Tag Archives: 2 stars

ARC — Holiday Read — Taylor Cole

Genre: Romance
Actual Rating: 2 stars
Spicy Meter: -1 fire emoji
Content Warnings: Discusses infidelity and contains a scene with questionable consent. Big trigger warning on being drunk and that dubious sexual content.

“Holiday Read” follows Candice, a surf instructor and romance lover, and Alexis, a writer struggling to finish his next romance novel. That’s how they end up in the weirdest of situations—Candice being Alexis’s secret inspiration and then Candice getting extremely pissed when she found out that’s what his interest in her was all about.

What do you get when you mix great writing but a question plot and not-so-relatable characters? A 2-star read apparently. Based on the premise (and the book cover) I thought I would enjoy this read, but sprinkle in some sexual assault and I was immediately turned off. I had to DNF at 32%, I could not find redemption for that situation.

Nonetheless, I really liked Taylor Cole’s writing there for a bit and I wouldn’t be against reading more of what she has to offer—as long as it doesn’t include drinking and tipsiness around a first hook up, explicitly after said drunk character had expressed their desire not to hook up.

That’s all for this review. If you’re into teacher-student relationships and aren’t repulsed by the no-consent thing, you might like this. I didn’t, but that’s just me.

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ARC provided by NetGalley and Aria in exchange for an honest review.

Publication Date: May 11, 2023

One Italian Summer — Rebecca Serle

“When you’re just a reflection, what happens when the image vanishes?”

Author: Rebecca Serle
Narrated By: Lauren Graham (!!! Yes!!! Lorelai from Gilmore Girls)

Genre: Women’s Fiction
Actual Rating: 2 stars (and I’m being generous)
Spicy Meter: 1 fire emoji
Narration: 5 mikes
Content Warnings: Death of parent, unhealthy grief coping mechanisms, cancer, cheating, and some sexual content.

“One Italian Summer” follows Katy, as she travels to Italy in hopes to reconnect with her mother, who’s just passed away. Leaving her husband behind, Katy sets off to the small town her mother loved—little did she know she would indeed reconnect with her mother, as she literally runs into her, in the flesh, and 30 years younger.

Rebecca Serle is one of my biggest hits or miss. And this one was definitely a miss for me. I came in blindly because I will read anything Rebecca publishes, period, but I lowkey regret doing that.

The only reason this has 2 stars is because of Lauren Graham, THE Lorelai Gilmore, who narrated the audiobook I listened to. Her voice was absolutely perfect. Disliked the story, but loved the experience. So lets get on with the actual review.

The relationship between Katy and her mother is absolutely, insanely, unequivocally unhealthy. Like no, honey, your mother is not your soulmate. And hey, I am all for magical realism, but this book was insane. You’re telling me you run into your dead mother, 30 years younger, and you wait 200 pages to ask someone what year you’re in? This was just ridiculous.

Also, there was some cheating here. Which, as you know if you’ve been following my reviews for a while, is the BIGGEST no-no for me. This novel had literally nothing going for it in my opinion (except for the narrator, 10/10).

I would only recommend “One Italian Summer” if time-travel cheating and dysfunctional, codependent mother-daughter relationships are your jam. If not, please just steer clear.

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“(…) Memory is by definition fiction. Once an event is no longer present, but remembered, it is narrative. And we can choose the narratives we tell—about our own lives, our own stories, our own relationships. We can choose the chapters we give meaning.”

It’s In His Kiss — Julia Quinn — Bridgertons #7

Genre: Historical Romance
Actual Rating: 2 stars
Spicy Meter: 2 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Discusses parent death, unhappy marriages, and bastard son abuse.

“It’s In His Kiss” is the seventh book in the Bridgerton series, and it follows Hyacinth Bridgerton, the youngest of eight Bridgerton siblings, as she falls in love and solves a mystery. It also follows Gareth St. Clair, the legitimate (born in wedlock) but bastard (not sired by who is supposed to be his father) son of a very rude man.

I hated every moment of this book, it took me forever to read—it’s almost encouraging me not to read Bridgerton #8, but at this point it’d be sad if I didn’t push through. “It’s In His Kiss” could easily win the title to my least favorite Bridgerton book… it’s definitely in the running.

Hyacinth was irrevocably annoying and Gareth was rude and off-puttingly insecure. There wasn’t even that much there with the sexy scenes, Hyacinth was annoying all the same, with some repetitive thing she would bring up whenever they were close.

I would recommend you just skip this book altogether, but maybe that’s just me.

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The Temporary Roomie — Sarah Adams — It Happened In Nashville #2

Genre: Romance, Comedy
Actual Rating: 2 stars
Spicy meter: 2 fire emojis
Content Warnings: Mentions cheating and parent death, other than that none that I can think of.

