Hello, readers. This week we finish our reading of Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Oblivion, the ending of which you hopefully don’t lose as much sleep as Ariel and I did trying to comprehend. As you might know, we’re returning to the world of Sylvia Day’s Crossfire to fill our erotic romance shoes (they are not practical shoes) with, Captivated By You, the fourth book in the series that even the fans seem to kind of despise, given how the conversation on Goodreads is dominated by how the book’s release took a whole year and a half. The poor souls.
But we have a decision to make. We’ve spent quite a while reading a terrible, padded novel about an abusive relationship. Should we dive right into another one? And there’s the upcoming mid-February release of that thing to consider (we have… plans…). Should we wait? Could we all use a palate cleanser?
So we want to hear your voice. What should we do?
Option One: Dive right into Captivated By You
We could do that.
Option Two: Take a break with a new series, Sweet Valley High
We could briefly dive into the new-for-us, beloved-for-others world of Sweet Valley High before starting the new Crossfire. Ariel and I could regale you with the tales of identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield in Sweet Valley, California. It will be all “Oh, that Elizabeth is so popular!” and “Oh, that Jessica is such a bad girl in contrast to her identical twin!” It’ll be great. I have no idea what these books are about.
Option Three: Take a break with a new series, Bailey School Kids
We could sojourn into a supernatural series of stories! Stories with weirdly exclusionary titles, in retrospect.
That’s kind of Zombie-racist, book.
It’s a series of children’s books that Ariel remembers! I totally don’t remember these and thought she was talking about something else. I’m goddamned useless. But we could read a book from this series, which includes entries such as Vampires Don’t Wear Polka Dots, Aliens Don’t Wear Braces, and the definitely phoning it in by this point Witches Don’t Do Backflips. Who says witches don’t do backflips? What kind of non-witch gymnast sociocultural institutions are in place at Bailey School?
Option Four: Return to Magic Tree House
We could return to the adventures of Jack and Annie, who are surprisingly incompetent even for little children. We saw them almost get eaten alive by dinosaurs when they first discovered the time and space-traveling magic tree house. We could see them go on some other incredibly ill-advised adventure.
Why. Why would you do this.
So. What’s it gonna be? Make your vote now! If you have suggestions for specific books in any of the series, leave them below!
