111 ratings | 98 reviews | avg rating:4.44

R.L.’s Year In Books

R.L.’s 2025 Year in Books

Take a look at R.L.’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.

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2026 Reading Challenge

2026

READING

CHALLENGE

R.L. has read 4 of 50 books.

R.L. Nguyen

Goodreads Author

Born

The United States

Website

https://rlnguyenauthor.com/

Genre

Fantasy, Gothic

Influences

C.S. Lewis, Alexandre Dumas, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joan He,
Alix E. Harro ...more

Member Since

December 2020

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As the child of Vietnamese immigrant parents, I found my place to belong in fictional worlds. Now, I forge my own fantastical safe havens where survivors of hard things can heal, dream, and fight for a better future. When I'm not crafting hopeful endings for my imaginary friends I'm reading Homer without footnotes, munching on bánh mì sandwiches, and trying to teach my dogs to talk. They’ll figure it out eventually. I believe in them.

A quick note on my review policy:

5 stars means it absolutely knocked my socks off!

4 stars means I had a great time reading it, and any quibbles weren't dealbreakers.

If I leave stars off, it probably means that I'm either still ruminating, haven't had time to leave a review, or the book wasn't quite my cup of ...more

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Combine Editions
R.L. Nguyen’s books

Average rating: 4.72 · 58 ratings · 41 reviews · 3 distinct works

	Voices of the Future: Stories of Bravery & Belonging by Alayna Niblack, Annika Crum, Caroline Guajardo 4.76 avg rating — 34 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tails, Scales, & Tiaras by Meghan Kleinschmidt (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Rachel Lawrence (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Andrea Renae (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.80 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 2024 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Legendary: Havok Season Ten by Andrew Winch (Editor, Contributor), Jim Doran (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), P.J. Benjamin (Contributor) 4.44 avg rating — 9 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

R.L. is Currently Reading

R.L. is currently reading

Mexican Gothic

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

read in May 2025

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R.L. said: " WOW. This one lived up to the hype and then some.

Moreno-Garcia is a master storyteller; I'm genuinely in awe. I have no idea how she created a unified storyline out of themes that range from loneliness to complex family dynamics to colonialism to ab WOW. This one lived up to the hype and then some.

Moreno-Garcia is a master storyteller; I'm genuinely in awe. I have no idea how she created a unified storyline out of themes that range from loneliness to complex family dynamics to colonialism to abuse to eugenics, but she did it. I was swept up the entire way—despite having it as an audiobook and not being able to squeeze chapters in as easily, I never wanted to put it down. Cue looking for boring chores to do so I could have an excuse to listen to it 😂 The plot's a glorious slow burn, where it's easy to forget at some points that very little actually happened—the emotional weight of everything lands just right. And when the action ramps up, it's big and dramatic. Everything one would expect from a gothic novel.

The characters were definitely the standout of Mexican Gothic for me, though. Noemí isn't the most endearing protagonist, but she has a magnetic quality that's impossible to look away from. Francis and Catalina are precious—beautiful, redemptive spots of light against a lot of darkness. Because darkness there is aplenty...I haven't loathed a set of fictional villains this viscerally in a long, long time. Howard and Virgil are obvious ones to hate, but Florence in particular made me want to scream—I think because her delight in her role as a woman facilitating the abuse of other women was so palpable.

Speaking of which, Moreno-Garcia captured the dynamics around cults and other forms of abuse SO well. So much so that it could be distressing to someone who's experienced those things, so definite heads-up for that. Mexican Gothic does offer redemption and catharsis, but it's probably not a book to read without being prepared.

The prose is fairly simple, at times a bit more on-the-nose than I personally prefer, but the storytelling is so riveting that it didn't stick out to me as much as it normally would.

Absolutely incredible—Moreno-Garcia deserves all the laurels she's received for this book and I can't wait to dive into her other work.

4.5 stars rounded up!

Content advisory: Racism; eugenics; emotional/psychological/verbal abuse; sexual abuse, harrassment, and attempted assault (perpetrator tries multiple times to make the victim think she was asking for it, but she's clearly portrayed as not at fault); a couple of explicit scenes; discussion of incest; physical abuse; pseudo-religious cult; several mildly gruesome scenes; hallucinations and other psychological issues; seizures; strong language, including several f-words; lots of death and discussions of death. ...more "

May 08, 2025 10:04PM · see review

R.L. is currently reading

Graceless Heart (The Spellbound History, #1)

by Isabel Ibañez (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 17, 2026 05:56PM

R.L. is currently reading

The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1)

by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 13, 2026 03:47PM

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R.L.’s Recent Updates

R.L. started reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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R.L. wants to read Mixed Marriage: Class, Religion, Race, and Nation in England, 1837-1939 by Ginger S. Frost	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 23, 2026 11:44PM · like
R.L. wants to read Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage, and the Victorian British Empire (Oxford Historical Monographs) by Damon Ieremia Salesa	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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R.L. wants to read The Gods Will Sing Our Song by Autumn Krause (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 23, 2026 09:46PM · like
R.L. wants to read The Place Between Our Pains: A Memoir of What Joy Can Survive by K.J. Ramsey	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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R.L. wants to read I Belong to Me: A Survivor’s Guide to Recovery and Hope after Religious Trauma by Tia Levings (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 23, 2026 08:22PM · like
R.L. wants to read If Looks Could Kill by Julie Berry (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 19, 2026 08:31AM · 1 like · like
R.L. started reading Graceless Heart (The Spellbound History, #1) by Isabel Ibañez (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 17, 2026 05:56PM · 2 likes · like
R.L. started reading The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1) by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 13, 2026 03:47PM · like
R.L. rated a book it was amazing The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This broke my heart, but not in the way I expected. Moreno-Garcia is a master storyteller. Every viewpoint (and there are a LOT) was compelling—even the awful characters—but I especially loved Vera. Her story's going to stick with me for a long time. ...more
Jan 11, 2026 07:50PM · 3 likes · like · see review

More of R.L.'s books…

R.L.’s Quotes

“—a place where thought can take its shape as quietly in the mind as water in a pitcher...”
― Wendell Berry, Openings: Poems

tags: american-poetry, poetry

0 likes

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
― Benjamin Franklin

tags: learning, mentoring, parenting, teacher

3430 likes

“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.”
― Benjamin Franklin

tags: growth, new-year

588 likes

“When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

6 likes

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves