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opalmars's reviews
308 reviews
Build a Girlfriend by Elba Luz
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book is kind of a mess, and not in a fun way, more like a “we lost the plot” way. 😕😕😕
At first this book was supposed to be about Amelia dating her exes to find out what she lacked as a girlfriend. However, we never actually get to see this happen. Other than 2 dates, all of the dates happened OFF-PAGE, and we’d only get to hear about them in 1 paragraph at the beginning of some chapters. Literally just *1 paragraph* where they’d quickly mention the dates and that’s it. Just *telling* instead of *showing* the literal premise of the book! What the hell?! 😐😐😐
This whole thing became so confusing that I didn’t even fully understand if those were dates she was CURRENTLY going on, or if she was looking back and analyzing old dates from past years (which would make sense since the dates were never even *mentioned* outside of those paragraphs at the start of chapters). It was just a mess!
Later, one of her exes (Leon) shows back up, and Amelia IMMEDIATELY makes it clear that she still likes him, even though they haven’t seen each other in 2 years + he literally broke up with her and ghosted her. She supposedly “hates” him, yet she still has feelings for him, which like, I get it, because she did like him at one point. However, it’s kind of pathetic to see her clearly still in love with the dude who broke her heart several years ago. 🥴 Additionally, her girlfriend Perri breaks up with her at the start of the book, yet Amelia never even thinks about her! Yet she’s obsessed with Leon…… 😑 Okay.
Leon literally dumped and ghosted her YEARS ago, and when he shows up again he keeps messing with her, + he never apologizes for hurting her. And then he asks to be her friend again?????? The audacity of men…… 🤡 She accepts it with the intention of making him fall for her so she can break his heart, just like he’d done to her. This became the whole plot of the book, since the dating-the-exes thing was discarded by the author after a grand total of 2 dates. However, this was also not very well done…… 🫥
Amelia quickly falls in love with Leon again (they almost kiss at 44% 🙄), even though he never even apologized for hurting her 2 years prior. I never understood why they liked each other. Second-chance relationships are hard to sell, and this author didn’t manage to make this romance believable. Their relationship in the present is solely based on their past relationship, but we didn’t see enough of them in the past for me to care about their romance… 😕 At some point Leon mentions that his favourite memories are the ones with her, and I was sitting there thinking “Damn. Wouldn’t it’ve been nice to see more of those, so I could at least TRY to understand why y’all got together in the first place, let alone why you fell for each other AGAIN?!” 🫤
Leon pissed me off throughout the whole book, because he simply refused to apologize for hurting Amelia, or to, at the very least, explain himself. It was infuriating, especially since Amelia constantly acknowledged that she deserved an apology, yet she was still in love with him????? 🤡 Maybe I’m just built different, but if a man treats me poorly and then refuses to apologize I am NOT going to be swooning over him! 🤷🏻
At the end of the book, a bunch of characters turn out to be evil lmao.Arno, the nice boy Amelia had a thing with, literally becomes a caricature of a bad guy. 🙄 It’s revealed that Amelia’s aunts lowkey manipulated Leon into breaking up with Amelia; MULTIPLE GROWN ASS ADULTS doing everything they can to break up these teenagers’ relationship because they genuinely believe they are “cursed” is fucking idiotic. 🤡
Leon then finds out about Amelia’s plan to hurt him back and asks why she didn’t just tell him she was still angry about him breaking her heart……… Bro. Because you literally treated her like garbage and she wanted to do the same to you, especially since you never apologized! Like…??? 🤡🤡🤡
Sure, it turns out her aunts manipulated him into going away and breaking up so I guess he’s forgiven. HOWEVER, I hate that he kept grilling her! Her actions were all because of what he’d done, so the way he was expecting apologies as if she’s evil, when in actuality she was having a VERY NORMAL reaction to being hurt, is totally absurd! And HE only apologizes AFTER she does? Ughhhhhhh.
Everyone lowkey sucks in this book. I just wish Amelia would cut them all off and find happiness on the other side of the world. 😭💀
Speaking of Amelia: I didn’t really like to be in her head 🥴. The fact that she was so obsessed with her ex who hurt her without apologizing already makes her annoying. She was also clumsy to the point where it became fucking absurd; she was always tripping, falling, dropping things, getting dirty or soaked. It became a caricature! At some point she doesn’t want Leon to get on a train so she EATS his ticket????? What the actual fuck?? The physical comedy simply never landed. It was just unfunny. Leon was also constantly rescuing her, + helping her as if she is a child (putting on her shoes, buckling her in…). Amelia is PATHETIC and INCOMPETENT!!!
There were also some typos and continuity mistakes, but I guess that’s the least egregious thing in this book lmao. It is proof that it wasn’t properly edited, though. Perhaps if someone had paid more attention to this book during editing they would’ve noticed that the author literally lost the plot, lmaoooo. 💀💀💀
At first this book was supposed to be about Amelia dating her exes to find out what she lacked as a girlfriend. However, we never actually get to see this happen. Other than 2 dates, all of the dates happened OFF-PAGE, and we’d only get to hear about them in 1 paragraph at the beginning of some chapters. Literally just *1 paragraph* where they’d quickly mention the dates and that’s it. Just *telling* instead of *showing* the literal premise of the book! What the hell?! 😐😐😐
This whole thing became so confusing that I didn’t even fully understand if those were dates she was CURRENTLY going on, or if she was looking back and analyzing old dates from past years (which would make sense since the dates were never even *mentioned* outside of those paragraphs at the start of chapters). It was just a mess!
Later, one of her exes (Leon) shows back up, and Amelia IMMEDIATELY makes it clear that she still likes him, even though they haven’t seen each other in 2 years + he literally broke up with her and ghosted her. She supposedly “hates” him, yet she still has feelings for him, which like, I get it, because she did like him at one point. However, it’s kind of pathetic to see her clearly still in love with the dude who broke her heart several years ago. 🥴 Additionally, her girlfriend Perri breaks up with her at the start of the book, yet Amelia never even thinks about her! Yet she’s obsessed with Leon…… 😑 Okay.
Leon literally dumped and ghosted her YEARS ago, and when he shows up again he keeps messing with her, + he never apologizes for hurting her. And then he asks to be her friend again?????? The audacity of men…… 🤡 She accepts it with the intention of making him fall for her so she can break his heart, just like he’d done to her. This became the whole plot of the book, since the dating-the-exes thing was discarded by the author after a grand total of 2 dates. However, this was also not very well done…… 🫥
Amelia quickly falls in love with Leon again (they almost kiss at 44% 🙄), even though he never even apologized for hurting her 2 years prior. I never understood why they liked each other. Second-chance relationships are hard to sell, and this author didn’t manage to make this romance believable. Their relationship in the present is solely based on their past relationship, but we didn’t see enough of them in the past for me to care about their romance… 😕 At some point Leon mentions that his favourite memories are the ones with her, and I was sitting there thinking “Damn. Wouldn’t it’ve been nice to see more of those, so I could at least TRY to understand why y’all got together in the first place, let alone why you fell for each other AGAIN?!” 🫤
Leon pissed me off throughout the whole book, because he simply refused to apologize for hurting Amelia, or to, at the very least, explain himself. It was infuriating, especially since Amelia constantly acknowledged that she deserved an apology, yet she was still in love with him????? 🤡 Maybe I’m just built different, but if a man treats me poorly and then refuses to apologize I am NOT going to be swooning over him! 🤷🏻
At the end of the book, a bunch of characters turn out to be evil lmao.
