Cheer [netflix]

You have to be a devotee of reality TV to really appreciate this, I think, but I absolutely am, and I thought it was fascinating. 

Season 1 follows Navarro Texas's community college's cheer team as they prepare to try and win their 14th national title against their rivals from the next town over. The coach, Monica, is a really interesting person; very self-contained and relatively quiet, but occasionally you see how driven she is, and how downright mean she can be. We meet some of the students on the team, hoping to "make mat," that is, be one of the performers at the actual competition in Florida. Each one of them is an unbelievably compelling and tragic figure in different ways -- shout out to my girl Lexi, for whom I want only good things. The team is trying a pyramid that's more difficult than anything they've done before. People get injured. Last minute switches have to be made. Everything is falling apart, and then, at the end of the season--

Well, I won't spoil it, but it's very good television. And then season 2 takes a totally different approach. Because between seasons lots of things happened. The team got very, very famous, and a lot of their time when they should be practicing is now spent doing car commercials, going on Ellen, and hosting red carpets. Monica, the coach, is on Dancing with the Stars, so she isn't even actively coaching the team most days. Kids have graduated and left. Other kids have gotten in to trouble (including one absolutely heartbreaking reveal that a truly beloved person in season 1 is a sexual predator and currently in jail) and been kicked off the team or left. And a lot of season 2 focuses on the rival school, scrappy Trinity Valley community college, just a few miles away.

Will the Navarro heroes win again? Will the Trinity College underdogs snatch the trophy away from them? It's compelling, but not nearly as compelling as season one; season 2 is mostly watchable because it's really interesting to see all the ways that become famous have screwed everyone up. 

And I do have some unanswered questions and complaints. For example: it's a two-year college, but some students seem to be on the team for three or even four years. Some students appear to not even be students, but are still allowed to compete. Only two teams ever win -- are there only two teams in their division? Because it's a lot less impressive if Navarro has won so many times... but there are only two teams competing. Why did Netflix feel the need to put the sexual assault survivors on screen, when they are under age? The whole second season is about how badly fame can destroy you; why would you put those children in the show??? I was furious. 

My other big gripe is the same one I have about so many movie musicals in the past decade; the editing of the actual cheer routines is terrible. I don't want slow motion cut-aways to the crowd screaming! I want to see the actual thing the show is about. Let me watch the unbelievable athleticism of these students! Let me appreciate this pyramid they've been killing themselves to perfect! Stop cutting the camera at weird angles every seven seconds and trust that viewers actually do want to watch the students cheer.

If this sounds interesting to you, you'll probably love it. If it doesn't, don't go to brunch with me, because I'm going to be talking about it for weeks. 

Hello

 I will be honest, I have't read a single book yet this year. 

Sure, we're only three weeks in, but I also read very few books last year, or the year before that. My time is taken up with video games, with watching youtube, with staring into space and contemplating the universe... I joke, except I'm not really joking. Part of it is that since 2016 the world has felt a lot less safe and comfortable. Part of it is that since 2020 my job has gone completely sideways and become a hostile, miserable place, and after 17 years of the same work, I'm seriously thinking about updating my resume and looking for something where I'll feel safer and more respected. All of that takes up a ton of brain space, and reading books has fallen by the wayside.

Also, I fully forgot I had this book blog. Whoops. I was thinking about writing, maybe, about the video games I've been playing, or the make up I've been enjoying, or the youtube videos I'd recommend, and I went to search up blogger and... this popped up. It feels like a different person read these books, although I skimmed it and my opinions are basically the same. 

So here we go! I am going to put down my thoughts about things like why I love the Trails series of video games (and all the problems with those same games), why I don't want to read any hot takes about Breath of the Wild 2, and why trash reality TV is the only that helps me turn my brain off these days. 

Scales of Gold (The House of Niccolò #4), Dorothy Dunnett

This is the most engaged I've been by a Niccolo book so far. I really enjoy Gelis and Diniz and Loppe (and Umar). Of course, having read Dunnett before, that meant I was waiting for something terrible to happen to at least one of them by the end of the book.

