Love Lettering // by Kate Clayborn

//published 2020//

Continuing my pattern of slightly-better-than-meh romcoms, Love Lettering was another book that it seemed like I should really enjoy.  Meg designs and hand-letters all sorts of things – planners, wedding invitations, inspirational wall-hangings, you name it.  She’s somewhat famous within those circles on social media, and is hoping to win a spot designing her own line of items for a company that publishes planners/to-do lists/cards/etc., although recently she just hasn’t been feeling the magic of inspiration.  But one day, a guy walks in the door of the shop where she works – a guy Meg didn’t think she would ever see again, because the last time she saw him, she was designing all the paper for his wedding.  But here he is, unmarried – and he says that part of the reason is because of the message Meg hid in the wedding program.

Part of my problem with this book was Meg herself.  She’s absurdly nonconfrontational, and it got on my nerves so hard.  I don’t like going out and getting in someone’s face, but if it’s someone that I’m close to, I want to talk things through and fix what’s going on, not continue to live with my best friend while completely ignoring the fact the fact that she’s obviously super mad at me about something FOR MONTHS.  Then there’s this whole thing with the secret messages that Meg sometimes leaves in her designs.  Little things, like only having certain letters drop in a phrase, and those letters spell out a word.  It’s just never clear as to why.  Like I can understand when it’s someone Meg knows, and this is her little passive-aggressive thing since she literally is incapable of having an even vaguely confrontational conversation with anyone, but why does she do this with total strangers, like the wedding program?  It’s never really explained in any way, and it aggravated me because it ended up just coming across as a plot device so this guy would come back into Meg’s life.

Meg spontaneously invites this guy to start taking some walks with her around the city, and it makes zero sense that (a) she invites him or (b) that he accepts.  It goes completely against both of their personalities and left me feeling rather confused.

Finally, as they get more serious about their relationship, part of the reason Meg feels like it won’t work is because Reid really wants to move out of NYC.  That’s it, end of discussion.  They literally never discuss the possibility of Meg leaving NYC despite the fact that Reid genuinely hates living in the city, and Meg freaking WORKS FROM HOME.  It’s not even that I would expect Meg to “sacrifice” her preference for Reid, it was the fact that it was never on the table.  Either Reid had to decide he was cool with living in NYC for the rest of his life, or the relationship was over.  And that didn’t feel remotely fair to Reid.

Despite all these complaints, I’ve still given the book a 3.5* rating (albeit one I rounded down rather than up on Goodreads).  That’s because I honestly did, for the most part, still enjoy the story.  When Meg isn’t being an inconsistent little wuss, she was a perfectly nice character, and a lot of the little adventures were fun.  I wouldn’t necessarily avoid Clayborn’s books in the future, but I’m not on a mission to find what else she’s written, either.

July Minireviews – Part 1

Hey friends!!  Here I am with book reviews in July for books I actually read in July!!  Will wonders never cease!

Amber & Dusk by Lyra Selene – 3*

//published 2018//

For a week or two in early July I was trying the thing where I read multiple books at once.  It worked at the time to get through a few books I was struggling to finish (“rewarding” myself with chapters from the books I actually like weirdly helps me haha), but I’ve noticed that when I do this thing where I read one chapter at a time and then read a chapter from the next book, and then a chapter from the next book, I frequently end up finishing books I would normally just bail on.  Amber & Dusk was a great example.  This book was DEADLY slow.  Like, indescribably slow.  Literally NOTHING was happening except for the main character whining.  But part of me didn’t completely notice because I was only reading one or two of the very short chapters at a time.  But I got about 2/3 through this book and suddenly thought, What has actually happened in this story, anyway?!  And the answer was… basically nothing!  The last handful of chapters were suddenly jammed with action, incredibly rushed, didn’t really make a whole lot of sense, and then suddenly the book was over?!  I was, frankly, incredibly underwhelmed by this story.  The world-building itself was also very weak, I never really got any sense of where they were or what life was like for regular people.  This whole “overthrow the evil ruler” bit was… okay?  I guess?  But there is literally no real direction on what’s going to happen once she’s gone, and I wasn’t particularly impressed with the queen’s replacement, who spent basically the entire book whining and complaining about how she “deserved” so much more from life… not exactly qualities I look for in a rebel leader.  So.  Whatever.  Originally I went ahead and checked the sequel out of the library thinking I would just see what happened, but when that book actually got here I realized I literally didn’t care, so I just sent it back.  Three stars is somewhat generous, but I mean I did actually finish the book, and there were a few characters that I liked, and moments of creativity, so I decided to round up a little.

Finding Home by Irene Hannon – 4*

//published 2012//

This one is a loose sequel to Seaside Reunion, and since I happened to own both, I went ahead and read this one.  Set in the same town with some overlapping characters, Finding Home was a perfectly happy little romance, even if it wasn’t particularly groundbreaking.  Honestly, I didn’t take any notes on this one and can’t remember much about it… so, pleasant but forgettable apparently haha

We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome – 5*

//published 1937//

Book Seven of the Swallows & Amazons series did not disappoint in any way.  I’m better than halfway through this series now, and honestly am already thinking about rereading them whenever I’m done.  I love these books!  In this one, the four original Swallows accidentally end up in the North Sea, in a manner that actually feels like it could really have happened.  This one was a bit more action-oriented than some of the others, and even though there was a giant coincidence that helped bring everything together, even the coincidence didn’t feel terribly unlikely, so I was willing to roll with it.  Another absolutely delightful addition to this series.

