Sometimes, you just need some fluff. Fluff about a super nerdy PhD-holding dude and Alpha werewolf lady. I think this one is going to have similar amounts of interpersonal drama as the last one.
Not that long ago, Barnes and Noble was having a sale on teen books, buy 2 for $20, basically you get one for free. I kept seeing To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before pop up on my Tumblr dashboard that I decided to check it out. Contemporary Fiction and Romance are not my usual go to reads but I do dabble in it from time to time and since both it and it’s sequel, P.S. I love You were apart of the sale, I decided to just go on get them both. If they are as good as Tumblr insists then I should read them, right? Tumblr would never steer me wrong. Tumblr did introduce me to Rainbow Rowell after all. It was a wise decision because once I finished the first, I had to read the second. Actually, I read the sequel in one day, it was good. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still I Love are both delightful. True they are not really groundbreaking, besides it centers on a Korean American teenage girl but it’s sweet, kind and lovely. Lara Jean is the middle Song sister. Her older sister, Margot is about to go to College in Scotland and her younger sister Kitty is well a firecracker. Their mother died unexpectedly when they were little so it’s just been the girls and their dad. Margot has been their surrogate mother the last couple of years but with her going it’s now Lara Jean turn. Lara Jean is a romantic in true sense of the word. She is sixteen and is about to start her junior year in high school. She’s never had a boyfriend but she’s been in love before. More accurately she’s had crushes, five of them and she wrote all five letters and hid them in her hat box. One day she finds out that her letters that were never meant to be seen were mailed out to the boys she loved before and well this is a problem. One of those goes to Josh, Margot’s boyfriend that she just broke up with and Lara Jean had a crush on before they had started dating and those feelings for him start to return. Another one went to Peter a former friend from Middle School that was her first kiss and her ex-best friend, Genevieve’s recent ex-boyfriend. Lara Jean and Peter decide to fake a relationship to save face with Josh and to make Genevieve jealous. Of course in true Rom-Com fashion they end up falling in love for real and things get messy.
In the sequel, Peter and Lara Jean decide to date for real and well it’s not as simple as it once was. Old insecurities come up and when another recipient of Lara Jean’s letters shows up it complicates things even more. John Ambrose McClaren was also apart of Lara Jean’s middle school group of friends until he moved away. Lara Jean goes from a reserved girl, who lived in her sister shadows to a more confident girl who knows what she wants but a lot happens for her to get there. First she has to get over this idea that she is not worthy. Peter is the golden boy. He’s the boy that every girl in high school wants to be with and Genevieve is the beautiful blonde girl that you would expect to be with the golden boy. Lara Jean is not popular or in the “in crowd”. She constantly compares herself and her relationship to Genevieve to the point her jealously and insecurities take over. It’s something that all of us have dealt with from time to time. This is Lara Jean’s first relationship and she is closer to her sisters then to anyone else, so it’s hard to open up and trust other people.
Now let’s talk about the guys. Josh, her sister ex-boyfriend and the literal boy next door. He’s nice and caring but I felt he was more of the big brother type then anything else. It’s a shame that their friendship never truly recovered after the break up and the letter but they did find a way to be friends again. John Ambrose McClaren is nice. He’s the kind of boy who would be perfect for Lara Jean. He’s smart, sweet and unassuming but he doesn’t really enter the story until the second half of the second book so we don’t get to know him as well as the other two. And finally Peter. He comes at first as egotistical and vain and well there is some of that too but he’s also caring and observant. Of all the guys he’s the one who truly challenges Lara Jean the most. He brings her out of her shell without forcing her to change or wanting her to be different. I liked that Lara Jean had different suitors. She didn’t fall for the first guy that noticed her, she realized she had options. I think that’s important to girls to know that if a relationship doesn’t work out that they are going to be others too. Another important element of the story is the double standard between boys and girls. At one point of the story, a video goes viral of Lara Jean and Peter kissing in a hot tub. Typically, all the comments on the internet are about slut Lara Jean is even though she is doing nothing wrong. As far as anyone knows, Lara Jean is only kissing her boyfriend. Of course nothing is said about Peter. When she goes back to school, teachers and counselors talk to Lara Jean about the video and how disappointed they are in her but no mention of Peter. It’s sad how true this scenario is.
