Category: romance

Chick-Lit, dystopian, Fantasy, literary fiction, Magical Realism, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

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“You can’t stay married to someone forever just because they climb out of your attic one afternoon.”

Lauren returns to her flat in London late one night to be greeted by her husband, Michael. There is only one problem – she’s not married. She’s never seen Michael in her life. But according to her neighbors, friends and family, this is her husband, they’ve been together for years. As Lauren tries to make sense of this situation, Michael goes up the attic to change the bulb. In his place, a new man emerges from the attic and a slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren has to decide what truly matters to her in a man. How do you decide to stick with what you currently have if there is a chance that better could be coming down from the attic? When do you stop trying to get better?

“She has always thought of her willingness to go along with things, her outsourcing of decisions to friends and circumstance, as passivity, not courage. But observed and described by this man she likes so much, she can almost believe in herself as someone with an audacious spirit.”

This book was my pick for Book of the Month in April and the description intrigued me. When I finally picked it up, it was a fast but exhausting read. Reading Lauren continuously go through man after man was insane. It tired me out. I can’t even begin to imagine what Lauren felt living it. I think Gramazio achieved what she set out to do with this book. I also found the attic to be a metaphor for dating apps or dating in general, when do you decide to settle with good enough? Is there always going to be better? When do you make a decision and stick to it and see how far that decision takes you and your partner until it ends, or it doesn’t? If you can switch out men for eternity, what determines when you stop?

“In the years before the first husband emerged from the attic, she had felt the burden of long singleness lying upon her. Being happy to be single had felt obligatory, a statement of feminism or autonomy or just a way to head off coupled friends who she didn’t want feeling sorry for her. The weight of that requirement had made it difficult, sometimes, to figure out how she really felt.”

Another thing I loved that Gramazio demonstrated was the autonomy of the other person to also decide to not be with you. Even though, Lauren sent man after man back into attic, there were men that she thought she could be with who unknowingly went back to the attic and out came a completely new person. In the end, it wasn’t just up to Lauren to make a decision, you can make a decision and the other person can decide that they don’t want you or life happens, and the relationship just doesn’t work out. Even when Lauren decides to stop exchanging the men, the men had to make the decision to also stick with her and also the attic kept luring them back in.

“She’s chosen her husband. She hasn’t met him, but she’s chosen him. And if he’s not right, she’ll get out of it the old-fashioned way: an immense pile of onerous legal chores that wear her down over the course of many months, and a determination to keep it cordial that ultimately collapses over a missing vase that they both fixate on as a metaphor for their mutual failings.”

Ultimately, this book ended the best way it could have possibly ended. I understood the choice the author made to end it in the way that she did, and I quite appreciated the ending. By the time I got to the end though, I was so tired of reading this book because I was worn down by the many, many men and how quickly they came and went. We never got to know any intimately. All in all, I enjoyed this book and recommend it. I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this book? Did you enjoy it? Let me know in the comments.

Leggy

Book Related Topics, Chick-Lit, Fiction, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Funny Story by Emily Henry

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“The same universe that dispassionately takes things away can bring you things you weren’t imaginative enough to dream up.”

Daphne is engaged to Peter and a couple of weeks before their wedding, he comes back from his bachelor’s party and tells her that he is in love with his best friend, Petra. Peter and Petra jet off for a holiday and gives Daphne one week to leave the house Peter bought for their future life together, a house that she has put her all into decorating. Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian, she decides to become roommates with the only person who understands her predicament – Miles Nowak, Petra’s ex-boyfriend.

“You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t”

Emily Henry is a must read/buy author for me. I look forward to every book from her and she churns out very dependable rom coms. This used to be Jasmine Guillory for me but she hasn’t published a standalone book in a while, so I pivoted to Henry. I’ve reviewed every book of hers on this blog so just search her name and decide where you’d like to start. My favorite book of hers is Book Lovers but Funny Story comes pretty close. The characters are people you want to root for. Daphne and Miles were perfectly flawed in the way you’d want your romantic characters to be.

