When He Was Wicked - Julia Quinn

Initial draw: ✰✰✰✰
Character development: ✰✰✰
Plot/Writing style: ✰✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"In every life there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one's life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London's most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.

After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his heart to become engaged, he took one look at Francesca Bridgerton and fell so fast and hard into love it was a wonder he managed to remain standing. Unfortunately for Michael, however, Francesca's surname was to remain Bridgerton for only a mere thirty-six hours longer - the occasion of their meeting was, lamentably, a supper celebrating her imminent wedding to his cousin.

But that was then...Now Michael is the earl and Francesca is free, but still she thinks of him as nothing other than her dear friend and confidant. Michael dares not speak to her of his love...until one dangerous night, when she steps innocently into his arms, and passion proves stronger than even the most wicked of secrets..."

Okay, Julia. Okay. This book has a weird premise, but I'll go for it. 

Things I'm here for: Francesca and Michael banging for weeks while Francesca steadfastly refuses to accept his proposal of marriage. Hell yeah, girl, get that dick! Being married is not a requirement for having a good time! Also, is this the first book where a man actually goes down on a woman? Because SNAPS for that. Sorry, fellas, I don't care how big Julia says your dicks all are, I'm not convinced that any of you were getting these women off with penetration alone. I don't buy it. Be like Michael. Give them some legit foreplay.

That said...the THING with all capital letters that I am decidedly not here for: Michael scheming to trap Francesca into marriage by seducing her and subsequently attempting to knock her up. MICHAEL, NO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Thankfully, he wises up and changes course pretty quickly, but bro. Ew. Supremely not cool.

Anyway...as mentioned, this book has an incredibly strange premise, but...it was solid.

Top Ten July New Releases

I feel like every month I'm looking at my post schedule for what upcoming things I need to plan for and without fail I end up marveling at how it's already the end of the month...so at the risk of repeating myself, how is it already almost July?! I have a real love/hate relationship with these top ten posts because it's so exciting seeing what new books are coming out, but I also have such a ridiculous number of things I want to read that I get super excited and then have to wait forever to get to any of them. Such torture. But a good problem to have, I suppose. Better too many good books than too few. So anyway...top ten upcoming releases for July! Get HYPED! 

1. After the Ink Dries by Cassie Gustafson - out July 20th

2. Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell - out July 6th

3. Faking Reality by Sara Fujimura - out July 13th

4. Radha & Jai's Recipe for Romance by Nisha Sharma - out July 13th

5. The Right Side of Reckless by Whitney D. Grandison - out July 13th

6. Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson - out July 6th

7. Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim - out July 6th

8. The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass - out July 13th

9. Up All Night: 13 Stories Between Sunset and Sunrise edited by Laura Silverman - out July 13th

10. XOXO by Axie Oh - out July 13th

To Sir Phillip, With Love - Julia Quinn

Initial draw: ✰✰✰
Character development: ✰✰
Plot/Writing style: ✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Sir Phillip knew from his correspondence with his dead wife's distant cousin that Eloise Bridgerton was a spinster, and so he'd proposed, figuring that she'd be homely and unassuming, and more than a little desperate for an offer of marriage. Except...she wasn't. The beautiful woman on his doorstep was anything but quiet, and when she stopped talking long enough to close her mouth, all he wanted to do was kiss her...

Eloise Bridgerton couldn't marry a man she had never met! But then she started thinking...and wondering...and before she knew it she was in a hired carriage in the middle of the night, on her way to meet the man she hoped might be her perfect match. Except...he wasn't. Her perfect husband wouldn't be so moody and ill-mannered. And he certainly should have mentioned that he had two young - and decided unruly - children, as much in need of a mother as Phillip is in need of a wife."

 Eloise Bridgerton deserves better! This could be my whole review, honestly. Her entire story was just...such a letdown. She is built up as such a strong, independent, intelligent character through the first four books, and then BOOM as soon as Penelope decides she's getting married, suddenly Eloise is like "oh fuck I need to find a man, like, stat." Nooooooooo! Why are we erasing everything good that has been established about Eloise as a character with the premise of this book? Why?!

Add to that the fact that Phillip is a complete fucking dumpster fire of a character, and it adds up to an incredibly disappointing book. If he was amazing, I could maybe, maybe forgive the premise and wrap my brain around Eloise needing to meet him and quickly falling in love with him, but not only are the snippets of the letters they share to each other completely benign and sometimes outright dull, Phillip is such an unrelenting douchebaggy drip of a person! Uuuuuuugh I haaaaaaaaaaaaate iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. I wish I could be more eloquent about it, but I just...I don't have it in me. Start to finish, BLEH. 

I'll end with this - was I the only person who was reading Eloise as queer throughout the first four books? I mean, I will freely admit, give me an opening and I'll read anything as queer. [Premise] but make it queer, always a recipe for success. But FOR REAL, can we let Eloise be gay and have a great time? Please? In my brain that will be what actually happened. This book no longer exists for me.

TBR - Read the Rainbow

It's June, which means Pride! What better way to celebrate than with a Tuesday Book Recs featuring LGBTQIA stories? I pulled some titles that I'm most looking forward to from my list of books waiting to be read - I started out aiming for like a top ten or so, but I couldn't stop. SO MANY EXCELLENT BOOKS. Are there any on this list that you're also excited for? Anything that you think I'm missing? Let me know! I want to read alllllll the queer stories.

1. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

2. The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

3. Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

4. Cinderella is Dead and This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron

5. Fifteen Hundred Miles From the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa

6. Full Disclosure and Off the Record by Camryn Garrett

7. Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar

8. How it All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi

9. I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee

10. Jade Fire Gold by June C.L. Tan

11. The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

12. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

13. Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian

14. The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali and Zara Hossain is Here by Sabina Khan

15. The Marvelous by Claire Kann

16. Miss Meteor and We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

17. Odd One Out by Nic Stone

18. The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum

19. The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon

20. You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Romancing Mister Bridgerton - Julia Quinn

Initial draw: ✰✰✰✰
Character development: ✰✰✰✰
Plot/Writing style: ✰✰✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Everyone knows that Colin Bridgerton is the most charming man in London. Penelope Featherington has secretly adored her best friend's brother for...well, it feels like forever. After half a lifetime of watching Colin Bridgerton from afar, she thinks she knows everything about him, until she stumbles across his deepest secret...and fears she doesn't know him at all.

Colin Bridgerton is tired of being thought nothing but an empty-headed charmer, tired of everyone's preoccupation with the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown, who can't seem to publish an edition without mentioning him in the first paragraph. But when Colin returns to London from a trip abroad he discovers nothing in his life is quite the same - especially Penelope Featherington! The girl haunting his dreams. But when he discovers that Penelope has secrets of her own, this elusive bachelor must decide...is she his biggest threat - or his promise of a happy ending?"

This is one of my favorite book of the series, and it's not just because I see myself in Colin Bridgerton and his insecurity with letting other people read his writing. Or maybe it is, who's to say? Honestly, the more that I've sat with it, I feel like part of why I liked it so much was because it was pretty benign, which was a pretty big breath of fresh air after Benedict went full Dennis in the last book. I like Penelope and how quietly snarky she is, I love that we get more Lady Danbury in this book, and I enjoyed the way Colin gradually becomes more aware of Penelope until he's like oh, shit...am I in love with her? The boy is dense, but it was cute.

Challenge update - Going into month six!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

I completely forgot to read my challenge books for May. I can't believe it! I realized it a couple days prior to the end of the month and started desperately reading Chirp in an attempt to catch up, but yyyyeeeeeeaaaaaaaah. I am officially very much behind. Even so! I am soldiering on with my June picks and looking forward to reading both of them (although, admittedly, possibly not reading both of them in June). This month's challenges/picks:

11. Read a food memoir by an author of color

For this challenge, I chose Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi. I was really glad that my local library had a copy of this, because something I discovered when looking for options was how shockingly few of the recommendations I could find were available at the library. Fortunately, my library has an option on their website to recommend additions to the collection, and I wanted to bring that up in case any readers out there were unaware that their library probably has a similar option. 

Y'all. If your library does not have a book in their collection that you think they should have? A. Check their website. They probably have something set up for submitting recommendations. If they don't? B. Contact them by email or telegram or WHATEVER and let them know that you think they should purchase a copy! Depending on their budget, availability, and vendor agreements they may or may not actually be able to add it, but...library collections are developed by human beings, and usually a pretty small number of human beings, so trust...they will appreciate your recommendations.

Anyway, back to the challenge.

12. A work of investigative non-fiction by an author of color

I went with Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias by Pragya Agarwal, because this is something I am super interested in working on in myself. There were so many intriguing options for this one, though, so maybe I'll end up expanding my horizons and taking on investigative non-fiction as a new favorite genre! I guess only time will tell.

What would you choose to read for each of these prompts?

An Offer From a Gentleman - Julia Quinn

Initial draw: ✰✰✰
Character development: ✰✰
Plot/Writing style: ✰✰
My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Sophie Beckett never dreamed she'd be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball - or that "Prince Charming" would be waiting there for her! Though the daughter of an earl, Sophie has been relegated to the role of servant by her disdainful stepmother. But now, spinning in the strong arms of the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton, she feels like royalty. Alas, she knows all enchantments must end when the clock strikes midnight.

Ever since that magical night, a radiant vision in silver has blinded Benedict to the attractions of any other - except, perhaps, this alluring and oddly familiar beauty dressed in housemaid's garb whom he feels compelled to rescue from a most disagreeable situation. He has sworn to find and wed his mystery miss, but this breathtaking maid makes him weak with wanting her. Yet, if he offers his heart, will Benedict sacrifice his only chance for a fairy tale love?"

Look...it's fine...but Benedict's overtures have distinct Dennis Reynolds vibes. 

I mean, I know it's a romance novel, and I know it's set in the regency era...but yeesh. I was intrigued at first at the idea of a Cinderella-esque pseudo retelling, but the way that Benedict is engineering scenarios to basically force Sophie to be with him - not even to marry him, but to be his mistress, which she has made incredibly clear she does not want to do - is gross. And it made it really hard to like Benedict. And consequently, the book. I don't even want to talk about it more than this, because 🤮. This was my second least favorite book. Do not like.

TBR - My Next Five Reads

Summer is (almost officially) here, I'm looking at a weekly weather report with possibly our first 100+ degree days across the board for the year, and there is a lot going on over here in Deweyville (in a good way, but still!). Consequently, this week's Tuesday Book Recs is part complete cop-out, because I didn't have time to come up with a theme and put together a corresponding list, and part accountability post, so I actually fucking read some stuff. I mean...I've been reading, but not nearly as much as usual, and while I do have more to juggle now than I have since I quit my job several months ago (again, in a good way!), I'm trying to balance my time better so I can do those things and read all the things. I can do it! And to get myself started, below are the next five* books I will be reading.

*outside of book club and reading challenge books

1. More Than a Body: Your Body is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lindsay and Lexie Kite

2. Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less by Tiffany Dufu

3. Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo

4. Superbetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient - Powered by the Science of Games by Jane McGonigal

5. Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi

Also, OH MY GOD, I am just realizing that almost all of these are non-fiction. Wow. Talk about breaking out of my mold. Dayum. Also, it's a very yellow group of books! Fascinating coincidence.