Gia Riley

I don't really wanna add a reading date to this because I didn't finish it but yeah I figured I'd talk about it anyway.

I read this because someone wrote a review of it that said, this book is okay but there's a lot of sex and not a lot of plot? And lil old me was like, wait, what? How does that work? I wanna see this for myself, so I picked it up.

It's based around swinging and the idea that they fall in love with the person they shouldn't (i.e., the person who is not their spouse) and it show more was fine, honestly. It was fine. It was good. Piper falls in love with West and Cannon, Piper's husband and Tilly, West's wife, bang each other a lot. I was enjoying it, as much as I allow myself to enjoy books like these.

... and then the biphobia began, and I half-read it and half-cringed and felt awful and skimmed most of the chapter because what did I just read? A part of me feels like I need to go back to that section of the book and pull up specific quotes and another part of me is like, you don't have to justify how you feel about this book to anyone, so we'll see if I do.

I wrote this review in case you were like me and were just curious about the book and you also happened to be queer and didn't want your day ruined. Or, in the very least, I wanted to prepare other queer readers for the deluge that would come if they did decide to pick up this book.

I don't think the authors were intentionally biphobic. At least, I hope not. I like to think people are better than that. But it made me feel really sad and I feel like the whole situation could've been avoided with a sensitivity reader.

Anyway, you are, as always, entitled to your own opinion but I would appreciate it if you refrained from saying unkind things about me in the comments.

Now I'm going to curl up with a nice cup of tea and probably look at dog pictures on the internet for a while.


Spoilers under the cut!



So basically the main female character, Piper, finds her husband, Cannon, being fucked in the ass by the male lead's wife, Tilly and is weirdly upset by it?

I got really confused at this part of the story because liking anal play does not mean you are in any way attracted to males at all. You can still be a heterosexual man / woman / non-binary person and enjoy anal play with or without dildos. Putting something up your butt does not make you immediately queer. Behaviour does not equal orientation.

Anyway, Piper is feeling ashamed of her spouse, which is like ??? and then she says shit like:

"I'm not talking about [the swingers], Tilly and West. I'm talking about what happens when you aren't with either one of us. When you are living this other piece of your life I know nothing about. Who are you when you're with /them/?"

"I'm me. I'm not gay, Piper, if that's what you're thinking."

"You've never been with a man? Even though you like sex like /that/?"

(lmao, Piper, really tho? Behaviour does not equal sexual preference.)

"Yes," he whispers. "I have."

"What does that make you then?"

"Being bisexual doesn't make me gay. It makes me human." (10/10 spouse, you tell her.)

Then it goes on and on, and she feels a lot of shame around him and his sexual preferences and wondering why he never even told her and feeling sorry for herself. Maybe Cannon (her spouse) never told Piper because he was scared she might react like this.

Honestly, coming out to people is scary and terrifying and yes, of course, in a perfect world we would all be entirely honest with our spouses about our sexual preferences but clearly there is a whole myriad of reasons why Cannon didn't tell her he was bisexual. Societal expectations of toxic masculinity, fear of retribution or criticism, being kicked out of his home, all of these things could've contributed to Cannon not wanting to come out to his wife.

ANYWAY.

Now. I like Cannon. I do. I think he defends his sexuality like a champ while his wife cries about how he's humiliated her and throws sand in his face. I think that part of the story had some positive bisexual representation. It then transpires that he's been cheating on her.

This part I didn't feel particularly comfortable with. I didn't like that we discovered Cannon was cheating at the same time as we found out that he was bisexual, as if his bisexuality was intrinsically deviant.

I am bisexual / pansexual / queer. I have never had a threesome. I have never cheated on my partner. I have, though, dated both men and women and am currently married to a woman. I have, throughout my life had to say to people:

No, I don't have an overwhelming urge to cheat on my partner at all times. No I won't sleep with you at a sleepover, you're my friend, I'm not interested in you. No, I don't need a man in my life because my wife is enough. She is more than enough.

Later in the book, Piper does say that she doesn't mind that Cannon is bi, except she clearly does because she's constantly referring back to the 'trauma' of seeing him get anal sex via a strap on, even though both couples had agreed that the only requirement for swinging was that they had safe sex. She refers to the incident as 'the betrayal' and honestly I just got tired of reading her damn words, so I put the book down after reading about another quarter of it.

I hoped for some character development on her part. Maybe she would see that she had really hurt Cannon and that both of them are cheating trash and they both need to calm down and move on with their lives? But as far as I could tell, that wasn't going to happen.

I was just astonished. Here was this character, who was actively cheating on her husband with another man, who was frequently breaking the agreed upon rules of swinging and somehow /he/ had betrayed her?

They both cheated on each other. That's really shitty, but like, how hypocritical do you have to be? Your cheating on your husband is not somehow made pure because you didn't have anal sex with him.

Piper keeps referring to Cannon's boyfriend in a way that is really snide and awful and always in italics.

"Why don't you go fuck /your boyfriend/?" or "He has Tilly and another man. /A man/." or "Why, won't you miss seeing /your boyfriend/?"

She says that if he were a friend, she'd be able to support him with all of his decisions. She says she could forgive that he hid such a big secret from her but because he's her husband, it's just not possible.

First of all, that makes no sense. You are friends with your spouse. You have to be. How else are you going to stand being around them for an indefinite period of time? The fact that she's able to forgive him if he's a friend but not her husband just feels ugly.

