L-L-L-Little Reviews #66: September 2024

Posted September 27, 2024 by Lisa Mandina in Review / 6 Comments

Salty Pickle (The Pickle Cousins #2) by J.J. Knight
L-L-L-Little Reviews #66: September 2024Salty Pickle by JJ Knight
Series: The Pickle Cousins #2
Published by Casey Shay Press on August 9, 2024
Genres: Adult Romantic Comedy
Pages: 310
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
My Rating: five-stars
Goodreads
Buy on AmazonBuy on Barnes & Noble

I’m headed to New York to confront the man I met on New Year's Eve eight months ago.I had to bring my goat.And...I’m eight months pregnant.
The man I’m meeting in his fancy New York office is the saltiest hunk of male beauty you never want to cross. He wouldn’t know a smile if you drew one on his face.
I slept with him on a dare. Yes, we used protection.
Faulty protection, apparently.
I was going to raise the baby in my Colorado yurt with my pet goat Matilda. My two best girlfriends were going to be the other moms, but their lives moved on.
I’m a yoga teacher with forty dollars to my name. I had to hitchhike to get here.
I didn't have a goat-sitter, so I’m loading Matilda onto the subway and headed to Wall Street.
It’s time to confront a salty baby daddy in a place called Pickle Media.--Salty Pickle is a salty-sunshine story between a city boy and a country girl who are thrown together with a newborn, a goat, and a goat baby, and more poop cleanup than should ever grace the pages of a romance novel, but here we are. It's part of the Top 100 Pickleverse of rom coms, but you do not need to read any of the other books before this one. You can start your wild adventure with the Pickle family right here.

My review:

So technically I started reading this in the author’s newsletter, then I read it through the Patreon subscription up until it was published, around 20 or so chapters in, and then I had to wait until my book box arrived. Since it wasn’t on my review schedule I wasn’t sure when I’d get to it. But in between review books, so I wasn’t starting a new book before bed, I picked this up and was hooked. Then I just couldn’t put it down and just was so glad I’d made time to fit it in. Another hilariously sweet, fun, sexy romance from a favorite author!

Becoming a Queen by Dan Clay
L-L-L-Little Reviews #66: September 2024Becoming a Queen by Dan Clay
Narrator: Dan Clay
Published by Macmillan Audio on April 25, 2023
Genres: YA Contemporary Romance, YA LGBTQ
Length: 10:41
Source: the library
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: five-stars
Goodreads
Buy on AmazonBuy on Barnes & NobleBuy on Audible

A vibrant and emotional novel from debut author Dan Clay about a boy who turns toward love, self-expression, and drag when the unthinkable happens, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson and Julie Murphy.
If only Mark Davis hadn’t put on a dress for the talent show. It was a joke—other guys did it too—but when his boyfriend saw Mark in that dress, everything changed.
And now, fresh on the heels of high school heartbreak, Mark has given up on love. Maybe some people are just too much for this world—too weird, too wild, too feminine, too everything. Thankfully, his older brother Eric always knows what to say to keep Mark from spinning into self-loathing. "Be yourself! Your full sequin-y self.”
But Mark starts to notice signs that his perfect older brother has problems of his own.
When the source of Mark’s strength suddenly becomes the source of his greatest pain, the path back to happiness seems impossible. Searching for a way out, Mark slips into a dress to just, briefly, become someone else, live a different life. His escape, however, becomes an unexpected outlet for his pain—a path to authentic connection, and a provocation to finally see other people as fully as he wants to be seen.
Beautifully written, heart-wrenching, and ultimately uplifting, Dan Clay's Becoming a Queen is a stunning story about love, loss, and the ineffable power of a purple princess dress.
10 hours 40 minutes

My Review:

Oh my gosh, this actually was one I didn’t think I was going to really enjoy as much as I did. But this book, wow did it hit the emotions. I don’t want to say a lot to give anything away, but when the tragedy strikes in this story, whoa, so much emotion, and it honestly even had some things that helped me with my own stress and emotions of this past year. It was about him finding out who he was, but it was so much more than that. I can see that the cover, which is probably what made me a little hesitant, give it a different first impression than what the whole story is about. But the cover is also perfect for the story as well. I so highly recommend this book if you want all the feels, and also want some help for your own dealing with grief. Oh, and the narrator, who was actually the author, was perfect. I guess it is almost always perfect when an author narrates their own book, but I usually only think that with autobiography/memoirs.

Death and Dismemberment (Monsters & Mating #1) by A.L. Brody
L-L-L-Little Reviews #66: September 2024Dating & Dismemberment by A.L. Brody
Series: Monsters & Mating #1
Published by Sageline Books on June 29, 2023
Genres: Adult Monster Romance
Pages: 288
Source: Purchased
Format: Paperback
My Rating: three-half-stars
Goodreads
Buy on AmazonBuy on Barnes & NobleBuy on Audible

Emily Henry meets Grady Hendrix in a hilarious and original romantic comedy full of love, laughter, and limbs.
Darla Drake, Duchess of Death, has haunted Camp Clear Creek for years. Until an existential crisis forces her to take a sabbatical from wreaking havoc on teenagers while she figures out what she wants from the rest of her (possibly infinite) life. So what does a monster do when her malevolent days are over? For Darla, it’s spending time with the decapitated—yet still overbearing—head of her mother and reading romance novels she steals from campers. Until Jarko Murkvale arrives in Clear Creek and turns Darla’s life upside down.
Jarko is a conceited, arrogant, infuriating, and unfortunately for Darla, kind of hot. With Darla on the shelf, Jarko has staked his claim on Camp Clear Creek. But the Duchess refuses to go down without a fight, and so she challenges Jarko to a series of haunts to see who the most fearsome monster really is.
But the more mayhem they cause, the more Darla begins to realize there’s more to this monster than she thought…and that Jarko may just be the antidote to her ennui. And if they can manage to not literally tear each other limb from limb, Darla and Jarko just might find that couples who slay together, stay together.

