morebookcasesthanrooms's reviews
226 reviews

Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez

4.75

This book solidified Abby Jiminez as an auto-buy author for me. 

I bought this book and, if I had been able to sit still, would have finished it a few hours later. I couldn’t put it down. 

Jiminez writes fantastically fleshed out characters with genuine emotion and backstories that pull you in from the first page. Vanessa and Adrian were the perfect friends to lovers romance. 

I can’t wait to read the rest of the Friend Zone books 

The Deal by Elle Kennedy

2.75

Tell me you tried to make a bad boy redemption story and wrote a misogynistic jerk instead without telling me…

This book was pretty much frustrating start to finish. Garrett was just a gross college jock. There wasn’t a character arc in which he became a better person for the girl he loved, we were all just supposed to forget about him being super skeevy because he ended up being mildly decent at the end. 

Also, the way sexual assault is discussed in this book is just…off. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but it felt like it was handled as a flippant plot device which was wildly uncomfortable to read.  

Least favorite hockey romance so far.  

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

4.75

If you like the movie The Cutting Edge, you will absolutely adore this book. 

Frenemies to lovers, figure skaters and hockey players, phenomenal side characters, lots of hilarious group texts and amazing pop culture references. 

I wish that I had read this the second it came out but I’m also sad that I’ve already read it and will probably have to wait a long time to get more UCMH stories. 

Whorephobia: Strippers on Art, Work, and Life by Lizzie Borden

3.5

“Work is sometimes pleasurable and sometimes grueling. And it’s just worth it to do something that just makes sense to you.” 

This anthology does what it sets out to do: demystifies the world of stripping. There is no filter on these stories. At no point does it’s lens force them to convey messages of either unnecessary hardship or a sense of empowerment unless that’s what the author actually felt about their experience. It is simply recollections of each person’s experience without the expectation to justify or apologize for their choice of profession. 

The essay by Reese Piper about working as an autistic stripper stood out to me the most but overall the lack of cohesiveness between the pieces left me feeling interested but not totally invested.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense

5.0

Before I read Beartown, I had 2 books that I considered my absolute favorites. And it wasn’t until long after I read those 2 that I realized they were my favorites. But I knew Beartown would get added to that short list in its first 100 pages. 

This book is so special. I initially picked it up because I had heard good reviews and I’m a hockey fan but this book is so much more than that. It’s a book about what it is to be human. A friend, a daughter, a teammate, a neighbor, a sibling… The eloquence of Backman’s writing was genuinely startling at times. 

I don’t know what I expected at the start of this one, but I got infinitely more than that. 

If you are a hockey fan, read this book. If you’re not, read this book. You won’t regret it. 

Us by Elle Kennedy, Sarina Bowen

4.75

I honestly didn't think I could love Jamie and Wes any more than I already did, but here we are. 

If you thought that Him was an emotional rollercoaster, buckle up for Us because life is TESTING our boys in this one. Since it is a sequel, I won't say much but I will say that Jamie's family is still everything and their new neighbor Blake? He is easily one of my top five book besties of all time. 

We laughed, we cried, we made a fool of ourselves on a plane. If you haven't already, go read Him then pick this one up. You'll thank me later.

I had to take off .25 because the names still got me, y'all. But I didn't have to check the back of the book for reference nearly as many times as the first, so 4.75 instead of 4.5 it is. 

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

3.0

I’ve heard so many great things about this one and I really wanted to love it, but ultimately it wasn’t for me. 

It was a cute story with generally likable characters but I didn’t necessarily feel a connection to either of them the way I have with other books. I finished the book with a sense that I didn’t really know either of the MCs that well, so that may have contributed to my lack of connection. I’m also not generally a fan of the more insta-love stories, which this definitely felt like. 

I loved the representation and discussions on trauma and mental health in this book though. That was done very well, but the general story arc just didn’t quite hit for me.

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

This was such a visceral read. And not even because of the more obvious reasons (hi grief, hi forbidden romances), but because the way Akwaeke Emezi writes is a whole damn experience. 

It seems impossible that someone can so perfectly capture an emotion or an experience using just words. But each and every time the story moved forward, their writing hit me in yet another way. 

A very real book about very real and imperfect characters, living this messy thing we call life. 

Cannot recommend enough. 

Him by Elle Kennedy, Sarina Bowen

emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

The way I smiled (and cried) so hard at this book though! Ya girl got hockey, she got friends to lovers, she got banter, she got epic side characters and lovable MCs.... What else does one need?! 

Okay, I could have had a little bit less confusion around everyone's names. The fact that Ryan went by Wes a lot of the time but Jamie was always Jamie and never Canning but was sometimes Canning but then sometimes Ryan was Ryan? Y'all, I was confused. 

But read it anyway. Absolutely read it anyway. This book is pure joy. 

(And hockey, obv.)

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

5.0