She then says, "He could've saved us this pain if he'd just been honest with me from the start. But, in my heart, I know we never would've made it past the second date."

WHY?! Because he's bi? What the fuck? The more I read this again, the more confused I get.

And genuinely, Piper's cheating on her husband is given very little weight at all. It's wrong but totally right and her and West are supposed to be together because they're pulled closer by an inexplicable force and blahblahblah.

But Cannon's cheating on her? Hohohoho. Whole different ball game. He's scum of the earth. Worst husband in the world. He deserves /nothing/. (She says that, in the book, by the way.)

Maybe you've read the book before and you're bi and you weren't offended or upset, and that's fine. You're allowed. I hope you enjoyed the book.

I, however, was upset by this book and would appreciate it if people didn't come after me in the comments telling me how to feel.

I've defended my apparent 'sexual deviancy' from priests, teachers, former friends and people in positions of authority because biphobia is a thing and it's real and sometimes it's subtle as hell, but no matter what form it comes in, it really hurts a lot.

This book makes me feel really sad, so I'm going to stop talking about it now but essentially I feel like a lot of this could've been avoided with a sensitivity reader, which is a shame because otherwise the book is fine.

This is why we need sensitivity readers

show less

4.6 stars

The blurb of this book drew me in. I had no idea how much I was truly going to be sucked in.

Th e premise of this book is not going to follow the course that many readers will think it's going to. It's definitely not cookie cutter. There are times I thought it was going to but then there would be a twist that I never saw coming.

Garrett was delicious. He said and did all the right things. Megan for the most part was okay. I understand what she was going through but the back and forth show more got tiresome. Maybe if everything hadn't happened so fast it wouldn't have left me with that feeling. This could have been explored over time giving the sense of working through all the secrets and feelings. This being said, these two were meant for each other. Laney, the daughter, was delightful.

The twists at the end blew my mind. BLEW. MY. MIND. Not once but twice. Holy crikey. Well played. I usually can see something before it happens or after the fact, think to myself, "I can see that now." Yeah, nope. She gobsmacked me.

Great book. show less

​Everyone who has ever been tasked with the job of being a mother has had their moments of failure. Things will inevitably go wrong at some point when you have children, resulting in a momfail. However, looking back you realize that everything happens for a reason and you did the best that you could at the time. No mom is perfect, and these 24 moms have come to remind you in some hilarious ways that we have all had our momfail moments, so let's enjoy them together!

These moms share fails show more from everyday to epic. From story to story, I went from knowing the exact feeling because I've been there to laughing my butt off simply because I'm not there yet. These 24 short stories will resonate with any mom, caregiver and will prepare any mom-to-be for the inevitable foibles in motherhood. Some of my favorites dealt with pooptastrophies, swearing children, trying to have intimate time with your husband and the days that are just plain disastrous. Two stories that I will highlight are "What's That Smell?" and "Battery Operated." These had me dying of laughter. "What's That Smell" tackles not only the hazards of flying with children but what happens when they poop in an enclosed space, I couldn't imagine having to live this situation and coming out unphased. "Battery Operated" is the life lesson of revenge for gifting annoying toys and will probably be something heading my way at some point in the future. Overall, a perfect anthology for any mom, especially if you think you aren't doing enough or constantly failing, we feel you, just read a story and drink some mommy juice.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. show less

5 Stars
Arc Book Review
Release Date-28/7/18

I Really enjoyed this one like a lot, but I am struggling slightly to classify it as it crosses over into genres with a little bit of everything.
So this had such a unique voice when it came to its narration giving us the POV from three individual important players; this, in turn, helped portray them all so realistically with flaws and all.
I found this style of narration so intriguing and it did help me get a handle on why certain individuals behaved show more they way they did and all through certain actions were in no way condonable it did give me a certain insight and almost unwanted sympathy into why things occurred the way they did.
Human emotions can make us behave in such unfathomable ways that are just beyond our comprehension sometimes.
This is essentially at its heart a mystery with romantic elements and how one woman's memory loss can impact and steamroll into so much more.
When events started to slowly come to light I felt so much empathy for Meadow and completely understood how she had managed to spiral so out of control in her distress and confusion.
Her memory loss having an almost snowball effect so far did the cause and effect ripple outwards.
Her husband Cash I could also empathise with and I could understand somewhat how he had arrived at the crossroads he had.
I also felt extreme empathy for him as he tried to traverse the daily battlefield that is now his marriage.
Meadow was an absolute nightmare for him to live with as she fell deeper into the bottomless pit that was her despair and utter desperation; using Cash almost as her own personal whipping boy.
This story also dealt with alcohol addiction and the debilitating impacts this dependence can have on the people surrounding us.
I didn't really think anyone in this story was truly innocent except maybe Logan all else portrayed were imperfect and flawed in some way or other.
But what I did ultimately take away from this, was there were no baddies and goodies here just misguided actions that though essentially wrong were actually done initially for all the right reasons.
And I essentially wanted everyone involved to find some sort of personal HEA regardless of there misguided and imprudent undertakings.
I adored that "Until we are gone" gave everyone a piece of that pie.
This is one story that I was glued to throughout and enjoyed immensely.
Thank you to the author for providing me with an ARC of "Until We Are Gone " of which I have reviewed voluntary.
All opinions are entirely my own.



Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm.
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
www.beckiebookworm.com show less