I'm only just getting back into reading after a several month-long slump and I happened to be in a mood for a rom-com. This certainly rom-commed, and I think I enjoyed more than I would have if it had been something I'd picked up while craving something else, but it also had some problems that prevented me from giving it the much higher rating I'd initially planned.
***WARNING: SPOILERS***
First, things I loved. The heroine was great. She reminded me of those spoiled and ditzy heroines from the 90s/early 2000s, like Cher Horowitz or Elle Woods. Piper was so fun and I loved her a lot.
Piper's relationship with her sister, Hannah, and, later, her grandmother were so wholesome and well done. I was never close to any of my grandparents so seeing lovely grandparent characters in books (especially romances) always makes me feel so nostalgic for something I never had, which sounds sad, but it's very satisfying.
I also learned a lot about crab fishing, I guess, which I'm not mad at. I like it when heroes and heroines have interesting jobs.
That brings me to the things that I did not enjoy. The spicy talk was... not my fave. At one point Piper compares orgasm to being in a place that rains gumdrops, and at another Brendan tells Piper to "whine for his cock." Some of the words and euphemisms used made me cringe. Also, these two were doing it everywhere. They did it in a HOSPITAL, ffs, and also a changing room. Ma'am, those workers are not paid enough to listen to your throes of gumdrop ecstasy.
I also got really mad at Brendan. He kept telling Piper that he liked her for who she was, but then he also got mad at her for who she was?? Like?? I KNEW there was going to be a last-act breakup and that it would probably frustrate me, but I didn't expect it to make me smack Brendan upside the head. This is a dude who demanded to know the deets of her phone call with her friend, but then threatened to rage-quit their relationship because she wanted to have, I quote, a "fail-safe."
Meaning that she was still a little hesitant that their relationship would work out and wanted to not cut all her ties to LA in case she decided to move back there instead.
OK, Captain Brendan "Red Flaggert" Taggert.
Anyway, this book was fine except for the last-act thing. The first 70% was great, even though Brendan wasn't my type (I liked him for her). The last 30% was eh. Averaged together I suppose this was a three-star book. I like Bailey's writing style a lot and this definitely won't be my last book by her. I'm especially interested in Hannah and Fox's story because I just loved her so much.
Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! While you should ideally read diversely year-round, I'm trying to supporting Hispanic/Latinx authors by reading all of the Hispanic/Latinx-authored books on my Kindle that I couldn't get to throughout the rest of the year.
A TASTE OF SAGE was an impulse buy for me (aren't they always?). I'm a sucker for food-themed books, and the idea of an enemies-to-lovers romance between two rival chefs who both favor the cuisines of their childhood really spoke to me. Also, it's a bit of a workplace romance, too, because when Lumi's business goes under forcing her to job hunt, she ends up being forced to work for Julien.
I was shocked at how low the ratings were for this book... until I got to the halfway mark. You see, throughout this book, recipes are interspersed at key points so you can make the food the characters are talking about-- which is a great touch. Or it was, until one of the characters gets grievously injured in a kitchen and this horrendous accident is followed by... you guessed it. Another recipe.
Talk about tonal whiplash.
I think books like these are actually the perfect examples of situations where illustrated covers don't work. I saw a TikTok (I believe it was by chels_ebooks) that talked about how old skool romance covers were usually a pretty good indicator of the spice level (although not always). If the lady looked prim and dainty on the cover, it was a likely bet that it was going to be a "clean" regency romance. And if the lady was bursting out of her top in the aggressive embrace of the hero, the likelihood of spice (and probably dub-con) goes up in the mind of the person looking at the cover, and they can make their purchase accordingly.
When people look at illustrated covers, they picture light and sweet, so when a book has a cutesy cover but actually has really dark and depressing moments, readers can feel consciously or subconsciously cheated. I feel like a better cover for this book would have been a wooden table with photographs of food, and the table could be covered with chopped herbs. Maybe a picture of a knife in the foreground. I think that would have hinted at the food, the magic-realism, the homeyness, and also a little hint of menace (subconsciously) because of the knife. The illustrated cover here really does not work.
I actually really liked both characters and loved the recipes. I don't think this book is as bad as everyone says it is, but the tonal shift was definitely a game-changer that impacted my overall enjoyment of the book as a whole. But ultimately, the magic-realism, the ode to Dominican fusion, and the premise of two flawed and headstrong characters falling in love ended up saving the book for me. Just go into this book knowing that it gets a little miserable for a while halfway through, and if you or someone you know recently suffered from a bad burn, this could potentially be triggering.
