Here I am, writing this post exactly 11 days after writing What’s on My Shelf? || Book Blogger Edition with all the books from that list completed. I’m pretty proud of myself considering that I am a huge mood reader that doesn’t do the best with strict TBRs.

I truly enjoyed this little experiment and plan on making Book Blogger Recommendation TBRs every month from now on to knock out those books that I have discovered through other bloggers. Sorry if there are less than positive reviews for books you may have recommended, I still completely enjoyed reading all of these books despite my qualms!

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

“There’s nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.”

This satirical contemporary was quite a ride. I could easily see this book as a movie with the writing style’s interesting jumps in time and asides that break the fourth wall. Some of the aspects of this book worked for me, while others not so much. It is written as a sales manual/self-help book, which is unique and provided a great anchor throughout the story. However, there were quite a few times that I physically cringed from odd dialogue and pop culture references. Many of the things that happened, particularly towards the end of the book, and some of the character’s reactions or lack of reactions to these things were so ridiculous that it was hard to suspend my disbelief. (I’m not talking about the racism the black characters experience because that was pretty believable unfortunately).

I can’t comment on the representation of this book, but I truly enjoyed the reading experience despite how frustrating the main character is and the truly off-the-wall story. If you are interested in reading Black Buck, be aware that it is a satire. Overall, it was a nice shift in tone compared to books I’ve been reading lately.

Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) by Deborah Harkness

Shout-out to this author for drawing me back in every time I finished a book in this series despite how much I dislike her writing style. Did I like this book? Not really. Am I glad I read it? Yes. Am I itching to know what happens in the next installment? Absolutely. Very confusing.

*Mild spoiler* My first gripe with this book was the time travel mess of it all. It just doesn’t make sense how the characters act like their massive disruption of the past won’t have an equally massive disruption on the future and I’m curious to see if it indeed does or is glossed over in the next book. *End of Mild Spoiler*

There is also a ton of telling rather than showing, which makes it seem like the characters are passively witnessing the bonkers stuff that is happening to them with little emotion. It’s also unnecessarily long. Despite all the issues I had with the book, I’m still probably going to listen to the audiobook of the next installment once I finish watching the second season of the A Discovery of Witches TV series.

The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie

“Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don’t realize it.”

I had such a great time reading this collection of short mysteries. Thanks Morgan, for this recommendation for starting Agatha Christie’s novels. The stories were the perfect length to keep me engaged and I loved the banter of the cast of characters. I didn’t know that I would find a murder mystery collection so delightful, but I did, and I’m interested in reading more Agatha Christie mysteries soon!

Foxhole Court (All for the Game #1) by Nora Sakavic

I don’t really know what to say about this book. It was ridiculous, shocking, disturbing…and somehow it kind of worked. Maybe? I don’t know. I’m still confused by it.

I’ve seen this series touted as an LGBTQ series, but this first book was pretty void of that with the exception of one side character who upholds some toxic stereotypes about gay people (ie: the predatory gay). Please check out the endless content warnings for this series , there is some ableist language and homophobic slurs in this particular installment that were jarring every time I saw them and took me right out of the book.

Those things make me apprehensive about this series. Honestly, every page is a new trove of problematic, jarring situations. But somehow I still want to see what happens in the rest of the books, especially since there are so many other reviewers who enjoyed it despite it’s problems and content. That alone is super interesting to me. I need to know what happens that makes people love this series so much! Foxhole Court basically made me super uncomfortable and I couldn’t look away.

Thanks to the blogs who recommended these books in their posts, I had a ton of fun reading them this month!

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