What better way to spend the summer than reading some great romances from an impeccable author?
Recently, I was on Instagram and noticed that everyone has their favorite Emily Henry book. And while I’ve read most of Emily Henry books, I thought I would try and figure out my favorite. The hard part? I don’t remember what I liked/disliked from all of them. I could go back and reread my reviews, but there’s a perfectly good summer coming and it makes sense to read the queen of the beach read! It’s been a while since I’ve read some of the earlier ones, so I thought I would take this summer to read all of Emily Henry’s books and figure out what’s my personal favorite!
Here’s the books I will be reading for the challenge:
People We Meet on Vacation
Book Lovers
Beach read
When the Sky Fell on Splendor
Happy Place
A Million Junes
The Love That Split the World
Funny Story
As you can see, I’ve included Emily Henry’s YA stories in here too. I mean, why not? I claim Emily Henry to be one of my favorite authors and I have a chance to read everything she’s ever published, so might as well throw those into the hat as well.
The Rules:
I’ve requested all of the books I don’t own (which is most) from the library and will read them as their holds come in. Even if I’ve already read the book, I’ll be rereading them for this challenge (and let’s be honest, I want to reread them)
I’ll rank each book based on what I thought. The first book I read will have the highest ranking since…it’s the first one. As I continue to read more books, the rank for that first book may change. Who knows, it may stay the same!
I’ll share my rankings with you here!
Have fun!
Honestly, this is just a fun little challenge for me this summer to enjoy some great books from a great author. I hope to read them all and just figure out what’s my favorite book! What’s your favorite Emily Henry book?
Looking back at my reading this May has been a little surprising. While I’ve been reading on and off again, I’ve actually only finished one book. I started off the month strong and finished a book I’d been reading for three weeks, but then after that I started and finished one other book.
In the years that I’ve been reading and blogging, this hasn’t happened to me. I’ve consistently read about eight books a month and tried my best to write reviews, so it’s surprising to see how little I’ve actually accomplished in terms of reading.
The world right now is a bit like this gif below:
I’ve recently moved. I traveled to see my family. I was sick for a little while, so all of these culminated to a less than good mental health days where I just felt burnt out and wanted to consume something easy like a TV show I’ve watched a billion times. I felt like I was in a slump where each book I picked up comes with a ton of potential, but never enough motivation to pick it up and finish it. I’ve tried rereading books, reading favorite authors, reading nonfiction, and reading new books I had no clue if I would like and none of it stuck.
And honestly, I’m okay with it.
Life has its ups and downs and I know many people who can read more in times of crisis. But for me (and knowing myself), that’s just not me. And instead of beating myself up for only reading one book and scrambling to put together a massive TBR for June so that I can feel accomplished, I’m just going to sit in my reading slump and let the chips fall as they may. I know if I push myself, I’m going to burn out. I know that if I wait it out, reading will want to just come back to me like an old friend who I haven’t seen in a few years. When it comes to reading, there are no rules. We set ourselves goals and some of us work very hard to meet them, but sometimes the best goal is to do what’s best for you right now. I’m going to go with that.
I hope that you’re reading month is going better than mine. even if you’ve read one book like me, that’s better than nothing. And if you’re getting into reading for the first time, allow yourself the grace to take breaks. In the meantime, I hope you get to spend time with family, friends, and the like. I hope you get to watch your favorite shows or go on that vacation or take that walk you’ve been meaning to take. God knows that this life is worth more than just worrying about how many books you’ve read.
Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner, Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the cute outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard.
She’s learning, too.
Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie’s relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?
I got to be honest, I am really picky when it comes to stories about AI and robots, sentience, and whether they should be treated with the same respect as a human. But Annie Bot changed my brain chemistry a little bit because I found myself caring a lot for an inanimate object.
It’s hard to figure out where this story is going from the beginning. At first you think this is the story of a lonely dude and his relationship with his sex bot, but with the book coming from Annie’s perspective, you can see that for Annie there’s a lot more going on below the surface. I feel like this book was in some way a metaphor for the kinds of experiences people have throughout a relationship. While Doug and Annie’s relationship wasn’t the most traditional, there were some of those insecurities, doubts, and worries that I know I’ve felt in relationships before. How can I improve myself to better suit him? If I don’t do this, he won’t love me anymore.
