bookstobarbellsbabe's reviews
158 reviews

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown

Go to review page

4.0

I saw this cover all over Bookstagram and thought it looked really interesting and after seeing that a lot of my fellow book friends loved it, I decided to order it and read it myself. I have never read any of Janelle Brown's work, but I promise you, this book won't be my last.

"Pretty Things" follows 2 very unlikely women, Nina, the con artist and Vanessa, the wealthy Instagram famous IT girl that comes from old money. I must say, this novel was intense.

Starting off the novel, we meet Nina as she's in the middle of one of her cons. She's going to get over on a rich Russian billionaire. At first, I kind of got J.Lo's "Hustlers" vibes, ,but oh no. Nina does way more than drug you and steal your money. She seeks out your antiques and expensive furniture to sell months later on the Black Market.

Nina needs money , and lot of it to pay for her mothers cancer treatments . She soon learns of Vanessa Liebling, the Instagram IT girl that she has been following who recently left NYC to stay at her old family estate of Stonehaven in Tahoe.

You know those gorgeous girls on Instagram who wear the gorgeous clothes and perfect bodies and have the fabulous friends and are always going on the exotic trips? That's Vanessa. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones who lives look perfect. The one whose lives you envy and think that if you just had their money, your life could be as easy and carefree as theirs? Yea, that's the one.

Only Vanessa hasn't been posting much of the glamourous lifestyle and more of old, dingy  mansion that she has been staying at. Her family's Tahoe estate of Stonehaven.

Nina and her boyfriend , Lachlan go and befriend Vanessa and “rent” out her cabin for a few day. Only they go as “Ashley and Michael” Here's the catch though. Ashley and Michael are really Nina and Lachlan. What goes on next will start blowing your mind and like I said earlier, the slow burn to get here is totally definitely worth the wait.

I loved this ending and I loved this book. It kept me turning the pages faster and faster. It definitely didn't turn out the way I thought it would. Any of the turns that I thought were going to happen came in different ways that I couldn't even imagine. I definitely recommend this book to anyone.

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Go to review page

5.0

I absolutely LOVED it. I think I actually cried. At that point, I had only really ever read thriller and romance, but this book was my start to rom-coms and I am not sorry!
Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

Go to review page

4.0

"How far will someone go to bury their secerts?"

The book starts off intense. We are in the courtroom , listening to Georgina Shaw's (Geo) testomiy against her high school boyfriend Calvin James, 14 years after he murdered her best friend, Angela Wong. Angela's mother weeps in the courtroom and I found myself literally crying within the first 10 pages of this book.

After her testimony, Geo has to serve her sentence, too. She has a hard time in prison, but gets through the sentence in one piece, due to her business skills from her professional world that she was able to incorporate on her time behind bars.

When she finally gets out, she comes home to her fathers house to vandalism on the garage door. Weeks of side eyes and neighbors talking about her are coming, but what is unexpected is the sudden murders victims that begin showing up. Almost identical to how Angela was murdered 19 years ago.

An old friend from the past turned detective, Kaiser, informs her that her ex-lover Calvin has escaped prison and with her recently being released from prison, he has reason to believe that he is back and looking for her.

Now, I don't want to give away any spoilers because what comes next and the shocking ending had me seriously mind blown. I literally was not expecting that. Like, I seriously was like WTTTTFFF

I , at this point, am so in love with Jennifer. I love her writing. This is the second book of her I've read and I can honestly say that I have not been disappointed. I have to go back and order any of her previous books and just read anything she has ever written. I can say that anytime I see that she is going to come out with something, I will be preordering it!

In the end, I read this book in a day and half. I couldn't put it down and I loved it. I just love suspenseful books like this. It makes for a great book and I can get lost in and leave me mind blown. I can't wait to read more from Jennifer Hillier and am officially a forever fan. Thank you

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

Go to review page

5.0

Now, doesn't that back cover spark your interest? This one has been on my TBR list for quite some time and once I read it, I thought, "Why in the hell did I wait so long to read this?" It definitely was a good one. 
.
Last month, I saw that it was announced that Netflix is turning this novel into a movie and I INSTANTLY got excited.
.
The book is told in 3 parts and we meet Amber first. Right away, I don’t like her.
You can tell that she is one of those conniving, untrustworthy women who you can have nothing good to say about them. And it turns out, I was right.

Amber comes from simple beginnings. She is very plain and feels like her life should be something that should be admired and she will stop at nothing to get it. She targets Daphne Parrish after reading about her husband, Jackson. She will befriend her and when she has gotten good with Daphne , she will eventually have an affair with Jackson.
.
“With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
.
Part 2 is Daphne's point of view. This is where the book really won me over. I loved Daphne. From the beginning, my heart hurt for her. Once we got to know her, my heart broke even more for her. Looks can be deceiving and it seems like she has been living a double life.
.
Now, this is where those twists come in. I am VERY happy with how this book turned out. The thrill of it made it worth the ride and revenge Is a dish better served cold and i am absolutely HERE for it. I honestly couldn't see it coming and I loved it. I am so excited for it to life.

