What I’m Reading (6.20.22)

Hi, friends! Long time, no talk, eh? I had a lovely time away on my trip to Niagara Falls with my mom and I cannot wait to recap the trip on the blog and show you guys all the amazing photos I took. The Falls are truly breathtaking! Unfortunately, two days after coming home from my trip, it finally happened: I tested positive for Covid. Womp, womp. I made it two years and three months at least?! I’ve spent the past five days laying on the couch watching TV and reading, and while my symptoms haven’t been pleasant, it could have been much worse and for that I am super grateful. I’ll be writing a post all about my experience with Covid, though, so stay tuned. 🙂

Today, I have a ton of book reviews for you! I didn’t get nearly any reading done on my vacation but a Covid quarantine meant I was able to just lay around and read as much as I wanted to! (I’m not always able to read when I’m sick, but I was able to with Covid—a silver lining if there ever was one.) Let’s dive into the reviews, shall we?

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane (★★★★☆)

I enjoyed this YA story that deals with dark themes—eating disorders, suicide, grief, and depression, to name a few—and is interwoven with a sweet love story that keeps things from feeling too dark. Zander is spending her summer at Camp Padua, a camp for at-risk teens. Her parents hope that being in a different environment will be a balm for her after a tragic event. It’s there she meets people who may seem “crazy” at the outset, but wind up becoming the people she can be the most herself with. It’s a story about friendship and love and loss and how to keep moving forward when life feels unimaginably hard. I thought the ending was a little too cutesy-perfect, but it was also nice to see these teens who have been dealt a rough hand get a happy ending.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz (★★☆☆☆)

Oof, unpopular opinion alert! I did not like this book. I should have trusted a good friend who told me it was boring and not worth my time, but then other people raved about it, so I wanted to give it a shot. I shouldn’t have bothered, quite honestly. The Plot is about Jacob Finch Bonner who is a struggling author teaching at a third-rate MFA program. One of his students in the program brags about this incredible idea for the book he’s writing, which annoys Jacob. This student promises that the book will be a bestseller, will get a movie deal, etc. And then the student dies… and Jacob’s like, “Hey, why don’t I write this book and become a famous best-selling author instead?”

There was just so much I didn’t like about this book. Jacob, for one, was such a boring, blah, and one-dimensional character. He was just not someone I wanted to root for. I found all the long-winded soliloquies about the writing craft and how important writing is to be so very mind-numbing. I am just not here for people who are so precious about writing. (These are often the people who also find literary fiction to be the best, and maybe only, genre to read.) The foreshadowing in the book was so heavy-handed that I could see the ending coming from a mile away, and I’m not even someone who’s good at guessing the ending to thrillers. All in all, this book did not work for me at all.

Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn (★★★☆☆)

I’m sad that I didn’t love this book as much as I thought I would, as I had such high hopes for Penelope and Colin’s romance! I liked the story but I really did not enjoy Colin’s character. He was moody, temperamental, and cynical at times. It seemed like every time Penelope did something that Colin didn’t think was “appropriate,” he lost his temper at her and it was disappointing. He’s written as such a fun, light-hearted, sweet man in the Netflix show and I wanted more of that character from him. Penelope was a wonderful character to root for, though, and I enjoyed her character arc throughout the novel, especially as her secret comes to light (I won’t spoil it, but if you watch the show, you know what it is). And even though I didn’t love Colin in this book, there is an interesting idea in this novel of what happens when you start to truly get to know the person you’ve loved from afar and recognize that they are as human as you and have their own set of vulnerabilities and weaknesses and issues to contend with.

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier (★★★☆☆)

For me, this was a very uneven thriller that struggled from a lack of focus. The story starts with a kidnapping: Marin and Derek’s four-year-old son Sebastian is kidnapped a few days before Christmas at a busy shopping plaza. The story then moves forward one year; Sebastian is still missing but the trail to find him has gone cold. Marin and Derek are still married but living seemingly independent lives. Then, Marin finds out that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman and this seems to spark something in her. She may have lost her son, but she’s sure as hell not going to lose her husband, too, so she has to figure out what to do about her husband’s side piece. The story moves back and forth between Marin’s point of view and McKenzie’s, the woman Derek is having an affair with. And honestly, I was simply bored by the whole plot up until the last 50 pages. It didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, the whole kidnapping plot faded to the background, and all of the characters were kinda blah and one-dimensional. Thankfully, those last 50 pages saved the book because the twist at the end was so very good! I was really impressed with the way the author revealed the twist and the way it all came together in the end. I just wish the author had given us a bit more excitement during the first 250 pages because it was such a slog until the end.

Almost Just Friends by Jill Shalvis (★★★★☆)

I really enjoyed this contemporary romance! It was the kind of book where I felt bereft when I finished it because I didn’t want to be done with these characters. The novel follows Piper who has spent most of her life taking care of her younger brother and sister. Their parents died when Piper was a teenager and while they were in the care of their grandparents, Piper had to step up into the mother role for her siblings. Now, her siblings are off on their own and Piper is finally ready to live a life of her own: she wants to sell the house her grandparents owned and leave their small town in California to attend medical school in Colorado. And then her siblings come home, both harboring major secrets that have the potential to ruin all of Piper’s best-laid plans. Not to mention, Piper’s elderly neighbor’s son has just arrived back in town and he also has the potential to ruin her plans with his tall, dark, handsome, and steady presence. It’s a story about family and sacrifice and, yes, plans. And also love, loss, grief, and learning to live with that grief. I really, really enjoyed this novel.

What I’m Reading This Week

• Pony by RJ Palacio (audio) – I am so close to finishing this audiobook… just about an hour left. I’m not loving it as much as everyone else seems to (sensing a theme in my reading lately?), but we’ll see how the ending plays out.
• The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite (e-book) – I just started reading this f/f historical romance so I don’t have many thoughts about it yet. But I’m hoping I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the last book of hers I read!
• Outlawed by Anna North (print) – This book has a low Goodreads rating (3.5) but maybe I’ll end up enjoying it more, since I’m in a weird reading mood these days.

What are you reading?