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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Sammy Espinoza's life is a bit of a mess. She's gone through a terrible breakup and she's about to lose her job, if she can't convince Max Ryan, the guy who ghosted her a decade ago to let her interview him about his new solo album. Back in Ridley Falls she is going to be forced to confront her past and the family who didn't want her. It's both a wonderful romance and a beautiful story about family that made me cry.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Grief, Death of parent
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thanks to Penguin Press for the free copy of this book.
- SAMMY ESPINOZA'S LAST REVIEW is for all the former emo girls out there.
- There is so much going on in this book - second chances, friend fights, flighty mom, long lost family and more - and it all works. It all serves to make Sammy and everyone in Ridley Falls feel like real, whole humans even with a complicated romcom plot.
- It's a thoughtful, loving exploration of how emotional traumas linger and affect your actions years later, even when you know what's happening and why. I just love a romance novel that's both swoony and rooted in reality.
- SAMMY ESPINOZA'S LAST REVIEW is for all the former emo girls out there.
- There is so much going on in this book - second chances, friend fights, flighty mom, long lost family and more - and it all works. It all serves to make Sammy and everyone in Ridley Falls feel like real, whole humans even with a complicated romcom plot.
- It's a thoughtful, loving exploration of how emotional traumas linger and affect your actions years later, even when you know what's happening and why. I just love a romance novel that's both swoony and rooted in reality.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol
Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexual content, Car accident, Pregnancy
Minor: Racism
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
✨️NetGalley Arc✨️
I've had this one my netgalley shelf for awhile, waiting until it's closer to publishing to read. Oh how I wish I would have read it sooner!
Sammy is a hot mess. Freshly dumped, one last chance at her job as a music critic, an even hotter mess of a mom, and no where to really call home besides a small town where her best friend lives.
But this small town has a lot of history. History that Sammy doesn't even know, with the Espinoza family. Not to mention who else lives there. None other than Max Ryan, her teenage crush and heartbreak.
This book is more than just a love story between Sammy and Max. So much more. It's about confronting life head-on. Getting answers to millions of unanswered questions. It's about how family isn't always blood, but found.
And it's so good. 5/5⭐️
I've had this one my netgalley shelf for awhile, waiting until it's closer to publishing to read. Oh how I wish I would have read it sooner!
Sammy is a hot mess. Freshly dumped, one last chance at her job as a music critic, an even hotter mess of a mom, and no where to really call home besides a small town where her best friend lives.
But this small town has a lot of history. History that Sammy doesn't even know, with the Espinoza family. Not to mention who else lives there. None other than Max Ryan, her teenage crush and heartbreak.
This book is more than just a love story between Sammy and Max. So much more. It's about confronting life head-on. Getting answers to millions of unanswered questions. It's about how family isn't always blood, but found.
And it's so good. 5/5⭐️
Sammy's family complications and her found family were compelling, but the romance was so boring and flat. I never found myself rooting for them, and I was reluctant to pick the book back up because the romance had so little substance. I tried to push through for the other parts, but it just wasn't enough.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I won a galley of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
CW: death of a parent/relative, discussion of alcohol/drug abuse
Holy wow, that was a rollercoaster! I was legitimately worried about how this book was going to end, simply because so much of the plot was about Sammy's need to sort herself out--I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all, just that it made the book feel more along the lines of women's fiction or lit fic rather than genre romance, which must have an HEA or an HFN ending; sorry, not sorry. I tend to steer clear of women's fiction and lit fic for a few different reasons, and one of the biggest is that I read to escape, which means I want the HEA, something that is by no means guaranteed in either genre, so I was seriously scared throughout a lot of this book. (However, my views on contemporary romance might be a bit skewed since I read so much historical romance... Just something to keep in mind.)
In the end, I freaking loved it. I mean, Sammy's life almost reads like that of a Dickensian orphan at times--Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but she has been through it--and all that trauma leads her to make some serious mistakes, but I really loved her and was rooting for her to get the life that she'd been denied for so long. I can get pretty frustrated reading characters who are as messy as Sammy, and I was at times, but I still fell in love with her.
I loved all the characters, with the major exception of Dina Rae for all the reasons. Max is just... wow. Nice job, Tehlor. (Also, their second meet cute was adorable. Loved it.) Willa and Brook are too cute for words and are such lovely friends to Sammy, and Larry and Maeve ALWAYS made me smile when they showed up. I was raised by boomers who wore patchouli and sang folk music, so I love anyone who can casually be described as an old hippie. There's another character I completely loved, but I'm not going to be specific in an effort to avoid spoilers. :)
As a millennial who was only a year or two out of high school when emo and post-hardcore were The Thing, a lot of the references were fun and nostalgic for me. I wasn't a diehard fan or anything, but I knew kids and young adults who were just how Sammy and Max (and Brook, haha) are described as teens/twenty-somethings. I'm also a musician, so I was always waiting to see what songs would be mentioned. Plus, the description of Ridley Falls felt really familiar to me as a person who grew up in rural, small-town America.