My Review:

I actually bought this one last November when the new romance bookstore in Kansas City called Under the Covers opened up. I only picked it up already because I saw it is going to be rereleased by a bigger publisher I guess this year? And I thought I could also get it done before that as well as adding it to my TBR challenge for the year! So while the book wasn’t bad, it wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting I guess. I feel like I assumed it would be more steamy, like I’ve kind of read that monster romance stories are. But this was pretty much just romance. While it had some alluding to physical stuff, nothing really happened on page other than kissing. It was in third person, which again, isn’t my favorite. And I assume once this is rereleased it will have a lot of errors cleaned up. There were a lot of times when there were conversations going on, but it kept saying the same person was talking, when it was obvious it was the other character. And it wasn’t just once, it would be within the same conversation. However, I did think it was original, at least for what I’ve read. And I loved the aspect of how these monsters killed more by getting the bad guys – bullies or abusers, as opposed to what Darla’s mom’s generation did, killing the kids having sex or doing drugs, etc. like in the horror/slasher movies in the 70s-90s. I probably won’t read the next book, but again, this wasn’t bad, and I could see a lot of other people really enjoying it!

That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally
L-L-L-Little Reviews #66: September 2024That's Not My Name by Megan Lally
Narrator: Sophie Amoss, Robb Moreira
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on December 12, 2023
Genres: YA Thriller
Length: 09:01
Source: the library
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: five-stars
Goodreads
Buy on AmazonBuy on Barnes & NobleBuy on Audible

It was a mistake to trust him. Shivering and bruised, a teen wakes up on the side of a dirt road with no memory of how she got there—or who she is. The police don’t know where she came from until a frantic man arrives at the station. He’s been searching for her for hours. He has her school ID, her birth certificate, and even family photos. He is her father. Her name is Mary. Or so he says. When Lola slammed the car door and stormed off into the night, Drew thought they just needed some time to cool off. Except Lola disappeared. Now his friends, the sheriff, and the whole town are convinced Drew murdered his girlfriend. Forget proving his innocence—he needs to find her. The longer Lola is missing, the fewer leads there are to follow … and the more danger they both are in. "Begs to be read in a single adrenaline-fueled sitting."—APRIL HENRY, New York Times bestselling author of Two Truths and a Lie and Girl, Stolen

My Review:

This was another listen for possibly Gateway next year and it was so good! It was obvious that Mary wasn’t really Mary, and that she was a kidnapped girl probably. But I wondered early on if she was actually Lola or not. And oh my gosh I hated the policeman that was keeping them from actually going and checking out the tip on possibly Lola in another town. The story had so much depth, and so much to keep me listening to find out how it would all play out. I can totally see this as being a top pick for the award and possibly one of the top 3 picks by the students!

Starter Villain by John Scalzi
L-L-L-Little Reviews #66: September 2024Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Narrator: Wil Wheaton
Published by Audible Studios on September 19, 2023
Genres: Adult Science Fiction
Length: 08:05
Source: Purchased
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: five-stars
Goodreads
Buy on AmazonBuy on Barnes & NobleBuy on Audible

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.
Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.
But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.
It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.
In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

My Review:

Another winner for me from John Scalzi. Although sometimes I wonder if I would love his books so much if I was just reading as opposed to listening to Wil Wheaton narrate. Wil Wheaton is soooooo good at narrating these! Even though I got this a while ago on Audible, I didn’t get around to it until I knew I was going to go see the author when he came to town. I’m so glad that I did listen to it before he comes though. There were so many things that once again had me laughing out loud as I was driving in my car listening. It’s hard to think that a funeral would have been so funny for me after the year I’ve had, but the vases and floral arrangements, and the stabbing, so freaking funny! I loved the reasoning for why they made the smart cats instead of dogs, even though I don’t completely agree with it. The dolphins also cracked me up so much! Then there was a part with one of the villains and his cat would not behave like the others. And I had so many reasons built up in my head for why that was, until I got the surprise at the end for what the real reason was. I won’t give away the ending, but I did love the way it went. If anyone knows how to make me laugh, it’s Scalzi. As I think back to the audiobook of his that I didn’t end up getting into, I think maybe it’s because it wasn’t as humorous. I think maybe it was an earlier book of his too, so that could be a change in his writing since then. I highly recommend this one if you haven’t read it yet.

Please follow and like us:
0
fb-share-icon0
Tweet 0
Pin Share20

Tags:


6 responses to “L-L-L-Little Reviews #66: September 2024

Leave a Reply

(Enter your URL then click here to include a link to one of your blog posts.)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.