Category: Uncategorized

Book Review, thriller, Uncategorized

Count My Lies by Sophie Stava ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Thriller

My Rating: 🍪🍪

Sloane Caraway has been lying about who she is all her life. When she sees an opportunity to becomes the nanny for the wealthy Lockhart family, she jumps at the chance and quickly lies her way into their life.

We slowly learn about the lies Sloane has told in her past and how her obsessive nature has gotten her in trouble and cost her her last job.

The first part of this book is told through Sloane’s point of view and I enjoyed watching her worm her way into Jay and Violet’s life, however, there was a lot of repetition including random allusions to Taylor Swift lyrics like every other chapter?? I’m a Swiftie, but it was really off-putting.

When we switch to Violet’s POV I think it was supposed to feel like some big dramatic twist, but it just fell into a very overdone set of thriller tropes that I have enjoyed in the past, but have been done very well already. It made it hard for me to get through the rest of the book.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf

Uncategorized

The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead ~ Book Review

Morgan

Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

I’ve seen The Last Housewife allll over the place and honestly, it was only an okay thriller for me. The premise was very dark, with Shay recounting her experience being groomed by an older man while she was in college and taken under his wing, along with several other girls. Now, in the present, she finds out through a true crime podcaster that the other girl who managed to escape with her has been found dead.

Shay recruits the podcast host to look into the death with her, and soon stumbles across a misogynistic cult with philosophies that feel all too familiar to her.

Ultimately, I felt like this book was focusing too much on the shock factor of the cult and the way its members thought and acted, and less on tying the actual plot together. Shay snuck into a number of cult gatherings which seemed unbelievable, repetitive, and felt like they moved the story forward a little too easily.

I was definitely into the mystery and finding out what happened, but it felt like things just came to the main characters without that much effort, and I wasn’t particularly surprised by the twists along the way. That being said, I think Shay’s past added a really thought-provoking lens to her character, and she made for an interesting narrator through the story.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy The Last Housewife at an indie bookstore near you
The Last Housewife on Goodreads

Uncategorized

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

Kiss Her Once for Me follows Ellie as she finds herself embroiled in a fake-dating scheme that will hugely help her financial situation. She and her fake fiancé, Andrew, visit his family for the holidays only for Ellie to find that his sister is a woman she had a meet-cute and one magical day with the year before. Ellie has not stopped thinking about their day together, to the point where she’s created an entire webcomic around it. So what does she do now??

This book was cute and I appreciate the warmth of (most of) Andrew’s family toward Ellie and how much that meant to her. It added an extra level of complication and confusion to the choices she had to make and made me really feel for her. I was also intrigued to find out, little by little, what had gone so wrong after the initial meet-cute.

I felt like there were too many things crammed into this book ultimately – lots of characters, lots of types of past drama and trauma, lots of tropes. The excess kept me from feeling fully invested in the characters’ relationships and the central plot.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Kiss Her Once for Me at an indie bookstore near you
Kiss Her Once for Me on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Romance, Uncategorized

The Idea of You by Robinne Lee ~ Book Review

Morgan

St. Martin’s Griffin
Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

I literally could not put this book down. It felt like reading a gossipy tabloid, but in the best of ways. Solène Marchand takes her teenage daughter to see superstar boy band August Moon. She finds herself amused and flattered when one of the twenty-year old members, Hayes Campbell, hits on her, but the last thing she expects is for him to actually contact her. Despite her better judgment, Solène meets up with Hayes, ‘just for lunch,’ and a whirlwind romance ensues.

Okay first of all, the steam. If you don’t like reading sex scenes, this book is not for you. There are a lottt of them and they are detailed. That being said, the chemistry is insane. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where I could so strongly feel the connection between the two main characters. Despite the age difference, Lee did an incredible job of showing the reader why Solène found Hayes so charming.

One aspect of this book that made it especially standout for me, was the way the couple had to navigate Hayes’s fame and decide when to tell people about them. This untraditional aspect of their relationship added a layer of depth and complexity that was especially interesting.

I will say that Solène seemed a bit selfish at times, especially regarding her friendships and coworkers.

The ending of this book absolutely broke me. I have never felt a book hangover more acutely than I am currently feeling. If you read this one, brace yourself.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy The Idea of You at an indie bookstore near you
The Idea of You on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Romance, Uncategorized

November 9 by Colleen Hoover ~ Book Review

Morgan

Atria Books
Romance
Release Date: November 10, 2015
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

I do not expect plot twists from romance books like the one in November 9. I think my draw literally dropped along with the main character Fallon, as she realized that her unconventional, meet-for-one-day-a-year romance with Ben might not be all that she thought it was.

Let me back up. Ben and Fallon meet the day before she moves across the country, when he overhears a conversation between her and her dad and pretends to be her boyfriend. Despite their bizarre beginning, the two have instant chemistry. They decide that they will meet back up one year later. They share no contact information and simply put their trust in this near-stranger. The yearly meet-ups ultimately become the inspiration for the novel Ben has long been trying to write.

I was so tense reading this book waiting to see what would get in the way of this love story. Naturally, there are other relationships and extraneous events that make the annual reunions sometimes difficult, but I loved the moments in between the chaos when Ben and Fallon could just be together.

Colleen Hoover is the queen of putting characters in heart-wrenching situations and this was no exception. The positions that each of our main characters were forced to work through were so hard to consider, but I had hope that their quirky love story would persist. This one was definitely a CoHo favorite for me.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy November 9 at an indie bookstore near you
November 9 on Goodreads

Book Review, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green ~ Book Review

Morgan

Dutton
Nonfiction
Release Date: May 18, 2021
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

I struggle with short stories and essay collections, so take my review with a grain of salt. In The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green takes the standard 5-star review concept and turns it on his head, rating a manner of everyday occurrences from the current geological age. He really ran the gamut of types of things he reviewed and kept me on my toes.