I was browsing rom-coms randomly when I happened upon this book and saw the words "Rochester Farms." That, paired with the historical-looking cover, made me gasp out loud: "IS THIS A JANE EYRE RETELLING?" In case you didn't know, I'm currently in the middle of a project where I have made it my business to read every Jane Eyre retelling or Jane Eyre-inspired work I can easily get my hands on. Most of them have been recommended to me, or pulled from list, but I keep coming across others that I'd never even heard of before!
THE PLANT NANNY is set in Seattle. The heroine, Lena, was studying to be a botanist when she realized that her Master's wouldn't actually get her a career, so now she's a drop-out working at a plant shop that's about to go out of business. One of her acquaintances tells her about a spiffy job at a place called Rochester Farms, where the billionaire, Andrew Keene, is looking for someone to watch his rare collection of orchids full time and is willing to pay in both room and board.
It seems too good to be true. And it is.
Because not only is Andrew Keene rich enough to hire full-time plant nannies, he's also hot AF.
So this was originally going to be a four or five star read because the beginning was SO good. It made me laugh out loud several times. And even though the heroine is kind of a compulsive liar, and that's always kind of put me off because sociopathic lying-as-adorkable-awkwardness has ground my gears since my Sophie Kinsella Shopaholic days, I could sort of buy it for this character because she was portrayed as being so panicked and awkward. I also loved that she wore really thick prescription glasses, and how the author made a point of talking about how annoying it is to wear glasses when it's foggy or raining.
The problems started coming in towards the second half of the book. There's a scene where Lena kicks Andrew in the balls and then hits him in the face, and it totally came out of left field because Andrew hadn't really done anything to warrant that. And then she tries to attack him again later in the book! I always hate when women-on-men violence is played off as cute because it comes across as saying that women can't actually hurt men because they're so weak and cute. There's another scene which also put me off where Andrew lies about being a veteran and gets a military discount. I think that scene is actually going to offend a lot of readers, and here, it's just played for laughs.
There were still things I did love about this book, which is why it's still getting a three. It feels like a love ode to the PNW, and especially Seattle. The food descriptions were amazing and it's clear that the author really loves Jane Eyre. I'm kind of getting the impression that every book in this series of hers is loosely inspired by one of her favorite novels and I think that's a really cute idea. I also loved how on one of their dates-that-isn't-a-date, Andrew buys the heroine a nice pair of prescription glasses.
I'm not sure how I felt about the ending. It really felt like it jumped the shark to me and the ending felt a little too hasty and neat considering some of the ups and downs of these characters. Overall, I think I'd give the first 50% 4 stars and the second 50% 2 stars, which rounds out to about a three. I'll definitely be reading more from this author, though. I do like her writing style and she has a good sense for comedic timing, even if her characters sometimes go a little too chaotic OTT.
THE DIM SUM OF ALL THINGS was advertised in the back of an old chicklit I thrifted not too long ago. I didn't much care for that chicklit, but I sure perked up when I saw this book. A snarky chicklit about a Chinese heroine unlucky in love in San Francisco? SIGN ME UP. Publishers were so bad about marketing diverse books in the 2000s. I am constantly finding "new" titles that came out 10, 15, 20+ years ago, which were written by authors of color, and so many of them are unbelievably good.
Like this book.
Which you might not believe if you go off the average rating. The reviews for this book are pretty negative but I absolutely adored this book. Lindsey was such a likable heroine. I'm shocked that so many people are saying she isn't. Maybe because she doesn't feel like one of the stereotypically plucky PoC characters that were typical of the aughts, created to be the comic relief or the moral support? Because if you're going into this book expecting stories from a woman who is so grateful to be here, and would gladly be your token Asian friend, Lindsey is not that girl. Lindsey is the opposite of that girl. Lindsey is actually very bitter about the constant fetishization and microaggressions she faces as an Asian woman living in the U.S. at the peak of party culture/raunch culture. She also feels disconnected and embarrassed from her culture, while simultaneously wanting to be more of a part of it, and the biggest part of this book is about Lindsey growing more comfortable with herself and her history-- on her terms.
God, I loved her. Even though this book is written in third person, her narrative is quite colorful and really flavors the prose. If you weren't a party girl, you were going to be pretty bitter and pissed off in the 2000s. So I really related to Lindsey, and loved her for being the bitter bitch that she was. And she's never mean, mind. She's just incredibly cynical. Also, this is honestly one of the most honest and unflinching portrayals of San Francisco that I've ever encountered. The rich history, the gentrification, the diversity, the grossness. I've been to almost all of the places that Lindsey talks about in this book and the descriptions of them were so good. I was not at all surprised to learn that the author lived in the Sunset district. A lot of what she wrote about in this book, I feel like you'd really have to live in the area to know. I thought it was hilarious that Lindsey works for this fake woke vegan newspaper company, and how utterly obnoxious and sanctimonious they were. When she got sent to a diversity meeting at the Palace Hotel just because she's the only Chinese person in her workplace, I guffawed.
