This was delightfully short and sweet (with a little less emphasis on 'sweet'). Really, this was eerie and cool. I enjoyed listening to the hour-long immersive audiobook that really felt like walking through a dream come to life. From the whole cast of voice actors to varied music and sound effects, listening to this on a cold and windy winter's morning walk around my neighborhood couldn't have been more serendipitously planned or executed. 
To keep this short and sweet (and void of spoilers), I'll say this is accurately marketed as a Sleeping Beauty retelling with elements of another fairy tale sprinkled in at perfect intervals. The series of final events & resolution makes a lot of sense as a result. I really liked the classic fantasy, bardlike writing style (made even more bardlike via audiobook), as well as the nameless main character queen. The pace and subtle ease with which parts of the plot and its connections to what readers think they know about Sleeping Beauty's original tale are revealed are fantastic. I also enjoyed the ambiguity of the ending.



Some of my favorite quotes from The Sleeper and The Spindle:

"'There are choices,' she thought, when she had sat long enough. 'There are always choices.'"

"She wondered how she would feel to be a married woman. It would be the end of her life, she decided, if life was a time of choices."

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD*

How delightfully twisty and turny this was! I've said it once, and I'll say it again---can we get the Bridgerton people on the phone? Cause really, c'mon! There is so much content in this novel, not only for spine-tingling romance, but also extended commentary on what it may have realistically been like for members of the British ton who weren't able to be themselves freely via choosing who they truly love.
One of my favorite aspects of this book (despite James and Bobby's equal parts sweet and spicy romance) is that you know what Beth and Gwen are up to if you've read the first book in this duology. The two girls are in a great amount of this narrative without it being an extension of their story at all. Rather, they do a pretty great job of orchestrating the double marriage Gwen comes up with pretty much on the fly at the end of Don't Want You Like a Best Friend.
What starts as a tension-filled rivalry between James and Bobby concerning who they think the other person is (or will turn out to be), becomes much more than their once faroff admirations of the other while attending Oxford. The forcing together of their families and social groups quickly forces them to have to turn the other cheek and reform their opinions about one another, or live in agonizing denial that, inevitably, they each have raging crushes on the other.
I appreciate the depth this novel reaches and achieves when it comes to creating a tangible weight attached to London's high society. This tiny little microcosm of social rule and order is the perfect setting to use as a medium for commentary on the fact that the queer community has always existed, but has time and again existed in forced secrecy, supported only by other community members or family. Despite these book characters' limitations, their commitments to true selfhood and true love prevail through clever schemes and brave willingness to trust family and friends.
I think James' character works so well to portray that innate fear of being "found out" for who you really are and having to deal with the reality that what other people think of you does matter (to a certain extent). But then there's Bobby, more willing to embrace his identity and "proclivities," as they frame it, due to being the second son of a wealthy family and not the first. I think it's very beautiful how these two men learn so much about themselves through bickering and coming to terms with their attraction to each other. I also adore a good "we're all going to the country for a few days away from the prying eyes of the ton where we can do pretty much whatever we want" scenario (hehe).
I also absolutely loved the Epilogue. It made me emotional to see how this set of resilient and loving characters found a way to make their own family and happiness despite several persistent forces that would love to see them ruined and apart. And that, in making their own found family, they also provide a family for orphaned children in need of love (and double the amount of mothers and fathers). 

Alban is apparently releasing another queer British ton romance novel soon after the new year, and to say I'm excited would be an understatement!!



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One of my favorite quotes from You're the Problem, It's You:

"What if the world could be a better place? What if we could make it a better place, for all of us?"

This will be a short and sweet review since I mainly read this to serve as part of my class prep for the upcoming spring semester! I think this volume serves as a very baseline and, without sounding derogatory, shallow look at the general overview of Greek and Roman mythology. I appreciated the book's distinct sections and organization of prominent gods and goddesses to monsters to lesser deities to famous Greek heroes. It certainly isn't easy to categorize mythos into neat and tidy chapters without any overlap, given the intricacies of immortal and mortal familial ties, monsters traversing the plots of multiple heroes' lives, and the beliefs of the ancient Greek people often blending together in terms of their region, worship practices, and sacrificial rites. Again, given these complications, I think this book gives fantastic summaries, key details, and illuminating descriptions for each of its topics, paired with beautiful images of paintings, sculptures, and busts from across eras that add to the prose. My students will definitely be reading vital parts of this work to supplement their reading of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey in all its complicated but ancient glory!

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD*

This surpassed my expectations as the fun, fluffy, and slightly spicy romance read I needed in this current season! I seriously think once the folks over at Netflix finish all their "Bridgerton" adaptations, this book could be their next big project. Cause it reminded me of all the best parts of "Bridgerton" while going a step further and doing a lot of work to actualize what it would've been like to desire someone society deemed you couldn't have.
I thought Beth and Gwen's relationship was very nicely contrasted (and strengthened) by the necessity they saw in matchmaking their parents. I adored how it started out as a "parent trap" kind of situation that slowly but surely evolved into an affair of the girls' own. But Lord Havenfort and Lady Demeroven's tragic past and "will they, won't they" push and pull do so much for the plot. Even though they're technically the B plot romance, I absolutely loved their chemistry and was so invested in their happiness. Lady Demeroven's dramatic proposal in an epic, sweeping, joyful conclusion where all of the puzzle pieces for joint happiness fall together had me teary-eyed! Several moments in this novel had me seeing a bit blurry, like the multiple occasions Beth and Gwen think they're saying their final goodbyes, or Lady Demeroven's quiet admission to dealing with Lord Ashmond if it means that Beth and her will be provided for. 
Some of the side characters definitely got confused and mixed up in my mind (considering there's quite a lot of them milling about London society's balls and garden parties and teas), but I really enjoyed how they added to the scope of Beth and Gwen's world and society. It really got me thinking about how tiny a bubble London high society was, that the people living within it were confined to such limited roles and perceptions of how the world could operate, chiefly, who had to marry whom. By the end of this story, I was thoroughly convinced the Demerovens and Havenforts had found the perfect loophole and outcome for all of their happy endings without feeling like the writing took shallow or unbelievable shortcuts to get them there.
I also think the epilogue's setup for a second book in this matchmaking chronicle was clever and left me wanting to see how I could come to grow attached to James and Bobby as characters. 



One of my favorite quotes from Don't Want You Like a Best Friend:

"They lay them over their vanity chair. Such a simple action, but Beth feels like it speaks volumes. Their under things there, together, atop each other. They stand staring at the pile of their skirts, Beth can feel the brush of Gwen’s chemise against her own, close, but not close enough."