This is a travel story, and while I am still a little hazy on Nicholas and what he wants and why he does the things he does, I enjoyed the travel through Africa. I thought it was handled incredibly well, especially given when this book was written. African cultures were treated with the same respect and awe that Trebizond or Cyprus were in previous books, and while the characters occasionally judged the culture of Timbuktu it never felt like the book was. 

There is a section at the end, when they've all come back from years of living abroad, and find that the only people they can talk to about the journey is each other, which I related to intensely. I lived in Japan for a couple of years, and it's nearly impossible to explain what it was like to anyone who wasn't there. For those scenes I finally felt like I understood and enjoyed Nicholas, who otherwise is a cipher who leaves me cold in these books.

The end of this book is, frankly, bonkers. I won't have time to pick up the next book for a few weeks, but I'm definitely going to be thinking about it the entire time.

Grade: B
#63 in 2017

Barrel Proof (Agents Irish and Whiskey #3), Layla Reyne

This whole series feels like you've just tuned into season 3 of a TV show about crime and drama in the FBI. When we met Aidan in book one, he'd already lost his husband and partner, and there was a whole huge family and set of friends who showed up repeatedly to contribute to the plot. So it makes sense that in this book, the "season finale," most of those characters show up again. It makes the resolution of the plot a little bit crowded; instead of focusing on Jaime and Aidan's relationship, which falls apart for very good reason at the beginning of this book, it has a lot of plot to deal with. I was happy at how their conflict resolved, and very pleased they got together. It just felt more like a season finale of an ongoing show than the final resolution of a trilogy of books.

Grade:B
#62 in 2017

Spectred Isle (Green Men #1), KJ Charles

I am so glad this is the start of a series -- I liked both of the characters and this world so much. Set just after WWI, Saul is an archaeologist who lost his reputation and job in the war after making a very bad decision; Randolph is the mysterious stranger he can't stop running into. They meet at mysterious situation after mysterious situation. The only job Saul could get was working for a crazy old man who thinks magic is real, and Randolph turns out to be a man who fought in the magical battles of WWI. Both men are different, damaged people on the other side of WWI; both have lost nearly everyone they loved or cared about.

This is a magic action-adventure story, and also a historical romance. Randolph doesn't care what anyone thinks of him because he's from a wealthy, ancient family. Saul doesn't have that privilege. but their growing relationship is lovely, as is the promise of their future adventures together. It's exciting and scary and sexy and I'm excited for the rest of the series.

Grade:B
#61 in 2017

Single Malt, and Cask Strength (Agents Irish and Whiskey #1 and #2), Layla Rayne

The summer of reading tons of romance novels and Dunnett continues! I liked the first book so much! I love a romance novel that's also action-adventure, and this has lots of mystery and clues and sudden reveals of bad guys. Both protagonists were well-drawn and complex, and it made sense for them to want each other, and to have serious challenges getting together. Aidan's husband was killed mysteriously eight months earlier, and he's not over it yet. Jaime's handsome and charming and a little famous, and being in a relationship will be public and uncomfortable. As I finished this book I said out loud to myself, "How many of these are there? I'm going to read ALL of them."

There is a little telling instead of showing in the first couple of chapters, and a few too many uses of nicknames (something that bugs me a lot because romances seem to rely so heavily on it), but overall I liked this a lot, and I immediately bought the sequel, so...

I liked the second one even more. There are amazing tropes here. Aidan and Jaime have gotten together, but promised to keep it casual (and Aiden is sleeping with a bunch of other dudes, to remind himself not to get too attached to Jaime, which is breaking Jaime's heart a little). Jaime has to go undercover as himself; he was previously a basketball player, and the FBI asks him to be himself, as a coach, to bust an online gambling ring. Jaime misses his old life and of course runs into the ex-boyfriend who broke his heart, while Aidan is pretending to cozy up to a suspect. The pining is magnificent, as are the dark secrets. 

When I got to the end I immediately pre-ordered the third one, which luckily is coming out next month. This is just what I wanted on my summer vacation. 

Grade: B 

#59 and #60 in 2017

All I Have (A Farmers' Market Story #1)

This is very sweet. One thing I love about Nicole Helm's writing is that she gets the claustrophobia of growing up in a small town. Just like Mia, I was a smart, awkward girl in a very small farming town, who was consistently unable to make friends or figure out how to be "like everyone else." Actually, now that I think about it, I also came home and hooked up with a guy from school who was working on his family farm. We didn't end up madly in love and buying a farm together, but this book captures the despair of always being the person you were in high school. 

