Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Slow Burn Summer by Josie Silver ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

When Kate got married, she gave up her dream of acting. Now newly divorced, she reaches out to her old talent agent only to connect with his son, Charlie, who has inherited the business and is looking for someone to act as a stand-in for the author of a new romance novel.

Josie Silver’s writing is always delightful. She creates characters and situations that are funny and quirky and believable and altogether a joy to read about. I loved getting to know Kate and watching the public instantly adore her as she steps out on the job. I could so easily see why she attracted such attention.

The first part of the book focuses on Kate’s acting job and it takes a bit of a turn later on. I definitely preferred the first half of the book, but Kate and the side characters – like her sister and daughter, kept the book fun.

Romance was not a big focus of the story. When the title says slow burn, it means it. That said, I liked seeing the banter and sparks between Charlie as they each navigate life and love post-divorce.

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Book Review, Romance

One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

Alice leaves her burnt out city life behind to take care of her grandma after a fall. Returning to Barry’s Bay reminds her of the summers she spent there as a teenager and inspires her to go after the things she never got around to doing then. When notorious flirt Charlie enters the scene however, she finds her summer taking an unexpected turn.

My main issue with this book is how cringey I found the romance. It was not a swoony sexy build-up, it was cliched, and literally made me roll my eyes. From the way they spoke to each other to the way they interacted, to how much Alice loved when Charlie brushed her teeth, I just could not get on board with them as a couple.

Alice, with Charlie’s help, is working her way through a checklist of things she wants to try by the end of the summer. The list was written when she was a teenager and, being a central plot point, makes the whole book feel like it’s YA, which actually works because the characters acts so immature, but was not what I was looking for.

I loved the Barry’s Bay setting and the summery escape, but not much else worked for me here.

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Book Review, Fiction, mystery

Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

When Sylvie goes missing after going to the Netherlands to say goodbye to her dying grandmother, her sister Amy finds herself taking up the search for her. Amy is a sheltered youngest child and traveling to the Netherlands terrifies her. Once she arrives she finds that her family there seems to have a much different view of Sylvie, her protective, successful older sister.

This story is told in part by Amy, Sylvie, and their mom. We learn from each of them that the family is rife with secrets and we see each of their perspectives on the difficult decisions that had to be made as an immigrant family moving to the US from China. My favorite part of the book was probably learning about each character from the other perspectives and then hearing the differences from their own voice.

Although this is technically a mystery, it’s very slow and drawn out. The tension never really comes to a head, it just sort of meanders to the end. That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but the ultimate conclusion just kind of fell flat.

There was a really bizarre relationship arc in this story that just made me feel weird reading this whole book. I don’t really know what the intention was there and I won’t say anything more specific to avoid spoilers, but I did not enjoy it.

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Book Review, Fiction

Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

Barefoot may have been one of Hilderbrand’s most dramatic stories, and that’s really saying something. Vicki, Brenda, and Melanie arrive on Nantucket for the summer, each ready for an escape from their reality. Vicki is fighting cancer, Brenda lost her career after an affair with a student, and Melanie found out her husband is having an affair and that she’s pregnant with the baby she has so desperately longed for. As if that’s not enough going on, enter twenty-two year old Josh who babysits for them over the summer and finds himself embroiled in their lives in unexpected ways.

I liked that each character felt they were on borrowed time while on Nantucket. They knew the summer would eventually end and they would have to stop suspending reality. It felt relatable as a reader, since the book too was finite – it contained their stories well. Bolstered, of course, by the totally immersive setting. Every time I opened the book I was wholly transported to a beach town.

Although all three of the main women were kind of annoying and self-serving at times, I didn’t really care that I didn’t love them. It amped up the drama and helped me understand the nuanced relationships between them.

Josh’s ex-girlfriend was also a prominent character and seemed like a kind of random addition to provide some backstory for him. I found her storyline unnecessary and a bit repetitive, but we did get a really good sense of who Josh was and I liked his character.

The ending felt kind of rushed and a little too ‘wrapping things up,’ but I didn’t really mind.

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Book Review, mystery, YA

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: YA Mystery

I listened to the audiobook of We Were Liars and I’ve seen a lot of reviews that the writing is kind of choppy when reading the physical book, so keep that in mind. This was a super fast read that’s narrated by Cady. Two years ago, she was in a terrible accident that she can’t remember and no one will explain to her. When she comes back to the island that she visits every summer, where the accident happened, she finds herself determined to figure out the truth.

We get to know Cady’s family, specifically the other “liars” who are around her age and consider themselves better than their racist/classist family members. I don’t really get why they were called the liars and quite honestly I found them annoying.

I liked the interpersonal drama and the confusion around Cady’s accident. It was clear that we couldn’t quite trust her – since even she had no idea what her past held. It kept me guessing.

The twist was very unexpected but not in a way that knocked my socks off. I was kind of just like “oh, huh.” I liked the island setting and the coming of age narrative and the mysterious nature of the writing, but the story itself wasn’t super compelling.

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Book Review, Fiction, Science Fiction, YA

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: YA Science Fiction

Coming fresh off reading Sunrise on the Reaping, I was excited to get back into the world of the Hunger Games. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes lets us in on the backstory of Coriolanus Snow (President Snow in the OG trilogy). For the tenth Hunger Games, members of the Capitol are matched up with tributes to be their mentors. Coriolanus is paired up with Lucy Gray, the girl from district 12.

