Book Review, Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪 🍪.5
Genre: Romance / Science Fiction

Tom has a rare condition that causes him to age incredibly slowly. Although he looks 41, he has been alive for centuries, and he’s not alone. He’s part of the Albatross Society, a group of people with the same condition who help each other with new placements and identities whenever their lack of aging becomes suspicious. One main rule if you are a member however is that you are not allowed to fall in love.

Tom broke the rule once before, and we’re shown in flashbacks his heart wrenching experience as his love grew old without him. In the present, Tom begins a new identity and finds himself quickly taken with a new coworker. He must decide whether to continue to let the society dictate his life, or to take a chance at another great love.

Tom’s story in the present is interwoven with flashbacks from his past. In the present, he is a history teacher, and the lessons he teaches his students are then supplemented with his own memories from those time periods. I will say some of that seemed a little like “how many famous people from history can we include in this book,” but I still found it fun. It was also cool to see how his life changed in different decades. Each vignette taught us more about Tom and how his condition was treated by those around him throughout his life.

This is a rambling centuries-long character study that explores what is truly most important in life. It wasn’t groundbreaking science-fiction, but it pulled at my heartstrings and made me care deeply for Tom.

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How to Stop Time on Goodreads
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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance
Read if you liked: The Perfect Couple

Jenna and Stewart’s families gather on Nantucket for their wedding, planned using The Notebook that Jenna’s mom left behind for her before she died. As the ideas in The Notebook come to life, it stirs up emotions for all the family members, leading to reassessments of many of their lives.

This book is classic Elin Hilderbrand, with a primary focus on the lavish setting of Nantucket and the personal drama of the characters (of which there are a lot), without a ton of action. It was exactly what I wanted from a book I read by the pool. Most of the characters are entitled and somewhat unlikable, but I enjoyed watching them tangle and untangle their lives. I ate up the drama as the wedding drew closer.

I liked how messy and complicated this story was, and of course, I loved the way Hilderbrand made Nantucket come alive as she always does.

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Beautiful Day on Goodreads
Buy Beautiful Day at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

The Paradise Problem is a delightful fake-dating romance following Anna and Liam “West” after their marriage of convenience. The two virtual strangers have gone their separate ways and, so thinks Anna, divorced. Little does she know that West is keeping their marriage intact to gain his inheritance. Over the years, his family has come to grow suspicious and, in an act of desperation, he shows up on Anna’s door desperate for her to step in and play the role of his wife.

Much of this book takes place on a tropical island, making it an ideal summer read. The luxury of the couple’s surroundings was such a lovely setting and a wonderful backdrop for their unfolding romance. Their flirtiness and banter was so fun and there was the perfect amount of steam (read: a lot).

West is the heir to a huge supermarket chain and his extended family is very over-the-top wealthy. There’s a lot of focus on inheritance and catty family drama, which for the most part I loved (although the back and forth about joining the family business got a littttle old by the end).

This book would make such a perfect movie and was a great choice for me to read on vacation by the pool.

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The Paradise Problem on Goodreads
Buy The Paradise Problem at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, thriller

The Next Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪
Genre: Romance

The Last Mrs. Parrish is one of the first books that got me into thrillers and I will never hesitate to recommend it.

I wishhh the same could be said for the sequel, but it was a struggle to get through The Next Mrs. Parrish. This book picks up with Amber, Daphne, and incarcerated Jackson while also introducing Daisy Ann. Each character has their own motivations, but for me they didn’t seem like logical follow ups to the original story. It felt like an attempt to redo much of what book one did, which just seemed forced.

Daisy Ann was a random addition to the story and I didn’t know enough about her to really care what she was doing and how she was involved. As a result, I wasn’t really invested in her parts of the book and found them a bit hard to follow.

Much of my respect for the ways Amber and Daphne tried to out-manipulate one another in the first book was lost as they seemed to lose their exciting cattiness.

This book was so drawn out and completely fell flat for me.

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The Next Mrs. Parrish on Goodreads
Buy The Next Mrs. Parrish at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Worthy by Jada Pinkett Smith ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Memoir

When a memoir starts by recounting an experience with ayahuasca, you know you’re in for a wild ride. Jada Pinkett Smith’s memoir recounts her life, starting with drug dealing while growing up in Baltimore, through the present. Jada’s life is anything but conventional. She talks us through her marriage that’s not really a marriage with Will Smith, her journey with spirituality, and motherhood. I find it so odd that she and Will named their children after themselves, but it’s very telling of how she comes across in her memoir (in my opinion, very self absorbed without any reflection on her actions).

Jada’s life is such a far cry from mine and because of that I found much of it fascinating if hard to wrap my head around. She tells everything exactly as she experienced and understood it, again, with no self-reflection.

Between chapters, Jada often introduces therapy-esque exercises she encourages readers to participate in. Things like telling your friends you love them or reflecting on XYZ in your life. I found this so bizarre – she’s not a therapist and reading her story made me not ever want to take advice from her, so why was she qualifying herself to be preaching these exercises to readers? It was a majorrr turn off and made her come across to me as completely full of herself.

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Worthy on Goodreads
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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪 🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

I finished this book and was left very confused as to how a book centered entirely around an on-again-off-again relationship could maintain my interest for so long (it’s a big book!). I prefer action, rather than character driven books, but something about BJ Ballantine and Magnolia Parks really did it for me. They were once the “it” couple but after a disastrous betrayal, they’ve reverted to being just friends (albeit friends who sometimes have sleepovers in the same bed).