I wish this story were longer; I wish the fight at the end had been a little more complicated and harder to resolve. But this is a lovely read that is the best kind of wish fulfillment.

Grade: B

#58 in 2017

Heart of the Steal, Avon Gale and Roan Parrish

This is a really cute book, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's worth noting, I think, that it's NOT a book about an art thief and an FBI agent who fall in love in spite of their professions; it's mostly about an established relationship that struggles because the two protagonists have different moral compasses. Vaughn isn't an art thief, he's rich, and he's a little spoiled, and he doesn't see why Will, who works for the FBI, doesn't want him to use his clout to get Will everything he's ever wanted. I really like stories about vaguely amoral rich people who want to give their partners everything and destroy their enemies. It just wasn't the story I was expecting.

(Also I think the authors were more interested in one protagonist than the other, which bled through a little bit.)

Grade: C
#57 in 2017

White Hot (Hidden Legacy #2), Ilona Andrews

It really, really bugged me at the end of the 1st book in this series, when our heroine, Nevada, told her family that Connor Rogan was a sociopath and a dangerous killer, and they replied "Ohhhh, when are you getting MAAAARRIED?" I know it's a romance novel trope to have a big interfering family, and it can be cute when it's done right. But when it ignores a character's very real concerns, and isn't rooted in anything but "he's hot" (they KNOW he's a murderer and maybe dangerous) it reads to me as disrespectful instead of cute. 

Guess what THIS book is also full of.

The politics and the backstory here take up a LOT of the action, and it's confusing and too much. Nevada is still a great narrator, but the rest of the book mostly feels like set up for the third book instead of a story. Rogan is ALWAYS described as "male" or "masculine" or "terrifying" or "looming" or "huge." Honestly, I was picturing Beast from Beauty and the Beast rather than a human man, and the attempt to humanize his behavior at the end of the book didn't work for me, either. I read it because I was hoping to enjoy it more than the first book,but I found it frustrating, unconvincing, and relatively boring. Oh, well.

Grade: D
#56 in 2017

Hello Forever, Sarina Bowen

This is a sweet piece of fluff from Sarina Bowen's back catalog about two guys who met (and kissed) at church camp as teens, then lost touch, and now have reconnected as adults working in the same college town. One is a basketball marketer, and it very much feels like a warm-up version of Him, one of my favorite romance novels ever.

There isn't a ton to this story -- I liked the conflict, because it was rooted in a real reason why one of the heroes couldn't just come out as gay, and why he was a secret virgin. I had a little trouble buying that their names were Cax and Axel, and by the end the drama, and bad guy, had ramped up to a level that wasn't really believable and didn't really make sense. But it was still a sweet story and a fun trope.

Grade: C
#55 in 2017

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book promises classic hollywood gossip (fictionalized) and I recognized some of the people and stories that served as the genesis of some of the anecdotes here. I love classic Hollywood stories. I wish I had liked this more. I didn't like the framing device of the young journalist and her life struggles -- I almost never like a framing device -- and it made it pretty obvious what the twist at the end would be. "Within a week I would hate Evelyn Hugo," says the narrator, so I was looking for a reason, and it was awfully obvious. I did like the reveal of who the true love of Evelyn Hugo's life was, but -- spoilers follow -- I was never really sold on why she and Celia loved each other. They were both pretty rotten people, and the book tells us how much they love each other but doesn't show us why this is a deathless romance. The seven husbands also weren't as juicy and gossipy as I wanted. For a similar story, but juicier and more shocking and enthralling to read, AND non-fiction, read Furious Love about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Grade: C #54 in 2017

Race of Scorpions, Dorothy Dunnett

Gotta say, I did not love this book, and that's unusual for me and Dunnett. She remains my all-time favorite author, but on the whole I'm finding the House of Niccolo books to be really strange when it comes to sex. Every sex scene, or love interest, is completely transactional, and it's a little bit uncomfortable.