Leon then finds out about Amelia’s plan to hurt him back and asks why she didn’t just tell him she was still angry about him breaking her heart……… Bro. Because you literally treated her like garbage and she wanted to do the same to you, especially since you never apologized! Like…??? 🤡🤡🤡
Sure, it turns out her aunts manipulated him into going away and breaking up so I guess he’s forgiven. HOWEVER, I hate that he kept grilling her! Her actions were all because of what he’d done, so the way he was expecting apologies as if she’s evil, when in actuality she was having a VERY NORMAL reaction to being hurt, is totally absurd! And HE only apologizes AFTER she does? Ughhhhhhh.
Everyone lowkey sucks in this book. I just wish Amelia would cut them all off and find happiness on the other side of the world. 😭💀
Speaking of Amelia: I didn’t really like to be in her head 🥴. The fact that she was so obsessed with her ex who hurt her without apologizing already makes her annoying. She was also clumsy to the point where it became fucking absurd; she was always tripping, falling, dropping things, getting dirty or soaked. It became a caricature! At some point she doesn’t want Leon to get on a train so she EATS his ticket????? What the actual fuck?? The physical comedy simply never landed. It was just unfunny. Leon was also constantly rescuing her, + helping her as if she is a child (putting on her shoes, buckling her in…). Amelia is PATHETIC and INCOMPETENT!!!
There were also some typos and continuity mistakes, but I guess that’s the least egregious thing in this book lmao. It is proof that it wasn’t properly edited, though. Perhaps if someone had paid more attention to this book during editing they would’ve noticed that the author literally lost the plot, lmaoooo. 💀💀💀
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
➤ I had a really hard time getting into this book. It took me over a week just to read the first 30% of the book. I then switched to the audiobook, even though I didn’t like the narrator, just so I could finish this damn thing.
➤ The plot was interesting *on paper*: a murder mystery in a sci-fi setting? Sign me up! However, the plot moved soooooo slowly! Literally NOTHING happened for most of the book, and even when the story started moving it was still not that interesting. I just found this book painfully uninteresting. 😕
➤ The climax of the story was BORING as hell lmao.Mahit found out the Teixcalaanli emperor wanted to invade Lsel (where she’s from), and Yskandr (the previous ambassador)’s death was ~very convenient~ (if he died he couldn’t keep the peace between Teixcalaan and Lsel). She warned Lsel about Teixcalaan’s invasion plans. People at Lsel tell her about some other invaders and Mahit just tells the Teixcalaanli emperor like “Yeah dude, you should fight these other invaders instead of annexing my station!” and that’s it. 😐😐😐😐😐😐😐 So dull, so obvious, so easy, so anticlimactic… Why did I read all this for???
➤ The writing was a little confusing. There were A LOT of “asides” in the middle of sentences (in between em dashes), but these were so long that it became difficult to remember how the original sentence even started, because at that point we had had 4 lines of unrelated and UNNECESSARY stuff in between those em dashes lol.
➤ The world was interesting and rich. I especially liked the focus of the nuances of languages, ways to address people, customs, traditions and gestures. With that said, it kind of feels like a waste to have this expansive and interesting world and do so little with it. This book takes place in one city (that we barely see) during like 1 week. It could honestly take place anywhere. The setting was mostly irrelevant, tbh.
➤ The plot was interesting *on paper*: a murder mystery in a sci-fi setting? Sign me up! However, the plot moved soooooo slowly! Literally NOTHING happened for most of the book, and even when the story started moving it was still not that interesting. I just found this book painfully uninteresting. 😕
➤ The climax of the story was BORING as hell lmao.
➤ The writing was a little confusing. There were A LOT of “asides” in the middle of sentences (in between em dashes), but these were so long that it became difficult to remember how the original sentence even started, because at that point we had had 4 lines of unrelated and UNNECESSARY stuff in between those em dashes lol.
➤ The world was interesting and rich. I especially liked the focus of the nuances of languages, ways to address people, customs, traditions and gestures. With that said, it kind of feels like a waste to have this expansive and interesting world and do so little with it. This book takes place in one city (that we barely see) during like 1 week. It could honestly take place anywhere. The setting was mostly irrelevant, tbh.
➤ Mahit was a bad MC. She is literally in danger of being murdered but honestly she doesn’t seem to care that much. 🙄 She is supposed to be knowledgeable on the Teixcalaanli Empire (since she’s literally an ambassador) yet doesn’t even know how the emperor gets heirs. The author sometimes made her dumb just for the sake of getting that information conveniently told to the reader. 🙄 Like, this bitch literally tells Teixcalaan about Lsel’s very secret technological advancements on HER FIRST DAY THERE!!!! 🙄 It takes her 70% of the book to think about putting Yskandr’s imago in her brain, so she could access his memories (which was literally my first thought, from chapter 1 lol)… 🙄🙄🙄 <b>Mahit is STUPID, and it makes NO SENSE that she’d be chosen to be an ambassador between 2 warring nations.</b> Byeeee.
All Hail the Underdogs by E.L. Massey
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This is why you don’t give authors 2nd chances. 🙁 I didn’t hate “Like Real People Do” (if I did, I wouldn’t have touched any of her work ever again lol). I thought her 1st book had potential, and I liked some things about it, but unfortunately the *telling instead of showing* and the *underdeveloped relationships* made that book underwhelming. And this book has the exact same problems.
My first issue with the book (and the reason I wanted to quickly DNF) was the instant hate + instant attraction. The moment Damien and Rome meet for the 1st time they instantly find each other hot and both think “Oh no”, and it left me wondering… why? Why are both of you already worried about the other? Or are you worried you might fall in love? 🤨 Either way, thinking that *the moment* you meet someone is strange to me.
Rome immediately says that Damien is “irritatingly well-groomed” (okay… forced hatred despite the attraction, sure…), and Damien thinks about how he wants to TOUCH Rome! A STRANGER!!!! 🤨🤨🤨 (Side note: Damien spends A LOT of the book thinking about how much he wants to touch Rome, even BEFORE they become friends. He has some weird obsession with touching this boy, literally from the moment they meet. It’s WEIRD!).
Their “rivalry” was absurd. They instantly hate each other, and it’s all just super forced. Like, sure, they both ended up showing reasons for the other to hate them (like Rome being dismissive of his white privilege and being standoffish and cold, and Damien going through Rome’s phone without permission and ignoring the fact that Rome is not rich). HOWEVER!!!!!!! They both start disliking each other BEFORE they have justifiable reasons to (especially Rome)! I just… didn’t get it. I genuinely feel like they were “rivals” just so this could be advertised as an enemies-to-lovers. There was no reason for them to be immediately antagonistic. Their rivalry just wasn’t properly developed.
