Something Spectacular (Something Fabulous)

The thing that Alexis Hall manages, the thing I most admire, is how beautifully his/their characters navigate complex emotion without it ever falling back on making a plot point. It feels real to me and makes me care, a lot. That's a superpower. Something Fabulous was a wild ride. Something Spectacular is a thought-filled ride, with one or two wild bits. It's sweet and funny and thoughtful, and with the kind of sex scenes I actually read, they're so pretty, so intensely personal to the characters. I cannot wait for book 3.

An absolutely spectacular sequel to the first book, this one revolves around Peggy, the perhaps one sensible person from Something Fabulous. Peggy is in love with Arabella and struggles with her own sexual identity. When Belle sends her to woo the latest musical sensation, Orfeo, in her place, she finds that she wants Orfeo for herself. Orfeo is a castrato who is attracted to Peggy but warns her that their musical career is the most essential thing in their life. It's a lovely story about two NB people who find each other. My one caveat is that I wish I had gotten more of Orfeo's POV. It would have helped me to understand his actions at the end of the book. This is a great book, very funny at times, and I think steamier than Hall's other books, which felt appropriate for the story. The other characters, both old and new, are wonderful and add a lot to the story, though I join my voice to other reviewers who want Sir Horley to get his own book.

As a 76 year old baby boomer and as one who always prided herself as an open-minded individual, I must admit I have been struggling to understand the current crisis over perceived sexuality. Now I FINALLY understand nonbinary. I have struggled past the barrier of confusion to recognize hearts, thoughts, feelings, compassion, sensivity and humanity -- all those recognizable traits existing as simply on this side of the man-made (and steadily weakening) barrier as they do on the other side. We are all flesh and bone, hearts and brains -- and love honors no barriers. Thanks for this book. It was a gift.

I enjoyed revisiting the characters I came to know in Something Fabulous, and this was the most enjoyable part of the book for me: seeing the now secondary characters carrying on in their lives. As for the stars of this novel… well, Peggy was fine, but I really kept hoping she would wake up and realize she deserved someone better than Orfeo. They didn’t treat her well through 90% of the book, and while I understand they had their own trauma to work through and growing up to do, that doesn’t excuse treating someone the way they treated Peggy. Also, the modern day euphemisms and language and ideas just felt old to me in this book. They were fine in the first one but by the time this second book ended, they felt tired and worn out and used up. While this story lacks the ridiculousness and over-the-topness of the first book and arguably had the better/more realistic(?) plot line, I think the fact that the plot of the first one was so ridiculously over-the-top that the language and euphemisms worked better there than they did here. That was more of a parody than this one and this one just tried too hard to capture the whimsy of the first one and fell short. Also, the excessive everyone-clearly-wants-an-orgy-at-the-drop-of-a-hat energy felt gratuitous. I mean, I didn’t hate the book… I enjoyed it fine, but this doesn’t inspire me to want to carry on with the series, either.

This was my first Alexis Hall book, but it certainly won’t be my last. Simply a delight from start to finish. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at a novel. Imagine the humor of Douglas Adams, Christopher Moore, or Terry Pratchett, but applied to a fabulously queer regency romance. This was also the only book I’ve ever found where two non-binary people fall in love, and I’d love to see that pairing become more popular.