I read a bunch of books again and then procrastinated on writing my reviews. Oops! I blame it on the fact I am taking 9 units of classes (3 classes) this summer, and they are all simultaneous & it is only a 6-week long session. Am I also in the middle of 6 (at least) books? Yes. Does this mean I am either going to have to be better at writing my reviews on time or make another round up? YEP! LETS DO THIS!
Love Out Loud (Animal Attraction #3) by Marissa Clarke
Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
Here we have a story about a very shy vet who has been nominated for an award for her service to the community, meaning she needs to speak at a banquet, and wants to do nothing less. We also have a public speaking coach who believes that shy people just need to try harder, and also is afraid of dogs. Throw them together and we have the romance book Love Out Loud. Fiona, our Vet with two dogs she takes everywhere, and Jake, our Public Speaking Coach who makes bets about how many successful clients he has, not only live in the same building but have an attraction to each other that is hard to overcome when he doesn’t like dogs (her deal breaker) and she is a client (his deal breaker). This book follows his work training her to be able to present at her award ceremony, and her teaching him that animals are great. It is a cute book, an easy read, and while it is listed as book 3, it is definitely able to be read as a standalone.
Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
This book was a lot of fun to read – and was a much needed escape at the time. This book follows Nora as she regains control of her life after a divorce, while raising two young kids, in a small town where everyone is kind of in everyone else’s business. Add to it, she is a scriptwriter and just sold an amazing screenplay about her life & divorce, where part of it will be filmed at her house, which is very different from her traditional Hallmark movie-esq scripts. This would already fuel the fire of the small town if there wasn’t the additional bonus of the leading man deciding to pay Nora to let him live with her for a few weeks after the shoot wraps because he is going through a crisis. Nora then has to balance her day-to-day care of household and children, feelings towards a very attractive actor who is going through it, and figuring out what to do about the bond it seems he is forming with her children who feel their father abandoned them. AND work on her next big script so she can keep paying the bills.
It was such a nice, realistic book to read, and I absolutely adored all of the very direct hits to Hallmark movie tropes. It comments on the reasons we read and watch these predictable romances without making you feel guilty about them, and it made me laugh out loud & smile. I will definitely need to see what else Annabel has written, because if it is anything like this, I think I would definitely enjoy it. Pick this book up, it is a good time.
As Seen On TV by Meredith Schorr
Thank you to NetGalley and Forever Grand Central Publishing for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
I really wanted to love this book. I had been recommended this book by some other reviewers who said it was amazing, and so I scooped it when I had the chance, especially with the description. Hallmark movie meets Gilmore Girls, a rom-com of a city girl trying to find romance in a small town, learning that things are not always what they seem? Everything sounded like what I would enjoy. Plus Jewish rep? Yep, sign me up. Unfortunately it fell a bit flat for me. Because I am a bit worried it is going to be a spoiler, please be warned that the following paragraph is potentially a spoiler for the book.
I found the main character grating, and I just kept finding myself annoyed with the main love interest. The small town as a whole ended up being the villain, and the main character got to learn the love that was NYC where she grew up. There was so much miscommunication in this book that could have been solved so easily if people spent more than five seconds second guessing each other, and if the MC wasn’t just assuming things about people based on tv tropes.
I think my issue with this book is that I wanted it to be something that it wasn’t, and I went into it with a pre-conceived notion about what it would be, especially after having just finished reading a different book with some of the same tropes. That is not the author’s fault at all, and I know this is going to be a book a lot of people will love – it just wasn’t for me. 2.5/5
Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean
Plain and simple – I adored this book. It was Princess Diaries meets Japan/Japanese culture and I just couldn’t put it down. It was everything I was hoping it would be and then some. It discussed feelings of not fitting in, both in high school but on a cultural level, wanting to know who you are and where you come from, and feelings of love & betrayal. It was great living vicariously through Izumi’s experiences going to Japan for the first time, learning about the culture and falling in love, and I appreciated how the conflict didn’t give me so much anxiety (or second-hand embarrassment) that I wanted to stop reading, which has definitely happened before. As soon as I finished this book I couldn’t wait to start book two and see how Izzy continued to grow, finding herself and learning who she is as a person in these two cultures & identities.
