Author: lupedominguez

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

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So. After gathering my thoughts, and reading some other reviews, I realized I will not be as eloquent as some here. However, I enjoyed this book. SO MUCH. The folklore, the horror, the gore. How Cora was able to rise above that, make connections with friends after the horrific murder of her sister, with whom she had a complicated relationship with. Re-connecting with her Asian heritage through her one aunt after being forced into accepting Christianity by her white aunt. The racism. THE RACISM. Like holy smokes. During COVID, racism towards Chinese (and by extension, those in other asian countries like Korea, Japan, etc. since white people think they all look the same) was at an all time high. No different than after 9/11, when people (usually white) blamed ANYONE that even looked remotely like those horrible terrorists. For Cora, and by extension, her friends/co-workers, enduring that during the early days and then height of the pandemic and not do anything about it because they knew it would make it worse was heartbreaking to read.

Cora, after the death of her sister, becomes a forensic crime scene cleaner. The past few cleans, though, have shown a pattern of brutal deaths of Asian-American women, and the calling card of dead and mutilated bats. The last thing Cora remembers was someone calling her sister “bat-eater” before throwing her in front of a train and decapitating her. Remember, this story it GORY and it STARTS with that death. We then move into her and her co-workers trying to figure out just WHO could be doing this, when Cora divulges to them that she is being followed by a Hungry Ghost. Something Cora didn’t believe in because she didn’t really believe in anything from her Asian heritage. Not that I blame her, she was definitely in the category of “not Asian enough, not white enough”, since it was something she was basically told her whole life. Once they decide that they need to get rid of the ghost, who Cora believes is her sister, they think it’s over. But it’s just the beginning.

I can’t even decide just how much I loved this book. It hit all the feels, all the tropes, all the checkboxes for a great horror novel. Horror isn’t always gore and jump scares (which this had a LOT of and I’m so glad I read it during the daytime haha) but sometimes the horror is in the everyday people. Of the people you think should be protecting you (looking at you cops) who are instead, covering up crimes by those higher than them, at the cost of the people dying. It was a crazy read, but a great one. I would absolutely read this again.

Oof…sorry

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You would think, since I’ve already done the whole “I’m sorry but I’m here” post before, that I would remember to actually post here but NOOOO of course not! However, I am proud to say that not only did I beat my Goodreads book challenge, I’ve surpassed it and I’m STILL GOING! I’m 72 book strong! I haven’t read this much in a LOOOONG time and I’m loving every minute of it!

Some books I’ve read since I was last here:

Plus some various arcs and fan fics, of course! Don’t forget, you can always find my reviews here AND on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/lupedominguez). Ok, I promise I won’t be so long next time!

Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood

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Honestly, the only downside is that I never got a POV from Conor and that is DEVASTATING. Ali Hazelwood is QUICKLY becoming my favorite author and I cannot begin to describe how much I freaking loved this book. Maya and Conor are endgame, and I thought Eli and Rue were…I just…I need more. I want a Nyota and maybe Paul or Nyota and someone because she is my FAVORITE side character. Or give me a Minami and Sul…god I would love to see their dynamic.

Maya is 23 and Conor is 38, very much an age gap, but honestly, they worked together so well, and it wasn’t even creepy. He tries so hard to make it go away and I think that’s why I loved this so much. Maya can be a little shit, and I kind of wish we had gotten more with her and Eli, but OMG she is just enough for Conor. They meet again, after not speaking for 10 months, at Eli and Rue’s destination wedding (the description of all things Sicily made me desperate to take a vacation there) and it’s here that they are unable to avoid each other. It makes such great tension.

I think I’m going to go ahead and just devour everything else Ali has written now. BRB, off to live dream about unattainable men and love I wish existed.

