Format: eBook

Holiday Book Buddies: Bittersweet

Posted December 18, 2017 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 5 Comments

Cristina and I are teaming up for our seasonal Book Buddies read! This time, we chose BITTERSWEET by Sarah Ockler. I wanted to keep up with my usual holiday review theme for the month but we obviously have a little something more for you at the bottom! As usual, don’t forget to check out Cristina’s post too! Story I’ve had mixed experiences with Sarah Ockler so far. I loved one and felt so-so about another. This book unfortunately falls more into that second category, but I definitely enjoyed it a bit more. The diner setting was a lot of fun; I always love books that take place in restaurants of some kind (like some classic Dessens). Hudson, in addition to figure skating again, bakes insanely delicious-sounding cupcakes for the diner too. Each chapter started off with a little description about one of the cupcakes and it made me so hungry. I loved her brother and their relationship. Her mom expected a lot from her but I didn’t find it overly unreasonable, especially because Hudson kept her in the dark about everything going on in her life. I enjoyed the friendships she developed with the hockey boys but hated how she treated Dani. Hudson was a selfish character with a few goals she had laser focus on, so it was hard to like her at times. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels I wasn’t expecting full-on holiday feels for this one because it doesn’t allude to that in the synopsis, but it […]

Holiday Reviews: My New Crush Gave to Me and Winter Solstice

Posted December 15, 2017 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

Story I was really hoping for something cute and Christmassy, which I got in some ways. Unfortunately I spent most of the book incredibly frustrated by the clueless yet often bitchy and domineering main character. I like predictable holiday stories because they’re comforting but there was literally no surprise for any element of the plot. By a quarter of the way through the book, I knew every detail about how it was going to end. The side characters were fun and nice people who definitely put up with Charlie FAR longer than I would have. Her best friend was too understanding but it helped that there wasn’t a best-friend-fight subplot. The general storyline is that she is determined (with absolutely no actual evidence) that Teo is the perfect boyfriend for her, so she stops at nothing to make this happen… and I mean nothing. She refuses to see any kind of sign that maybe he’s not the right guy for her and ignores the compelling evidence that perhaps someone else is. I definitely wanted to give her a swift kick in the ass 99% of the time, which doesn’t make for the most fun holiday read. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The book took place in Connecticut, which I love, but they didn’t really make it a point to reference that too much. The main character has (in the past) loved Christmas and she celebrates pretty hard with her mom when she’s not working. (I literally can’t even remember if […]

Review Round Up | Kissing Max Holden and Follow Me

Posted December 4, 2017 / 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! My sister lent me her copy and has been bugging me for MONTHS about reading it. I can’t say that I blame her now that I’ve finished it. What a wonderful contemporary I didn’t know I needed! I had just went through a binge of mysteries and other non-contemporaries when I decided I should give this one a try. It ended up being so perfect that I read it in one sitting and stayed up until 3 AM to finish. I would call this fluff, but it’s a liiiittle more serious that fluff often implies. There is a LOT going on, family-wise, in this book. I absolutely hated her dad the entire time I was reading and was hoping she would tell him off at some point. The familial relationships were incredibly complex, both for Max and Jill. Max’s dad was recovering from a stroke that changed their relationship and, as I mentioned, Jill’s dad was basically a dickhead. I loved seeing her relationship with her stepmom grow throughout the book too. The romance was solid. I love childhood friends/neighbors-to-more SO much, because you can just feel the history bubbling into something new. They had a solid base to build a real (romantic) relationship and it showed […]

Review Round Up | Crazy Little Thing Called Love and The Becoming of Noah Shaw

Posted November 27, 2017 / 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 either buy an ebook on sale and never read it, or read it within the first couple weeks of buying it. There’s no in-between. In this case, I’m very glad I hopped on reading CLTCL because it was completely delightful. The book starts on Christmas, has a big Christmas scene/section in the middle, and ends on Christmas as well. It was a nice unexpected “first holiday read” of the year, but could definitely be read in any season. Leila has gone on a “man ban” and started running a successful blog for other single women, which then moves into events, retreats, and presentations, all while balancing her landscape design job. When her brother gets married three months into her celibacy promise, she meets his new brother-in-law, Nick… and her man ban is all downhill from there! I really loved the couple of Leila and Nick, even though they had a number of obstacles to overcome in their journey. Leila was definitely a spunky main character and I just loved their chemistry together. The ending got a bit wild and absurd, but I really liked it. I think it actually was fairly reasonable based on how the characters’ personalities were. The reader really gets to know everyone […]

Review Round Up | There’s Someone Inside Your House and The Fifth Letter

Posted November 2, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 5 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! Unlike many other readers before me, I was really happy to find out that this book was more of a contemporary mixed with horror. I don’t do horror – even in October – but knew I needed to read this book because of its author. Anyways, I agree with everyone else that said basically not to go into this expecting an actual horror novel. There’s a lot of romance with a bit of killing thrown in throughout. The premise is that a serial killer starts attacking high school students in a small Nebraskan town. I can’t really say too much more on that end, except that the typical hysteria starts spreading throughout. Not a lot really stuck out about the characters or even the romance. Makari and Ollie were cute enough and liked them together. They definitely found plenty of time to fool around even though their classmates were dropping like flies, but I guess there’s not much else to do when a killer is on the loose and no one has school to keep them busy? Her whole backstory wasn’t that interesting… even though it was built up throughout to be this big surprising reveal. Her friends, Alex and Darby, seemed to be okay friends? I […]

