if i had a nickel for every time one of my most anticipated releases was about dark academia enemies to lovers entering hell, i'd have two nickels. whif i had a nickel for every time one of my most anticipated releases was about dark academia enemies to lovers entering hell, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's kind of weird it happened twice
Merged review:
if i had a nickel for every time one of my most anticipated releases was about dark academia enemies to lovers entering hell, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's kind of weird it happened twice
Merged review:
if i had a nickel for every time one of my most anticipated releases was about dark academia enemies to lovers entering hell, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's kind of weird it happened twice...more
i have marked 1,865 books as read on goodreads. i have reviewed 1,813 of them. of those, i would say at least 1,727 had at least one complaint. and STi have marked 1,865 books as read on goodreads. i have reviewed 1,813 of them. of those, i would say at least 1,727 had at least one complaint. and STILL, i just discovered a whole new negative thing to say:
this book is all feelings. the characters don't really have personality traits, they have emotions. they don't have development, they have new feelings. there is no romance, just instalove. there isn't really a plot, just people going through feelings together (for a podcast) and people going through feelings together (that will eventually lead to them being together).
it makes it all feel shallow, like there's no actual connection between these people or their story, and that means there's no connection between the reader and the book.
for this reader, at least.
bottom line: you learn something new every day. i already knew i was a soulless void, but today i learned a new effect of that.
------------------------ tbr review
what's your favorite niche book trope? mine is road trips.
unfortunately this is not really a road trip book. my bad.
pssst...emily henry's screenwriter for beach read wrote a romance novel...
and you can probably skip it.
this was a weird book.
it uses the word vague apssst...emily henry's screenwriter for beach read wrote a romance novel...
and you can probably skip it.
this was a weird book.
it uses the word vague a lot, and it loves to murmur. it has a lot of italics, for no real discernible reason. there's a whole scene where it seems like it might be sponsored by scrivener (credit to halle)?
more seriously, it creates a very troubled romance with very troubled characters and puts them in a love story it will take 300 pages to untangle into something resembling a happily ever after, except we never really get to their individual personal issues.
except forget about their respective personal issues because we don't have time to get to those.
helen never makes real friendships, and grant doesn't either. parental relationships are left unresolved. they get back together, but the why feels unsolved at best.
and then there's the worst crime of all...this is so devastatingly unfunny.
a lot of the time in modern life, rom coms are more like rom drams, featuring characters navigating wildly upsetting interpersonal crises with a romance in the background and the occasional line of banter.
i actually don't mind that much, because i'm obsessed with drama and it helps to soothe the part of me that is constantly one bolt of confidence away from asking my acquaintances why they broke up.
but the drama in this was SO crazy, and the jokes SO unforgivably bad (to the point that i wouldn't know they were supposed to be jokes if it didn't literally say "he joked"), that i was more like...why would i root for these people at all.
while questioning if i know what jokes are at all, in the emotional equivalent of when you use the word "joke" so much it doesn't look like a word anymore. which is also happening.
it also relies on chemistry instead of intimacy, with a lot more sex scenes than romantic ones.
i read an interview with the author in which she says that she wrote this early in the morning and late at night while working on an emily henry script, and i hate to say it shows. this reads like the compiled discarded bits of something distractedly written by her.
that would be the meanest thing i've ever said if i didn't love emily henry so much.
the definition of insanity is how i keep reading romance thinking i'm going to find a new favoritethe definition of insanity is how i keep reading romance thinking i'm going to find a new favorite...more
truly i want to live inside one of her books: full of magic and baked goods and romance and small towns awritten by sarah hogle is all i need to know.
truly i want to live inside one of her books: full of magic and baked goods and romance and small towns and banter and everything that's good on earth. you deserve each other is still the only romance novel i've ever given five stars. no one is doing it like her.
my only complaint from this book is i wanted MORE: more sisters, more nieces, more small-town cuteness, more pastries, more quirky landlords. i want to know if the sisters get their business back, i want to read about our couple's happy family farm-y future. (i love alliteration.)
this book is a lot — A LOT of big feelings from the get-go, a lot of grand declarations, a lot of over-the-top quirkiness. all of it would've bugged in another book. but here, as with every hogle book, all of it is fun and weird and wonderful.
at any given time, i feel like i'm reading romance as a cry for help.
when i find a romance novel i love, it's my favorite kind of genre to enjoy. justat any given time, i feel like i'm reading romance as a cry for help.
when i find a romance novel i love, it's my favorite kind of genre to enjoy. just so comforting and fun and feelings-y.
but the vast, vast majority of the time, i am way too picky to bear it.
and in this case, well...this book is just bad.
sorry.
i really wanted to like this book, insistent product placement of the author's weird side quest cupcake wars-appearing bakery and all.
but it was too quirky and too much for me. there were CLIFFHANGERS in this book. like, chapters that ended with ellipses. "until he saw who was in the room..." and "she wasn't ready for what happened next..."-ass sentences. it feels silly.
this was unfortunately a not-good book on a sentence level (lots of weirdly constructed ones), on a plot level (clichéd confessions, an undue level of love interest-on-love interest obsession), or on a character level (we have a quirky gal and a boring guy, much like every romance of the last 5 years seems doomed to contain).
