flawed, but still compelling, relatable, and likable. I adored this to death and would HIGHLY recommend it! 5/5

Twisted Love by Huang

In a nutshell, this is a brother's friend and grumpy/sunshine romance. What I love about Ana Huang is that she always knows how to pace and develop a romance between two characters AND her spice is top tier. There are a few funny moments, as well as genuinely sweet ones. However, there are all sorts of elements that veneer into the silly to where I don't take it 100 percent seriously. Like, how our main girl just HAPPENS to be friends with a princess of another country at some public university. And that our main guy is 27 yet a billionaire CEO of a whole company...and he just hangs out with college kids! Like?!?!?!!? I say a good 4/5 just because I always like her.

My Throat an Open Grave by Bovalino

What I expected:

What I got:

Ok, so this teenage girl, Leah, is miserable living in her tiny, religious, conservative town. One night, she is sick of babysitting her baby brother and offers him accidentally to the Lord of the Wood and wouldn't you know it! The Lord of the Wood takes him! So the town tells her she has got to go and get him back, though no girl who runs to the forest for that ever returns. So she gets there and...it's this nice, open minded, cottagecore normal ass village. Other than the premise at the beginning, this isn't Labyrinth but a wholesome Midsomar for kids. Though I do like the middle finger to conservative, small town purity culture, it kind of dragged and wasn't that scary and the stakes weren't high. I expected a scary, folk horror journey, but just got kind of "eh, here's a nice cult that doesn't judge you. You know kid, are you sick of your tiny, repressive town? Here's the answer: join a cult!" There is a really good twist, a scene that got kind of spicy and pushed it for a YA book, and I appreciate that the Jareth in this is around her age instead of some grown ass man offering himself to a minor (sorry, but I am in the minority of Labyrinth who thinks Sarah was right. She made the right choice at the end), it felt like it wasn't the heroes journey I expected and got kind of bland. 3/5

Bonus, My Favorite Video Essays:

The Dark Romance Community is Mad at Me: Okay, this girl, A Model Who Reads, posted a TikTok showing her surprise that the publishing company she works for was releasing a book marked as a Serial Killer Sexual Assault Romance, the dark romance community ATTACKED her in the comments. Here, she explains the problems with it why she isnt' sorry, and her issues with dark romance in full. Insightful, and incredible, and she finally addresses the issue concerning this angry, self-righteous, and unempathetic culture that has emerged recently concerning trigger warnings in media.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender

-Next of Kin by Hannah Bonam-Young

-Silverborn by Jessica Townsend*

-Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by CB Lee*

-Never Thought I’d End Up Here by Ann Liang*

-Shadowgate by Emily Rodda (reread) 🎧

-Sister of the South by Emily Rodda (reread) 🎧

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

-Kiss Me, Maybe by Gabriella Gamez*

-Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory

-Where the Dark Stands Still by AB Poranek

-Isle of the Dead by Emily Rodda (reread) 🎧

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25

-A Fellowship of Librarians and Dragons by J Penner*

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-These Vengeful Gods by Gabe Cole Novoa*

-You Had Me at Happy Hour by Timothy Janovsky

-Undercover with the Heiress by Alivia Fleur

-A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I Lin

-A Venom Dark and Sweet by Judy I Lin

-Dragon’s Nest by Emily Rodda (reread) 🎧

-Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove*

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

-Amelia, If Only by Becky Albertalli*

⭐️⭐️⭐️

-The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling* 🎧

-Daughter of Chaos by AS Webb* 🎧

-A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

⭐️⭐️.5

-Vesuvius by Cass Biehn*

⭐️⭐️

-The Survivor Wants to Die at the End by Adam Silverai

DNF

-All-Nighter by Cecilia Vinesse* (32%)

-Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan* (9%)

-When Love Gives You Lemons by Steven Salvatore* 🎧 (23%)

-The Wisteria Society for Lady Scoundrels (14%)

-Daughter of Doom by Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem* (33%)

-Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke* 🎧 (10%)

-The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater* (17%)