Ninth House is quite the ride. The reader is introduced into a dark and overwhelming world hidden within Yale and must struggle to make sense of what's happening right along with Alex, the MC. She has a particular skill that has gained her entrance to the elite, but none of the privilege or class distinctions that are usually a baseline. I really enjoyed the class commentary and dark academia vibes on campus, and the slow reveal of the plot kept me hooked in a way I haven't been recently. But (and it's a big one) there is one scene of SA that felt unnecessary at best. It didn't feel gratuitous in the way male authors sometimes write at least? But it was more detailed than necessary and I think other forms of violence could have been substituted to keep the scene more in line with the rest of the book. You can skim it or skip it because all that really matters is 'bad thing happened', and I totally understand why some folks DNF when they get to it. Apart from the one scene though a satisfyingly vicious and thoroughly bingeable read.

If I had a nickel for every time a father passed away and left his farm/ranch to his city daughter but required her to live on it with his adopted son so they would meet and fall in love I'd have two nickels. Which, you know. Is plenty. I didn't love Bet the Farm by Staci Hart when I read it at the beginning of the year, but wow did I look back at it fondly after Cash. I don't think I'm super picky when it comes to romances. I want a healthy relationship dynamic (at least by the end, fine of they're idiots in the middle) and if there's spice it needs to be well written. Cash has spice, but I found myself skimming it. (Except for one scene with a belt because I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure some unsafe choices were made.) Cash does not, I think, have a healthy relationship by the end. Cash himself is so busy lusting after Molly that he initially makes up an entire personality for her and later seems committed to just making decisions for her, and it almost felt like Molly missed the lost opportunity of her dad so much she'd take any chance to fill in the authority-figure gap in her life. It's set up as enemies to lovers but they're mostly just assuming things at each other and then jump in bed. Molly was fine, I didn't care much about her one way or the other. Cash was very much stereotypical asshole alpha guy and I did not love it. I didn't like him picking a fight in the bar and I REALLY didn't like him ''claiming his territory " or whatever that was afterwards. Also does the man have a breeding kink and why did I have to read about it with my own two eyeballs. If I ever, ever, ever had a guy pressure to not wear protection like Cash did he would be out on his a** so fast his hair would catch fire. Anyways. This is both disorganized and the more I write the grumpier I get so I'm gonna stop here before I knock off another star. Read Cash for the badge if you must, but if you're just here for enemies to lovers on a farm go read Bet the Farm or something.

A solid collection of short stories with clear through-lines on parenting/growing up, what it is to be a person, and connection. I rarely connected with the prose (purely a stylistic thing, I suspect others will love it) but really liked the central concept of several stories. I neither adored nor detested any stories - they all fell somewhere between not bad and pretty good for me. Either I loved the concept but didn't care for the execution or I liked the execution but was unimpressed by the concept. If you're a fan of short stories this is worth picking up from the library or if you happen upon it in a bookstore, but I don't know that I would hunt it down.

Weird mix of feelings on this book, because in terms of plain enjoyment it was my second favorite of the series. The new types of communication explored were distinctly alien enough to be interesting but not so incomprehensible as to shut my brain down. But in order to read this you have to read the first three books, and the plot felt very much like a mash-up of ideas the author wished he'd executed differently in earlier books. We explore scientists with God-complexes, what forms sentience can take/the impact of living adjacent to something that is almost (?) sentient, and the struggles of an unreliable narrator or an unreliable world. That being said, I loved Cato and his entire character arc. I didn't dislike any of the other threads so much as I wasn't deeply invested. I found Catos introduction confusing but once the book fleshed out the backstory more I was able to get into it, and I really liked the examination of what happens when a people outgrow their own culture. If you enjoyed the rest of the series this is certainly worth picking up, although it won't tread much new ground. Similar to Murderbot #8 - a good time in a known universe.