on top of that, this was arduous to get through. we're talking 320+ pages of miscommunication followed by 10 pages of happiness followed by, you guessed it, MORE miscommunication.
and for two people who tell each other 1100 times they'll be harmless (maybe "be harmless to each other" can be our always), they never tried to talk at all.
sheesh.
bottom line: i don't know what i did in a past life to deserve it, but this was a punishing read....more
selecting the romance novel i will pin my hopes, my dreams, my next comfort read, my choice to be literate, my happiness, and all my chances at likingselecting the romance novel i will pin my hopes, my dreams, my next comfort read, my choice to be literate, my happiness, and all my chances at liking anything on
and this time...it worked???
this was so cute and fun and unique. i really fell for these characters and more importantly, for this apartment...
this book should be jailed for convincing my city-mouse self i need a spare bedroom for my busts of dead poets and my ivy and my shelves of travel books and my robin's egg blue chair.
the romance in this was sweet, but like all romance books, i liked the character arc and the details even more: the food, the journey, the banter. to be fair, that's not a bad problem to have.
bottom line: this was such an unexpected good time....more
well, i accidentally read taylor swift fanfiction.
it did not go well.
this is partially due to the fact that i am no taylor swift fan. i know this is cwell, i accidentally read taylor swift fanfiction.
it did not go well.
this is partially due to the fact that i am no taylor swift fan. i know this is currently tantamount to committing domestic treason or to thumbs-downing videos of baby animals forming interspecies friendships, but i can explain. i'm not secretly a 29 year old man recording too-close tiktoks of himself ranting about how now he can't watch the big game on sundays without seeing her face. i have simply always been neutral, and now she is everywhere. that's fine.
it's also beside the point, because in spite of my fairly opinion-less take on her...even i think this book, which claims to be solidly pro on the topic, has a pretty unfair depiction of her whole deal.
it is very weird to profit off of the most famous person in the world in what you claim is a love letter to her by perpetuating the meanest stereotypes about her — that she profits off her breakups on purpose and wouldn't be famous without them.
i have a lot of criticisms, beginning with carbon emissions and ending with money chasing, but even i can't deny she's talented.
on top of that, this book is just bad. in some silly ways, such as: - the liberally inserted very bad song lyrics - the number of adjectives - the moment when taylor-by-another-name escapes a crowd of rabid fans by (check notes) walking down the street and putting sunglasses on - essentially-taylor insising wearing her full wedding dress onstage...every single show, because nothing says "ready to perform" like 20 pounds of tulle - taylor-insert making our male main character do a fashion show to determine his new rock star look, ultimately deciding on (again let me check my notes) a "rakish bow tie" and "glasses" like a "lounge pianist." she skated straight past rock star to theater kid - the idea that our love interest could just open his laptop and buy a ticket the day of the final show of a tour we've been repeatedly told is sold out - imagine playing piano and asking the musician how they want it to sound and they go "like sunrise after sleepless nights." i'm putting in 2 weeks notice
it's also bad in some not as silly ways. this couple had less than no chemistry, to the point that i assumed we were still early in the book until i was flabbergasted by a surprise kiss and looked to see we were at the halfway mark. the only thing more surprising was the sex scene.
this is a second chance romance, and it seems like all of their love story is predicated on the idea that one time they had chemistry and that they share musical talent. but neither of those are on page so i don't know what we're doing here.
not to mention the writing. if you're into emotions described like "I snuff the rogue indignation" or "She endeavors to smile" or "inquisitive disappointment," this is the book for you.
so much of this book is just STRANGE. our love interest's tragic backstory is that his family's retirement home is closing. our heroine is dragging around her newly divorced mom on a pop concert tour she doesn't seem interested in. why were these choices made??? we spend so much time on these bizarre plot points and it's like...why put them in at all???
and i just can't stress enough how if your retirement community is failing, i don't see how dating taylor swift for the publicity is the best way to handle that. last i heard geriatrics weren't her primary demo. it's one thing to sell jerseys to teenage girls, quite another to try to convince them to put their grandparents into a home in the rural south. and the book just ends without resolution on this so who knows!
riley (read: taylor) is one of the least likable protagonists i've read in memory: completely selfish, fame-obsessed, describes "what she does" as "reaching everyone with her music," listening constantly to her own songs, inviting her ex husband to events "for inspiration," and unable to understand why everyone doesn't immediately kowtow to her in a scenario where basically everyone already does. i don't really know how to describe how unrealistic and unfeeling and borderline sociopathic this character is, but it certainly isn't a flattering portrayal of taylor swift!
so if this book isn't for her fans, and it isn't for her non-fans...who is it for?
bottom line: this is a money grab with no plan to get the money.
can't stop reading bestsellers after everyone is done talking about them.
and guess what. it works.
this has many of my favorite tropes in it — funny smcan't stop reading bestsellers after everyone is done talking about them.
and guess what. it works.
this has many of my favorite tropes in it — funny smart women dating less funny less smart men; banter; pen pals — and many things i didn't know were my favorite — thinly veiled SNL coverage (shoutout to 13 year old me); devastatingly handsome men who wear wigs.
it's nothing particularly memorable, and neither the best Romantic nor the best Comedy, but it's fun!
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