March was a bit of a whirlwind and I think my reading list reflects how all over the place I felt.
The Good
The Street by Ann Petry
This book blew me away. The writing is phenomenal and I was hooked from the first page. The subject matter is bleak and tough to read about but it’s somehow immensely readable. I felt like I was living inside the main character’s head and yet each time we diverged from her POV I wasn’t upset. It’s hard to believe that this was a debut novel written in the 40’s because it’s so masterfully done and resonant today. It’s also the first novel by an African-American woman to sell more than a million copies and should continue to do so. To me, this book is an American classic.
Rating: 5/5
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
This is a deeply immersive fantasy novel thanks to lush world building and carefully crafted characters. I liked the story but there were times where it felt a bit overly long. I also wished the central romance was better developed. That said, I really liked the individual journeys that our main characters embark on and the ending is incredibly satisfying.
Rating: 4.5/5
Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean
This book is a romantic love story and a great ending to the Love by Numbers series. The heroine is fierce and perhaps way too good for the hero and all of our favorite supporting characters make appearances. There was the perfect amount of angst and romance though I do wish we could have seen the hero laid a bit more low by his arrogance. I can’t believe it took me so long to get to Sarah MacLean’s debut series but I’m glad I did.
Rating: 4/5
Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn
How dare Kate Clayborn write a book this good? I can’t say enough positive things about it. The story is one of homecoming, self discovery, and forgiveness. It’s about loving yourself and others. It’s so warm and tender without being shallow or trite. The characters feel so real and lived in and their romance truly brings out the best in each of them. Clayborn has compassion for almost every single character she writes about in this book and it shows. The raw emotion and vulnerability on the side of our hero was pretty special too. Easily one of my favorite books of the year.
Rating: 5/5
Exiles by Jane Harper
My favorite Jane Harper book yet! I found this story and the mystery at its center to be incredibly compelling. It helps that I was already invested in the main character, Aaron Falk, and his journey from reading the previous books in this series but I was really rooting for him to find his own happiness. I was actively upset every time I had to stop reading this book. It’s still a basic detective story at heart but the cast of characters is likable, the setting feels lived in, and there’s a light romantic touch that I really enjoyed. If this is the end of the Aaron Falk series I’ll be sad but satisfied.
Rating: 4/5
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
I was hooked on this book after reading the first few pages. It’s sharp and it’s savage. Makkai is doing a lot of work in this book, all of which really resonated with me. The true crime obsession and fetishization in our culture is on full blast but Makkai doesn’t make you feel like a bad person for becoming invested in the genre. She points out the issues and the inconsistencies with our consumption of these stories but she also understands why we can’t bring ourselves to look away. Makkai doesn’t shy away from the systemic problems that underpin the story and pervade our society. She is unflinching in her observations and rightly so. The one thing that doesn’t work for me is our main character and narrator. I can’t quite put my finger on why but she never felt fully real or fleshed out and part of that could be the second person narrator aspect to the novel. Also the ending. I get it. It’s realistic and probably the only way the book could have ended but I was deeply frustrated with the lack of closure.
Rating: 4/5
The Bad
Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night by Kresley Cole
Kresley is killing me with these books and their shit heroes. I cannot get on board with a single one of them which is a problem considering these are supposed to be romance novels. It’s unfortunate because she writes great heroines, especially the heroine of this book, but these backwards men are tough to read. I’ve also discovered that I hate when a Scottish accent is translated to the page literally. Just write out the words and tell me they have an accent. I don’t need to see “D’ye ken…” written out all over the page. It’s distracting and drives me bonkers. Also, our “hero” tries to tamper with our heroine’s birth control and that’s just a hard no. There’s no coming back from that in my mind. It’s too bad the heroine was stuck in this bad of a book because she could have been great elsewhere.
Rating: 2/5
Dark Needs at Night’s Edge by Kresley Cole
This book has some things to like and some things that got under my skin. As always, Kresley has some consent issues in this one. Not quite as bad as previous installments in the series but they’re still present. The hero also never has to apologize or atone for his poor treatment of the heroine. She readily forgives him without any groveling. I liked that we got to see characters from the previous and upcoming books. They were the best part. I feel like I read this book mostly so that I could be informed for the books that come later in the series.
Rating: 2.75/5
The Mediocre
Exes and O’s by Amy Lea
This is a cute and lighthearted rom com novel that I liked but didn’t love. I enjoyed the fact that our main character and heroine of the story is a massive romance fan but she felt extremely over the top at times. I think having a dual POV structure could have helped this book out a lot. The hero and love interest balances out our MC in a great way and I would have appreciated having that in the text.
Rating: 3.75/5
French Holiday by Sarah Ready
Reading this book is like taking a bite of a Funfetti cupcake. It’s cute and sweet but there’s not a whole lot of depth. The main characters are clearly infatuated with each other and there’s never any question of whether or not they’ll end up together. The relationship between Merry, our heroine, and her sister was ripe for exploration but didn’t really go anywhere. Merry quit her job and left her old life behind but she never really reckoned with that decision. I wanted to see more growth from her. Overall, the book is a light and breezy read.
Rating: 3/5
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi
If I’d known that this book was more akin to a gothic horror novel than a fantasy story I probably wouldn’t have picked it up and I might have regretted that. I liked how eerie and atmospheric the writing was and there was a distinct dreamlike quality to it that I enjoyed. That said, the characters don’t have a lot of depth and it felt like I was reading their story from a distance. The ending was very predictable but I still felt compelled to continue reading.
Rating: 3.5/5
Trust by Hernan Diaz
This is a tough book to review because there are so many books within the book and they all have a different feel to them. The writing is strong but the first two thirds were tough to get through. There’s a lot of finance language and history which quite frankly isn’t that interesting to me. I really enjoy character driven stories and the characters are so opaque and ambiguous that until the final third I couldn’t latch on to anything. I don’t regret having read this one because I did find it interesting but I wouldn’t revisit it.
Rating: 3.25/5
DNF
Do I Know You by Emily Wibberly and Austin Siegemund Broka
The characters were both boring as hell and passive wet rags. I couldn’t keep reading a book where the main conflict could very easily be solved by opening your mouth and being honest with someone you’ve been married to for five years. So stupid and so boring. Such a bummer since I loved their book The Roughest Draft.
Reforged by Seth Haddon
Sad to say this one just wasn’t for me. I honestly just found it boring. I wasn’t compelled to return to it. I was hoping it would be reminiscent of A Taste of Gold and Iron with the M/M bodyguard romance set in a fantasy world but it didn’t quite deliver on the character front and it wasn’t worth my time to keep reading it.
The Future
Team, I finally got off the wait list for Leviathan Wakes, the first book in The Expanse series. I’m excited to get to this one and start my journey. There are so many April new releases I’m hyped for. Olivie Blake had a new book out on the first and there are so many spring romances I can’t wait to read. I’m particularly looking forward to Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane because I can’t get enough of her books and The Secret Service of Tea and Treason is high on my list since I’ve been loving the Dangerous Damsels series.
What are your spring reads?