A fun, queer enemies to lovers (maybe also a little grumpy/sunshine!) workplace romance set in the world of video games. If you've played Baldur's Gate you'll definitely recognize a few things :)

I actually found myself enjoying the workplace drama/politics quite a bit! The book was light on steam, in my opinion at least, but it was lovely to see queer and asian representation in gaming.

Pub Date: January 7th, 2025

Thank you to Library Thing Early Reviewers and Alcove Press for this ARC.

"Sometimes all your stress is like a nail bomb; it explodes and I have to absorb it all". This book was like a creative explosion and I continue to absorb it all! I loved Baxter's New Animal, and I think if you liked it you would like this too. I also think this book would be nice for readers of Carmen Maria Machado.

Woo Woo follows conceptual artist Sabine as she navigates a maelstrom of feelings and emotions prior to a major exhibition, all in the context of being stalked by a fan. It was a lovely tale of a women unraveling and finding herself. She's not particularly likeable, but that's a testament to Baxter's incredibly keen character study and presentation of Sabine.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

"If you're doing life right, you should allow it to surprise you."

This was an utterly charming book! Set in 1980s New York (and a little Philly), two young gay men set out to Fire Island for a summer of doing life right. And they are surprised! Both are met with people who delight and challenge them. The setting of Fire Island Pines was lovingly rendered- it came as no surprise when in the author's notes he mentions spending a summer there. I think this book is slated for release in the summer. This would be an absolutely perfect beach/vacation read. It's engaging, loving, and not too fluffy.

This book and its author beautifully illustrated queer love and queer history in a loving and hopeful way. I plan to reread and gift this book to friends.

Thank you to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the ARC.

I couldn't put this down! A delightful entry into the adult romance space by Katie Kennedy. The main characters were likable and the romance believable. Some reviewers said it was heavy on the actual interior design content, but I absolutely did not mind. I'm not usually a sports romance person, but I found this easy to get into and had a lot of fun reading it. I wonder if there's potential sequels with some of Nick's teammates- I want to read more about Jacob's exploits! I did see some reviews mentioning that Alyssa's friends were not as well fleshed out and I agree. Highly recommend this book if you're looking for a cool read for a hot beach day. Thank you to LibraryThing early reviewers and Alcove Press for the ARC!

Romancing on Jeju is a book you really can't judge by its cover. The cover title and illustration made me expect a lighthearted romance, and rather you get an ensemble cast of occasionally kooky characters on an adventure that, yes, involves romance but also business, leisure, and murder. There's a lot going on in this book that made it challenging for me personally to get into. The friend groups don't really seem like friends- there just wasn't the warmth I was expecting- and the mixed timelines never gave me enough time to get comfortable. I never found myself rooting (or even booing!) for anyone, and frequently this book got passed over for others when I reached for something to read.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC!

This is an engaging, non-serious book about death for fans of the genre. Madison Reyes and Spencer Henry write in a breezy, conversational tone (in keeping with their podcast background!) and you can feel their enthusiasm in their writing. They bound from death jewelry to mock funerals to spiritualism in a way that scratches at your curiosity. While not as comprehensive as a book like Mary Roach's Stiff or Caitlin Doughty's various works, this book offers more of a sampler. There is surely something for everyone in here :) I did wish for a bit more history on actual obituaries, but I loved that obits did function as a connecting thread for the book. Each chapter closes with an obituary, many from ordinary people, which is nice.

This book is slated for August publication, and as I was reading this I thought it would be so cute for someone's Halloween "boo basket".

Final shoutout to the illustrations which were just lovely!

Omg- oh my goth! This was such a precious (but dark!) read. The illustrations made the book for me, I would love to have some of those framed on the wall of a nursery or give as a baby shower gift. The advice was solid as well, and humanized all the diverse aspects of parenting. I laughed and I picked up some food for thought, the perfect combination. Even if you're not goth you'll see a piece of yourself in this book.

And for those of us who aren't yet parents to humans, they do call out that cats are siblings too!

Thank you to NetGalley and Chronicle Books for the ARC.

