Susan’s Book Blog

⏳ Coming Soon ⏳ ARC reviews of two new queer YA books: Unexpecting by Jen Bailey and  Darkhearts by James L. Sutter 🔜 🔜 🔜 Synopsis: Benjamin Morrison is about to start junior year of high school and while his family is challenging, he is pretty content with his life, with his two best friends, and being a part of the robotics club. Until an experiment at science camp has completely unexpected consequences: a baby. After he came out, Ben and his mother never expected him to be raising a baby as a single dad, but together they come up with a plan to fight for his rights and prepare him for fatherhood. As the weight of his decision weighs down on him, Ben struggles to keep up with school, friends, family, and a budding romance. Unexpected is categorized as YA (13-18) and is scheduled to be released by Wednesday Books on 8/22/23.  🔜 🔜 🔜 Perfect for fans of  Red, White, & Royal Blue  and  Perks of Being a Wallflower ,  Darkhearts  is a hilario...

  Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo  // 5 💀 out of 5 // I picked this book up just to read the first couple pages, with no intention of continuing because I had an ARC to read next but this had me before the first chapter was even over. There was no putting it down and coming back to it later. I HAD to keep going, ARC be damned.  I am Janice from Friends right now: OH  👐🏼  MY  👐🏼  GAWD  👐🏼      I feel like there is no way anything I say can do justice to what’s in this book. I’m not even sure I have all that many coherent thoughts, just a series of feelings that I’m struggling to articulate.  I was so impressed with how immersive this book felt. It’s hugely experiential.    Mandelo’s descriptions make heavy use of sensory information, with lines like “the cold sank straight through the gagging constriction of his throat to the cavern of his chest, grasping at him from the inside out” and “Andrew… [stood] in the wash o...

Now that the book is one day away from being released, it’s time to unveil my pop-ified versions of four of its characters. Let me know what you think! Below are the mock-ups I made depicting how I wanted them to look and the excerpts from the book that I based them on. I think they actually turned out quite similar to my plans. I'm very happy with them. I think Arek could be improved upon a bit but honestly I found a very good deal on one particular pop that I was considering using for his body so I couldn't pass it up. It had his brown boots and his big sword, after all. ;) Occasionally I get questions about how I made them or which pops I used so here are the mock-ups again with each individual Funko Pop that I used to construct each character. (I'll be posting a step-by-step photo tutorial on how I make them soon, for those interested.)     So what do you think? Yay? Nay? For me, these are especially fun to do because you can create your own vision of the characters. Th...

We all have our favorite books and series and characters, and one of mine is the Simon Snow series by Rainbow Rowell. It’s a trilogy she just finished up last year and it’s been remarkably popular since the very first book. It’s funny and touching and magical. I’ve gathered my entire Carry On collection for a family portrait for an IG hashtag challenge and thought I’d share the pics here as well. Rowell’s publisher has done something very clever with these books and that is to publish (and REpublish) them with different covers, in special exclusive limited editions, and with new added bonus content. So OF COURSE WE KEEP BUYING THEM. Or at least I do. (We’re not made of money out here, Rainbow.)  I’ve been very lucky that I’ve been able to preorder or find for resale the Waterstones versions with the beautiful floral sprayed edges that mimic Baz’s suit he wore on the cover of Wayward Son. Those are hands down my absolute favorites. They are my BAYBEEZ.  I’ve even been able to l...

Okay, you guys, I need you to listen up because this book I’m about to talk about is AMAZING and it deserves attention and I haven’t heard a lot of word of mouth going around about it and it should be getting A LOT more love than it is.  Icebreaker is a wonderful, queer YA hockey romance that deserves all the love. I discovered it via NetGalley, gave it a try based on the premise, and was so glad I did because it was amazing. The romance is wonderful, the hockey is exciting and accurately portrayed, and the writing is fantastic. More importantly, the book delves into several serious topics and themes. This is Graziadei’s first book but it definitely won’t be their last. Check it out and give it some love! (GoodReads review below.) Pub Date: January 18, 2022 Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. I LOVED this!! I was excited to dive into this one and I enjoyed it even more than I expected to. I’ve been itching to read more hockey romances (Taylor Fitzpatrick is the gold standard, imo, and h...