So in conclusion, I really loved these two books. With beach season coming up soon, these are the perfect books to take on vacation with you to read and just mellow out. Also for anyone participating in our reading challenge, this is a good choice for a book with an Asian American character.
P.S. If Jenny Han somehow reads this, can we have a spin-off series about Kitty?
And now for a little romance.
I had thought that I bought this book because my Mom recommended it but when I was reading it I told her thank you and she didn’t think it sounded familiar.
And, now I don’t know if I want her to read it because there was a lot more sex in it than the ones she usually recommends and I’ve had some weird conversations about the contents of romance novels with my Mom.
But, if you’re into romance novels, oh my, do I ever recommend this one. Gage is a lumberjack. He’s thinking about getting out of the dangerous rough and tumble lumberjacking world and has the perfect opportunity when the owner of his favorite bar dies. (Total bummer. Everyone was very sad.) He’ll buy the bar, he’ll retire from lumberjacking in Montana, he’ll have a quiet, peaceful life. That is, until Summer, the bar-inheritor, decides that she would prefer to be a bar-owner herself.
Just knowing that, you know where the rest of the story is going. Will they get together? Will Summer’s asshole mother upset the apple cart because her father didn’t leave her anything? Will Gage go back to lumberjacking and meet his maker on the mountain? Who knows?!
I really enjoyed this novel. I liked the characterizations of the folks and there was just enough tension between the characters and outside life pressures that it wasn’t boring. I would totally read another book in this series. A+, good job!
If you are on the internet and you follow fashion, especially celebrity fashion then you probably know Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan or as their known, the Fug Girls. Their fashion blog, GoFugYourself, is one of the most popular on the web. It’s a mix of humor and fashion as they dissect what celebs are wearing and the latest trends. They are also huge Royal watchers and not just the British royal family but all of them. Although the Wills, Kate, Harry and the Queen do hold a special place in their hearts so it’s really no surprise that they inspired this luscious book. Unless you have been living under a rock for the last ten years then you know how Prince William and Kate Middleton became the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Their romance took the world by storm since Kate is a commoner and basically living almost every living girl’s fantasy of meeting a Prince and marrying him. (If I can take a moment here: Kate was a commoner but it’s not like she was poor. If I remember correctly her parents have a very successful business and were considered upper middle class. They just were not apart of the aristocracy.) The Royal We mirrors their relationship but ups the ante by making our Kate, Bex an American. Bex meets Prince Nick at Oxford instead of St. Andrews and live in the same house throughout university and even break up for a while only to get back together. So while the trajectory of their relationship was familiar, it’s what happens in between that is truly interesting. Bex is wonderful. I’m not just saying that since she’s from our home state of Iowa but she’s funny, smart and real. Nick is rife with insecurities and a sense of duty. It must be hard to be born into a position. Nick is in constant fear of being caught doing the wrong thing that he he has to hide who he is. In fact throughout the book both Nick and Bex go through periods of indecisiveness about who they are and how they are supposed to act and it usually gets them into trouble. They behavior is understandable. I wouldn’t want to live under the constant scrutiny that the Royals live in today. With social media and everyone having a camera on their phone you must be on your best behavior all the time. That must be exhausting. They both had a lot of growing up to do and even after all they still find ways back to each other and forgive because that is what you do when you are in love.