*to see this and other reviews, head over to my Goodreads page https://www.goodreads.com/lupedominguez

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

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Well this was…something. I guessed a lot of the twists and turns so it wasn’t as OMG as I was hoping for. Nico was such a jerk and I hated that Lux had zero self esteem to see that. It seemed too contrived to have people already on that island, Meroe, so I knew something was up already. Amma was a horrible person too. Just all of it was not great. Then I got total Lord of the Flies vibes in the last third of the book and I HATE Lord of the Flies so much that turned me off of the rest of the book. At that point, I could not have cared less about any of those characters. This was a very meh book for me. 🤷🏽‍♀️ 3/5 stars

Between The Pines by Amber Palmer

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Am I…into cowboy romance now??? Holy HOT. Author Amber Palmer wasted NO TIME in getting to the spice. The very beginning was hot hot HOT! Josie is running away from another man cheating on her, and runs to her family’s cabin in Tennessee. On the way, she stops at a dive bar and meets barkeep Lincoln…hot barkeep Lincoln. What transpires is 5 days of bliss, before Josie gets scared and leaves in the middle of the night. Their chemistry is off the charts…Also, pretty sure I imagined Jensen Ackles as Lincoln the entire time. *swoon*

One year later, Josie is working with her family on their ranch in Texas, and who should show up but Lincoln Carter himself…to work for the summer on her family ranch. But this time, Josie has a boyfriend, Ellis, that she’s been dating for a few months. But their heat, hers and Lincoln’s, is one for the ages. I’m not kidding when I say their chemistry was amazing. Lincoln was the epitome of gentleman and devil. He wants her and lets her know it, but is also just an amazing man, someone who was kind and gentle and ready to walk away if Josie said the words. Josie has a lot of self doubt, so sometimes watching her self-deprecate and sabotage herself was painful, but the mental health representation was really well done here.

Fantastic story. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series! 5/5 stars

Pucking Around by Emily Rath

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OH. MY. GOD. I think I am in heaven. This book. THIS. BOOK. Had me in a chokehold the whole time. I am obsessed with Jake, Caleb is the bestie I didn’t know I needed and Mars??? MARS??? Please, crush me with your whole body, I BEG you. The spice was S-P-I-C-Y in here, had me sweating and wishing I was reading alone….with some electronic help, if you know what I mean whew.

Outside of that, though, this was such a thoughtful and provocative book about polyamory, bi-sexuality, demisexuality, and every kind of queerness in between. It was about finding out who you are as a person, not just sexually but professionally. Emily Rath states it in the beginning of the book, that the book is going to be like 3 love stories in one, and she is SO SO right. Seeing the relationship between Rachel and her paramours bloom was so beautiful. Them all learning to lean on each other, to be secure in the relationship was so breathtaking. They communicate ALL THE TIME, which is, quite frankly, how ANY relationship will work, much less a poly one.

I just…I didn’t know how much I needed to read this, especially during Pride Month, especially as an ally. This opened up so many new ways for me to see, REALLY SEE, my friends and neighbors who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community. I see you, and I love you.

Accordion Eulogies

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Accordion Eulogies…what can I say about this novel? Not much, tbh. For as short as it was, for me, this took FOREVER for me to read. I put it down about halfway through because I grew bored and extremely disinterested. Alvarez has a way with words but sometimes they were just too much. Too many euphemisms, too many allegories, too many too many. He is trying to relate his trauma (? I guess?) of not having his grandfather around and thus not knowing his family history, to the not very well known history of the accordion in the Latino/Hispanic (whichever of those words you like) community. But he only does so at the very first half of the book. The rest of it is his perilous journey into Mexico to see his grandfather one more time. Honestly, this book just made me depressed the entire time I read it. And annoyed with him? I can’t really put my finger on it. I should have just stopped reading it, but I really don’t like to DNF books, especially by those in my own community, but maybe that’s not a reason to finish it either. IDK. I wanted to love this but I just didn’t.

*For this review, others, and what I’m currently reading, head over to my Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/lupedominguez

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

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I can’t even begin to tell you how many tabs I have on this book. SO MANY AREAS I left for notes and coming back to! I actually left little tabs to go back to my favorite passages. I haven’t done that since needing to annotate in college! There are quite a few 2 and 3 star reviews but I have to say, as someone who also reads fanfiction and can sometimes feel like a complete nerd, I LOVED this book. I was thinking about it for days, just trying to come up with a good review. I’ve had to read other books since then just to be able to come back now and write one, almost 9 months later!

