Book Review, Fiction, Romance

The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren ~ Book Review

Morgan

Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Fizzy Chen is a romance novelist who has lost her belief in true love, at least for herself. It’s stifled her creativity and is making conceptualizing a new book next to impossible. When Fizzy is approached by Connor Prince to star in a reality dating show, she sends him a list of terms that he shockingly agrees to. Connor has his own agenda, namely creating a reality show for his boss so he can get back to the documentary making that he loves.

Naturally, sparks fly between Fizzy and Connor creating an immediate conflict of interest that sucked me right in. I will say, I guessed exactlyyy where the story was going, but honestly I still really enjoyed the ride. The chemistry between Fizzy and Connor was palpable and I like the depth of each of them as individuals.

The premise of the dating show was really fun although the details of filming were largely glossed over. More time was spent getting to know Fizzy and Connor, separately and together, and the people they held dearest to them. They each had strong and wonderfully detailed support systems. I enjoyed getting to know everyone in this sparkling story.

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

Book Review, Nonfiction, Self Help

The Defining Decade by Meg Jay ~ Book Review

Morgan

Nonfiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

What I appreciated most about this book was its reminder that every day counts toward your future and even if you don’t have a ‘plan’ for your life, it can’t hurt to make a move, take a step, and see where it takes you. Jay talks about how your twenties can hugely impact your future in terms of earning potential, career success, and romantic life. However, I think it’s important to take this with a grain of salt. It’s not impossible to grow in these areas and change your life for the better once your twenties are over.

Most of the case studies of Jay’s clients completely glossed over the difficult realities that many people face when they feel stuck in their twenties. She frames them like people who are working jobs that aren’t going anywhere simply haven’t tried to find anything else, which is demoralizing for anyone who has struggled submitting hundreds of job applications that go nowhere.

This book is a good reminder to be intentional with the way you are setting yourself up for your future while you’re in your twenties, which for some people, is enough of a reminder to kickstart them into action. However, it’s limited to a certain type of privileged audience and paints too urgent of a picture, in my opinion, for everything someone needs to have accomplished before thirty in order to have a great life.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Yerba Buena by Nina Lacour ~ Book Review

Morgan

Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Yerba Buena tells the haunting stories of Sara and Emilie. I was so impressed by how rich each of their characters and backstories were. They have very different backgrounds and lives, and each was so detailed and unique that it felt like they were real people I was getting to know. In each section, I would get so engrossed in one of their lives that I would honestly forget this was a split narrative and we would be jumping back to someone else eventually. It was far heavier and more real than I anticipated going into it.

The side-by-side stories were captivating without being action-packed. Much of this book revolves around the everyday occurrences that Sara and Emilie experience separately as they wind their way through their lives and try to figure out their passions and places. This book let me grow and grow up with both characters and although ultimately I knew that they would find their way to one another, I cared about them more as individuals than as a couple.

This would have been a five star read for me if it weren’t for the ending. It felt to me like the book just kind of ended, and Sara and Emilie deserved something more after such an epic exploration of their lives.

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

Book Review, Memoir

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate ~ Book Review

Morgan

Memoir
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

What a whimsical, unusual look at the world through the eyes of Jenny Slate. Although this is categorized as a memoir, it reads more like magical realism or even poetry. If you go into this hoping for a cut and dry depiction of Jenny’s life, you’ll be disappointed. It’s clear that Jenny sees the world in a manner that’s purely her own; a manner that’s lyrical and visual and totally captivating if you let yourself get sucked up in it.

I listened to the audiobook and it was magic to hear Jenny reading her own words and emphasizing what was meant to be emphasized. Although the nature of the writing is whimsical, the content is raw and vulnerable. The feelings and moments Jenny details are real and often painfully relatable, but brought to life through visuals I would never have thought of on my own.

It’s difficult to try to express how wonderfully unique this book is, since I have nothing to compare it to, but if you want to explore the world through a lens that’s not your own, that’s perhaps a little weird, pick up this book.

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

Book Review, Nonfiction

All About Love by bell hooks ~ Book Review

Morgan

Nonfiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪

What I appreciated most about this book was the discussion of romantic love and how society emphasizes it as being the most important kind of love. hooks discusses the importance of love between friends and family, which is often more enduring than romantic love. It was refreshing to reframe this and make myself more cognizant of how society has shaped my views.

What I appreciated least about this book was the focus on spirituality. For me, that approach does not resonate and it felt like it was being forced on me in order to try to understand hooks’s perspective. While someone with more religion or spirituality in their life might find this effective, it caused me to skim over much of the book to try to pick out pieces that felt more relevant to my life.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy All About Love at an indie bookstore near you
All About You on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey ~ Book Review

Morgan

Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

When Maggie finds herself divorced at 29 after her marriage of less than two years ends, she finds herself suddenly adrift, attempting to convince herself and everyone around her that she’s doing really good, actually.