Some of these essays were light and humorous, while others discusses the pandemic at length and how it has impacted loneliness and society. I appreciated that this randomness highlighted the enormous scope of objects, experiences, etc. that exist, but I wished for a little more cohesiveness. I felt that I couldn’t get truly invested in one essay before we switched to an entirely different topic and it made it difficult for me to stay engaged.

Buy The Anthropocene Reviewed at an indie bookstore near you
The Anthropocene Reviewed on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Romance, Uncategorized

It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey ~ Book Review

Morgan

Avon
Genre: Romance
Release Date: July 13, 2021
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

Oh my steam. I was not prepared for how steamy this book was going to be. If you’re not comfortable reading books with a lot of detailed sex scenes, this one should be a hard pass for you.

I found the beginning of It Happened One Summer somewhat misleading, in that it cast the main character as an airheaded party-girl. The opening scenes were lavish and over the top, filled with LA drama and glitter. That is not the rest of the book. Piper redeemed herself quickly when she arrived in the small town of Westport after being cut off by her stepfather.

Bailey did a wonderful job of creating a delightful small town feel in Westport and introduced an interesting and heartwarming set of characters. Although complete fish out of water at first, Piper and her sister are slowly taken in by the community and find soon find ways to give back. I loved that Piper’s kindness and realness were able to shine through and it was clear how much she came to care for those around her.

The romance, as previously mentioned, was a LOT. I liked Brendan’s backstory, and seeing his character warm up to Piper, but things seemed to move incredibly fast from there. Maybe that’s just the nature of romance novels. Did I think all the sex scenes were necessary? No. But I also wasn’t really put off by them.

Despite my initial mixed feelings about this story, I found it enjoyable once LA was left behind, and really fell in love with the town of Westport and the space Piper came to fill within in.

Buy It Happened One Summer at an indie bookstore near you
It Happened One Summer on Goodreads

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong ~ Book Review

Morgan

One World
Genre: Memoir
Release Date: February 25, 2021

The central tenet of Minor Feelings is Hong’s idea of ‘minor feelings’ –– the accumulating negative emotions that build up over time as a result of pervasive racial experiences and gaslighting. Through personal experience and by drawing on other texts and media, Hong illustrates how these experiences build up to create the kind of inner turmoil that is far from minor. I found it especially interesting the way she drew on media outside of her own writing, including art, books, and movies, to help illustrate her points and show just how pervasive they are.

As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Hong expresses her personal experiences and points to ways that Asian Americans in particular are disregarded and discriminated against.  Hong also introduces the idea of ‘speaking nearby’ the experiences of other people and cultural groups who may face similar hardships. In this way, she expands the scope of her narrative.

Some of the later chapters focused more prominently on Hong’s life and her friendships, and seemed somewhat out of place to me, but was nonetheless excellently written, and fitting for a memoir.

Buy Minor Feelings at an indie bookstore near you
Minor Feelings on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Romance, Uncategorized

The Heart Principle by Helena Hoang ~ Book Review

Morgan

Berkley
Genre: Romance
Release Date: August 31, 2021
My Rating: 🍪🍪.5

The Heart Principle covers a lot of really heavy topics, which I wasn’t expecting. Anna, the main character, deals with extensive gaslighting and struggles with agreeing with her family end of life care for a relative. All this is happening in conjunction with her boyfriend announcing that he wants them to try having an open relationship.

Anna decides she wants to have a one night stand and ends up meeting Quan on a dating app. It quickly becomes clear that they are destined for more than either of them anticipated.

The romance in this book seemed really rushed which made it seem somewhat unbelievable to me. The individual scenes with Anna and Quan were well done and I loved watching them fully accept one another, but everything seemed to happen too fast.

I think part of what made me not love this book was how hard it was to read. The way Anna was treated by her family was unacceptable. Her thoughts and feelings were completely invalidated and ignored. Although Anna came to realize this a little bit by the end of her story, it still felt like she didn’t understand the magnitude of how terribly she’d been treated. These aspects of the book kept me from being able to fully appreciate her professional and romantic storylines.

Thank you to Libro.fm for my copy.

Buy The Heart Principle at an indie bookstore near you
The Heart Principle on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Uncategorized

Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Fiction
Release Date: June 1, 2021
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

Golden Girl starts by introducing the reader to the novelist Vivi and then immediately killing her off. From there, it unexpectedly takes us to the afterlife where Vivi and the reader both watch her friends and family as they try to wrap their heads around Vivi’s sudden hit and run death.

This book has everything I love from Elin Hilderbrand — beautiful depictions of Nantucket summers, exquisite food descriptions, and lots and lots of drama. Vivi’s children and friends are wrapped up in a lot of deceit and confusion, creating a warped web that only adds to their newfound grief. As Vivi, just as shocked as the reader, watches everything unfold, she’s able to use three ‘nudges’ to influence what’s going on on earth. She has to act fast though — once the summer ends, she has to leave her vantage point.

As always, I appreciated the drama in this narrative, but I didn’t feel like the characters were deep enough to really care about. A lot of the information we got about them felt surface level, which made it hard for me to get invested in their stories. I didn’t understand their motivations.

I enjoyed this book for the setting and the summer vibes, but it wasn’t my favorite by this author.

Buy Golden Girl at an indie bookstore near you
Golden Girl on Goodreads