Category: romance

Categories
Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

Sunkissed – Book Review

Summary

Title: Sunkissed

Author: Kasie West

Pages: 320

Genre: Contemporary, YA

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Pub Date: May 4, 2021

After being betrayed by her best friend, Avery is hoping for a picture-perfect summer. Too bad her parents have dragged her and her sister to a remote family camp for the entire summer. And that’s not even the worst part. Avery also has to deal with no internet, a cute but off-limits staff member, and an always-in-her-face sister.

But what starts as a disaster turns into a whirlwind summer romance as Avery embarks on an unexpected journey to figure out what she truly wants and who she wants to be.

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Review

Summer camp: the perfect way to spend a summer break. Except when summer camp involves your annoying little sister who refuses to put down her phone for one second, and your parents lurking around every corner. But when Avery sets off on her summer adventure, these aren’t the things that are bothering her most; her best friend kissed her boyfriend just before school was out.

Avery is understandably upset. And just as she’s about to respond to her friend’s endless apology texts, she loses cell service. It turns out the camp she and her family will be spending their summer at has ZERO cell service. If only she had read the information her mom sent beforehand… Perhaps a summer with no connection to the drama of her life is just what Avery needs.

Things get off to a rocky start as soon as Avery gets to camp, and some unfortunate circumstances lead to her meeting a very cute boy, who happens to think she will be working at the camp for the summer.

Throughout the summer Avery learns about what she truly wants for her future after high school. She also comes to realize that her sister isn’t the vapid, phone obsessed teen she always perceived her to be. She makes great friends along the way to self discovery, and finds her voice to stand up for herself.

Kasie West rarely disappoints, and Sunkissed is a perfect novel to escape from the crazy world we’ve been living in. I flew through this book, and can’t wait to revisit it in the future. I give Sunkissed 5/5 stars.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.*

Categories
Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

Maybe This Time – Book Review

Summary

Title: Maybe This Time

Author: Kasie West

Pages: 368

Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult

Publisher: Point

Pub. Date: July 9, 2019

One year. Nine events. Nine chances to . . . fall in love?

Weddings. Funerals. Barbecues. New Year’s Eve parties. Name the occasion, and Sophie Evans will be there. Well, she has to be there. Sophie works for the local florist, so she can be found at every big event in her small hometown, arranging bouquets and managing family dramas.

Enter Andrew Hart. The son of the fancy new chef in town, Andrew is suddenly required to attend all the same events as Sophie. Entitled, arrogant, preppy Andrew. Sophie just wants to get her job done and finish up her sketches so she can apply to design school. But every time she turns around, there is Andrew, getting in her way and making her life more complicated. Until one day she wonders if maybe complicated isn’t so bad after all . . .

Told over the course of one year and following Sophie from event to event, this delightful novel from master of romantic comedy Kasie West shows how love can blossom in unexpected places.

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Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

Hot Dog Girl – Book Review

Summary

Title: Hot Dog Girl

Author: Jennifer Dugan

Pages: 320

Genre: YA, Contemporary, LGBT

Publisher: Putnam

Pub Date: April 30, 2019

Elouise (Lou) Parker is determined to have the absolute best, most impossibly epic summer of her life. There are just a few things standing in her way:

* She’s landed a job at Magic Castle Playland . . . as a giant dancing hot dog.
* Her crush, the dreamy Diving Pirate Nick, already has a girlfriend, who is literally the Princess of the park. But Lou’s never liked anyone, guy or otherwise, this much before, and now she wants a chance at her own happily ever after.
* Her best friend, Seeley, the carousel operator, who’s always been up for anything, suddenly isn’t when it comes to Lou’s quest to set her up with the perfect girl or Lou’s scheme to get close to Nick.
* And it turns out that this will be their last summer at Magic Castle Playland—ever—unless she can find a way to stop it from closing.

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Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

The Me I Meant to Be – Book Review

Summary

Book Cover - The Me I Meant to Be

Title: The Me I Meant to Be

Author: Sophie Jordan

Pages: 304

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance

Publisher: HMH Teen

Pub Date: January 1, 2019

Girl Code: Never date a friend’s ex.

Willa Evans has no intention of breaking the code. So what if she’s always secretly loved her next-door neighbor Zach? As her best friend’s boyfriend, he was always off-limits and it needs to stay that way, even though they just broke up. Even though every time she turns around he’s there, tempting her…

No keeping secrets from your bestie.

Flor Hidalgo has a lot on her plate: her breakup with Zach, her dad’s new dating life, and her struggling grades. So why can’t she stop thinking about her hot, know-it-all tutor? At least she’s got Willa, her constant in the chaos.

Breaking the code breaks friendships.

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Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig – Blog Tour and Book Review

Title: The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig

Author: Don Zolidis

Pages: 352

Genre: YA, Romance, Contemporary

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Pub Date: October 2, 2018

Summary

1994 – Janesville, Wisconsin (cold in the sense that there is no God)

The worst thing that’s ever happened to Craig is also the best: Amy. Amy and Craig never should’ve gotten together. Craig is an awkward, Dungeons & Dragons-playing geek, and Amy is the beautiful, fiercely intelligent student-body president of their high school.


Yet somehow they did. Until Amy dumped him. Then got back together with him. Then dumped him again. Then got back together with him again. Over and over and over.


Unfolding during their senior year, Amy and Craig’s exhilarating, tumultuous relationship is a kaleidoscope of joy, pain, and laughter as an uncertain future-and adult responsibility-loom on the horizon.


Craig fights for his dream of escaping Janesville and finding his place at a quirky college, while Amy’s quest to uncover her true self sometimes involves being Craig’s girlfriend, and sometimes doesn’t.