Magnolia Parks is very Gossip Girl-esque, focused on an elite squad of young adults as they navigate the London social scene of the 1%. Magnolia has an uncanny ability to name the designer and name of any piece of clothing anyone is wearing and although this seemed a bit like a device to name a bunch of fancy designers, it was also kind of an endearing quirk. BJ was less likable as he constantly slept with different women in an obvious attempt to get Magnolia out of his system.

Even though this is very over the top drama and focuses on relationships, it isn’t a fun romance. This book is so messy and pretty much every relationship in it is toxic (think cheating and manipulation), but I couldn’t look away. I’m not really one for reading a series, but I’ll definitely be picking up book two, which I believe focuses on one of Magnolia’s friends, to see what happens next with this chaotic group.

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Magnolia Parks on Goodreads
Buy Magnolia Parks at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Horror

Murder Road by Simone St. James ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Horror

On their way to their honeymoon, April and Eddie find themselves lost and pick up a hitchhiker they encounter before realizing she’s mortally wounded. So begins a whirlwind police investigation during which April and Eddie begin to realize there is more to the story than an isolated crime. They find themselves swept into the mystery of the road, Atticus Line, where the hitchhiker and many before her have been killed all while still unsure how they ended up there in the first place.

This book was much more paranormal than I realized, which I don’t always lovvve from a thriller, but it was spooky and well done and kept me on my toes. There was also the added layers of secrecy in both April and Eddie’s pasts that was woven throughout. Honestly, some of that felt a little superfluous. I think the book could have been more focused and packed just as much as a punch. However, there was a lot up in the air that kept me reading.

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Buy Murder Road at an indie bookstore near you
Murder Road on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Romance, YA

American Royals by Katharine McGee ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: YA Romance

What a fun read. American Royals follows the lives of sisters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Samantha, heirs to the American throne. The two of them narrate the story along with two other girls in their orbit. Four female narrators were definitely hard to keep track of, and it took me a while to keep straight who was who and how they all fit into one another’s lives.

This is a YA book, so the romance is tame, but sweet when people finally started getting together. I really enjoyed the drama surrounding everyone’s dating choices. The constraints put on them based on society’s expectations and the constraints of their familial status added an interesting extra layer. This felt a little Princess Diaries, a little Gossip Girl, maybe a little Bridgerton? (But definitely not up to par with any of them).

Once I figured out who all the characters were, I did get invested in their storylines, but it was slowww going. This book really doesn’t pick up until the end and although the action near the end was exciting, the pacing of most of the book will probably keep me from continuing with the series.

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Buy American Royals at an indie bookstore near you
American Royals on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction
Read if you liked: Adelaide

What a fascinating premise for a book. True to its title, The Rachel Incident is focused on one singular incident involving Rachel, her best friend James, her professor Fred, and his wife, Deenie. It’s hard to talk about the plot without giving things away, but the decisions made by these central characters spiral out into a ripple effect that impacts each of them for the rest of their life.

I was skeptical at first that one single “incident” could sustain a whole book, but the way it shows up time and again, particularly through Rachel’s perspective and actions was fascinating. Oftentimes, it felt like reading a memoir from Rachel’s point of view. O’Donoghue so effortlessly captures the inner turmoil of being in your twenties, being faced with challenging new experiences, and grappling with making decision that may or may not be best for you.

Near the end of the book, we flash forward to years after the incident, when Rachel is grown, and get to see the way that the incident shaped her life and who she became. So often the many decisions we make in our twenties do dictate the direction of our life, and this book beautifully illustrated that through Rachel’s story. I particularly appreciated that this older Rachel was the one narrating us through her past.

Was this book a bit slow at times? Sure. But it was an interesting and unusual character study that captured the chaos of being a young adult.

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Buy The Rachel Incident at an indie bookstore near you
The Rachel Incident on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

One by One by Freida McFadden ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

*Rolls eyes very hard.* I have never so quickly whipped through a book that I was not enjoying. I will never understand how McFadden’s books draw me in so deeply and quickly or what about her writing keeps me glued to it. For some reason, that was still the case even as I was consciously aware that this book felt extremely cliched.

Claire is headed to a weekend getaway with her husband and two other couples. When their car breaks down in the woods, they decide they’ll walk the rest of the way to their accommodations, it should only be a couple of miles. Instead of an easy walk though, the group finds themselves hopelessly lost and slowly people begin to die or disappear.

I felt like I was right there with the group walking in circles in the woods because this book took so long to get anywhere. I didn’t feel like there were any hints about the context of why this was happening to them, it was just the group increasingly getting scared and walking around more and Claire thinking she can reconcile with her husband as he does borderline nice things for her.

Usually, McFadden’s books have a crazy twist that I love and that gets me fired up rethinking the entire book. This one just felt flat. There are excerpts throughout the book from ‘anonymous’ that I knew were going to tie in, but when their identity was ultimately revealed it didn’t really make sense to me.

This was somehow still a thriller I read in just a couple days and wanted to find out the ending to, but would recommend any of McFadden’s other books above this one.

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Buy One by One at an indie bookstore near you
One by One on Goodreads