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
The Wives by Tarryn Fisher

Go to review page

3.0

I had never read anything by Tarryn Fisher so I didn't know what I was getting myself into. 

We learn that his wife only sees her husband on Thursday. I really got confused at first. Her day to see her husband is Thursday. Her name is also Thursday. I got a little confused because she refers to the other wives as the days of the week that her husband, Seth sees them. There's Monday and Tuesday. They get more days than Thursday does. We learn early that Thursday is Seth's legal wife
.
So, Thursday doesn't actually know any of the other wives. Not even their names. She only knows them by their week day and maybe one other small detail, like Monday is very career driven and Tuesday is pregnant. 
.
One day, she's putting away Seth's clothes, and out falls a recipt .... with the name "Hannah" This HAS to be an other wife. This HAS to be Tuesday. She saves the recipt and slowly becomes obsessed with finding out who this woman is.
.
Whoa...that's too many wives for me. It was hard to keep up. Imagine how it is for Seth. Anyways, she finds Hannah and befriends her and gets herself invited in her house. They exchange phone numbers and make plans to get coffee and lunch. 
.
When they are meeting up, Thursday starts noticing that Hannah has bruises and when she asks about it, Hannah is kind of hesitant to tell her.
.
She finds Hannah, now she wants to find Seth's first wife. Seth actually divorced her to legally marry Thursday. Regina. That's her name. She finds her and realizes that Regina is online dating. Her loyalty to is strong, so she has to get to the bottom of this. 
.
Thursday makes an online account on a dating site as her cousin who is in jail and starts trying to "befriend" Regina to try and get to know her better..
.
The twist and turns of the ending of this book kind of hit me out of nowhere.  I did not expect the turnout that happened. I kind of thought of it was going to go one way, and it went the complete other way and was not disappointed. I'm really glad that I picked this as my first Tarryn Fisher novel and it wont be my last.

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Go to review page

3.0

Isn't that cover amazing? I was excited to read this because ….
1. The cover looked beautiful. I know they say Never judge a book by its cover, but when its this beautiful, you cant help it.
2. I had never read a gothic suspense novel before.
3. It had "Mexican" in the title. This book is related to MY culture. 
.
The main character, Noemi is a 1950’s Mexican socialite in Mexico City who is sent to check on her newlywed cousin, Catalina after received a frantic letter saying she thinks her husband is trying to poison her.
.
That makes for a interesting, dramatic start. When her father sends her down to check on Catalina, he had already contacted the husband , Virgil Doyle and he could tell something wasn’t right.
.
My 1st thought when I read this was … Mexican's worried about mental state? In the 50's? Seems a little strange to me. I didn't grow up in Mexico, but even in the US, even now, I feel like mental health isn't talked about enough. So, for him to automatically seek out medical treatment for his niece seemed weird to me.
.
She gets to the house, which is called High Place and its creepy. The house looks gross. It hasn't been updated in years. Its very dark and there's no light. It’s also to remain very quiet. Uncle Howard, the head of the house is very old and near death and requires the house to be quiet. The longer that Noemi stays there, the more she learns about the house.

Noemi starts getting these crazy, lucid dreams. There has to be something in this house. With Florence, the house manager she makes it very difficult for Noemi to get any real alone time with Catalina to figure out what is wrong.
.
High Place seems to be a creepy character, too. The secrets that get revealed later on throughout this book are very hard for me to swallow. Its was just gross. High Place was gross and gorey. The details really put me there, as disturbing as that is cause it just seemed so gross.
.
At the end of this book, I found it a little disturbing. It wasn't really my cup of tea. The goriness grossed me out that I don't know if I will pick up another gothic novel. The build up to the twists wasn't really something that I enjoyed either. I felt like it took too long. It did take me about a week to finish because I kept putting it down and didn't find it intriguing enough to pick it up again.

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
Faking Ms. Right by Claire Kingsley

Go to review page

5.0

Wanna know the story about how I found this book? My good friend Kayleigh ( @abookloversplaylist )
text me one day and was like....
.
Kayleigh : "Oh my god, guess what I have the best news."
.
Claudia : "Tell me, Tell me, TELL ME!!!"
.
Kayleigh : "Claire Kingsley agreed to do a Instagram LIVE interview with me!!!!"
.
Claudia : "OMG, how exciting! I've never read anything by her. What should I read of hers before your interview?"
.
Kayleigh : "FAKING MS. RIGHT is one of my FAVORITES of hers! Most definitely what you should read first."
.
So, naturally, I hopped on my Amazon and ordered the paperback. (I don't like to read E-Books.) Let's just say, a few weeks later when Kayleigh interviewed her, I fell in love with Claire and Kayleigh did such a great job interviewing her. You can actually still see it. She has it on her IGTV if you want to check it out. 
.
Anyways, it did take me a few weeks to read it, but once I did, I wondered why I didn't read it sooner!! I loved it! I have never really read romance books before, but after reading this one, I'm like....
.
"GIVE ME ALLLLL THE CLAIRE KINGSLEY BOOKS!!!"

