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oraclereadings's Reviews (107)
Gemma is infertile. At the young age of 22, she was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis. The doctors told her that she would never have children. Her previous marriage ended and her now ex-husband has a family of his own.
Her mother is constantly setting her up on dates, but Gemma is tired of the same old boring romance. She decides that she doesn’t need a man to be happy. She just wants to have a baby, and IVF is her go-to.
Josh is a long time family friend. He’s been Gemma’s brother’s best friend for years. Josh has been to so many family events, he’s practically family. And he and Gemma have already had a fling in the past, so he’s the perfect specimen.
Her mother is constantly setting her up on dates, but Gemma is tired of the same old boring romance. She decides that she doesn’t need a man to be happy. She just wants to have a baby, and IVF is her go-to.
Josh is a long time family friend. He’s been Gemma’s brother’s best friend for years. Josh has been to so many family events, he’s practically family. And he and Gemma have already had a fling in the past, so he’s the perfect specimen.
“I couldn’t care less about him, I just need his sperm.”
This book isn’t your average pregnancy trope; it goes into graphic detail about IVF, infertility, and the process of getting pregnant through IVF. So this definitely won’t be for everyone.
I enjoyed the comical banter between Gemma and Josh and I was actually interested in the scientific method of IVF. I thought it was obvious from the beginning that Josh had feelings for Gemma and had been secretly pining for her for years, and I’m a sucker for pining.
There were some parts that I found strange and me like, ummmm. There’s so much second-hand embarrassment that I was literally dying inside.
The whole time Gemma is going through this IVF process with Josh, she’s dating her boss of seven years. Said boss hasn’t even taken the time to notice her until one morning when she logs into a conference call, unbeknownst to her that it is a video call, while still half asleep in her bed and looking very explicit.
When Gemma starts a new medication, it has some side effects. Long story short, she ends up super horny and doesn’t want to go to her appointment being super horny. So Josh suggests an idea and Gemma starts getting off—on a public bench of all places. Ma’am, please.
Then there’s a moment where they’re at the front desk trying to set up the next appointment and a random couple just starts fighting. So-and-so cheated on so-and-so and now they’ve got STD’s. Somehow Josh gets mixed up in the whole thing and Gemma just screams at them the whole time, “Not a boy-toy, not a boy-toy”. That was more embarrassing than public masturbation, honestly.
Lastly, Gemma is shamed so many times it’s frustrating. She’s shamed for being “fat”, for being infertile, and for the fact that her husband left her. Gemma’s own mother even contributes to this, saying that she’ll never be happy unless she has a man in her life. Okay, boomer.
<blockquote><b><i>
“Don't aim to fix people. Fixing seems so permanent, so absolute. Like there's no room for error. Aim to make things better.” </i></b></blockquote>
Calvin prides himself as being a social media journalist—on a fictional app that I imagined being TikTok. He has a huge following and has worked on some very important stories, one including the fall of a political campaign.
He has his whole future planned out. He knows what he wants to do with his life.
And then one day his dad is just like, "Hey, we're going to Texas. I'm going to be on a reality tv show centered around a NASA mission to mars." and it fucks up Calvin's entire world. The moment that they get to their new home, Calvin goes live to update his followers on what's happening and informs them on the situation with his dad.
The actual media gets involved! Cameras swarm his house and new reporters are asking questions. But they're not there for the reality show, they're don't have any interest in Calvin's dad. They're more interested in Calvin and his online celebrity status.
This, of course, upsets Calvin's dad because this was supposed to be his big moment to shine and instead his son is the one in the spotlight.
Leon's family has been on the reality tv show for years. Their family is well known across the country. Leon is especially known for being an Olympic gymnast, but he has long left that chapter in his life behind. The constant nagging from the media has gotten to him and Leon doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, all while struggling with depression.
I really did not like Calvin. At All. <b>MILD SPOILERS AHEAD</b>
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
At the beginning of the book, Calvin states that he was dating this girl (Deb) and that he found out he was gay (or bisexual? I actually don't remember if it states in the book) by cheating on her with another guy. This is treated as not a big deal and everyone totally cool with it. He and Deb stayed friends and Calvin plans to move into an apartment with her in New York once they both graduate. That plan alters a bit when Calvin's family moves to Texas. There’s multiple times that Deb tries to call or text Calvin to check in on him but he just ignores her. And then has the <i>AUDACITY</i> to call her and be like "listen to my problems, my life is so hard and unfair". Meanwhile, this girl is supporting her parents while they live off of her income and take her money.
