Phoenix: Love in Los Angeles | 
pickHoly crap, y‘all. I don‘t even know where to start.
PHOENIX is full of grief and processing and rebirth. (Also regular birth.) It‘s INTENSE, but it‘s heavily rooted in the relationships McRae and Maltese established in the earlier books, so don‘t start here. You need to KNOW these characters before you can exalt in how they figure themselves and each other out.
I‘ll never be over Alex‘s shifting view of Victor, in particular. DAMN.
4.5 stars
Y‘all, I can‘t cram PHOENIX into my brain fast enough. Being a slower reader sucks.
In related news, I decided to do #24b42020 for an excuse to read lots and lots. Between yesterday and today, I‘m at 9:31.
#bookreport time! Last week I:
• read and loved DOVES by McRae & Maltese
• read a big chunk of PHOENIX; enough that I might finish it today
• finished rereading THE RAVEN BOYS on audio ❤️
• made a good start on THE DREAM THIEVES on audio ❤️
• read and enjoyed all three volumes of TO YOUR ETERNITY pictured above
• read and loved THE REMAKING OF CORBIN WALE by Roan Parrish
pickFinally finished this afternoon; it‘s been a long few days. This was not as visceral as Doves, but much more quiet even in its chaos. This is, above all, a story about grief: how it affects us, public vs. private displays, and the ways it can ripple forever into the lives of those left behind.
I love Phoenix for that quietness, and for the ways that it respects the complexities of mourning.
Oh, this. So much this. It‘s essentially this series encapsulated in a single phrase, but also so much of life, isn‘t it? Not just between lovers, but between friends.
There‘s a lot that I‘ve wanted to post about Phoenix, but when I say that this is the least spoiler-y thing in the nearly 40% that I‘ve read so far, I‘m not exaggerating. Because anything else would ruin the main thread of this book. So instead you get Paul and Alex talking science and babies. And equating the process to ice skating.
