Book 43: Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan

This is a middle grade book I read for my YA book club. It tells the story of the first week of fifth grade for two students in alternating POVs, with each author writing one character's POV. Ravi and his family have just moved to New Jersey from India, and the culture shock is pretty rough. Joe isn't particularly popular due in part to his sensory sensitivity, and the fact that his mom has just been hired as a lunch monitor at his school doesn't help him feel like he can fit in.

I found parts of this book really difficult to read, because Ravi in particular tries so hard to be liked and through no fault of his own gets everything wrong and doesn't understand why Dillon, the big bad bully, is being mean to him. Joe understands perfectly well why Dillon is being mean, but feels powerless to do anything about it for the first half of the book. I don't usually get second-hand embarrassment that easily, but when it comes to kids I find it all but unbearable. Luckily none of the individual moments of embarrassment last too long, and the knowledge that by the end Joe and Ravi will be bound together in friendship helped me make it through.

I also really liked that the back of the book had a glossary for both Ravi and for Joe; the book doesn't assume that all of the readers would know all of the terms in Joe's chapters but not in Ravi's, or that the main audience for this book is white American kids.

Grade: B

Book 42: The Closer You Get by LA Witt

Man, I really enjoyed this book. It tells the story of Kieran, a 27-year-old self-described slut who may have the slightest fear of commitment due to his parents' terrible divorce. His dedication to playing the field shouldn't interfere at all with being something of a one man welcome wagon for Alex, a 21-year-old friend of a friend who is trying to escape his homophobic upbringing and explore the LGBTQ scene in Seattle for the first time. Oh, and did I mention that Alex is a never been kissed virgin?

The developing relationship between Kieran and Alex is told really well, and in a lot of ways the predictability of the story adds to its charm. Kieran behaves badly for a bit while figuring out his shit, but never so terribly that it made me turn on him or totally lose patience, and Alex is a delightful wide-eyed ingenue who grows as a character and stands up to Kieran when he needs to. Kieran's backstory lands a bit too heavily at times, but for the most part it works. Overall it's a very solid contemporary romance, and I will be picking up other titles by this author once I've finished this challenge.

Grade: B

Book 41: Cabin Nights by Ashley John

Late last night and early this morning, I was in desperate need of fictional distraction from the all-too-real world. So I decided to read a romance about an adorable university student on a ski vacation who gets snowed in over Christmas with an intriguing ski bum in a cabin with a fireplace and mulled wine and sex coupons. I make excellent life choices.

This novella definitely scratched the itch I had, and fulfilled my need for distraction by delivering exactly what you would expect from that synopsis. It wasn't the best written version of that story that I've ever read, and there could have been more depth to the attraction between the couple. I also found it really jarring when they had unprotected sex without even a cursory nod to the standard "I've been tested and I'm safe" handwave; it felt both unrealistic and also worrying. But on the whole it did its job.

Grade: B  

Book 40: With or Without Him by Barbara Elsborg

When I had gotten about a sixth of the way through this book, I put it down for a moment and wondered how on earth there could be that much story left. What could possibly fill those remaining pages?

The answer, as it turns out, was more ridiculousness than I could have ever predicted, and sadly not in a good way. The premise of the book is fairly absurd in and of itself: a 21 year old music student named Tyler is involved in a big underground prostitution/group sex/pornography ring because apparently the idea of graduating with huge student loans is so distressing the only answer is to sell his body. He agrees to do an additional 'surprise' gig on the same night as his music recital at his college. Haris is a fabulously wealthy venture capitalist who is a donor to the college's program and attends the recital; he is instantly captivated by Tyler and follows him after the recital. This is fortunate, because Tyler is coerced into doing a BDSM scene that he doesn't want to do and almost has a panic attack before Haris (an experienced former dom) can free him. Obviously the next step is for Haris to offer Tyler a contract for four months of him being Haris's exclusive sexual partner in exchange for twenty thousand pounds. And after that things get REALLY unbelievable.