As a side note, I’m only missing one book to complete my set of Jonathan Cape editions.  I absolutely love these hardcovers – they are a pleasure to read and have the most delightful endpaper maps!!

The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie – 4.5*

//published 1929//

This was a reread for me, but it’s one of my favorites.  It’s a little over-the-top, but that’s part of the reason that I love it.  A loose sequel to The Secret of Chimneys, several of the characters overlap, including the intrepid Bundle, who makes a lovely, no-nonsense heroine.  This is more of a spy thriller than a straight mystery, so if you don’t like Christie’s campier style, this one isn’t for you.  However, I found it to be an absolutely delight – her humor is so strong throughout this one that it almost feels like a Wodehouse!

I also read this one back in 2016, so if you want a few more thoughts, that review can be found here.

Byrony & Roses by T. Kingfisher – 3.5*

//published 2017//

As you may be able to guess from the title, this is a retelling of Beauty & the Beast.  In this version, there is no father – the story opens with Bryony getting lost and finding herself at the castle.  She personally bargains with the Beast to come back and stay with him.  This was an okay version – some of it was interesting and different – I loved the malevolent magic hovering over everything.  However, Bryony adjusted to the fact that the Beast was a Beast basically immediately.  The Beast himself is a victim, rather than someone who needs to learn a lesson, so he doesn’t really have a lot of character development and is always studiously polite and helpful, making it difficult to even picture him as a Beast.  But my biggest beef with this story is that Bryony is obsessed with her garden to an unhealthy degree – as in, when she goes back to visit her sisters, she spends a few hours “fixing” her garden before going in to see her sisters?!?!  Like, oh she’s been gone for weeks and weeks and weeks and has no idea what’s going on with her actual family, but she’s sidetracked by weeds in the garden and decides to take care of them first?!?!?!  And that was not the only instance of her literally thinking that a garden was more important than people.  It felt strange and unnatural, and did not particularly endear me to Bryony – and I say this as someone who really enjoys gardening!

So, in the end, like so many other books I’ve read lately, a perfectly fine one-off read, but not anything that made me want to rush off and see if Kingfisher has written anything else.

Sourdough // by Robin Sloan

//published 2017//

A few years ago I read Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, which I throughout enjoyed, and which totally held up to a reread as well.  Its cast of – for lack of a better work – quirky characters, the almost unbalanced feeling of not being completely positive if the story is set in current times or somewhat in the future (is the tech really good enough for this already??  … Maybe??), and the gently thought-provoking way of probing into that tech (is this actually a good thing or…???) were all reasons that I enjoyed the journey of that story, and I’m pleased to report that all of those reasons exist in Sourdough as well.

The main character/narrator of Sourdough is Lois, who is a software engineer for a robotics company in San Francisco.  She likes her work (she assumes) but it is somewhat all-consuming, mainly because she doesn’t have a lot else to do with her time.  She’s a transplant from Michigan and hasn’t made a lot of friends, beyond her colleagues, in her new city.  One day, when she gets home from work, there is a flyer on her door for a soup & sandwich shop that delivers.  She orders a meal from them and loves it.  Soon, she’s a regular there.  The restaurant isn’t really a restaurant since its actually just a pair of brothers cooking in their own kitchen – one brother cooks, the other delivers.  In a weird way, they become Lois’s friends as she calls them on the phone and chats with them when the deliver her dinner.  And so, she’s devastated when they leave San Francisco.  On their way out, they leave Lois with their special sourdough starter, special instructions for feeding and caring for it, and one of the brother’s email addresses so she can write to him if she has any questions.

Soon, Lois becomes absorbed in caring for the starter (it is alive, after all) and then trying to bake her own bread with it.  And that’s when things start to get a little… odd.

This book is a little hard to explain, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It flirts with the idea of scifi… maybe it IS scifi… or maybe there really is a secret farmers’ market in an underground bunker off the coast of California where people are making food using weird science??  Sloan never really lets you know and it honestly works.  I really liked Lois a lot, and even if the whole situation got a little crazy, it was still a lot of fun.  I think part of the reason this one works is because the chapters are short and snappy, Lois is likable, and the whole thing feels mostly plausible – I never found myself going, “Well that would never happen” at any particular junction, but at one point we’re having a conversation about cannibalistic sourdough starters I’m thinking, “How in the WORLD did I get here?!”  It’s fantastic.

If you enjoyed Penumbra, or if you like lite scifi, you’ll probably enjoy this one.  It was an easy 4* read for me, and I’m keeping an eye out for what Sloan does next.

In the meantime, I may need to learn how to make sourdough bread…

Making Faces // by Amy Harmon

//published 2013//

Stephanie read and reviewed this one ages ago, and it’s been on my TBR ever since.  I finally checked it out of the library in March, where it sat on my shelf until July… I really don’t understand my reading life sometimes haha  Anyway, this wasn’t exactly what I was anticipating, but I ended up somehow enjoying this novel about faith, loss, grief, friendship, beauty, and love.

