
🩵💜🩷 (they/she) 🏳️⚧️ ✨️ In my romantasy and queer fiction era 📚 ARC reviewer 🌸 @raynelox on instagram
4392 points



4.25 average · 416 reviews
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Thank you Celine Ong and Solaire Press for the chance to read the ARC! All opinions are honest and my own.
🏳️🌈 achillean romance 🤼♂️ queer rep 🏳️🌈 found family 🤼♂️ no wrestling knowledge required 🏳️🌈 ao3 enjoyers come get your food 🤼♂️ Fall Out Boy references (very important) 🏳️🌈 coming out
I LOVED THIS BOOK! Hold Me Like a Grudge is so unapologetically queer. Asher and Caleb are so cute together, with an amazing childhood crush (not that he even knows he's queer) to enemies to lovers storyline. The tension and yearning were top tier.
I swear this book was made with me in mind. If you are someone who spends way too much time on ao3 reading fanfics where every character is gay, you NEED to read this. It's fast-paced, full of swoon-worthy moments, and overall just so so good. Not to mention the Fall Out Boy and other Warped tour era pop punk band references (which is very important to me personally).
I also really enjoyed how the book explored Asher and Caleb's respective coming out stories. As a bisexual who didn't realize I was bisexual until university, so much of Asher's story resonated with me. I felt very seen 💕
I have no background in wrestling, so you don't need to know anything about it going into this book to enjoy it. All you need is an understanding of the inherent homoeroticism of grappling with a hot half-naked dude while wearing rhinestoned tights. It's basically just televised foreplay.
Espíritu (Cemetery Boys #2)
Aiden Thomas
"He had held a grudge against Julian ever since he said Rodriguez's face looked AI generated"
diabolical insult ☠️☠️☠️


Due to the multi-genre nature of this Quest and the 100 books maximum cap, there will be plenty of books that I'm sure I've missed out. For transparency, my Google sheet tracker for this quest at pre-launch sat at 155 books. With the groupings that I've picked out, this Quest will max out with likely about 8-9 books per genre and right now we've started with 3-4 books
As such, while I'm happy to receive recommendations and suggestions for the Quest, I cannot guarantee they will be added in. I will add them to my Google sheet to research first so that I'm able to also add newly released books, at my own leisure time, and keep numbers between genres more or less balanced.
If you have a burning recommendation to the good people of Pagebound, I would like for you to pitch these books as if you're suggesting them for other Quest takers to read, to represent their intended genres, more than for me to just add to this list! Of course, vice versa, please take book recommendations posted by others as if they're personal suggestions to you.
Please approach book recommendations with the intention of sparking discussions. Some things you can consider, but don't feel limited to — what is it about this book that you want others to read? Is it accessible globally? What genres does this book touch on? Is there anything worth warning people about without being too spoilery? What discussions can come out from this book's forum? Are the mlm aspects in this book explicit, subtle, or implied? Do we see relationships bloom fast or slow? Does it go beyond the book and span a series? What's your favourite thing about it!!
Create a Quest forum post and pitch these books to fellow readers! More than a Quest Handler, I am first and foremost just a fellow bl enthusiast too. I hope in this way we can generate more book/quest forum discussions about books, especially ones that we already love!!
Thunderstorms commented...
If you loved Heated Rivalry then let me tell you about Hold Me Like a Grudge by Celine Ong that comes out in March this year! One of the best ARCs I've read, and my current favourite MM romance and sports romance! It's pro wrestlers, unapologetically queer with a cast of multiple queer characters, has an enemies/rivals to lovers type romance, bi main character and gay main character, and also it's just really really good!
I know this probably isn't getting added to the quest since it's not even out yet, but I just wanted to recommend it to people 😂 And no I'm not getting paid to promote this book, I'm just obsessed with it