Speaking of not being properly developed: a lot of this story happened off-page. 🫠🫠🫠 This was also a problem for me in E.L. Massey’s 1st book. This author has never heard of “show, don’t tell”. All she does is tell, and she rarely shows anything. We don’t get to experience the things that are happening, because the author just keeps making their moments happen off-page, only mentioning them as if they’re irrelevant little things, and like…… They’re NOT! These moments are IMPORTANT! They’re RELEVANT! If you don’t show Damien and Rome’s relationship develop, how can we believe that they went from (forced) enemies to friends to lovers?????
I had hope that the author had grown from her 1st book, but it’s clear that’s not the case. Weeks go by, and we only see like 3 moments between them. 🙃 MONTHS pass and we barely see any of what happened during that time. 🙃 We’re told Rome is an incredible hockey player, and that he and Damien have an insanely good chemistry when they play together, but we never get to see that. 🙃 They realize their rivalry might be unfounded and start noticing nice things about each other (and by that I mean that we get paragraphs and paragraphs LISTING these things instead of, you know, getting to SEE them notice these things about each other?). 🙃 All of this just in the first 11% of the book, by the way. The rest of the book is similar, though. Just soooo much telling instead of showing… it was infuriating, and it made it hard for me to care about their relationship.
At 16% Rome mentions that he enjoyed Damien touching him “a little bit too much”… And, as I already mentioned, Damien was wanting to touch Rome from the moment they met… Ughhhhhhhhhhh. It was not surprising that this was lowkey insta-lovey, since they were instantly attracted to each other, but it was still disappointing to see them be so into each other only 16% in. We need to abolish this type of stuff fr. Give me slow burns or give me NOTHING.
At some point I just accepted that they were both super into each other and went along with it. There were still a lot of little moments that were furthering their relationship happening off-page, which certainly didn’t help, but whatever. They started sleeping next to each other for some reason, which also felt unwarranted, but sure. They kissed for the 1st time and Rome immediately wanted sex… okay. Overall, I just didn’t care at all about their relationship.
However, I did find them cute, once they got together! This author is really good at writing wholesome relationships, and sweet moments that make you feel warm and fuzzy and give you butterflies. Damien and Rome had a fun bickering dynamic, but they also really cared about each other, talked through their feelings and were really sweet overall.
Still, though, I couldn’t fully jive with their relationship. Not only did I find their instant attraction too… *instant*, but I also thought their relationship moved waaaay too quickly! Like, what do you MEAN y’all 17-18 y/o high schoolers are thinking aboutADOPTING A CHILD TOGETHER after dating only for like **3 MONTHS**????? 😨😨😨 And then 5 months in you’re joking about marriage??? 😶😶😶 The whole situation was A LOT and there’s definitely nuance here, and I totally understand Rome’s position. But I just feel like Rome and Damien being soooooo ready for all that after only dating for a couple of months, especially as TEENAGERS, was a bit much. If the characters were older, a life decision like that would be more understandable (though I still think their relationship was too new for all that lmao). But as HIGH SCHOOLERS?????? Insanity 😭.
Regarding the characters: I thought they were fine. I don’t have much to say about them, individually, though I think they both had interesting stories. I will say that, once again, a lot of things happen off-page that make it harder to care about them. Like, we never see them doing anything for school, or practice hockey. We don’t see Damien’s poetry recitals. We don’t see Rome bonding with the rest of the team, even though the author for sure wanted this to be a “found family”. In the end, both Rome and Damien win very important prizes (literally making history) in their respective fields despite being 19-20, and I was like 🙄. Whateverrrr. At that point I was so detached from this story that I didn’t care anymore.
The writing wasn’t terrible. There were minimal typos/continuity errors, but I don’t mind that in a self-published book. My biggest problem was for sure the *telling instead of showing*. I just don’t think that’s a great way to write a story, personally.
I’m clearly in the minority, though. I read a 2nd book by this author because there were things I really liked about her 1st book, so, if you’re not bothered by the same things I’m bothered by, you might really enjoy this author! I wish I did, too, because I genuinely love the wholesomeness of her romances. Alas…
My first issue with the book (and the reason I wanted to quickly DNF) was the instant hate + instant attraction. The moment Damien and Rome meet for the 1st time they instantly find each other hot and both think “Oh no”, and it left me wondering… why? Why are both of you already worried about the other? Or are you worried you might fall in love? 🤨 Either way, thinking that *the moment* you meet someone is strange to me.
Rome immediately says that Damien is “irritatingly well-groomed” (okay… forced hatred despite the attraction, sure…), and Damien thinks about how he wants to TOUCH Rome! A STRANGER!!!! 🤨🤨🤨 (Side note: Damien spends A LOT of the book thinking about how much he wants to touch Rome, even BEFORE they become friends. He has some weird obsession with touching this boy, literally from the moment they meet. It’s WEIRD!).
Their “rivalry” was absurd. They instantly hate each other, and it’s all just super forced. Like, sure, they both ended up showing reasons for the other to hate them (like Rome being dismissive of his white privilege and being standoffish and cold, and Damien going through Rome’s phone without permission and ignoring the fact that Rome is not rich). HOWEVER!!!!!!! They both start disliking each other BEFORE they have justifiable reasons to (especially Rome)! I just… didn’t get it. I genuinely feel like they were “rivals” just so this could be advertised as an enemies-to-lovers. There was no reason for them to be immediately antagonistic. Their rivalry just wasn’t properly developed.
Speaking of not being properly developed: a lot of this story happened off-page. 🫠🫠🫠 This was also a problem for me in E.L. Massey’s 1st book. This author has never heard of “show, don’t tell”. All she does is tell, and she rarely shows anything. We don’t get to experience the things that are happening, because the author just keeps making their moments happen off-page, only mentioning them as if they’re irrelevant little things, and like…… They’re NOT! These moments are IMPORTANT! They’re RELEVANT! If you don’t show Damien and Rome’s relationship develop, how can we believe that they went from (forced) enemies to friends to lovers?????
I had hope that the author had grown from her 1st book, but it’s clear that’s not the case. Weeks go by, and we only see like 3 moments between them. 🙃 MONTHS pass and we barely see any of what happened during that time. 🙃 We’re told Rome is an incredible hockey player, and that he and Damien have an insanely good chemistry when they play together, but we never get to see that. 🙃 They realize their rivalry might be unfounded and start noticing nice things about each other (and by that I mean that we get paragraphs and paragraphs LISTING these things instead of, you know, getting to SEE them notice these things about each other?). 🙃 All of this just in the first 11% of the book, by the way. The rest of the book is similar, though. Just soooo much telling instead of showing… it was infuriating, and it made it hard for me to care about their relationship.
At 16% Rome mentions that he enjoyed Damien touching him “a little bit too much”… And, as I already mentioned, Damien was wanting to touch Rome from the moment they met… Ughhhhhhhhhhh. It was not surprising that this was lowkey insta-lovey, since they were instantly attracted to each other, but it was still disappointing to see them be so into each other only 16% in. We need to abolish this type of stuff fr. Give me slow burns or give me NOTHING.
