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‘Challenges make us stronger,’ Braden said to himself. ‘They also make us really miserable.’

This book is basically the epitome of the hurt/comfort trope, and it’s done really well at that. The hurt and the comfort aspects are fairly balanced and tightly interwoven, so I would recommend paying close attention to the trigger warnings. This is very much a story of an abuse survivor confronting the demons of his past before taking a step into the future, and nothing about his experience is downplayed. Which, in fact, was my favorite part of the book, even if so many scenes genuinely hurt to read. In a kinda cathartic way, though, because of how isncerely and respectfully the painful things were depicted.

In general, the book takes the common tropes of the omegaverse genre that are most commonly used for titillation and quite thoroughly interrogates the psychological and social implications between them. …

 Sadly, I'm just not feeling this one. It's been almost 1/4 of the book, and I still don't have the feel for the characters. Or the world. Or the plot. There are a lot of cool ideas here for sure. I loved the premise; it definitely tries to do the same flavor of cozy fantasy I enjoyed in Sarah Beth Durst's The Spellshop, the one where the coziness happens on the edge of darker, sadder events and there's a strong focus on healing. But I don't think it's succeeding. There's already been multiple moments when I wanted to dig deeper into the characters or the world around them, but all the interesting stuff is underexplored or mentioned once and ignored. 

“The SOA isn’t the military with a multibillion-dollar budget and the ability to write off your destructive tendencies with a mere warning.”
“That’s a shame. You might want to look into changing your budget.”

This book was actively recommended to me as something that would scratch the itch left by Charlie Adhara's fantastic but sadly finite Big Bad Wolf series. I fully admit it's possible that if I picked it up for some other reason, I would be a bit less strict. Beyond the surface similarities, like being investigative urban fantasy with werewolves and m/m romance, these books really have little in common. The Soulbound 'verse, for once, is a lot more expansive and varied—and I feel like it's both this novel's strength and downfall.

On one hand, I'm extremely impressed by the rich lore the author crafted and by how all those elements—magic users, shifters, demons, gods, vampires, and …

Yegor had school and Iosif had a border to ruthlessly defend from hungry reindeer.

I went in expecting a cute romantic short story. What I got felt more like an outline for something longer, expanded into scenes in a few semi-random places. The big reveal was so abrupt and heavy-handed it felt jarring. The external conflict was so jumbled/summarized that it was hard to figure out what it was about in the first place. A new character... sorry, a whole bunch of them, but only one with a name barged into the plot seemingly for the sake of a MC making two funny-ish quip at someone, then hang back. The characters had the barest hints of personalities.

Still, underneath all of these flaws, the story was so promising! There was a strong start with a nice sense of setting, hints at interesting supporting characters (who never really made it into …

A lot of series in this genre try to pull off a lovable dumb otaku main character, but few succeed as well as this one does. My main story complaint comes with the way the kids are written—they feel WAY too self-aware to be eight year olds, with the exception of Katarina operating from a teenager-with-one-brain cell mindset. There was also a ridiculous amount of repetition when each chapter would flip perspectives, forcing a lot of skim reading on my end. Despite that, it’s still a joy to read about Katarina unknowingly charming her way out of her foretold bad ends because of her lovable personality.

I asked for a floor to sleep on, that’s all. You set off to save my life, and now you’re taking me to the family home. Why?

My favorite installment in this series, and the whole reason I've decided to re-read it. Perhaps it would even be fair to say this is one of my favorite romances, period. I love stories where there are very real barriers between the romantic leads, and they still gravitate toward each other and then work—on their relationship, but especially on themselves—to dismantle those barriers. I love seeing people change their lives for the better, not for somebody, but for themselves first; making changes to include the other person because being together makes them happier, but not overhauling their lives for the sake of a relationship. Because there's a line there, not even a particularly fine one where I'm concerned, but it so often gets …

There was something to be said about a woman with the confidence to unleash hell with a long sword.

Huge parts of this were so hilarious! I loved the premise and every appearence of Alexis the talking sword. Or rather, the dissing sword. :D The fantasy setting is so colorful, too, with all those different species and small, fun twists on familiar tropes. I expected a bit more feelings from the romance; as it was, it was like... insta-lust followed by insta-love, pretty much? If that's your thing, you're likely to admire it a lot, since objectively Ruby and Lukka have great chemistry and their scenes together are hot and well-written. So this is purely a matter of preference. 

I enjoyed the author's writing style a lot and I'm excitd to pick up a longer work of hers soon!

I really enjoyed this lovely romance. I think I'm becoming a fan of the Ice Queen trope. Maybe I always have been but didn't realize it until right now... I did fall in love with Radley's Holly series so maybe I've been in denial this whole time!

Anyway, Broken Beyond Repair held my attention all the way through, the characters felt complex and real, and I loved them and cheered for them.

For the most part, the language was beautiful. I love a romance that uses more complex vocabulary. My only complaint was the regular descriptions of what someone's lips were doing. Being pulled in, pressed together, slid to the side, etc to express some emotion when it was already implied or could have been in another way. Seems small but repetitive mentions of anything will pull me out of a story so it was a bigger deal for me. …

I think I screwed up keeping the sex casual around the time I started sleeping in his bed.

This was a quick, sweet read that put a smile on my face. I'm a sucker for roommates romances, especialy when those roommates don't hit it off immediately. Also, I really loved the MC's entire big queer found family, and I'm excited to read the rest of the series to see all these other people find their personal happiness, too.

I guess I only have a couple of small complaints:

1) For the first book in a series centered around a tabletop gaming group, there really wasn't enough tabletop gaming. :D

2) And I guess the shift from bickering over household chores and timetables to the first sex scene felt too abrupt for me? Then again, it's quite possible that's a "me" thing. I often find myself a bit thrown by romance …

My daughter gave me this book for my 57th birthday (along with an Alice Walker hand silk-screened shirt and bookplates exactly like the ones I used when I was a kid). I sat up and read a lot of it last night, skipping around. It's a collection of zine pieces with an alphabetical organization but my reading plan was more like flipping and seeing what caught my eye, which worked just fine. It's a visually wonderful book, with its zine aesthetic (that sounds so academic) - some hand-written pages, some typed, some typed words with drawings around the edges, lots of glue and scissors involved. It's a great reminder that books are not just digital bits, but a visual experience, a chance to be delighted and for the words to be given a special place on the page. Take that, blah Kindle pages without souls. The pieces on gender and …