March Reading Wrap Up
I feel like I did a lot of exciting things this last month. Firstly, it’s been another month working on my Ace Book Club Stories project which I am excited to publish very soon (6th April)! It has been so much fun interviewing my friends and fellow book club members; there have been so many interesting conversations around asexuality, representation and ace spaces that I can’t wait to share.
Talking of asexual books, I have read two books containing asexual characters this month. At the beginning of the month I read Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire, the first book in the fantasy series the Wayward Children. The protagonist is asexual and aromantic and it was nice to have both these identities confirmed and written on the page. It was equally nice to see these identities be so well received in the story by their classmates. I also enjoyed this book enough to read the second Wayward Children book Down Among the Sticks and Bones straight after.
The second asexual book I read was The Heartbreak Bakery by A. R. Capetta, this months’ book club book. It was interesting to read something with an agender (and asexual) main character – I can’t remember ever reading another one. Full of recipes, this book is a good one for foodies.
Other exciting things this month include going to a Waterstones book event to hear Selena Wisnom talk about her new book The Library of Ancient Wisdom which was a really interesting exploration of this library collection from the ancient world. As someone who works in libraries, this was very much my sort of talk. As a book person, I had a great excuse to go to a bookshop to buy the new Hunger Games prequel Sunrise on the Reaping.
I am so intrigued to hear what other people thought of this prequel following Haymitch in the fiftieth Hunger Games. Having raced through the original trilogy as a teenager and then having loved The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I went into this one with very high hopes which I don’t feel were met. I am sure I have missed some of the links to the original series and perhaps reading some reviews will make me see this book in a different light. But even though I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the others, I will forever admire Suzanne Collins who writes well and always writes with purpose.
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Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I've had this fantasy book with an aroace protagonist on my tbr for a while.
Nancy is enrolled in a school for teenagers like her. They have all gone on 'journeys' - stepped through doors to other worlds, world's that suit them better, and then returned to our world. They all now want to return to their worlds, but that is not always guaranteed and so this school is presented as the next best thing.
We learn about the doorway worlds and the journeys some of her classmates have been on throughout the book as Nancy does. There is also a murder mystery, although I felt the murderer was obvious from early on.
Nancy is aroace. The labels 'asexual' and 'aromantic' are both stated on the page and explained somewhat. There is some transphobia towards a classmate, but Nancy's sexual orientation seems to be well received (at the school, at least).
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is the second book in the Wayward Children series (after Every Heart A Doorway). It expands on the backstory of Jack and Jill who we meet in the first book.
I found the narration a little strange. The story is told in the third person by someone who talks to the reader directly at times and keeps reminding us that they know how this ends.
I did like the sapphic romance that naturally slipped into the story. Any issues with gay relationships in the moors reflected those in the real world (but that was a very minor part of the story). The romance itself is crucial to the plot later on which I enjoyed.
I do not feel the need to continue with this series any further. I have now read two of the ten books and have reached my fantasy fill for the time being.
Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This one ranks highly on the spice scale! Both hot and outrageous sweet at the same time.
Truly is a romance author who has just broken up with her boyfriend of six years after finding him cheating. It's unsurprising then that's she's no longer in the mood to record the podcast episode she's signed up for to give out love life advice. Particularly when the other podcast guest is Colin McCrory, a divorce - no, sorry, family - lawyer, a 'realist'. It's not a meet-cute, but it's definitely something!
My one fault with this book is that the subplot goes in a different direction to what I wanted which left me frustrated. The book got so close to a message I truly believe in: some relationships last a short time, but that shouldn't mean we should avoid love; people don't need to stay in our lives forever to be important, it's remembering them that makes us who we are.
That may have lost the book a star for me, but the chemistry between Truly and Colin is insane, and their back and forth is incredibly fun to read.
The Heartbreak Bakery by A. R. Capetta ⭐️⭐️⭐️
March's book club selection. This is a cute YA story containing a lovely romance.
Syd is a young Baker at The Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space. After a breakup, Syd bakes a batch of brownies which magically hold Syd's emotions and starts breaking up the couples who eat them. Syd teams up with the bakery's delivery person, Harley, to channel Syd's magic baking skills and get the couples back together.
I'm glad I gave myself plenty of time to read this book before book club as I didn't race through it. I enjoyed this book, but there were no elements that had me hooked.
I recommend the book to those looking for agender representation. Plus, the story has a demisexual character and a potential aroace side character, too.
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is the second prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy. I didn't not like this book, but I did go in with high expectations which perhaps were not met.
I felt that the message of how propaganda can twist the truth to the storyteller's benefit is an important one, but I don't feel the information we learn here adds greatly to the world building of this particular series. There are some nice nuggets of information, but not a whole books' worth.
What I loved about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (the first prequel) was the insight we got into how someone could possibly become the character (in that case, Snow) that we know from the original trilogy. But we already knew how Haymitch won his games and the sort of horrors that victors have gone through, so a lot of this story felt needless.
We also discover that Haymiych apparently worked out that Snow once loved a covey girl, and that she was a district 12 victor, which seems like an add-on just to link the two prequels together (but I might be misremembering the books and missing a link here).
I did really like, however, the glimpses into the relationships Haymitch has with other victors - Beetee, Mags, Wiress - and the rebel Capital citizens - Plutarch and Effie. I feel this should have taken up more space in the book to help build on the world we know and love.
Overall, I did like it. It's s a good book, and the story is as devastating as the others, but I don't think it was necessary to have this second prequel.