“The Temporary Roomie” is the second book in the It Happened In Nashville series, and this time we’re following Jessie, Lucy’s new bestie, and Drew, Lucy’s brother. This book is set after the first book in the series, which was titled “The Off Limits Rule” but it could almost be read as a stand-alone. Jessie is far along in her pregnancy when she is essentially left homeless due to some plumbing issues in her house. Initially, she moves in with Lucy and Cooper, but they have a noisy house with a toddler running around when all Jessie wants to do is rest up before her baby arrives. And so on she goes and moves in with Drew, Lucy’s older brother, who’s a gynecologist and a bachelor who’s used to having roommates. The only problem? Jessie has hated Drew from day one, before even knowing him– so wouldn’t this be the perfect time to bug him out of his mind? Through a series of pranks, will Jessie and Drew grow closer or further apart?

I don’t know how I could like the first book in a series so much and then hate the second… But that’s exactly what has happened here. And it’s so confusing because I loved the romance between Jessie and Drew, but I hated the “getting there” part of it all. Like when they got together it was lovely, but you could’ve added those scenes into any other context, in any other romance, and it would’ve worked. Realistically, I don’t think Jessie and Drew would’ve ended together, given the way they treated each other if this was real life. And yes, I know it’s a book, and it’s precisely fiction, but when I’m reading pure romance I like it when the setting is somewhat possible. But I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.

I don’t think I will be recommending this book to anyone personally, but if you like books where there’s a lot of rude pranking and a lot of pregnancy talk, then this book might be for you.

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99 Percent Mine — Sally Thorne

Genre: Romance, Comedy
Actual Rating: 2 stars
Content Warnings: Sexual content, chronic illness, and medical content.

“99 Percent Mine” is the sophomore book by Sally Thorne and it follows Darcy Barrett, her twin brother Jamie Barrett, and their childhood friend Tom Valeska. Darcy is a young, free spirit that just wants to travel the world, although her heart’s a bit of an impediment to that. The Barrett twins have inherited their fortuneteller grandmother’s house and have to remodel and sell it, as per their grandmother’s will. So in comes Tom Valeska, Jamie’s best friend, and Darcy’s long-standing crush, who coincidentally is a contractor and house-flipper. This story pretty much told itself.

This wasn’t a comedy and it wasn’t even that much of a romance either. The characters seemed to be emotionally stunted, and the interactions between them were awkward and over-the-top in all the wrong ways. I like reading fiction books because they tell a story of something that I feel could potentially happen in real life, and this book wasn’t that.

I feel like I wasted my time reading this book but in the end, I think it was my bad because I grabbed it without checking any reviews. I blindly believed it would be amazing because Sally Thorne is amazing, but now I guess she is a hit-or-miss writer, like most other authors.

I would not recommend this book, but I would actually really highly recommend “The Hating Game” and “Second First Impressions”, which are the other two books by Sally Thorne and those two really are *chef’s kiss*.

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King’s Cage — Victoria Aveyard — Red Queen #3

“Now I’m in a king’s cage. But so is he. My chains are Silent Stone. His is the crown.”

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Fantasy
Actual Rating: 2 stars
Content Warnings: Contains violence and is extremely boring.

“King’s Cage” is the third installment in the Red Queen series. It follows Mare Barrow as she is kept as a war prisoner by the Silver royalty, a.k.a. by her ex-fiancé, now-boy-king Maven, and brother of her ex-love-interest Cal.

I guess this one is supposed to be about Stockholm syndrome—but is it? Mare is a “prisoner” in a palace, treated like no other normal prisoner would be treated. She literally gets everything she wants, except access to her powers… the powers she didn’t even know she had not too long ago. Her wining was excruciating and repetitive. There was no character development on any fronts and honestly all “different” points of view just sounded like the same narrators, they just happened to have different names and were supposed to be different characters.

Sadly, I won’t be embarking on the last book of this series. I tried, I really did, but it’s just really not worth the time.

I will not be recommending this series to pretty much anyone. The first book was the best one in my opinion, and it wasn’t even that good.

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The Crown — Kiera Cass — The Selection #5

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Romance
Actual Rating: 2 stars
Content Warning: Mentions of abuse.

“The Crown” is the last installment I’ll read from The Selection series. Having a radically different arc from the first three books, I must say the last two books have been my least favorite… And considering I did not like the first three all that much, it means a lot. This last book follows Eadlynas she comes to choose who’ll be her prince consort and as she becomes queen. There’s no other way to put this: it sucked.

Eadlyn’s faults were worse than the first time around. The only redeeming quality of this book was that the writing wasn’t terrible—but what’s good writing without a good story? Well, it’s a waste of your time, that’s what it is.

I would not recommend the second arc of The Selection at all. Maybe read The Selection #1-3, if you like reality TV shows like The Bachelor, but other than that, I wouldn’t even recommend those books that much either. Reading this series has been the worst decision I’ve made this year. What a shame.

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