CBR18 Book 23: "Margo's Got Money Troubles" by Rufi Thorpe

Page count: 320 pages

Audio book length: 10 hrs 21 min

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 26: Adapted into movie or TV show (on Apple+ now)

19-year-old Margo Millet has an ill-advised affair with her English professor at college and gets pregnant. Against the advice of absolutely everyone, including her mother (a former Hooters waitress), she decides to keep it. Unfortunately, being pregnant and then a young single mother isn't especially attractive on the job market, and before she knows it, two of her roommates have also moved out, because they just can't handle the noise and the whole baby being there now of it all. She's at her wits' end, and while she loves her son, Bodie, she's also pretty sure she's made a huge mistake.

Then her estranged father, Jinx, a retired pro-wrestler, shows up on her doorstep and asks her if he can stay at hers, after yet another round in rehab. Since she needs both rent money and help with child care, she agrees to let him stay. She also decides to try making money through OnlyFans, where she uses advice from Jinx to craft her online persona. Soon she's making enough money to keep her head above water, but her English professor is threatening to sue her for sole custody of Bodie and her mother, who is getting married to a Christian pastor, threatens to disown her if she doesn't shut down her OnlyFans account immediately.

This book came highly recommended from many of my online friends, so when I saw it in an audiobook sale, I picked it up, despite being a bit dubious about the pastel-coloured cover and the unusual plot synopsis. Contemporary fiction with serious real-world problems?  Ill-advised affairs with your lecturer? Desperate young single mother? OnlyFans? Was this really a book I was going to enjoy? As so often happens, I then forgot I owned the book for quite a long time, until I read the announcement that the book was being turned into a TV series on Apple+, starring Elle Fanning, who also narrates the audiobook.

Apple+ has proven itself to be very good at adapting books I like in the past (I promise I am not being paid for this; I wish I were so lucky), and since I prefer reading the source material before seeing the adaptation, reading this in March seemed like a good idea. Since I listened to it in audio, it took me about a week to get through it, but I suspect that if I'd been reading it with my eyes, I would have got through it a lot faster. Despite its many serious issues, it is ultimately a very uplifting book. Margo may be young (and discovers fast that having a baby is for life, not just for Christmas), but she's very clever, and because of her unusual family situation (Jinx wasn't exactly a stable feature in her life growing up), she's learned to be independent and resourceful. She does the very best she can for her baby, even if that means coming up with creative ways to make people pay her for nudes on the internet. 

While two of Margo's roommates leave, one of them stays behind and even starts helping Margo in her new "working from home" career. Suzie is into fantasy cosplay and is able to lend Margo outfits and advise her on makeup and video ideas. She gets along well with Jinx, as well, which helps. Margo eventually meets and makes friends with other OnlyFans creators, and starts having actual fun when she comes up with a storyline involving a strange and horny space alien to attract more followers.

I wouldn't say that female empowerment is one of the main themes of the story, but it is absolutely a factor. Margo refuses to be dismissed by her baby daddy and his rich and condescending family just because she is young and does online sex work. She proves herself a fit and capable mother both to the custody lawyers and eventually to the CPS (who have had an anonymous tip that Margo's home life may not be safe for Bodie). 

Since I had seen the trailer for the show before I got around to reading the book, it was pretty difficult to create my own mental images for the characters. With Elle Fanning already voicing Margo in the audio, it would have been harder to picture her as someone else. Michelle Pfeiffer as her mother and Nick Offerman as her father also seem like spot-on casting, so I didn't mind them being my mental images for Shyanne and Jinx, either. Ironically, now that I have finally read the book, I'm too busy with correction work to actually watch the show until later this year. I'm glad I listened to the book when I did, though. 

Judging a book by its cover: Before I read the book, I always thought this was a really strange image to choose for the cover of the book. Now that I have read the book, I see how perfect it is, and how well it captures poor Margo's utter exhaustion.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 16: "The Love Feud" by Janine Amesta

Page count: 255 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer! This was an ARC from the author. My opinions are my own. 

Hailey Moreno thought it was quite exciting to be secretly dating the son of her family's company's chief rival, but once her father died, and said rival (with the help of his son) tried to offer to buy the Moreno's air balloon business, she felt deeply betrayed and told Ryland Selene to take a hike.

Four years later, she still hasn't told her mother or any of her sisters that she used to date Ryland, and had her heart pretty thorougly broken by him. Hailey is the youngest of the Moreno sisters, and had a wild temper and a tendency to stir up drama when she was younger. She loved to make videos on her social media feed, but at 26, she's growing up and wondering about her future. As the only unmarried daughter, she is the one who still lives with their widowed mother, and does her best to make her anxious mother socialise more. It seems as if her mother expects her to just stay unmarried and living in her childhood home forever, and Hailey is beginning to feel trapped.

