Tag: contemporary romance

Book Review: Adorkable by Cookie O’Gorman

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Rating: ☆☆☆
Audience: YA Contemporary Romance
Length: 332 pages
Author: Cookie O’Gorman
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: March 31st, 2016
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Adorkable (ah-dor-kuh-bul): Descriptive term meaning to be equal parts dorky and adorable. For reference, see Sally Spitz. Seventeen-year-old Sally Spitz is done with dating. Or at least, she’s done with the horrible blind dates/hookups/sneak attacks her matchmaking bestie, Hooker, sets her up on. There’s only so much one geek girl and Gryffindor supporter can take. Her solution: she needs a fake boyfriend. And fast. Enter Becks, soccer phenom, all-around-hottie, and Sally’s best friend practically since birth. When Sally asks Becks to be her F.B.F. (fake boyfriend), Becks is only too happy to be used. He’d do anything for Sal–even if that means giving her PDA lessons in his bedroom, saying she’s “more than pretty,” and expertly kissing her at parties. The problem: Sally’s been in love with Becks all her life–and he’s completely clueless. This book features two best friends, one special edition Yoda snuggie, countless beneath-the-ear kisses and begs the question: Who wants a real boyfriend when faking it is so much more fun?

CUTE AND QUIRKY.

A quick young adult contemporary romance. Filled with friends to lovers and fake dating.

I found this to be a really easy and fast read (I listened to it as an audio book). The characters were fun, definitely high school, and made me laugh and roll my eyes.

The romance was without a doubt my favorite part. It’s usually hard for me to be smitten with a friends to lovers trope, but I adored Becks. He was precious, angsty, and I love a soccer player so all good things. I thought Sally was a mostly charming heroine. A bit aloof and clueless at times, but didn’t find her overly annoying or anything of that nature.

What I did find annoying was Sally’s best friend, Hooker. Holy cow, she would NOT leave Sally alone and it was infuriating. I would hate to be continually put on dates, at 17, JUST because I haven’t dated anyone yet. Who cares? Maybe Sally didn’t want to date? Nobody, especially her best friend (and also her Mom was in on the blind dates) should be forcing her to meet all of these guys. It’s her choice and I couldn’t handle how ignorant Hooker was.

There were a lot of pop culture references. A lot. Most landed well, but at times I felt they were forced and putting them in didn’t enhance the story. A cute, and quick read, and at least a nice change of pace from the heavy books I’d been reading.

Overall audience notes:

  • Young adult contemporary romance
  • Language: some mild/strong
  • Romance: kisses / make-outs
  • Violence: physical alteraction

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Monthly Reading Wrap-Up: December 2020

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We’ve made it to the end of the year! I wrapped up the year with 250 books and am excited to see what a new year holds. I know I won’t hit that high of books again, but it was fun to expand genres and authors I’ve read.

Happy New Year y’all.

Favorite Reads: Forever Wild, A Sky Beyond the Storm, Skyhunter, and A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
Least Favorite: Winterkeep, The Christmas Swap

  • Forever Wild (The Simple Wild #2.5) by K.A. Tucker
  • A Match Made at Christmas by Courtney Walsh
  • Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #1) by Jessica Townsend
  • A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) by Sabaa Tahir
  • The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel
  • A Christmas Spark by Cindy Steel
  • Keeper of the Lost Cities (Keeper of the Lost Cities #1) by Shannon Messenger
  • Layla by Colleen Hoover
  • [ARC] A Captain for Caroline Gray by Julie Wright
  • On the Second Day of Christmas by Deborah M. Hathaway
  • Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #2) by Jessica Townsend
  • Firefight (The Reckoners #2) by Brandon Sanderson
  • [ARC] The Lion of the Sea (The Maiden Ship #2) by Micheline Ryckman
  • Skyhunter (Skyhunter #1) by Marie Lu
  • The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
  • [ARC] Winterkeep (Graceling Realm #4) by Krisin Cashore
  • Exile (Keeper of the Lost Cities #2) by Shannon Messenger
  • A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
  • A Princess for Christmas by Jenny Holiday
  • The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
  • [Gifted] Ex on the Beach (The Extra Series #11) by Megan Walker and Janci Patterson
  • Tiger Queen by Annie Sullivan

How was your reading this month? Did we read any of the same books? Lets talk in the comments!