Part of the problem with this book is that it doesn’t categorize super well.  It was shelved under Romance in my library (part of the reason that this ended up being not exactly what I was expecting), and I definitely wouldn’t consider it romance, although romance plays a part.  It starts when the characters are in high school – with some flashbacks to even younger than that – so in the beginning it has a strong YA flavor.  But a large part of the story takes place when the characters are in their early-to-mid-20’s, so sort of NA… except without all the explicit sex and weirdness that that category seems to consider an important part of its definition (because apparently all new adults do is have sex, I guess).  One of the main characters, Fern, is a Christian, and her dad is a pastor, so there is a bit of a religious flavor to the story, yet I wouldn’t consider it to be a Christian book, either.  In the end, I guess it’s just A Novel, with a combination of genres within its pages.

The basic story involves Fern, who is a bit of a nerdy loner in high school; her cousin, Bailey, who has muscular dystrophy; and Ambrose, a high school star and all-around popular, good-looking, hard-working, great kind of guy.  The beginning of the story takes place in high school, where Fern has a crush on Ambrose, who is the high school wrestling star – the best wrestler in the state, in a state where wrestling is The Sport.  A lot of this section is actually more about the friendship between Fern and Bailey – they are cousins, next-door neighbors, and the same age.  Fern has always been there for Bailey, whose disease is degenerative and will eventually kill him – usually sooner than later with this condition – and I absolutely loved the relationship between these two.  Fern is just so genuinely kind without being condescending.  She’s so matter-of-fact about the ways that Bailey needs assistance, without acting like he’s helpless.  Bailey himself was probably my favorite character.  Harmon managed to write him as someone who has wrestled with and come to grips with his condition, without making him feel like an unnatural saint.

Despite the fact that the book is theoretically about the eventual romance between Fern and Ambrose, in some ways Ambrose didn’t feel like the main character.  We don’t get in his head as much throughout the story and he’s a little more difficult to get to know.  However, I liked that even though he had so much going for him, we still see that he has uncertainties and insecurities just like everyone else.

The critical turning point in this story is the fact that 9/11 occurs during their senior year in high school.  I was a freshman in college in 2001, so very close in age to these characters, and that’s definitely part of why this story resonated with me.  Obviously, it was an event that impacted everyone, but I think that those of us who were in that 17-21 year range – basically, the age of enlistment – really felt 9/11 differently than a lot of other ages.  That’s played so well in this story without making it feel political or even pro or anti war.  Enlisting was just something that Ambrose felt like he needed to do, and I liked how he acknowledged that it was both for his country, but also for himself, as he wasn’t sure that college was the next step he wanted to make.  Ambrose convinces several of his closest high school buddies to enlist with him, and they all head overseas.

This is literally in the synopsis of the book, so I don’t feel like it’s a spoiler to say that only Ambrose comes back.  And wow, I was not expecting the emotions that came with that!  Even though the other guys are “secondary characters,” Harmon really portrayed them as individuals, with families and dreams that they’ll never come home to.  Ambrose barely survives the explosion that kills the other guys, and it leaves him horrifically scarred.  In high school, he was good-looking, had wrestling scholarships all lined up, and was extremely popular.  Now he’s returning home with half his face deformed, partially deaf, and weighted down with survivor’s guilt.  Determined to hide from everyone in his small town, he works the night shift at his dad’s bakery.

Of course, Fern (and Bailey) pull Ambrose out of his shell and help him to deal with his burdens.  There weren’t a lot of big surprises in this one (maybe that’s why it was shelved under romance haha), but the story was crafted in a way that had me really rooting for these friends, and wanting to see how things were going to work out.  And, not gonna lie, it actually did make me cry, which doesn’t usually happen when I’m reading books.

There were parts of this book where things dragged a bit, or where the jumps between flashbacks and current time weren’t done very well.  There’s another secondary character, Rita, whose story definitely felt like it was just there to add some drama.  Out of everyone in the book, her character felt the most clunky and unnatural, and in some ways the entire book could have been written without her.  The book is a little too long.  I think some of the earlier bits from high school could have been cut out without damaging the overall story.

Still, I was really engaged with this story when I was reading it.  I loved the characters and wanted the best for them.  I really, REALLY appreciated that Fern was a Christian and it was just an aspect of her character and part of who she was – yes, she does talk about her faith and God sometimes, but not in a way that felt unnatural or preachy.  Her dad, the pastor, doesn’t come into the story very much, but I was super appreciative that he was portrayed as an actual good guy instead of a evil bigot like Christians (especially preachers) usually are shown to be in fiction these days.

All in all, I recommend Making Faces, especially if you were in high school or college during 9/11.  This was a book that was more serious in tone than I usually prefer, and definitely did not feel like it should be shelved in the romance section, but was still an excellent story.