Series Review: Mara Dyer Trilogy

Posted October 25, 2017 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

As you know, I love to binge a good series when I can. It takes a lot for me to really keep engaged and read “the same thing” back-to-back like this… So when I do it, you know it’s worth it! I was definitely late to the party on this one and have no one to blame but myself. I love getting addicted to a world and seeing what happens post-cliffhanger in the next book. That was definitely the case for the Mara Dyer trilogy. I had put off reading these books for a while because they seemed a little… not Lauren-y? I like books about memory loss and the aftereffects, but this series seemed to weird and creepy for me. The plot summary gave almost no information and I really didn’t know if this was a mystery or paranormal series. Turns out, it’s a bit of both. Goodreads shelving can spoil you on that, so sorry if you didn’t know! Here are some mini reviews: This book caught me so off-guard. We chose it for book club and I was happy to finally read this series, since it’s been on my TBR foreeeever. I found myself incredibly addicted right off the bat. I was intrigued by the memory loss concept and honestly didn’t know what to expect genre-wise. It seemed like a big ol’ mindfuck… and that’s kind of exactly what happened. I was hoping to read a little bit before bed and absolutely could not stop reading no […]

Review Round Up | Ringer, The Broken World, and Turtles All the Way Down

Posted October 19, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 8 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 cool thing about this series is that there are multiple ways you could read it. You can read one girl’s story all the way through and then read the second girl’s, or you could alternate back and forth to create a dual POV. I can’t help but compare this experience to REPLICA. In that book, I was equally interested in both Gemma and Lyra’s stories as I was reading them. I liked reading Gemma’s all the way through and then learning Lyra’s after to see how they connected. I could see how reading the book that way OR alternating back and forth would both work. I wish I could say the same about RINGER. I wasn’t a huge fan of this one. Gemma’s story, which I read first, was somewhat boring and not as shocking as I thought it would be. I wish I read Lyra’s chapters in between because I think that method actually would be better for RINGER. Lyra’s story was generally more interesting than Gemma’s and would have provided some extra context in between, plus balance out the boring parts. SO if you’re curious about what it would be like with both reading experiences for this series, I recommend trying REPLICA with all […]

Review Round Up | One of Us is Lying, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, and Always

Posted September 25, 2017 / 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 was REALLY excited for this book for a long time, so I immediately put in a library hold for it. The physical copy was taking forever so I ended up requesting the ebook from there. I put my TBR on hold and dove right in. My memory is terrible with books, so I was happy when Carrie and I started chatting via DM about the book while we both read (that way I have some record of my initial thoughts and reactions!). I kind of suspected everyone and no one at the same time. I didn’t initially think any of the characters were capable of murder, even though McManus gave us plenty of red herrings for just about all of them. They each had suspicious excuses for that day, on top of dirty laundry they were trying to cover up. The more I read, the more I KNEW none of them did it. It just wasn’t possible. I developed a few theories but, as you know, I’m really bad about predicting murderers/mystery things. I genuinely loved all of the characters in this one. They had the stereotypical qualities of different types of high school students, but still felt real and unique to me. Bronwyn was the […]

Review Round Up | Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Love & Gelato, and Finding It

Posted September 22, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 backlist books I’ve read or listened to recently. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I had high expectations for this one since I’m a huge fan of Morgan Matson. I still need to read quite a few of her books and honestly wondered if I’d ever actually read AMY & ROGER. I love books about road trips and people who go on them together falling for each other, so it was actually right up my alley. I think I was afraid I’d be disappointed somehow. Yet again, my excellent book club was there to rescue me and force me to read things. Amy is dealing with the loss of her father when she embarks on a road trip with Roger, planned by her mom. They decide to take an ~epic detour~ to take care of business and sight see across the country. Her family has been in shambles since her dad died, with her mom moving to Connecticut (and making Amy move as well) and her brother in rehab in North Carolina. The story involves some really fun elements, like playlists, scrapbook pages, and other things they grabbed along the road. It was a nice touch for sure! The serious and sad elements were woven nicely throughout the story, between flashbacks and Amy finally opening up a little bit. I loved the different places that they decided to adventure to! […]

Review Round Up | The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service and Ten

Posted September 14, 2017 / 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! I absolutely loved the last series I read from Beth Kendrick, and was a pretty big fan of one of her standalones as well. It took me a while to figure out what book to read that had an animal name in it for the Reading Quest, but I was happy to remember THE LUCKY DOG MATCHMAKING SERVICE as a light summery contemporary. I found the audio on Hoopla for the few days I was commuting into work recently and finished up with the physical copy afterwards. Anyways, this book was pretty good. It’s perfect for a dog-lover. And by dog-lover, I mean someone dog-obsessed. That person is not really me. I like them enough, but (don’t judge me) animals aren’t my thing as much as other people. I was frequently frustrated with Lara’s attitude about the dogs, their behavior, and her ex. I don’t know how I always come across adult contemps where the parents are basically like toddlers and the main character gives into their every whim, or falls for their traps. Her mom was so irritating and clearly didn’t care about bonding with her daughter. Her dad was the type of person who would fly into her life and then fly out whenever he wanted, […]