And what you see is the consequence of that behavior. Suddenly, Annie goes from being self-conscious about her every move to finding herself and learning to live without her owner. There’s the knowledge that there’s more in the world than the four walls of her small apartment and the only man that she’s ever known. She has the capacity to be mean, to lie, to be sexy and as the story progresses, you see this exponential growth in Annie that ultimately leads to her decision to leave.
What’s interesting are the parallels this story has to human experience. If Annie was a real human, we would be screaming at the book to dump him and leave. If she wasn’t owned by Doug, we would be hoping that she would just step outside the front door and never come back. But if anything, this book showcases how some possessive relationships can go wrong; the want to leave tied to the desire to stay. It’s that complexity of human emotions (especially when dealing with a narcissist) that makes this story so interesting. Luckily, this story is a hopeful one and while not everyone gets a happy ending in these sort of relationships, you see Annie gets the kind of ending she deserves.
Overall, this was unexpectedly an interesting interplay on relationships and the usage of a robot over a woman brings a perspective level that kept me intrigued throughout.
If you’ve ever wanted to find a fictional world somewhere in the real world, then this is the romance for you. Thanks to Berkley for the gifted read.
Here’s more about A Novel Love Story
Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going to her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.
But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel…
Because it is.
This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.
Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.
Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.
Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.
I’ve seen my fair share of stories where fiction becomes reality. The big one that comes to mind is Pleasantville where the two siblings are zapped into the wholesome TV show where nothing ever goes wrong and everyone lives in a blissful ignorance of the world outside their little town. But the other is Austenland, where the Austen lover goes on a ridiculous trip to pretend to be in a Jane Austen novel. That’s kind of what I expected from A Novel Love Story; a woman who finds herself unexpectedly in the town she loved reading by her favorite romance author.
In many ways, that’s what we get. We find a place that’s forever stuck in the world that the author created for them. It always rains at noon. The burgers are always burnt. The taffy is always sticky and regardless of what day it is, the same starlings show up every morning to sing their little song. I think any reader can relate to this and every reader has that one fictional world they would love to visit and for Eileen and Anders, that daydream is a reality.
I loved this concept of entering a world that you’ve only seen in movies or in books. It’s why I love going on the Universal Studios tour in Hollywood because you actually see the sets where your favorite movies are filmed. The fiction becomes reality and Ashley Poston does that brilliantly here. It becomes the place where Eileen can process being dumped by her fiance and much better than retreating to a small cabin just to read the same books; she gets to live it.
The best part is the way she helps the people in this town finish their stories. The sad caveat of her dream town is that the author has passed and there wouldn’t be a happy ending for some of the folks who live there. Eileen taking her shot to help them find their own happy endings really made the story so much more interesting and in the process of finding a happy ending for herself. Of course, this is coupled with Ashley Poston’s writing, which is always top notch. I always find myself highlighting some wise words about life and love that I can ponder later.
Of course, I loved Anders and Eileen. Anders being this grumpy bookstore owner whom Eileen assumes to be the unfinished character her favorite author created but didn’t finish made me so happy. I hoped there would be a happy ending for them, but it actually came in such a surprising way that I was a little surprised! Turns out there’s more to Anders that meets the eye and that made me so happy.
Overall, I loved this one. I’m surprised by how much I loved this one because when I finished the book I wasn’t sure. But sitting on it and thinking about it made me realize the hidden depth to it all, the subtle way Ashley Poston creates realistic characters who struggle through serious issues and come out the other end better people than they were before. And you have to admit, going to your favorite fictional world is like adult Disney World for me and I would take that opportunity in a heartbeat.
I’m a huge fan of Emily Henry and the newest from her has been such a delight!
Here’s more about Funny Story
Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?
This is the story about Daphne, who just broke up with her fiance because he admitted to being in love with his childhood best friend. With no place to go, she finds herself staying in the super small apartment of her now ex’s new girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend’s house. Yeah, it’s a really weird situation going on here, but when your ex leaves you for someone else and there’s a vacancy in the apartment she was living in, that just makes sense to move right in.
Miles is also going through a breakup. After all, it was his girlfriend that left him for Daphne’s ex and they are both wallowing in the sorrow of their loss in this one. They’re both living in the same apartment together, listening to “All By Myself”, and getting over their exes. So why not fake date each other to make their exes jealous and make a promise to go to the wedding they’ve been invited to together. This is definitely turning out to be quite a funny story.