Just, no. I can’t.
The romance was just not there. It’s insta-love, of course, so maybe that’s why it was so unbelievable. Half of the time, Calvin is trying to <i>fix</i> Leon and push him into choosing a career because they’re seniors in high school and college is around the corner. Buddy, chill. Not everyone knows what they wanna do after high school. Not everyone <b>GOES</b> to college <i>right after</i> high school
Their relationship even felt like Calvin was just with Leon so that he could "make him happy" or some shit. I don’t know. Leon, at one point, even says something along the lines of, "Don’t kiss me because you want me to feel better. Kiss me because you want to kiss me". YES! You tell him!
Calvin also mentions that his mom and dad are fighting constantly, but there is no actual fighting. Like, there’s hardly even any arguments. He’s just so privileged and has life so good that he seem to realize that everyone around him is falling apart while dealing with their own problems.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
“Don't aim to fix people. Fixing seems so permanent, so absolute. Like there's no room for error. Aim to make things better.” </i></b></blockquote>
Calvin prides himself as being a social media journalist—on a fictional app that I imagined being TikTok. He has a huge following and has worked on some very important stories, one including the fall of a political campaign.
He has his whole future planned out. He knows what he wants to do with his life.
And then one day his dad is just like, "Hey, we're going to Texas. I'm going to be on a reality tv show centered around a NASA mission to mars." and it fucks up Calvin's entire world. The moment that they get to their new home, Calvin goes live to update his followers on what's happening and informs them on the situation with his dad.
The actual media gets involved! Cameras swarm his house and new reporters are asking questions. But they're not there for the reality show, they're don't have any interest in Calvin's dad. They're more interested in Calvin and his online celebrity status.
This, of course, upsets Calvin's dad because this was supposed to be his big moment to shine and instead his son is the one in the spotlight.
Leon's family has been on the reality tv show for years. Their family is well known across the country. Leon is especially known for being an Olympic gymnast, but he has long left that chapter in his life behind. The constant nagging from the media has gotten to him and Leon doesn't know what he wants to do with his life, all while struggling with depression.
I really did not like Calvin. At All. <b>MILD SPOILERS AHEAD</b>
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
At the beginning of the book, Calvin states that he was dating this girl (Deb) and that he found out he was gay (or bisexual? I actually don't remember if it states in the book) by cheating on her with another guy. This is treated as not a big deal and everyone totally cool with it. He and Deb stayed friends and Calvin plans to move into an apartment with her in New York once they both graduate. That plan alters a bit when Calvin's family moves to Texas. There’s multiple times that Deb tries to call or text Calvin to check in on him but he just ignores her. And then has the <i>AUDACITY</i> to call her and be like "listen to my problems, my life is so hard and unfair". Meanwhile, this girl is supporting her parents while they live off of her income and take her money.
Just, no. I can’t.
The romance was just not there. It’s insta-love, of course, so maybe that’s why it was so unbelievable. Half of the time, Calvin is trying to <i>fix</i> Leon and push him into choosing a career because they’re seniors in high school and college is around the corner. Buddy, chill. Not everyone knows what they wanna do after high school. Not everyone <b>GOES</b> to college <i>right after</i> high school
Their relationship even felt like Calvin was just with Leon so that he could "make him happy" or some shit. I don’t know. Leon, at one point, even says something along the lines of, "Don’t kiss me because you want me to feel better. Kiss me because you want to kiss me". YES! You tell him!
Calvin also mentions that his mom and dad are fighting constantly, but there is no actual fighting. Like, there’s hardly even any arguments. He’s just so privileged and has life so good that he seem to realize that everyone around him is falling apart while dealing with their own problems.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL. JUST SAY BISEXUAL.
If I have to read anything along the lines of "Am I a lesbian now?" I am gonna scream.
This is just your average
If I have to read anything along the lines of "Am I a lesbian now?" I am gonna scream.
This is just your average
- woman was in a relationship with man but they broke up
- woman finds herself being attracted to another woman
- woman questions her sexuality
Honestly, if it wasn't for all of the "Does this make me a lesbian?" and anti-butch (hell, just anti-gay) segments, this would've been an average read.
