Happy Sunday everyone! This will be a short update—I’ve been feeling under the weather this week, mainly because it’s that time of the month and the cramps and anxiety are hitting hard. It isn’t usually this bad, but my body thought to remind me again why it sucks being a girl—I’m emotional and hangry all the time, I have this intense craving for carrot cake in the middle of the night, and my concentration is shot. It SUCKS, especially on top of COVID and exam preps.
Bleh. Oh well, it will pass.
Anyway, on to my bookish updates!
Posts This Week
- Mysteries/Thrillers | Darling Rose Gold, The Keeper, & Force of Nature
- Book Review: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Books I Finished This Week
- After reading books last week that featured either war (On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous), trauma (My Dark Vanessa), cheating (On Beauty), murder (The Keeper, Force of Nature), or just overall bad sex and depressing relationships, my brain resisted any more lit fic until I can replenish my good vibes. So I finished Tessa Dare’s Girl Meets Duke series. It wasn’t as good as her Spindle Cove or Castles Ever After books, but I just adore Dare’s writing. She does banter so well, and her books never fail to make me laugh.
- I also finished Karin Gillespie’s Love Literary Style, which I picked up after Melanie @ Grab the Lapels reviewed it. It was exactly what I needed. I’ll finish Beach Read first, which has a similar premise as this one, before reviewing it.
- I had a blast reading The Poppy War, but I found that it isn’t as nuanced as some reviewers made it out to be. Dark, yes, but this darkness wasn’t really explored in depth. In fact, I can imagine the book as a shounen anime, maybe something like Attack on Titan meets Fairy Tail or My Hero Academia. Still, it was very entertaining and I liked the East Asian setting and characters. I’ll hold off on reviewing it until I read the next one in the series.
Books I’m Currently Reading
- Still not sure what to feel about The Heart’s Invisible Furies. This has a really high rating on Goodreads (4.47, the last time I checked), so I had high expectations going into this, but so far I’m just meh with the first half. SAD, because I want to love this. Part II seems to be a lot better than the first part, though, so we’ll see.
- Holly @ The Smut Report recommended Tana French’s In the Woods. I’ve just started it but I already know this is going to be so good; it feels very different from most mysteries I’ve read so far.
Well, that’s it for me. I had planned to post my review of My Dark Vanessa this week, but it’s been difficult to write, so it’ll be up next week instead. I also hope to review Normal People and maybe the Girl Meets Duke series.
How was your week? Has the quarantine been lifted where you are, and for those in cold countries, has spring finally arrived? Let me know in the comments!
Gil Reads Books 
Hope you feel better soon!!! Haha Melanie’s review of Love Literary Style got me interested in it as well, and now based on your comments too…I really want to read it!! A couple of COVID restrictions are supposed to lift soon in my state, but the governor is being super vague and saying which businesses specifically will open, so who knows what it will look like lol
*not saying which businesses will open oops
Thank you 🙂 It was definitely very cute! The thing I enjoyed the most about it, though, was the shade thrown at the publishing industry. Priceless! Yikes, sorry to hear that. COVID’s become a pretty good indicator of good leaders or not. Hope you guys get more clarity on that soon! 🙂
I loved In the Woods = Tana French is such a great writer!
That’s great to hear! Even if I’ve just started I can tell this will probably one of my favourites already!
She’s such a great writer!
I LOVE Tana French and am always trying to recruit new people to be her fans. I hope you enjoy In the Woods. IMO, her later novels are even better!
Oooh, now I’m intrigued—more to look forward to! I’m really enjoying this so far, and I love how she really shows the dynamics of the Murder squad. I feel like this’ll be a new favourite.
The five books following this one are all about the Murder Squad, although they all have different protagonists.
I’m so glad Love Literary Style was a good recipe for happiness. I especially enjoyed the way it was a pleasurable read without being uber-fluffy-dumb. I’m sorry you have craps. May I suggest building a pillow fort? Grab Cat and some Oroes and a book and pillow fort it up!
Exactly! I really love the insider info and the shade thrown at the publishing industry. I’m not very familiar with the industry in the first place, so learning about it this way was pretty fun, lol. Thanks for the suggestion—I did something close: I usually lie belly-down on top of a lot of pillows with Cat nearby. I also got some carrot cake delivered, so it’s perfect!
Gil, that image makes me so happy. ❤
Sorry you’re feeling kind of blah – hope you get some carrot cake! This is a long weekend where I live and we’re entering into the next phase of re-opening. For us that means we’re allowed to expand our social circle a little and we have good friends with kids the same age who we’re choosing to “bubble” with. So we spent today at the beach with them and it felt amazing to spend time with other people!
Thank you (and yes, I was able to! :D)! Ah, that sounds amazing! I’m glad for you since I’m also just itching to go out with other people! I’m so envious of you going to the beach, by the way—it’s summer here but we can’t take advantage of it yet. This time last year, we were all at the beach, too. I hope you and your families had a great time 🙂
We’ve been very fortunate to be able to be outside throughout. It’s a definite perk of living in a rural area that we can go to the beach and be the only ones there! My family is all in the city and they’ve been a lot more limited simply because there are more people around.
I have a friend who’s in a more rural area right now, and he’s able to bike around too. In the city I’m confined to two blocks outside my house. It’s great that you guys have that perk!
Ah, sorry to hear you’re feeling under the weather, even if it is temporary. I hope you get plenty of carrot cake!
Looking forward to your review of The Poppy War, I’ve been wanting to read that one! I’ll also be interested in your comparison between Beach Read and Love Literary Style, it’s a great idea to post those together.
I hope you’ll have a good week ahead! (Hopefully with a strong ending to THIF, too!) 🙂
Thank you, I did! 😀 Poppy War was definitely entertaining, but I didn’t like the ending. I’d want to read Book 2 first before saying anything about it. Also, congrats again to us for finishing THIF!! 🙂
I hope you’re feeling better now Gil. My comment is so late. 🙂 I agree with Tessa Dare. She never fails to make me laughs. Even her heroes have great internal monologues. 😀
I know!! She’s my go-to feel-good HR author, along with Kleypas. Glad to find a fellow fan! 😁
Omg… Kleypas and Tessa Dare are my ultimate favorites too. Also, Julia Quinn. Have you read The Bridgertons series?
I think I’ve read up to book 6, but unfortunately the only one that really worked for me there was book 4! I can see her appeal though, and would probably pick her up again in the future. 🙂
Not all the books are good in bridgertons series. My favorite is book 4, of course. 😁😁
Yes!!! The reveal about Penelope was just fantastic. 😁
And let’s not forget Charming Colin. Hehe
Right! 💖