Kimmerer does it again. I love the way she can take something as seemingly small and ordinary as moss and somehow make it feel like a doorway into much bigger questions about connection, reciprocity, resilience, love, and belonging. She blurs the line between scientific observation and something much more intimate, because the deeper she looks at moss, the more she seems to be asking us to look differently at ourselves. So many of her observations felt like tiny doors into much bigger ideas, and I found myself wanting to slow down and sit with them rather than just keep reading. It’s a quiet book, but it doesn’t feel small. If anything, it made the world feel bigger. I think that’s what I love most about her writing: she has this incredible ability to make me stop and notice the things I’ve been walking past my entire life, and suddenly I’m thinking about how much of the world exists in relationships and stories I have to pause to take in.

I’m very split on this one. There were moments when I was completely locked in, fully eating the prose up, and then there were times when I felt like I was on a bad trip with very little coming from it. I was confused A LOT, but I was rarely bored.

I think what worked best for me was everything happening underneath the weirdness. There’s the pressure and performance of academia, the obsession with being interesting and talented, and that constant tension between wanting to fit in while also wanting to stand out. There’s also a pretty biting look at friendship, status, and what we’re willing to compromise to feel accepted.

And then there’s the writing. Sometimes I thought Mona Awad was absolutely brilliant, and other times I genuinely wondered if she had just thrown a bunch of words into a blender and handed me the result. 🤲 But even when I didn’t fully understand what I was reading, the prose created this incredibly specific sense of anxiety and unreality.

I think that’s also where my biggest issue comes in. Some of the fever-dream sequences felt like they were there less to move the story forward and more to make me feel like I was trapped inside a fever dream. And, well… mission accomplished. 😅 I just didn’t always feel like the payoff matched the amount of disorientation.

I actually like ambiguity, so that wasn’t the problem for me. I enjoyed having to sit with the weirdness and figure out what I thought was happening. I just wish some of the more surreal detours had felt a little more purposeful beyond making me increasingly convinced I had lost the plot.

Still, I have to give Mona Awad credit. She created a reading experience that was completely unlike anything I’ve read before. It was disturbing, ridiculous, funny, grotesque, and genuinely unpredictable.

I don’t know if I loved it, but I definitely experienced it. 🐰

If there is one thing that I know I’ll get from a book by Tal Bauer it is: Gay and Angst.

Hi 👋 I’m mariangello, and I’ve never read a sports romance with football.

This had a bunch of it! And video games! Like Red Dead Redemption (2 probs)™️, and Playstation4™️ The personality of the characters are definitely: “Video games and football” “Wine and cellphone data towers” “French and ballet” “Ranch and football”

And yet I still enjoyed it? Mmmmmmmostly.

The story is great when you get to the forbidden romance aspect of it, and the angst is ANGSTING- I love secret touches, yearning, glances, and “omgdoeshefeelthesameaboutme?causeiwillthrowitallawayforhim”

But other times the story felt jolting and random, descriptions and plot points were sometimes out of place and I was wondering who was where, or doing what. I liked the main characters and I will STAN COLTON forever, but I truly was scratching my head at times with the amount of airtime spent on the other pair (Justin and Wes) who already got a WHOLE book (like, they just wouldn’t leave the main stage, ya know??) the friend group/family was ENMESHED (and a bit unusual tbh)

Anyway, I appreciate this perspective from the author, I liked the concept of a TEXAS football team, dealing with a gay age gap romance in a new way. It also allowed for a nice exploration of what it means when your entire life’s goal gets torn away from you in an instant, and how you discover other parts of yourself you didn’t know were there.

The pacing was off for me though, and it wasn’t as seamless of a story and plot - sometimes I just had to “breeze through and not think too much”. I did ultimately root for the main couple and thought they were sweet together, but the dynamic was interesting for sure.

And COLTON DESERVES BETTER 😤🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

Story: 5/5 Spice: Medium (More than the Jock surprisingly) Characters: 5/5 -ˏˋ⋆⋆ˊˎ- Overall reco: All my reviews are a love letter to TB. Sorry, not sorry.

I liked this one better than The Jock, which is a surprise to me. I generally don't like age gaps. I want too, but far to often it's like a fetishized age gap and then it's not my bag. This felt better. Like it was a thing but it wasn't presented in that fetishized way. Sure there was a bit around it, but then it became more critical around who they were to each other. Watching Colton grow up in this book and the kind of recap at the beginning from his point of view felt nice, thought since I was on the back of the first book it made me struggle a little. I appreciated seeing Colton's views about what happened with Wes and why they did what they did. I loved Nick and Colton's romance, it was rather heavy handed with the sad undertones and I've been really craving something that could lean into my feels without feeling like it was hopeless. This fit that bill perfectly. I did find myself skimming some pages though. Both Nick and Colten could REALLY get into their own heads and just crash themselves out. It was painful but again, I wanted that pain. I loved it though, and the ending felt perfect. TB can write and ending that feels right. Satisfying in a way that many authors struggle with.