At some point I just accepted that they were both super into each other and went along with it. There were still a lot of little moments that were furthering their relationship happening off-page, which certainly didn’t help, but whatever. They started sleeping next to each other for some reason, which also felt unwarranted, but sure. They kissed for the 1st time and Rome immediately wanted sex… okay. Overall, I just didn’t care at all about their relationship.
However, I did find them cute, once they got together! This author is really good at writing wholesome relationships, and sweet moments that make you feel warm and fuzzy and give you butterflies. Damien and Rome had a fun bickering dynamic, but they also really cared about each other, talked through their feelings and were really sweet overall.
Still, though, I couldn’t fully jive with their relationship. Not only did I find their instant attraction too… *instant*, but I also thought their relationship moved waaaay too quickly! Like, what do you MEAN y’all 17-18 y/o high schoolers are thinking about
Regarding the characters: I thought they were fine. I don’t have much to say about them, individually, though I think they both had interesting stories. I will say that, once again, a lot of things happen off-page that make it harder to care about them. Like, we never see them doing anything for school, or practice hockey. We don’t see Damien’s poetry recitals. We don’t see Rome bonding with the rest of the team, even though the author for sure wanted this to be a “found family”. In the end, both Rome and Damien win very important prizes (literally making history) in their respective fields despite being 19-20, and I was like 🙄. Whateverrrr. At that point I was so detached from this story that I didn’t care anymore.
The writing wasn’t terrible. There were minimal typos/continuity errors, but I don’t mind that in a self-published book. My biggest problem was for sure the *telling instead of showing*. I just don’t think that’s a great way to write a story, personally.
I’m clearly in the minority, though. I read a 2nd book by this author because there were things I really liked about her 1st book, so, if you’re not bothered by the same things I’m bothered by, you might really enjoy this author! I wish I did, too, because I genuinely love the wholesomeness of her romances. Alas…
Nobody in Particular by Sophie Gonzales
hopeful
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
4.0
royalty belongs to the gays 🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️ exactlyyyyyyy
In this book we’re following Rose (the princess of a small country) and Danni (an immigrant who got accepted into the prestigious boarding school Rose attends). There, Rose and Danni strike a friendship and (shocker) fall for each other.
I’ll start by saying I really enjoyed the characters! Sophie Gonzales is great at creating characters, so I’m not surprised I really enjoyed both MCs’ POVs.
Danni was a fish out of water, being in a new country, a new school, and a completely different type of environment (she’d never attended a boarding school + being surrounded by millionaire VIPs is a lot lol). She accommodated pretty quickly, though. Additionally, Danni was also dealing with her stage fright, and, later in the storywhen she gets outed she falls back on the whole ~people are mocking and being fake-nice to me~ mentality, since she’d been bullied at her previous school. Through it all, Danni managed to be pretty mature for her age, which I enjoyed.
Rose is very self-assured, witty and sarcastic, and I really liked following her. She’s still dealing with some pretty heavy stuff, though, particularly the fact that she’s expected to stay in the closet forever, marry a man and birth children, which she (a lesbian) obviously doesn’t want. However, the most compelling conflict in Rose’s life, in my opinion, has to do with her relationship with her ex-friend Molly. We can see early on that Rose is very clearly suppressing her feelings so she doesn’t have to deal with the grief and trauma she went through, which dampens her friendship with Molly.
I reeeeally liked slowly uncovering what went on between them that made Molly start disliking Rose, and I thought the whole thing was SO WELL DONE!!! 👏🏻Molly being hurt because Rose acted like she didn’t care at all about what happened and just brushed it off whenever Molly even tried to bring it up, so Molly couldn’t even count on her best friend for comfort made so much sense. And Rose, on the other hand, brushing it all off because she was shutting down and suppressing her feelings, not necessarily because she didn’t *care*, which was also so understandable. And I really liked that they talked through everything that happened and explained their feelings. I just really liked this conflict and its resolution. Probably my favourite aspect of this whole book!
And I overall REALLY liked Molly! She was so interesting and mature, and I absolutely LOVE that she was an integral part of the story, and was important for both Danni and Rose. One of the best uses of side characters I’ve seen! I enjoyed the other SCs as well! Eleanor was a nice supporting character, and I appreciate that she was friends with both MCs; Alfie was also an interesting character, and I liked that he had thought-out justifications for his actions (even if they were flawed). I do wish we’d seen more of Danni’s mum and her bestie from her country, though.
Overall, the characters were really well-written. They were well-rounded and three-dimensional, and I liked their inter- and intra-personal arcs.
Now for the ✨ romance ✨. Rose is a very sarcastic character and she starts lowkey messing with Danni from the get go. I was afraid this would feel very one-sided, but, fortunately, Danni is also quite witty, and teases Rose right back. I’m really glad they were on the same level when it came to this type of banter! It made them feel very much like equals, which is exactly what I want when we have sarcastic characters like Rose. When I started reeeeally liking their back-and-forths was when they became friends, though! Their text messages were so fun!! Loved their banter! 🤭🤭🤭
I will say that I wish their romance had been a bit more of a slow-burn, though. I just didn’t fully *feel* their romance, tbh. I still liked them, but I wanted to LOVE them, and I didn’t. ☹️☹️☹️ I really liked the crush confession, but I didn’t care about their 1st kiss. I enjoyed their moments together, but I thought their “I love you”s came too soon. The realest moment of the book for me was when Molly said “Your life is bigger than Danni, and hers is bigger than you.”, because, YEAH, it just kinda felt like they were all in for each other (they literally thought about how they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together lol), but since *I* didn’t feel it, it just felt a bit to sudden (even though months had passed). Idk. I just felt a little detached from their romance, for some reason. 😞
I am glad, though, that Danni and Rose actually communicated with each other! I’m sick and tired of miscommunication that gets dragged out just for the sake of conflict, and this book didn’t have that!When Danni broke up with Rose halfway through she explained herself really well (and in a way that I fully agreed with, btw!! Danni was extremely mature!). Rose started trying to make Danni jealous by holding Alfie’s hand and stuff, which felt a little vindictive, but I guess it made sense for her character, in that moment.
I thought Danni’s justification for getting back together with Rose was quite absurd, though. 🙄 She was so smart about the breakup and had *very valid* reasons for it, so seeing her later say that breaking up months or years in the future can’t hurt more than breaking up after dating for only like, 2 weeks, was just…… 🫤🫤🫤 Girl. Let’s be serious. 2 weeks vs maybe YEARS? One will hurt MUCH MORE than the other. Be so for real right now. 🙄
Another thing I didn’t love was Harriet’s inclusion in the story. When Harriet’s drunk she misreads the signs and thinks Danni wants to kiss her, so she kisses Danni. Now, I’m not saying that was right – I’m the #1 defender of asking for consent for even the smaller acts! However, it kind of felt like people were being too hard on Harriet??? I totally understand Danni not wanting to be friends with Harriet anymore! Rose, though… She was soooo quick to threaten Harriet, meanwhile Alfie did pretty much the same thing (not while drunk) and she didn’t even think about it? Maybe it’s because that happened to her, and not to her gf, though. I’m not trying to defend Harriet. It’s just that the double standard left me a little 😵💫 up until Rose finally called Alfie out for doing the same thing she hated Harriet for (except Alfie hadn’t been wasted).
