unawake0442's reviews
131 reviews

Cold to the Touch: A Novel by Kerri Hakoda

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens

funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Romance? Horror? Two of my favorite genres in one? Yes, please!

So it should be little surprise that I enjoyed If I Stopped Haunting You. But still, I’ve read books that, on paper, should have been perfect picks for me that missed the mark regardless. I think Colby Wilkens did an excellent job at balancing the horror and romance elements. It really goes back and forth between the two focuses pretty evenly. Every time it switched and I thought to myself how I wanted more of whichever aspect, it would return within a few chapters.

I did, however, feel If I Stopped Haunting You failed to stick the landing. No spoilers, of course, but I just felt a little letdown.

Still had a great time reading this one though! Its October release date is perfect, naturally. Solid debut for Wilkens overall.

Thanks to #NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my unbiased opinions!

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

No one is doing it like Casey McQuiston. The beauty they write into queer love stories is unmatched. They write about face riding like it’s a Renaissance painting. They make the Q train of all things seem magical.

I was enraptured reading, and seeing August grow and find a new family. Jane is a character study in how to make a compelling love interest. Both of them are imperfect and messy but lovable and caring, both as their own people and as a couple. I already knew McQuiston is a master of writing characters who feel believable and who reads want to read for, but I never get tired of it.

Without giving anything away, Jane’s story made me think of the survivor’s guilt of those in the LGBTQIA community who survived the AIDS crisis. We see Jane emerge from the 1970s, finding herself in the present day, which isn’t perfect but is far more accepting. It’s a weird sci-fi quirk that Jane has ended up here, regardless of how long, able to see into the future she’s directly fought for when so many others didn’t make it.

Now I just need to get my own copy for my collection.

Happy Place by Emily Henry

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

I wonder if the Second Chance trope just isn’t for me. In reality, Emily Henry was doing everything I could have needed or wanted from her. The story was great, the writing impeccable, and the characters delightful as always. But I think I just couldn’t connect fully with the idea of a couple who broke up, unfortunately.

It’s not even that I think couples can’t get back together in real life, but in exploring the dynamic in the book (don’t worry no spoilers), we see the cracks in the relationship, and that’s hard to swallow in a romance.

My favorite parts of Happy Place really came from the focus on friendship. Henry does a fantastic job of exploring a re-coming-of-age dynamic. How can these friends who came of age together in college figure out how to still be close as they change and grow and get pulled in different directions? Happy Place certainly isn’t the first book to explore the idea, and it won’t be the last by a long shot. But it’s so often universal, which is why we see it time and again. And Henry’s addition to these bodies of works shines so much when it allows this aspect to take focus. Ultimately, Happy Place made me desperately want an adult contemporary fiction book from Henry outside of the pure romance genre. I say that as a testament to Henry’s writing rather than a critique of her romances, which I will always love.

Happy Place still gets an easy 4 stars from me. I still greatly enjoyed it, but it didn’t hold the same place in my heart that People We Meet on Vacation and Book Lovers did. Now, I’m just excited to dive into Funny Story and Beach Read. I’ve been saving the latter because so many love it and I love having this to look forward to.

So despite my realization that a Second Chance romance might not be totally for me, Emily Henry still has my literary heart.

The Backup Princess by Kate O'Keeffe

funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my unbiased opinions!

The Backup Princess is a super cute and light romance that does what it needs to do. Very Princess Diaries. Yes, the romance moves unbelievably fast and it’s incredibly unrealistic. It errs on the side of cliché. I did not care one bit though. Maddie and Alex are both fun, and I enjoyed the dual perspectives. I also really loved that, aside from the early moments, Maddie is seen as very capable and not bumbling through things.

Kate O’Keeffe is a seasoned writer, and it absolutely shows. The writing and plot were tight and focused. I also felt she did very well balancing multiple side characters who felt fleshed out without overstaying their welcome. It seems O’Keeffe is going the Bridgerton route with a series that explores different characters with each book, so I’m excited to read more. Alex’s sister Amelia was an absolute standout.

#TheBackupPrincess #NetGalley

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent

Maya's Laws of Love by Alina Khawaja

lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

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

2.0

A big thanks to Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my unbiased opinions.

I absolutely love seeing a love story told with Pakistani Muslim culture at the forefront. And I really liked that we saw how central it was to Maya as a person and to her story.

That said, I wanted to love this book so much, but it really didn’t work for me. The writing didn’t feel polished enough, and it could have used more editing. While I loved the desi rep, it sometimes felt like the book was preoccupied with over-explaining details. At first, I thought maybe this was to make sure details are clear for anyone unfamiliar, but it does that for everything like walking the reader through what Maya has to pack and her getting dressed. There were so many times I wondered why something was left in when it didn’t add anything to the scene or the story. I finally lost it when the book explained what a rest stop was.

