#i am SUCH a nonfiction enjoyer these days it's annoying. i miss fantasy books i wish i knew how to find another deepgate

[nerice]

🌙 loot drop // 2025 reading shelf LFG

★ a history of the world in 100 objects by neil macgregor (what it says on the tin. stories abt old relics to modern inventions) ★ anime: a history by jonathan clements (last year's revised edition w new chapters on 21st century market shifts nd trends :3) ★ anti-story: an anthology of experimental fiction edited by philip stevick (niche creative writing content i like weird things) ★ design your own anime and manga characters by tb choi (lighter fare for studies than drawing form & pose which i recc to everybody but could murder a man) ★ fly by night by frances hardinge (i feel like elise sleeper agented this into my list years ago. excited to find out why) ★ i contain multitudes by ed yong (microbiology nerd shit) ★ lapsing into a comma by bill walsh (impeccable title. more writer nerd shit abt grammar and punctuation rules and violations) ★ leviathan wakes by james s.a. corey (the expanse source novels!!) ★ the elements of eloquence by mark forsyth (literary devices enjoyer gang) ★ the monstrumologist by rick yancey (body horror. high hopes) ★ the poppy war by r.f. kuang (long recc'd to me cn historical fiction) ★ understanding english-german contrasts by ekkehard könig & volker gast (translation nerd shit from my master classes) ★ why nations fail by daron acemoğlu & james a. robinson (famous acclaimed etc. finally reading it)

[proud-to-be-bookish]

Goodreads Summary:

When Olivia Villalobos finds a bloodstained love letter she endeavors to deliver it before Chief Inspector Sedeño finds it in her possession. A city along the southern coast of Puerto Rico emerges in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Olivia, daughter of a drunkard police investigator who never knew the truth behind her mother’s disappearance, finds a bloodstained love letter in the hidden compartment of her father’s coat. Convinced it belonged to the man recently found dead she sets out to deliver it to the Labyrinth of Love Letters. A mysterious place believed to be an urban legend where the transients of forbidden love leave missives for one another. She enlists the help of Isaac Quintero to find the Labyrinth and they soon realize their quest has opened the door into Old Sienna’s darkest secrets—the perils, madness and depth of tragic love

My Review :

First of all , I want to tell you that this review was wrote by me who use English as my second language

3 / 5 Stars of The Last Valentine by Felix Alexander

I scrolled through my twitter timeline for my next reading books recommendation a few weeks ago. And I stumbled upon this intriguing mystery novel by an indie author, Felix Alexander. If you follow me, you must know that I am a hopeless romance reader to the core. But for the past 8 months I extended my area of reading including nonfiction, classic, memoir, mystery and other genres (you can look at my other reviews to get a better idea). That’s why when I read The Last Valentine’s synopsis, I got the vibe this novel would help me make my scope of reading all more richer.

The story is set in Old Sienna, Puerto Rico in 1935. I knew next to nothing about Old Sienna and thus the premise became all the more intriguing. I ended up googling and gathering all sorts of pictures and information on Old Sienna, Puerto Rico, 1935 just to help myself get immerged within the story.

The story started off with a murder case and the chief police inspector found love letters as the only leading evidence. Unfortunately, he lost that piece of evidence and this is where the story grows more intense and more puzzles to introduced which are later solved. Truthfully, I was so mesmerized by the story during 26% progress of my reading because I desired to know what happened and how this case was linked to every character.

This book brought up very fascinating topics about love and marriage up and how things were in 1935. The purpose of marriage was to form alliances and secure family’s future, not the notion of love. This situation made unequal social layer where love even if it was true love was categorized as forbidden love.

The author’s writing style is almost lyrical, melodic and rich in vocabulary. The writing enhanced the beauty of these stories including the vivid sceneries that the author managed to paint within this novel with words alone. I cannot seem to make up my mind with the conclusion if The Last Valentine is a mystery novel with romance as an adding ingredient or vice versa even after I finished the book.  

“The day waits for the sunrise and the night waits for sunset. This is how I wait for you, without regard for time, because I know you will return to me when you are ready”

“The longing in a stolen glance, the confession lingering on his lips, and the agony of unfulfilled desire swirling in his heart, like a breeze on a deserted mountainside. At that moment, he realized another shared his pain.”

“Love is the only memory one never loses, because even if one loses his mind the memory always remains in the heart”

Other facts that I love from this book are every characters who stand out in their own beautiful uniqueness. Each of them has their own insight about love based on their own history. They all oblivious to the fact that all those loves eventually link them together. There was one mythical character that I was oh so fond of.  Every time he showed up even for only a couple of scene, it got me in creepy but curios mode. I won’t give you any spoilers or hints, but this character somehow managed to not only develop the story’s mystery and romance side of things but another genre hmmm… fantasy maybe? Hehehe

Now the big question, why did I gave 3 stars?

First, I did praise the author in his rich vocabulary but English is my second language, it impacted enjoyment of the overall story and at times pulled me out of the story completely. There times where I literally had to stop myself from reaching for a dictionary in order to get better understanding. Every time I stumbled upon words which I hadn’t heard before, I had to open the dictionary only to resume reading a couple of line back to understand the whole thing.  Furthermore, this book has less conversation, and most of the story is written in wordy paragraphs. Some of the paragraphs have grammatical error and missing punctuations. So yeah, I hope you can imagine why this problem definitely slowed me down and annoyed me a lot because I could not fully take pleasure in reading The Last Valentine. Second, the slow pace of the story kind of interfered with my reading. I told in the first paragraph above that I enjoyed The Last Valentine during 26% progress (I realized that the beginning had been far more fast paced) and after that the story slowed considerably though the ending really got me in the feels. I had thought I knew the direction the novel was heading managed at 78% of reading though I never expected the coming ending we got.

Overall, my instinct was right.  This book made from reading richer not only in scope of genre matters but also in vocabulary. Thanks to Mr. Felix Alexander. I found poem on a whole new level.  I still recommend this book to you guys who are not having any difficulty in English though.  I do believe you will enjoy it even read it in just one sitting :)