Tag: 2020

Categories
Romance

Read Her Big City Neighbor

Read Her Big City Neighbor (Cider Bar Sisters, #1) by Jackie Lau

When small-town engineer Amy Sharpe inherits a house in Toronto, she decides it’s the perfect opportunity to start over and go back to school. Away from the family that takes her for granted, away from the ex who expected so much and gave little in return.

The new Amy enjoys wandering around the city and frequenting bubble tea shops, German beer halls, dim sum restaurants, and coffee bars serving Japanese pastries. She has a roommate with the same name as her favorite fictional character, and a group of friends who meet at a cider bar every couple of weeks.

The new Amy is also in lust with her brooding, tattooed next-door neighbor, Victor Choi, who is far from friendly but looks really hot cutting the grass without a shirt. Too bad the grass doesn’t grow faster.

As she starts telling him about her daily adventures—and as a little kissing in the garden becomes a regular activity—Amy begins to feel more than lust. But she fears she’s falling into her old patterns in relationships and refuses to let herself be underappreciated again.

Is Victor really more than a hot fling? And what’s he hiding behind that grumpy exterior?

Light low-conflict read with adults acting like adults and having conversations they don’t want to have. Lots of food (honestly too much). I liked their relationships with their families. I didn’t 100% buy their connection, it seemed to start too quickly. Something about the lack of intense emotions made it feel like the volume was kinda dialed down. Somewhat unbelievable this woman was in a graduate program with the amount of time and money she had, and lack of stress 😂

Categories
Romance

Read The Trouble with Hating You

Read The Trouble with Hating You

Liya Thakkar is a successful biochemical engineer, takeout enthusiast, and happily single woman. The moment she realizes her parents’ latest dinner party is a setup with the man they want her to marry, she’s out the back door in a flash. Imagine her surprise when the same guy shows up at her office a week later — the new lawyer hired to save her struggling company. What’s not surprising: he’s not too thrilled to see her either after that humiliating fiasco.

Jay Shah looks good on paper…and off. Especially if you like that whole gorgeous, charming lawyer-in-a-good-suit thing. He’s also arrogant and infuriating. As their witty office banter turns into late night chats, Liya starts to think he might be the one man who truly accepts her. But falling for each other means exposing their painful pasts. Will Liya keep running, or will she finally give love a real chance?

I expected this to be a romcom based on the cover and title but on balance the heroine’s history of sexual abuse and abusive parents and hero’s trauma and self-loathing dragged it into more serious territory. It was smooth reading but there was quite a lot that I found distressing, from a near date rape with another guy to emotional blackmail to worker exploitation to slut shaming to the hero saying some truly terrible things to the heroine’s face to leading other romantic interests on after the halfway point. I disliked how the hero confronted the wannabe rapist and forced her to interact with him again. They bicker a lot at the beginning and everyone else thinks it’s cute but mostly they’re just being assholes to each other, not bantering.

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Categories
Art and Design Places

Read Overview Timelapse

Read Overview Timelapse: How We Change the Earth

Change is Earth’s most important and influential constant. From geological changes that take place over millennia, to the growth of civilization, to intense (and increasingly common) weather events exacerbated by a warming climate, the planet is constantly in flux. With areas viewed over various periods of time–days, months, and years–these changes become even more apparent, as does the scale and scope of human impact on Earth.

Overview Timelapse is a compelling photographic survey of the state of change on Earth today. With human activity driving this transformation faster than ever, visible signs can now be seen across the planet. Through its 250 mesmerizing images such as sprawling cities and the patterns created by decades of deforestation, this book offers a fresh perspective of change on Earth from a larger-than-life scale.

Great selection of aerial photography, with a wide variety of topics and scales. Super interesting to see the comparisons of locations at different times, though some were clearer to see than others. Lots of full page, high quality images so you can see a ton of detail. Consumption was very cool, showing the eruption of life at a couple large festivals in remote locations. The section on materials was clever, showing mines and processing and use of materials around the world. The final section, humans, was the weakest as some of the differences didn’t photograph well, though there were still interesting photos. I also appreciated the image sets, showing for example an aerial of the Camp Fire burning, then a before and after of a neighborhood in Paradise that burned. I didn’t read the essays but the image captions gave useful info.

