CBR15 Book 68: "Shucked" by Kate Canterbary

Page count: 462 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Sunny DuJardin is just about to open a vegan cafe in her hometown of Friendship, Rhode Island, but keeps butting heads with the man who tormented her in much of her adolescence and early teenage years. Beckett Loew has had to take a leave of absence from his high-powered business job in Singapore to return to Friendship to try to figure out the total mess his flakey parents have made with the family's oyster restaurant. His father and many of the senior management of the restaurant are in jail for fraud and money laundering, his mother is on the run somewhere in South America, his teenage brother needs a legal guardian, and his pro-baseball player brother isn't returning his calls. Because of his runaway mother, he has an FBI agent following him around constantly, and the discovery that his best friend's little sister Sunny is all grown up and extremely hot is a very unwelcome distraction. 

While Sunny wants to nurse her giant iceberg of animosity towards Beckett, her business partners, his employees, and most others in Friendship have no problems with Beckett. It doesn't hurt that every time something goes wrong, Beckett has bucketloads of money to throw at any problem, making it go away almost instantly. Because of his clueless and deeply irresponsible parents, Beckett has had to be the responsible one in the family since he was a teenager. He doesn't really function unless he is shouldering every burden and taking care of everyone around him. Once Beck and his brother grew up and got as far away from Friendship as they could, his younger brother still had to deal with their super ditzy parents, and he doesn't really appreciate Beckett coming back and suddenly wanting to take a parental role in his life.

Sunny, on the other hand, because of her severe epilepsy, has had to fight to prove to her family that she can manage fine on her own, and stand on her own two feet. She hates people being overprotective, and Beckett's refusal to acknowledge that she is now a responsible adult and small business owner who can take care of herself infuriates her. When they were teens, Beckett and Sunny's brother made her life a living hell, and now he's back in town and rich and successful and gorgeous and while she wants to hat him, she also wants to climb him like a tree and do very bad things with him. Except he's not going to get involved with his best friend's little sister. That way true madness lies.

This book is told in alternating chapters from Sunny and Beckett's POVs. The enemies-to-lovers aspect isn't quite as strong as in the excellent The Worst Guy, the first Canterbary novel I read. There's some great feuding early on, however, and so much great banter, not just between our two protagonists, but also from pretty much the entire supporting cast. While the main romance here is between a heteronormative straight couple, there's a very diverse cast of supporting characters. Beckett's little brother is bi, one of Sunny's business partners has two husbands, and another of her business partners keeps hooking up with one of Beckett's female employees, while Sunny's fourth business partner is asexual. 

This book is a lot of fun and the book is a good start to a new series. The only thing I thought was entirely unnecessary, was the subplot that ends up with Sunny in peril more than once. It felt tacked on, and I didn't think it added anything to the story. The epilogue also felt quite long but makes it clear that the next book is likely to be a second chance romance between the middle Loew brother and his estranged wife. For anyone who wants more sweetness between Sunny and Beckett, Canterbary has an extended epilogue on her website, where you can follow the couple through a whole year of festivals (the town of Friendship has a LOT of festivals). 

Judging a book by its cover: I like the red background, I like the playful positioning of what I'm assuming is supposed to be Sunny. I like that the little dude who's clearly supposed to be Beckett is shucking an oyster, but I refuse to believe he actually did that while wearing an expensive suit. Not a big fan of the faint oysters in the background, though. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 38: "Love, Theoretically" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Getaway (I don't see a good way to fill the South America square)

For this review, I resurrected Mrs. Julien's romance review template from way back in 2013. I've tweaked it, but the major framework is still there. 

