BookAnon.com

For this blog tour, we're looking at one of the funniest Christmas romcoms I've ever encountered. For this blog tour, we're looking at

Solid Primer On The Concept Marred By Typical Academic Left Leaning Myopia. Quite simply, at roughly 38% documentation across just a 225 page or so text, this is one of the better doc

Starting Over. Yes, the title of my review and the title of this book are the same, because I want to emphasize just how well Bratt titled this p

Second Chance / "Glimpse" Type Tale Done Right. This is one of those second chance/ "glimpse" type tales ala the late 90s/ early

Scattered Tale Tries To Be Both RomCom And Women's Fiction. Straight up, I'm fully aware that this is one of those reviews where many will rate this book at 5* for the exact reason I'm deducting a star here (though as you'll see if you too peruse the reviews, at least some of my

Sometimes Life Just Breaks You. If you find yourself in this place, this is the kind of book you *need* to read. It will hurt. Yo

Quirky And Spicy. Straight up: If quirky books with a touch of magical realism/ off-the-beaten-path type vibes isn't really your thing... eh, you likely won't like

For this blog tour, we're looking at . For this blog tour, we're looking at The Talk Of Coyote Canyon by Brenda Novak.

Here's what I had to say on the review sites (TheStoryGraph, BookHype, Goodreads):

Down Syndrome Kid Steals Show. First, about the title of this review - as an Autistic, I *despise* so-called "person first" language, because it doesn't actually put the person first. It claims that a person whose so-called "disability" is integral to their very personhood and way they live instead could simply discard it as easily as changing their hair color, among other easily changed things a person is described as "with". Bullshit. Such an ability permeates the person thoroughly, and directly influences how the person perceives - and thus processes and expresses their thoughts and feelings about - literally everything around them.

Thus, the Down Syndrome character himself- and the brilliant and very human way Novak shows him - is actually one of the better features of this particular tale, one that I've seen no other reviewer discuss thus far, even though this character is a major motivator for our hero of this book. Of note, other than mentioning the Down Syndrome near the time the character is first introduced, it is rarely if ever mentioned again - to the point that I actually had to go back and search the book to verify the actual description initially used for the character as I began to write this review. And this is *exactly* what one would expect in a small town where everyone knows everyone - by the time of our story here, everyone in town is already well aware of this kid and his condition, so why bother repeating it?

As to the romance itself, other than the fact that both of our leads are well drillers - presumably a rarity for a female in particular, and not exactly a profession many in suburbia and/ or the Eastern US are familiar with - ... eh, fairly standard slow burn enemies to lovers type tale, with a lot of complications due to varying family and small town dynamics. As usually happens, particularly within the enemies to lovers space. (And no, this is no Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet was teen angst gone murderous, with a remarkably high body count for such a short overall tale. Here, our leads are not exactly "old and wisened", but they're also well away from teen angst... even if they've never actually resolved some very big issues from earlier in their lives (yet).

And yes, the ending here was a bit abrupt. Did Novak realize she was at her target word/ page count and simply rush the ending, rather than fill it out a bit more completely as the story seemed to demand here? Who knows. But it absolutely felt rushed and even a bit lackadaisical. Certainly, Novak has proven with other books - in

For this blog tour, we're looking at one of the few books in the last few years that I can honestly say I read in a single sitting. For this blog tour, we're looking at The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor.

Here's what I had to say on the review sites (TheStoryGraph, BookHype,

Not A Christmas Book. Admittedly, I saw "Caesar" and the release date and for some reason thought this had... anything at all to do with Christmas. To be clear, it does not. Just in case anyone else was somehow thinking it mi