Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Love from Scratch by Kaitlyn Hill

2 reviews

samcanuel's review

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I thoroughly enjoyed this book!! The story was fantastic and the cast of characters was lovely. I could absolutely see this as a modern rom com. My main reason for only giving it 3.75 stars was the fact that the enemies part of the enemies-to-lovers story line was not as developed as I personally would have preferred. There were also points when Reese annoyed me, but mostly because she reminded me too much of me. I would absolutely recommend this book!

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bookrecsbyjess's review against another edition

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  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for allowing me to read this ARC. 

The first thing that caught my eye about this book was the cute cover, but then I read the synopsis and was hooked!

While this book had a lot of good qualities, it didn’t live up to my expectations. I would rate this a 3.5 out of 5 stars (not bad but not awesome).

What I loved most about this book was Benny. He’s so wholesome and sweet, and I just wanted to give him a huge hug. He treated Reese so well even when she didn’t deserve it (which was most of the time…).

I also found the premise of this story to be very interesting, unique, and relevant. The whole social media and video series elements were done very well including the unfortunate reality of cyber bullying.

I liked how the author tackled the topic of cyber bullying in a real and emotional way. Also, the food puns in this book were fun and added to the cooking theme in the story.

While there were many good aspects to this book, there were two parts that made this book fall flat for me.

The first being Reese as a character. The author had the opportunity to use Reese to show how a strong woman can handle the realities of sexism in the workplace. While I think this is what the author was trying to do, I felt that she made Reese too dislikable to make any sort of good impact.

Reese was so terrible to Benny, and she was constantly jumping to conclusions about what was happening in her life and what other people thought of her. It was so frustrating watching her push Benny away over and over again when he did nothing wrong to her. He was so good to her, and she treated him like trash.

The other aspect that bothered me in this story was how the author used her characters to push her views when it didn’t fit naturally in the story. Reese mentioned several times her disagreements with her church growing up, but it had no relevance to the story. 

Also, how am I supposed to believe that Benny didn’t have any girls that liked him in high school when he is a complete cupcake? Honestly, he was respectful, a good listener, kind, and good looking. It was not believable that Reese was the first person to show interest in him.

Overall, this was a good book but not great.

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