Surprisingly, I also really liked the romance, too. AND IT'S A WORKPLACE ROMANCE! WHAAAAAT. I normally hate those. In my reviews of other aughts chicklits, I have sometimes criticized them for being too dated. And while there are a lot of dated things in this book-- slut-shaming, off-color jokes, the expected aughts fat-phobia-- this book was really progressive in a lot of ways. Even though they play some games of the He's Just Not That Into You variety, Michael is so sweet to her. Their flirting was really cute. HE BUYS HER A HELLO KITTY TOASTER AS A GIFT. Also, I thought it was a clever choice on the author's part to make him of Chinese ancestry but white-passing (he's only a quarter Chinese), because she then discusses, through Lindsey, the privilege that Michael faces as a man who can hide his Asianness, and who can express and identify with his culture solely on his own terms. Lindsey, who very much does not look white, does not have this privilege.
Oh, and the representation of women in this book was also great. Lindsey has a pretty healthy friendship with a Filipinx woman named Mimi. When she goes to this party, there are some "slutty" Asian women with dyed blonde hair that she initially writes off as being snooty and boy crazy, but when Lindsey gets sick at the party and shits her pants, these women take her to the bathroom and CLEAN HER OFF, and are just so nice to her, and it was honestly such a great moment because it was very much a maybe-don't-judge-women-by-how-they-look-and-equate-that-to-their-moral-worth kind of situation. I was kind of afraid that they were going to double-cross her, because the Mean Girl Reverse Uno Card was a frequent plot twist of this time, but nope. They do their good deed and then peace out. Also, I loved that the shitting your pants thing wasn't played for laughs. The 2000s were full of fecal humor, but this was just portrayed as a serious and unfortunate situation.
Lastly, Lindsey at one point goes to China with her grandmother Pau Pau (WHO I LOVED) and this is another really impressive moment in the book because it forces Lindsey to confront some of her own privilege as someone who grew up with relative wealth, which she finds out when she meets her "relatives" and finds out that they have, comparatively, nothing. This is also the portion of the book where she finds out a lot about her grandmother's history, which comes out slowly as they travel across China (good parts and bad), and it was just so beautifully done. Even though Lindsey doesn't like some of the aspects of her trip (like the squatting toilets and some food that doesn't appeal to her finicky tastes), I liked how she appreciated it as a learning experience and grew from it.
I could talk for ages about what I liked about this book but then you might not read it for yourself and I also don't want to spoil any more than I already have. THE DIM SUM OF ALL THINGS is not a perfect book by any means, but it's fun and colorful and real, in a way that a lot of books of this type are not. Even though the ending felt like a little bit of a non-sequitur, I didn't dislike it. I wish this was part of a series because I didn't want to let these characters go. I loved them all. How has this author written so few books? I'm feeling the urge to go out and buy up everything from her backlist.
There's nothing really wrong with this, I just got really bored. I will say that for a 2000s-era chicklit, it felt more empowered than most. No fat-shaming... or at least not so much that it pulled me out of the narrative enough to notice. But after 100+ pages it was mostly just the heroine being jealous and angry that her friend and sister were getting married and not her, and there was no hint of love interest in sight. The Irish setting was cool and I liked the 2000s references.
Karina Halle can be a hit-or-miss author for me. I've quite enjoyed some of her books and others I have disliked immensely. But I've never picked up one of her books and thought, "OH. <3" Until now. So thank god I'm so stingy with my five-star ratings, because otherwise, how else to showcase how this stands out from all the rest? (Cut to me: defending being a picky bitch.)
But seriously, THE ROYALS NEXT DOOR is a wonderful book and to be honest, I don't think the summary does it justice; it makes it seem like this book is going to be sickly saccharine sweet, when nothing could be farther from the truth. This is not just a romance novel, it's also about right to privacy, mental health, dealing with trauma, and loving romance. In some ways, it feels like a nostalgic throwback to some of my favorite aughts chicklit authors, like Sophie Kinsella and Meg Cabot, where romance novels and chick-lit were often interchangeable and focused on the development of the heroine's personal journey as much as the romance.
