Welcome to Litsy!

I picked this book up because it fit a #ReadHarder prompt and I already had it on my kindle, but to be honest my hopes weren't high, because a kinky rock star romance doesn't sound like my bag. I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I really liked the characters and I wished the band were real so I could listen to their music. I'm looking forward to continuing the series, because the rest of the band also deserves their happy endings!

Warning: extremely niche cross-genre content incoming!

In Syncopation, the more famous band that the protagonists' band opens for is called Five Asylum - and every time they're mentioned I can't help but think that that's also a valid Teixcalaanli name (if you interpret “asylum“ as a concept rather than a type of institution).

This didn't quite work. It's a romance novel where one of the characters is aromantic. Or so he *tells* us, but what the author *shows* is a guy who is clearly in love, just has a problem with the word. Either "aromantic" wasn't defined well in the book, the writer didn't write it well, or it's just not possible to write an aromantic romance novel.

#ReadHarder #ReadHarder2021 -romance by a trans/nonbinary author

2019 stats. Apparently the years I spent reading every single X-Men comic trained me to get through LOTS of stuff.

I care less about the total number than the diversity. I hope I can keep that up through 2020. I‘m also pleased I managed to reduce La TBR by 127 books instead of the 116 I aimed for.

Attention, everyone! Anna Zabo‘s SYNCOPATION, which is one of my top 3 reads of 2019 to date, is on for $1.99. You should get it immediately if you like rock stars and kink and found families and deeply affectionate aromanticism.

I‘m pretty sure the sale‘s valid across all retailers, in multiple countries, but if it‘s Canada-only I apologize for getting your hopes up.

May stats! I felt like I read way less than usual because my comics consumption took a downturn and I got stuck on some books for more days than I should‘ve, but I guess I still gulped down a fair amount.

I‘m really, really happy I read three 5-star books last month: SYNCOPATION and REVERB by Anna Zabo, plus THE CHATEAU by Tiffany Reisz. The last two were back-to-back mindblowers, too. That almost never happens for me.

Sometimes you read something and it‘s like, you KNOW there‘s no such thing as perfection, but so far as you‘re concerned this book, in this moment, is IT. And you want to gush about it to EVERYONE because it kind of changed your world while you read it, with its music and found families and the way it handles depression and support and privilege and aromanticism.

But you also want to keep mum. Hold it inside. Love it in your own headspace.

I spent more on books in April than in the entire first quarter, thanks to the Book Market and some good deals. All those multi-book purchases mean I‘ve done a crap job of checking stuff off, which I do whenever I‘ve finished everything in a particular haul, but I aim to change that in May. Gotta catch up!

I‘ll check off the tagged book (my first April purchase) today. I read it into the wee hours last night and only quit because my battery went.

SYNCOPATION is one of those books that excited the hell out of me from the first chapter. It‘s gonna be a struggle today, getting stuff done when I just wanna reeeeeeeeead.

Gah. The sexual tension in this book is so bonkers that when Ray and Zav FINALLY got it on around the 50% mark I‘m pretty sure that all the secondary characters sighed in relief right along with me.

Also a great romance set among the members of an up and coming rock band that makes no bones about decidedly unglamorous life of tour buses (no matter how swanky) and shitty paparazzi/media.