I’m happy that the 3rd act conflict wasn’t a stupid breakup due to miscommunication. Instead, it was Danni getting outed and expelled for drinking + Rose deciding she didn’t want to stay in the closet forever and would rather give up her future as queen. These conflicts made sense for their characters and I like how they were resolved.
Regarding the writing: it flowed well and was easy to read. There were some instances of telling instead of showing, but, overall, I thought the book was good, in terms of writing. There were a couple of typos and a continuity mistake (Danni’s bff goes from Hayley to Rachel lol), but I’m sure those will be corrected in the final version. Also, I think it’d be better if the epilogue was “X years later” instead of “2026”, because this reeeally dates the book.
Overall, this was a really enjoyable book! Sophie Gonzales is incapable of writing a bad book, methinks. 🙂↕️ Also, THANK YOU for that mention of Zach from “If This Gets Out”. 🤭
Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!
In this book we’re following Rose (the princess of a small country) and Danni (an immigrant who got accepted into the prestigious boarding school Rose attends). There, Rose and Danni strike a friendship and (shocker) fall for each other.
I’ll start by saying I really enjoyed the characters! Sophie Gonzales is great at creating characters, so I’m not surprised I really enjoyed both MCs’ POVs.
Danni was a fish out of water, being in a new country, a new school, and a completely different type of environment (she’d never attended a boarding school + being surrounded by millionaire VIPs is a lot lol). She accommodated pretty quickly, though. Additionally, Danni was also dealing with her stage fright, and, later in the story
Rose is very self-assured, witty and sarcastic, and I really liked following her. She’s still dealing with some pretty heavy stuff, though, particularly the fact that she’s expected to stay in the closet forever, marry a man and birth children, which she (a lesbian) obviously doesn’t want. However, the most compelling conflict in Rose’s life, in my opinion, has to do with her relationship with her ex-friend Molly. We can see early on that Rose is very clearly suppressing her feelings so she doesn’t have to deal with the grief and trauma she went through, which dampens her friendship with Molly.
I reeeeally liked slowly uncovering what went on between them that made Molly start disliking Rose, and I thought the whole thing was SO WELL DONE!!! 👏🏻
And I overall REALLY liked Molly! She was so interesting and mature, and I absolutely LOVE that she was an integral part of the story, and was important for both Danni and Rose. One of the best uses of side characters I’ve seen! I enjoyed the other SCs as well! Eleanor was a nice supporting character, and I appreciate that she was friends with both MCs; Alfie was also an interesting character, and I liked that he had thought-out justifications for his actions (even if they were flawed). I do wish we’d seen more of Danni’s mum and her bestie from her country, though.
Overall, the characters were really well-written. They were well-rounded and three-dimensional, and I liked their inter- and intra-personal arcs.
Now for the ✨ romance ✨. Rose is a very sarcastic character and she starts lowkey messing with Danni from the get go. I was afraid this would feel very one-sided, but, fortunately, Danni is also quite witty, and teases Rose right back. I’m really glad they were on the same level when it came to this type of banter! It made them feel very much like equals, which is exactly what I want when we have sarcastic characters like Rose. When I started reeeeally liking their back-and-forths was when they became friends, though! Their text messages were so fun!! Loved their banter! 🤭🤭🤭
I will say that I wish their romance had been a bit more of a slow-burn, though. I just didn’t fully *feel* their romance, tbh. I still liked them, but I wanted to LOVE them, and I didn’t. ☹️☹️☹️ I really liked the crush confession, but I didn’t care about their 1st kiss. I enjoyed their moments together, but I thought their “I love you”s came too soon. The realest moment of the book for me was when Molly said “Your life is bigger than Danni, and hers is bigger than you.”, because, YEAH, it just kinda felt like they were all in for each other (they literally thought about how they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together lol), but since *I* didn’t feel it, it just felt a bit to sudden (even though months had passed). Idk. I just felt a little detached from their romance, for some reason. 😞
I am glad, though, that Danni and Rose actually communicated with each other! I’m sick and tired of miscommunication that gets dragged out just for the sake of conflict, and this book didn’t have that!
I thought Danni’s justification for getting back together with Rose was quite absurd, though. 🙄 She was so smart about the breakup and had *very valid* reasons for it, so seeing her later say that breaking up months or years in the future can’t hurt more than breaking up after dating for only like, 2 weeks, was just…… 🫤🫤🫤 Girl. Let’s be serious. 2 weeks vs maybe YEARS? One will hurt MUCH MORE than the other. Be so for real right now. 🙄
Another thing I didn’t love was Harriet’s inclusion in the story. When Harriet’s drunk she misreads the signs and thinks Danni wants to kiss her, so she kisses Danni. Now, I’m not saying that was right – I’m the #1 defender of asking for consent for even the smaller acts! However, it kind of felt like people were being too hard on Harriet??? I totally understand Danni not wanting to be friends with Harriet anymore! Rose, though… She was soooo quick to threaten Harriet, meanwhile Alfie did pretty much the same thing (not while drunk) and she didn’t even think about it? Maybe it’s because that happened to her, and not to her gf, though. I’m not trying to defend Harriet. It’s just that the double standard left me a little 😵💫 up until Rose finally called Alfie out for doing the same thing she hated Harriet for (except Alfie hadn’t been wasted).
I’m happy that the 3rd act conflict wasn’t a stupid breakup due to miscommunication. Instead, it was Danni getting outed and expelled for drinking + Rose deciding she didn’t want to stay in the closet forever and would rather give up her future as queen. These conflicts made sense for their characters and I like how they were resolved.
Regarding the writing: it flowed well and was easy to read. There were some instances of telling instead of showing, but, overall, I thought the book was good, in terms of writing. There were a couple of typos and a continuity mistake (Danni’s bff goes from Hayley to Rachel lol), but I’m sure those will be corrected in the final version. Also, I think it’d be better if the epilogue was “X years later” instead of “2026”, because this reeeally dates the book.
Overall, this was a really enjoyable book! Sophie Gonzales is incapable of writing a bad book, methinks. 🙂↕️ Also, THANK YOU for that mention of Zach from “If This Gets Out”. 🤭
Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Outing
Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, and Homophobia
Minor: Bullying and Suicidal thoughts
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't A Guy At All, Vol. 3 by Sumiko Arai
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
just as ~meh~ as the previous books: disjointed, confusing and not really making me feel much about the MCs’ relationship, but with a great art style, so there’s that.
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't A Guy At All Vol. 2 by Sumiko Arai
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
Similar as Book 1. While the art style is gorgeous and the characters are sweet, the story is difficult to understand.
✘ The story doesn’t flow from chapter to chapter. It’s like the chapters were written as singular little moments of the characters’ lives, so they simply do not mesh together to make a cohesive narrative. The story is extremely disjointed and sometimes borderline incoherent. I often wonder what the hell is going on before realizing the previous 3 pages were actually happening on a completely different day and were not related to the previous pages *at all*.
