Down the Rabbit Hole

Space is the last thing an event planner and an astronaut need in this charming new romantic comedy from New York Timesbestselling author Samantha Young.

When event planner Hallie Goodman receives party-inspiration material from the bride of her latest wedding project, the last thing she expects to find in the files are digital videos from Darcy’s ex-boyfriend. Hallie knows it’s wrong to keep watching these personal videos, but this guy is cute, funny, and an astronaut on the International Space Station to boot. She’s only human. And it’s not long until she starts sending e-mails and video diaries to his discontinued NASA address. Since they’re bouncing back, there’s no way anyone will ever be able to see them…right?

Christopher Ortiz is readjusting to life on earth and being constantly in the shadow of his deceased older brother. When a friend from NASA’s IT department forwards him the e-mails and video messages Hallie has sent, he can’t help but notice how much her sense of humor and pink hair make his heart race.

Separated by screens, Hallie and Chris are falling in love with each other, one transmission at a time. But can they make their star-crossed romance work when they each learn the other’s baggage?

Overall Recommendation:

A Cosmic Kind of Love shot me straight into space from the start with its cute romance and interesting protagonists. Hallie is an empathetic character and Chris has such interesting points of view (sometimes literally from above in space). The pacing and plot started off so well but felt by the 75% mark to be longer than necessary. The romance is definitely still worth reading, but it wasn’t the 5-star reading I anticipated.

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discussion

Let’s Talk Bookish – Gatekeeping in the Book Community

November 18, 2022 Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Aria @ Book Nook Bits will be the new host for Let’s Talk Bookish! If you aren’t following her yet, good check out her blog and give her a follow!

November 18: Gatekeeping in the Book Community (Nicole @ Thoughts Stained With Ink)

Prompts: Are there times where you have noticed gatekeeping in the book blogging community? What about in the publishing industry as a whole? What does this gatekeeping look like? How can we combat this?

Welcome to another week of LTB here at DTRH everyone! Today’s topic is very interesting, as I haven’t really thought about it. I’ll try and parse out some of my ideas here, but I’m certainly no expert. I’d love to see what you guys have to say on this!

I haven’t really noticed any gatekeeping in particular in the blogging community. People do tend to read the books mainly that are hyped or popular within the community and provide their own thoughts on it. I certainly wouldn’t call that gatekeeping though, as I have seen people express their real opinions on books despite their popularity (and I have done the same here as well). I do wonder if there are books that bloggers don’t mention though, because they’re not as well-known in the community. I just post about whatever I read, but I can definitely tell when books are popular or not even by the responses.

The public industry as a whole definitely gatekeeps. I don’t have specific examples and I don’t really see it, but I just know that it happens. There are certainly ideas and perhaps types of tropes, etc., that never make it past the editors/publishers, and there is some sort of censorship or gatekeeping happening here. They do have the monopoly on everything, so it does make sense that this would happen.

Gatekeeping can look like a lot of things. But it’s usually an individual or a group of individuals (a community) expressing the same opinion to keep something suppressed. So an obvious example would be people who call audiobooks not real reading. These kinds of sentiments are generally unproductive and tend to alienate another class of people. I haven’t seen this too much in our community actually, I feel like we are generally a welcoming bunch, and most “bad” reviews I read always have a hint of optimism or at least include that it may have just been due to personal taste.

Being more open-minded and more careful in how we express our opinions can be a way to make sure this doesn’t happen as easily within the community. As for the publishers and other big corporations doing it, it may be a bit more difficult to challenge. It’s okay to share your opinions, but it should almost never be done in a way to alienate or put down others, when it is really just a pure opinion. A little more compassion can go a long way I think!

3 star, YA

Review: Nothing More to Tell by Karen M. McManus

November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

From the internationally bestselling author of Netflix’s hottest new show, One of Us is Lying, comes a new, page-turning thriller . . .

True crime can leave a false trail.

Four years ago, Brynn left Saint Ambrose School following the shocking murder of her favourite teacher. The case was never solved, but she’s sure that the three kids who found Mr. Larkin’s body know more than they’re telling, especially her ex-best friend Tripp Talbot. He’s definitely hiding something.

When Brynn gets an internship working on a popular true-crime show, she decides to investigate what really happened that day in the woods. But the further she dives into the past, the more secrets she finds.

Four years ago someone got away with murder. Now it’s time to uncover the truth . . .

Overall Recommendation:

Nothing More to Tell is a solid enough standalone mystery – if you haven’t read any of Karen M. McManus’ other stories. The mystery itself was intriguing (death of a teacher *gasp*) but the pacing felt a little off as we focused more on Brynn and Tripp’s history and individual struggles. There was also nothing particularly outstanding about either protagonist. Ultimately, this is a fine mystery to read, relatively, but one that unfortunately is not super memorable.

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