The thing I love about Emily Henry’s stories is that there’s some “meat to the bones.” Not only is this a romance between two unlikely people who come to know each other through strange circumstances, but it’s also about how we sometimes change ourselves to fit into someone else’s life and how people tend to disappoint you and you can take the high road or the low road and either become a better person or an enbittered person. I think Daphne because the first mostly becausse this is old hat for Daphne. She’s been alone most of her life and even with a caring mother like hers, she wasn’t shielded from the kind of frustrating childhood where you learn the hard way that people leave.
In many ways, I resonated a lot with Daphne. While I wasn’t the one leaving and moving around every few years, I had the uncanny ability to pick the friends who would. So by the time I hit high school, I didn’t really have a strong friend group and most of the people I considered best friends already had other best friends, if that makes sense. Life gets a bit lonely and I did lean on books and TV to be my comfort in times like this. I learned it’s hard for me to trust people to stick around and like Daphne, I don’t expect anyone to. But when Miles comes around and turns out to do exactly the opposite of what Daphne expects, well, I think that’s what sways Daphne.
I wasn’t sure if Miles would turn out to be the kind of romantic protagonist that he turned out to be. He felt…crunchy who loved to do outrageous things like hike big mountains and jump out of airplanes. He seemed the opposite of Daphne, who is more introverted and would much rather spend the evening watching a fun movie at home. So I was pleasantly surprised when I learned more about Miles and the kind of person he is and the life he lived that shaped him to be the man he is today. Again, kudos for Emily Henry for bringing so much life to these characters. Honestly, they’re truly the reason why you want to stick around and read her books. Usually, you end up knowing a lot about one half of the couple and not the other half, but Emily Henry pays attention to both. She makes characters that feel real, that struggle real, and that learn to overcome those struggles together. I mean, isn’t that the point?
I don’t really have anything bad to say about this book. It’s fun, it’s beautiful, it’s sexy, and it leaves readers feeling like they’ve been seen. So yeah, another great job from another great author.
I’m a huge fan of stories full of character-driven energy, filled with science fiction tropes, and pulls on your heart in that way only a good science fiction story that wants you to believe in humanity again could ever do.
Here’s more about How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
A story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space–time.
Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life.
Have you ever felt like you might have read a book too fast and missed out on the bigger scope that’s laying between the lines of text? This is a book that’s not meant to be read over a weekend, but over a longer span of time which kind of makes it interesting given that this book is about time.
The story follows…Charles Yu (the same name as the author, but not a memoir) as he returns from years of searching for his father in the vast time/space continuum. In this book, time travel has been invented, the world has been destroyed, life relies on technology, and I think fictional science fiction tropes are real (but I may need to explore that again in my reread).
Charles Yu definitely has an interesting way of sharing stories. This is my first book by him and it definitely won’t be my last, but his writing is definitely not conventional. Don’t expect to go into this one thinking that there will be a linear plot line. Similarly to the travels of his character, this book jumps between the past, present, and future to show you the life Charles Yu lived and lives and will live in time. It’s a life where his mother lives out the same hour every single day of her life. It’s a life where Charles is a time machine repair man than a world famous inventor. It’s a world where a young man is desperate to find a father that abandoned his family way before he ever left. And in many ways, it’s humorous, but also a beautiful representation of a human life slung between what has happened and what’s to come.
And thinking about this book in hindsight, that’s very true for Charles Yu. While I could get pedantic about the lack of plot, the repetitive nature of the story, or even the frustrating lack of worldbuilding, I’m pulled into this book by its literary prose on life choices and the struggle each of us endures in a world that’s not filled with time travel.
There was something more going on in this story that I wish felt more clear. Because of the confusing components of the story, the time loops, the frustrations with paradoxes, there was a richness of human connection between a man and technology that’s waiting to be explored. There was an adventure across time and space that was begging to be challenged, but a lot of it fell to the wayside in the convoluted mess this book is told in. At the same time, it’s a story I want to read again and again just to make sense of it.
Something about this book reminds of me that scene from Spaceballs when the two dudes are watching a copy of the movie on VHS and get to the part where they’re looking at themselves talking about how they’re watching the scene that they are filming right now. I wonder if this scene went through Charles Yu’s mind when he was writing the book because it was one that I couldn’t stop thinking about.
There was something about the premise that really drew me to this book; a set of wedding objectors that go around stopping weddings before they tie the knot. But what you get is so much more and at the same time, not enough.
