kendranh's reviews
59 reviews

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Please note this review may be biased by reading the book while on vacation and it being impossible to be dissatisfied with a read while on a beach chair with a cocktail in hand.

Normally I’m not the biggest fan of friends to lovers but Alex and Poppy just work! I loved seeing their relationship grow from one summer trip to another. From water taxis in Tofino to dancing in the streets of New Orleans, I was rooting for them! 

Loved:
  • Emily Henry’s description of each vacation
  • The acknowledgment of how scary it can be to love someone 
  • Alex’s fear of happiness
  • Poppy’s desire to find human connection
  • The reveal that what happened in Croatia wasn’t a massive blow up, but was just a miscommunication that neither knew how to get past
A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Norse mythology in a magical world with slow built romance? Yes please!

Loved
  • The world the author created
  • The slow build romance between Bjorn and Freya
  • The spice was spicy but didn’t happen until I was invested in the story as a whole which was nice!
  • The plot twist of Freya having blood from two gods

Meh
  • Freya’s loud (and continuously incorrectly directed) anger got old very fast
  • So many good characters died!
  • It felt very obvious that Bjorn wasn’t working for his father and it was frustrating watching Freya be constantly clueless

Disliked
  • Freya’s family
Under The Ice by Jaqueline Snowe

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Thank you to the author for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not usually a friends to lovers kind of girl, but this book just makes it work! Throw in a hot hockey player and a redemption arc and you have a great story. Really my only complaint is that the writing and story felt very young. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, they are meant to be in college after all, but it made it harder for me to get into the story. Overall it is a good book, but definitely more targeted to the 18-25 demographic.

Loved
  • The found family aspect of the story
  • Logan’s playlists
  • Logan and Quentin’s friendship and they way they constantly support each other
  • Quentin’s big focus on Logan’s comfort as they develop their fake relationship (asking for consent etc)

Meh
  • As I mentioned earlier, the writing style is very young

Disliked
  • Quentin’s toxic jealousy. I just wish there had been more evolution there
Nailed at Home Plate by K. Iwancio

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funny lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

Thank you to the author for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. A fun baseball romance for the fans among us!

Loved:
  • The team bond on the Sillies
  • The author’s willingness to take feedback and make changes
  • The grumpy professional player meets his dream girl trope 

Meh
  • I wish there had been more to the plot. It felt like all the plot was in the first chapters and then it just disappeared
  • I wanted to lean more into the team dynamics and get invested into the other players
The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I genuinely don’t know how to rate this. 

Is it a beautifully written epic fantasy? Absolutely. 

Did I enjoy reading it? I don’t actually know. Maybe, kind of? The first 40% was hard for me to get into, the next 40% was emotionally devastating on an awful level, and the last 20% I actually liked reading despite having my heart destroyed earlier in the book.

That being said, this is NOT a light fantasy with a happy ending. It is dark, violent, political, and heartbreaking. 

Mixed feelings galore over here. I guess it’s 3.5 stars? I think I would rate it higher if I had been prepared for everything that happens halfway through. Regardless, it is an amazing book, just not what I personally needed to read.
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Just One Season by Chrissy Hopewell

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funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

Thank you to the author for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is such a wholesome cozy sports romance. Yeah that’s right, it’s cozy and wholesome while still being a sports romance, what more could you want?! The author does a phenomenal job bypassing stereotypical conflicts and instead focuses on building Lucy and Kellen into a solid relationship.

Loved:
  • Lucy being older than Kellen, but it doesn’t cause conflict
  • The found family aspect of the story
  • Kellen having a close relationship with his daughter’s mom, but it doesn’t cause conflict
  • Savannah wasn’t made into a stereotypical gold digger who was trying to cheat on her husband (seriously, I really really appreciate that the author made these characters actual characters not caricatures)
  • All the goofy dog names
  • Lucy being able to find love and her place in the world without sacrificing dreams or her career

Meh
  • This is an oddly niche thing to have a problem with, but I went to college in Fort Collins and the thought of an NHL team being based there was so far from the reality that it kind of pulled me out of the book. That said, I loved the Colorado and FoCo rep!
Against the Rules by Bree Hayden

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

4.0

Thank you to the author for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review! Perfect for sports romance lovers, this book is a sweet and spicy coming of age college romance. While this is part of a series, it can be read as a standalone.