The Cliff House // by RaeAnne Thayne

//published 2019//

Back in December I read a series by Thayne (Haven Point) that I actually ended up really enjoying.  They were what I think of as low-drama romances – just everyday little stories taking place in some random small town somewhere, and The Cliff House was similar in type.  This one bordered, honestly, with Women’s Fiction, as the romance wasn’t really central to the plot.  Most of the story is really about two sisters, Daisy and Beatriz, and their aunt, Stella, who raised them after their mother died when they were around 10.  Adoption is a theme that seems to keep popping up in my reading lately, and it was a central part of this story as well.

After taking in Daisy and Beatriz, Stella also fostered many other children, and even started an organization to support and help foster/adoptive families.  One of her foster sons went on to marry Beatriz and become a now-famous rockstar.  When our story opens, Bea has been divorced from her husband for several years, and lives with their daughter, who is now (I forget) around 10 or 11.  Bea is realizing that she has romantic feelings for an old friend of hers, also her neighbor, and is trying to figure out how to further the relationship, when the ex-husband comes back to town, full or repentance for letting Bea go and wanting to patch things up with her.

Meanwhile, Daisy has lived her life with a very tight rein on her emotions thanks to the trauma and difficulties she suffered when they were children, before they came to live with Stella.  One interesting aspect of this story was a bit of exploration on how things can impact us as adults – when Daisy and Bea were living with the drug-addicted mother, constantly on the brink of being homeless and hungry, Daisy felt like she was the one who had to care for and protect Bea.  As an adult, Daisy has become very focused on making sure that she has a secure job, good savings, back-up plans, etc.  Bea has remained the more free-spirited one of them, sometimes frustrated by Daisy’ refusal to loosen up.  Anyway, a new guy moves to town and is immediately drawn to Daisy, and I actually really enjoyed their relationship/story probably the most out of three.  I had a lot of empathy for Daisy, who finds it difficult to express a lot of emotion, and doesn’t completely understand why people would want to do that anyway.

The final thread in the book is Stella, who is now around 40, and despite raising so many children throughout her life yearns for one of her own.  She has secretly decided to go through with artificial insemination, and at the beginning of the story has just found out that she is actually pregnant.  She’s absolutely thrilled, but also a little terrified, and not completely sure how to share the news with Daisy and Bea.  While she’s still processing all of that, her college boyfriend – to whom she was practically engaged – moves into town.  Now widowed, he and his daughter are looking for a place to settle down.  I also really enjoyed this story of Stella working through her past and accepting that maybe her future wasn’t going to turn out exactly as she planned.

I’m not sure why I enjoyed this book.  It wasn’t full of excitement or big twists.  It was just a quiet book about three women who love one another all arriving at a crossroads in their lives.  There are a lot of themes of family, sisterhood, acceptance, and courage.  While the story could be slow in spots, it never felt like it was dragging.

I had a few quibbles.  I felt like the relationship between Bea and her friend/neighbor wasn’t as developed as the others, possibly because we’re told that they’ve been friends for years.  But it was hard to get a grasp on how well they would really deal together because the potential for “more” than friendship means that their friendship itself is a little rocky when we meet them.  I also got frustrated with both Daisy and Stella from time to time for withholding information from people who care about them, in a few instances just so the plot could be furthered rather than because that was what seemed like the natural thing for them to do.

Also – I feel like the title doesn’t really match the story.  All three women live in different houses, and it didn’t particularly feel like there was “a” house that bound them together, so I’m not even completely sure which house IS “the” cliff house??  It seemed like an odd choice for the title.

Still, all in all a 4* read and one that I recommend, especially if you like your romance to be on the women’s fiction-y side of the spectrum.

Rearview Mirror // June 2020

I’m getting caught up!!!!!!! ….ish :-D

Favorite June Read

I loved rereading Cheaper by the Dozen, and both it and Belles on Their Toes remain favorites.

Most Disappointing June Read

Probably My One Square Inch of Alaska.  I was really anticipating an engaging road trip to Alaska, not a couple hundred pages of a whiny teenager griping about small town life.

Other June Reads

• 3*
  • Bambi’s Children by Felix Salten
• 3.5*
  • Caroline & Her Kettle Named Maud by Miriam Mason
  • The Dating Charade by Melissa Ferguson
  • Madcap Mystery by Karin Anckarsvärd
  • O the Red Rose Tree by Patricia Beatty
  • Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams
  • Roomies by Christina Lauren
  • Sacred Sins by Nora Roberts
  • Seaside Reunion by Irene Hannon
• 4*
  • Bambi by Felix Salten
  • Brazen Virtue by Nora Roberts
  • Dating You/Hating You by Christina Lauren
  • Death in the Air by Agatha Christie
  • Five Children & It by E. Nesbit
  • Half Magic by Edward Eager
  • Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
  • Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager
  • Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer
  • Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager
  • Magic or Not? by Edward Eager
  • The Mysterious Schoolmaster by Karin Anckarsvärd
  • Phoebe & Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson
  • The Phoenix & the Carpet by E. Nesbit
  • The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink
  • Razzle Dazzle Unicorn by Dana Simpson
  • The Riddle of the Ring by Karin Anckarsvärd
  • Rider by Night by Karin Anckarsvärd
  • The Robber Ghost by Karin Anckarsvärd
  • Seven-Day Magic by Edward Eager
  • The Snarkout Boys & the Baconburg Horror by Daniel Pinkwater
  • The Time Garden by Edward Eager
  • Unicorn Crossing by Dana Simpson
  • Unicorn Vs. Goblins by Dana Simpson
  • Unicorn on a Roll by Dana Simpson
  • The Well-Wishers by Edward Eager
  • Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw
• 4.5*
  • The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
  • Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
  • The Snarkout Boys & the Avocado of Death by Daniel Pinkwater
  • Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

June Stats

June was actually my best reading month since I started tracking my stats in January 2019.  I don’t know why, but I was reading like crazy!

