Tag: baking

Book Review, Fiction

Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

What an odd book. When Frankie and Zeke meet one summer, they become inspired by an old copier in Frankie’s garage and decide to make a joint art project. What starts as a creative outlet for the two of them quickly becomes a poster that’s plastered across their town. Started by the two of them, the poster soon starts to pop up elsewhere and is a catalyst for temporary panic.

The story is told through flashbacks to the life-changing summer as well as through Frankie’s adult self. Frankie receives a call from a journalist who has discovered that Frankie was responsible for the poster. Although it has been twenty years since that summer, and since she saw Zeke, Frankie is catapulted back to the fear that they caused and must decide how to approach her secret being let out.

This premise was really unusual, but I personally didn’t find it terribly compelling. I think there’s a larger message about teenagers not understanding the repercussions of their actions, which may be meaningful to a younger audience than me. The whole book was solely focused on this one event and it didn’t feel to me like it could sustain a whole nuanced story, granted, the book was pretty short as a result.

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Book Review, Fiction, mystery

The It Girl by Ruth Ware ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

One thing about me: I love a good prep school murder mystery. The It Girl tells the story of April, the Oxford ‘It Girl’ who Hannah Jones is assigned to live with. April is found dead at the end of their second term and Hannah provides key evidence in convicting the suspected killer, Neville. When Neville dies in prison a decade later, Hannah’s world is shaken when a reporter presents her with new information that Neville may not have been guilty.

This book cut between past and present and artfully showed how April could be both loved and hated by everyone around her. There was no shortage of people with motives and I was guessing until the end about who the killer really was.

The emotional destruction that the situation had on Hannah was heart-wrenching. Particularly, the way it drew a rift between her and her husband, just as they were expecting their first child.

I didn’t find the ending to be mind blowing, which is my extremely high bar for a thriller, but I was satisfied with it.

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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, 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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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, Holiday, Romance

Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Holiday Romance
My Rating: 🍪

Lovelight Farms is a friends to lovers will-they-won’t-they romance that suffered from a lack of creativity in the writing style. The actual storyline – Stella trying to save her Christmas tree farm by applying for an influencer’s publicity contest and lying about having a boyfriend – had all the makings for an adorable holiday romance. Unfortunately the execution was just not there. The number of times the two love interests reiterated “s/he can’t be interested in me, we’re just best friends. I misunderstood” made me want to scream. There was also a thread of mysterious vandalism running through the story that had such a random conclusion and felt so unnecessary. A cute premise, but I could not get on board.

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

The Kiss Quotient by Helena Hoang ~ Book Review

Morgan

Berkley
Genre: Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

When one of Stella’s coworkers makes a comment insinuating that she doesn’t have romantic experience, she decides to hire a professional escort, Michael, to show her the ropes. Stella has Asperger’s Syndrome and physical intimacy doesn’t come naturally to her at first. Michael, however, seems to understand her better than she could have anticipated, and her feelings for him quickly grow.

I loved how much Stella valued her job and the way she thought about data in all aspects of her life. Her passion toward it helped to define her character. I also appreciated Michael’s backstory and how we slowly discovered how he’d gotten to where he was over the course of the story.

I got really annoyed by how the two of them were so obtuse about the other person liking them. There was so much repetition and miscommunication and I wish that aspect had been dialed down because it really took away from me being able to appreciate the growth of their relationship.

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