Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman – I have very mixed opinions on Dungeon Crawler Carl. When I was considering starting a BookTube channel, one of the videos I had in production was called “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Dungeon Crawler Carl.” In short, “The Good” was that it was compulsively readable, the format was engaging, and Carl and Donut have solid banter, “The Bad” was that every character that wasn’t Carl or Donut felt paper thin, and the concept, while more or less new to mainstream published works, is on the whole less unique than it sounds – DCC originally came from a website called Royal Road, and Royal Road is absolutely crawling with LitRPGs and their East Asian cousins xianxia stories, and “The Ugly” was that DCC has an air of dude-bro-iness around it, its depictions of women are largely either objectified or vilified, a lot of the “humor” was based around degrading others (often women and minorities), and from what I’ve seen in interviews and his social media, Matt Dinniman seems like a bit of a prick (he often mocks negative DCC reviews). As for Carl’s Doomsday Scenario in particular, I found it to smooth out some of Book 1’s rougher edges. CDS still features violence against women, but it’s played more for drama as opposed to being played for laughs in DCC. I’ve already picked up The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook, although there’s a very good chance I’m going to stop after that book (not helping – all the later books are ridiculously long – I really don’t want to read a thousand pages of a book I think is just okay.)

The Damned by Harper L. Woods – I have no idea why I keep reading this series. Is it just the pretty sprayed edges? It might just be the pretty sprayed edges. I do think that the Coven of Bones series has some interesting concepts in its worldbuilding, mostly the various witch covens, but obviously, as a romantasy, that takes a backseat to the tropes and the spice. Also, the first quarter or so of this book is just retelling what happened at the end of The Cursed – and this isn’t a very long book. As such, Margot and Beelzebub, the new couple for this story, have less room to breathe than Willow and Lucifer did. I will say that, shockingly, Margot’s (who is a witch with powers tied to sex) backstory involving sexual assault is surprisingly well handled for a spice book. She actually has conflicting feelings over having sex, unlike most fictional sexual assault survivors in spice books. The rest of the story, the journey through hell, was pretty rushed. If book 4 also stars Margot and Beelzebub (and still has the pretty flowery sprayed edges) I might get it, if Woods introduces another new couple I might not be as interested.

A Pirate’s Life For Tea by Rebecca Thorne – Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea was a very sweet, if basically completely tensionless, cozy fantasy, and A Pirate’s Life For Tea is more of the same. While I did appreciate the change of setting from the very static teashop, and pirates are never not fun, one of the things I really appreciated about Book 1 is that Reyna and Kianthe are in an established relationship (an underrated dynamic IMO), and this book introduced a new side couple in Serina and Bobbie, who brought in some annoying tropes I was glad were not in Book 1. If you enjoy cozy fantasy with a sapphic romance, this series should definitely be on your radar, and I will keep reading the series.

The MurderBot Diaries Volume 1: All Systems Red and Artificial Condition by Martha Wells – Not going to lie, I really wish MurderBot had a full on book by this point. I’m just not a novella fan. That said, these are good! They’re definitely funnier than Dungeon Crawler Carl. Of the two, I liked Artificial Condition better, as All Systems Red was more exposition heavy, in Artificial Condition the characters and story had more room to breathe. I’m excited to read Volume 2, and I should probably watch the TV show.

Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver – I don’t love most romance and I don’t like Dexter – and yet I liked this. This book really shines in its creative kills and solid banter between Rowan and Sloane. It really grinds to a halt in the sex scenes though. Another dock against it – this is the third romance book with an FMC named Sloan(e) (see also The Things We Left Behind and The Happy Ever After Playlist) and the second with an MMC named Rowan (The Fine Print, which I DNF’d). It’s elevated by a good execution of a darkly comedic premise.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn – Gillian Flynn is the master of the messy female lead. Libby Day was an exciting head to be in, as were her supposedly murderous brother Ben and her satanic-panic fearing 1980’s mother Patty. Flynn is also incredibly gifted at not-obvious reveals; I sincerely didn’t guess this one coming. Dark Places is kind of thought of as the unloved middle child of Flynn’s three books, mostly because it’s film adaptation wasn’t a success unlike the film of Gone Girl and the miniseries of Sharp Objects, but I think this one deserves more attention.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden – Reading this one immediately after Dark Places was complete whiplash, because The Housemaid is awful. The first half of the book is just awful characters being awful to each other. The second half is trying and failing to get me to sympathize with its awful leading ladies. And it has the world’s most predictable twist. I particularly loathe what I call “divorcee thrillers”, where the evil husband is cruel to a nearly comedic degree towards our battered woman lead, I’m convinced they’re written exclusively for divorced women so they can say “Yeah, that guy’s exactly like my ex-husband”. See also: Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train or Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, which have the exact same twist as The Housemaid. Millie doesn’t act like a woman who’s just gotten out of jail, and the reason she went to jail is a poor excuse to get us to sympathize with her, despite her being a misogynistic bitch towards Nina the whole time. Don’t even get me started on the twist at the end about the cop’s daughter. Also, Cecelia, Nina’s daughter, might just be the single worst child character I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading about. She was bratty and creepy and so much of Nina’s inner monologue is about how much she loves her – like shut up, Cecelia is a piece of shit daughter, you should have let her drown. Relatedly, my most pedantic complaint about The Housemaid – Nina says that Cecelia is named after the Simon & Garfunkel song “Cecilia”, AND SHE DIDN’T SPELL IT RIGHT. “Cecelia” is a valid spelling of the name, but the Simon & Garfunkel song is called “Cecilia”, with an I. I wanted to tear my hair out when I saw that. This is my first and last Freida McFadden.

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan – Thankfully, we’re moving on to something that I actually like. The Memoirs of Lady Trent series is a whimsical look at what a biologist of dragons living in pseudo-Victorian times might do. Isabella, the future Lady Trent, is probably the most fun narrator I’ve read this month. I’m surprised this hasn’t been brought up more in the cozy fantasy boom (although, I suppose, given its emphasis on travel, it’s not the coziest of cozy fantasy). A must for anyone who loves dragons. I will gladly follow Lady Trent wherever she wants to go.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson – Utterly disappointing. Maybe I just don’t love multiverse stories, but this one was incredibly weak. The writing is particularly bad – it is, at once, full of info dumps and somehow ridiculously confusing to follow. The mystery sounded awesome on paper but Micaiah Johnson fumbled it hard. Cara is a boring and annoying protagonist. Also, it’s not worth picking up if you’re just interested in the sapphic romance – calling it a “romance” is insanely generous, it’s just two people sleeping with each other, I don’t think they love each other at all. Skip this one.

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky – Another solid space opera. Don’t have much to say about it. Less good than Book 1 though.

Shift by Hugh Howey – I do like the Silo trilogy, but Shift is decidedly the middle book of the trilogy. I found Donald a lot less interesting than Juliette. Also, admittedly, I’m not that interested in the backstory of this world. It was still well written though.

Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie – I’ve done it. I’m done. No more Joe Abercrombie. I guess I can say, looking back on the trilogy, I’m not a fan. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever read, but I’m just not that into grimdark.

Lastly, Silver Elite by Dani Francis – To play devil’s advocate, I think this book is being over-scrutinized. I think people just automatically over-scrutinize dystopias. I don’t think it was really trying to say anything about our society at all, and to me at least, that’s not a bad thing. I’d rather have a dystopia that just exists for its own sake than a dystopia with poorly handled, preachy, or misanthropic commentary. Frankly, given the premise, I’m more inclined to compare it to X-Men than any literary dystopia. On the other hand, I don’t think this book is that good. Wren’s a pretty annoying FMC, Cross (also I hate that name) just exists to look sexy, I think romantasy in general has a bad Sturgeon’s Law problem (in that 90% of them are trash), and this doesn’t cross above that threshold. I’m not interested in picking up Broken Dove (I keep wanting to call it Lonesome Dove for some reason), which comes out soon, although that’s at least partly because I’m trying to avoid the discourse.