As tends to be the case with these books, the part I enjoyed most was the actual games. I also found it interesting to see the training Coriolanus received and how the horrible people around him influenced his perspectives.

It was interesting to see how he bent and broke rules to help Lucy (or maybe just to help himself) and how they seemed on the one hand positive, but knowing how he turned out you could see how this was all the beginning of his downhill slide.

Once the games ended, the storyline got stagnant for me. It felt very locked in Coriolanus’s mind in a manner that was repetitive and yet things seemed to escalate very quickly at the very end in a way that I didn’t quite follow.

Still very well done world-building and I appreciated the effort to build out a villain origins story.

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Book Review, Fiction, mystery

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Mystery

What a fantastic reminder of how much I love Janelle Brown’s writing. What Kind of Paradise is, at its core, a mystery, but it is also a sweeping exploration of one girl’s unusual life and the dark undercurrents that led to everything she knows.

Jane grew up in a cabin in the woods in Montana with her dad. They were almost entirely cut off from the outside world, with him constantly explaining the evils of technological advancement as well as having regular drills of what to do if and when the FBI came looking for them.

As Jane gets older and has a bit more exposure to the outside world, she begins to question whether her father’s rules and views are actually aligned with her own beliefs. After discovering paperwork in her dad’s study that makes her question everything, Jane sets off for San Francisco on her own and finds herself surrounded by start-ups focused on exactly the type of technological advancement she has been taught to fear.

I was so impressed with how huge this story felt while still only being about Jane. The section set in Montana was so different from that set in San Francisco but they were each so well developed in terms of setting and characters. I felt wholly immersed in both worlds and enjoyed them each equally.

The focus on the possible evils of technology felt so timely but I loved that it was explored at a time when the internet was just getting started. The arguments on each side are still so relevant and it was such an interesting study of someone who saw the downside to the internet so early vs. the people working so hard to expand what it could do. Plopping Jane in the middle, who had been spoon-fed one perspective all her life, was fascinating.

This story had so many layers and explored so many themes. It’s hard to try to capture it all in one review, so I’ll just say read it.

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Book Review, Fiction

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

Set primarily at the University of Edinburgh, I was sucked in immediately by the allure of an academic setting. Pen is attending the university from Canada in part because she believes there’s someone there who can help her understand her parents’ divorce. Her best friend Alice is also attending. I loved their friendship. They had been friends forever and watching them fumble their way through university together, making mistakes as they went, was such an understandable journey.

Pen’s sleuthing skills led her to a wealthy author, Elliott Lennox, in the countryside and she visits his estate in the hopes that he will have information for her about her family. Instead, she finds herself welcomed by his family and drawn to Elliott’s son, Sasha, in particular. Thus her relationship with the family quickly becomes more complex than its mysterious beginning. I adored this family – how warm they were and how they enveloped Pen.

Alice’s storyline felt a little half-baked in comparison to Pen’s and I’m not sure it was really necessary. Although still interesting and a good example of how we may experience and make mistakes through early adulthood, her story felt completely divorced from the central plotline.

There was also on-campus drama that flowed between Pen’s visits to the Lennox estate and these depicted believable college experiences. I did feel that Pen’s relationship with the Lennox family was the most compelling part of the story, but her time at school was filled with enough drama that the book never felt dry.

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Book Review, Fiction

The Sun Sets in Singapore by Kehinde Fadipe ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

This drama follows three women who are Nigerian ex-pats living in Singapore. Dara is a lawyer fighting for partnership at her firm, Amaka is a banker struggling to keep her finances in check, and Lillian followed her husband to Singapore from the US and finds herself lost when their marriage ends. All three are impacted by the arrival of Lani, an attractive new hire at Dara’s firm.

This book was primarily propelled along by drama amongst the women, their friends and family, and everyone’s evolving relationship to Lani. It was very character-driven, yet I found myself mostly only caring about Dara’s storyline. That said, Fadipe did an incredible job in creating believably flawed women.

The various ways the women obsessed over Lani was a bit much for me at times, but it worked as a means for ratcheting up the tension. This was very much a quick, melodramatic read and although I didn’t connect with the characters all that much, I had fun learning about their lives.

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Book Review, Fiction

I Hope this Finds You Well by Natalie Sue ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

Jolene does the bare minimum to squeak by at her job and gets her qualms with her colleagues out by including her complaints in emails in white text. When she’s caught, HR is supposed to install software to monitor her computer, but instead allows her access to every message being sent in the company.

Jolene’s inner monologue and conflicting interests as to what to do with this newfound information was witty, funny, and sometimes painful. The nuance of office etiquette and the ways people skirt around it were so well summed up in this book.

We get to know Jolene’s mom and their relationship, her neighbor, and a number of her colleagues. I liked how each relationship helped me to understand a different piece of Jolene.

Obviously, things get tangled in a sea of dishonesty, but it helped me to see just how much growth Jolene’s character had. I loved that something negative (snooping on all her colleagues) led to her often understanding them more as people and opening up to them more. It was an unexpected outcome. There was also a really adorable romance that I could not have rooted for more.

There’s depth and darkness to Jolene’s character and a lot of her thoughts about her life are largely negative. That said, her sarcasm and sense of humor lent a light note to the writing. It was a joy to read and I could so perfectly visualize the story.

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