Spoilers follow -- I find it really disappointing that Katelina's entire story arc was about Nicholas, whether she wanted desperately to sleep with him, wanted desperately to kill him, or wanted desperately to sleep with him again. She lived her entire life (in these books) revolving around him, which I'm not sure he deserved. And then there's Primaflora, who of course is a high class prostitute, and who of course turns out to be evil and manipulative. Or there is David (in Trebizond) and Jacob (in Cyprus), both of whom want to sleep with Nicholas, and the books treat both of them like monsters for it. It's just uncomfortable to read, and I'm frankly uncomfortable with how often Nicholas sleeps with ladies who then die, or how much his "quest" is driven by needing revenge or sexual relief after yet another lady he slept with dies. It's very Christopher Nolan, and I don't like him, either. 


The plot of this book should have been right up my alley with the plotting and the betrayal and the sieges. But halfway through the book stops to be about how the sugar business runs again, and it's boring. I don't care about Nicholas's trade dealings, or playing the Genoese against the Venetians against the Portuguese. It's too complicated to be interesting, and it's too pedestrian to be the plot of a sprawling novel like this.

I also think this book is entirely too fond of elliptical conversations that imply vaguely about plotting that's going on, and I'm tired of meaningful exchanges and knowing looks that don't actually tell the reader what's going on. I'm going to take reading break before I try the next book, because Right now, despite the beautiful writing, I am not really enjoying this series.

Grade: C
#53 in 2017

The Ruin of a Rake, Cat Sebastian

Cat Sebastian might be my favorite new author. She writes wonderful historical m/m romances, that are satisfyingly of-their-time and also satisfyingly romantic, about people who like each other and need each other and make each other better. In this one we have a rake and a rogue who needs to improve his reputation after a novel is published about his exploits, so that he can keep seeing his beloved nephew (right now he's a "bad influence). And we have a stuffy very proper businessman who has struggled to make himself acceptable to high society without a title, who has built levels of polish and veneer between himself and the world so that he's protected. One offers to help the other repair his reputation, and once they have to spend time with each other they can not only hlep, but protect each other. It's absolutely lovely, and I liked it so much.

Grade: A
#52 in 2017

The Furthest Station (Peter Grant #5.7), Ben Aaronovitch

Always a pleasure to spend time with Peter. I wish it were longer, but I always wish novellas were longer. I liked the ghosts and the mystery -- now can we get back to the main plot? I am dying to know about [spoilers redacted].

Grade: A

#51 in 2017

Soho Dead, Greg Keen

This is a perfectly nice noir, if that's your thing. I like my noir mysteries to have something original about them, or really evocative language. This did neither. On the other hand it didn't go down endless rabbit holes where I forgot all the characters, either. If you want a classic noir this is certainly one.

Grade: C

#50 in 2017

Breakaway (Scoring Chances #1), Avon Gale

Another m/m hockey romance, which I enjoyed, mostly because I really liked Jared Shore. He's a grizzled old veteran of the minor minor leagues, who loves hockey but knows his time playing is almost up. He mets Lane, a hot young prospect, who convinces him to not only get into a relationship, but to try and have the best season of his life, remember what he loves about hockey.

What worked less for me was Lane, who was aggressively weird in a way that made reading his dialogue difficult and confusing sometimes. I fully expected the book to address it somehow, telling us that Lane was on the spectrum, which would have been fine and interesting, but mostly it was hard to follow the conversations, and instead of fun and quirky it was distracting. It's also weird that he'd never had any friends -- almost like an alien dropped into the story, rather than a character with a  background. (His resolution with his parents was also very easy after a whole book of angst.)

Grade: C
#49 in 2017

Empty Net (Scoring Chances #4), Avon Gale

I mean this is the most positive possible way: reading this m/m romance felt like reading fic.

This book was recommended to me because "Laurent is my type of character," which is true (and not the only time that's happened with a character named Laurent). Hockey romance isn't generally my thing, but it's a big enough subgenre that I've read a few, and this one is very enjoyable. Isaac Drake is an out-and-proud captain of a minor-minor hockey team, and then his arch enemy , who spit on him and called him slurs last season gets transferred to his team. Will they learn to work together? Will it turn out that his icy nightmare of a rival, Laurent St. Savoy, has dark secrets and is actually not THAT bad after all? Yeah, of course.