This was a fun romance with some sci-fi elements mixed in! American Serena and Brit Nick have a unique meet cute in Geneva but- oops -he's her boss! Romance takes a back seat until an accident at CERN forces them to swap bodies. They're not just freaky friday-d into each other, but they experiences and memories of the bodies they live in, which was a little disconcerting for me, but for magical realism fans it might be more welcome. It had a bit of a fated mates vibe for me, which I struggle with as a trope. The pacing was great, but some of the descriptions were a little too detailed and too flowery for my taste at times. I think that's a nod to the magical realism/fantasy elements.
I listened to this and the primary narrator, Kelsey Navarro Foster, did a fantastic job. The secondary narrator, James Foster only appears for a short section and totally took me out of the book. I would have preferred the voice Nick had earlier in the book. The book would have been a 4 star for me, were it not for the second narrator and the superfluous descriptors.
Although this is book 2 in a series, you do not need to read book 1 to enjoy it.
Thank you to the publishers (via Netgalley) for providing an ALC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a really lovely, enjoyable book to read! I'm not a Bachelor/reality tv dating show fan, and this was still great. The romance and most importantly the conflict were believable, and the characters were written to be realistic and charming. I've been on a tear of romance-novels-set-on-tv-shows, and this was a really tremendous entry in the genre.

This is a great book for fans of the thriller genre! Exceptionally layered story with fleshed out characters and locations. I really liked how Ellwood played with the unreliable narrator trope.

Received for free through Early Reviewer Program.

I think this just wasn't the book I wanted Patti to write, although this book was good. I was most engaged when she spoke about her relationship with Fred and her life in Detroit and mourning for Fred. I want that book. Part of that desire is what was going through my life when I read this book, of course. The reader projects so much onto the book.

I also read this as an audiobook, and I think because of the kind of meditative and diary sensibility it would have been better as a paper book.

I received this through the early reviewers program.

I haven't read any of Lee Smith's other books, but I'm certainly interested now. I thought this was a lovely, endearing, plainspoken group of stories that were so easy to keep turning the page and reading. There are always a few stories that resonate less than others (for me, I didn't care for the final chapter which was kind of a disappointing way to end the book). The story about her son Josh and the writer Lou Crabtree might have been my favorites.

Like a few other folks I found this book pretty hard to get into, although the premise and topic are engaging. I would be curious to revisit it a few years later to see how the book ages though!

I agree with other reviewers- this was not as engaging a book as I wanted it to be. I kept picking it up, reading a few pages, and getting bored. The characters weren't engaging or relatable (to me). I made it half way through the book and even now couldn't tell you the major plot points (her mother dies, they go on vacation, people have relationships with other people, etc). Not an exceptional book save for in how dull it was.

A forgettable, fluffy book. As much as I want to support her- she is an against the odds successful CEO- the book really has little of substance. You could glean all the business insight from reading a few book reviews, and you'll save yourself a few hours.

I should perhaps preface my review by saying I am not a civil war buff. My interest in war history is minimal, but I'm trying to expand my horizons for 2013 and picked this book up when my mom recommended it. I struggled in places where I needed some more background on the war and its players. As xenchu wrote, it's not a scholarly work, which I very much benefitted from. It is a quite factual book. Unfortunately, the facts around the Hunley and its submarine predecessors are few. Not being a (civil war) history buff, I found myself extremely frustrated by how often there were no source documents or accounts. I felt like I was reading a lot of "well this is what might have happened... or it could have been this." There were some lovely turns of phrase (porpoiselike aplomb!), I'd certainly recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading about the civil war or maritime history.

An interesting book, with beautiful photographs and even lovelier text. The reviewers below did a fine job, and I agree with most of them. I really found myself taken in by the citizens of Oxford.

I just zoomed through this today, so perhaps this isn't the most digested or in depth review. I liked the book quite a bit! I'd seen it on early reviewers and was intrigued. Obviously I didn't read the description very closely because I thought this was a nonfiction book. Whoops! It turns out to be a very enjoyable novel focusing on one artist and the Gardner heist and the intersections of those two worlds. I am a Bostonian and an art lover and I found the book very realistic and well-researched in those respects, if that's important to you. At times the plot and some of the writing seemed a bit predictable. I also felt Shapiro was a bit heavy on the adjectives. Overall though I'd certainly recommend this book as a fun, light read.