“I’m a cynic. And a cynic is a romantic who’s too scared to hope.”

Miles might be the best book boyfriend Henry has ever created. If he was secretly a millionaire then we would have been off to the races but alas, he doubles as both a server and a buyer for a Michigan winery. I don’t even know if this job is possible but I digress. Daphne is a librarian. I think I’m just a sucker for female characters created by Henry who work in the book industry in any capacity. Miles tries to convince Daphne to stay in Michigan even though the reason she moved to Michigan has ended, so he takes her on a series of “dates” over a couple of Sundays to show her how beautiful Michigan is. I was utterly convinced by Miles about the beauty of Michigan that I thought about going there for my birthday in September.

“It’s easy to be loved by the ones who’ve never seen you fuck up. The ones you’ve never had to apologize to, and who still think all your ‘quirks’ are charming.”

Emily Henry is a really good writer and if you like good books in general, then you should please give her a go. Now, if you love really good rom coms you should absolutely pick up her books. I read this book in a couple of hours after I picked it up at Barnes and Noble the weekend it came out. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this one? Did you enjoy it?

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, Magical Realism, romance

Book Review: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

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“Wren saw now how passion was delicate and temporary, a visitor, a feeling that would come and go. Feelings fled under pressure; feelings did not light the darkness. What remained strong in the deep, the hard times, was love as an effort, a doing, a conscious act of will. Soulmates, like her and Lewis, were not theoretical and found. They were tangible, built.”

Few weeks after Lewis and Wren get married, Lewis gets a rare diagnosis. He’s going to slowly turn into a shark while retaining all his memories and consciousness. As Lewis develops the impulses, features and appetite of a great white shark, he struggles to figure out what his future will be like and what life awaits him when he’s released into the ocean. Wren takes a break from her job to fully care for Lewis while trying to figure out a way for them to still be together after Lewis is a shark. This transformation triggers Wren’s memories of her own mother’s change into a reptile and how she went from the best, loving mother to someone Wren had to take care of and escape from.

“All the hours he spent theorizing about magic seemed so naive now. The main ingredient in transformation was not magic, it was pain.”

When I first started this book, I thought the transformation thing was an allegorical way to talk about the many changes people go through in long term relationships but as I read the last page of this book, I just thought: Wow, this was really just literally about people turning into animals. Yes, I know that it is still a metaphor for relationship strains and ills but Emily Habeck really writes it like she means it literally. The writer really did pull this off. I can’t believe someone agreed to publish this book as a debut work. The author still manages to explore the nuances of change even within such an outrageous premise and after a couple of chapters you ignore the fact that the premise is in fact ridiculous and just get really into the characters.

“Plants were probably the most sentient of all living things: rational, bloodless bystanders, witnessing the great horror of it all.”

Told in alternating timelines, this book explores the past, present and where both timelines meet. The writer tells this story with such beautiful language and unique structure that it was hard to tear myself from this book. This is such a tender look at how such a diagnosis absolutely devastates a happy couple and it is an exploration of all the lives we lead that brings us into the people we are presently and how that present life will lead us into the people we will become in the future.

“Wren no longer sees life as a long, linear ladder with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, she considers how life is like a spiraling trail up a mountain. Each circling lap represents a learning cycle, the same lesson at a slightly higher elevation. Wren realizes she likes to rest as much as she likes to climb. She begins to enjoy the view.”

The chapters are short and sweet and never more than 4 pages. Some chapters are written in stanzas or are a couple of sentences. The first part of this book deals with Wren and Lewis as they deal with the diagnosis, the second part takes us back to Wren’s mother’s life before and after her own diagnosis and the third part brings us back to the present day. The middle part where we explore Wren’s mother’s diagnosis and life is really such a great way to talk about intergenerational trauma. Wren’s mother, Angela, tries so hard to be a different mother from the one she had but ends up being diagnosed with a reptile mutation that she becomes unwillingly the monster that her own mother was.