• Total Number of Books Read:  43 (43 physical; 0 Kindle)
• Total Pages Read:  10,233 (In fairness, 966 of them were graphic novel pages, but still!)
• Average Star Rating for June:  3.93 (The same as May – how weird is that??)
• Longest Book:  The Scorpio Races (432 pages)
• Shortest Book:  Caroline & Her Kettle Named Maud (134 pages)
• Oldest Book:  Sense & Sensibility (published 1811)
• Newest Book:  Our Stop, Winterwood, Tweet Cute, and The Dating Charade (all published 2019)
• Number of New-to-Me Authors:  7

June DNFs

Actually, I didn’t have a single DNF this month!  Two months in a row!!

TBR Update

This I keep updated as I go, so it’s current as of today, rather than as of the end of June.  I’m sure it’s off-kilter, though, because I get most of my TBR additions from reading book reviews on all of your lovely blogs, and am now up to almost 900 unread book blogging emails!!!!

For those of you who don’t know, I’m weirdly obsessive with organizing the TBR, and have it on a spreadsheet divided into five different tabs:

• Standalones:  470 (down seven)
• Nonfiction:  117 (holding steady)
• Personal (which includes all books I own (fiction and nonfiction), but lists any series I own as only one entry…):  650 (down three!!)
• Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series):  242 (holding steady)
• Mystery Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series): 114 (holding steady)

Reading Challenge Updates

• #ReadingEurope2020 – visited zero countries – this challenge is NOT going to get completed this year haha (total 6/46 complete)
• #ReadtheUSA2020 – visited six states: Alaska, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee (total 26/50 complete – I’m hoping to get this one completed)
• #SeparatedbyaPondTour – visited the states above (Total 42/159 complete – this is still on the 3-year track)
• #LitsyAtoZ – 1 book (22/26 complete – only weird letters left)
• #BackwardsAtoZ – 10 books (No A through no M on my third list – I’m trying to do this one in order and to see how many times I can get through the alphabet!)

Current Reads

For a while I was on a read-multiple-books-at-a-time kick, but I’m back to just one fiction plus one non fiction –

• Long Time No See by Ed McBain – finally getting back to the 87th Precinct… I’ve had these books from the library since March!
• The Backyard Homestead edited by Carleen Madigan – with everything so weird going on, I’m spending some time embracing my prepper side.

Up Next

The probable next five(ish) reads:

• The next four 87th Precinct books
• The Switch by Beth O’Leary – I really enjoyed her first book, The Flatshare, so I’m hopeful this one will also be fun.
• This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti – I’ve literally been meaning to reread these for 10 years.
• Daddy’s Little Girl by Mary Higgins Clark – next in my box of random mysteries someone from Litsy sent me.
• Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey – from my pile of library books I’ve had since March!!

So that’s the story with June… cautiously optimistic that I can write July reviews in July????  However, I just found out that I start back at my fall job the first week of August so… such is life!

June Minireviews – Part 5

Part 5?!  Oh my gosh.

Five Children & It by E. Nesbit – 4*

//published 1902//

Nesbit’s work is just classic – children having magical adventures and everything is perfect.  In this story, a group of siblings discover a magical being (the “It” of the title) who grants them one wish a day.  Of course the wishes don’t always play out the way the children anticipate, and sometimes saying “I wish—” without intending it to be your wish causes extra complications as well.  All in all just good, clean fun.

Seaside Reunion by Irene Hannon – 3.5*

//published 2012//

This is a gentle and rather uneventful romance that takes place in a small town in northern California.  A young widow has moved back to town several years ago to help her dad with their family store.  When the story opens, a guy who lived there for just a year or so when he was little comes back for a visit – it was the happiest place of his difficult childhood, and he wants to see it again.  While nothing particularly ground-breaking happens, it’s a nice story to while away some time.

Dating You/Hating You by Christina Lauren – 4*

//published 2017//

This is a borderline 3.5* and I keep going back and forth.  There was a lot about this book that I really enjoyed, most of which can be categorized as “snark.”  The idea is that both the main characters work for competing companies that represent actors, so despite the fact that they hit it off really well, they aren’t sure that their high-pressure jobs will let them date.  Things get even worse when their companies unexpectedly merge – and Evie’s boss – now also Carter’s boss – announces that the company can only afford one of them, so they’re going to have to basically duke it out to decide who stays.  So their flirting turns into pranking (some of which felt a little ridiculous for two adults) with an undercurrent of seriousness.  My main problem with this book was that the boss was SUCH a horrible jerk.  I literally had to flip to the end of this book to make sure that he got some kind of comeuppance because he made my teeth hurt every time he was on the page.  That plus a little too much sex is what kept this book from being a hearty 4*.  In the end, another fun and fluffy read, but not one that I truly fell in love with.

