Category: Review Roundup

Review Round Up | Last Seen, The Proposal, and This Lie Will Kill You

Posted January 18, 2019 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I can’t believe this series is over… hopefully! The ending wasn’t exactly ambiguous but I suppose there’s always a chance Shepard continues the series multiple times a la Pretty Little Liars. Jokes aside, this was a REALLY strong end to this trilogy! The main issue I had throughout all of the books was that I was disconnected from the characters. I never warmed up to them or felt anything for them – didn’t care about the ships, was uninterested in any of their personal lives, etc. I’m not sure if, again, it’s because it was a mystery and I was on edge or not trusting anyone? But I just could never get on board with them. I think it’s an interesting twist when you know who the murderer/culprit is AND get to read from their point of view. Sometimes it can take a little bit of the fun out, but that was certainly not the case here. There were SO MANY twists and connections that were built throughout the whole trilogy that I never would have picked up on. Just because you knew the killer and what he was doing, definitely did not mean that you knew why he was doing it or how he picked his victims. […]

Holiday Reviews: Season of Wonder, Christmas on Mistletoe Lane, and It Started with Christmas

Posted December 24, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Story ASK ME HOW PUMPED I AM FOR NEW HAVEN POINT BOOKS! (Very excited, obviously.) I love this town. I heard a few mixed things about this main character and the story as a whole, but I knew the small town Haven Point feels would make up for a lot. The lead, Diana, has two girls – one bratty teenager and one adorable six-year-old, and she moved everyone to Haven Point to hopefully run the town’s veterinary practice. She can’t resist her cop neighbor and he seemingly can’t resist her either, especially as he helps the aforementioned annoying teen daughter make up for some mistakes. This one was a bit repetitive with Dani’s internal dialogue, going back and forth all the time. She was an okay lead character but a little too hard to get to know. She was closed off to everyone, including the reader. Ruben was amazing though; the scenes with him and her kids were adorable. Mia was the cutest and Silver was a bratty teen that got better with time. I also think the big “reveal” about her ex-husband wasn’t as bad as expected? Maybe that’s terrible to say given the nature of it, but still – they built it up quite a bit. I definitely missed the cameos here too… not as many as I’d hoped because Dani refused to become a part of the town. I hope the next book, if there is one, features more of actual Haven Point and its residents. Wintry Setting […]

Review Round Up | The Next Person You Meet in Heaven, The Towering Sky, and The Chase

Posted December 13, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I first read THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN when everyone else did and it took the country by storm. I liked the made-for-TV movie version too. My parents even read the book and they don’t read books like this ever (lol). I was pretty excited to see a sequel 15 years later because it’s been a long time since I’ve read any Mitch Albom book, and he is definitely an author I wasn’t sure would “hold up” for me now that my tastes have grown and changed over the years. This book was the best way to check him out again since it would feature some familiar faces AND involve my favorite concept to read about – how everyone is interconnected and one small decision could change everything, and impact everyone. This story is about Annie, the little girl that Eddie saved before dying in the first book. It takes you through her life, leading up to the wedding day that leads to her trip to heaven. She had a difficult life after the accident at the amusement park and finds herself making a lot of mistakes (in her mind at least). It was pretty interesting to follow along and learn about her, but I […]

Review Round Up | The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats & Piracy and Royals

Posted November 7, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE was a pleasant surprise for me – I can be hit or miss with historical fiction and it was overall a bit out of my comfort zone. I was optimistic about LADY’S GUIDE though because of how much I enjoyed Felicity in the previous book. Needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed here! Like the first book, it’s a bit looong. The audiobook made listening enjoyable throughout a month-long timeframe and it became one of those books where I’m not in the MOOD to listen to it, but I loved it while I was actually listening. This is exactly how I felt about GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE too. The audio narrator was solid and really brought Felicity to life. While Felicity is the main character, the other powerful ladies at the front of the story made a huge impact too. Joanna, Felicity’s childhood ex-friend, and Sim, the badass pirate, were so fun to get to know. They all wanted more for themselves and fought against the stereotypes or expectations of the time. I loved how everything ended for them too. Of course, meeting up with Monty and Percy again was wonderful. There were a lot of different parts or stages in this story, from Callum’s bakery to Joanna’s […]

Review Round Up | Evidence of the Affair, So Close to Being the Shit…, and My Lady’s Choosing

Posted October 18, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 1 Comment

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think I was one of the first people to hear about this short story. I randomly saw it when browsing on Amazon and was shocked that there was no information about it. I immediately preordered and read it within the first week it was out. I couldn’t wait for new TJR words and I’ll be honest – the short story length was needed in my monthly reading goal. As expected, my reaction was “holy shit.” I’ve never felt so moved by a short story before and it should really come as no surprise which author made me feel this way. There was a lot packed into these pages. I thought I saw where some parts were heading but still ended up surprised by the end. Leave it to TJR to write a novella only through letters and STILL make me feel all the things. I’m really not a short story person and I don’t hesitate to recommend this to other people who feel similarly. If you like her other novels, just give this one a read. I think the ending was close to perfect, which is usually my issue with short stories. The books never feel complete. […]