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Book Review: Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover

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Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Audience: New Adult Contemporary romance
Length: 251 pages
Author: Colleen Hoover
Publisher: Hoover Ink, Inc.
Release Date: August 19th, 2020
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Life and a dismal last name are the only two things Beyah’s parents ever gave her. Forced to carve her own path alone, Beyah is well on her way to bigger and better things, thanks to no one but herself.
With only two short months separating her from the future she’s built for herself and the past she desperately wants to leave behind, an unexpected death leaves Beyah with no place to go during the interim.
Forced to call her last resort, Beyah has no other option than to spend the remainder of her summer on a peninsula in Texas with a father she barely knows.
Beyah’s plan is to keep her head down and let the summer slip by seamlessly, but her new neighbor Samson throws a wrench in that plan.
Samson and Beyah have nothing in common on the surface. She comes from a life of poverty and neglect; he comes from a family of wealth and privilege.
But one thing they do have in common is that they’re both drawn to sad things.
Which means they’re drawn to each other.
With an almost immediate connection too intense for them to continue denying, Beyah and Samson agree to stay in the shallow end of a summer fling. What Beyah doesn’t realize is that a rip current is coming, and it’s about to drag her heart out to sea.

NO SURPRISE, I LOVED THIS.

I’m a Colleen Hoover fan for life, this is a fact.

Once again, I’m here with a broken heart, that has been stitched back together by the kind of soul-searching contemporary romance I didn’t know I was craving. This had the lows and highs and all the inbetween.

I adored these characters and felt for them in their struggles and trials. I won’t be able to ever understand the choices and reasons that they made them, and that really pulled on me. Desperation for hope and a step forward had me tearing up. I cared for everyone involved (even the side character) and just felt this entire book.

For Samson and Beyah to have a romance over the summer and for be to not even feel a *twinge* of insta-love is all I ever want in a faster-paced romance. They truly connected and came together in more ways than one. I loved their relationship, and even when it was making me frustrated, I understood, and that’s the important part.

The ending was beautiful and romantic, and I let out the biggest sigh and broke out in a huge smile. For 250 pages, this book will hit you hard, and make everything positive in the end.

Overall audience notes:

  • New adult contemporary romance
  • Language: some strong
  • Romance: kisses / make-outs; a few open door, mild-detailed scenes
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: loss of a parent, death by drug overdose, sexual assault and harassment (including that of a minor), extreme poverty

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Book Review: The Royal We (Royal We #1) by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

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Rating: ☆☆ 1/2
Audience: Contemporary romance
Length: 454 pages
Author: Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: April 7th, 2015
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

“I might be Cinderella today, but I dread who they’ll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next.”

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame and fortune. Yet it’s Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain’s future king. And when Bex can’t resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.

Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick’s sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he’s fated to become.

Which is how she gets into trouble.

Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she’s sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

UNIMPRESSED.

We had a pretty good start then things just went downhill.

I liked the beginning. It was cute! Meeting at college, getting to know a new country and being truly on Rebecca’s own (without her twin). I honestly thought this would have been dragged out longer over the course of the book. Mostly because I was leaning towards that being that point of this romance. How they met, fell in-love, etc. What I got was…not what I was expecting.

About halfway is when things sunk, but I was far enough in that I decided to go ahead and finish it out. The Royal We could have easily been 100 pages (at least) shorter. There was an incredible amount of focus on the media. I understand that it plays a big role in all of their lives, but with how much it was discussed it got boring and repetitive. Not to mention the only characters I liked were Cilla and Gaz. And they were side characters.

Not to mention, with the way it ended, I think it as meant to be romantic and spontaneous. What it really portrayed was a relationship with a bunch of band-aids. There wasn’t enough of the romance with Nick and Rebecca having sincere and productive conversations about their difficulties.

I really just struggled with this one for a lot of reasons and I don’t want to continue listing them. This wasn’t the romantic normal girl turns princess trope I was hoping for.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary fiction + romance
  • Language: some strong
  • Romance: kisses / make-outs; a lot of closed door scenes
  • Trigger warnings: loss of a parent, and a parent suffering from mental health issues

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