Piper is an elementary school teacher who lives on a Canadian island. It's scenic and picturesque and private, so obviously it makes sense that the legally-distinct-from-Meghan-and-Harry English duchess and duke would make it their own private getaway. It also makes sense that they would have a super hot bodyguard who is grumpy and secretly loves baking who kind of dislikes Piper on sight. But only for a little while. And he's never, like, mean about it. Which I think is the best way to do a grumpy sunshine romance. There's a difference between gruff and mean.
I don't want to say too much, but there was so much about this book I enjoyed. I liked the emotional connection between Harrison, the bodyguard, and Piper. I liked that they went on relatable dates (Costco and a lake?). I liked that the author shows the incredible pressure teachers are under to be moral paragons of virtue, to the extent where sometimes even having a hobby can threaten their jobs. I liked the mental health representation and how it ran the gamut from anxiety to PTSD to borderline personality disorder. I also really liked the writing.
With some of Halle's books, I have felt that the pacing could be uneven and the heroine went on really long asides that took away from the story and ended up being really distracting. That was not the case with this book at all. It ended up feeling really clean and polished and perfectly paced, from start to finish, and cinematic and vivid as any film or movie. I don't know if that's due to her personal growth as a writer or a particularly good editing team, but either way it was impressive and added to my enjoyment.
If you love bodyguard romances and are a fan of Meghan and Harry, you will love this book. The ending is perfect, too.
YIKES. This book is the posterchild for how illustrated covers can trick people into thinking they're getting a quirky little rom-com, only to end up with something very not that. And one of the top shelves for this book on Goodreads is "romance"? You sick, lying fucks.*
*JK ily, but seriously, definitely NOT a romance**
**In my not-so-humble opinion
Kitty is a social media influencer with family problems up the wazoo. Socialite mother dabbling in the literal blood money (her father was a slaughterhouse magnate). Daddy issues from her cold and aloof father teaching her that the cast of Charlotte's Web makes for good eatin'? No wonder she's a vegan with a major hang-up about men.
Unfortunately that hang-up soon turns deadly when she accidentally kills a man who's harassing her on her way home. Faster than you can say "look what you made me do," she starts not-so-accidentally killing other men who are guilty of everything from ghosting to rape. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and Kitty is planning on serving them up on #sponsored cutlery, with a pinch of vigilante justice.
This reminds me of a much, much darker Katherine St. John work, as KSJ also writes a lot of beach read thrillers. But this one also has a heavy dash of Caroline Kepnes's YOU. Some people have compared it to Dexter and I can see that, but YOU is a better comparison because Kitty has such a dark and wicked sense of humor, seeped in satire and a rather sangfroid despair at the futility of humans to do anything but disappoint her on a deeply personal level. For most of this book, I was thinking this would be a four- or five-star read. But then the ending happened and I thought, hmm, I don't like that.
HOW TO KILL MEN AND GET AWAY WITH IT is an aggressively decent read, but it's heavy on the gore and I don't really think the cover prepares you for that. There's a lot of rather graphic torture and murder scenes, including some of animals. The tonal shifts were rather jarring, although I do think this would translate well to the screen. I kept envisioning it as one of those quirky streaming murder shows, like My Life Is Murder or Ms. Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries. I think it would translate well to screen. It was just a little too much for me and I felt like the ending was a little silly.
Overall, though, I did have a lot of fun reading this. It's a great summery read for the morbidly inclined and I'm excited to check out the author's follow-up.
CAUSE CELEB is kind of like if someone thought, I want another CATCH-22, but I want it to be about refugee camps instead of war, and also, make it chick-lit. And to that effect, it's actually a pretty decent book. In some ways, it actually ages better than BRIDGET JONES because of the author's prescience about celebrity endorsements and influencer culture. She brutally satirizes virtue-signaling and the rather callous way that people view impoverished countries (if I don't personally see the starving children on my TV set, then suffering doesn't exist to me, etc.) and people's need to be recognized for giving.
There are a couple things that date this book-- an off-the-cuff insult about lesbians and a reference to President Reagan and Michael Jackson-- but for the most part, everything the author says in this book could probably still hold true today. How sad is that?
P.S. Speaking of sad, the way I welled up when the heroine saw all those starving people huddled by the mountain was just-- brutal.
I'd never actually heard of DeuxMoi before reading this book. Apparently it's a real gossip distributor on Instagram, which I guess makes ANON PLS. autofiction. The real DeuxMoi operators are anonymous but in this book, the site is managed by an abused fashion intern named Cricket. The comparisons to Gossip Girl and Devil Wears Prada are honestly pretty on point. You get the bitchy boss and celebrity adjacent juiciness, with the "xoxo just dropped devastating truths about your personal life, love GG" suspense.