“In the rare hopeful hour, I tell myself this darkness has a purpose: to help me recognize light if I ever find it again.”

Even though I really enjoyed this book, I ended up giving it 4 stars because it dragged in the middle once it left Lewis and Wren’s point of view and it tied up a little too neatly for my taste. I still recommend this book because it contains such great writing and has all the heart a story needs to be amazing. I can’t wait to read what Emily Habeck comes up with in the future.

Leggy

Fantasy, Fiction, literary fiction, romance

Book Review: The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

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Life was made up of a series of accidents and drastic errors. The unexpected became the expected, you made the right turn or the wrong turn, and all of it added up to the path you were on.”

Ivy Jacob is from an affluent family in Boston but is not able to relate with her family. She gets pregnant as a teenager and with no support from her family and the father of her child, she runs away. She unfortunately finds solace in a cult. Cult leader takes a liking to Ivy and marries her while also promising to be a father to Ivy’s child, Mia. It doesn’t take long for Ivy to realize that this is a mistake as the rules are stifling. Children belong to the community, members are not allowed to read books and disobedience is punished by branding but Joel has threatened Ivy that if she ever leaves she will never see Mia again.

“In a place where books were banned there coud be no personal freedom, no hope, and no dreams for the future.”

Mia gets older and becomes curious. She discovers the local library and breaks the rules and begins to steal and read books. She discovers The Scarlett Letter that seems to have a personalized note addressed to her but how could that be? The book saves her life as a series of events leads to her having a new life until one day she is face to face with the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne and has to make a choice about her future.

“It wasn’t easy to walk away from the past, even when you locked it up in a box for which there was no key. Memories rattle around late at night, they claw at the latch, escaping when you least expect them to do so.”

This is my first Hoffman book and I was very much into this story. All the themes were up my alley and the plot was paced in a way where you were slowly drawn into the story. I felt so many emotions from joy, dread, sadness and I was still looking forward to what was going to happen. I enjoyed the subtle way she conveyed the powerful love between a mother and daughter and how parenting comes with hard decisions. Right from the note to readers that was in the beginning of the book, you could tell with every line you read that Hoffman loves what she does and truly believes in the power of reading. As Mia discovers reading, Hoffman found a way to remind the reader of just how powerful books can be.

“Herein are a thousand different doors, and a thousand different lives. Turn the page and you open the door.”

Everything was going great for me till we entered the magical realism portion. I have mentioned before that I am going through the fictional best reads of 2023 and I have noticed that this seems to be a popular genre. When Mia encounters Nathaniel Hawthorne and they start a romantic affair, I was so confused. I don’t think an explanation was given as to how the portal was unlocked.

In my confusion, I looked up Hawthorne’s biography and Hoffman stayed true to his life story. As Mia decided whether to stay in that time period or return to the present, again I was confused. After experiencing the freedoms of the modern world as a woman, who on earth would even consider staying in a time period where women had little to no rights?

Overall, I thought this book was good storytelling and had a mix of everything and my only gripe as mentioned above, could probably be because I am too much of a realist and I struggled with accepting the magical liberties.

Taynement

Fiction, Mystery, romance, thriller

Book Review: First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

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“There’s an old saying: The first lie wins. It’s not referring to the little white kind that tumble out with no thought; it refers to the big one. The one that changes the game. The one that is deliberate. The lie that sets the stage for everything that comes after it. And once the lie is told, it’s what most people believe to be true. The first lie has to be the strongest. The most important. The one that has to be told.”

Evie Porter has the perfect life – a fantastic boyfriend, a big house in a charming small town, new work as a gallerist’s assistant but there’s a problem: Evie does not exist. She is a made up, perfectly crafted character given to her by a mysterious voice on the phone. She has no idea who her employer is even though she has worked for him for over 8 years. Before every job, she gets a delivery that contains what her identity, future location and her mark will be.