Love, Theoretically is a romance of the enemies to lovers AND I’m scared and unworthy of love: Hero meets heroine. He is the disapproving older brother of the man who is paying her to be his fake girlfriend. He thinks she’s a librarian, and later, when she shows up at MIT for a job interview, he believes she’s been scamming his younger brother in some way. She hates him because as a teenager he wrote an article that not only discredited her mentor but made the branch of theoretical physics (which she works in) seem less viable than experimental physics (which he works in). He is one of the professors on the panel who decides who gets the job and tells her from the outset that she’s clearly not going to get the job, no matter what. That doesn't exactly endear him further to her. Despite having gone through most of her life trying to tailor herself to be the perfect person to whomever she interacts with, she’s incapable of being anything but her rather sarcastic self with him. Once he realises that she is, in fact, not his brother’s girlfriend or some sort of grifter, he is delighted with her true self and spends most of his time trying to make her realise that her actual self is worthy and deserving of love. Hero and heroine eventually move forward together secure in their love and commitment. 

A contemporary romance focused on scientists, in this case, physicists, and written by Ali Hazelwood, Love, Theoretically is my third book by this author. I’ve liked her previous books, although she does seem to have certain hangups, and her second novel wasn’t as different from her first as I and a lot of other readers would have liked. Hazelwood is, most famously, the author of The Love Hypothesis, which started out as Reylo fan fic and has for years been beloved by BookTokers. I found Love, Theoretically very enjoyable, laugh-out-loud funny, and probably my favourite one of her books so far. I very much recommend it, even if you might have found one (or both) of her previous novels a bit annoying. 

This book is a slow-burn romance and features some of the same tropes as Hazelwood’s previous two novels, but the complications keeping the couple apart are resolved much earlier in the plot, which the story benefits greatly from. Once our couple actually does the deed, so to speak, the sex scenes are very steamy and a lot less cringe-worthy than in many other romances. I only have Hazelwood's STEMinist novellas still on my TBR List and look forward to reading them while waiting for Hazelwood’s next foray into romance.  

The main plot of Love, Theoretically focuses on the mistaken assumptions of both our hero and heroine and then the journey of acceptance that the heroine needs to go through to accept that her pathological people-pleasing to the point where she doesn’t really know who she really is or think what she actually wants is unnecessary. Jonathan “Jack” Smith-Turner is a respected (if not always well-liked) physics professor. Having discovered in his early adolescence that his stepmother is not, in fact, his real mother and that his real mother died when he was just a young child, he hates untruths and dissembling. At seventeen, he wrote an article aimed to uncover the lax editorial practices of a renowned science publication, which caused a significant stir in the physics community, and no one has allowed him to forget about it since. He pretty much only cares for his younger brother and his acerbic grandmother. Until he meets Elsie Hannaway. Jack is a protector, and once the truth comes out about his younger brother’s true relationship with her, Jack wants nothing more than to take care of Elsie, in every conceivable way. 

Elsie is an adjunct professor working three different teaching jobs to make ends meet and is desperately hoping for a tenure-track position. As an additional source of income, Elsie works for Faux, a company that allows people to hire fake dates/partners. Elsie uses her powers of observation and strong social antennae to read anyone she meets and does her best to turn her into the ideal persona for that person for as long as they interact. She’s not even entirely truthful to her best friend and roommate of seven years.  Her ability to be a social chameleon is why she’s so good at being a fake girlfriend. The employees of Faux aren’t really supposed to go on multiple dates, but Greg Smith is just so helpless and non-threatening that she keeps helping him, meaning she’s now been to several big family events with him and keeps running into his older brother Jack, who she is convinced hates her. Jack and Elsie start out as antagonists, at least in Elsie’s eyes, yet as is always the case in Hazelwood’s novels, the hero doesn’t hate the heroine at all – rather the opposite. Thankfully, once they traverse the challenges they face, they make an excellent team.

While Hazelwood seems to have a thing for large, brooding men who are nevertheless secretly tender and protective, paired with much smaller women, who probably have some sort of health issue (Elsie has type I diabetes, which makes her nearly faint in Jack’s presence more than once, Bee in Love on the Brain had that fainting thing). If she wants to explore a bold new direction in her next book, perhaps make the hero short and a bit timid? Maybe make the heroine taller than him? Just throwing it out there, Ms. Hazelwood.