This was purely an impulse buy but I couldn't put it down. It's chick-lit without much romance, although there is a bit of romance and some spice. Cricket is a flawed FMC who is likable but also a little bit morally grey, and I liked her friends. There's something almost nostalgic about this book that made me think about the 2000s-era chick-lit I used to love... I think because often, in those books the heroine was just as focused on her career as her relationships (maybe because of Sex and the City?). Now, it feels like in a lot of rom-coms, there really isn't as much focus on the heroine's corporate life.
The first half of this book was fantastic and the second half, while good, wasn't quite as good. The vampire stuff and the overly neat resolution didn't 100% work. It was fun trying to figure out the real-life allegories some of this stuff must be based on, though. I also wondered how much of this autofiction was actually fiction, and how much is rooted in truth. Deny, deny, deny.
Is this the most amazing thing I've ever read? No. But oh my God, it is so fun. Sophie Kinsella is a hit or miss author with me because she does this thing where she writes these heroines who are super passive aggressive and borderline pathological when it comes to lying, and it's supposed to be so omg!quirky and humorous, when actually, it just comes across as super toxic and kind of awful. REMEMBER ME? is one of the few books I've read by this author that doesn't do that, and I love it all the more for it.
When the book starts out, it's 2004. Lexi has a loser boyfriend named Loser Dave, she's struggling at an entry-level position in her company as an underpaid and underappreciated sales associate, and oh, yes, her father's funeral is tomorrow. But then she gets hit by a car when she's trying to hail a taxi and when she opens her eyes, everything has changed. She has dyed hair and veneers, all of her clothes are designer, and suddenly she's the director of her whole department. WHAT.
Also, it's 2007 and she can't remember any of it. Oop.
I'm a sucker for a good amnesia story and REMEMBER ME? delivers. The only thing that would make this story better would be if it had a bit of a gothic element to it. I kept hoping Eric was into some shady shit or something, but instead he's just a posh creep with some interesting sexual kinks (I may be traumatized forever by the phrase "Mont Blanc"). It was super interesting seeing Lexi navigate her new life and try to figure out why her sweet younger sister has become a borderline klepto, why all her old friends hate her and call her the "Cobra," and why she can't seem to stomach the sight of her supposedly beloved husband, Eric, who has oh-so-helpfully created a "marriage manual" for her that details everything from her dietary habits to step-by-step instructions for foreplay. LMAO.
Someone should seriously pick this up and make it into a TV mini-series. It's a very, very light mystery that's reminiscent of other cutesy amnesiac thrillers, like SIRI, WHO AM I? (which I also loved). The heroine is actually super likable and relatable and it's got a great ending. Also, the aughts references are EVERYTHING. Brangelina, cigarette jeans, and green juice. I think I actually read this book around the time that it first came out, so it was fun to revisit and experience the same thrilling rush. I'm doing this project called "the literary sad girl canon" where I reread books I loved (or hated!) when I was young. TWENTIES GIRL didn't quite live up to that first read but I'm happy to say this one does.
I'm doing an audit of my bookshelves as part of my New Year's Resolution and trying to read and get rid of some of my physical copies. TWENTIES GIRL is actually a reread. I read it for the first time when I was pretty young and I believe I gave it five stars because somehow it ended up in my "keepers" box. I wanted to give it a reread and see if I felt the same way about it now as I did then and... sadly I did not. It was still a good read but couldn't quite hold up to the test of time.
Sophie Kinsella does this thing I don't really like where she makes all of her heroines pathological liars. It's supposed to be cute and quirky but instead all it does is make her heroines look like little psychopaths. SHOPAHOLIC, for me, was the worst, as it portrayed someone with a very serious and concerning problem as lighthearted and fun. For years, SHOPAHOLIC put me off Kinsella because of how much I hated that heroine. That trope is present in TWENTIES GIRL as well, albeit to a slightly lesser extent and to be honest, it makes a little more sense in TWENTIES because the premise is so ridiculous.
When Lara goes to the funeral of her great aunt Sadie, whom she never met, it's a bit underwhelming. Nobody's there, there's no flowers or food or music. Everyone feels very begrudging about their wasted time, including Lara's rich uncle, a social media influencer-cum-coffee mogul who lords his wealth over the rest of the family. Just before the cremation, however, Lara is haunted by a vision of Sadie as a girl in her twenties, who screams at her to stop the ceremony because SHE NEEDS HER NECKLACE, and after lots of screaming and heckling, Lara does the only thing she can think of: lies to everyone that there's been a murder and that Sadie's nursing home must have been responsible.