The story wouldn’t be complete without a Prince Harry and Kate’s sister Pippa. Prince Freddie is a ladies man. Sleeping his way across London and the world and escaping any kind of condemnation by his charm. Lacey is Bex’s twin sister who is the good girl to Bex’s bad. I’m not sure what I make of her. She’s an intelligent woman who is full of life and optimism. When we meet her she is premed and eventually starts Medical school but she gives all that up to be a party planner in London to be closer to Bex. In one way, I do understand Lacey’s motivation. Bex isn’t just her twin, her sister but her best friend. They shared a womb, shared bedrooms and even went to the same college and then all of a sudden Bex decides to study abroad at Oxford, meets and falls in love with a Prince. Lacey starts to feel left behind. I get it. Kate may not be my twin (though we have asked multiple times if we are) but she’s my sister and my best friend. We have lived together and have the same group of friends but like Bex, Kate has studied abroad (many times) and yeah I felt a little lost without her being close by. I look at her and see all that she is doing to realize her dreams and ask myself what am I doing? It was one the reasons why I made the decisions to move to NYC. Kate was moving to Buffalo to work on her phd. and I just sorta felt stuck in Iowa City. So why not move and try something different. But as close as I am to her and my desire to live nearer, I never thought about giving up what I want or ask her to give up what she wants. Sure I’ve had thoughts of moving to Buffalo but those are thoughts never stuck. As close as we are, we are our own people. For Lacey to give up Medical school that she has been working for most of her life to be near Bex, live the high life and possible have a chance with Freddie just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe I’m being to judgmental. I’m not upset with Freddie who spends the book partying and sleeping with women so why should I be with Lacey? The difference is that Freddie is the spare. While Nick was born with too many expectations, Freddie was born with not enough. He’s not going to rule but he’s not going to have to get a job either. He acts the way he does because he knows it will get under the skin of his father, who is real piece of work. So I guess his actions are more understandable.
All the characters are fun. I do love Bex and Nick’s group of friends. Especially Cilla, Gaz and Bea. They make the story more real and when Bex gets in one of her funks, they save the day. I hope that real Kate and Will have friends like that because how else do they survive. I was looking for a good romance and that’s what I got. They are not perfect, actually they both are flawed but through it all there was no question about how much they loved each other and in the end they found themselves. Anyone looking for a nice beach read or a little light reading to get you through the cold months, this is for you. Even if you are not a royal watcher.
Last Christmas my Mom handed me this book and said, “I think you’ll like this one.” I was a little skeptical. I don’t usually read romance novels (although, over the last year or so I’ve kind of gotten into them, largely courtesy of my Mom who recommends them). The point of romance seems to be exploring relationships, particularly the beginnings of romantic relationships. And, they can be a little formulaic. Two people meet. They’re perfect for each other but there’s some obstacle (sometimes that one of the participants is 100% not interested in the other.) But, they overcome those obstacles and in the end they are together. At first, I thought this is book was going to be textbook formula. It’s the third in a series that follows the Hathaways and sees the eligible folks in this family paired off. This installment starts with Poppy’s season in the London circuit. She has a beau and is all set to make it work with him (despite the fact that his father would never approve) until she is completely derailed by the dashing (and a little dangerous) hotelier Routledge. I won’t spoil it for you, but what happens next was both unsurprising and delightful.
I really liked the main characters in this novel. The relationship between Poppy and Routledge is complex and interesting. She’s just not a silly girl on the London circuit, Poppy has depth and is smart and curious. And, Routledge is a straight forward, no-nonsense business man who might be cut throat and ruthless but who also has a secret soft center. I liked the give and take between the two of them. I liked the little mysteries. I liked that the main force of the novel was basically about how two people with separate lives learn how to integrate.
In short, I was surprised by this book and I would definitely recommend it.
The Carpathians are an immortal race that live off blood, like vampires. Except, they’re not the undead. They have souls. The males lose all emotion and the ability to see color until they find their life mates who restore these to them. They’re bonded forever.
I should have stopped reading this book at the prologue and when I heard this explanation and thought, “NOPE!”
I get that I might not be the audience for mainstream romance. And, I get that media lets us explore situations and relationships that my interest us, intrigue us, turn us on, or whatever but that we don’t and shouldn’t do in real life. I get that novels, not just romance novels, are an escape. I get all of that.