I'm kind of disappointed because nothing happened until like half way through the book.
But I also understand that this is the first in the trilogy and you need to read this first to understand the GrishaVerse. This did a great job at world-building and explaining the difference between the magical rankings.
I plan to continue with the rest of the series and hope to enjoy them.
Perhaps my rating will go up once I've finished the series or if I ever re-read this. That seems to be a common with this book.
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
I don't want to be mean with this, but I know that no matter what I say it isn't going to be good enough either.
I struggled with what rating I wanted to give this. Good Reads <i>really</i> needs to give us those half star ratings because I'm just at a complete lost. Two stars seems too low but three stars seems too high. So here I am giving this a 2.5 rating.
Here's the greatest thing about fanfiction:
In a fanfic, you already know the characters. You know their personality traits, their interests and hobbies. You go in fully aware of who these characters are without needing to know their entire life story. Because, you do, in fact, know their entire life story.
I've been in the <i>Star Wars</i> fandom off and on throughout the years. And I went into this book fully aware that it had once been a Reylo fanfiction. Was I a big shipper? No, not at all. Quite the opposite actually, but I didn't let that stop me from delving into this.
I felt, that as an avid fanfic writer and supporter, it was my soul purpose to at least give it a shot. All of us fanfiction writers dream of having our works published into actual books. And I thought, <i>damn, this must've been a really good fanfic</i>.
And I'm sure it was.
A good <b>fanfic</b>.
As a book, though. . . not so much.
The thing with these characters (remember what I mentioned about knowing a character in a fanfiction?), is that I did not know them at all. I don't know if it's because I know the <i>Star Wars</i> characters so I'm imagining their personalities over the book adaptations or what, but I just did not know these people. They had no personality and were so bland.
Olive just gave me that "I'm not like other girls"—with a side of quirky food habits—vibe. Adam is just—tall, he's just tall guys. He's just huge and big and enormous and oh my god did you know he's tall. (I was keeping a tallness tally but then I forgot that I was keeping a tally so the number I ended with was 33.)
Malcolm and Anh (really? Ahn?) entire existences are that only friend who's really horny all the time and will bone anything, and mom-friend but also let me publicly humiliate you as humanely possible and being a woman in STEM.
Now, it's not the worst thing that I've ever read. The writing isn't downright awful and has potential, but it needs some actual character development and plot driven points. There was just a lot of fanfiction and tumblr culture that was very cringey.
I struggled with what rating I wanted to give this. Good Reads <i>really</i> needs to give us those half star ratings because I'm just at a complete lost. Two stars seems too low but three stars seems too high. So here I am giving this a 2.5 rating.
Here's the greatest thing about fanfiction:
In a fanfic, you already know the characters. You know their personality traits, their interests and hobbies. You go in fully aware of who these characters are without needing to know their entire life story. Because, you do, in fact, know their entire life story.
I've been in the <i>Star Wars</i> fandom off and on throughout the years. And I went into this book fully aware that it had once been a Reylo fanfiction. Was I a big shipper? No, not at all. Quite the opposite actually, but I didn't let that stop me from delving into this.
I felt, that as an avid fanfic writer and supporter, it was my soul purpose to at least give it a shot. All of us fanfiction writers dream of having our works published into actual books. And I thought, <i>damn, this must've been a really good fanfic</i>.
And I'm sure it was.
A good <b>fanfic</b>.
As a book, though. . . not so much.
The thing with these characters (remember what I mentioned about knowing a character in a fanfiction?), is that I did not know them at all. I don't know if it's because I know the <i>Star Wars</i> characters so I'm imagining their personalities over the book adaptations or what, but I just did not know these people. They had no personality and were so bland.
Olive just gave me that "I'm not like other girls"—with a side of quirky food habits—vibe. Adam is just—tall, he's just tall guys. He's just huge and big and enormous and oh my god did you know he's tall. (I was keeping a tallness tally but then I forgot that I was keeping a tally so the number I ended with was 33.)
Malcolm and Anh (really? Ahn?) entire existences are that only friend who's really horny all the time and will bone anything, and mom-friend but also let me publicly humiliate you as humanely possible and being a woman in STEM.