Both Elsie and Jack have some wonderful and supportive friends, and Jack’s elderly and frightfully wealthy grandmother (who threatens to disown her offspring or grandchildren whenever the mood strikes her) is delightful and steals every scene she’s in. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything when I reveal that Elsie’s aging mentor is not as good for her career as she thinks he is, and Jack maybe wasn’t the cold-hearted villain he first appears for trying to discredit the man. This is one of my favourite contemporary romances so far this year, well worth your time. 

Judging a book by its cover: Just as I'm pretty sure this is my favourite Hazelwood so far, this is absolutely the cover I like the best. Hazelwood's cover artist, @lilithsaur (on Twitter and Instagram) just seems to capture the essence of her books so well. I've loved this cover since I first saw it, and my heart leapt with joy when I saw it for real in the bookstore.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 24: "Broken (in the best possible way)" by Jenny Lawson

Page count: 288 pages

Audio book length: 8 hrs 18 mins

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Rep (features honest and sometimes graphic descriptions of life with a variety of mental and chronic illnesses)

 

It's no secret that Jenny Lawson, known online and to her followers as The Bloggess, suffers from a large number of ailments, both physical and mental. She has dealt with various kinds of chronic illness throughout her life and manages to be mostly very light-hearted and humourous about it. 

I chose to get this book in audio, because Jenny Lawson narrates her own books, and hearing her voice talk about all these frequently absurd, yet also occasionally absolutely heart-breaking things makes me feel closer to her. Due to the pandemic, this book was recorded in a closet in her house that she turned into a recording booth, which led to its own challenges, mainly that her cats didn't necessarily want to give her privacy while recording. At least a few places, the mews have been left in the finished book.

In contrast to her previous two books, I found this one a bit slow to get into. She also covers some really rather serious topics, and lets her readers in on some of the 'secrets' of a long-lasting and successful marriage, when one of the partners has as many health considerations as Ms. Lawson does. She is very honest about the tolls her depression takes on herself and those close to her, and one of the most affecting parts of the book is her open letter to her insurance company, literally begging them to fund essential life-improving treatments for her. As Ms. Lawson points out, in many cases, she's privileged enough to be able to afford some of them, but the vast majority of Americans cannot, and in a lot of cases, this can literally lead to deaths. 

As I'm currently struggling with anxiety and depression as well, reading about Ms. Lawson's stuggles certainly puts things into perspective. My depression is (hopefully) a passing thing, which will get better with medication and therapy. I'm never going to have to resort to ketamine injections or transcranial magnetic stimulation to live a halfway normal life. Jenny Lawson has shared a lot of her life with readers already, not only on her blog, but in two previous memoirs, Let's Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy. Both are highly recommended. However, if you read either or both of these before, and they didn't appeal to you, this book won't either. 

Judging a book by its cover: With her third book, Jenny Lawson wanted to do something different with the cover, and the very talented Omar Rayyan turned a photo where she's holding one of her many cats into this brilliant depiction of her and the monster that I think is supposed to symbolise her depression and/or chronic illness. Or possibly just the weirdness that is her life. Either way, I love it. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR12 Book 18: "Get a Life, Chloe Brown" by Talia Hibbert

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?

• Enjoy a drunken night out.
• Ride a motorcycle.
• Go camping.
• Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
• Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
• And... do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…

This is another one of those books that have come highly recommended on a number of blogs, as well as by a number of Cannonballers whose opinions I trust. It became available in an e-book sale at the start of March, and fit nicely with my #BlackHistoryMonth goal of reading more by and about black women (I'm fully aware of my privilege as a middle-class, middle-aged white woman and I know I still read far too many books both by and about mostly white characters with a very similar background to my own, but I am trying to expand my horizons, I really am), I dove right in.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown deserves all the positive reviews it's been getting. It's a lovely little romance, and it was even better for featuring a plus-size, chronically ill character, who at no point in the story is in any way suddenly magically healed by her romantic encounters, or made to feel like she's worth any less because she's ill. Since being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, she's lost a lot of her support network, including a boyfriend and most of her regular friends. She's been isolating herself for far too long, and after a near-death experience, she decides things need to change. She loves making lists (and they help her when her short term memory is muddled from the meds she frequently has to take) and she makes a special to-do-list. She moves into a new flat and immediately ends up in conflict with Redford, the handsome super of the building.

