Alex Roe as Rome



****4 AMAZING, Yet unsafe STARS****
Coming from my monogamist, perverted little heart it's almost like a gazillion stars. I'm not joking, when a book is tagged as romance I get picky and I need possessive heroes and commited heroines. I rarely give 5 stars to unsafe books (ACOMAF was a glorious exception) unless there's something outside the romance and that something has to be really amazing to impress me.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Trickery is an amazing book. I'm impressed!

I'll say this book is the perfect choice if you want a light fantasy book to take with you to the beach. You won't find complicated world-building. You won't find poetic prose and heavy social issues. You'll find a story of friendship, bravery and the eternal mystery of why opposites attract. And of course you'll find 5 hot guys completely devoted to their heroine.

I like the world building! I know that some fantasy readers prefer overdescriptive, detailed worldbuiding and everything explained in book 1 of the series, but I don't. I don't want to know the whole history and politics of the world in the first books of the series. I prefer the kind of worldbuilding that has the potential to grow throughout the series. Think Harry Potter, and Hunger games. Book 1 didn't explain the history and politics of the world but we the impatient readers eventually discovered what was going on as the series progressed. This one has potential to become really epic.

Jaymin Eve and Jane Washington provide us readers with enough information of their magic world:Minatsol, to understand Willa's position and why the Abcurse brothers infatuation with her are a big deal.

Minatsol is a world where not everyone is equal. Willa, a walking disaster, cheats during her "exams" and therefore she gets a high ranking that gives her the "privilege" of travelling with her sister to a very exclusive academy. Not to study but to serve the demigods who attend the school there.

I disagree with anyone who calls Willa stupid. She is quite smart actually. There are several types of inteligence. Willa has interpersonal and intrapersonal, skills. She's also good at language, I mean, all her witty comebacks. Poor Willa just doesn't have the kind of intelligence that allows normal people to put one foot in front of the other without tripping. That's the kinesthesic intelligence, but other than that she's quite smart and I like her. I guess some people will find her sense of humor juvenile, but I think that's what really made me enjoy this book. 

I had the most amazing pic to fancast the other abcurse brothers but for some reason it's not working. It must be that Willa's pull for chaos is rubbing on me.

Anyway, I think this book is different. I don't think it's romantic, and I'm uncapable to root for Willa with all the brothers. I prefer possessive, strong heroes and I think Rome is the one who really seemed more affected by the fact that Willa has a thing for ALL THE BROTHERS. I hope he eventually finds someone else or that Willa chooses him, but that doesn't seem the point of the series. The whole point seems to make the reader laugh so I'll read the next of the series and hopefully I'll enjoy the sequels as much as I enjoyed this one even if there's not a single couple to root for ... or maybe there are too many of them.. I might even preorder Seduction, book 3 of this series because my friends are all hyped about it. I think it's the most anticipated November release in the YOung adult section.

I'm not writing a parental guidance alert...yet because this book was clean, but I don't know whether the authors will try to be like Tahere Mafi and Sarah J. Maas and change genres, from clean YA to raunchy no-fade-to-black-during-sex-scenes-New-Adult later in the series. 

Do you need a laugh?A mindless YA? Juvenile jokes and hot guys?Read Trickery.

Pre-reading thoughts
I wasn't going to read this because TRIANGLES AND POLYGONS AREN'T MY THING. But I need a light young adult fantasy and My dear friend Karen says that this Fantasy book is the opposite of a Sarah J. Maas books and that ingrigued me. How is that even possible?

I also pick a popular overly anticipated series once in a while to read and Seduction book 3 of this series is coming in November: I don't think I'm exaggerating that it has to be the MOST ANTICIPATED YOUNG ADULT FANTASY NOVEMBER REALEASE, judging by the level of interest amogn my friens. Before Seduction appears all over my newsfeed with me not having an idea of what's going on I decided to step out of my confort zone of safe romances and go for something that everyone says is quite funny and different. I honestly hate reading on going, unfinished series because I hate cliffhangers. But usually Young adult Kindle unlimited authors finish their series quickly so I'm here ready. I'm not expecting romance. How could it be with so many love interest? 

Wish me luck. I really want to love this one.

Note: Unsafe means that there are other partners activities meaning kissing, watching naked and I usually hate that so. I wonder how I'd feel about this one.

*~*~* SPOILER REVIEW *~*~*

I love Kaje Harper's Hidden Wolves series. The previous book was released 2 years ago so I got pretty excited when she announced that there would be a new book released this year.