Evie takes the time every job to research her new character and location, she is great at her job, that’s why she’s paid the big bucks but why is this particular character of Evie so unnerving for her. Evie is falling in love with her mark, Ryan, and doesn’t understand what this current job is about. She’s spent months building this relationship while waiting for instructions that never come until someone with her original identity, one that she has been protecting for years and hoping to get back to, waltzes into town.

This was my January Book of the Month pick. I really wanted to read a thriller and I think this delivered. The main character is not a stereotypically good character but you find yourself rooting for her as she exists in a morally grey area. This book won’t blow your mind but it is a fun, quick read which is what I was looking for. As we delve more into Evie and Ryan’s relationship, we wonder more and more if Ryan is more than a mark, why has she been placed in his life for several months without further instructions? Why is he always in East Texas on Thursdays everyday unfailingly? Is anyone who you think they are?

This book starts slow but picks up rapidly around the 100 page mark and doesn’t slow down till the end. I guessed both the twist and the fake out from the start. I saw what the end game was going to be so I wasn’t taken in by the fake out but I can see how people wouldn’t see it coming. I’m not the type of reader who can relax and just experience the book, I’m always wondering what the big twist is going to be and I guessed the real identity of the employer pretty early but the fake out almost made me doubt myself. I had already tweeted about figuring it out so when the fake out came, I was like wow, am I going to have to go back to Tayne with my tail between my legs?!

Anyway, if you’re looking for a fun thriller to read, this is the book for you. It reads like a movie. I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

dystopian, Fantasy, Fiction, romance

Book Review: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

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“Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs—on the probabilities.”

Violet Sorrengail has studied all her life to enter the Scribe quadrant. Her father had always taught her that the scribes hold all the power – the power to erase history, reframe history, and rewrite history. When he dies, Violet’s mother – the commanding general in Navarre- orders her to join the hundreds of students who are striving to become one of the elite dragon riders. Violet is weak and has no fighting experience and now has to join the hundreds of kids who have trained for this all their lives. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, people are willing to kill to be successful especially when they perceive weakness. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter especially Xaden Riorson whose father her mother executed for treason.

“Fascinating. You look all frail and breakable, but you’re really a violent little thing, aren’t you?”

I started this book when it first came out, read the first 50 pages and dropped it. I picked it up again sometime in August because Tayne told me her coworker asked her about it. So, I decided to finish it so I could properly talk about how terrible it was, but I ended up really liking it. My problem with the first 50 pages of this book is my problem with most female characters in fantasy – the description of their bodies. Yarros spent every second reminding us how weak and slender but oh so beautiful Violet is. The number of times Yarros describes Violet’s porcelain skin is actually quite insane. Then the exaggeration of the villains in this book is utterly laughable. Right from the parapet to enter the riders’ quadrant someone who literally just met Violet and has no history with her, or her family was already chasing her down to kill her because she looks weak.

“A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.”

When I continued with this book, what won me over was how weak Violet actually was and the numerous ways she had to work to overcome her weakness. I like that at the end of the book she didn’t still transform into some physically strong rider who could beat anybody in a fight. I enjoyed the cunning ways she had to survive the violence of the cadets in the riders’ sect. I started rooting for her once I realized she wasn’t going to be a Mary Sue. If you spend 50 pages telling me your protagonist is weak, you better not suddenly have her beating everybody in a physical fight. Another misconception I had going into this one that I want to correct for everybody is that this is NOT a YA fantasy book. The cadets are young but are all in their twenties. The youngest class in the cadet is 20. Also, there is sex aplenty and it is not implied, it is explicitly stated that everyone is sleeping with everyone and there’s no shame surrounding it, unless of course you’re sleeping with a superior. This is an open door book.