A few months later, she's had a few more mortifying encounters with Red (she's also spied on him painting at night), but not really made much progress with her "Get a Life" list. She offers to design a new website for Red in return for help with some of the items on the list. The two fairly quickly discover that the animosity that exists between them because of their first meetings are mainly down to misunderstandings, and it doesn't take long before they are fast friends, quickly moving towards something more.

Both Chloe and Red have supportive families, but emotional baggage from their pasts. While working together to cross off items on Chloe's list, it also becomes clear that Red needs to reevaluate his current choices and decide whether he wants to relaunch his painting career or do something else. It's very obvious that he's not content being a building superintendent. Of course, their pasts cause some friction along the way to the HEA but nothing that annoyed me too much, and there is suitable and appropriate groveling from the protagonist responsible.

This is the first in a series, with Chloe's younger sisters being the stars of the other books. While her sisters are nice supporting characters, one of them has an annoying quirk where she uses the wrong word and her sisters keep going "don't you mean ...?" A whole book with a heroine doing that is likely to drive me nuts. Nevertheless, based on this book, I will absolutely read more of Hibbert's books.

Judging a book by its cover: Whether I like it or not, the publishing world has clearly decided that cutesy cartoon covers are the standard for contemporary romance now, until the next trend comes along to replace it. This cover, though, I really like.  Chloe and Red look so cozy, and the reader can see that Chloe really is a big woman (which isn't really focused on in the story at all, another thing I really liked). The cat in the background is obviously also very appropriate.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 80: "The Memory Book" by Lara Avery

Page count: 368 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:
"They tell me that my memory will never be the same, that I'll start forgetting things. At first just a little, and then a lot. So I'm writing to remember."

Sammie McCoy is a girl with a plan: graduate at the top of her class and get out of her small town as soon as possible. Nothing will stand in her way--not even the rare genetic disorder the doctors say will slowly steal her memories and then her health.

So the memory book is born: a journal written to Sammie's future self, so she can remember everything from where she stashed her study guides to just how great it feels to have a best friend again. It's where she'll record every perfect detail of her first date with longtime-crush Stuart, a gifted young writer home for the summer. And where she'll admit how much she's missed her childhood friend Cooper, and the ridiculous lengths he will go to make her laugh. The memory book will ensure Sammie never forgets the most important parts of her life--the people who have broken her heart, those who have mended it--and most of all, that if she's going to die, she's going to die living.

I enjoyed this book while I read it. I thought it was engaging and well written, and Samantha "Sammie" McCoy is a very well-rounded protagonist. She's clever and ambitious and also very stubborn. She's certainly not perfect, and her decision to keep the truth about her illness from her probably only female friend and debate partner backfires rather spectacularly. It's understandable that Sammie is reluctant to admit weakness and that she tries to hide her growing deterioration from those who don't have to know, but if someone I considered a friend kept something that big from me, I would be hurt too.

I'm pretty sure I'm not spoiling anything for anyone who's read a single book before when I say that of the two guys mentioned in the book blurb, Stuart, the accomplished and sophisticated writer she has a crush on and initially dates, is not the one she ends up with. Anyone looking for an emotional teen romance should probably look elsewhere, though, as it's Sammie's illness and her learning to come to terms with it which is the main focus throughout the book.