✘ The text is really confusing and you can’t always tell what is dialogue VS thoughts VS narration.
✘ I still don’t really *feel* Mitsuki and Aya’s connection. They are friends (which mostly happened off-page in Book 1), and now they’re both aware they like each other (I also don’t really know why)…… I just don’t feel much about them, tbh. 😕
✘ The story doesn’t flow from chapter to chapter. It’s like the chapters were written as singular little moments of the characters’ lives, so they simply do not mesh together to make a cohesive narrative. The story is extremely disjointed and sometimes borderline incoherent. I often wonder what the hell is going on before realizing the previous 3 pages were actually happening on a completely different day and were not related to the previous pages *at all*.
✘ The text is really confusing and you can’t always tell what is dialogue VS thoughts VS narration.
✘ I still don’t really *feel* Mitsuki and Aya’s connection. They are friends (which mostly happened off-page in Book 1), and now they’re both aware they like each other (I also don’t really know why)…… I just don’t feel much about them, tbh. 😕
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, Vol. 1 by Sumiko Arai
lighthearted
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
3,5 *
✘ The art style is AMAAAAZINGGGGGGG!!! I’m literally obsessed with all the details! It’s just so pretty!
✘ I wish their relationship had been developed a bit more. Aya’s crushing on Mitsuki right from the start, and Mitsuki pretty quickly shows interest in Aya too. Additionally, their friendship seemed to develop mostly off-page?? Like, they talked about how they were friends (to the point where they even had a falling out!), but we didn’t get to SEE much of that friendship, tbh. There were even big moments and events that straight up just happened off-page. Too much *telling* instead of *showing* 😕.
✘ The story felt veeeery disjointed. The chapters felt more like little moments in the characters lives, rather than a full cohesive narrative, so when you read the whole thing, it doesn’t feel like a full story, just short fragments of a story. ☹️
✘ There was a bit of ~*I’m not like other girls*~ rhetoric, with the whole “I’m the only one who knows Nirvana and Aerosmith” thing. Like, at some point Aya literally says “There’s no way people at school would know Radiohead” 😭. Bitch…. Those are some of the most popular bands on earth. Be so fucking for real. 🥴🥴🥴
✘ The writing was a bit weird, at times, but I’m assuming that’s mostly because of the translation (though I wish I could unread the sentence “That’s totes embawkward” lmao). Additionally, it wasn’t always clear what piece of text was dialogue, or thoughts, or narration (the speech and thinking bubbles were incoherent and varied a lot, and sometimes there were no bubbles at all, making it hard to distinguish what each piece of text was supposed to be). The clunky writing + the fact that it wasn’t always clear what was dialogue/thoughts/narration + the disjointed chapters made this story a bit hard to follow.
✘ Still overall an alright story. I’m hoping book 2 will be better.
✘ The art style is AMAAAAZINGGGGGGG!!! I’m literally obsessed with all the details! It’s just so pretty!
✘ I wish their relationship had been developed a bit more. Aya’s crushing on Mitsuki right from the start, and Mitsuki pretty quickly shows interest in Aya too. Additionally, their friendship seemed to develop mostly off-page?? Like, they talked about how they were friends (to the point where they even had a falling out!), but we didn’t get to SEE much of that friendship, tbh. There were even big moments and events that straight up just happened off-page. Too much *telling* instead of *showing* 😕.
✘ The story felt veeeery disjointed. The chapters felt more like little moments in the characters lives, rather than a full cohesive narrative, so when you read the whole thing, it doesn’t feel like a full story, just short fragments of a story. ☹️
✘ There was a bit of ~*I’m not like other girls*~ rhetoric, with the whole “I’m the only one who knows Nirvana and Aerosmith” thing. Like, at some point Aya literally says “There’s no way people at school would know Radiohead” 😭. Bitch…. Those are some of the most popular bands on earth. Be so fucking for real. 🥴🥴🥴
✘ The writing was a bit weird, at times, but I’m assuming that’s mostly because of the translation (though I wish I could unread the sentence “That’s totes embawkward” lmao). Additionally, it wasn’t always clear what piece of text was dialogue, or thoughts, or narration (the speech and thinking bubbles were incoherent and varied a lot, and sometimes there were no bubbles at all, making it hard to distinguish what each piece of text was supposed to be). The clunky writing + the fact that it wasn’t always clear what was dialogue/thoughts/narration + the disjointed chapters made this story a bit hard to follow.
✘ Still overall an alright story. I’m hoping book 2 will be better.
The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich
3.0
This was an alright book, but I think I would’ve enjoyed it more had it been a movie. The plot is basically the Princess Diaries: an american teenager (Jamie) finds out he’s the prince of a small nation and goes there for the summer. His father, the king, asks the prince of another country (Erik) to teach Jamie how to be a prince. You reeeally have to suspend your disbelief here – if the world just found out that an american boy has a claim to a whole country’s throne, the king would be finding a bunch of tutors and a whole PR team to teach that boy how to… you know… not ruin the monarchy’s reputation or the country’s relations with other countries lol. It’s quite absurd that the king was just like “Yeah yeah I’ll just ask a teenage prince from another country to tutor and media-train you lol”. 🥴 It was just a very contrived reason for them to be spending time together.
I was okay with suspending my disbelief for the sake of the romance, you know? The problem is that the romance was just… really meh, to me. 😕 Jamie and Erik very quickly started liking each other, and I’m very much a slow-burn kinda gal, so their relationship just felt too sudden and lowkey insta-lovey. They supposedly became friends, and they had their whole mentor-mentee thing going on, but neither of those were very well developed, so I just never felt their bond and I didn’t understand why they even liked each other. Overall, I just think their relationship wasn’t that developed, which made it impossible for me to care *at all* about the romance. How am I supposed to feel anything about their romance when I barely even see them as *friends* yet? 😐😐😐
I will say, though, that I enjoyed their relationship, once they got together. I mean, I didn’t *feel* anything, but I reeeally appreciated that they actually cared about each other and were super respectful. Jamie and Erik always talked openly about their feelings and had comprehensive conversations, which made their relationship feel really healthy.
I actually think that was my favourite aspect of this book: both MCs openly communicated their feelings, which was not only really healthy and refreshing to see, but also made it so that the book didn’t have any annoying miscommunication trope. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 Whenever I thought we were about to reach a stupid miscommunication plot-line that would unnecessarily drag on for 50 pages, the characters immediately discussed their feelings and talked not only to each other, but to the other characters as well, instead of hiding everything and wallowing in self-pity. It was sooooo nice to not be constantly annoyed at the book for creating unnecessary conflict by making the characters hide things for no reason!!!! 👌🏻
Regarding the actual story: this is supposedly a book about Jamie finding out he’s a prince and going to his father’s country. However, we focus pretty much only on the romance. And like, I get it; this is a romance book. But I definitely think more time should’ve been spent with Jamie bonding with the other characters as well. His parents went with him to Mitanor, he had like 4 besties back in the US, he had his birth father, his stepmum and his half-brother in Mitanor, as well as his maternal grandparents, and yet he barely even interacts with any of them them! 😟 I think the most egregious case of this was with his grandparents; he meets them one time and they’re crying because Jamie looks so much like his deceased birth mother. They tell Jamie they’d love to get to know him and tell him more about their daughter (his birth mother) and then we never get to see any of that????? In the epilogue he mentions he got close to his grandparents, but like….???? It all happened off-page, I guess…
Actually, a lotttt of things seemed to happen off-page. They were usually pretty small things, but I think we should’ve gotten to see them, not only because *telling instead of showing* is annoying, but also because showing these little moments could’ve helped the relationships feel more developed (especially the romance between Jamie and Erik).