“One generation to change the text. One generation chooses to teach that text. The next grows, and the lie becomes history.”

I’m glad there is actually a bigger story here than the love story between Violet and Xander. There is much more at stake, and I honestly guessed what the big conspiracy was within the first 100 pages of the book when certain things that seemed like passing conversation was mentioned. I’ve read way too many fantasy books to ever gasp at the ending of this one. I enjoyed Xander as a character. I thought all his decisions were right and correct even if the protagonist did not see it that way. I understand the path that led Violet and Xander to each other even thought their families had violent histories with each other. At the end of the day though, their relationship is the least interesting thing about this book. When certain secrets were finally coming to light, I just wanted Violet to get over the feeling of being betrayed so Xander could get on with telling us what the whole picture actually was. Yarros also makes you care about the supporting characters so deeply that you care about what happens to them and when anything happens to them you are so invested that you’re bawling at 5am in the morning. Okay, that was just me.

“Coming in last is better than coming in dead.”

All in all, I recommend this book. It’s 600 pages but a very quick read once you get out of those first 50 pages. I gave this one 4 stars on Goodreads and I’m looking forward to the next book.

Have you read this one? What did you think?

Leggy

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Talking at Night by Claire Daverley

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“I’d say you just love the idea of her, then, she says. You’re pinning everything on something you’ve never even had. Something that’s not real.”

Will and Rosie meet one day as teenagers at a bonfire. Will is very intrigued with Rosie and a tense “will they, won’t they?” relationship develops between them. As they get closer and get to know each other over secret walks, runs, phone calls and text messages, they seem destined to end up together, at least for a while. One day though, at Will’s birthday party, which Rosie and her twin brother sneaked out to attend, tragedy strikes, and their future together suddenly seems impossible.

“She thinks she loves Simon, and she knows he loves her, but sometimes she wants him to look at her like he could eat her; wants him to touch her in a way that means she feels wanted, instead of just cared for. But he sips wine and talks and smiles with all his teeth and passes carrots across the table.”

If you’re a fan of Sally Rooney, this is the perfect book for you. Honestly, this sometimes felt like Normal People fanfiction to me and I say fanfiction because it is not as good as Normal People. I’m sure Daverley knows she’s going to get this comparison a lot. Also, when did it become the cool girl thing to write dialogue without any punctuation? This is also something Rooney is very fond of doing.

Anyway, this book is sad girl literature. It is a Taylor Swift song in book form. Shy, smart girl who is under her parents’ thumb being pursued by the resident school bad boy who is also secretly smart, and secretly soft (but of course, only soft for our heroine) and talks about how cool it is not to want to go to university.

I really wanted to like this book because I’m a sucker for a love story that is built entirely on sexual tension but there was nothing here. I didn’t like any of the characters. I didn’t root for them to be together, I just kept waiting for it all to be over. Also, the author just decided to throw every trauma at them to make them more interesting but all the traumas in the world won’t make one dimensional characters feel any more real. Trigger warnings abound in this book – child abandonment, death, OCD, food issues, weight issues, coming out as gay, cancer, alcoholism and the list goes on.

This is a debut novel so I do believe that Claire Daverley has the potential to be a fantastic author but I hope she knows she doesn’t have to convince us that she can write and she needs to figure out how to tell a good story without drowning us in flowery language. Everyone knows I’m a sucker for a good quote from a book but I also need to connect to the characters in order to be able to connect to the beautiful language. This was my problem with Rooney’s last book too, give me characters that I can recognize. I don’t have to relate to characters in the books I read but you have to convince me that these characters exist somewhere in the world for me to connect with the story.

All in all, because this was a debut novel and I grade all debut novels on a curve, I ended up giving this 3 stars on Goodreads. I sincerely cannot wait to see what Daverley writes next.