Now, it's not the worst thing that I've ever read. The writing isn't downright awful and has potential, but it needs some actual character development and plot driven points. There was just a lot of fanfiction and tumblr culture that was very cringey.
2.5
I've never been big into mystery thrillers but I've always wanted to give them a try so I added a bunch to my list to read. This was one that I've seen many people go on and on about so I thought I'd give it a shot.
And it wasn't bad. It was just meh.
The story revolves around three women: Rachel, Anna, and Megan. And they are all just downright awful. They've each got their tragic backstories (except for Anna, she's just a homewrecker) and it's so hard to sympathize with any of them.
We jump back in time and to present dates to learn to that Rachel's husband left her for Anna and the two of them are now living in Rachel's old home with their baby. Rachel has resorted to alcoholism over the past few years and because of it, she has lost her job. But she doesn't tell her roommate for whatever reason and still takes the train into the town of her old workplace. On the train, Rachel passes by her old house and frequently daydreams about the neighboring couple "Jess" and "Jason". To her, they have the perfect life until she sees "Jess" with a man that isn't "Jason".
Rachel is a very unreliable narrator as she blacks out because of her drinking, so she doesn't know or remember everything. Here we have Anna and Megan's voices come in to try to piece the story together.
The story has a twist, which I didn't feel was necessary. There was no lead up point or even mention of "it" being a thing. It was just thrown in there at the end and honestly just felt like shock value for the sake of being shock value.
I've never been big into mystery thrillers but I've always wanted to give them a try so I added a bunch to my list to read. This was one that I've seen many people go on and on about so I thought I'd give it a shot.
And it wasn't bad. It was just meh.
The story revolves around three women: Rachel, Anna, and Megan. And they are all just downright awful. They've each got their tragic backstories (except for Anna, she's just a homewrecker) and it's so hard to sympathize with any of them.
We jump back in time and to present dates to learn to that Rachel's husband left her for Anna and the two of them are now living in Rachel's old home with their baby. Rachel has resorted to alcoholism over the past few years and because of it, she has lost her job. But she doesn't tell her roommate for whatever reason and still takes the train into the town of her old workplace. On the train, Rachel passes by her old house and frequently daydreams about the neighboring couple "Jess" and "Jason". To her, they have the perfect life until she sees "Jess" with a man that isn't "Jason".
Rachel is a very unreliable narrator as she blacks out because of her drinking, so she doesn't know or remember everything. Here we have Anna and Megan's voices come in to try to piece the story together.
The story has a twist, which I didn't feel was necessary. There was no lead up point or even mention of "it" being a thing. It was just thrown in there at the end and honestly just felt like shock value for the sake of being shock value.
I'm going to feel bad for giving this anything below 3 stars because it wasn't a bad book. Even the writing style was unique. In my opinion, it would have been better without the twist. But it was very hard to determine the past and present. I think I'm going to settle for a hard 2.5 rating.
These kids suffer through the recklessness of their family. Their mothers fight over who gets grandma's pearls, over who gets what house (because their family is filthy rich), and depending on the grandfather's trust fund. The mothers use their kids to get in favor of the grandfather, so that he'll reward whoever loves (sucks up to) him more.
Grandfather is no better, though. He'll tell either his children or grandchildren one thing, and then tell another member of the family another. He's mean and heartless and it becomes very clear when the grandma passes away.
Cady is the oldest of the grandchildren, so it is implied that she is to inherit everything once her grandfather passes. Though she's not sure that she wants it. She falls for Gat (I don't want to talk about Gat) and sees the world differently.
Moral of the story, rick people suck.
These kids suffer through the recklessness of their family. Their mothers fight over who gets grandma's pearls, over who gets what house (because their family is filthy rich), and depending on the grandfather's trust fund. The mothers use their kids to get in favor of the grandfather, so that he'll reward whoever loves (sucks up to) him more.
Grandfather is no better, though. He'll tell either his children or grandchildren one thing, and then tell another member of the family another. He's mean and heartless and it becomes very clear when the grandma passes away.
Cady is the oldest of the grandchildren, so it is implied that she is to inherit everything once her grandfather passes. Though she's not sure that she wants it. She falls for Gat (I don't want to talk about Gat) and sees the world differently.
Moral of the story, rick people suck.
informative
inspiring
fast-paced