As far as the plot is concerned, it felt like everything could turn on a dime and was always on the verge of collapse for Sammy, and I suppose that's pretty fitting, given her upbringing. I was on the edge of my seat basically the whole time--that might sound odd, but I follow the creation/destruction of ships in stories the way others follow high-speed car chases; every miniscule bump in the road has me biting my nails and covering my eyes to avoid the potential carnage--and yes, I did spend much of the book inwardly screaming at Sammy about her choices. However, once I got to know her and Max, I was invested in both her success and the success of their relationship, despite how much work it was going to take... and my goodness, did it need work, from both of them. I used to be the sort of person who could root for less-than-healthy relationships in stories simply because they were "meant to be," but those days have been gone for a while, and regardless of my ability to ship these two if they worked out their issues and how heartbroken the disintegration of their relationship would make me, I would not have been happy if everything that was wrong had just been glossed over and they were given an unearned HEA. Without going into detail, the ending was bittersweet while also being really satisfying. I cried. A lot. I mean, I do that pretty regularly anyway, but feels were definitely had here.
As far as criticisms go, I don't have many. I had some confusion over certain choices made by various characters, but those were eventually explained. I know some people will take issue with the resolution of the story, but minus some, honestly, devastating plot developments, I had no problems with it. My heart hurts now, but as I said, I found the ending satisfying and sweet overall. Mentioning this might be silly, or even unnecessary given that I was reading a galley, but I could see how some readers might be confused about the way text messages, emails, and the like are printed in the book; there wasn't always a clear delineation showing when a message would start or end, but it was barely an issue and might be completely moot when looking at later, corrected copies of the book.
In any case, I'm so glad I won a copy of Sammy Espinoza's Last Review. This is the first book I've ever read by Tehlor Kay Mejia, but it won't be my last. It ended up being a terrific read full of interesting characters and heartwarming moments. I absolutely recommend it.
CW: death of a parent/relative, discussion of alcohol/drug abuse
Holy wow, that was a rollercoaster! I was legitimately worried about how this book was going to end, simply because so much of the plot was about Sammy's need to sort herself out--I'm not saying this is a bad thing at all, just that it made the book feel more along the lines of women's fiction or lit fic rather than genre romance, which must have an HEA or an HFN ending; sorry, not sorry. I tend to steer clear of women's fiction and lit fic for a few different reasons, and one of the biggest is that I read to escape, which means I want the HEA, something that is by no means guaranteed in either genre, so I was seriously scared throughout a lot of this book. (However, my views on contemporary romance might be a bit skewed since I read so much historical romance... Just something to keep in mind.)
In the end, I freaking loved it. I mean, Sammy's life almost reads like that of a Dickensian orphan at times--Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but she has been through it--and all that trauma leads her to make some serious mistakes, but I really loved her and was rooting for her to get the life that she'd been denied for so long. I can get pretty frustrated reading characters who are as messy as Sammy, and I was at times, but I still fell in love with her.
I loved all the characters, with the major exception of Dina Rae for all the reasons. Max is just... wow. Nice job, Tehlor. (Also, their second meet cute was adorable. Loved it.) Willa and Brook are too cute for words and are such lovely friends to Sammy, and Larry and Maeve ALWAYS made me smile when they showed up. I was raised by boomers who wore patchouli and sang folk music, so I love anyone who can casually be described as an old hippie. There's another character I completely loved, but I'm not going to be specific in an effort to avoid spoilers. :)
As a millennial who was only a year or two out of high school when emo and post-hardcore were The Thing, a lot of the references were fun and nostalgic for me. I wasn't a diehard fan or anything, but I knew kids and young adults who were just how Sammy and Max (and Brook, haha) are described as teens/twenty-somethings. I'm also a musician, so I was always waiting to see what songs would be mentioned. Plus, the description of Ridley Falls felt really familiar to me as a person who grew up in rural, small-town America.
As far as the plot is concerned, it felt like everything could turn on a dime and was always on the verge of collapse for Sammy, and I suppose that's pretty fitting, given her upbringing. I was on the edge of my seat basically the whole time--that might sound odd, but I follow the creation/destruction of ships in stories the way others follow high-speed car chases; every miniscule bump in the road has me biting my nails and covering my eyes to avoid the potential carnage--and yes, I did spend much of the book inwardly screaming at Sammy about her choices. However, once I got to know her and Max, I was invested in both her success and the success of their relationship, despite how much work it was going to take... and my goodness, did it need work, from both of them. I used to be the sort of person who could root for less-than-healthy relationships in stories simply because they were "meant to be," but those days have been gone for a while, and regardless of my ability to ship these two if they worked out their issues and how heartbroken the disintegration of their relationship would make me, I would not have been happy if everything that was wrong had just been glossed over and they were given an unearned HEA. Without going into detail, the ending was bittersweet while also being really satisfying. I cried. A lot. I mean, I do that pretty regularly anyway, but feels were definitely had here.
As far as criticisms go, I don't have many. I had some confusion over certain choices made by various characters, but those were eventually explained. I know some people will take issue with the resolution of the story, but minus some, honestly, devastating plot developments, I had no problems with it. My heart hurts now, but as I said, I found the ending satisfying and sweet overall. Mentioning this might be silly, or even unnecessary given that I was reading a galley, but I could see how some readers might be confused about the way text messages, emails, and the like are printed in the book; there wasn't always a clear delineation showing when a message would start or end, but it was barely an issue and might be completely moot when looking at later, corrected copies of the book.
In any case, I'm so glad I won a copy of Sammy Espinoza's Last Review. This is the first book I've ever read by Tehlor Kay Mejia, but it won't be my last. It ended up being a terrific read full of interesting characters and heartwarming moments. I absolutely recommend it.
This was so fun, some plot points like her former relationship or Max’s former band. I could’ve used some more explanation on, but I loved found family, a really cute relationship, the music element of it, and a beautiful friendship and grandmother throughout at all. Thanks to Net Galley. the publisher, and the author for the ARC!
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes