The Neurospicy Bean

  This was a perfectly entertaining, pleasant romance, but it didn’t land for me quite the way the author’s other books have. Eddie in particular I really struggled to wrap my head around as a character – why he behaved the way he did and so on. I also really wish that the rest of the baseball team had played a bigger role – I always talk about how one of the highlights of a really well done romance is the relationships the characters have with people outside the primary romantic interest. That was a little bit lacking here, I think because so much of the focus ended up on Mark’s journey. That said, it’s still a well-written book that was emotionally engaging. In particular there was a scene towards the end about queerness and acceptance and society that really broke my heart. Absolutely worth picking up.

  Perfectly enjoyable little romance here. In the couple of books of his I’ve read, Janovsky does a nice job of blending character growth with romance in a way that feels very sweet and meaningful, and not at all like the love interests are just there to help the main character be a better person. This one did strike that balance. But for whatever reason, it just didn’t emotionally grab me in quite the same way as You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince.  I guess I’ve always struggled with any kind of romance where one person comes into it with an entirely different understanding of their relationship than the other (I’m looking at you whatever the heck Marvel did to Peter Quill and Gamora). And I also struggle with this kind of magical realism where it’s a total mystery what actually happened to Nolan, but the mystery isn’t actually the point of the book. Because, come on, I really want to know more! Tell me about this mysterious wellness company! Can we get a book about that? This...

  I am OBSESSED give me all of the trans romance and joy. Thank you so much to Katy Nishimoto from Dial Press for the advance copy of this beautiful book. I really loved so many different aspects of this book, so it’s going to be a bit tricky to parse through them all, but I shall try. First, and this is probably one of the things that has stuck most in my head about it, it was really amazing to see such a sex-positive trans romance. I do think this trend is changing, in the last couple of years in particular, but so often it seems like the reality of sex as a trans person gets completely glossed over. By that I don’t mean that sex is some kind of horrible ordeal, or that all trans people are uncomfortable with it; in fact, anyone who has read this book will know that’s not how it’s treated here at all. It’s more that a lot of authors – cis authors in particular – have seemed deeply uncomfortable committing to the reality of their trans characters’ bodies, whatever that may be. So ...

  I’m not generally a big literary fiction person, but wow this book was gorgeous and heartbreaking and fascinating. It takes a bit of time for things to really get established, but once they do the multiple overlapping stories are beautiful and compelling. It’s the kind of book I’d actually want to examine for symbolism, because there’s just so much. I imagine to someone more familiar with Taiwanese culture there’s even more to analyze. I should say that it’s definitely pretty dark at times, discussing rape, abuse, and violence in a very candid manner. It’s quite intense, especially in its depictions of various kinds of violence and cruelty. These scenes are important and they’re never gratuitous, but worth keeping in mind that nothing in this book is romanticized or sugarcoated. The only things I struggled with were keeping track of everything and the ending. I know there’s a reason for all the sisters’ names starting with the same letter (explained in the translator’s note for t...

  This was…not good. Let me first say: how on earth does a town as small as Cameron describes this one as being support not just this mall but apparently enough people to make a random elf competition go viral?? I mean, I guess it happens, but it felt really weird. But that’s not the most annoying thing about this book, by far. Cameron as a character was just so irritating. He was mean to everyone, especially Marco, for no reason. There was literally zero chemistry between Cameron and Marco. Cameron spent way more time thinking about his ex than he spent thinking about Marco, and they just seemed annoyed at each other the entire book until suddenly Cameron decided he liked this guy enough to question all his life plans for him.  Also. THE BOOK MISGENDERS THE NON-BINARY CHARACTER. How does this happen. How does it not get caught in all the many phases of editing a book must go through. Were there not sensitivity readers. Did none of the early readers notice. I mean, I had to go...

  Yeah, this was one of those books I put off reading for the longest time thinking it surely wasn’t as good as everyone seemed to think and YES IT REALLY IS. It has absolutely everything going for it: sweet romance, intricate subplots, compelling secondary characters…honestly, the whole end of the book made me tear up. My absolute favorite scene was when they came across a mural of the two main characters dressed as Han and Leia because I am a simple nerd at heart. I know I just mentioned the side characters, but they deserve mentioning again. There’s so much range and depth to every single character, each one has their story going on that ties into the plot in ways both obvious and unexpected. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a strong ensemble is a sign of a truly well-written romance. I think McQuiston also does a really lovely job of writing about homophobia here: it’s very much present, because the book is dealing with some serious cultural forces, and you can’t set ...

  Y’all I am absolutely obsessed with this series, and this book wraps everything up perfectly (although please?? More in this world?? Because there are hints that there’s more to come???). We get lovely flashes from Robin and Edwin and Violet and Maud, including a really heartwrenching sublot with Robin and Edwin. It also benefits hugely from Jack and Alan having been introduced in the last book and having an established relationship to build on. We get thrown straight into a house full of all these delightful characters (there’s a great line from Jack’s POV describing the dynamic between Edwin and Violet as two cats with terrible personalities who have been adopted by two people determined for them to coexist and like if that doesn’t sum up this whole series I don’t know what does. Just a bunch of golden retrievers adopting grumpy cats. Anyway), and then get to watch them trying to solve a mystery when all they want to do is make out with their respective partners. So yeah, the c...

  OH MY GOD THIS WAS SO AMAZING. This book (and series) is absolutely my new obsession. The perfect blend of intriguing plot, creative world-building, sweet romance, and incredible character development. I could not stop thinking about it for weeks. The way tiny details in seemingly unrelated scenes build up to create an intricately woven plot is just so incredible. I adored Edwin and Robin, but all the side characters were really excellent as well. In fact, the scene that made me laugh out loud was actually one centering Adelaide and Kitty, Robin and Edwin’s coworkers. Honestly I could keep talking about all the things I love, and I have zero complaints, but really everyone should just go read it immediately because it has absolutely everything. My one note of caution is that there is a LOT of quite explicit sex and a lot of the crucial character moments happen during those scenes, so if that’s something that makes you uncomfortable you might not love it the way I do.

  Oh my God this book had no business being this heartbreaking. This poor kid just keeps trying so hard to make things better and help people, and every single time he just gets absolutely screwed over by everyone around him. Honestly it got frustrating after a while, especially because the plot did begin to feel a bit unnecessarily convoluted, but as far as the actual emotional core of the story goes, I thought it was quite good.  From a more world-building/history perspective, it was much weaker. A lot of the dialogue read like modern dialogue with generically old-fashioned words sprinkled in, and it was really jarring in places. Similarly, there were elements that didn’t seem like they’d been fully researched. Now, I’m willing to forgive some of this in a cutesy historical romance, but this book wanted to be doing more than that, and I think it could have been better researched. That being said, like I mentioned above, the emotional core of this story was devastating and sw...