Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5 
Genre: Romance

Justin and Emma both have a “curse” where everyone they dates goes on to find their soulmate right after they break up. When Emma learns about Justin’s predicament via a Reddit thread, she DMs him and they strike up a deal to date each other in the hopes that their curses will cancel out.

The couple’s banter, especially over DM at the beginning of the book was so fun and flirty and I was excited to see how they would ultimately come together. Once they do, however, things are much heavier than I initially anticipated from this book. Emma’s mom shows up, bringing with her the toxicity Emma has had to deal with throughout her life and introducing mental health struggles, which remain persistent through the book. Justin meanwhile has to take custody of his younger siblings. It was….a lot.

The romance took a back seat once all the other threads of the book were introduced, which is fine, but it did lose some of its sparkle and made me care less about whether the main characters ended up together.

Outside of the romance, the other parts of the story painted compelling images of different types of families and friendships. I really enjoyed the writing style and could picture every step of the way. Jimenez really knows how to make a setting come alive. I would recommend going into this one not thinking it as a romance so much as general contemporary fiction.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Just for the Summer on Goodreads
Buy Just for the Summer at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, Historical Fiction

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Historical Fiction
Release Date: August 20, 2024 (Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC)

By Any Other Name is a split narrative told in both the present, following a playwright named Melina, and in the 1500’s, exploring the story of Emilia as she comes of age. Although the women live wildly different lives, they both exist in a patriarchy and their explorations of what it meant to live as a woman in each time period were powerful.

Initially, I was much more drawn into Melina’s storyline and her relationship with her best friend as they struggle to make it in the New York City theater industry. I loved their relationship and their banter and could sense how much Melina wanted her play to succeed and the desperation she felt to do whatever it took to make that happen.

Emilia’s story really grew on me. We follow her from a young age as she is sent to be the mistress of a much older man. Through his guidance and wealth, she is able to experience art and literature unavailable to most women at the time. Her life took many turns throughout the story and was often hard to read about. The abuse she experienced and her selflessness in the face of her circumstances made me care deeply for her.

I appreciated the way the two narratives were woven together and we come to see how Melina is actually bringing Emilia’s story to the world. It was such a creative and well executed to tie together the two women.

It’s clear that tremendous research went into writing this book and it was all the more captivating to find out how much truth there was in this fictional story. There was also an unexpected romance that I found heartfelt. I appreciated that it didn’t overwhelm the narrative, but allowed us to see additional sides to certain characters.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
By Any Other Name on Goodreads
Buy By Any Other Name at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

I love when Elin Hilderbrand’s books include a mystery and Swan Song did just that. Told in alternating storylines, it follows Coco who gets a job as a personal concierge or the wealthy Richardson couple who are new to Nantucket. In the past, she can’t believe her luck at landing the role until she realizes just how chained to the Richardsons she will have to be. In the future storyline, she has mysteriously disappeared.

As always with this series, I loved the character dynamics, the descriptions of the island in the summer, and the drama. Each character is so distinct and their interactions with each other feel real. I couldn’t wait to see how things would reach the inevitable tipping point that led to Coco’s disappearance. There were a lot of descriptions of lavish parties thrown by the Richardsons and honestly, they got kind of old. I understood that they were over the top try-hards, but didn’t need soooo many similar events to get the point across. They slowed the story down for me.

It seemed like Hilderbrand was maybe a bit nostalgic writing her last Nantucket book and included a lot of easter eggs and references to her other stories. This was fun to some extent but felt like it interfered a bit with the flow of the story at some point. Nonetheless, as an avid reader of her books, it was a fun way to say goodbye to these characters and this fictionalized Nantucket.

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

Book Review, Fantasy, Fiction

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fantasy

Meg Shaffer is great at coming up with concepts for her fantasy novels that somehow don’t feel entirely fantastical. Jeremy and Rafe disappeared in the forest for six months when they were kids only to reappear healthier than ever with no information about what had happened to them. In the present, Jeremy finds missing people as his profession and is not in contact with Rafe. That is, until Emilie comes to Jeremy asking for help finding her sister and Jeremy knows it’s time for them to venture back to the forest as a group.

This book was inspired by The Chronicles of Narnia and it definitely has the charm of a fairy tale. It was so comforting to get lost in this kind of world as an adult. Seeing inside the imagination of someone else was such a treat. That said, it was also imbued with a seriousness from the things that each character had dealt with in their life. The relationships of each of the three main characters with their families were nuanced and helped me to understand their motivations. There were definitely some heavy themes that made the urge to escape to the fantastical all the more understandable.

The magical world was whimsical and fun and I liked Rafe and Jeremy, but Emilie and another main character fell pretty flat for me and much of the second half of the book felt rushed. Overall an enjoyable read.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Daisy Haites by Jessa Hastings ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance

Daisy Haites is the second book in the Magnolia Parks series and focuses, obviously, on Daisy, but includes many of the same characters as the first book. Daisy was raised by her brother Julian, who runs a gang, after their parents were murdered in front of them as kids. Obviously, there’s a lot of baggage there. Much of the book is a will-they-won’t-they romance with Daisy and Christian, who have been casually hooking up for a while but both begin to realize they might want more.

I was really rooting for the romance in this book and there was such a good build up. Daisy and Christian were fun to see together. I liked the unfolding of their realizations of the extent of their feelings for one another. There were, however, one too many big twists that impacted the romance and seemed unnecessary. There didn’t need to be a wrench thrown their way every step of the way.