Categories
Art and Design Science

Read Soviet Space Graphics

Read Soviet Space Graphics: Cosmic Visions from the USSR

This otherworldly collection of Soviet space-race graphics takes readers on a cosmic adventure through Cold War-era Russia. Created against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, the extraordinary images featured, taken from the period’s hugely successful popular-science magazines, were a vital tool for the promotion of state ideology. Presenting more than 250 illustrations – depicting daring discoveries, scientific innovations, futuristic visions, and extraterrestrial encounters – Soviet Space Graphics unlocks the door to the creative inner workings of the USSR.

I truly appreciate when an art book is primarily art — I’m here to look at the pictures 😉 Love the cover on this. They chose a nice matte paper that complemented the soft style of artwork throughout. I appreciated that they mostly dedicated full pages to each piece. I was drawn by the bright color palettes in use through many of the illustrations. Overall the selection felt relatively limited, representing mostly the same few magazines.

Illustrated by K. Artseulov, 1958

The color palette is striking, the blue nearly glowing against the orange sky. I like the soft, colorful illustration style applied to technology.

Illustrated by V. Skumpe, 1966

The gray-green background scattered with energetic white dashes is what catches my eye here. You’d think it would be too distracting, but it complements the main illustration instead by adding more liveliness. I have fountain pen ink similar to that greeny-blue color, which feels properly retro.

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Categories
Romance

Read Honeytrap

Read Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray

At the height of the Cold War, a Soviet and an American agent fall in love.

Soviet agent Gennady Matskevich is thrilled when he’s assigned to work with American FBI agent Daniel Hawthorne. There’s just one catch: Gennady’s abusive boss wants him to honeytrap his American partner. Gennady doesn’t want to seduce his new American friend for blackmail purposes… but nonetheless, he can’t stop thinking about kissing Daniel.

FBI agent Daniel Hawthorne is delighted to get to know an agent from the mysterious Soviet Union… and determined not to repeat his past mistake of becoming romantically involved with a coworker. But soon, Daniel finds himself falling for Gennady. Can their love survive their countries’ enmity?

Aster Glenn Gray books tend towards quiet character-driven stories with a tone of melancholy, which is usually the kind of thing that might annoy me, but I have enjoyed all I’ve read.

Part one of this book, where they meet and travel together, was very enjoyable, showcasing their interactions and attitudes. Gennady was a fun character, and Daniel made a good foil as All American. Part two was ok, and I didn’t love part three though it fit.

Categories
Romance Science Fiction

Read When She Belongs

Read When She Belongs (Risdaverse #4) by Ruby Dixon

He’s the biggest jerk in the galaxy.

I can live with being stuck on the far end of space. I can live with having to spend weeks on an abandoned station in an asteroid belt. Sure, I don’t belong, but I’ve got my book and my eight-legged attack cat with me. I should be fine.

I’m not fine.

My alien host, Jerrok, is a jerk. He’s surly and unpleasant. He hasn’t bathed in years. He’s part cyborg – and all those parts seem to be falling to pieces. He’s the one in charge of this remote station, which means we’re forced to interact. It’s an absolutely miserable situation for both of us…

…until I realize that all his anger and bluster is covering the fact that he’s thoughtful and understanding. He’s protective, too, keeping me safe when the bad guys approach. When I get hurt, he’s the one tenderly caring for my wounds.

Jerrok is also intensely, utterly lonely, just like me.

As time passes, I start to wonder…maybe where I belong isn’t a place…but a person.

A bit of a slow start, then I got into it. I didn’t realize how long this was 😂 I think it could have been pared back some, especially the part where they just needed to tell each other what they wanted went on a little long for me.

I liked these two for each other and how having a place she felt safe let Sophie finally move past her trauma. I thought it was cute that they were both total homebodies who would really just have the place to themselves 😂

There was one minor storyline I was worried might become a focus of the climax, but was relieved it did not.

Categories
Romance Science Fiction

Read The Earl and the Executive

Read The Earl and the Executive (Imperial Space Regency, #1) by Kai Butler

An impoverished earl trying to save his family’s legacy…

Tiral Oican has inherited his brother’s title, estate, and the tremendous debt his brother took out before his unexpected death. There is only one option to save the estate and all the people who are now depending on him: marry a rich heir who is willing to pay off the debt in exchange for Tiral’s title.

Now, scholarly Tiral must transform himself into a seductive fortune hunter. The only way he can see through the mess is by hiring a tutor in love. It’s too bad that Zev is so good at his job that Tiral is falling for him.

And a rich entrepreneur trying to save his heart…

To protect himself, Zev Laft has spent years fooling the ton into believing he’s no more than an entertaining flirtation. He just didn’t expect the ruse to work so well that the newest penniless earl to arrive on Lus for the season would assume him a demimonde and try to hire him to be his instructor in courtship.