With Sadie watching her every move, Lara halfheartedly does a search for the necklace, and the ghostly hijinks result in various shenanigans like mind-raping her ex-boyfriend into going out with her again and telling her he's still in love with her, sneaking into an office building and asking out a man that Sadie fancies looks like Rudolph Valentino, and going to a thrift store and buying used flapper clothes and-- cringe-- 1920s makeup for a fancy dinner date. None of this stuff aged very well and I found Lara a very hard heroine to like for most of the book (and Sadie was just as bad). But even with the weird ghost stuff, I liked the mystery of the necklace and the rom-com elements and I found myself thinking that this would make a nice movie. It also has a lovely ending that sort of made me tear up.
So I'd say that TWENTIES GIRL is an okay read. Not really Kinsella's best but not her worst either, and Lara grows from her experience and learns how to be a better person and to let people make their own choices while living life on their terms.
My track record with Christina Lauren is not the best, as I hated-hated-hated BEAUTIFUL BASTARD and felt only lukewarmly towards JOSH AND HAZEL'S GUIDE TO NOT DATING. But when I found this book for, like, twenty cents at a thrift store and saw the blurb, I knew I had to get it, track record be damned. I loved the idea of two used and abused personal assistants falling in love while commiserating over their showboating asshole bosses. Even better, the asshole bosses in this equation are kind of like a cross between Dave and Rachel Hollis and Chip and Joanna Gaines.
Carey is a PA for Melissa Tripp, CEO and all-around boss babe of her own renovation/home design company, Comb+Honey. Her husband, Rusty, is her #1. Back when they were working out of their house, he built a lot of the furniture in their shop, but now that that's all outsourced, all he really does is mug for the camera and act doofy. They're releasing a book about their perfect marriage and about to launch a new TV show, but all is not well in Trippland. Melissa is becoming angrier and more controlling and Rusty can't keep it in his pants. Their marriage and their careers are both in choppy waters.
James is an engineer but due to a major career mess-up, he's kind of screwed himself into a corner and is essentially Rusty's PA, despite his fancy degrees. He and Carey are often at odds with their employers' conflicting wants, but when they end up on the road for a book tour together, they end up finding not just rapport but also a sort of attraction, too. I liked the romance a lot. It was sweet without being boring. Part of this is because they both are fully fleshed out human beings. They have families, conflicting drives, and lives that exist outside of each other and their careers. Carey is particularly interesting because she has something called dystonia, which is a chronic motor disorder that affects her hands. The authors talk about their own personal experience with this disorder in their family in a touching afterword that's actually worth reading.
I liked this book a lot. I think I liked it more than I would have if it were *just* a romance because of the social commentary. It was done really well and reminded me of that old movie, Best in Show. The portrayal of the hypocrisy and inner-conflict that influencers and celebrities can sometimes demonstrate was really well done and it added a lot of meat to the story. Melissa and Rusty actually eclipsed the narrators at times because their personalities were just so big. In fact, this whole book was like a fictionalized tea channel or reality TV show, so if you're into that kind of big drama, you'll love this.
I can't do it. It's been a while since I wrote a DNF review but this book drove me to it at knifepoint. I couldn't stand these people. Miscommunication and second-chance are two of my least favorite tropes when done poorly, and this book basically wallowed in them like a dirty bath. Didn't help that the friend group was super WASP-y and pretentious, either. They reminded me of the families that were in E. Lockhart's book, WE WERE LIARS. So if you're into the coastal grandma aesthetic, you'll probably like this.
Sorry, guys. Hate to be a hater, but HAPPY PLACE just felt like a crowning example of a couple who broke up and probably shouldn't have gotten back together. I liked the last Emily Henry book I read and will definitely read more from her but this one just wasn't my cup of tea.
I'm pretty picky when it comes to chicklit. It's a genre that I want to like, but a lot of the time, the unrealistic situations, bland writing, and overly quirky heroines ruin what would otherwise be a decent premise. Apparently my mom picked this up in a ship library while on a cruise. She enjoyed it so much that she brought it back for me from Europe. And, as with all books I'm excited about reading, I promptly set it aside and forgot about it for several months. Now that I'm ill, though, I've been treating myself to some guilty pleasure reads, and THE FLATSHARE seemed like it would fit the bill.