Truth be told, I was actually enjoying the book through all of the above, but after the second kidnapping and fifth murder attempt and so many secrets from their backstories of pain that I lost count, it all just became so dumb I lost any ability to care about these characters, who never felt particularly real to me but who at least started out as fairly interesting in that sort of romance novel stock character way. It was all too much, and not in a good way.

Grade: D 

Book 39: Captain's Surrender by Alex Beecroft

Naval officers who fall in love! That is the sort of pitch I am always going to be interested in.

Set during the early years of the American Revolution, the focus of this book wasn't quite what I expected. The first third of the book is centered on a terrible captain of a British ship on its way to Bermuda, which is also carrying a wealthy merchant and his ward (in reality his natural daughter). The terrible captain is cruel and sadistic and is eager to catch out his officers for offenses, especially sodomy. This is especially dangerous for Josh, who is now sharing a cabin with a lieutenant named Peter who has just joined the ship. Josh has to navigate concealing his feelings from Peter while also attempting to prevent mutiny, which Peter is narrowly able to avoid while also taking command of the ship as a result of a battle with pirates.

After the terrible captain has been removed from power due to a knife wound inflicted by one of his own crew, Josh and Peter fall in love and are noble and self-sacrificing for each other in ways that are, for the most part, incredibly satisfying. There's an incredibly brave suicide mission, an unlikely rescue, a duel to the death and a wedding, all of which are delightful. The only thing I don't love about the book is the appearance of a Wise Native American who exists more or less only to help one of them realize the true course of his life, but while that's not a trope I'm generally in favor of, it isn't so poorly done that it ruined the rest of the book for me. It brought the overall impression I have of the book down, though.

Grade: B

Book 38: Muscling Through by J.L. Merrow

Muscling Through starts with a classic romance novel set up: a pretty professor of Art History runs into a scary-looking muscle man in an alley, but instead of finding trouble, he finds love. Al, the muscle man, isn't exactly a gentle giant (he had a tendency to get involved in some bar brawls as a bouncer, which is why he took a job as a punter instead to make his mum happy), but he isn't the homophobic brute Lawrence (or Larry, as Al calls him) was initially afraid of.

The two of them embark on a love affair that is refreshingly drama-free, for one that cuts as far across social and class lines as it does. And for anyone who enjoys some nice size kink, the sex is fantastic--some of the best contemporary sex scenes I've read in a while.

I just really enjoyed this book! It's more of a novella than a novel, but given what the story is about I think it's the perfect length. There's a tiny bit of conflict in the middle, but it's dealt with quickly, and to make the book longer I fear most authors would have turned it into a huge crisis, rather than something that could be resolved once Larry and Al actually had a real conversation. The book is from Al's POV, and I loved the voice; it veered slightly too close to mockery occasionally when Al didn't understand something that both Larry and presumably the reader would, but on the whole I thought it really nailed that balance. And it was always perfectly obvious why Al and Larry were initially attracted to each other, and how their relationship bloomed into something deeper than sex, in a way that isn't always clear in short romances. It was exactly what I wanted from this kind of story.

Grade: A

Book 37: A Treasure of Gold by Piper Huguley

The third book in the series that started with A Virtuous Ruby and continued with A Most Precious Pearl, A Treasure of Gold takes place entirely in Pittsburgh. Nettie, the middle sister of five, has moved to Pittsburgh to stay with her older sisters after spending a couple of years touring the country leading revival meetings. After the death of one of the ministers, she is trying to find a new life in Pittsburgh, which starts on a dramatic note when she saves the life of a numbers man who was shot in a nearby alley.

Jay lost his first wife to a wasting disease and is raising his daughter Goldie on his own. Nettie's family thinks Jay is a gangster who runs a gambling hall, but he's also something of an unofficial bank for black people who are unable to get loans or support from commercial banks. Nettie becomes his daughter's nanny and runs a church school for black children when their school closes for weeks at a time due to overcrowding.

Much like in A Most Precious Pearl, I found the plot devices that kept Nettie and Jay apart to be more frustrating than compelling, but the overall setting and world of the book was really interesting. All three books have had detailed bibliographies that I will definitely be checking out once I've completed this challenge, but on the whole the story itself didn't do a whole lot for me.

Grade: C