Loved:
  • The found family aspects of the story
  • Vaginismus represented in a way that doesn’t result in lack of any/all sexual drive
  • For that matter, spice that went beyond just sex was fantastic to read!
  • Bad boy dealing with his past
  • Mixed family representation 

Meh:
  • The initial premise of conflict because King didn’t tell Willow about playing sports bothered me. I get that it set up the rest of the book, but it made no sense 
  • The affair parent storyline was confusing for me.
    Even if her dad was the one to ask for a divorce, I still got the impression that her mom had been with her stepdad for years before that happened
  • Just a lot of manufactured conflict which kind of pulled me out of the story

Disliked:
  • Lawson completely flipping from being an advocate for King to his enemy when he found out about King and Willow dating. It just felt like such a dramatic shift. I could understand anger, but not calling him out on his past after going through so much effort to be supportive
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Shadow Game by Christine Feehan

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adventurous challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Really mixed feelings about this one, but trying to give it the benefit of the doubt that maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood for it. For a book with so much action happening, it was such a slow read for me. We’re talking 5-10 pages per day for the first few days which is very unlike me.

Liked:
  • The found family Lily had with her father’s staff
  • The set up (I assume) for future books talking about the other children with powers
Meh
  • The insta love was way too much for me. They hinted that maybe her father did something to make it happen, but that was never resolved so the whole thing bugged me
  • The pacing was very weird in my opinion
Disliked 
  • Why were they constantly having sex in REALLY dangerous situations? Like come on, you’re on the run trying to stay alive, don’t stop to boink!
  • It felt like Ryland was always pushing Lily too fast in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. Like at times it was borderline harassment
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Immortal Rising by Lynsay Sands

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Canadian vampire meets bird man and falls in love? Sold!

In all seriousness though, this was such a fun spin on a typical vampire romance. I have never read any of the previous books so it was nice that I was able to read this one without constantly trying to figure out what was happening.

Loved:
  • Stephanie and Thorne’s relationship
  • The way they both struggled with feeling inferior
  • It’s set in Canada 🇨🇦
  • Stephanie’s dog and cat

Meh:
  • The ending felt a bit rushed
  • Would have liked more focus on rebuilding the relationship between sisters
  • Sometimes I will admit it would have helped if I had read the previous 33 books (I know this is a me problem)

Disliked:
  • Nothing. It was a pretty satisfying read overall and there isn’t anything that stands out as a dislike!
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Ace of Betrayal (Hand of Revenge, #1) by Jessica Jude

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challenging dark reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

If you are a fan of Gossip Girl, this is the book for you! Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rich kids, revenge plots, second chance romance, and characters that you somehow root for despite them being objectively pretty terrible people.

Loved:
  • Walker’s love of the spooky
  • The way Jessica Jude built a whole new country somewhere between the US and the UK
  • Walker and Heath learning so much about each other as the story went on. The surfing, the reading, etc.
  • Walker’s revenge on her friends by auctioning what they loved most for charity. What a classy way to get back at them!
  • The spice!!

Meh:
  • The revenge poker games. You’re telling me that every week these 20-somethings choose someone to fuck with? It’s a small island (as far as I can tell), how are they still getting away with it?

Didn’t Like:
  • How long it took for Heath to
    stop the revenge plot against Walker. He kept saying he cared about her, but did nothing at all? I can understand his reluctance to tell the truth about cheating, but why didn’t he just say “Let’s not do this”
  • It was hard to root for the characters when they all kind of just seemed like bullies
  • The lack of resolution
    around Walker’s professor assaulting her. All that work and she just decides to give up on her dreams? I wanted more from that

I will say I am looking forward to the next book in the series!
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