Seven heartbreaks. Seven joys.Told nonsequentially, acclaimed playwright Don Zolidis’s debut novel is a brutally funny, bittersweet taste of the utterly unique and utterly universal experience of first love.

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Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

From Twinkle, with Love – Book Review

Title: From Twinkle, with Love

Author: Sandhya Menon

Pages: 328

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Published: May 22, 2018

Summary:

Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories she wants to tell and universes she wants to explore, if only the world would listen. So when fellow film geek Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a movie for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle is all over it. The chance to publicly showcase her voice as a director? Dream come true. The fact that it gets her closer to her longtime crush, Neil Roy—a.k.a. Sahil’s twin brother? Dream come true x 2.

When mystery man “N” begins emailing her, Twinkle is sure it’s Neil, finally ready to begin their happily-ever-after. The only slightly inconvenient problem is that, in the course of movie-making, she’s fallen madly in love with the irresistibly adorkable Sahil.

Twinkle soon realizes that resistance is futile: The romance she’s got is not the one she’s scripted. But will it be enough?

Told through the letters Twinkle writes to her favorite female filmmakers, From Twinkle, with Love navigates big truths about friendship, family, and the unexpected places love can find you.

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Categories
Book Reviews contemporary new adult romance

The Wedding Obsession – Book Review

Title: The Wedding Obsession

Author: Madeline Ash

Pages: 199

Genre: New Adult, Romance

Publisher: Tule Publishing

Published: August 27, 2018

 

Summary:

Emmie Morgan woke up from heart transplant surgery, saw her best friend Brandon Tan sitting by her bedside, and promptly asked him to marry her. If there was a faster way to ruin a friendship, she didn’t know it.

One year on, Bran has returned home to open a restaurant and Emmie adds trying to make amends to her already chaotic life. She’s also running her own music venue, battling survivor’s guilt—oh, and secretly tending a wedding obsession sprung from her near-death experience.

Bran needs answers. But all Emmie has are problems. Hating that he couldn’t help her last time, he resolves to ease the trouble in her eyes. He sets aside their attraction and awkward past and tries to focus on being friends again.

If she would just stop trying on wedding dresses…

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Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

What If It’s Us – Book Review

Title: What If It’s Us

Author: Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera

Pages: 448

Genre: YA, Contemporary, LGBT

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publishing: October 9th, 2018

Summary:

Arthur is only in New York for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it’s that the universe can deliver a showstopping romance when you least expect it.

Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things.

But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them?

Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated.

Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited.

But what if they can’t quite nail a first date… or a second first date… or a third?

What if Arthur tries too hard to make it work . . . and Ben doesn’t try hard enough?

What if life really isn’t like a Broadway play?

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Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

The Impossibility of Us – Book Review

Title: The Impossibility of Us

Author: Katy Upperman

Pages: 320

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance

Publisher: Swoon Reads

Published: July 31, 2018

Summary:

The last thing Elise wants is to start her senior year in a new town. But after her brother’s death in Afghanistan, she and her mother move from San Francisco to a sleepy coastal village.

When Elise meets Mati, they quickly discover how much they have in common. Mati is new to town too, visiting the U.S. with his family. Over the course of the summer, their relationship begins to blossom, and what starts out as a friendship becomes so much more.

But as Elise and Mati grow closer, her family becomes more and more uncomfortable with their relationship, and their concerns all center on one fact—Mati is Afghan.

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Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

Love & Luck – Book Review

Title: Love & Luck

Author: Jenna Evans Welch

Pages: 320

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Published: May 8th, 2018

Summary:

Addie is visiting Ireland for her aunt’s over-the-top destination wedding, and hoping she can stop thinking about the one horrible thing she did that left her miserable and heartbroken—and threatens her future. But her brother, Ian, isn’t about to let her forget, and his constant needling leads to arguments and even a fistfight between the two once inseparable siblings. Miserable, Addie can’t wait to visit her friend in Italy and leave her brother—and her problems—behind.

So when Addie discovers an unusual guidebook, Ireland for the Heartbroken, hidden in the dusty shelves of the hotel library, she’s able to finally escape her anxious mind and Ian’s criticism.

And then their travel plans change. Suddenly Addie finds herself on a whirlwind tour of the Emerald Isle, trapped in the world’s smallest vehicle with Ian and his admittedly cute, Irish-accented friend Rowan. As the trio journeys over breathtaking green hills, past countless castles, and through a number of fairy-tale forests, Addie hopes her guidebook will heal not only her broken heart, but also her shattered relationship with her brother.

That is if they don’t get completely lost along the way.

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Review:

Give me all of the YA travel/contemporary romances, because I am obsessed with them. There’s something about reading a book that features travel that I just love to read in the summer. I love a good summer vacation as much as the next person, when I get the chance to take one, I jump on it. And for the times that I can’t, I read as many books with a travel story as I can.

I thought the idea of Addie following this guidebook for getting over heartbreak while in Ireland was absolutely hilarious. The fact that such a guidebook would exist was oddly specific and I found the whole concept to be ridiculously funny. I think that some of the advice in the guidebook actually wasn’t half bad, either.

This book focuses on a real issue that a lot of girls, and sometimes guys, face all too often. She trusts someone with something incredibly personal and private, and that trust is betrayed, and shared with everyone. It’s such a terrible thing to have happen, and Love & Luck shows how difficult it can be to deal with, and not just from Addie’s perspective.

While I was really hoping to love this book just as much as Love & Gelato, it didn’t quite live up to all of my expectations for it. That’s not to say that I didn’t still love this book, but I had really high hopes for it that just weren’t quite met. That being said, I still gave Love & Luck 5/5 stars because I really enjoyed the story and the setting, though it did feel a bit ultra-touristy at times.

*I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.*

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