.
Like for real, I couldn't put it down. I literally read it in a matter of hours. I don't think I've read a book in hours since I was a kid and I had nothing but time. Now, with a 50+ hour a week job, a husband, 4 kids and trying to manage working out, and reading and other things LIFE those at you, its hard, but this book was just that good. I kept just wanting more.   
.
I will definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a great, sexy comedic romance. The characters literally made laugh out laugh and the sex scenes were AMAZING!!!  I am looking forward to reading more of Claire's books. I think I might read the "Book Boyfriends" series next, IDK. I did see that this book had a prequel and a another stand alone in the "series",  I guess you would say, where follows one of Everly's best friends and her quest for love. I'm not sure. Soo many to pick from. Which Claire Kingsley book will I read next?

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Go to review page

5.0

This book review and discussion has triggers that many people may not be comfortable with, including multiple scenes of sexual abuse of a minor. 
.This book took me about a week to finish. It didn't take me this long because I didn't like it. I was invested in this book. I wanted to keep knowing what was going to happen. I had to put it down so many times because it was soo much too deal with. It had a lot of disturbing parts, which ironically were the BEST written parts of the story.
We follow Vanessa at 15, also Vanessa 33 in 2017. She is silently stresses that her love interest from high school is being accused of sexual misconduct on Facebook and the post has been getting a lot of likes and shares. Only thing is her "love interest" from high school......was her 42 year old English teacher. She was 15 at the time. So, in present day, that makes him 60! If he was doing it back then with her, whose to say this other girl who has come forward isn't telling the truth? Vanessa just doesn't believe her because in her mind, she wasn't a victim. She wasn't abused. She was a willing participant in their relationship.
Regardless if she is was willing or not, VANESSA WAS A VICTUM OF SEXUAL ABUSE! Her predator was her teacher. he is supposed to be safe in school. Parents don't send their children to school to get abused by their teachers. It's very hard for me to understand Vanessa's thought process. I think many people will have a problem understanding how she thinks she wasn't a victim. The whole ordeal made her suffer long term effects that she eventually goes to therapy for.
This book is unlike anything that I have ever read. What I feel is more intense and dark is that we get an eye opening view described in very good detail how a predator can manipulate and brainwash a victim.
When I finally finished this book, I’m glad that I read it. It was very dark, it was eye opening. It broke my heart and angered me to see how this effected Vanessa in the long run. I felt so many different emotions through out this book. I really am impressed that this is a debut novel.

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria

Go to review page

4.0

The book  hit soft spots for me on so many levels. Telenovelas are something that brings me so much joy when its brought up because I grew up in Mexican household watching every single novella with my mom, grandma and aunts. The references that were made brought me back to my childhood.
.
From Jasmine and Ashton's hilarious meeting to their difficult work relationship to their love story , this was definitely a story a really enjoyed being a part of. Jasmine's desire to just "be loved" is something that I think almost EVERYONE, especially every female has felt at some point in their life. 
.
I would really recommend this novel to anyone who wants to read a good rom-com. The relationships  throughout the story are really incredible.
.
 For example, Jasmine's Puerto Rican family in the Bronx all seem so close, especially to their grandmother. Jasmine's 2 cousins that she's the closet, Michelle and Ava, are hilarious and to be honest, it made me a little envious. All my cousins live 1200 miles away, so I never really got that closeness to them the way Jasmine is. 
.
Ashton's history is almost a little heartbreaking. His family is in Puerto Rico. They lived through Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island, and they choose to stay even though Ashton had the means to move them to the main lands of the US. The relationship with his father, and grandparents and his son is truly beautiful. I enjoyed getting to know them.

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe
Verity by Colleen Hoover

Go to review page

5.0

This was my first Colleen Hoover book. it is very different from all her previous romance books. 
.
I went into this book completely blind. I had no idea what it was about. I knew what genre Colleen Hoover wrote, but I also saw that Tarryn Fisher called it a "Creepy Thriller." I've only read one of Tarryn Fisher's books so I've seen that she's pretty dark (which I LOVE), but for Tarryn to call this creepy, i knew I was in for a WILD ride. I had NO idea it would anything like this. There's no way anyone could've seen this great of a book coming. 
.
This book literally took me 24 hours to read. I couldn't put it down. I needed to know what would happen next. And next. And Next. I loved it. For my first Colleen Hoover book, I am in awe. I loved this book. I will buy every single person I know a copy of this book to read. I loved it that much. The twists this book took is something that I did not see coming.
.
I just have one message for Ms. Colleen...…….
.
PLEASE MAKE A SQUEAL FOR THIS BOOK!!!!! I NEED MORE! I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE BABY IS BORN!
 .
I must say, in the parts in Verity's manuscript where she was describing her passion to Jeremy were HOTTTT!!!!! This is definitely the first book I recommend to ANYONE that asks me what book to start with after years of not reading .

Follow me on IG @bookstobarbellsbabe