Chase Connor's Book is a Mouthful

Sending Love Letters To Animals And Other Totally Normal Human Behaviours

See? Lengthy. And it's a mouthful in another way too - No, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter! (Sorry, bad joke - but if you read this blog, you're used to it. And if you don't - get on board now, please.)

Anyway, it's YA novel, so it's very chaste, but what I'm referring to is that he writes a lot about food. So if you like to be grounded in the world you're reading about by mouth-watering imagery of delicious things, and if you think you can get attached to a character that cares enough about decent meals that he'd consider starting a rebellion over substandard school lunches, then this book might just be for you.

Fair warning about a few things: I got an ARC copy for free (just in case you think that affects people's motivations), I don't do 'reviews' (there will be no star rating here), and if I don't like a book, I'm 1000% more likely to be quiet about it than tear it apart. So gird your expectations - there'll be no negativity here. (Or even nuance, honestly, because I just might not have it in me.)

Now! On to the part where I talk about why I liked it.

First of all, the humour. It's delightful, sweet, and endearingly present throughout the whole book. The tone of this is definitely joyful, and getting to laugh along with a bunch of high schoolers at the craziness of their lives is just fantastic. There are moments of seriousness as well, of course, but the majority of the time we're just engaging in wholesome goofiness, and I loved that.

The representation is also great - I won't go into it too much (you can just buy the book yourself and see) but there's a broad range of bodyweight, race and disability (and, of course, sexuality) represented in this book, and it's just kind of great to see that spread of real, different kinds of people.

Then there's the food. Now, my admission here is that I'm not much of a food person myself - I'm a 'fussy eater', (which I consider a slur, but I'm reclaiming it!) and food and I have always had a fairly adversarial relationship. 

But I've read an excellent blog post by Chase about how he uses food to ground and humanise his characters. I have to say that there's something to that idea, and the strength of it really shows in his work. So if you're also a food lover like he is, you'll probably find that to be an added bonus.

I've saved the best for last though, and this is always what will ultimately win me over with a book in the end - the characters. I love the characters - Ryan's great, his antagonistic-movie-recommendations situation with Davud is really sweet, and the teachers (Ms. Tabatabai and Mr. Melvin) are really colourful and amusing - just the kind of teachers you really wished you had in high school.

I can't say too much more - I'm bad with secrets, and if I keep talking about this I'll probably give the plot away, so I'll leave the blog post at this: It's a sweet book with interesting characters and a good story, and I'm glad I got to read it. If you'd like to find it on Amazon you can do that by clicking on the image below. 

(Would also be a good place to go if you'd like a clearer idea of what it's about - Mea Culpa, I'm lazy and did not provide a synopsis. Mysterious though, no? Aren't you just a little bit curious? Click it!)




Chase Connor describes himself as a 'multi-genre author, but always with a healthy dollop of gay.' (I know, that's all I really want from an author, too.)

He writes in various genres, including: 
Young Adult (coming-of-age, Fantasy), New Adult, M/M Romance, Paranormal Romance, Erotica, Lit Fic. 

If you'd like to see any of his other work, you can track it down through his website, by clicking the image below.




And that is that! I'm planning on doing this fairly often from now on - using a fair amount of these midweek posts to hype the book of someone I know from social media or my writing groups. 

Recommendations are most welcome, but I do have a limited budget. For that reason, people who send me their books for free are also in with a good chance, but I can promise very little in terms of timelines, unless we specifically arrange that.

Hope everyone's having a good week so far!

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