RATING: 2/5 GENRE: Romance, Small Town TROPE: Second Chance Romance SPICE: NA "Falling in Line" by Kasey Stockton delves into the intricacies of small-town romance, capturing the essence of southern charm and the complexities of familial bonds. At the heart of the narrative is June, a character grappling with her past and the fear of repeating it. June's decision to leave Arcardia Creek, stemmed from a deep-seated fear of abandonment, mirroring her mother's departure years earlier. Ironically, her departure echoed the very act she sought to avoid, leaving her father and fiancé, Tucker, behind. As June's father undergoes knee surgery, she finds herself compelled to return to her hometown after four years away. Back in the familiar embrace of her town, June's journey unfolds as she confronts her past and reconciles with her loved ones. Her return not only reignites her relationship with her father but also sparks a rekindling of feelings with Tucker, her ex-fiancé. As June navigates the intricacies of love and forgiveness, she rediscovers the profound connection she shares with her hometown, ultimately finding solace and a sense of belonging in the place she once feared to call home. While "Falling in Line" captures the small-town romance essence, I found the narrator for Tucker's to be quite awful. His voice felt forced and dry, making it hard to connect with his character. Additionally, while the novel portrays the charm of a small southern town, I felt the innocence portrayed was overly saccharine. I wished for more depth in character interactions and dialogue befitting adults, as the novel fell short in this aspect for me. *** I received this book as a gift from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***
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RATING : 4.5/5
SPICE: 2/5 GENRE: Romance, Plus Size, Sports TROPE: Fake Dating, Friends-to-Lovers, Virgin Trope I want to start off by saying that I am someone who is picky and critical when it comes to the books I read, and more so when it comes to the tropes. That’s why this book was has a 5-Star rating for me, as it has done something that no book has managed to do for me: Change my opinion on a trope. Firstly, I couldn’t put this book down. I have been eyeing this title for a while because it has a lot of the elements I look for when trying to decide what to add to my TBR. Romance? Check. Plus size Romance? Check. And I have been recently dabbling my hand in the Sports Romance genre and this book fit the bill. Especially after the Superbowl! Perfect read. Trixie (MC) and Chris (LI) have been friends for a long time and when Trixie is faced with a few Mean Girls who peaked in High School, she lies and tells them that in fact she and Chris are dating. Let the FAKE DATING scheme commence! Now, back to my VIRGINITY TROPE comment, please note below there are some MILD spoilers. Trixie hasn’t had it hard because she a plus size gal and men “don’t desire” plus size babes. That is what most of the books I have encountered with the plus size characters and the virginity trope imply. In this case, the reason for Trixie being a virgin so long is that her mom was a porn star. The novel explains that due to the over-sexualization of her mother, she often came across guys who would overly sexualize her in association to her mom. For example, she had a long time boyfriend, and when they were at the moment to have sex for the first time he suggested they put on porn FEATURING HER MOM! What are are men?!?!?! Honestly though, its something I can picture a man suggesting. It made it so real and the explanation super understandable… I also enjoyed how her loosing her virginity wasn’t a huge planned out magical spectacle. I won’t describe it here because… it was HOT. *** I received this book as a gift from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review***
RATING: 5/5 SPICE: 1/5 GENRE: Romance, Bad Boy x Good Girl, BiPoc I absolutely loved Roommates by Ola Tundun. It did not follow conventional American style romances. Honestly, it was so refreshing. Ariella leaves her childhood best friend-turned fiancé one day without warning. Just packs up and leaves him without explanation; leaving the picture perfect life we are all told as women to aspire to. She had it; but there was something not quite right. She moves in with Caleb, the fuck-boy at her office who happens to have a room available. When I read the synopsis of this book, and began reading it, I thought I knew how the story would progress; how the characters would act, and maybe all the circumstances that brought them together. This was not the case and I was not only extremely surprised but pleased. This novel exhibited complex human emotions, like loving someone deeply but knowing that love is not enough to move a relationship forward, and complicated familial ties. When most authors write romances where the characters begin “as friends” we never really see the foundations of the friendship actually being built. Often characters are “friends first” but within the narration you see that someone is usually already pinning for the other. In this case, you can truly see the characters feelings gradually change and blossom. They actually challenge each other in meaningful ways. Romance, love, family… none of these things are perfect and while we often see them come together in that perfect idealistic way, Tundun has written a story where these things come together in a realistic way. The emotions, the characters, they all felt so real. If you aren’t afraid of a slow budding romance, so slow that even the characters themselves almost don’t realize that they are falling, I highly recommend you pick up this book. Roommates by Ola Tundun is officially in the running for one of my favourite books of 2023! *** I received this book as a gift from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*** GENRE: Romance, Holiday, Novella RATING: 4/5