One thing that needed to be said ... dang Kaje Harper can write! I definitely loved how she played around with the werewolves culture. For example, in book #3, Unjustified Claims, Kaje introduced Brandt and Ethan -- Brandt is the werewolf with non-human strength but he loves to dress in lingerie and garter, and be the one being f*cked. Now, in Unsafe Exposure, Kaje again introduced a unique dynamic of the couple and their roles in the Pack.

Dylan Shore never knows that he is a werewolf, so he never shifts and he doesn't understand the rules of being a werewolf. On the other hand, Alex is Fourteen in his pack, and whenever people see the two of them, they will never see Alex as Alpha material. But the Alpha bond that happens between Alex and Dylan put Alex as the Alpha and Dylan the Second.

To me, this was VERY interesting to read!! How Alex is conflicted because he himself doesn't think that he's Alpha enough for Dylan -- oh and Alex also tends to be more submissive than the younger Dylan. How does it challenge other werewolves to see their relationship and act on it? It probably looks like Dylan is the big bouncer or bodyguard to his Alex, with his Alpha tendency even if his role in this two-wolves Pack is as Second. It moved away from the common Alpha/mate concept in shifters world, and this is the strength of this series, IMHO.

Aside from this dynamic, this book also put me on the edge of my seat, with the development of werewolves coming out into the world. It was thrilling and suspenseful!! Especially because there were casualties from both sides (humans and werewolves) and I didn't think that it would be resolved soon.

With this note, there must be further book in the series, right? Because there are still loose-ends! What about the further consequences of werewolves coming out ... and what about Aaron and Zach (will they ever have their mate bond?).

Cross-posted on Soapboxing

I'm really trying here to come up with a Walter Benjamin quote about media studies and engagement with popular culture, and I'm totally failing, which is about right. Obviously, I spend waaaay too much time reading all of y'alls lovely, personal reviews of all kinds of books. Books I would never read; books I have been warned away from; books I've been ordered to read; books I have on the long and growing list that I will never complete because some day I'm going to die.

Even though I have less engagement with movies, as an art form, I compulsively read movie reviews as well. I have the reviewers I trust, and the reviewers I know that I can take anything they say and turn it inside out, so that a bad review becomes a recommendation. I have a passing interest in trash movies, but not a full-blown love affair. Mostly my affection for bad movies leads back to Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the times I spent with my family watching MST3K. My immediate family, growing up, was all-female, and I still have the warmest of memories of watching bad movies on Thanksgiving, with my mother & sister, in lieu of the football that was de rigueur in most co-ed households.

Scott Phillips doesn't just have nostalgia to warm him when he watches grindhouse trash, he has a full-blown and well articulated love. This is awesome, and makes for a fine collection of movie reviews. Leonard Maltin, you may fu*k yourself. Many of the movies reviewed in this slender volume cannot be found on Netflix or even in your local video store, should you have such antiquated things in your location. You have to seek these movies out. They are made by people on no budget, with a group of friends, and a maniacal laugh. Or they were made on a budget and then disappeared. Phillips has an encyclopedic knowledge of the pedigree and taxonomy of trash cinema, so that he can draw lines between this director and that, this actor, this imprint, etc. Awesome.

I get the impression that this book started life as a blog, so some of the reviews are annoying short. Kind of like my - and many people's - early Goodreads reviews. But once he starts cooking, man, what a joy to behold. He has really weird grading scales: one about how many greased gorillas he'd fight to watch the film in question, and one about how many scotches, or whiskeys? it takes to get through the film. I endorse this. The scotch metric in particular, not because I especially love scotch, but because it can be either a bad or a good thing that a particular film is awarded the high scotch metric. I feel this way about a thousand things: that they are awesome, but they make me drink, or that they are terrible, and they make me drink. Or they are nothing at all and I remain sober. It gets at the whole deep ambivalence I feel towards so much stuff, even the stuff I love, in an intensely satisfying way. My only real complaint is that there is no index. At least the reviews are alphabetical.

What it comes down to is that I'm as fascinated by the critical process as I am with the art/trash in question, and this book is as much a love letter to the silly fun we have while watching bad movies as it is to the movies themselves. His exuberance is infectious, like an alien pathogen beamed down to a small Italian village that infects a scantily clad babe. It's going to eat someone's brains, but it might just take its top off before it does so.

Keep circulating the tapes.

Also, P.S., Scott is a friend of mine, which is how come I read this, in interests of full disclosure. I never know where to put these disclosures: at the front, like I'm defensive, or at the close, like I'm sneaking? I guess I'm going with sneaking this time. The thing is, there's no such thing as objectivity, so I'm not even going to pretend that the fact I think Scott, personally, is awesome didn't have an effect on my read. It did. But in this case, his balls-out love of his subject, his total commitment to the barrel-bottom of sleaze and cheese movies resonated for me. I know love when I see it, and he loves this shit. Amen.