User Profile

Jack šŸ’œ

WaferBiscuits@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1Ā year, 5Ā months ago

He/Him šŸŽ‰šŸ³ļøā€āš§ļø Big fan of cozy gay romance, sci-fi, fantasy, and any kind of xenofiction. Exhausted, but happy to be here! šŸ•ŗāœØ

My longterm goal is to read every published book with a transmasc lead that I can get my grubby little hooves on. Feel free to lob stuff over in the list Iā€™ve been growing!

Please pardon the mess - I imported my GoodReads data and itā€™s gonna take a lot of fiddling to get everything ship shape. šŸ§¹

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Jack šŸ’œ's books

Annabeth Albert, Heart Eyes Press LGBTQ: Featherbed (Paperback, 2021, Heart Eyes Press LGBTQ) 2 stars

Meh

2 stars

Well, thatā€™s what I get for trying this just because the cover looked goofy.

I love chickens. My parents keep them as pets, and itā€™s always a joy to help care for them whenever I housesit. Naturally, I went into this book expecting chickens and ended up getting breadcrumbs. Chickens only show up in the first chapter, and thereafter are demoted to passing off-page mentions and one late-book pun that made me wince.

Man, I donā€™t know. This book just feels like nothing. Harrison and Finn have the most basic chemistry, the most basic arguments and concerns, itā€™s just like - very paint-by-numbers with actual farming getting shoved to the sidelines. Thereā€™s no substance, just fluff.

N R Walker: Galaxies and Oceans (Paperback, 2018, Blueheart Press) 5 stars

Seizing his one chance to escape, Ethan Hosking leaves his violent ex-boyfriend, leaves his entire ā€¦

So tender!!!

4 stars

The hurt/comfort is just peak, all sugary and warm. The intimacy was written so darn well with so much lovely yearning.

My only complaint is that the banter between the two leads felt a bit much at times with bad referential jokes. You could make a drinking game out of how many times these guys roll their eyes or ā€˜bark a laughā€™

But the story itself is so earnest, and with such an unexpectedly thrilling first chapter!

K.J. Charles: A Thief in the Night (EBook) 4 stars

Toby never meant to be a highway robber, but needs must. He didnā€™t plan to ā€¦

Oh, my kingdom for a good thief/nobleman mlm šŸ™ thank you kindly

4 stars

A roguish man is caught by the earl he robbed some months prior, which is bad enough without considering what the two of them did that night.

Novellas like this are always welcome little treats, just very no-nonsense and no-frills runaway romances. My only very mild complaint is that it could have stood to have maybe one more sex scene to send it off.

Lex Croucher: Gwen and Art Are Not in Love (2023, St. Martin's Press) 4 stars

Itā€™s been hundreds of years since King Arthurā€™s reign. His descendant, Arthur, a future Lord ā€¦

Gay Arthurian fake dating with a dash of political intrigue for seasoning.

No rating

This was okay! I mean, I had fun. I think my biggest disappointment was that the romance felt oddly lacking? Gwen and Bridget seem only barely connected by mutual attraction, and Gabe treats Arthur like a bug most of the time. Itā€™s all very cynical and a bit too tongue-in-cheek for my liking.

Some of the humor is fun, and other times it feels painfully forced. Itā€™s very YA in how it reads, which is fine! Just not my preference.

Keira Andrews: A Clean Break (Paperback, KA Books) 3 stars

Mehā€¦.

3 stars

Content warning Marked this as spoilers because itā€™s a direct continuation from the first book, so anything I say here may as well be a spoiler.

Elizabeth Gonzalez James: The Bullet Swallower (Hardcover, 2024, Simon & Schuster) 5 stars

A dazzling magical realism western in the vein of Cormac McCarthy meets Gabriel GarcĆ­a MĆ”rquez, ā€¦

Beautiful work

5 stars

ā€œIt is a hard thing to be a good manā€

Iā€™m just such a sucker for duel timelines and western backdrops. Sprinkle in a cursed family name and a Mephistopheles-type and I am hooked, line, and sinker.

