3/5 Star Review: Yours Truly

I’m not usually a huge fan of contemporary romance, but ‘Yours Truly’ by Abby Jimenez hit all the right notes, and was exactly the book I needed at the time that I read it. One of the main things that stood out is that the characters were relatable. There were situations that involved anxiety, and I could see myself in them. The characters were believable, and the story didn’t try to play down to a certain intelligence level.

There were some TW mentioned by the author, including cheating, medical issues, depression, and a mention of pregnancy loss & suicide. I appreciate that the author put this information forward, I wish more books would do that.

Over all, it was a good book to curl up with on a rainy day and just let my brain slow down – sometimes that’s exactly what I need.

3/5 stars

2/5 Stars: Fancy Meeting You Here

This book had far too many “ick” tropes, with sparsely scattered redeeming scenes.

Cliché after cliché.
“He was pricklier than my legs”
“Ben’s optimism was cautious, like a baby giraffe taking its first steps”

The one redeeming scene that pushed me to finish the rest of the book, was when the main character & love interest host a party, and disaster strikes. There’s a single line here, “Do you know why I have guests holding their mouths and their asses” – that I cackled in laughter about. Hilarious.

Drunk parties (ick) “He was so drunk. and cute.” – I’m just not the audience for this. There’s nothing cute about drunk men.
Chapter 20 included fat shaming. The main character is talking about snack tables and how long it took her to get ready due to her desire to eat / weight.
The ‘damsel in distress’ trope was over played (Ben rescued during wedding when she was being physically carried off, and then rescued again when she was being stopped by a journalist hounding her), and annoying. As was the main character’s disparage over herself. She’s so incredibly down on herself, and her life, it’s annoying and frustrating. She constantly self depreciates.

This line told me I’m simply not the audience for the book: “following you around the wedding like a simp” – I’m not the demographic. Not the books fault.

2/5

2/5 Stars: Love, Furballs & Forever

Sure, it’s a book that should appeal to cat lovers everywhere, but this one just wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy the interactions between Juliet and Carlisle, and the story simply didn’t hook me. I found Juliet difficult to connect with, and she was borderline annoying. The editing and writing worked well enough and that’s the entire reason that I finished it even though the story left me wanting something deeper.

I picked this up during a sale, and while it wasn’t a good fit for me, it seems to have a lot of positive reviews, so I’m sure people out there are enjoying it.

2/5 stars

3/5 Stars: Book Lovers, by Emily Henry

This was an easy, comfortable, read – and that was what I was looking for. I enjoyed the beginning of the story much more than the end, which felt pretty rushed. Nora is the main character – she comes off as a badass in charge of her own life, but as the story went on I really grew annoyed with how immature she was, and how she didn’t seem to have any ability to solve her own issues. She also created issues where there were none, and I got bored of her complaining. She does have a sister, Libby, and I fared no better with that character story-wise.

The main love interest is Charlie, who Nora knows through work. He has a sob story past, but he isn’t really interesting. I did love the little current-day quips and “that’s what I think too!” moments that were strewn throughout the book, but in the end it just wasn’t quite enough.

The one shining star I will give to this book is that the writing is superb even if I didn’t really enjoy the story. The prologue and the first few chapters were lovely, and the writing held up throughout. I know plenty of people out there absolutely enjoyed it and I can see why it’s popular, but the story just wasn’t enough to keep me entertained, personally.

3/5 stars

2/5 Stars: The Bridge of Little Jeremy, by Indrajit Garai

I was approached and asked to give an honest review of this book in exchange for a copy – of course I accepted! Let’s get more new authors out there.

The book takes place in Paris (beautiful setting), and the author’s writing is lovely and descriptive, but also incredibly dark. That was my main issue with the book. It is about a boy named Jeremy, and his mother. He also has a dog, Leon. I love the relationship between Jeremy and the people in his life – but it wasn’t quite enough to keep me interested. Most of the book moves at a snail’s pace.

Jeremy’s mother is a difficult character to appreciate. I couldn’t relate to her, she was passive, and Jeremy was forced into more adult roles so that he could compensate for her childish nature. At times the story was confusing to follow, the author is great at description but it tended to drone on well past what was necessary, and you spend a lot of time in Jeremy’s head with his thoughts which got confusing.

The book is quite slow moving, and although it’s beautiful it just moved too slow for me. It simply wasn’t a book for me, though I’m sure others will appreciate it.

2/5 stars

2/5 Stars: Just Friends at the Doggy Spa, by Elsie Woods

When the power went out for two weeks due to hurricane Fiona, my kindle was loaded up with a bunch of (what I like to term) ‘pallet cleanser’ books. These are books that require very little effort to read, are moderately interesting, and simple. I like using these books as filler between other more involved books – and this isn’t an insult towards those sort of books because I am a huge fan of reading in any capacity, but I can also only handle so many of those books at a time. These books are the Hallmark Movie Channel of books.

That’s the way it was with one of my latest reads. I felt like the entire book lacked chemistry. Rita and her love interest, Joey, are planning a wedding for Amelia and Rob. They have two weeks. Somehow it all comes together and is magnificent. There’s some dogs in the story too and honestly that was the best part. There wasn’t enough actual interaction between the love interest, they spent most of their time talking about the wedding, and I’m not sure what the bit at the end about Joey’s job was about, it felt like it was part of some other story and it didn’t fit at all.

That being said, if you’re looking for mindless reads, there are worse out there. It wasn’t all horrible. I tend to enjoy quiet country books, and everyone was (perhaps obnoxiously so) sweet and kind. It just wasn’t the book for me.

2/5 stars

Review: The Hole in the Middle, by Kate Hilton

A free book I picked up from Amazon, I’m not sure what enticed me to read it, but I’m glad I did. The basic story was not that profound but the characters and their decisions throughout really hit home for me. It’s about Sophie, who is about to turn 40. She is married, has kids, has a stressful job, and of course has a past that involves another man. Throughout the book she is constantly questioning herself and her decisions. She wonders if she has made the right choices, if she would be any happier had she travelled down another path and this is something I think we all end up asking ourselves at one time or another (or maybe it’s just me).

Her coping mechanisms are those of any person under stress. At first she tries to ignore it, tries to feign that everything is fine to anyone in her world, but eventually that falls apart and she is left upset and vulnerable. I thought that the book was headed down a particular path around mid way through it, but the writer surprised me and went another direction that I think worked out really well, and reminded me that some times that we just think the grass is greener on the other side but it doesn’t always have to be true.

All in all, a nice easy read with memorable characters and a surprising ending.

4/5 stars