Cather is a very introverted girl, a freshman in college. Her twin sister, Wren, is far more outgoing. They had, until now, done pretty much everything together, but Wren is going off and using college as her way to find out who she is (as one does). Cather wants everything to stay the same. Her roommate Reagan, is a couple years older than her and on her first day, she meets Levi…who is just in the room, because he is best friends with Reagan. Thus begins Cather’s college career. Her father is kind of a mess and her mother has never been in the picture so Cather was counting on having Wren by her side. Good thing she has Simon and Baz…well, if they were real anyways. Cather is a super popular fanfiction writer of a popular wizard series Simon Snow. But between classes, a crush and her dad’s spiral without the girls being home, will Cather even make it through her freshman year?

Seriously, I cannot even begin to describe how much I adored this book. I can still remember parts (which is saying a lot since I tend to forget books almost as soon as I’ve read them) and remember how I felt when Cather had her first college kiss and the butterflies she must have felt…it was like reliving my own college days too!

Some favorite quotes:

“He nudged his nose against hers, and their mouths fell sleepily together, already soft and open.”
“Kisses aren’t…just with me.”
“That it wasn’t JUST a kiss, Cather. There was no JUST.”
“I want that kiss to have been the start of something. Not the end.”
“I mean, I spent four months trying to kiss you and the last six weeks trying to figure out how I managed to fuck everything up. And I just want to know-are you rooting for me? Are you hoping I pull this off?”
“You know that I’m falling in love with you, right?”

I even ended up reading the manga series that was written too, as if I didn’t already know how the book ends, and now I’m not-so-patiently waiting for volume 4 to drop! If you like coming of age stories with a little dash of fanfiction, then this is truly the book for you!

Solemnity

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A year ago on this day, I wrote that I would be back to give reviews of other books I had been reading. However, that evening changed my whole world. The campus on which I work, my alma mater, my home, was shaken apart by a horrible school shooting. 3 students (Brian Fraser, Alexandria Verner, and Arielle Anderson) were killed, and 5 more more seriously injured. Our community was in shambles. How could something so horrific happen here? It shouldn’t have been here, in our safe space. Shootings aren’t supposed to be this close. Just months before, there was a shooting at Oxford High School, just a mile down the road from my stepson. The week before the MSU shooting, a swatting call threatening a shooting, was made at my son’s high school. I was already on high alert and anxiety…then to have this happen, here, at my alma mater, my home? It was unthinkable. I couldn’t even begin to process the horror. Listening to the police scanner, the unknowns about how many assailants (there was just one) and how many injuries or deaths…it was too much. I shut down. The weeks to come, there was nothing but sadness and unending pain. In order to come to work, I had to drive by the building where two students died…then another where one died and others injured. One of the injured was a student I saw almost everyday in my own building. I found out later that a colleague was here, hunkered down in our basement with other students, waiting…but didn’t know if he might be waiting to die or waiting to come out from hiding. To say that this past year has been hard would be putting it mildly. I still have a hard time thinking about it, thinking that those 3 precious souls are gone. That my school is now on the one list I never thought it would ever end up on: school shootings. There is a lot still to process, a lot still to do. My belief that gun ownership has more stringent laws was only solidified through all this. There must be stricter gun laws. There just has to be. We have to stop being afraid to send our kids to school.

I had other personal trauma last year too. My best friends mom, who was like a second mom to me, passed away from complications during heart surgery. Devastation isn’t even enough to describe that pain. Her birthday was yesterday. It was hard. I almost text her, only to remember that I couldn’t.

So I apologize for not being here. I will try to again this year, to be better about making posts. But for today: I am Spartan Strong.

Well hello again

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Whew. I can’t believe I’ve been gone for so long. I am back. And I think I am going to focus more on this blog than I did before. Maybe make a little schedule for posts? Anywho, I’ve been listening to tons of fictional podcasts (All Hail the Glowcloud!) and watching some TV, but as far as reading goes, I’ve been on a bit of a lull, very disinterested. I’m trying though, so I am hoping to get back into the groove!!! Reviews are on the way! I think my first good one will be on the manga series Takane and Hana…or maybe even Fruits Basket, but that one I finished a while ago, but Takane and Hana will be completed soon…like maybe this week. Maybe I’ll do both! Who knows! I am also in the middle of a Joe Hill book, so that will be a creepy and good review as well! Here’s some pics of the books I am currently reading, and I hope to see you all soon!