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Ranking The Hathaways series
After finishing Bridgerton, I needed a new historical romance to keep me tide over and since I’ve heard Kleypas’ name several times (and her covers are beautiful) I decided to tackle the Hathaways. Another eccentric family of siblings and my final post for the month of love.
1: Love in the Afternoon. Kleypas’ final book in the series and I loved it best. It all starts out as a correspondence while Christopher is at war. Beatrix sensing he just needs someone to come home to, writes back. Alas she is writing in her shallow friend’s name. Such drama. But the most important thing was, their romance was sweet, they meshed well together. I loved how Beatrix saw the world through animalia and kept her eccentricity even in marriage and I enjoyed the vulnerability/angst Christopher had in acclimating back to civilian life due to his shell shock. Or as they called it in the Victorian era, insanity.
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Ranking the Bridgerton series
After finishing the first season of Bridgerton last year I delved right into the books which, let’s admit it, were better than the series. At least I thought The Duke and I (which the first season is based on) was much funnier and the couple had more chemistry than in the show so I’m going to assume the rest will be as well. No spoilers here so my reasonings for how good they are a bit vague.
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Rachel’s Contemporary Romance Reads of 2021
Rosie Danan’s The Roommate: Firstly, The Roommate was sweet but moreover, so so sexy, I have never learned so much about the porn industry in book. I’ll admit my previous knowledge was more on Clara’s side of thing but Josh. I could really come to see Josh’s side of things that porn is not only helpful to jump starting the foreplay but is also a celebration of sex, and intimacy. It’s human. Moreover, I also enjoyed how you paralleled and contrasted Clara and Josh’s stories of expectations and need to make their own way, in how it created conflict for their relationship but also drew them together as a commanility in the end. Furthermore, the side characters of Naomi (Josh’s ex, soon business partner and co owner) and Clara’s aunt were great characters in their own rights and was always so fun to have their perspectives. Especially with how Clara’s aunt helps guide Clara to what she wants to do in her future and how she’d do it differently from her aunt. 4 stars.
Rosie Danan’s The Intimacy Experiment: But on the subject of Naomi, she was a breath of cynical, sarcastic air in The Roommate so it was fun to have her in the forefront of The Intimacy Experiment. Especially with the bruises and scars that have made her more tough but it also made it so hard to put it down as Ethan breaks those walls and Naomi wavers over the changes in her personality and what it means for her future. Also Ethan! Ethan’s side was great too. He cares so much, but also takes on so much. And even though I didn’t understand the scientific stuff he was saying, I think his attempts at wooing were incredibly sweet. Also it was so cool to have some Jew rep in a romance. The only Jew romance rep I’ve read so far are tragic WWII which is bittersweet most of the time so I loved this contemporary one. I’m more like Naomi in being lapsed most of the time so the explorations of the community, the evolution of it and how the Torah still stands through time were also thought provoking and I just enjoyed the added layer. 5 stars.
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Additionally, I really I enjoyed the subversion of tropes readers will see in both these stories, it just made everyone so human and I loved the books so much. Finally, I just so so loved the sex positivity of these books but then again, that’s probably the point. They were fun yet informative. I almost wish Shameless, their sex positivity info website, was a real thing because as the books so eloquently put it in many ways sex should be shameless.#actyourageevebrown, #alexisdaria, #alexishall, #alotlikeadios, #austinseigmundbroka, #avonbooks, #berkley, #contemporaryromance, #emilywibberley, #getalifechloebrown, #grandcentralpublishing, #hanakhancarrieson, #happyendings, #harpercollins, #ifI'mbeinghonest, #jasmineguillory, #partyoftwo, #penguinrandomhouse, #rachelreads&reviews, #romance, #rosalinepalmertakesthecake, #rosiedanan, #takeahintdanibrown, #taliahibbert, #thebrownsisterstrilogy, #theintimacyexperiment, #theroommate, #thienkimlam, #uzmajalaluddin, #whileweweredating, #youhadmeathola -
Twisted Tales: So This is Love Review
Elizabeth Lim hits out of the park again with her Twisted Tale that transforms a princess I found boring and uninteresting to a riveting heroine to root for. And Lim doesn’t even change her personality!
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Twisted Tales: Conceal, Don’t Feel
Another solid book for the Twisted Tales line but not one of Calonita’s best compared to the other two she wrote for the series.
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Twisted Tales: Mirror, Mirror Review
Since I enjoyed Calonita’s other book, I thought I’d give this one a try next and see how she spices up a princess I’ve never been interested in. Which she manages to accomplish quite well using a dual narrative between Snow White and The Evil Queen who is so named Queen Ingrid here.
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Twisted Tales: Reflection Review
Now this was an excellent Twisted Tale. Not as dark as apparently the other books are with blood sacrifices and such, but I prefer it that way. This is rather an AU, a potential place for the story to go rather than a grittier and darker take on a tale we already know.
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Twisted Tales: Go the Distance Review
I can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s part of a greater series called Twisted Tales which are stand-alone books that present a twist or what if situation of the Disney movies like “What if Aladdin never found the lamp” or “What if Wendy traveled to Neverland with Hook?” I hadn’t read any of them before but I chose this one first since this was Hercules that I adore. It is also written Jen Calonita and I have reread her Secrets of My Hollywood Life series many times so I had to try. And I just loved it! Thus sparking me to read the rest of the series.
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The Final Girl Support Group Review
I read Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell annually every October so I had to see his fiction. And it’s just as wild and witty as his nonfic.
The Final Girl Support Group goes behind the scene of what happens to those final girls that kill their killer (and kill the sequel killer) and survive traumatic massacres. How do they grow up?
. . . . With issues as with the case of the MC, Lynette whose paranoid and withdrawn and constantly prepped with a gun just in case.
But it seems like there’s another killer and he’s picking off the support group one by one. And like in any good horror, Lynette is the only one who sees the danger. Now I won’t say more cuz that would just be giving away spoilers. But I will say, Hendrix deftly uses the tropes to his advantage with each girl surviving a thinly veiled take of classic film like Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm, Halloween etc. as well the suspected killer hops from one to another so you’re like “of course it’s that one” but wait bam surprise twist!
Also had some interesting things to say about the nature of horror and how it is primarily women are affected. Much like in real life and other profound things that I won’t get into here.
As for the horror, I can’t be the true judge of that as I took precautions in reading this during the daytime and watching copious sitcoms afterwards but it does have gorey descriptions and nightmarish murderbilia, sociopaths, necrophilia and more.
Really this is very good for anyone whose a fan of the genre. 5 bloody knives
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The Light of Luna Park and Dreamland Burning Reviews
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Rachel Reads & Reviews 