Tag: Genre: Romance

Book List 2017

Review: Same Love by Tony Correia

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Same Love

Title: Same Love

Author:  Tony Correia

Genre: YA LGBTQIA+

Warnings: Hate speech involving LGBTQIA+, Native Americans, Asians, women and other minority groups.

Silver Lining to Warnings: There are people, just like in the real world who do not stand for that bullshit.

Overall Rating: 

At seventeen, Adam has suspected for a while that he might be gay. His sketchbook has become full of images of good-looking men, and he isn’t attracted to any of the girls he knows. When he reveals his feelings to his devout parents, they send him to a Christian camp, warning him that there will be no room in their lives for a gay son. The last thing Adam expects is to meet someone he is deeply attracted to; unfortunately, Paul is more committed to his Christian faith than Adam is.

Adam tries to bury his attraction to Paul by concentrating on his art and his new friends Rhonda and Martin. When it becomes clear how unhappy Rhonda and Martin are at Camp Revelation, Adam and Paul are both forced to question what the church tells them about love. But with a whole camp full of people trying to get Adam to change who he is, what kind of chance do Adam and Paul have to find love and a life with each other?

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Book List 2016 · Reviews

Review: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

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Overall rating: ★★★

I would love to be one of those people who judges the main character for being vapid, silly and a little bit stupid but in all honesty I cannot because I, in a way, was that girl. Though I never harboured feelings for my sister’s bf. Partly because she’s 9 yrs older than me and partly because our tastes are so, so different.

This book is a long book, but yet a quick read. It’s easy to feel sympathy for Laura Jean, while bashing your head off your ereader wishing she would just learn how to be honest out loud instead of just in letter form.

There is no ending to this novel, so reader be warned you will want to own the sequel before reading this. That being said, let go of expectations and just let the words roll over you and realize that the best love you can have in life is that of your family, or at least that’s how this made me feel.

Book List 2016 · Reviews

Rapid Reviews: Stephanie Plum 7-9

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Overall rating: ★★★ and 1/2 

Rapid review 1: Seven Up by Janet Evanovich

This book is a quick fun read, and perhaps contains some of the menacing air of the first novel as Decooch is a sick old man. I loved the return of Mooner. Lula remains a disappointing almost racist caricature and there is no real character development.

Rapid review 2: Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich

This book returns to how ridiculous the Stephanie Plum novels to get, full of explosions and people dressed as rabbits. It’s tons of fun, and a really quick read. Though some people might be upset about the way relationships happen in this novel I kind of wish Stephanie would be single for a while.

Rapid review 3: Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich

This is a silly little Christmas story, which is just what I wanted it to be, and Diesel is definitely a new entertaining character though does Stephanie have to want every guy she meets? Control yourself girl.

Rapid review 4: To the Nines by Janet Evanovich

Stephanie is one of the worst bounty hunters ever with the worst luck. This book contained a little bit more of a menacing air, though I did enjoy that. Mystery abounded…until I figured out exactly whodunnit very quickly I enjoyed the characters and the plot of this, though again the way Lula is treated still annoys me.

Book List 2016 · Reviews

Review: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

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Overall Rating: ★★★

This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.

Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches.

Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . .

And yet, first impressions can be deceiving.

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30 Day Challenges

Book Challenge Day 2

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2. A book you’ve read more than 3 times.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I don’t remember the first time I read this book, I honestly don’t.  I just know that I’ve read it almost every year since. I don’t know if it’s because of the quality of the writing. Or if it’s because I’m so impressed that a female author, who by all accounts should not have been able to be published without a world of scorn not only did so but did so multiple times. I’ve also always found it interesting that this book came before Sense and Sensibility but that that book kind of (at least to me) became the rough draft for the conclusion of this one. Especially considering I’m not actually a huge fan of that novel, but simply love this one.

The characters are strong, and yes there are some issues from a feminist point of view, but I would like to think that this novel, and Lizzie was feminism in its earliest stages, a woman railing against what was expected of her, and doing what made her happy as opposed to what made her parents happy.

 

(Honorable mentions: The whole Harry Potter series, Little Women and The Eyre Affair)

Reviews

Review: The Waiting Game by J.L. Flynn

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the waiting gameI received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book isn’t perfect. Let’s start with that, but keep in mind that it was clearly written with love as you read it. And perhaps that’s what made me love it.