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, race, romance, Uncategorized

Book Review: Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess

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Jess and Josh were sparring partners in a legal history class in college, and she only remembers him being ultra conservative and telling her how Affirmative Action is racist. Landing a job at Goldman Sachs after college, Jess is very displeased to realize that Josh is on her team but as the only person she knows in an ultra-competitive work environment she leans on him for support. As their tentatively formed friendship moves into something more romantic, in a world that is suddenly hyper political in the wake of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Jess struggles with the identity she has created for herself and what she’s willing to compartmentalize for a certain type of love.

I think the publishers of this book did Rabess such a disservice by categorizing this as romance. Yes, the vehicle for the author’s thoughts is very well served by using romance but this book is not primarily about romance. When the blurb for this book came out, it was 1 star bombed on Goodreads because of someone on TikTok reading the description without having even read the book. And then you go on Goodreads and see so many one-star reviews that proudly proclaim that they didn’t read the book, but they just know that it is racist! I felt really bad for the author and that’s why I put this on my list even though I too, was turned off by the blurb. But I consider it a cardinal sin to review a book that you didn’t read or didn’t finish. If I even read 95% of a book and then DNF it, I never rate it on a public space.

I think people expect works of fiction to further their viewpoints instead of it furthering the viewpoints of whatever character the author has created. I think evaluating any book should be – does this behavior sound accurate to the character the author is trying to sell us? Would this character do this? Is this in line with the foundation the author has set for us? In the case of Jess, Rabess is incredibly spot on. I know the exact type of black girl Jess is. The cool black girl who tries really hard to never rock any boat and seeks white validation. I don’t even understand the argument that this book is racist when both the main character and the author are black. Something dealing with race making you uncomfortable does not mean it is automatically racist. You’re supposed to feel uncomfortable. That is the exact feeling that Rabess is trying to create.

Jess grew up in Nebraska in a predominately white town that boasted only her and her dad as the only people of color. She went to school with only one other black person. She grew up with girls who would tell her that boys only wanted “blondes, brunettes, red hairs, in that order”. Her dad tried really hard to shield her from the effects of her childhood but honestly, you cannot self-esteem your way out of how the world treats you.

This background leads to Jess going to college and trying really hard to be as far away from blackness as possible. She doesn’t join the Black Student Union, she never makes any black friends, she dates white men exclusively. Even white men who are only fetishizing her and who she knows don’t actually want her as a human being. Jess says things like “I just don’t get Beyoncé” while her white friends give her a pat on the back about how she’s such a different black person because she doesn’t like Beyoncé and how it’s because she’s just too smart. This is the character Rabess has created, and you have to judge the premise of this book on who Jess actually is, not who you are or what you think is “right”.

So yes, Jess is the exact person who would fall for a Trumper. And frankly, Rabess does such a fantastic job of pacing out their relationship that you’re absolutely torn. You wonder if you too would fall for Josh if you knew him. Josh has so many redeeming qualities, he stands up for Jess so much that even you would wonder if you’d be able to resist him. The last lines of this book I absolutely love because this book was written years after the Trump era in which we’ve seen the effects of electing Trump as President. As women’s rights and affirmative action are now gone and Josh is trying to convince Jess that “Everything’s fine”, we all know that everything is not fine.

Do yourself a favor and pick up this one without reading the blurb and read it with an open mind. This is Rabess’ debut novel and she deserved better than how the mob treated her first offer to the literary world. I look forward to whatever she writes next. I gave this book, 4 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, romance, women's fiction

Book Review: Happy Place by Emily Henry

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‘Love means constantly saying you’re sorry, and then doing better.’

Harriet and Wyn have been together and engaged forever. They are the couple their friend group looks up to as the perfect couple. Unfortunately, they’ve broken up without telling anyone – their families, their friends, nobody. Every year, their group of friends travel to Maine for one week in the summer to reconnect with the people who understand them the most. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth that they are still a couple just to make their last week ever at the Maine cottage perfect, since it’s been put up for sale. This is a rom com so obviously, shenanigans ensue.