Told in dual POV, it is the story about Tiffy and Leon. Tiffy works at a small publishing company and has just been booted out of her ex-boyfriend's apartment; now she needs a new place to live. Leon works the night shift as a palliative care nurse, and he needs the extra cash flow. He decides to rent out his apartment to someone who can sleep there while he works, ideally with the opposite schedule as his. They will share the flat and the bed, but sleep on opposite sides. Kay, Leon's girlfriend, will manage things to keep it less weird.
At first, Leon's odd narration style and Tiffy's quirkiness seemed like they might be too much, but their characters grew on me. I liked the epistolary elements (via Post-It), the friends-to-lovers, and the emphasis on consent and healing after an emotionally abusive relationship. I loved Leon's brother, Richie, and all of Tiffy's friends. I also liked the distinguishing between Leon's relationship with Kay, which wasn't toxic but soured because of a difference in expectations, and Tiffy's relationship with Justin, which was toxic, and which she had kind of psychologically repressed for her own emotional wellbeing. If nothing else, THE FLATSHARE is a fascinating look at relationships of all kinds and how they shape us, but luckily for me, it's also a really cute romance.
P.S. Nearly lost it when they ate tiffin together because that would be a great ship name for them.
I've talked before about why a lot of older chick-lits don't hold up. Sadly, SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE is one of those. There's a lot in here that made me think I'd love it. The heroine is Jewish and Black. She's an author. It's one of those chick-lit mysteries, which I've always had a soft spot for, even when they don't age well.
Sadly, this one was a hard miss for me. The heroine is pretty awful. When she finds out the person who was going to adapt her book into a movie unalived himself, her first response is seriously, "What about my screenplay? Why couldn't he have waited?" And the whole passage about his death is just so ick. I get that sometimes heroines are supposed to be unlikable but I'm not so sure that was the case here. I think it was just a poor attempt at humor that aged like cheap vinegar.
I skimmed to the 15% mark to see if it got better and found the dialogue to be pretty artificial and the narrative to be dull. I'd try some of this author's more recent works but I'm not a fan of this one.
Reading this book was a rollercoaster of emotions because I started out thinking I was going to really enjoy it and ended with kind of a sour taste in my mouth. In my review of Meg Cabot's SIZE 12 IS NOT FAT, I talk a little about how some of these aughts contemporary romance novels end up being a hard sell in the present day because they have so many, uh, less than ideal messages embedded in the text. On the one hand, I get it, product of the times, yadda yadda. On the other hand, eek.
So the premise of this book is actually really great. The heroine, Taylor, is a lawyer at her firm-- a very good one who apparently has never lost a case (sure_jan.gif)-- and right now, she's in the middle of a sexual harassment lawsuit she's pretty sure she's going to win. Unfortunately, her boss has a favor to ask. And by favor, I mean, she's been voluntold to let some celebrity follow her around as he brushes up on his new role.
The celebrity is a guy named Jason Andrews who is, as far as I can tell, a sort of Brad Pitt/Ryan Reynolds megastar.
It starts out with Taylor basically hating him on sight. Which made sense-- he's an arrogant asshole who wastes her time and expects her to let him just because he smiled at her. I actually laughed a couple times because of how she got him back for some of this shit. But then... the book never really graduates from that. Jason decides he likes her because she's Not Like Other Girls. She doesn't want him, which means he wants her, which feels like a toxic page ripped fresh out of He's Just Not That Into You. You also definitely get the sense that Taylor is a Pick Me girl. She thinks she's empowered, but she says and thinks pretty unflattering things about other women, and she's a lawyer who literally spends all her time defending men on sexual harassment charges and there's, like, NO cognitive dissonance. How?? I mean, towards the end, we're treated to a scene where she's essentially telling this woman "how do you know my client's sexist remarks are what offended you? you're getting a divorce and you're mentally unstable." Wow, Taylor. Why was that scene even necessary? Are we supposed to applaud?
One of the worst moments, though, is when Taylor gets a concussion and she wakes up, thinking that she and Jason might have done something. And one of the excuses she comes up with to tell him, to defend herself, is "I'm a ho." No. If someone does something sexual to you while you are passed out from a concussion, you are not loose or easy. You are a victim of a rapist who took advantage of you. And the jokey way that this was just sort of mentioned was really icky, especially considering her work. It really made the character feel like an internalized misogynist who upheld men over women, and after what happened today with abortion rights in America especially, that was a pretty big yuck.