It delved into characters who had only been passing moments in the previous novel and novella. It was rich with emotion, and it was oh so enjoyable.

It evoked several emotions in me as I was reading, from apprehension in the beginning, as it didn’t quite grab me as the previous ones had, to excitement. Characters appeared who had been written about before and I rejoiced in the moments in which they joined this novel. There were moments where I nibbled on my thumb in worry, concerned for the characters though I already knew their end.

While not as fun as the previous two books, it is still good. After all, the tone of this novel could’t very well be a very happy one throughout, all things considered but the pacing and tone are wonderfully used to conduct the movements of the character and the threads of the story.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good romance, who likes happy and unhappy endings and just likes to be taken on a quick ride through someone else’s life.

Reviews

Review: The Short Game by J.L Flynn

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18680390**Received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

I tore through this novella like I was worried the words were going to disappear right off the page. I had wanted to learn more about Jimmy Boy after reading the first book and boy did I.

Here he become a more complex, fleshed out character with numerous flaws and an apparent heart of gold. It was such a quick, well paced read and filled with mystery.

It is the perfect bridge into the next book, I feel, which I really can’t wait to read because I have a feeling world’s will really collide.

The pacing was quick, as you would expect from a novella, but there is nothing lost in the brevity of this work at all. In fact, I think the fact that it’s so brief has in fact made it better because it really does leave the reader grasping for more and loving the characters.

Book List 2014 · Reviews

Quick Reviews

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Voyager by Diana Gabaldon ★★★★

This book was a little hard for me to get into at first, given the different setting in the beginning but I soon found myself once again falling down the veritable rabbit hole, nervous for the characters and enjoying every minute of it.

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon ★★★★

This book, the fourth in the series was definitely not hard for me to get into, as I slid right in and began reading (and sometimes researching) about the different locales, characters growth which is aplenty and enjoying the pleasure of being safely in this time while traveling through a time very different from our own. I was very sad to realize I was unable to yet get the next book in the series.

Must Love Otters by by Eliza Gordon ★★★
This book was very cute, and a fun, funny read. There were more than a few times I found myself laughing out loud at Hollie’s antics, and found myself falling a little bit for Ryan.

 

Book List 2014 · Reviews

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

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FangirlFangirl by Rainbow Rowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I feel like my life has been highjacked by an author and used for fictional purposes, and yet I am perfectly okay with that.

I read this novel in the span of two hours, with the knowledge that I was probably reading what will end up being my favourite book of 2014 and it’s only the beginning of the year. What does that mean for the rest of the time? I don’t know. I’ll find something.

I would like to preface this review by saying I absolutely, positively did not want to read this book at all. It was everywhere though and I couldn’t avoid it so finally I gave in.

After all a book about a girl who loves fan fiction and a fictional world so in tune with books I’d loved (possibly Harry Potter, possibly the Magicians) couldn’t even be that good could it?

I was wrong.

Cath is a very fulfilling and enriched character, with all of her flaws laid out before her and sadly it is in her that I see my own flaws. The ability to bury ones self in a fictional world to avoid what is going on around you is seen in this book. But the realization that the world around you might not be so bad is what makes this novel great. When she began to come out of her shell I felt a sense of pride.

This book is just awesome. It’s not masterful literature and might not be considered a classic by anyone who isn’t in a fandom but it’s fun, and it’s a fast read and altogether lovely.

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Book List 2014 · Reviews

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

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Eleanor and ParkEleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Eleanor and Park is a book so well written about how even in youth there is a sort of classist division which needs to be struck down.

I know I might be reading too much into it but I completely and utterly fell in love with this book and everything it stood for. The ability to see beyond what’s there and to find common ground no matter what we look like is something that I wish people were more aware of.

Eleanor is not the most likeable of characters, but seems mainly to be a victim of circumstance, and when circumstance dictates that she needs to change her life in some small way, or even in a large one she does and that is what is so great about this book.

Park is a character who evolves from someone who passes judgment to realizing that not all people are who they seem to be and that your life can change if you take one simple step.

In some ways this novel was reminiscent of a John Hughes film, in that the characters spoke in a way that people actually do and teenagers are not treated as anything but human beings who might not be fully developed yet.

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