As far as I can tell, the disease that Sammie is diagnosed with is absolutely real, and it sounds utterly terrifying to have to go through, both for Sammie herself and her family and friends. To not only have to face up to the fact that you have a disease that will kill you while you're still young, but have to live through losing control of your rational thought and bodily functions before this happens - a complete nightmare. As I mentioned above, Sammie is smart and driven, on track to winning a prestigious debate championship after years of preparation, she's likely to be her school's valedictorian and she has a scholarship to NYU. Her doctors and her parents keep telling her that she will need to adjust and that her plans as they are will not be achievable, but she stubbornly refuses to listen, trying her hardest to experience as much as possible in the time she has left.

Obviously, this book does NOT have a happy ending. You get really attached to Sammie and those around her throughout the book and I full on ugly cried towards the end. So you may want to take that into consideration if you were going to read the last third or so of the book anywhere public. I haven't read anything else by Lara Avery, but based on this, I would absolutely be interested in checking out more of her books.

Judging a book by its cover: This book cover screams "generic YA" to me, and it seems like the publishers haven't really tried to do anything to make the book distinctive in any way. There is nothing to attract the reader or give any hints of the content, and the lack of colour makes the whole book look very forgettable.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 41: "Serious Moonlight" by Jenn Bennett

Page count: 432 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

From Goodreads:
Mystery-book aficionado Birdie Lindberg has an overactive imagination. Raised in isolation and homeschooled by strict grandparents, she’s cultivated a whimsical fantasy life in which she plays the heroic detective and every stranger is a suspect. But her solitary world expands when she takes a job the summer before college, working the graveyard shift at a historic Seattle hotel.

In her new job, Birdie hopes to blossom from introverted dreamer to brave pioneer, and gregarious Daniel Aoki volunteers to be her guide. The hotel’s charismatic young van driver shares the same nocturnal shift and patronizes the waterfront Moonlight Diner where Birdie waits for the early morning ferry after work. Daniel also shares her appetite for intrigue, and he’s stumbled upon a real-life mystery: a famous reclusive writer—never before seen in public—might be secretly meeting someone at the hotel.

To uncover the writer’s puzzling identity, Birdie must come out of her shell…discovering that the most confounding mystery of all may be her growing feelings for the elusive riddle that is Daniel.

Birdie has grown up on a small island outside Seattle, raised by her grandparents after her mother died. Her mother's best friend, an eccentric artist, has also acted as a sort of unofficial co-parent. Birdie also suffers from narcolepsy, but after her grandmother's death, she's managed to convince her grandfather to let her have a part-time job, working the night shift at one of the hotels in the city.

Birdie is taken aback to discover that one of her new co-workers is Daniel, the handsome young man she met and had an impulsive one-night-stand with, assuming she'd never see him again. Instead, he seems very interested in becoming friends (and possibly more) and when he discovers that she's a mystery aficionado, he tempts her with a mystery in the very hotel they work. He's pretty sure he's discovered the real identity of an elusive crime writer, who seems to have secretive meetings regularly at the hotel. He enlists Birdie's help to try to figure out who the writer really is, and what the meetings at the hotel are all about.

Alex, Approximately, the first novel I'd read by this author, ended up on my best of 2017 list. While Serious Moonlight was sweet and I liked it well enough when I read it, it's once again proven that with a little time passing, I barely remember what the book was about and books that can't stay in my memory after two months, are probably not full four star books. I really do need to get better about taking notes while, or certainly straight after I finish a book, to help me review them when I inevitably fall behind, like I have ALL year. I'd like to be able to say that the second half of the year will be different and I will be better, but we all know that's a big fat lie.

This was a sweet book, and both Birdie and Daniel were likable protagonists. Birdie has suffered some pretty tragic losses in her life, and because she's been home schooled and kept very sheltered by her grandparents, she has some difficulty socialising with new people and she certainly seems terrified of actually making a real and lasting connection with anyone. While she's clearly eager to get out into the world to experience new things, she also seems terrified of real change.

This is a nice little YA romance, but unless 2019 turns out to be a pretty sad reading year, I doubt this book is going to end up on my "Best of the Year" list.