But, I can’t even think of an appropriate list of swear words to describe how terrible this novel was. Seriously. It was so bad that I can’t even swear at it.
But, I can tell you what I didn’t like about it and why.
Massive Spoilers Ahead!
First, of course, was this idea that men (well, Carpathian men) are emotionless monsters that women have to save. Nope. Feelings are a human thing. We all have amygdalas and emotional centers in our brains and anything that continues to perpetuate the stereotype that women are the ones that feel and men aren’t harms women, harms men, harms us all. Second, after introducing our immortal badass vampire hunting Carpathian dudebro we’re introduced to Jaxon the heroine by looking into her life at ages 5, 10, 15, adulthood. Jax was raised on a military base by her Mother (who wasn’t super maternal) and her father, a Navy Seal, and his Seal buddies were very involved in her life. Until her Dad died and her Mom married his Seal buddy who then turned into an abusive pyscho and the descriptions were awful. Psycho Step Dad then stalks our fair Jax and torments her by hurting people she loves. Oh, but before we get there we are treated to these flashbacks where young Jax tells adults that her Step Dad is abusive and no one believes her. I thought there was mandatory reporting of these sorts of things? Like, if a kid tells her teacher that her Dad hits her Mom that the teacher had to tell the school and get Child Welfare involved? Anyway, Jax grows up into an emotionally stunted police officer who has to keep everyone at arms length because Psycho Step Dad might be watching. (At least that was a fun twist: for once the psycho step parent wasn’t the mother.) Then, her Carpathian dudebro inserts himself into her life, removes her from her friends and chosen family, disregards her concerns, commands her to stay in the house in the name of her safety (and gets violently upset when she disregards his commands and asserts her own autonomy), and initiates the life mate binding process without her consent and then completes it without ever explaining anything to her. Being stalked by a Navy Seal is terrible. Being swept up by an immortal who needs you to maintain his emotional life for him is also terrible.
And, folks, I didn’t even get to the end. I got the completion of the binding ritual and she started freaking out and Carpathian dudebro started mansplaining how they were meant for each other and she just needs to roll with the (irreversible) changes and I was like:
So, the only good choice with this book is to just not pick it up. 0/10. Do not recommend.
I checked this book out from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Libraries.
If you loved Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha series and you love crime capers then you are going to love Six of Crows. Set after the events of her last series but this time in Kerch, a country not far from Ravka, six criminals are tasked with a suicide mission that has little to no chance of being accomplished but the pay out is good. Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Nina, Matthias and Wylan are all flawed and interesting characters with varying degrees of criminal presents or pasts. Each bring their own set of skills that are vital to the mission. Inej, aka the Wraith, is a trained trapeze artist who can scale walls and quietly gather information. Jesper is a sharpshooter with a gambling problem, Nina is a Heartrender, who can kill you without even touching you. Matthias is a convict who is part of a religious society that hunts down Grisha. Wylan is the son of a rich merchant who likes to blow things up and Kaz is their mysterious leader. He worked his way up in the Barrel to rule but it’s all to get revenge on the man he blames for the death of his brother.
A new drug called Jurda Panem has been developed and it strenghtens Grisha powers to impossible powers. This could change the whole balance of the world. How can people defend against the Grisha if they have unchecked powers? Kaz is hired by the Merchant Councils to rescue the man who created it from a Fjerdian prison that is inescapable. Kaz goes about to assemble his team who don’t exactly get along but must work together if they are going to succeed or just survive. This story has so many plot twists and misdirections it’s like Oceans 11. You have to question everything you read because what you think is happening is not all that is really happening. It’s not just all the action that makes this book a good read. It’s the characters. They are all compelling and interesting with full backstories. All with the exception of Wylan who is the only one not to have a chapter written from his point of view. Probably because out of all them he’s the outsider of the group. He’s not a criminal and he’s not from the barrel. Kaz says he’s only there as leverage against the council and he knows how to blow things up but I think it’s more than that. I look forward to knowing more about him.