Review Round Up | Strange New World, One Was Lost, and In Other Lands

Posted September 19, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I loved the first book in this duo and was eagerly waiting for book two! It had a major cliffhanger (which I, OF COURSE, didn’t even mention what it was in my review so I couldn’t even remember what happened) that I was dying to see through. I picked up on what happened pretty quickly though, so all was well. This one was not quite as interesting as the first one IMO but that’s because it was just different overall? The first book followed Dahlia 16 as she tried to escape Lakeview and learn what was really going on beyond those walls. Once she found herself in the real world, reality hit her like a ton of bricks. I thought the life inside of Lakeview was fascinating with all of the clones, so I think that piece was more interesting overall. This book, on the other hand, had REALLY cool futuristic technology that was fun to unpack. I didn’t like the storyline as much with book two but it’s not like it was BAD. Just a bit different. For some reason this book also took me a looong time to read – I read the first one in just a few sittings at most. Dahlia 16 learns […]

Review Round Up | The Cottages on Silver Beach and Listen to Your Heart

Posted July 5, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! The Haven Point series is one of my favorites, set in the adorable town with the same name. My favorite thing about companion series in these small towns is that you meet up again with old characters, visit the same local spots, and really get to know everything there is to know. The latest installment of this series follows Megan, the owner of the Inn that we actually met at the VERY beginning of book one, when it had just burned down and Eliza moved to town. The love interest is Elliot Bailey, another member of the Bailey clan that we’ve encountered in recent stories as well. I loved the parts of the book involving the Inn, Haven Point, and the Helping Hands… but there wasn’t enough of that for me in this book. I missed the setting and characters too much because a fair amount was spent on the road and in Hope’s Crossing (another companion series setting that I’m currently working through). I generally liked Megan and Elliot but the back-and-forth and arguing annoyed me more than usual. Like many of the books in the series, the couple realizes that they love each other very quickly and then proceed to ignore it for most of […]

Review Round Up | The Complication and Sam & Isla’s Last Hurrah

Posted June 13, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 3 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I cannot believe this series is over, honestly. I have loved every single book almost as much as the previous. My average rating for all the books is somewhere between 4-4.5 stars because of how PERFECT they are. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when authors continue to add more books to a series to keep things going, I get nervous that they’ll just stretch things too much and ruin everything. That is 100000% not the case for the PROGRAM series. I have never read one of the six books and thought “this is too much and/or not needed.” The world keeps expanding and I keep gobbling them up. As another piece of intro before the actual review: I was in a big reading slump, mostly with physical copies. I’d pick up my Kindle and binge a book in 1-2 days, while whatever physical copy I had started reading would sit around for weeks. I knew that my library hold coming in would snap my slump for physical copies. One of the major threads that definitely came to a head in this book was the “morally gray” area of The Program and Adjustment doctors. Many of them genuinely thought they were helping, but they […]

Review Round Up | Not If I Save You First and A Court of Frost and Starlight

Posted May 18, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I’m a big fan of Ally Carter… clearly, if you look at all the reviews up at the top there. She writes some of the most fun and engaging “light mystery” kinds of books. I love all of them for different reasons. I was pretty excited to explore a standalone too! This was a first for her. The whole Alaskan survival thing didn’t exactly appeal to me but I can’t resist her stories, so I dove in soonafter it came out. I enjoyed Maddie and Logan, and the complexities of their relationship. I’m a huge fan of childhood-friends-to-more, especially if there’s hate-to-love involved. This checked off a lot of boxes for me in terms of tropes I love! There was a decent amount of build for their relationship and understanding where they both were coming from. I shipped them but not to OTP levels. The survival aspects were nicely done and not overkill, considering that I don’t love that genre/topic in general. The journey was really quick (the book itself is quite short and I listened to the audiobook, which was only around 6 hours). I think I would have liked a little more to the story? It was kind of simple, if that makes sense. I […]

Review Round Up | Infamous, The Chaos of Standing Still, and Sweet Southern Hearts

Posted April 18, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Let me do a little plug here about Scribd again (link gives us each a free month if you sign up!) – I was hoping this book would be added because some of the others were on there, but I kept checking and didn’t see anything yet. I went on Scribd late in the day on April 3rd (its release day!) and found it, when I was super in the mood to read it. I love that they have new releases THAT day! So overall, this was a pretty good series finale. I didn’t find it quite as captivating as other books in the trilogy (and honestly I’m probably rounding up my rating a bit because of how much I enjoyed the series overall). There have been a couple of book series that I liked but didn’t love, where I thought about it a lot in between books and highly anticipated each release, but they never blew me away. This is definitely one of those series. I never connected with any of the characters and wish this book had more recap in the beginning. I forgot SO much of what happened in the previous book and there aren’t any recaps anywhere, so I just tried to re-learn […]