The prose is delicious. Everything about it is just a delight on my eyes. Once I got this in the mail yesterday, I could hardly keep it down, and isnā€™t that endorsement enough?

Ann Baer: Medieval woman (1996, M. O'Mara Books, Ltd., M. O'Mara Books, Ltd) 4 stars

One of those day in the life books

4 stars

Iā€™m not sure how accurate this book is in portraying medieval village life. Thatā€™s not really a usual area of interest for me, but I do love how this one of those rare books where ā€˜nothingā€™ happens, and yet there isnā€™t a part of it that bores you.

ā€œMedieval Womanā€ is a snapshot of several months centered around Marion, wife to a modest carpenter and mother to two living children. The book is divided into month-by-month chapters, with each chapter representing around a single day or so.

For as much hardship as Marion endures, itā€™s mostly rooted in the mundane. She survives, and itā€™s oddly relaxing to read about someone doing endless toil and hard labor under a provincial backdrop.

Gengoroh Tagame, Anne Ishii: Our Colors (Hardcover, 2022, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Pantheon) 4 stars

Set in contemporary suburban Japan, Our Colors is the story of Sora Itoda, a sixteen-year-old ā€¦

This would have been an easy four stars without the ending

No rating

Like a lot of other folks here, I donā€™t really know how to rate this one. The real kicker is that I was all-in on giving this high praise until the last few pages. Itā€™s one of those deals.

Hereā€™s the good: Tagameā€™s art is exquisite. I love the way he draws his characters and puts so much emphasis on masculinity. I canā€™t really eloquently describe it other than that itā€™s art that ā€˜feelsā€™ gay in the best way possible.

Another good thing: everything between the gay male lead and the girl childhood friend was done really well. I always love seeing healthy, supportive friendships with that undercurrent of occasional bumpy conflicts.

Until the last few pages, I really liked the mentor character, and it pains me that I have to refrain from recommending this one to people because of the ending. Considering everything that comes before it, it just ā€¦

Foxfire Fund Inc: Foxfire Story (Paperback, 2020, Anchor) 4 stars

Great collection (as expected from the source)

4 stars

Iā€™m so glad I caught a glance of this while I was wandering around the library the other day. The Foxfire series is something thatā€™s always existed in my periphery with the original paperbacks passed down from my grandfather. I had no idea that the program was still running and publishing new stuff like this.

This is a really lovely book, chock-full of different examples of southern Appalachia oral folklore from a diverse set of voices all lovingly transcribed and notated where needed.

Julia Seales: Most Agreeable Murder (2023, Random House Publishing Group, Random House) 3 stars

Shrek meets Jane Austen

3 stars

3.5 - this is absolutely a work of love, a tribute to the authorā€™s love of regency-era decorum and goofs. I think it could have stood to loose a few characters, since many of them are more walking gags and potential culprits than anyone of substance. Makes it difficult to keep track of everyone.

The humor sometimes falls flat, but when it hits itā€™s a home run.

Lydia Conklin: Rainbow Rainbow (2022, Catapult) 2 stars

Itā€™s OK

2 stars

2.5. Conklinā€™s writing is tight and impressive, but man. Most of these stories felt uncomfortable and spiteful for the sake of it.

There are some major standouts. ā€œPioneerā€ and ā€œSunny Talksā€ were my favorites, with an emphasis on the latter for being a sympathetic look at the gap of understanding between younger/older queer culture and expectations.

The elephant in the room is that so many of these stories involve heavy themes of child sexual assault that are touched upon, but donā€™t really seem to say anything other than be there as depressing shock value. Maybe Iā€™m just not the right audience, but those stories (the majority of them, really) just didnā€™t click with me at all.

Not a big fan of two separate transmasc characters forgoing HRT because of worries about increased aggression, baldness, cancer, etc. Characters are characters, and they can have their own motivations, but it feels a ā€¦