Genre 📚: YA Contemporary, Queer Lit, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: Workplace romance, Former friends to lovers, Opposites attract
Rep ✔️: Black and queer main characters, Korean American side characters, nonbinary and aroace side characters
CW ⚠️: Off-page death of a parent
Rating ⭐️: 3.5/5
Genre 📚: YA Horror, Thriller, Paranormal
Tropes 💁♀️: Ghostly revenge, haunting/possession
Rep ✔️: Queer main characters
CW ⚠️: Grief, anxiety, agoraphobia, some blood/gore
Rating ⭐️: 3.5/5
Genre 📚: YA Contemporary, Fantasy, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: Fated love, Family curse, Friends to lovers
Rep ✔️: Disabled main character, queer side characters
Rating ⭐️: 4/5
Genre 📚: YA Contemporary, Sci-fi, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: Friends to lovers, Amnesia (à la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Rep ✔️: Korean-Canadian main characters
CW ⚠️: PTSD, Loved one with Alzheimer’s, brief discussions of grief and abuse
Rating ⭐️: 5/5
Genre 📚: YA Contemporary, Queer Lit, Romance
Tropes 💁♀️: Forbidden love, Friends to lovers, Falling for pastor’s daughter
Rep ✔️: Bisexual main character, POC side character
CW ⚠️: Religious trauma, Homophobia
Rating ⭐️: 4/5
Genre 📚: YA Contemporary/Fantasy, Dark academia, Romance, Coming-of-age
Tropes 💁♀️: Body swapping, Hidden identity, Friends to lovers
Rep ✔️: Chinese American main characters, POC and queer side characters
CW ⚠️: Depression, Self-loathing, Grief, Off-page death of a parent
Rating ⭐️: 5/5
Genre 📚: YA/NA Contemporary, Romance, Coming-of-age
Tropes 💁♀️: Rivals to lovers, Ex-friends to lovers, First love
Rep ✔️: Bisexual love interest, Indian best friend character, queer and non-binary side characters
Rating ⭐️: 3.5/5
I’ve been trying to get myself to read more books, but for the longest time, life was too busy to fit more than 30-ish books a year. 2024, however, was the year I put my foot down and said I’M DOING THIS. I’M READING 100 BOOKS. And somehow, here I am now, with ✨160 books✨ read, my heart full and my head aching. (I read some crazy stuff, y’all…)
Continue reading “Challenge accepted, challenge won 🏆”
Gloria Chao writes some of the sweetest, ooey gooiest YA rom-coms, her last being friends-to-lovers romance When You Wish Upon a Lantern. Her forthcoming novel goes the complete opposite direction, bringing on the witty banter and hate goggles in an enemies-to-lovers adventure. Ex Marks the Spot follows FMC Gemma and her ex-boyfriend/rival Xander as they travel to Taiwan to solve the puzzles her late grandfather left her. Puzzles that could possibly lead to an inheritance she desperately needs for college tuition.
Continue reading “Mini Review: Ex Marks the Spot”
(Laughing at the fact that my review title is basically DF: D and D & D and D 😅 but yeah, anyway — )
I’m not a roleplaying game person, so the first couple of times I saw Kristy Boyce’s Dungeons and Drama floating around online, I gave it a pass. Then I peeked at the reviews, many of which stressed that the novel is enjoyable whether you’re into RPGs or not. Thank god I listened, because GAHHHDHGBSKJAGGBJKGJD. It is one of the cutest freaking books I’ve ever read and definitely my favorite comfort book of 2024. It is very much a love letter to DnD, and you really feel the author’s passion for it, but it’s also a well-crafted coming-of-age story about discovering new things, whether that be in hobbies, in glasses-wearing love interests, or in parents we thought we knew.
Continue reading “Double Feature: Dungeons and Drama & Dating and Dragons”
Sara Bechtol 