Mansplainer (Last Man Standing #3) by Avery Flynn
Thank you to NetGalley, Grey’s Promotions, and Entangled Publishing for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
Why does this series have to be done now?! I adored this series so so much, and this book was no exception. I got my copy on Friday, started late Friday, and was finished slightly after midnight on Saturday (so technically Sunday). Less than 24 hours and that was with me trying to take as much time as possible. Avery is an amazing writer and I just devour every book I read by her.
This book follows Nash, the final Beckett in the Last Man Standing bet, the one who proposed the bet, and the one who thinks that he will win no matter what. Also the biggest mansplainer everyone knows (meaning he cannot help but tell people things that they just do not want to know because he thinks he knows better than they do – regardless if he is right). His counterpart in this book is Chelle Finch, an older woman (!!!) in charge of a non-profit (!!!) and is not a twig (!!!), who needs to get married in order to save her position due to a condition in her fathers will that is incredibly backwards & sexist. Which means we have a marriage of convenience, and therefore Nash thinks he is safe from falling in love. Cue the laughter from the reader because Chelle is AMAZING. I mean her cat is named Sir Hiss and her pugs are Groucho Barks & Mary Puppins – I fell in love with her immediately.
This book explains Nash’s mainsplaining (meaning where the roots of it come from), discusses Chelle’s insecurities, has the other Becketts reemerge (are those the honks of an attack duck I hear?), and end on such a happy note. I was so pleased with how this book ended the series, even though they technically can all be read as standalones, it was nice reading them in “order” with this one being the last. Though I must say, there was a bit of a teaser of a potential continuation series about some other Becketts? If there is any chance of that, this is my formal petition for that to be the case, please and thank you.
I needed this book when it came to me – it brought me laughs and warmed my heart. It was a great escape for a few hours and I want to enjoy the series all over again. 5/5
Ride with Me by Lucy Keating
Thank you to NetGalley and Clarion Books for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
A meet-cute via car accident puts these two together on the ride of a lifetime.
Let me set the scene: First you have Charlie who wants nothing more than to get out of her small town, ideally by going to help her favorite home renovator with architecture design, as that is her life passion. Then you have Andre, who wants the exact opposite – for everything to stay the same, to not leave their city, and for the perfection that is his life to continue.
The amount of growth the two show is realistic and adorable. It is an easy book to read but it draws you in & doesn’t let you go. The characters are realistically flawed, and the ending isn’t tied up with a neat little bow the way many YA romcom’s do – not to say this doesn’t have a HEA/HFN, but there is realism to this that there isn’t in lots of other books. I really enjoyed this and I hope to read other books by Lucy Keating soon!
Gild (The Plated Prisoner #1) by Raven Kennedy
TLDR review – this book is not for me. Too many trigger warnings that I should have heeded, and I should remember that generally when things are this hyped I don’t like them. This book is clearly for other people, and that is okay.
Long version review: Oh boy where to start. I read this because of a book box subscription group I am in, and everyone was recommending it to each other. Plus a special edition was coming out, so people were hyped. Add to it, the concept sounded super interesting – King Midas reimagined? Sure, that sounded super novel and I was here for it. But I was not here for it.
The trigger warnings/things to be aware of in this book I want to point out, some of which I knew about but some of which I didn’t realize to the full extent were there, because oh boy, if I knew some of them I definitely wouldn’t have read it: harem, attempted rape (multiple times), sexual assault, violence, murder, torture, language – both foul and derogatory, explicit sex, emotional/psychological abuse, and there are probably some more that I can’t think of right now. I understand that with certain mythology some of these tropes are common, but I did not need to read this book, regardless of how hyped it was, because I was very, very unsettled by things. Spoilery examples: all of the royal concubines are referred to as royal saddles because they are “ridden” and the gold-touched main character has multiple people throughout the book say things along the line of wanting to “fuck her golden cunt” both of which are just unnecessarily vulgar in my mind.
I am slightly disappointed I will not be able to continue this series. The concept sounded really interesting and I haven’t seen anything else like it. However, I was way too put-off by too much of the book for me to be able to continue. I understand that this is an adult series, and I am so happy that so many people love it, but it really just wasn’t for me. I did enjoy some of the scenes but overall I could not deal with this book and really had to force myself to finish it. 1.5/5