Beyond that, I hated the main character. I never found her charming, she just seemed so annoying to me. I don’t know why she keeps talking to strangers who are just going about their day because she’s bored and lonely. She also seems so rude ignoring her family and fiancé, crossing people’s boundaries, and taking up Sarfaraz’s armrest when he’s in the middle seat and is entitled to it! I know these are small pet peeves I would likely overlook if I could actually connect with her, but she just got under my skin the whole time. She felt very immature and not in her late 20s to the point it was concerning.

The story itself was fine. I liked the mini journey Maya and Sarfaraz take, but the whole thing spirals out of proportion. I don’t think either main character seems sympathetic in how the love story unfolds, too. But I might have gotten past some of that if the writing wasn’t so bad. It needed about 100 pages chopped and I think that would have worked better.

I would love to see what’s next for Alina Khawaja and how her writing grows from here. Even though Maya’s Laws of Love didn’t work for me, this is only her debut so I’m excited to see more from her.

#MayasLawsOfLove #NetGalley

Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti

emotional funny lighthearted reflective slow-paced

4.5

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my unbiased opinions.

There’s something so magical about Alphabetical Diaries. The way Sheila Heti reorganizes 10 years' worth of diary entries creates a sort of found poetry. It’s fascinating hearing the contradictions, changes, and growth laid flat. This is most evident in entries that give us multiple sentences in a row starting with the same person. It’s so funny hearing how intelligent and insightful is only to later hear Heti discover their flaws.

Another favorite part was in the “I just want…” section because of course it’s never all we want. But in the moment it feels so true.

It feels like there’s a wink and a nod in the way which sentence follows which. Of course, it’s a coincidence that the letters lined up just so. But that’s where the magic of Alphabetical Diaries lies. I love that we don’t get the full picture of how everything fits together, but we still get a feel for Heti’s life over several years.

Kate Berlant does a magnificent job narrating as well. It made the prose come alive and helped ground the emotional changes sentence by sentence.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

4.25

What an absolute treasure of a book. I reveled in the slowness, in the way we’re taken through the plot like we’re floating along a lazy river. Takako and Satoru grow, both as individuals and in their relationship with each other, but in a way that feels slow and true to life.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop feels like reading a café with the rain falling outside. It feels like lazy Sunday mornings with chocolate chip pancakes.

The only reason this wasn’t a full 5 stars for me was because the writing felt a bit awkward at times, which I think is due to it being a translated work. That’s also not to disparage the work of translator Eric Ozawa at all. But it does feel like something got lost a bit along the way, which is the nature of translated work. I still absolutely loved every minute reading this.

Say You'll Be Mine by Naina Kumar

funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Read this for book club and it’s one of my favorite picks we’ve read so far. I really enjoyed reading about Meghna and Karthik as leads, and they felt (mostly) real.

The writing was good, especially considering this was a debut. But I felt the plot went a bit back and forth more than I would like. Without giving anything away, Say You’ll Be Mine retreads over the same ground multiple times and it didn’t usually work. It wasn’t terrible, but it’s a big part of why I rated this a 4-star instead of 5.

I absolutely loved reading about the arranged marriage process. It’s not something I’m familiar with, so it was great to read about it in a way that felt nuanced and non-judgmental. This is why we need more diversity in writing.

Also, Karthik made me try lavender lattes finally and they are so yummy.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Red, White & Royal Blue offers what not enough contemporary romance novels do, a real romance. As much as I love the contemporary romance renaissance, it feels like so many don’t get to the heart of the love and ache and desire that makes so many of us love the genre. Instead, we find ourselves recycling tropes and rating levels of spiciness. And all of that is still a ton of fun! I love this genre of books I feel I only recently fell head-first into. But Red, White & Royal Blue gave me passion. It gave me love letters. It gave me real love. Something that felt beyond infatuation, beyond wanting to rip someone’s clothes off (though it gave me that too). There is a true desire between Alex and Henry for their hearts and minds, for who they are as people. It gave me love.

I am also amazed this is Casey McQuiston’s first novel. The writing and characterization are so top-tier, and it doesn’t fall into many of the debut traps. The plot is so well-laid. It’s not perfect, but it’s extremely solid nonetheless.

And the way their story is unapologetically gay is so beautiful. Their respective journeys feel so real, and I recognize my own in them. McQuiston’s writing is always a breath of fresh air. But I’ll never stop being in awe of the way they write conflict and the specific hardships that come with being gay without even making things tragic or falling into trauma porn.

Instant classic. Immediately moving to the favorites shelf. 10/10