Matthias is a warrior who’s goal is eradicate the Grisha as he feels they are unnatural. It’s one thing to arrest and execute Grisha in one’s own country but it takes balls to go other countries, tracking down Grisha, capturing them and bringing them back to Fjerdia and then putting them on trial and executing them. He captured Nina but thanks to a storm she rescued him. In attempt to save his life again, she accuses him of slave trading but things go south when he is actually thrown in jail for it. Nina befriends some people (for lack of better term) to help get him out as she feels responsible. Inej was captured and sold to a pleasure house until Kaz came and made her apart of his gang. Now she’s his spy, the Wraith, but all she wants to do is go home and find her family. Jesper, a former farm boy who came to Kerch as a student and found gambling instead. He’s also hiding things, one being that he is also Grisha. I’m pretty sure I know another one of his secrets too. Let’s just say, I ship Jesper and Wylan, if you get my gist. Kaz is the most intriguing. Coming out of nowhere to being a major player in the Barrel. He’s smart and ruthless and more of a mystery than everyone. He’s hellbent on revenge against the man he believes is responsible to the death of his brother but he’s also a 17 year old boy so well, he has those annoying feelings to deal with.
So for fans of the Grisha series and Oceans 11 type movies this is the book for you. It’s fun, lots of action, lots of double dealings, backstabbing, mystery and potential romance.
Possessive stares are not sexy. That’s the least of this book’s problems, though.
So, I can’t believe how incredibly lax I have been this past month about blogging. I finished this book awhile ago (before Beth finished A Walk in the Woods!). This was the hardest of the books that Beth assigned me to get through. (Which I think is funny. I read the easiest and then immediately started the hardest). But, it was nice to know that even if I was having trouble with it, at least I was reading a signed copy.
Georgie has always wanted to be a comedy writer and she has worked very hard over the years writing for various television shows. Now, she and her writing partner have a chance to pitch their own show. This is their dream. But, it’s Christmas and she was supposed to go to Omaha with the love of her life Neal and their two kids. He tells her not worry, they’ll go without her, she should stay and write her pitch. She stays. He leaves with the kids. A chain of events is then set off in which Georgie has to wonder about her future and her past. Did Neal leave her for good or just for Christmas? Trying to get in touch with Neal she discovers that she has a magic phone that can call Neal in the past. Well, at one particular time in the past where she was sure Neal had left her for good.
This one, my last one in my pop culture homework assignment, was so slow starting. At the beginning of the book (probably for the first fifty pages) I didn’t care about Neal or Georgie and so I wasn’t invested in their relationship. It didn’t matter to me if they stayed together or if they split. But, the further I got into the novel, the more I started really getting into the context. Georgie is thinking about her priorities and what she wants from her life. I can relate to that. In fact, this was probably hardest to read because Georgie and I are about the same age and I have also been thinking a lot about my priorities this summer. Georgie is coming to realize all of the things that she has taken for granted (that you can’t take for granted.) Neal is not my favorite paramour in literature; he’s brusque and standoffish. Without Georgie, I probably wouldn’t care about Neal (without Neal, I might care about Georgie). But, Neal and Georgie do seem to have something good in the flashbacks we are treated to as Georgie thinks about her relationship (and as Rowell provides us the context of the phone calls to the past.)
It is a neat concept: a magic phone that can call one place and time in the past. That’s pretty neat. At the Rainbow Rowell reading I went to earlier this summer someone asked about the magic phone and she said, “Who wouldn’t want a magic phone they could use to talk to a past love?” Me. I wouldn’t. But, if I had a magic phone and I could talk to my past self, man that would be sweet. Past Kate could have saved Present Kate a lot of trouble. This was my least favorite of the four Rowell books I read this summer but it was still pretty good.
And, with that, I am done with my Pop Culture Homework assignment!
2 Women, So Many Books 