The drama is a little bit over the top (Laurent's backstory is VERY dark, he's dealing with an eating disorder, Isaac was kicked out of his house for being gay and struggles with telling Laurent that he used to do sex work to survive) but the emotional heart of the story is very real. There's a moment toward the end when Laurent is talking to a mental health professional, who tells him that he deserves kindness and love, and he doesn't know how to react, and I had that exact moment in therapy when I was in college.

I read this all in one night. If that particular enemies-to-lovers trope is your jam, you'll definitely enjoy this.

Grade: B
#48 in 2017

The Spring of the Ram, Dorothy Dunnett (The House of Niccolo #2)

I don't know what to say! I still don't love Nicholas like I loved Francis Crawford; I have a much harder time getting a read on his character. Dunnett writes brilliant description, and some of the dialogue here is very funny. I googled something and spoiled myself twice for this book, which took a little of the fun out, which isn't the book's fault. Catherine drove me nuts in a very believable way. I still feel vaguely like the book is implying things I'm not quite picking up on (there is a mysterious and sexy woman who says heavily loaded and implicative things -- this is a trope Dunnett loves). 

Clearly I enjoyed reading it, but I am at a loss to tell you why or why I didn't give it five stars without a few months of thinking about it, or spoiling everything.

Grade: B?
#47 in 2017

An Extraordinary Union (The Loyal League #1), Alyssa Cole

This is a great book. I didn't enjoy it as much as I think other people will because a couple of things about it bugged me, but it was truly enjoyable and wonderful to read a book about a topic I never thought would pop up in a romance novel, and to have it be historical and believable. This is the story of Elle, a free Black woman, who has agreed to go undercover as a slave during the Civil War to get information to help the Union and end the war. She meets Malcolm, who is a Pinkerton detective also undercover, on the same kind of mission. Oh, and importantly -- Malcolm is white. 

It's a fascinating story with no easy resolution. Elle is brilliant and beautiful and Malcolm loves her and respects her and treats her like a human being (whenever he can -- really only when they're alone). Elle loves him but she knows all the problems their relationship would face, even in the North. 

I was frustrated that Elle goes back and forth with Malcolm so many times. She has very, very good reasons not to trust him or want to be with him, and once she does, she seems to immediately change her mind, over and over. They also each get a turn being jealous over situations they know mean nothing to the other person. I was also a little frustrated that Malcolm is incredibly perfect from the very beginning. I can definitely see why the hero of this kind of book needs to be a man who is better than almost every other man; it's the only way it's justifiable that Elle will love him when there is so much to go against their union. But I have realized that as a reader, I always prefer selfish scoundrels or lying assholes who are reformed by love, to men who are fundamentally good and true from the beginning. It's just less interesting to me that way.

Grade: C
#46 in 2017

An Unnatural Vice (Sins of the Cities #2), KJ Charles

The last book in this series was not really my thing; this book VERY MUCH was. I love Justin. He is an amoral schemer who pretends to be a medium and talk to the dead. (Side note: one of my least favorite things in the world is watching someone cold read on television and make people cry. It infuriates me. I can't sit through a commercial for the Long Island Medium without storming out of the room.) Justin is fully aware that what he does is awful, and has nothing but contempt for people who believe in what he does. But it's what he's good at, and he's built up a little family of assistants he needs to look out for. Nathaniel, on the other hand, is a crusading lawyer, who despises what Justin does (but is ridiculously attracted to him). Nathaniel doesn't really get much of an arc in this book, most of the forward movement is Justin's, because Justin is being crushed under the weight of what he does, and what he wants to do, and the idea that maybe, just maybe, he could be someone better if he got the chance. ...Oh, and also the fact that people are trying to kill him for most of this book. Justin is the perfect kind of scoundrel; convinced he is bad through and through, that he doesn't want anything and he doesn't deserve anything, and fiercely unapologetic for the choices he's made. Nathaniel is sure that there's some good inside Justin, even if Justin refuses to see it or admit it. I loved the way they came together and I love this book.

Grade: A

#45 in 2017