The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit – 4*

//published 1904//

The sequel to Five Children & It, this book takes place the next year when the children are back to living in town.  They get a new carpet for the playroom, and an odd rock falls out of it – which turns out to be a phoenix egg.  The rest of the book is taken up with regular Nesbit shenanigans, with many wishes not quite going the way one would hope.  Nesbit’s books are always happy and fun, and so relaxing.

June Minireviews – Part 4

Oh yeah, rolling through these June reviews now!!

Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw – 4*

//published 2019//

This one was for the traveling book club, but also happened to be a book that I own and was planning to read anyway.  This book had a few things that made it feel odd – for instance, it’s set in modern times, but because they are so isolated and the power is out the entire time, it feels like it should be set in a much older time period, which mean that every time something modern came up (“Why don’t we have cell signal?!”) it felt oddly disorienting.  It’s fantasy, but more what I would consider magical realism, where it’s a natural part of the world.  The overall tone is very melancholy, and sometimes the writing was more flowery and not enough plot, but I still liked it as a one-time read and may even pick it up again sometime.

Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen – 4.5*

//published 1811//

It had been quite a while since I had revisited this one, and it was lovely to read through it again at roughly a chapter a day with a group on Litsy.  I splurged and bought this absolutely gorgeous Chiltern edition… which I love so much that I actually bought the rest of Austen’s books in the same editions!  (I told you I’ve been out of control on book buying lately!)  Just as an aside, the Chilterns are the perfect size, they lay flat while you’re reading them, have gilt edges, and somewhat glossy pages.  They’re just SO pleasurable to read!

The book itself – what can be said that hasn’t already been said?  Austen’s humor is so subtle and wry.  I love how gentle she is – she makes fun of people, but it never feels cruel.  Her writing is more of a celebration of how we’re all a little bit ridiculous sometimes.  This time around I was really struck by how Mrs. Jennings is presented as a somewhat obnoxious character in the beginning, but the more time the sisters spend with her, the more they – and the reader – come to realize that while she is a bit over-the-top, she’s also incredibly kindhearted and generous.  There were several times in this story where Austen gives the reader an initial impression of a character, only to gently, slowly reveal different aspects of that person until you couldn’t help but feel differently about them.

Sense & Sensibility is frequently listed as the “boring” Austen, but I have a soft spot for it, as it’s the first of her books that I ever read.  I greatly enjoyed reading it again, and see myself revisiting this irresistible edition again.

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord – 4.5*

//published 2019//

Finally!!  This book was EXACTLY what I had been looking for in my romcoms.  While it’s technically YA, it has that absolutely delightful humor and just-short-of-ridiculousness that makes romcoms so much fun.  This story is about two seniors in a private school in NYC, both of whom come from restaurant families.  Pepper lives with her mom, who is now the CEO (or something like that) of their restaurant chain, but Pepper misses the days when it was just one building out in the country, small enough that they all felt like they were a part of it.  Even though the company has expanded like crazy, Pepper’s mom still leans on Pepper to do all sorts of random things, especially helping their social media person run the social media – Pepper has a natural flair for coming up with clever little slogans and tweets.

Meanwhile, Jack’s family also owns a restaurant right there in NYC.  Jack loves it there, but isn’t sure if that’s what he wants to do with his life.  He feels like he’s always in the shadow of his twin brother, who gets better grades and is more popular than Jack.  When Pepper’s mom’s company steals the recipe for the special grilled cheese sandwich that Jack’s grandma invented, the two high schoolers get involved in a semi-ridiculous Twitter war.  Through a series of events, they’re also getting to know each other in real life.

The whole story is, like I said, a little ridiculous, but so much fun.  It had all the snark that I had been looking for, and is all about the friendship/romance that is building between them without pages and pages of them thinking highly-sexualized thoughts about each other, which tragically most modern romcoms (and even some YA) seem to find necessary these days.  I was absolutely in love with both of these characters and shipped them so hard.

Downsides – I wished there was more resolution with the situation between Jack and his brother, and I also thought that Pepper’s mom was just too much.  She acted pretty immature and annoying the entire time, and that never really changed.  But for the most part, this book was genuinely great fun, and if you’re looking for something lighthearted and humorous, I highly recommend this one.

Death in the Air by Agatha Christie – 4*

//published 1935//

This Poirot mystery wasn’t my all-time favorite, but it still had plenty of the usual Christie humor and a decent conclusion to the mystery.  This one is usually published as Death in the Clouds, but mine is Air, and I’m not sure why.  Usually those are differences between US and UK publishing, but this time it just seems to be that it was briefly called Death in the Air for no real reason.  Mysteries of publishing.

The Dating Charade by Melissa Ferguson – 3.5*

//published 2019//

I really wanted to like this book, but just couldn’t quite embrace it wholeheartedly.  The main issue that I had with this one was that it’s billed as a fluffy romcom, but actually deals with a lot of really serious themes and issues.  In many ways, I felt like I was reading two books.  There would be a section where the two main characters are joking around and having a good time, and then the next scene is dealing with the realities of our messed up foster care system.  I really felt like Ferguson would have written a better book if she had focused on the foster care/adoption theme, because she handled that really well.  It’s super complicated and difficult to find a balance between giving parents a chance to get their lives together so they can keep their children, and recognizing when it’s basically hopeless and the children need to find a more secure environment.  There is also the difficulty of keeping sibling groups together, especially when one of the children is older – the list goes on.  Ferguson addressed a lot of these realities in such a sensitive, thoughtful way – which is what made the “romcom” aspects feel especially jarring.