I’m a big Emily Henry fan. I’ve read a lot of her books and have progressively loved them. I have to say that this one was a miss for me. I usually love the characters in Emily Henry books especially Book Lovers but the people in this book did nothing for me. I kept waiting to feel the deep love between these friends that has kept them together for so long, but I never did. Everybody was hiding something ridiculous from the group, things that did not matter at all. Who hides a breakup from their best friends for 6 months? Their friendship group just never clicked for me at all. If the entire premise of this book is that this group of supposed best friends never talk to each other about anything ever then what are we doing here? They are not best friends.

I especially enjoyed the romance between the two main characters. How they got together and then seeing the cracks in their relationship was something that was very well written and very thoughtful. I enjoyed the tension of two people who clearly still love each other. pretend to still be together. The snarky banter between them was delightful and something I’ve really liked in all of Emily Henry books. This book also delves into so many different topics like parental alienation, grief, depression, medication, death and the way friendships change as we get older.

My problem with this couple is in how the book ended. The ending is like a Hallmark Christmas movie where a top New York City lawyer moves to the tiny village to be with a man and sell corks. I loved Book Lovers because Henry didn’t sacrifice her character’s career just because she fell in love. The ending of this book was very rushed and very unrealistic. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but the ending is so silly that it made me annoyed especially since even though Harriet found her job hard, she enjoyed doing it. Yes, it wasn’t her passion but who needs passion when you’re 100s of thousands of dollars in debt already and you’re good at it! I will never understand this American obsession with finding your passion, that’s why you get to have hobbies because sometimes a job is a job!

I really like Emily Henry and will read her next offering but if you are new to her, please don’t start here. Read literally anything else of hers. We have two of her books reviewed here and here. My personal favorite is Book Lovers. I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Book Related Topics, literary fiction, romance

Ranking Taylor Jenkin Reid’s Books

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You have to be under a rock if you have not heard of Taylor Jenkins Reid. She has had a recent explosion of popularity and a lot of her books are making their way to screen (even though I am finding out that for some reason, they don’t seem to translate well to screen).

It’s always been a goal of mine to read all her books and I finally got around to reading them all. I thought it’d be fun to rank the books from my least favorite to absolute favorite. I think it’s easy to see the difference in my tops and bottoms. I am not a romance person and her earlier works seem to lean towards that vs. the later books where she created worlds that seem so realistic.

Anyways, here we go!

9. Forever, Interrupted – Took me a while to read this one but even though I made sure to read this when I was ready. It didn’t quite do it for me. Didn’t care for the protagonist and I got bored and trust me, I understand grief! You can see my review here.

8. One True Loves – At first it sounded far fetched but then it seemed like Emma’s choice was clear as day so everything felt like going through the motions.

7. Maybe in Another Life -This was a sliding doors type situation. We go back and forth and see what Hannah’s life could have been depending on choices she made. It got a little muddled but I enjoyed it but I don’t think TJR stuck the landing with this one aka the ending wasn’t my fave.

6. After I Do – I liked this because it just felt real. Wasn’t sure what the ending was going to be but I was pleased with it.

5. Evidence of the Affair – A short story only available in the Kindle Unlimited series, I enjoyed this one. It’s straight up in letter format but what a compelling story. You can find my review here

4. Malibu Rising – Talk about world building spanning across generations. My kind of book. The ending wasn’t the best but I enjoyed the book. My review is here.

3. Carrie Soto is Back – You couldn’t convince me Carrie Soto wasn’t real. Great book that just uses tennis as the anchor but it is so much more than that. Review can be found here.

2. Daisy Jones & The Six – The only way to consume this book is via audio. It’s a shame the screen adaptation didn’t do it justice but what a book. Review here.

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – What a masterpiece of a book. I always imagine it as a grand opera. I’d be curious to see if this doesn’t top everyone’s list of TJR books.

What do you think? What are your rankings?

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