I’m back with some reviews. Reading and writing about books has been really tough lately. I know this slump is temporary but it still kind of sucks.
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle – I recently felt like I needed a comfort read so I picked this up for a re-read. The book held up on a re-read and it will still be one of my favorite books for the years. On a second read it was a lot easier to see how deeply Nicholas felt for Naomi.
Single Mom’s Second Chance by Kathy Douglass– I love the trope where one main character falls in love with the sibling of their previous partner but this book felt rushed and I didn’t feel enough of the connection between the two love interests. The female main character is paired up with the brother of her deceased husband. The heroine’s cancer diagnosis and recovery felt like it was the central focus of this story. There was not enough of their present emotional connection for me to believe in their HEA.
CW: discussion of grief/ death of hero’s wife and children, car crash
I love Meader’s sexy hockey romances. This book had an epistolary component to it that I adored. The main characters connect via text message when the male main character is sending texts to his deceased wife. When the heroine discovers that the anonymous stranger she has been texting with is actually the grumpy counselor at her younger sister’s day camp, she does not withhold this information for an extended period. She quickly tells him and although it creates conflict, it did not create a bigger and less believable conflict. I thought there was a good exploration of the hero’s grief over the loss of his wife and children. I enjoyed this story and believed in their individual characters arcs as well as their arc as a couple and believed in their HEA.
One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London
CW- fat shaming, discussion of weight and body
I really enjoyed the way this book was written with the alternating chapters from the main protagonists POV and the interstitials with TV reports, magazine articles, server chats, etc. We got to see multiple POVS with out being bogged down with them.
It was great to see an alternate universe where the lead of the Bachelorette was plus-size. But the phrase plus size was used SO many times. Believe me when I tell you that I was not going to forget that Bea was fat and the author didn’t let me forget it either. For the record it also annoys me when a female character is overly described as petite.
While talking about size, I think the insistence on reminding us that Bea is a size 20 veers closely to telling readers who are larger than that that socially acceptable fatness stops at size 20.
I really disliked the way Bea seemed insistent on not letting go of the highly dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship with Ray. I did not enjoy the manipulation by the producer. And I understand that she was probably written to be mean, but it felt cruel and Bea was not doing a great job of standing up for herself.
It was an interesting read and I finished it but I am not sure that I would recommend it.
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