The other thing was that in order to make the situation work, the main characters had to have just met/not been dating long, because obviously if something as huge as “I might be adopting these kids” came up in an actual relationship, your partner is the first person you would talk with about it.  But having them be almost-strangers just added to the “what even” aspect of the romance, making it difficult for me to believe that these two would have even bothered continuing to date when they each thought the other wasn’t going to be interested in the children that were such a huge part of their lives.

The synopsis seems to imply that the children that the main characters end up with are temporary – I was expecting more of a “oh my gosh my sister just decided to take a trip to Jamaica” scenario, not “my sister is on drugs and just dumped her kids here and I think I’m going to end up keeping them forever.”  Temporary, fluffy reasons for ending up with unexpected children would have made the “I don’t want the other person to find out about this” funny and lighthearted.  Instead, because the reasons that the kids were staying with each of these people were so serious and so probably permanent, trying to keep that information from the other person felt very dishonest and unnecessary.

And so another book that was worth a one-time read, but that overall wasn’t for me.  I really appreciated the way that this book handled the themes of foster care and adoption, and also liked that sex wasn’t the only thing the two main characters wanted to get out of each other, but in the end the juxtaposition of campy romcom mixed with the incredibly serious foster care themes just didn’t jive for me.

Nordvick Mysteries Series // by Karin Anckarsvard

• The Mysterious Schoolmaster
• The Robber Ghost
• Madcap Mystery
• Rider by Night
• The Riddle of the Ring

Published in the 1950’s (except the last book, in 1964), all five of these books are set in the same small Swedish town.  The first three books are about the same group of friends, especially focused on Michael and Cecelia.  Rider by Night is a few years later and only mentions Michael and Cecelia obliquely, although another member of the “gang” is an important character in the story.  The final book, The Riddle of the Ring, is actually about one Cecelia’s younger brothers, now in high school, who was just a baby in the first book.

All of these books were originally written in Swedish and were translated into English, and at least a few of them were published as Scholastic Book Club books, because those are the editions that I have of The Mysterious Schoolmaster, Madcap Mystery, and Rider by Night.  

There are great middle grade reads.  The Mysterious Schoolmaster focuses on a new teacher that seems to be acting suspiciously.  In the midst of the Cold War, Nordvick is an important naval town, and Michael’s father is the captain of a… ship or submarine or something along those lines – so he is especially aware of the danger of spies.  I saw a couple of reviews ragging this book for encouraging children to be distrustful of foreigners (although that’s literally not at all why they’re suspicious of this schoolteacher), but I really don’t think most kids are going to read this and then thing anyone who doesn’t speak English well is actually a spy.  I mean seriously.  Anyway, it’s a fun little adventure that I quite enjoyed as a youngster (and didn’t find inspiring me to assume all teachers I didn’t like were international spies).

The Robber Ghost and Madcap Mystery are a bit more mundane but are still fun stories.  These focus more on more typical middle grade/junior high problems with new students, bad grades, and potentially bad influences.  While I didn’t like these quite as well, they are still good stories.

Rider by Night is about an entirely different girl, although she does meet with a boy from Michael and Cecelia’s group of friends.  Jenny is completely horse crazy, and the story begins when her uncle gives her a horse of her own, which she boards at the local stables.  At first all is well, but soon Jenny begins to notice that something is “off” about her horse, and suspects that someone else is riding the horse on the sly.  I actually really enjoyed this book.  Along with The Mysterious Schoolmaster, I’ve owned it basically forever, and it’s the reason that I ended up finding the rest of the books, because somewhere along the line I realized that the Michael and Cecelia that Jenny runs into are the same characters from Schoolmaster, which led to me discovering the other three books.  Growing up, I was a bit horse crazy myself (without a horse-gifting uncle, alas) and this book was in my regular rotation of horse stories.

The final book is about a girl named Tommi and her friend, Henrick, who also happens to be Cecelia’s little brother.  Through a series of mostly believable events, Tommi’s mother is gifted a valuable ring, which Tommi accidentally takes to school – where it disappears.  This is a fun mystery because the solution is just so genuinely clever, and I loved it.

Overall, these were all in the 3.5-4* range.  Enjoyable and engaging with likable characters, they aren’t exactly brilliant, gripping stories, but I loved them as a kid and still enjoy them now.

June Minireviews – Part 3

So after spending a couple of weeks basically reading books for younger readers, I suddenly was filled with the yearning to read something for grown ups!  I happened to have an unread duology by Nora Roberts sitting on the shelf, so I started with those and then went on a bit of a book-buying binge, something I very, very rarely do because I mostly use the library to check out books I haven’t read yet, and spend my money buying books I already know that I love and want to reread.  But there was something kind of magical about getting a box of books I’ve never read, especially since I got most of them either on the super cheap via Book Outlet (which I just discovered) or thanks to an Amazon gift card I had been hoarding for just such an emergency as this.  Anyway, the next batch of minireviews is more focused on romcom and fun.

