Tag: book-reviews

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

The Paradise Problem is a delightful fake-dating romance following Anna and Liam “West” after their marriage of convenience. The two virtual strangers have gone their separate ways and, so thinks Anna, divorced. Little does she know that West is keeping their marriage intact to gain his inheritance. Over the years, his family has come to grow suspicious and, in an act of desperation, he shows up on Anna’s door desperate for her to step in and play the role of his wife.

Much of this book takes place on a tropical island, making it an ideal summer read. The luxury of the couple’s surroundings was such a lovely setting and a wonderful backdrop for their unfolding romance. Their flirtiness and banter was so fun and there was the perfect amount of steam (read: a lot).

West is the heir to a huge supermarket chain and his extended family is very over-the-top wealthy. There’s a lot of focus on inheritance and catty family drama, which for the most part I loved (although the back and forth about joining the family business got a littttle old by the end).

This book would make such a perfect movie and was a great choice for me to read on vacation by the pool.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪 🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

I finished this book and was left very confused as to how a book centered entirely around an on-again-off-again relationship could maintain my interest for so long (it’s a big book!). I prefer action, rather than character driven books, but something about BJ Ballantine and Magnolia Parks really did it for me. They were once the “it” couple but after a disastrous betrayal, they’ve reverted to being just friends (albeit friends who sometimes have sleepovers in the same bed).

Magnolia Parks is very Gossip Girl-esque, focused on an elite squad of young adults as they navigate the London social scene of the 1%. Magnolia has an uncanny ability to name the designer and name of any piece of clothing anyone is wearing and although this seemed a bit like a device to name a bunch of fancy designers, it was also kind of an endearing quirk. BJ was less likable as he constantly slept with different women in an obvious attempt to get Magnolia out of his system.

Even though this is very over the top drama and focuses on relationships, it isn’t a fun romance. This book is so messy and pretty much every relationship in it is toxic (think cheating and manipulation), but I couldn’t look away. I’m not really one for reading a series, but I’ll definitely be picking up book two, which I believe focuses on one of Magnolia’s friends, to see what happens next with this chaotic group.

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

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

One by One by Freida McFadden ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

*Rolls eyes very hard.* I have never so quickly whipped through a book that I was not enjoying. I will never understand how McFadden’s books draw me in so deeply and quickly or what about her writing keeps me glued to it. For some reason, that was still the case even as I was consciously aware that this book felt extremely cliched.

Claire is headed to a weekend getaway with her husband and two other couples. When their car breaks down in the woods, they decide they’ll walk the rest of the way to their accommodations, it should only be a couple of miles. Instead of an easy walk though, the group finds themselves hopelessly lost and slowly people begin to die or disappear.

I felt like I was right there with the group walking in circles in the woods because this book took so long to get anywhere. I didn’t feel like there were any hints about the context of why this was happening to them, it was just the group increasingly getting scared and walking around more and Claire thinking she can reconcile with her husband as he does borderline nice things for her.

Usually, McFadden’s books have a crazy twist that I love and that gets me fired up rethinking the entire book. This one just felt flat. There are excerpts throughout the book from ‘anonymous’ that I knew were going to tie in, but when their identity was ultimately revealed it didn’t really make sense to me.

This was somehow still a thriller I read in just a couple days and wanted to find out the ending to, but would recommend any of McFadden’s other books above this one.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Funny Story by Emily Henry ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Romance

It’s taken me a few weeks to get to writing this review (life has been a lot lately) and I’ve somehow managed to forget almost this entire book, which says a lot about my thoughts on it. Daphne’s life is upended when her fiance Peter runs off with his childhood best friend, Petra, and Daphne moves in with Petra’s ex, Miles. Did you get all that? It’s a pretty standard set-up for a contemporary romance and you know exactly where it’s going from the jump.

As always, Henry does witty banter extremely well and I found myself charmed by Miles and Daphne’s dialogue much of the time. (Not so much when he was commenting on her moaning while enjoying food…why was that mentioned so much).

I found Daphne and Miles’s thoughts about their respective exes to be sometimes problematic. They clearly hadn’t had time to process what happened before they were falling for each other and it worried me from a logical perspective.

This was a solid romance, but ultimately nothing really stood out to me. It felt predictable and a bit uninspired. Definitely one of my bottom two Henry books.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Historical Fiction

The Women by Kristin Hannah ~ Book Review

Morgan

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

When Frances, “Frankie’s” brother leaves to serve in Vietnam during the war, she makes the bold decision to follow him and become an army nurse. Arriving in Vietnam, she is faced with horror and chaos she never could have imagined but, bolstered by the other nurses who become fast friends, Frankie soon finds intense meaning and pride in her work.

This book was wholly immersive and captivating. It’s clear Hannah did an extensive amount of research before writing this book and I felt like I could see everything Frankie was experiencing perfectly. Frankie is a heroic and believably flawed character. There are moments she is so admirable and moments when she makes decisions that are so clearly wrong for her. Her life during and after Vietnam was not easy, and the book follows her as she is met with hurdle after hurdle.

I absolutely adored the friends Frankie made in Vietnam and the way they showed up for her over and over even as they each chose different paths upon their return to the states. The bond of their shared experiences made for such a tigh friendship that was depicted wonderfully. All of the characters in fact, were so well written, detailed and nuanced, whether that made me love them or hate them.