Random thing: some of the conflicts felt a little forced and were lowkey unnecessary.Like, Erik’s grandma (the queen of Sunstad) insisting that Erik needs to find a date to look stable or whatever?? And wanting him to date that Sebastian dude… for what?? And Erik fake-dating him? (Except they barely even did that lol. Sebastian was completely inconsequential…). And then his grandma not wanting Erik and Jamie to date because she didn’t think they were a good match?? Just silly conflicts, omg…
Overall, this was a fine book, but I wish that: 1) Jamie and Erik’s relationship had been better developed; 2) Jamie had interacted more with the SCs; 3) there was more *showing* instead of *telling. The story we got kind of fell flat to me. In general, I think this would be a cute movie.
I was okay with suspending my disbelief for the sake of the romance, you know? The problem is that the romance was just… really meh, to me. 😕 Jamie and Erik very quickly started liking each other, and I’m very much a slow-burn kinda gal, so their relationship just felt too sudden and lowkey insta-lovey. They supposedly became friends, and they had their whole mentor-mentee thing going on, but neither of those were very well developed, so I just never felt their bond and I didn’t understand why they even liked each other. Overall, I just think their relationship wasn’t that developed, which made it impossible for me to care *at all* about the romance. How am I supposed to feel anything about their romance when I barely even see them as *friends* yet? 😐😐😐
I will say, though, that I enjoyed their relationship, once they got together. I mean, I didn’t *feel* anything, but I reeeally appreciated that they actually cared about each other and were super respectful. Jamie and Erik always talked openly about their feelings and had comprehensive conversations, which made their relationship feel really healthy.
I actually think that was my favourite aspect of this book: both MCs openly communicated their feelings, which was not only really healthy and refreshing to see, but also made it so that the book didn’t have any annoying miscommunication trope. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 Whenever I thought we were about to reach a stupid miscommunication plot-line that would unnecessarily drag on for 50 pages, the characters immediately discussed their feelings and talked not only to each other, but to the other characters as well, instead of hiding everything and wallowing in self-pity. It was sooooo nice to not be constantly annoyed at the book for creating unnecessary conflict by making the characters hide things for no reason!!!! 👌🏻
Regarding the actual story: this is supposedly a book about Jamie finding out he’s a prince and going to his father’s country. However, we focus pretty much only on the romance. And like, I get it; this is a romance book. But I definitely think more time should’ve been spent with Jamie bonding with the other characters as well. His parents went with him to Mitanor, he had like 4 besties back in the US, he had his birth father, his stepmum and his half-brother in Mitanor, as well as his maternal grandparents, and yet he barely even interacts with any of them them! 😟 I think the most egregious case of this was with his grandparents; he meets them one time and they’re crying because Jamie looks so much like his deceased birth mother. They tell Jamie they’d love to get to know him and tell him more about their daughter (his birth mother) and then we never get to see any of that????? In the epilogue he mentions he got close to his grandparents, but like….???? It all happened off-page, I guess…
Actually, a lotttt of things seemed to happen off-page. They were usually pretty small things, but I think we should’ve gotten to see them, not only because *telling instead of showing* is annoying, but also because showing these little moments could’ve helped the relationships feel more developed (especially the romance between Jamie and Erik).
Random thing: some of the conflicts felt a little forced and were lowkey unnecessary.
Overall, this was a fine book, but I wish that: 1) Jamie and Erik’s relationship had been better developed; 2) Jamie had interacted more with the SCs; 3) there was more *showing* instead of *telling. The story we got kind of fell flat to me. In general, I think this would be a cute movie.
Hearing Red by Nicole Maser
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
The atrocious AI cover is jail-worthy. The story is… fine. This was definitely… a book… that I read. 🫥
I really enjoy apocalyptic stories, and I ESPECIALLY love ROMANCES in apocalyptic stories, so I thought I’d absolutely adore this book! I was hooked, at first, but around halfway through I started losing interest, and by the 70% mark I was so bored that I wanted to DNF. I pushed through, though. I definitely don’t think this is a bad book! It’s just that I personally never managed to connect with the characters or care about their romance. 😢
Maddie and Saff were good characters on their own, and I liked their connection, but I just never felt their *love*. They started catching feelings and having sweet moments and I just… didn’t care. The most jarring moment for me was when it became apparent that Maddie cared more about Saff (who she’d known for like 3 weeks) than her OWN FAMILY (who she got separated from, which is a HUGE deal because they’re literally in the apocalypse + Maddie is blind and would be all alone if Saff hadn’t decided to take her in!). It’s literally a MIRACLE that Maddie even managed to find her family again, and yet she’s willing to separate from them AGAIN just to be with Saff?! Girl be for real. 🥴
When Maddie admitted that she basically started liking Saff after they’d known each other for like 3 days I was like…… yeah. 🙄🥱 Okay. Why not. 🫤 The 3rd act breakup was unnecessary and silly, but I cared so little about their romance (or the story in general) that I didn’t even mind. I just wanted to get this over with lmao. Overall, the romance gave me nothing.
The writing was fine. There were some typos, but this is self-published, so I’ll let those slide (though the 2 instances where the author used “there’s” instead of “theirs” lowkey made me want to throw my phone). However, unironically using any variation of the godforsaken “She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding” (let alone TWO!) is actually jail-worthy. The term “soaking wet folds” was also something I wish I could unread.
I really enjoy apocalyptic stories, and I ESPECIALLY love ROMANCES in apocalyptic stories, so I thought I’d absolutely adore this book! I was hooked, at first, but around halfway through I started losing interest, and by the 70% mark I was so bored that I wanted to DNF. I pushed through, though. I definitely don’t think this is a bad book! It’s just that I personally never managed to connect with the characters or care about their romance. 😢
Maddie and Saff were good characters on their own, and I liked their connection, but I just never felt their *love*. They started catching feelings and having sweet moments and I just… didn’t care. The most jarring moment for me was when it became apparent that Maddie cared more about Saff (who she’d known for like 3 weeks) than her OWN FAMILY (who she got separated from, which is a HUGE deal because they’re literally in the apocalypse + Maddie is blind and would be all alone if Saff hadn’t decided to take her in!). It’s literally a MIRACLE that Maddie even managed to find her family again, and yet she’s willing to separate from them AGAIN just to be with Saff?! Girl be for real. 🥴
When Maddie admitted that she basically started liking Saff after they’d known each other for like 3 days I was like…… yeah. 🙄🥱 Okay. Why not. 🫤 The 3rd act breakup was unnecessary and silly, but I cared so little about their romance (or the story in general) that I didn’t even mind. I just wanted to get this over with lmao. Overall, the romance gave me nothing.