Sacred Sins by Nora Roberts – 3.5*

//published 1987//

This is another 1980’s romantic suspense from Nora Roberts, and really that’s about all the description you need.  I really liked the main characters and enjoyed the story at the time, but it was overall pretty forgettable.  The big reveal was a little bit confusing since it was someone who had been in the story earlier but I couldn’t remember very well, so it seemed like he either needed to be more in the story or just be a stranger, if that makes sense.  The pacing was good, and it was just nice to read a book about adults haha

Brazen Virtue by Nora Roberts – 4*

//published 1988//

A loose sequel to Sacred Sins, I ended up liking this one better.  In the first book, one of the main characters is a cop, and this book is about that cop’s partner, who I actually really liked in the first book as well.  This is one of those books where the reader knows who the murderer is from the very beginning, but that didn’t make it any less suspenseful.  A big part of this book is that the original person who gets murdered works for a company that provides phone sex, so that aspect was rather eye-roll-y for me, since it’s presented as a sort of “harmless” way to cheat on your wife, but overall the pacing and story really came together well for this one.

Side note – since I now publish little reviews on Litsy much closer to when I read the book, I’m back to mostly posting pictures of books that I take myself – which means you get a lil pic of Paisley with this one, and some background of my house/garden for some of the others!

My One Square Inch of Alaska by Sharon Short – 2*

//published 2013//

This was another traveling book club book, and another bust for me.  Part of it is the incredibly misleading synopsis, which acts as though the road trip that Donna and her brother take to Alaska is the driving plot of the book.  However, that was pretty far off base.  The book is actually about Donna, a teen in a small 1950’s Ohio town.  Donna spends most of the book whining about her life, and the author spends most of the book reinforcing any stereotype you can think of about small town residents, emphasizing how literally EVERYONE who lives in a small town is narrow-minded, prejudiced, uneducated, boorish, stupid, etc. etc.  As someone who lives in a small Ohio town, it was honestly genuinely offensive.  FINALLY Donna and her brother actually go to Alaska, and that entire part of the book felt completely unrealistic.  This was a book that annoyed me so much when I was reading it that I don’t even feel like reliving it via a cathartic rant.

Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams – 3.5*

//published 2019/

So the way I picked which books I was going to buy was mostly finding anything on my TBR that looked romcom-y, because that was really, really what I wanted to read.  Sadly, it’s been a pretty mixed bag.  So far none of them have been terrible, but I’ve struggled to find any that have that actual fun, fluffy magic.  Our Stop was kind of typical.  The premise is great fun – Nadia loves to read the “Missed Connections” section of the paper (online of course) and one day reads an ad that may actually be addressed to her.  Daniel finds himself attracted to a woman he does know – he overheard a conversation she was having when she was in the park that made him admire her brains and empathy, and he has seen her a few times on his commuter train in the mornings. But how do you meet a stranger without coming across as creepy?  And so he writes the Missed Connection.  Throughout the story, Daniel and Nadia keep almost meeting through a series of circumstances that feels believable.

Whenever this book was being a romcom, it was funny and enjoyable.  However, it felt a bit like Williams wrote this happy, lighthearted story and someone read and told her that she really needed to remember that this is the 21st century, and people aren’t allowed to have fun books unless they also get some social commentary.  So there are all these random conversations where characters talk about loads of buzzwords.  Literally none of those conversations felt realistic or natural in their context, instead coming through as incredibly polemic – Remember, while we might be having fun here, we’re still feminists!  Never forget!  There’s an especially awkward scene involving Daniel’s roommate bringing home a very drunk girl from the bar and Daniel preventing the roommate from having sex with her because “If she can’t say yes, it means no!”  Which yes, is true, but doesn’t really fit the whole romcom flavor??  It was things like that that I didn’t necessarily disagree with what was being said, it just didn’t need to be said because it had literally nothing to do with the story.  That whole scene is a complete one-off that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of the plot, so apparently it was only inserted there to give readers a little mini-lesson on consent, I guess.

ANYWAY as seems to be the pattern with most of the books I got, this was fun for a one-time read, but not one I’m going to come back to again and again.  Enjoyable but not magical.

Roomies by Christina Lauren – 3.5*

//published 2017//

I literally cannot resist a marriage of convenience story.  It’s my all-time favorite trope, and even if a book sounds terrible, or has bad reviews, if it’s marriage of convenience, I’ll probably still read it!  Roomies ended up being a sort of meh read, mainly because it felt like the authors did literally zero research on green cards and how they work.  They were doing things like photoshopping pictures of themselves on a beach so they would have “photos” of their honeymoon… as though the government wouldn’t bother to check and see if they actually left NYC at any point?!  They were sending sexy text messages so they would be “on record”… as though they weren’t going to also be time-stamped??  It was just weird stuff like that that made the story feel really unrealistic and thus less enjoyable to me.  The actual romance was perfectly fine, although a smidge too angsty, but it was a struggle for me to get past their plans for “tricking” the government.