eARC Review: The Bromance Book Club, by Lyssa Kay Adams

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Contemporary, Romance

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I got a copy of this e-book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

The Bromance Book Club is the story of Thea and Gavin, whose marriage might be coming to a bitter end, with Gavin finding out he never did give Thea an orgasm throughout their entire marriage, and Thea being fed up with pretending to be the perfect baseball wife with no ambitions of her own. But if the Bromance Book Club has anything to do with it, their relationship isn’t over just yet.

I could not resist that cover or that synopsis. It just sounds outright ADORABLE and funny and sexy. Men getting together to read romance in order to improve their marriages and learn to be better lovers? Hell yes.

eARC Review: Most Ardently, by Susan Mesler-Evans

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: F/F Romance, Contemporary Fiction, Retelling, Young Adult

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I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Most Ardently is the story of Elisa Benitez, the second of five sisters, who starts taking classes at University, where she meets the insufferable, cold and condescending Darcy. She’s tall, beautiful and… fifthly rich. Elisa despises her, admires her and is determined that, no matter what, Darcy is the kind of girl she could never fall for.

This is a YA F/F retelling of Pride and Prejudice – what else did I really need to know to pick this up? I’ve read quite a few retellings of P&P, which is one of my favorite books of all times, and this one is among my favorites! It’s a light-hearted hate-to-love romcom, with a half-Black lesbian girl (Darcy) and a bisexual Latina (Elisa). This is a lovely read which also touched on sensitive topics like student loan debt, consent, statutory rape. But while these topics were treated seriously and are quite relevant to the story, it didn’t make the novel emotionally difficult to read.

Review: Stubborn Archivist, by Yara Rodrigues Fowler

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Literary Fiction, Contemporary

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Stubborn Archivist is the story of an unnamed character, whose mother is from Brazil and father is an Englishman. Born in England but still with a foot in Brazil, she navigates life and tries to understand her identity and where she belongs.

This book came recommended to me by Rachel – thanks so much, this was such a great rec!

Review: Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Literary Fiction

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Convenience Store Woman is the story of Miss Furukura, who has been working at the same convenience store for the past eighteen years. Her life has not changes since her twenties, and that is how she thrives: she knows what the store needs, the correct level of enthusiasm to greet costumers, and what to say when. But as she gets older, the pressure increases for her to get married, changes jobs or, preferably, both. When she meets a man at the store looking for a wife so he can comply to societal norms, she sees in him the perfect convenient relationship to also get friends and family to accept her. But this bitter, small-minded man will create chaos in her perfectly orderly life, and perhaps not for the best.

Review: Dig, by A. S. King

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Young Adult, Literary Fiction

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I first heard of this book from one of Ariel Bissett’s channel and was immediately drawn to the cover – then the synopsis sounded intriguing. I was not sure what to think of literary YA fiction, as it made me think of books like The Catcher in the Rye (which I dislike), but since then I heard a few more positive reviews about it and decided to pick it up.

The Shoveler, the Freak, CanIHelpYou?, Loretta the Flea-Circus Ring Mistress, and First-Class Malcolm. These are the five teenagers lost in the Hemmings family’s maze of tangled secrets. Only a generation removed from being simple Pennsylvania potato farmers, Gottfried and Marla Hemmings managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now sit atop a seven-figure bank account, wealth they’ve declined to pass on to their adult children or their teenage grandchildren.

eARC: The Bride Test, by Helen Hoang

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Romance, Contemporary

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I have received this book via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

In The Bride Test, Khai believes his autism makes him incapable of love and has never tried dating, and now that he’s 26, his mom decided it was time for him to marry. In Vietnam, Esme accepts a deal she never thought she would in her life: move to the United States for the Summer to try to seduce a handsome man she never met in her life into marrying her. Leaving her daughter Jade behind will be one of the most difficult things she’ll have to do, but this might be the break her family has been waiting for, and might give her a chance to find her father.

Review: Sadie, by Courtney Summers

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Young Adult Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary

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When Sadie finds out her sister Mattie has been murdered, her world falls apart. There was precious little in her life to make it worth it, and now with Mattie gone, nothing will stop her from getting revenge on the man who killed her. Told in a podcast style as the journalist West McCray investigates and tells the story of Sadie and Mattie, its unique story-telling is great to listen to.

Sadie was a book I had both high and low expectations on: I’d heard the audiobook was amazing, but I hadn’t heard more on the blurb than that, so I hardly knew what the book was even about when I started it. It took me a good third of the book to really get into it – while the narration IS fantastic, Sadie’s character starts out as basically nothing but anger and thinking she’s super dangerous and is going to kill a man, but nothing in her really inspired me to believe she WAS dangerous or anything more than her anger. But as the book progresses, and her character gets fleshed out a lot more, along with the complicated, imperfect people in her life telling their sides of the story, my heart started aching for her, for all she went through and all she lost.

Review: The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery

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The Secret History is the story of Richard Papen, a student who finds himself charmed by the small group of professor Julian Morrow studying classics  at University. Slowly, Richard is consumed by their intensity and slips into their obsessions and betrayal.

I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while, and I’ve read so many mixed reviews I was terribly curious. I read If We Were Villains, which was compared a lot to this, so and which I enjoyed, but thought I’d enjoy it more if it had been an adult novel instead. After reading The Secret History, I definitely see the similarities and I’m quite glad I picked it up!

Review: The Unhoneymooners, by Christina Lauren

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Romance

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The Unhoneymooners is the story of Olive, probably the unluckiest girl in the world. While her twin sister Amy wins prizes and giveaways and is planning her wedding basically for free, Olive has never had any luck in her career, love life or anything. To add to that, she is okay with her soon-to-be brother-in-law, but absolutely cannot stand his brother Ethan. When the buffet in the wedding Amy won for free gives everyone but Olive and Ethan really, really sick, Amy begs her to do this one thing for her: please take her free vacation in Maui, or the whole thing goes to waste. There is only one problem: Ethan is going, too, in place of his brother, and will pretend to be married to Olive. Could this be Olive’s change in luck or is it just another series of unfortunate events waiting to happen?

Review: Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Contemporary Fiction

Goodreads

Lost Children Archive tells the story of a family on a road trip across the United States during Summer. As they go through what might be the last trip they take as a family, heading towards the area known as Apacheria, where the father tries to capture the echoes of the last people to give in to the white invaders, while the mother works on a collection of sounds that will, hopefully, together tell the story of the refugee children that are lost.

On the surface, this book is about a family trip, and with gorgeous writing the author takes us through the hot days, the slow pace of the story mirroring, I think, the pacing of something that is already a memory, a Summer day from years ago. But the story is truly about family, refugees, history, how documenting is important and the different ways of documenting. Quite fascinating!