This was written over a decade ago, so that's why it feels so dated. A lot of chick-lit from the aughts was like this-- it talked a lot about weight (BTW, Taylor is a size two who has skinny Splenda lattes for breakfast and everyone in the book thinks she's a model because no way could she be hot AND smart). Romance novels didn't used to be known for rocking the boat, so a lot of them kind of just ended up being reflections of the values that society at large deemed acceptable at the time. Sometimes I can swallow my feminist pride and sort of enjoy the story, but the insta-love between the characters and the fact that Jason never really changed, made this book a really hard sell for me. I loved the lawyer stuff (it made me wonder if the author was a lawyer herself?? it felt pretty authentic) and at first I really liked Taylor's character, but it was bogged down by aughts douchery that I would rather forget.
So I was a teenager in the aughts, and whenever I revisit chicklit from that era, I am always categorically shocked at how much toxic shit young me devoured in the form of fiction. Like, there was SO much sexism and fatphobia and internalized misogyny, you guys. I talk about this a little bit in my review of another aughts chick-lit called THE NEXT BIG THING, which is a reality TV show where fat women are supposed to lose weight and are basically treated like subhumans. This is another weight-themed chick-lit where, despite the seemingly well-meaning title, actually has some messages in it that are Not The Best.
Heather Wells, our heroine, was a pop singer (think 90s female solo artist, like Jessica Simpson or Britney) until she put on weight and discovered her fiancee and fellow teenybopper idol getting a blowie from her biggest rival. Also, she wanted to go indie and her record label, owned by her now ex-fiancee's dad, was like LOL fuck you Liz Phair, you fucking sadgirl bitch. And when he finished jerking off to his Men's Rights Activist pamphlet, he booted her ass out.
Now she works in a dorm as Assistant to the Regional Director, job duties including: checking pulses in cases of alcohol poisoning, telling those damn kids to stop elevator surfing, and answering Concerned Parental Phone Calls. Unfortunately, it's the elevator surfing that's the real doozy. A girl just fell to her death trying to hang ten on the tenth floor, or whatever. And I'm sure this is A Real Thing That Kids Actually Do Just Like Lipstick Parties and Trading Sex Favors for Jelly Bracelets(TM) and not just something Lifetime made up. Anyway, Heather is convinced that foul play is afoot because "Girls Don't Elevator Surf" (sounds like a Weezer album, tbh). And she beats this Girls Are Way Too Chill to Behave in Life-Threatening Ways drum incessantly, because TikTok hasn't been invented yet.
Also, she will remind you at every opportunity how Size 12 Is NOT Fat(TM) and how annoying skinny people are. No way is anyone naturally skinny, according to nature. The book literally opens with her comparing a girl who is a size two to a chipmunk and being like "lol what's smaller than a size zero, do you, like NOT exist?" First of all, don't dehumanize that girl, Heather, you bitch. Second of all, skinny shaming is a thing. Third of all, for a book that is allegedly supposed to be all 'yo go girl' about the way the MC looks, there is so much obsessing over how fat and disgusting everyone thinks being size twelve is. I think Heather is insulted about her weight at least ten times, and someone says that she's "let herself go" because she went from being a size eight to a size twelve.
I just think this is so toxic. Especially since, according to the MC, size twelve is the size of the average American woman (although this was pubbed almost twenty years ago, and I think the average has moved up to 14). At the time that I read this book, I was a size 12 and I remembered thinking, "Wait, am I fat?" A lot of chick-lit and romance novels do this-- I'm not just singling out Cabot-- but I think it's important to talk about how this cultural mindset was so deeply entrenched that it seeped into the psyches of so many female characters in fiction. I mean, gosh, I just read a Harlequin romance novel from the aughts where there's a throwaway line about how the heroine could stand to lose ten pounds.
Despite all that, I AM giving this book a four-star (rounded up) review because it was a lot of fun to read. I rate purely based on entertainment and sometimes problematic shit is entertaining. That doesn't excuse the fact that it is problematic, nor does it discredit the ratings of people who choose to rate based on how problematic something is, but I personally found the mystery pretty well done (although I have SERIOUS qualms about the motives and treatment of the baddie). I loved the college town vibe, the New York setting, and the author's actual attempt to make New York City diverse. Several of the students are black and Asian, the author talks about racism, several of the employees are Latinx (including her Dominican friend, Magda), and while I'm sure some of these portrayals are-- ahem-- questionable, it's way more than what I remember so many of these other authors doing.
Also, the love interest? He's a hot private detective who loved his gay grandpa and he's good with dogs. Who looks good in a tux. And has black hair and blue eyes. I probably wouldn't rec this to most people now but it's what I grew up reading and it's hard to hate it, even if I probably sort of should. YOLO!
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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