Husband Material- Emily Belden: 3 Stars
Own
Charlotte, a young widow, spends her life hiding behind a computer screen crunching numbers for a social media influencer firm by day and trying to create a fool-proof, algorithm based, "perfect" app for finding a new husband by night. Her life downward spirals after the ashes of her late husband, who was laid to rest 5 years earlier, show up on her doorstep and she realizes she never fully coped with his death and now she has to. While I knew I was supposed to be "rooting" for Charlotte, I didn't really like her half as much as I liked her roommate (side character) Casey. And I found the "big secret" to be too heavy to lead to the HEA ending in any sort of real way.
Our Stop- Laura Jane Williams: 3.5 Stars*
Netgalley
This was a super-quick rom-com that I gobbled up in 2 sittings. Nadia and Daniel were confident but also sometimes full of self-doubt, which is human and realistic. I really enjoyed the alternating viewpoints, the side-story with Nadia's best friends, and the references to pop culture, like the hashtag trending on Twitter. It was predictable, but I still agonized over all the misses and if they would ever actually meet! Deducting a star because it dragged a bit in the middle and the epilogue were superfluous and uninteresting; I liked the ending better without it. Daniel seemed a bit smug in his self-awareness, and the scene with his housemate was completely unnecessary and really didn't add anything to the overall story except to color it a bit.
Sugar- Deidre Riordan Hall: 3 Stars
Kindle Unlimited
First of all, let me just say that I've had this since 2015 and I put off reading it because of the cover. I just saw an alternate cover for the paperback version and I know I would have read it sooner if I had seen that one instead. This one gives no insight into even what genre this book is.
Then there's the description of the main character being a "fat Puerto Rican-Polish girl," and I thought 'cool, another halfsie like me, and Puerto Rican too! This should be interesting.' Except it was not interesting, because there were 0 references to either ethnicity, and for some reason the entire time I thought she and her family were African American until I saw that description again, so why even mention it? The other thing that made this a bit clumsy to read was that one of the characters was named "Even." So whenever that word (or name) was used in a sentence, I had to re-read it.
Those aspects aside, overall, I enjoyed the story. Sugar is a overweight teen living with her morbidly obese (like, can't get out of bed obese) mom and a*hole brother. She mostly keeps to herself because she's constantly bullied. Then Even shows up and shows her another way to live- really live- and she starts changing her life for the better.
Trigger warnings: abuse and eating disorders
Dumped, Actually- Nick Spalding: 3 Stars*
Netgalley
This was my first Nick Spalding novel and I have to say, this MUST be read with an English accent! Oliver Sweet is a journalist who gets very publicly dumped while proposing to his girlfriend. He writes about it in the paper and asks the subscribers for advice. What ensues is the laugh-out-loud adventures of him following their advice. However his whole "woe is me" attitude, while entertaining at first, became old fast, especially in comparison to his friend Wimsy. Also, though I understood the ending I didn't like it and was left wanting more.
Twenty-One Truths About Love- Matthew Dicks: 2 Stars*
Netgalley
This was such a struggle to get through. Dan was a pessimistic, judgmental jerk with absolutely no redeeming qualities. I didn't enjoy his lists and didn't find him funny in the least. I liked the side characters in general and Bill in particular; he had personality.
I also liked the idea of a story being told entirely in lists, and maybe it was the author's execution, but it felt disjointed. Also, I don't understand why the only action came 80% into the story. It’s mentioned throughout the entire story but then all of a sudden it’s rushed and tied up too quickly without any consequence, which is ridiculous.
I also liked the idea of a story being told entirely in lists, and maybe it was the author's execution, but it felt disjointed. Also, I don't understand why the only action came 80% into the story. It’s mentioned throughout the entire story but then all of a sudden it’s rushed and tied up too quickly without any consequence, which is ridiculous.
* ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!
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