Julian’s perspective and honestly his whole gang deal were laughable. In my opinion, it added nothing of substance to the story. I think that all could have been cut and the book would not have suffered. Maybe just give Daisy a normal supportive brother?

As per book one, the drama just kept coming in the best of ways and I ate up the tangled web of gossip between these super rich twenty-somethings.

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

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller

When Ethan was ten, he had a sleepover in a tent on his lawn with his best friend Billy. In the morning, Billy was gone and all that was left behind was a gash in the tent. Now, Ethan has returned to his hometown as an adult and finds himself haunted by the feeling that Billy is still there. He begins to reconnect with his neighbors in an effort to dig back into the past.

This story flashes back to the past and we come to realize that there was more to Billy and Ethan’s friendship at the time of Billy’s disappearance. That combined with a mysterious institute in the woods nearby point more and more to something sinister.

We get a lot of different perspectives and points of view in this book and it was very hard to keep track of all the characters. Most of them had pretty watery descriptions so there was nothing to help keep them straight. This alone made me less invested in the story than many of Sager’s other books.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the story with the spooky institute in the woods and the return to a childhood neighborhood that seems somewhat trapped in time (granted, I found it unbelievable that so many of Ethan’s childhood friends moved back there).

My biggest issue with this book was why someone would cut a gash in the tent instead of just unzipping it lol. For some reason that premise that the whole mystery was based on really threw me off.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Middle of the Night on Goodreads
Buy Middle of the Night at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, Historical Fiction

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Historical Fiction

Demon Copperhead is a recounting of Demon’s life, from the time he’s young, living in a trailer in Appalachia, to his many foster families, to his experiences with his own addiction and the addiction of those around him. It’s a painfully detailed look at the opioid crisis, told through Demon’s relationships. He’s a main character you feel deeply for. His circumstances set him up for failure and seeing how hard he tried every step of the way to move his life forward and in a better direction was powerful.

This is not a “fun” read. It’s very real and focuses on the day to day reality of Demon’s life. I appreciated his voice as our main character, the friendships he made, and watching him grow as he grew more and more weary of the world.

Demon’s story could have been told with just as much impact in far fewer words. The middle of the book felt repetitive and slow. The story was still interesting, but it seemed like when a point was trying to be made, it was illustrated in more ways than was necessary.

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

Book Review, Nonfiction

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Nonfiction

The Radium Girls tells the story of the hundreds of girls and women who worked in radium-dial factories in the early 20th century. The jobs paid extremely well and the women came home glowing with radium, a newly discovered element hailed as a medical marvel. The book focuses one at a time on individual women as they begin to fall sick and die and those in charge of the factories turn a blind eye over and over.

The horrors that these women went through are explained in excruciating detail time and time again. It’s so impactful to see how ecstatic they initially are with their jobs contrasted with the pain they experience as their bodies’ fall victim to radium poisoning.

I found myself consistently disgusted with the actions of the corporations that blatantly lied about the risk of radium and the experiences of their workers. It was fascinating to imagine how, in a pre-social media era, there could be workers in different parts of the country falling victim to the same thing without any awareness of or connection to the others. 

This book aimed to give voice to individual women and tell their personal stories. I understand and respect the purpose of this, but from a reader’s perspective, the book quickly became repetitive, as the same symptoms and roadblocks were depicted over and over again. There are SO many stories that it’s hard to really keep track of who’s who. That said, the book does what it’s trying to in highlighting each woman and is definitely impactful and powerful.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
The Radium Girls on Goodreads
he Radium Girls at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Happy Medium by Sarah Adler ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

Gretchen’s profession is a con. She pretends to communicate with ghosts by meticulously researching her clients’ lives. When her wealthiest client hires her to investigate a haunting at a farm, the last thing Gretchen is expecting is Charlie, the farm’s hot owner, and an actual ghost.

The layers to this story were fun, with Gretchen adjusting to being able to actually see a ghost, Charlie constantly calling her out as a con, and the growing attraction between Gretchen and Charlie. I like that the ghost had an attitude and a tv obsession and just played out as another character, rather than a big paranormal mystery. I sometimes have trouble with ghost-y books, but this seemed fairly normal.

The setting of the farm, in a state of disrepair, and Gretchen slowly falling in love with farm life and wanting to help run it was so wholesome and I could perfectly visualize the setting and see what she enjoyed about it.

My one big issue with the book is how slow it was. Once Gretchen got to the farm, there wasn’t really anything new going on to keep me invested. Her romance with Charlie wasn’t all that exciting to me because of the constant on-again-off-again nature of him not trusting her. If it had been a bit shorter I think it would have bumped it up a star for me.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪 🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

I was immediately on board with the premise of This Summer Will Be Different when Lucy arrives for her vacation on Prince Edward Island (PEI) and sleeps with a hot bartender only to find out he’s her best friend Bridget’s brother. Her chemistry with Felix is palpable and when their tryst is cut short I wanted to scream knowing the heat between them was going to be put on hold.

First of all, I recently watched the Anne of Green Gables movie for the first time so I was delighted by all the references to it throughout the book (although there were some spoilers!). The PEI setting was so picturesque and I lived for the memories of Lucy’s annual visits (during which she tries in vain to stay away from Felix). The narrative is split between these past summers and the present, when Bridget has unexpectedly fled to PEI days before her wedding and demanded that Lucy join her and Felix there.

I really enjoyed Lucy – she was fun and felt distinct enough to be believable. Her friendship with Bridget was very special and I loved seeing their closeness.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
This Summer Will Be Different on Goodreads
Buy This Summer Will Be Different at an indie bookstore near you