Now one of richest men in the empire finds himself struggling to keep up the façade, when his own heart is being taken by a man he has no intention of marrying.

The Earl and the Executive is a slow burn stand alone 90,000 word MM Regency Romance Novel set in space with a HEA.

I liked this ok but would have liked it much better at 3/4 the length or less. Some bantery-y scenes could have been cut or merged together. Also, it’s bad enough for the MC to have to suffer through a conversation about the weather at a garden party, don’t make me live through it too 😴

The concept of regency in space was fun but a little too direct of a transfer — I would have liked to see more integration of technology into “the season” besides SF cellphones. I would have amped up the subplot earlier, it was hard to take seriously when the MC kinda shrugged instead of putting together the pieces and getting concerned.

I was disappointed that <spoiler>the heroes didn’t collab on ship stuff! The secret identity prevented it for most of the book</spoiler>.

So basically fun idea but needed more work on execution.

Categories
Romance Science Fiction

Read Dark Ambitions

Read Dark Ambitions (Class 5 #4.5)

It’s been months since Rose McKenzie was taken far from Earth. She’s trying to make a place for herself amongst the Grih, with help from her Grihan lover, Captain Dav Jallan, and the dangerous and loyal Sazo, a powerful artificial intelligence who’s integrated with an infamous Class 5 battleship.

When Rose gets the chance to join an exploration team going down to collect information from a planet in Grihan airspace, she jumps at the opportunity to stretch her legs and breath some real air.

But someone is already on the planet—the Krik—and they don’t want anyone to know what they’re up to. The Krik are the chaos agents of the United Council, often riding the edge of the law or over it. They ambush the exploration team and take them prisoner, but they don’t realize they didn’t get everyone. They didn’t get Rose.

With Dav, and his spaceship the Barrist, lured away by a distress signal, Rose and Sazo, along with a furry friend Rose has made, are the exploration team’s only hope at rescue. And Rose never leaves a friend behind.

A light little adventure, short and simple. It involves a cute orphaned alien sugar glider who gets some plot action. This is mostly focused on Rose, but also shows some development from Sazo.

I read this after the series epilogue but it comes before it, oops!

Categories
Memoir Mental Health Personal Growth

Read Wintering

Read Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult T…

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

Liked some of this, wasn’t sure about other parts. The second half I liked better than the first. She has a keen eye for observation and describes her feelings vividly. I liked the bits of other places and natural history — dabbling in other people’s cultures less so. I’m not sure it all pulled together for me though I thought she ended it well.

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Categories
Romance Science Fiction

Read The Rebel and the Rogue

Read The Rebel and the Rogue (Interstellar Brides Program, #…

Zenos, from the Astra Legion of Rogue 5, is on a mission to find an antidote to the deadly venom flowing through his body. Without the antidote, one bite during mating will kill a hybrid Forsian’s chosen female. Zenos must acquire the serum at any cost, for like his Atlan cousins, his mating instinct will eventually consume him. The last thing he needs is a distraction, but one look at the defiant female bounty hunter and he can’t deny his body what she’s offering—a few wild hours of pleasure.

Ivy Birkeland’s entire ReCon unit was annihilated as a result of Quell, a mind-altering drug the pirates of Rogue 5 are known to distribute. A rebel to her core, her heart still broke when she was forced to walk away from her life as a Coalition fighter. Now she hunts a bounty that will allow her to catch the criminals selling Quell and avenge her dead friends. Free of the Coalition Fleet’s strict regulations, she makes a deal with an unknown Rogue 5 operative to gain access to his home planet and travels to Transport Station Zenith to meet him.

When Ivy’s smoking hot, one-night-stand turns out to be her Rogue 5 contact, every carefully-laid plan she’s made goes to hell. Because when a rebel and a rogue are forced to work together, sparks will fly. They don’t need the criminals to kill them, they just might finish each other…if they don’t fall in love first.

I wanted to better understand the hero’s deep rooted fear, which seemed pretty foolish to keep by the end.

I feel like she needed a little more to get over her self loathing, I wasn’t totally convinced she’d come to terms with her modifications. Or that everyone else would be down with them once they found out how she got them.

I didn’t like how she reacted in the final battle when she realized she was outmatched.

This was pretty steamy — they didn’t have a meet cute, they had a meet hot 😂🔥 Yet tamer than some of her other books considering there’s only one love interest?