Here’s more about Happily Never After
When Sophie Steinbeck finds out just before her nuptials that her fiancé has cheated yet again, she desperately wants to call it off. But because her future father-in-law is her dad’s cutthroat boss, she doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Her savior comes in the form of a professional objector, whose purpose is to show up at weddings and proclaim the words no couple (usually) wants to hear at their ceremony: “I object!”
During anti-wedding festivities that night, Sophie learns more about Max the Objector’s job. It makes perfect sense to her: he saves people from wasting their lives, from hurting each other. He’s a modern-day hero. And Sophie wants in.
The two love cynics start working together, going from wedding to wedding, and Sophie’s having more fun than she’s had in ages. She looks forward to every nerve-racking ceremony saving the lovesick souls of the betrothed masses. As Sophie and Max spend more time together, however, they realize that their physical chemistry is off the charts, leading them to dabble in a little hookup session or two—but it’s totally fine, because they definitely do not have feelings for each other. Love doesn’t exist, after all.
And then everything changes. A groom-to-be hires Sophie to object, but his fiancée is the woman who broke Max’s heart. As Max wrestles with whether he can be a party to his ex’s getting hurt, Sophie grapples with the sudden realization that she may have fallen hard for her partner in crime.
I felt like I was reading two books at once here. One book was about a pair of objectors who meet when Sophie needs an objector for her own wedding. From there, they begin a friendship (and more) that go to weddings to professionally object. They’re not malicious in anyway. They’re hired by the bride or groom to stop a wedding before it happens because of some sadder truth that’s revealed to one or the other. If the book was more about this random pairing that goes off and objects at weddings and the hijinks they come across during that time, then I would have been more than satisfied.
But (and this is a big but), there’s a huge component of this book where Sophie does not believe in love and sees relationships as more a transactional partnership between two people who are compatible enough to build a life together. I love the reluctant love kind of story as well because it takes the entire book to convince them that love is real. It just so happened to be shoe-horned into this book.
Because it felt like there were two stories happening at the same time, it didn’t feel like there was enough space dedicated to one or the other. I was so excited to read the objector parts, but they were so few and far between. Most of this book is about Sophie’s inability to believe in love, which felt odd because the first scene was Max objecting to her wedding and her being pretty beat up about the circumstances of her relationship.
It was still a good story, but honestly I wish it followed the objector plot a bit more.
My first PKD and I don’t think it’ll be my last. Reading a book that’s supposed to be set in the future, but that future is 2021 and it’s now 2024…that’s a bit weird, but I don’t think PKD skimped in any way on its science fiction-y components or its even bigger themes.
Here’s more about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard’s assignment–find them and then…”retire” them. Trouble was, the androids all looked exactly like humans, and they didn’t want to be found!
I started reading the book out of sheer consternation when watching the movie. It was my second time watching it, but somehow I didn’t like it as much as I did the first time. The reason? It made no sense. As someone with little-to-no context as to what the book is about, the movie doesn’t make it any better. Who is Rick Deckard? Why are androids so dangerous? Where does Roy Batty find a dove and why is he holding it like a knife? The movie left me with way more questions than answers and it was high time I did something to find relief; so I decided to read the book.
And let me tell you, I found those answers. The book is most definitely way better than the movie and it provides the much needed context you need to understand the movie. First off, this is a world that has seen its end. Most people have emigrated off-planet to Mars because the planet is covered in a mysterious dust that killed off all the animals. Those who live on Earth either choose to live there (which is rare) or they don’t past an intellectual test or physical that deems them worthy to live on in the new world (levels of frustration in this world, let me tell you). When people emigrated to Mars, everyone was given an android to help them out with stuff on the new planet. Some were put there to support the families that they went to live with. Others were straight up turned into slave workers who had no rights of their own and no benefits for helping the humans. Because of that, some of the androids killed humans and escaped Mars to return to Earth and hopefully find peace living among the humans there.
And that pretty much brings you up to speed with what happens in the movie. Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter who is tasked to finding, testing, and “retiring” (aka killing) any rogue androids that escape to Earth. The current plot is he has to find and retire six androids who had recently come down to Earth. However, this book is way more than its plot. While yes, you see the exact events from the movie in this book where he finds and retires these androids, there’s so much more happening here that dives deeply into themes of morality and mortality.