Judging a book by its cover: Jenn Bennett's publisher seems to be very good about finding cozy and inviting looking covers for her books. As several of the important scenes in this book take place in a diner, this seems like a very appropriate choice. The cover models they've chosen look pretty much like the protagonists of the novel, too, which is always nice.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 54: "Everything Everything" by Nicola Yoon

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Madeleine has never left her house or been outside. She's got a rare auto-immune disorder and lives in a house hermetically sealed, with special filters making sure nothing gets in that could hurt her. The only people she sees regularly are her mother, whose a doctor, and her nurse, Carla. On very special occasions, when he's been decontaminated thoroughly, she's allowed to meet one of her favourite tutors, but Madeline's life is lived mostly vicariously through books and the internet, dreaming of the outside world.

Everything changes when Oliver, or "Olly" and his family move in next door. Olly is tall and handsome and wears all black. He and his younger sister try to give Madeline and her mother a bundt cake as a welcoming gift, but aren't allowed inside. Olly's inventive and does his best to get Madeline's attention. Soon they are exchanging messages, and he takes to calling her Maddy, because everyone should have a nickname.

The teens communicate through their windows and on messages, frequently late at night, as Maddy is pretty sure her mother isn't going to be enthusiastic about her new friendship. She confides in Carla, however, and eventually, the nurse agrees to let Olly in to visit.

Maddy has lived seventeen years in isolation. She knows that leaving the house could be disastrous, but she also wants to feel like she has actually lived. She concocts a wild plan and persuades Olly to go along with it, telling him she's been taking a new kind of drug that will protect her from all her allergies of the outside world. So Maddy and Olly go off together to Hawaii, where Maddy will walk on a beach, bathe in the ocean and really experience life. She's willing to risk her life to really live, if only for a few days.

The movie adaptation for this is in cinemas now, and I haven't made up my mind about going to see it or not. As a YA romance, I thought it was pretty sweet. Yes, Olly is probably the ideal first boyfriend and a bit too good to be true. He has some family troubles that give him just the right level of angsty and he's sweet, sensitive, funny and incredibly understanding. Any girl would fall for him, not just Maddy, who's lived an extremely sheltered life, reading books and dreaming of what other teenagers have.

A lot of romance is all about wish-fulfilment and I don't see why teenage girls shouldn't get some of that too. Yes, a lot of teenage boys are dumb, self-centred, immature and rude, but there are exceptions and it doesn't hurt to have books that tell young women what they should be aiming for in their first loves. Do I think Maddy and Olly will get married and live happily ever after? Probably not, they are just seventeen - but Olly certainly wouldn't be the sort of boyfriend you look back on with regret.

Maddy is a sweetheart. She refuses to let her illness or forced isolation get her down. She does her best with the hand life has dealt her, and only really starts to chafe when Olly and his family move in next door and she gets an idea of all the things she's really missing. While her actions are rash and incautious, I can't blame her for wanting to run away and have an adventure, even knowing it might have serious consequences for her health. As it turns out, it does, but not exactly in the ways you may have first suspected.

I probably should have foreseen the surprise twist during the last third of the book, but I actually didn't. I suspect a lot of other readers will see it coming, though, especially now that there are movie reviews out that may spoil things as well. I do wish this development had been dealt with in a better way, and it didn't really have a proper resolution. The love story between Maddy and Olly took centre stage and the final act reveal sort of got a bit lost in getting the separated lovers back together again.

By all accounts, the movie adaptation is supposed to be pretty good. I think I'd rather go see Wonder Woman again, but suspect that many of the young women I taught for the last three years (and possibly some of the boys) would enjoy it a lot.

Judging a book by its cover: While I thought the cover was a bit generic YA at first, I liked it better when I saw it had a connection to illustrations inside the book, all done by Nicola Yoon's husband, apparently. It's still not the most exciting of covers, but since it's part of a bigger whole, I'll allow it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.