Toward the end of the book, there are a lot of BIG THINGS that happen to Frankie back to back. This is when the story lost me a fraction. It just felt like too much crammed in too little of a timeline. Other than that, this is an incredible read.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

This Spells Love by Kate Robb ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪
Genre: Romance

When Gemma finds herself drunk and crying over her breakup, she enlists the help of her sister, aunt, and best friend Dax to help her conduct a cleansing spell to erase her ex from her life. Lo and behold, Gemma wakes to find out that it was a little too powerful, and has sent her to an alternate reality where not only does her ex not know who she is, neither does Dax.

I appreciated the message behind this story about being thankful for the things you have in your life at the present moment. As Gemma sees what her life could be, she has to weigh that reality against the relationships she has lost because of the spell.

The romance in this book was so unrealistic. Dax goes from thinking Gemma is breaking into his store to suddenly being really into her pages later. Their flirting was so cringey and nothing about the relationship felt organic.

One thing that I love about this kind of book is seeing the person who time/line travels needing to navigate their new life and inevitably making mistakes. This was almost entirely glossed over in this book. Gemma picked everything up way too quickly, eliminating what could have been a great opportunity for more connection between her and her friends and family.

If you’re interested in a timeline hopping story, I’d suggest finding another one.

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

Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

Mistakes We Never Made is the road trip journey of Emma and her will-they-won’t-they friend Finn as they attempt to track down a runaway bride, Sybil, in the days leading up to the wedding. I love me a road trip story, but this one reallyyy dragged. Emma kept making dumb decisions and assumptions about where Sybil was, like I could have found this woman faster. That said, I did enjoy her conversations with Finn and watching them untangle their past and the problems that had stood in the way of them getting together.

There were a lot of loose ends in this book which really frustrated me. We never fully figured out what went down with Emma and Finn on prom night, which is harped on incessantly, and we don’t even find out what happens with Sybil?? It felt like lazy writing! Like no one wanted to take the time to figure out what happened.

Parts of this book were fun flirty romps around the the country, but I cannot recommend it just for those sections.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Mistakes We Never Made at an indie bookstore near you
Mistakes We Never Made on Goodreads

Book Review, Romance

Better Left Unsent by Lia Louis ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

I’ve been a huge fan of Lia Louis’s previous books, but there was something lacking from Better Left Unsent. The premise was unusual and had a lot of promise: Millie writes down her thoughts, the ones she would never say out loud, in draft emails as a way of releasing them. One day, she finds that all her drafts were delivered. Millie is left to pick up the pieces of her life when her deepest thoughts have been shared with the exact people who were never supposed to see them.

Louis always writes wonderfully quirky and loveable characters, and this was no exception. Millie and her friends seem realistic in their quirks and I loved spending time with them. Although the romance was on the back burner for much of the book, I really enjoyed Jack and Millie’s chemistry. It was clear that they complemented each other wonderfully and I was so rooting for them.

The premise definitely did not feel deep enough to sustain the whole book. Millie’s constant need to clean up after herself/the emails got old pretty quickly and there wasn’t much else plot-wise to keep me hooked.

The loveable characters and promise of romance kept me reading, but the charm I expect from Louis’s books wasn’t sustained throughout.

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

Book Review, thriller

The Teacher by Frieda McFadden ~ Book Revie

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller

This book is nottt going to be for everyone. It’s one of the more twisted McFadden books, focusing on the relationship between Addie, a high school student, and her English teacher, Nate. Nate makes Addie feel special at a time in her life when she’s at her lowest of lows and no other students want to spend time with her. As their relationship escalates, she quickly becomes obsessively jealous of Nate’s wife Eve, who herself feels trapped in a loveless marriage.

McFadden’s short, snappy chapters always make her books breeze by and this was no exception. Told from alternating perspectives, I loved getting to know the secrets each of the main characters was harboring. We know from the prologue that someone ends up digging a grave and although I guessed pretty early on who it was for, I couldn’t wait to see how we would get there.

In typical McFadden fashion, there was a big old twist at the end. At first I was shocked in the way only a truly twisty twist can do, but if I think about it too much it just…doesn’t make sense. It didn’t put me off the whole book, but it definitely could have been better thought out.

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

Book Review, Fiction

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

What an unexpected surprise Tom Lake was for me. Lara’s three daughters come home to the family cherry farm in the spring of 2020 as the pandemic sets in. To pass the time, they request that their mom tell them about the time when she dated the famous actor Peter Duke. Lara transports us and her girls back in time to when she first began acting weaves a fascinating and nuanced story of her life and her relationships.

As much as this story focused on the past, I found the portions in the present fascinating, hearing about the labor involved with running the farm and the ways that the family considered the impacts of the pandemic on their lives. Having spent some time back with my parents at the start of Covid myself, this was particularly interesting. The complexity of the emotions Lara feels about having her girls home was compelling.

Lara’s journey in the limelight was quite at odds with her later life and made for a really refreshing contrast between the two running narratives. Her time acting focused on playing Emily in Our Town, but you definitely don’t need to be familiar with the play to understand the book. I’m shocked that hearing about the same characters over and over again didn’t start to feel old, but something about Patchett’s writing and the way Lara’s life changed from performance to performance kept the story moving and feeling fresh.

Tom Lake isn’t especially action packed. It looks deeply at relationships and how they change, both as people change and as circumstances do. This was such a gentle and immersive narrative and really reminded me of the slower pace of life when the pandemic first began.

I cannot recommend the audiobook enough. It’s narrated by Meryl Streep and she made it truly a joy to listen to.

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