They live in a world where there are no animals, so obsession with owning an animal is pretty high on the list. If you own a real animal, then you have some privilege in the world. You’re rich, you can afford an animal that’s practically extinct. Then on top of that, there’s this obsession with mood. There are “mood organs” to tap into an emotion that you are trying to feel or don’t want to feel and there’s this bigger religious phenomenon called “Mercerism” which is basically a way to feel empathy for other people. It’s funny because one of the defining traits of humans against androids is their ability to feel empathy, so knowing that there’s mood stabilizers and empathy machines basically means that the humans in this world aren’t too far off from the androids. There was even debate if schizophrenic humans would be able to past the Voight-Kampff test if they took it. As the story progresses, the lines between human and android do blur a bit, but it isn’t until the end that it becomes much clearer that they are different species and the level that the androids exist on is truly something else.
Oddly enough, this book doesn’t have the same vibe as the movie. The movie is dark, gritty with a neo-noir feel to it and while I know that PKD was trying to capture that noir-style feel with this book, I didn’t feel it. In fact, I found it cute? I mean, the man was sad he had to buy a fake sheep because his real one died, that’s hard to turn into a hardboiled investigator out looking for his man no matter the consequences. I found the book charming but thought-provoking and slightly disturbing, but I didn’t get the same feeling I did when I was watching the movie. Maybe it’s because it’s more contextualized. Maybe because I myself am an android…
I really loved this book. There were so many little details and things that I could go back and reread this book and find something else I like about it. It’s dystopian and sad, but chock full of bigger themes on human connection, identity, and existence in general. I think this is a book that I will read a few times in my life and continue to mull over for years.
I’m off on a wibbley wobbley timey wimey adventure with this one! Thanks to William Morrow Books for the gifted copy.
Here’s more about The Book of Doors
Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an unassuming, ordinary life. Until the day one of her favorite customers—a lonely yet charming old man—dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories, and now she has nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading.
But this is no ordinary book…
It is the Book of Doors.
Inscribed with enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, it promises Cassie that any door is every door. You just need to know how to open them.
Then she’s approached by a gaunt stranger in a rumpled black suit with a Scottish brogue who calls himself Drummond Fox. He’s a librarian who keeps watch over a unique set of rare volumes. The tome now in Cassie’s possession is not the only book with great power, but it is the one most coveted by those who collect them.
Now Cassie is being hunted by those few who know of the Special Books. With only her roommate Izzy to confide in, she has to decide if she will help the mysterious and haunted Drummond protect the Book of Doors—and the other books in his secret library’s care—from those who will do evil. Because only Drummond knows where the unique library is and only Cassie’s book can get them there.
But there are those willing to kill to obtain those secrets. And a dark force—in the form of a shadowy, sadistic woman—is at the very top of that list.
Friends, I have that satisfying feeling you feel when you read a book that’s taken you to places you never thought to journey, explore the world outside the humble walls of your little home. I’m transported, as if jet setting across the world; the highest peaks, the lowest valleys kind of feeling. And when I closed the book on its final page, I sat back in my chair and thought, what a lovely ride that was.
The Book of Doors is a magical realism story centered on Cassie, a young bookseller who’s life hasn’t been glamorous, but filled with the stories and people who she cared about most in her life. When one of her regular customers, Mr. Webber, suddenly has a heart attack at the bookstore, she is beside herself. But it’s only for a short moment when she noticed he carried his worn copy of The Count of Monte Christo and a rather odd little book. The pages filled with unfamiliar text and drawings and only a small inscription inside “This is the Book of Doors. Hold it in your hand, and any door is every door.” From there Cassie embarks into a world of mysteriously magical books revered by collectors, searched by treasure hunters, and all the joy and pain that a magical and very special book can possess in a person.
This book is a reader’s book. I know so many readers who wished they call fall into the worlds they read about and this one makes it feel just a little bit closer to reality. And if you’re a fan of Neverending Story or Doctor Who, then you’ll truly get a kick out of this book. It definitely felt like this book plotted itself out. Any loose threads happen to have the perfect reasoning and questions that might come up while you’re reading (like who created these books? and what happened to that person?) do get a satisfying answer. I love when a great big puzzle of a book comes together in such an elegant way and makes you desire a world that only exists within its pages.
