Book Review, Fiction, Romance

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪

I love a romance between a famous person and a regular person, so the premise of Hannah being assigned as the bodyguard for hunky movie star Jack Stapleton sounded right up my alley. Jack is staying at his family home helping out since his mom is sick, and he needs someone to keep him safe from his stalker. He doesn’t want to put more stress on his family, so rather than admit what’s going on, he tells them that Hannah is his girlfriend.

I liked the romance fine in this book, there was chemistry between Jack and Hannah and I liked them both as characters. Hannah’s insanely misogynistic ex-boyfriend seemed way too over the top. It seemed like every scumbag characteristic had been dumped on him, which made me respect Hannah less since there was nothing redeeming about him.

The ending was such a mess for me. It went from zero to one hundred in a bizarre twist that did not add to the story and was so random. It’s a no for me.

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

I’m a big fan of the ‘famous person dating a normal person’ trope in a romance novel, so I had high expectations for Funny You Should Ask. It was definitely not the light fluffy read I was expecting. The story is split between past and present, focusing on an interview of movie star Gabe Parker by Chani Horowitz. The article launched Chani’s writing career and sent rumors swirling that she had slept with Gabe. In the present, ten years later, Gabe’s PR team requests that the two reconnect for a follow-up.

Even though the focus is on two interviews, set ten years apart, there is a lot of nuance and layer to the story. Gabe has struggled with addiction and imposter syndrome that sent his career off the tracks while Chani went through a divorce and struggles to distance herself from her original article about Gabe. The contrast between their present day realities and their exhilarating, sexy, surface-level first meeting was powerful and kept me reading to see if the gap between the two realities could be bridged.

The ending of the book felt rushed to me and I wished there had been more of a build up. There was so much focus on the experiences the two main characters had gone through in the previous ten years and the conclusion did not do those years justice, in my opinion.

My other issue with this book is the ~magical~ article Chani wrote about Gabe that catapulted her career and gave him a much needed publicity boost. I found the article…underwhelming. The whole narrative was based off how incredible it was, and I had a bit of trouble buying into it. I was mostly able to look past this, but it really felt like it should have been more compelling.

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Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Memoir
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Beyond the Wand was a wonderfully insightful and humorous insight into the world of Tom Felton. As a huge Harry Potter fan, I loved getting the inside scoop on the actors real personalities and on-set interactions. Learning about the way the kids were mentored, formed cliques, and grew up together was so fun to hear about and made me want to watch the films again ASAP.

We also got to learn about Tom beyond Harry Potter (hence the title). He details his difficulties getting jobs once the series ended, his struggles with addiction, and his friendship with Emma Watson (sigh). Tom’s wit and humor are infused throughout the book, but there is also a frank honesty with which he recalls his past. He doesn’t shy away from sharing the hard parts.

The audiobook is narrated by Tom himself, which was especially fun to listen to. That being said, the physical book includes several pages of photos that bring his stories to life, as well as a foreword by Emma Watson that can’t be missed. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, I highly recommend this one to learn about what makes Tom Felton more than just Draco Malfoy.

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Book Review, Fiction

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Dystopian fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

Oof this was a heavy one. Migrations follows the journey of Franny Stone as she convinces a ship’s crew to let her tag along to follow the last of the Arctic terns on their migration. The setting is slightly futuristic, with most animals having gone extinct from the effects of global warming. Just as the terns may never be able to make their migration again due to lack of fish, Franny intends to die at the end of her journey.

Franny has a dark background and it is clear that she is haunted by even more than we are let in on in the flashbacks. We see the story of her whirlwind meeting of her husband and their relationship as Franny experiences intense vivid nightmares and searches for the truth about her family. We know there’s even more though, as, in the present, she writes letters to her husband that she never sends.

The worldbuilding in this story was powerful, particularly since it is not unbelievable that the real world could follow suit. Franny’s relationships with the eclectic members of the ship’s crew seemed a little hectic and underdeveloped to me. I think the intent was to show how Franny’s hurt manifested in her treating other people as a way to try to heal her pain, but it came off as confusing to me. I would have appreciated more of a focus solely on her.

The ultimate unraveling of Franny’s past is heartbreaking and makes her journey that much more meaningful and painful. This was a deep sweeping adventure both externally and into Franny’s character, and will stick with me.

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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.

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Scandalized by Ivy Owens ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

This book taught me that I’m a sucker for a ‘normal person falls in love with a celebrity’ trope. It gave me major The Idea of You vibes and I was here for it. When Gigi runs into Alec, the brother of her best childhood friend at the airport as their flight is canceled, he generously lets her use the shower in his hotel room despite having not seen her since they were kids. They decide to catch up as they wait for travel plans to be rearranged and immediately feel an electric chemistry. When Gigi gets off the same plane as Alec the next day, she’s met by a screaming mob of fans shouting his name, making her realize there’s much more to him than she was aware of.

The romance in this book was sexy and definitely spicy. Although it clearly took center stage (in the best of ways) there were other layers to this story that I wasn’t expecting. Gigi is an investigative journalist looking into a nightclub that appears to be covering up the drugging and rape of women in their VIP rooms. This disturbing story ties unexpectedly into the relationship she is trying to foster with Alec and added a level of seriousness that made this story more than a fluffy romance.