I enjoyed the self deprecating humor throughout this book. It made me feel like I could really understand Maggie’s character and the way she processed (or refused to acknowledge) pain. Just know that that’s the majority of the book – there’s not much else going on. It’s about her meandering through her new life and trying to figure things out. The actually content of the storyline lacked depth, but as a character study of Maggie’s journey to find herself again, that worked. There wasn’t much exploration of her choices beyond surface level humor, but if you go into this one with that in mind, it’s a quirky read.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Really Good, Actually at an indie bookstore near you
Really Good, Actually on Goodreads

Book Review, thriller

Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister ~ Book Review

Morgan

Mystery
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

Wrong Place, Wrong Time begins when Jen sees her teenage son stab someone to death in the street one night. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds that she has actually gone back a day. So begins her slow journey into the past trying to figure out why her son would kill someone and how to prevent it from happening.

The setup of this story made me thinking of the movie Memento, with Jen never being able to build on her conversations with anyone from day to day. Whenever I thought surely we would not venture further into the past, we JUST KEPT GOING.

Even with a reverse timeline, I found it easy to keep up with the storyline and fascinating to watch Jen piece things together and slowly understand how parts of her past came to inform her future.

This bumped up to a five star read for me at the very end when we learned what the catalyst was for absolutely everything. It changed the entire story and was not at all what I would expect from this kind of thriller. I’m pretty sure my jaw literally dropped in public.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Wrong Place, Wrong Time at an indie bookstore near you
Wrong Place, Wrong Time on Goodreads

Book Review, Nonfiction, Self Help

The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane~ Book Review

Morgan

Personal Development
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

The central tenet of The Charisma Myth is that charisma is not something innate to certain people, but rather, it is something that can be taught. Through a series of stories, Cabane illustrates issues that people in her life have faced and practices they have used to exude more charisma in future similar situations.

The book is interspersed with exercises to try that illustrate the concepts being explained. Although some of them seem obvious, like giving someone your full undivided attention during a conversation, I’d never really made the connection between those actions and someone’s perceived charisma.

A number of the practices discussed gave me more confidence in myself because I recognized them as things I already do in my day to day interactions. As I’ve implemented more of them, I feel at least an internal shift knowing that I am approaching situations more intentionally.

Some of the suggestions did not feel like they would be applicable/helpful to someone who struggles with public speaking or social anxiety. If those situations are deeply difficult, I’m not convinced that these are the right fixes. When Cabane started explaining how too much charisma can basically make people obsessed with you (paraphrasing) it felt like she was tooting her own horn a bit too much – I have trouble believing people walk away from this book with THAT MUCH more charisma. Overall though, I did come away with some useful new tools for social situations.

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

Book Review, Fiction

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton ~ Book Review

Morgan

Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪.5

Nina is in her thirties, a successful cookbook writer living alone, and single. Her closest friends are settling down, her mom has decided to rebrand herself, and her father has dementia. Nina downloads a dating app and soon meets Max. They quickly become serious until one day, after they’ve confessed their love, he ghosts her.

This story paints one women’s experience being single in her thirties and how her romantic life impacts her actions, emotions, and self-perception. It’s a story of getting older and watching things change around you that you thought never would and that you want to desperately to cling to.

I appreciated the relationship between Nina and her parents and the difficulties they were dealing with at this new chapter in her life. I wish that had been the main focus of this book. The romance was rushed and lacked substance, as did Nina’s character in general. We were told she was a successful author etc. but never got any detail or saw any of it in practice.

There did not seem to be a lot of actual plot in this book, but there were a lot of random subplots like Nina’s loud neighbor (mentioned 5 too many times) and debate over where her middle name came from (mentioned 12 too many times).

There was a lot of promise to a story centered around the various types of ‘ghosting’ many women face in their thirties, but ultimately none of them were focused on enough.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Science Fiction

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers ~ Book Review

Morgan

Science Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

What a comforting, thought-provoking story wrapped up in the tale of a tea monk and a robot. The world-building in A Psalm for the Wild-Built is subtle enough that I didn’t get overwhelmed by it, but integrated so that I understood the context of the book’s world. The premise centers around a time in the past when robots gained self awareness and then disappeared into the wild.

Dex feels unfulfilled in their life and longs for purpose. They take themselves off the beaten path, away from the tea monk life they have been living, and stumble across a robot, Splendid Speckled Mosscap. The robot is on its own journey, to understand humans. Together, the two of them engage in deep conversations about life that left me feeling optimistic and not alone.

Although this is a fairly short book, it feels rejuvenating in a way I haven’t experienced before from a book. I’ve never dabbled with the ‘cozy’ sub-genre, but I want to curl up in the story of Dex and Splendid Speckled Mosscap, so I would classify at as giving definite cozy vibes.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy A Psalm for the Wild-Built at an indie bookstore near you
A Psalm for the Wild-Built on Goodreads