The writing was fine. There were some typos, but this is self-published, so I’ll let those slide (though the 2 instances where the author used “there’s” instead of “theirs” lowkey made me want to throw my phone). However, unironically using any variation of the godforsaken “She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding” (let alone TWO!) is actually jail-worthy. The term “soaking wet folds” was also something I wish I could unread.
Here Goes Nothing by Emma K. Ohland
I also really liked Beatrice and Hero’s sisterly relationship and how it developed throughout the book. It felt very realistic and while they both messed up, I understood where they both came from, with their flawed choices.
Beatrice and Bennie’s romance was really sweet! 🥹 I do wish it could’ve been developed a bit more – I would’ve liked to see more moments between them to fully establish their feelings for each other. But, other than that, I really liked them. Bennie was soooo cute! I love how she gave Beatrice the friendship bracelet she’d wanted to give her 8 years prior, and how she invited Beatrice over to build a Billy bookshelf because Bea’s favourite moment the whole year was their little Ikea date, and how she promposed while they were building the shelf because she knew Beatrice wouldn’t like a public promposal. 🥺🤧😭 And Bennie was sooo understanding and supportive of Beatrice when it came to her asexuality + her struggle with the future. They were just so cute, and I wish we could’ve seen more of them!
I do wish the book had been a bit longer (to better establish Beatrice and Hero’s sisterly bond at the very start of the book, to develop Bennie and Beatrice’s crushes a bit better, and to expand upon other things – like Beatrice’s relationship with her father). Bea’s story isn’t all wrapped up neatly – she still doesn’t know what she wants to do with her future, her father is still a bum, and Bennie is still going away to college next year. However, sometimes that’s just how life is, so I guess this story had a great ending, given that Beatrice was so lost in life. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I’d definitely recommend it!!! 🥰🥰🥰
fast-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
4.0
I ate this one upppppp!!!! I don’t know anything about the original Shakespeare play, so I can only speak of this as a story on its own. It was really intriguing and fast paced, and made me want to stay up all night to finish it!
The story starts off with our MC Beatrice being pulled into a new friend group because her sister (and only friend) is now hanging out with her new boyfriend and his besties. Beatrice isn’t happy with this arrangement because 1) she feels like a 5th wheel, and 2) a girl she doesn’t really like (Bennie) is part of that group.
She starts hanging out with these people more often and one day overhears them talking about the fact that Bennie has a crush on Beatrice. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this at first, because I personally prefer to see crushes develop instead of getting a pre-established crush. HOWEVER!!!!!!! The way this played out was soooo interesting! It was just really compelling to see Beatrice freaking out about this revelation and not knowing what to do in front of Bennie, and also starting to think about her own sexuality because of the prospect of being with a girl.
AND THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There’s a SICKKKK revelation that truly shocked me!The fact that the group was just setting Beatrice and Bennie up by making them believe the other had a crush on them was SOOOOO SICK AND TWISTED!!!!!!!! 😱 I was SHOCKED!! And I felt soooo bad for Beatrice! She was finally understanding herself and her sexuality better, so finding out it was all based on a deception and her own sister was manipulating her HURT!
The rest of the story develops really naturally after this reveal, and I enjoyed where things went – with Beatrice and Hero’s sisterly bond, with Beatrice’s self-discovery journey, and with Beatrice and Bennie’s romance.
Now for the characters: Beatrice was a really relatable MC, to me. She was just so lost in life and didn’t know what she wanted to do in the future; she had no friends and always felt like a 5th wheel; and she was asexual!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m SO EXCITED to see more asexual representation, ESPECIALLY when there’s still romance in the story!!! 🥹🥹🥹 I think Beatrice’s struggle with her sexuality was really well portrayed! Some of my favourite lines that made me feel very #seen:
The story starts off with our MC Beatrice being pulled into a new friend group because her sister (and only friend) is now hanging out with her new boyfriend and his besties. Beatrice isn’t happy with this arrangement because 1) she feels like a 5th wheel, and 2) a girl she doesn’t really like (Bennie) is part of that group.
She starts hanging out with these people more often and one day overhears them talking about the fact that Bennie has a crush on Beatrice. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this at first, because I personally prefer to see crushes develop instead of getting a pre-established crush. HOWEVER!!!!!!! The way this played out was soooo interesting! It was just really compelling to see Beatrice freaking out about this revelation and not knowing what to do in front of Bennie, and also starting to think about her own sexuality because of the prospect of being with a girl.
AND THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There’s a SICKKKK revelation that truly shocked me!
The rest of the story develops really naturally after this reveal, and I enjoyed where things went – with Beatrice and Hero’s sisterly bond, with Beatrice’s self-discovery journey, and with Beatrice and Bennie’s romance.
Now for the characters: Beatrice was a really relatable MC, to me. She was just so lost in life and didn’t know what she wanted to do in the future; she had no friends and always felt like a 5th wheel; and she was asexual!!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m SO EXCITED to see more asexual representation, ESPECIALLY when there’s still romance in the story!!! 🥹🥹🥹 I think Beatrice’s struggle with her sexuality was really well portrayed! Some of my favourite lines that made me feel very #seen:
➤ “I couldn’t tell if my heart was trying to tell me that I liked Bennie. Or just that there was an excitement in being liked.”
➤ “I didn’t have a celebrity to claim as my queer awakening. I wasn’t even sure I was fully awake yet.”
➤ “Everyone around me was either already having sex or constantly talking about it, and I felt like that was ludicrous behavior. Like the whole universe was hypersexual and I was normal. I mean, I liked romance in movies and books, but I always saw it as separate from my reality—something that happened in those spaces, but not to me.”
I also really liked Beatrice and Hero’s sisterly relationship and how it developed throughout the book. It felt very realistic and while they both messed up, I understood where they both came from, with their flawed choices.
Beatrice and Bennie’s romance was really sweet! 🥹 I do wish it could’ve been developed a bit more – I would’ve liked to see more moments between them to fully establish their feelings for each other. But, other than that, I really liked them. Bennie was soooo cute! I love how she gave Beatrice the friendship bracelet she’d wanted to give her 8 years prior, and how she invited Beatrice over to build a Billy bookshelf because Bea’s favourite moment the whole year was their little Ikea date, and how she promposed while they were building the shelf because she knew Beatrice wouldn’t like a public promposal. 🥺🤧😭 And Bennie was sooo understanding and supportive of Beatrice when it came to her asexuality + her struggle with the future. They were just so cute, and I wish we could’ve seen more of them!
I do wish the book had been a bit longer (to better establish Beatrice and Hero’s sisterly bond at the very start of the book, to develop Bennie and Beatrice’s crushes a bit better, and to expand upon other things – like Beatrice’s relationship with her father). Bea’s story isn’t all wrapped up neatly