This is my second read by Melissa Ferguson (FAMOUS FOR A LIVING) and this novella was really cute and a nice little intro to the holiday season. I know were still deep into spooky season, but this was gifted to me by NetGalley and I had to read it ASAP. So this novella has two stories: Dashing Through the Snow and Pining for You. I absolutely LOVED DTTS. It was Christmas-ey and fun and really creative and original. If this was the only story in this novella, I’d have given this novella 5 stars. It was perfect and actually got me excited for the holiday season (YES! before Spooky Season is even over! I know. Shocking!) The second story was not as fulfilling for me. The biggest issue for me wasn’t even the story itself but that the “snow theme” was not very present; at least not enough for me to feel like “Snowy Serendipity” to be a valid title. Overall I would have given this a 3 star. Finally, I just wanted to note that this was gifted to my as an audiobook, and I did not enjoy the narrator at all. It felt super flat and often times I would have to go back and relisten to entire chapters because their voice was so blah that I would loose focus on the story. Overall good read if youre looking for something light for the holiday season, but i do not recommend the audiobook. *** I received this book as a gift from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*** GENRE: Romance, Paranormal RATING: 2/5 TW: SU*C*DE This novel was tough to rate if i am being quite honest. It started off really solid. I liked Jillian a lot. She was nerdy and she was a writer and she was falling for a ghost (Danny). Really cool premise. There were quite a few issues with this novel, and are the reason I will not be recommending this read. Firstly, there is sort of this allusion to her being plus size. She’s always talking about herself being curvy and honestly even the way she talks about herself, you think… maybe just maybe I am getting some representation here… but that is not the case. Even on the cover she is thin, not even curvy one bit and the novel never really gives a direct answer but more a few hints. That in itself was not a good enough reason for me to give the novel such a poor rating - i know, but just wait. Jillian is also VERY two dimensional… all she talks about is Star Trek. Seriously, I am a Star Wars, Disney and Marvel girly (including tattoos) and I have OTHER INTERESTS TOO! She was way too simple. I am honestly just baffled that this was published… Also… She refers to herself as a “Trekker” when most people call themselves “Trekkie”. It really pulled me out of the book as someone who grew up in the comic book/sci-fi universe. This is me being nitpicky because this book got on my nerves already. Before I really get into the hate rant, I did want to mention something I really liked about this novel before I hate on it. I absolutely loved the storyline about Jillian and Michael. It was probably the most real and the most beautiful part of the novel. Jillian looses her best friend Michael to suicide… and how this has affected her is just wow. That aspect was so beautifully written it almost feels like this should have been the primary story of the novel. Not the ghost romance. The emotions were raw and real and relatable. I really felt and understood Jillian here… but only in that instance. SPOILERS AHEAD So at first they think that Daniel is dead. Which makes a lot of sense because he is a ghost. Then when Daniel’s ghost disappears and Jillian sees him IRL she thinks maybe its him dying in the future and his ghost coming into the past? So here is where they start to loose me. Now science wise suuuuure maybe but even in how the dialogue is presented between Jillian and her Science bestie it is soooo farfetched (even for a paranormal type story) its like they didn’t even try to make it make sense. Now at this point Daniel doesn’t recognize Jillian or the times they spent together (or the ghost sex because… yeah there was ghost sex) because it technically hasn’t happened yet (?). So, like the rational person she is because she “knows him” and “loves him” she starts disrespecting his boundaries and STALKING him like that is a totally normal and justifiable thing because “she fell for him when he was a ghost”. Oh not part of the main plot or anything, but two co-workers who have never dated, kissed or fucked get married on a whim at the end of the novel and it really just made the whole dumpster fire of a novel so goddamn worst. Avoid this book. You’re welcome. RECEIVED THIS BOOK FOR FREE ON NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW
GENRE: Romance, Enemies-to-Lovers, Forced Proximity RATING: 4/5 I absolutely loved this. I read this in basically two days and COULD NOT stop. The writing was great. I am adding Bethany Turner to my list of good writers. It starts off with Brynn fucking up royally on live TV and having to go back to her home town to fix up her image. There she meets Sebastian, an ex-journalist who moved to this small town to start his life over. Needless to say, they DO NOT get along. But throughout the week, they begin to see each other for who they are and… swoooon. I am a sucker for enemies to lovers and forced proximity tropes. This is a well paced book and even has some really interesting commentary on daughters with bad relationships with their moms, which I very much appreciated. The writing is very current with a lot of pop-culture references too. There are also moments of vulnerability, which were so relatable because I have been there… wondering if you said something that it ruined everything, even a slight movement… This was such a fun read with great banter. I recommend you pick it up ASAP! (well not this second because it's only out September 1st) RECEIVED THIS BOOK FOR FREE ON NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW RATING: DNF’d at 70% GENRE: Paranormal, Witchy, Romance I did not enjoy this book at all. The premise was simple, woman in her 30s down in the dumps inherits a house from a distant aunt. BUT when I picked up with book, I had JUST finished “Back in the Burbs” by Tracy Wolff and I assumed that since this series was paranormal and witchy, that it would be way more entertaining with a magical twist. It was not. How can a similar premise with magic be worst than the one without? I don’t know, but this book manages to do it. It was boring and the magic was mundane. An overall YAWN fest. I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FOR FREE ON NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW GENRE: Summer, Romance, Spice RATING: 4/5 SPICE: 3.5/5 So, I want to start off by saying that I came into this book very negatively. By this I mean, I already had a preconceived notion of my opinions of Elle Kennedy’s writing because I absolutely LOATHED “The Deal” - specifically how the novel addresses SA and being supper abrasive with the language. Someone who has experienced SA would not be so BLANTANT in the language and would not forget to add a trigger warning at the beginning of the novel… that being said… THE SUMMER GIRL was an amazing read. It really changed my opinion of Kennedy as a writer and I am now going to be more open to her works in the future. While there were a few ICKs at the beginning of the novel (namely Cassie basically admitting to excusing Tate’s repulsive/pervy behaviour because he is attractive). SIDE NOTE: This book comes out tomorrow (JULY 18, 2023) and I think that it may have been a better option not to use the name TATE for our love interest… no matter what happened all I could picture was Andrew Tate (barf!) As the novel progresses, you forget the unfortunate fact of his name, and his shitty behaviour at the beginning of the novel because Tate becomes overall a very great and fun love interest. Without giving spoilers here are some aspects of the novel I loved:
If you need something fun and romantic and quick to read this summer, you should definitely pick up THE SUMMER GIRL by ELLE KENNEDY. ***I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FOR FREE ON NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW*** GENRE: Retelling, Greek Myth, Female Lead RATING: 4/5 This is a very solid Greek myth retelling. If you are someone who enjoyed Circe and Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, then Atalanta is definitely a great pick for you. I have to say, as far as placing this novel, I would say I preferred it over Circe but it did not hit the same way Song of Achilles did for me. All three have very similar writing styles and tones (which is expected in Greek myth retelling). The reason that Atalanta is just so exceptional compared to Circe, is that she is very relatable. She realizes through her story that she does not need to fit the definition of “HERO” that is attributed to men. She learns that she can fight and find challenges in her name rather than “the name of others”. It would be fair to call this a feminist or female empowering retelling of Atalanta. *** I RECEIVED THIS NOVEL FROM NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW*** GENRE: Romance, LGBTQ+, YA, Plus-Size RATING: 5/5 I absolutely loved this book. It was so well written and it was really perfect in regards to representation. THE DOs & DONUTS of LOVE has plus-size representation, LGBTQ+ representation and POC representation. Not only that, but this issues around fatphobia and racism in a way that doesn’t preach or pull out from the story. I could not put this one down. The novel address how food is so important and culturally significant. It touches on the idea that not eating food that was prepared for you was an insult but on the other hand being demonized and ridiculed and shamed for then for existing in a bigger body. How do you want me to eat but also be thin? I do love the fact that Shireen’s (MC) parents aren’t like that and love her regardless of her body; but it doesn’t change the fact that she experiences fatphobia. This novel also addresses a lot of racial issues without it being preachy or out of place in the story. Sometimes, when authors want to address racism in a novel, they have these monologues or parts of the story that do not really fit the rest of the tone or the story, just to say that they included discourse on race (this may not be the case but it can feel this way at times). Within the context of the characters and the novel, the discourse meshes in perfectly. It is great if you are someone who wants to lean about the discourse. If you love “British Bake Off”, Love Triangles, puns and donuts, I recommend you picking up this book ***I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*** |
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