I found this to be an interesting introduction to the way we perceive clothing and the way we produce clothing. I say introduction purposefully, and I agree with the reviewer below, beebeereads, that this book is a lot of information just assembled in one spot. Still, in a relatively short and readable book the author presents a great number of things to think about. I've seen this book all over the sewing blogs I follow and I was quite glad I read it.

I requested this book as part of the early reviewers program because I studied art history in college, and although I don't work in the field I still absolutely love reading and learning about art. I do think this book would be fine for someone who doesn't have an academic art history background. It's written in an accessible manner, which surprised me a little. Like another reviewer posted, I do kind of think this was written for a more general audience not for an academic audience. Still, it's a fun and interesting read, and is not terribly dumbed down.

I will also agree with another reviewer who said that the book is very focused on the western perspective. I had heard of and knew the stories of most of the forgers mentioned. In the introduction I found the brief discussion of Egyptian forgeries interesting, but I really wanted more!

So, overall a great book for an accessible, but intellectual, look at this corner of the art history world. One half star off because the advance copy had no illustrations/plates (which I wasn't expecting there to be) and images can really make or break a book like this! If I see the book in the stores I will certainly update.

Ok, so this book was recommended to me after someone heard my abysmal taste in reality television. This was a fantastic book though, far better than my taste for Honey Boo Boo would indicate. Elna Baker was one of the orginal Moth storytellers and her natural gift for telling a tale shows through. The book is short and sweet and memorable. Definitely recommended.

I received this book free through the member giveaway program.
What an interesting book! Yearning is written from the point of view of a young woman, Amanda, battling with infertility. It took at least 20 or 30 pages for me to get into the book. I'm attributing this mostly to my having very little in common with the main character who is a 30something straight woman working in corporate Florida. BUT after a while I started to identify with her and feel her heartbreaks. The book was kind of a fascinating comprehensive look at the emotional stress of infertility and the treatment of infertility. It's something I've never dealt with (or known someone who has), but the book was written in such a compelling, open way that I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

A really pleasant surprise! I won this in member giveaway and didn't think it was quite up my alley, but it was engaging and fun. The narrative is intertwined with short stories, a device I haven't seen before really (and it did work, it wasn't distracting or disruptive). A fun book overall.

I agree very much with jasonli's review. It was a lovely book to read, but too little. The short chapters just felt like wisps and I was left wanting to have known more.

It sucked me in and I had to finish before going to sleep. I am so tired today. (A fantastic book, despite the sleep deprivation!)

I enjoyed this book, for many of the reasons that others have written in depth about, but I found it terribly slow and long for some reason. Pollan didn't engage me in the same way that Jonathan Safran Foer (I'd consider Omnivore's Dilemma and Eating Animals to be easily comparable) did. However it was fantastic and plenty of "food for thought" (I know, but the pun was just too easy).

I very much enjoyed this. The book opens with the main character, Grace Winter, on trial in the States after spending 21 days on a lifeboat. She was a great character- she seemed at first what I'd expect from a woman of the era but the author continued to present new sides to her that made her incredibly accessible (if not always likeable). The cover was the one thing that put me off of at first (ooh, a boat on a sea, how exciting), but it was a great book.

Jonathan Safran Foer (a name I still cannot spell without looking up) presents a very interesting look at Western human's relationship to meat eating and vegetarianism. Early in the book he writes that he will try to present just the facts, without any proselytizing from either side. Of course, when the facts relate to the disastrous system of factory farming that exists in America, they tend to be persuausive anyways.

I loved reading it- it came at a time in my life where I was doing my annual vegetarian-for-Lent thing and it has had a very strong effect on me.

Short and sweet and lovely. I haven't read much Andy Borowitz, but this was really wonderful and left me wanting more. His sense of humor in this seemed a bit softer, but black in the way many people crack jokes to stave off fear. The kindle single length was also really perfect for this.

Did not finish. I got so terribly tired of hearing of the complaints of a middle aged white man after the first 15 pages, then after another 15 I wanted to die. The protaganist, Tom Violet, was just so dramatically self-obsessed. I suppose the book's about him and he has a right to whine as much as he'd like, but really- hearing about erectile dysfunction and lusting after a colleague? Not terribly creative.