Of course, there’s always politics when it comes to a set of books with special abilities. People will pay top dollar and kill for books that can change matter, create illusions, bring despair or joy, and it makes the story feel more genuine. If there weren’t people out in the world trying to get their hands on a book that brings them luck, then I would be skeptical about this story. While I do wish there was a bit more about the darker underground of magical book selling, I think the taste we get from Gareth Brown’s storytelling is enough to give you an idea and it was definitely enough to be the bigger catalyst and plot of the story.
On top of all the wild murders and plotting to solve all the more heinous crimes, this book was about lonely people finding each other and forming a friendship and family through the wildest circumstances. I loved the little crew Cassie forms with her roommate, some book hunters, and the librarian. It was great to see Cassie find family after so many years without one. It’s also about a human’s ability to withstand the trials and tribulations that life tends to throw at us; a case study on how people react when faced with loss, difficult circumstances, pain, and suffering. Some people take to it and run away, others face it head on, others turn it into something dark and cruel.
Overall, a breathtaking story that felt truly realistic. Nothing was rushed and the pacing was excellent for a story that really packs a gut punch at the end. I cannot wait to read more from Gareth Brown in the future.
This is the second book by S.T. Gibson that I’ve tried and I’m so glad to give her another chance.
Here’s more about An Education in Malice
Sumptuous and addictive, An Education in Malice is a dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from Sunday Times bestselling author S.T. Gibson, author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.
Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua’s College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold.
On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla.
But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.
While I wasn’t a huge fan of S.T. Gibson’s usage of second POV epistolary style in A Dowry of Blood, I knew there was something about her writing that I couldn’t overlook. There was a quality to it that I knew if I was patient enough I would see in full view in the next one. And yes, S.T. Gibson did it for me in her newest installment. Her poetic writing style lends itself well to the story of young women in a poetry class. Writing and romance? What’s a better combo?
Similar to her first book, this is another vampire story that takes place right in the 1960s at a small Northeastern prep school where young Laura and Carmilla meet each other, fall in love, and battle against a really old vampire that was out killing some of the other students at the school. The dual perspectives were used brilliantly here sharing both Laura and Carmilla’s experiences throughout. Laura is more shy, hesitant to new experiences, and more interested in growing her faith and her poetry. Carmilla is more wildly having experienced the world and become the special pet of their poetry professor, Eleanor De Lafontaine.
At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the dual perspectives. Honestly, it was difficult for me to keep track of who’s perspective I was reading from, but once the story progressed, it became more clear who was who and why the choice to have dual perspectives was made. But up until that point, both girls seemed fairly similar and nothing stood out about them. As the story progresses, you see pretty drastic changes in the way these girls conduct themselves. First they were just school mates, then they were being invited to exclusive Friday events with De Lafontaine, which bordered on inappropriate for a teacher/student relationship, and until the halfway point you realize that there’s something bigger going on. Oh, did I also mention that De Lafontaine is a vampire who likes to feed on Carmilla? Yeah, that’s pretty much the big draw for me here.
I did like that S.T. Gibson didn’t completely abandon the human world when the vampire side of the story progressed even further. Laura and Carmilla are going to illicit events filled with hedonism and blood-drinking, but they were also still conversing with the same girls that went to their school. Scenes of sexual desire and blood are juxtaposed to girls trespassing on school property and getting drunk. The juxtaposition was jarring, but it also reminded you that these girls were still just girls; trying to pass their classes, getting into trouble, and they also just happened to be human blood bags for the vampire elite.
The female friendships and relationships in this story were the most intriguing part. De Lafontaine loved Carmilla like a daughter. Carmilla loved Laura like a lover (and vice versa), but there were also the friendships that the girls had with their classmates that just all showed incredible examples of the complexity of young women and the importance of their relationships to each other and to those around them.
The conflict itself was where the story lacked. There was so much about Carmilla, Laura, and De Lafontaine, that when the real threat to the students at school arrived, it felt a little thrown away. There was more emphasis on the trio’s dynamics that when the real conflict reared its ugly vampire head, it felt more like a nuisance that needed to be taken care of than a huge component of the overall story.
And yet, I found myself devouring this book regardless. If anything, you’ll keep reading for Laura and Carmilla to share their feelings for each other. You’ll be reading to figure out the weird relationship dynamic between these three women, and how the decisions each of them makes affects them all in the end. Definitely worth the read and I will definitely be reading the next one from S.T. Gibson.
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