That being said, also the romance, the romance, the romance. Alec and Gigi do their best to hide their growing relationship and keep Gigi out of the spotlight and away from paparazzi. The sneaking around added a level of scandal that made this book addictive and electric.

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Book Review, Holiday, Romance

The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪.5

I so badly wanted to love this book. I’m Jewish, and the premise of a book about a Jewish woman writing Christmas novels under a pseudonym was intriguing and relatable, as a Christmas-movie lover myself. I really appreciated the depiction of Rachel’s chronic illness and the ways it impacted her life and was misunderstood by those around her. Her character was layered and I liked learning about her. I did not, however, like her or the main male character Jacob, as people.

The two of them initially met at summer camp when they were kids and had a short-lived romance that ended in a clear miscommunication. When they reconnect as adults, Jacob tries to woo Rachel by making her wear a bizarre costume while volunteering for his upcoming Matzah Ball. This approach to a relationship and the subsequent reactions were immature and unbelievable and made it impossible for me to care what happened to the two of them.

Jacob’s inadequacy at planning the Matzah Ball when he was supposedly such an impressive event planner was baffling. Rachel’s career, family life, friends, and backstory kept me reading, as did my passive interest in seeing how the Matzah Ball worked out, but I would not recommend it.

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Book Review, Fiction, Historical Fiction

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Historical Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

Cutting for Stone is a sweeping historical fiction that covers generations. It is primarily the story of Marion and Shiva, twins whose mother, a nun, dies during childbirth, and whose father, a surgeon, runs away with no acknowledgement that the children are his. The two are raised in Ethiopia near the mission hospital where they were born and Marion develops a love for medicine that leads him to follow in his father’s footsteps.

I was in awe by how much depth and breadth this book was able to cover, from the backstory of the twins’ parents through their childhood and into their adult lives. I found the personal stories and character details compelling. There were also sections dealing with political unrest and turmoil and I found these parts a bit more difficult to follow. I wished there had been amore historical context to set the stage.

There were parts of this book that moved a bit slowly and could have been cut down. The section set during the twins’ childhood was much longer than that of their adulthood and I would have liked some more balance to get to know them once they were older. There were also a lot of really graphic medical scenes and doctor jargon that I skimmed over. They didn’t add to the book for me and took me out of the story when they popped up.

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Book Review, Fiction, Science Fiction

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub ~ Book Review

Morgan

Riverhead Books
Genre: Science Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

What was so striking about This Time Tomorrow for me was that it was able to incorporate time travel into a story that was otherwise completely realistic, and make it work. The sci-fi element was seamlessly integrated into the story of Alice and her dad when she wakes up the night after her 40th birthday to find herself in her childhood bedroom on her 16th birthday. What strikes Alice most in her 16-year-old reality through her newly 40 year old perspective is how young and full of life her dad is, compared to him, bedridden at the end of his life, in the present.

Alice begins a quest to get to know her dad more fully and truly and to try to keep him healthy for longer. Although there are some things she plays around with changing for her potential personal benefit, she quickly becomes solely focused on her dad. Seeing the lengths Alice goes to, and the way she approaches her life with such a singular mission was both heartwarming and heartbreaking. For anyone who has witnessed their parents getting older, this will be an emotional read.

The depth behind Alice’s dad’s character and his own interest in time travel made his character stand out and I felt like I got to know him well. I loved seeing Alice change how she acted at 16 in response to what she knew about the future. It was deeply thought-provoking.

Although there was a lot of time-hopping and repetition of scenes, the narrative never felt confusing or redundant and watching Alice’s growth made for a really special story that I won’t soon forget.

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

One Last Gift by Emily Stone ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Holiday Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

When Cassie loses her brother, Tom, she feels unmoored. Having lost their parents at a young age, the siblings were incredibly close and spent lots of time together, often accompanied by Tom’s best friend, Sam. Following Tom’s death, Cassie finds an envelope with the first clue to a scavenger hunt that Tom had planned to give her for Christmas. So Cassie begins what she knows will be her last annual hunt, and her last gift from Tom, with no idea what to expect or how she will feel when she finishes it.

I love a romance book that also focuses on familial love. The bond between Tom and Cassie was palpable even though he was not actually present in the majority of the story. The clues he left behind for her made it clear how much he cared. Throughout the hunt, Cassie was reminded of different moments with Tom that painted vignettes of the two of them together, allowing the reader to get to know him.

Throughout the whole story, Sam’s relationship with Cassie is looming. They are not on good terms for much of the narrative, tiptoeing around each other to avoid addressing their past feelings for one another. It was interesting to see the different ways they responded to their grief over losing Tom and how that informed their reactions toward one another.

Parts of this story reminded me of Me Before You with a focus on showing someone your love by helping them push themselves to their full potential. The way that Tom continued to influence Cassie’s life for the better long after his passing was beautiful.

Although this may be classified as a holiday book, the only real nod to the holidays was the fact that the ‘one last gift’ was a Christmas present. More centrally, it’s an emotional exploration of two siblings’ love and Cassie’s journey to both grieve and honor Tom.

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