December to March Book Roundup

[unicornduke]

Abruptly, my brain decided about two weeks ago that original fiction was okay again after five months of beaming a full blast of fanfiction directly into my eyeballs so that's nice. Some of my DNF were in those five months, so I may swing back and try some of them again

Read

• Beware of Chicken by Casualfarmer - incredibly fun story, 10/10 so delightful and weird. library audiobook definitely recommended since Travis Baldree is a great narrator
• The Game of Courts by Victoria Goddard - short story in the HOTE world. purchased ebook
• The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu - martial arts fantasy, delightful and amusing, lots of drama but it is over the top dramatic drama. library ebook
• Beware of Chicken Book 2 by Casualfarmer - fun, very good, expanding cast of characters is delightful. library audiobook
• Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree - light hearted, good little read. library ebook
• The Will of the Many by James Islington - magical pyramid power sharing scheme in ye olde fantasy rome gets really really dramatic, lots of people die, the protag is very angry, interesting ending to set up the second book. library ebook
• Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman -the premise is terrible and the book is aware of it, things get very weird. Very dnd. library ebook
• Carl's Doomsdat Scenario by Matt Dinniman - second in the series, more things happen , much drama. library ebook
• Like Real People Do by xiaq/EL Massey - technically this is Check Please fanfiction, but it has been removed from AO3 and is actually published now as two short books. I read the downloaded fanfic version and got the second book out of the library to see how different it was. Not very different at all. Xiaq is currently posting the most recent book in the series on AO3, so highly recommend checking there for updates and then once it's complete, she updates on when it will be taken down so you have time to download. Current book is absolute feral transguy/hockey dude romance that is eating my brain, it's so good
• Free From Falling by EL Massey - now this one is very different from the fanfic version, so much so that I only realized I had actually read it when I was halfway through. But basically, two young hockey players fall in love, lots of stuff happens. It's very sweet. Definitely diverges from the Check Please fanfic it sprouted from. Library ebook
• All Hail the Underdogs by EL Massey - really really liked this romance. hockey player falls in love with rockstar. there's a ranch and horses involved. It's extremely sweet and very realistic. Kinda melancholy but in a good way. library ebook - going to get it out again and reread. 
• Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove - literary monsters on a spaceship - premise seems weird but it is excellent. library ebook

Notable fanfics

• The Snake Prince and The King's Goose by Castillon02 and greedy_dancer - there are curses and it is so funny. This is delightfully weird nonsense, it's perfect. 
• (when you just can't seem) to shake the weight of living by WingedQuill - Witchers are forced to stay on the path and this fic hurts so good and there's a happy ending. So good! 
• give me sharper teeth by Anonymous - A/B/O Heated Rivalry - hear me out - Ilya is trans and it is such a good exploration of it and also the author cites academic papers in the end note. 

Reread

• A Sorceress Comes to Call by T Kingfisher - it's good. it's good! library ebook

DNF

• Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle - don't love the mass death/body horror/horror horror - library ebook
• The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis - don't remember this at all, might try again - library ebook
• Everybody wants to rule the world but me by Django Wexler - I liked the first one, second one the protag caught feelings but in a useless way, I might try again but we'll see. library ebook