Having clashed a lot with her older sister Selah in the past, and now really wants to contribute to the company in a way that will earn her sister's approval. She suggests arranging a hot air balloon festival in Central Oregon, and unfortunately, since theirs is not the only hot air balloon company in the state, her sister insists that she extend an olive branch to their main competitors. Which means talking to her ex again.

Ryland "Ry" Selene has never gotten over Hailey Moreno, and felt so guilty about making her life more difficult in the weeks after her father's death, that he reevaluated his own life to the point where he quit his dad's company, got himself a business degree, and is now working for a local brewery. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't miss piloting hot air balloons, but deep down, he very much does. The fact that one of his closest co-workers at his new job is his former high school bully is not improving his life. So when he discovers that Hailey e-mailed his dad about this air balloon festival, he takes it as an opportunity to see her again.

Soon Hailey has convinced him that to drum up promotion for the event, which they only have a few months to plan, they should have a fake hating relationship on social media. They should play up the rivalry between their families and their companies, and pretend to be fighting in a series of videos, planned out by Hailey. Because Ry pretty much wants any excuse to spend more time with Hailey again, he reluctantly agrees, encouraged by his roommate, who thinks having staged fights with his ex-girlfriend might help Ry get more assertive and likely to stand up for himself against the office bully. 

Of course, making the videos bring Hailey and Ry into contact with one another a lot, and spending time bickering on camera makes it obvious that their previous chemistry isn't just still present, it may actually be even more incindiary than before. It doesn't take all that long before they may be fighting on camera, but kissing as soon as the videos are done. But Ry didn't really like the idea of their relationship being secret four years ago. He's even less thrilled about the idea now, when he finally has a chance to win Hailey back.

This is the third and final novel in Janine Amesta's Love is in the Air trilogy, about the Moreno sisters finding their happy endings and saving their family business after the sudden and unexpected death of their father. In Love at First Flight, Hailey was the bratty younger sister who got her sister's relationship in trouble by gossiping too much on social media. As the youngest sister, Hailey was still in a very emotionally unstable place when their father died, and some of her actions in the aftermath, when trying to cope with her grief, led to her making some questionable decisions. Hailey and Selah do talk it out and reach a better understanding of each other, but even several years later, Hailey still feels like the black sheep, who's not as talented and useful as her sisters.

Ryland is a rather shy and very non-confrontational guy. One of the rare occasions when he pushed himself to be brave was when he first saw Hailey and made himself go over and talk to her, even though he was convinced he'd be firmly rejected. He feels a lot of guilt about how much he hurt Hailey shortly after her father's death, to the point where he convinced himself he needed to change his whole life and future plans. Reconnecting with Hailey confirms to him that he's not over her, and even though he thinks her social media fake feud is ridiculous, he just can't help saying yes to her, because he loves her special brand of crazy.

I feel very lucky that I've gotten to read this entire series as ARCs, and once again extend my thanks to Janine Amesta for the reading copy. This book releases today, and in these depressing times, a contemporary romance that focuses on family, personal growth and a sweet second chance romance is a balm for the senses. 

Judging a book by its cover: I think this may be my favourite of all the covers in this series. I really like the lit balloon, and Hailey reaching down towards Ryland. Even though this isn't a scene that actually appears in the book, the vibes feel right, and the Romeo and Juliet reference is pretty obvious.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 23: "The Soulmate Equation" by Christina Lauren

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

StoryGraph Easy Reading Challenge 25: A book with two authors

Jess Davis is a single mom who tries to make ends meet doing freelance statistics work, mostly working at a local coffee shop, with her best friend writing her romance novels right next to her. She lives in a small apartment on the ground floor of the apartment building her grandparents manage, and they help her raise her daughter, just as they raised her after her irresponsible mother gave up on Jess. 

While Jess very much enjoys listening to her best friend Fizzy recount her many and varied dating encounters, Jess herself has lived through enough abandonment to want to risk herself on the dating market. Especially because she wants to shield her beloved daughter from getting attached to someone and suffering the same feelings of disappointment as Jess. However, once Fizzy hears about GeneticAlly, a new matchmaking app using DNA results to find their users their perfect matches, she insists that they both try it out - after all, Jess believes in statistics, is she going to deny a chance for science to find her a possible partner?

Shortly after Jess submits her DNA sample, she is contacted by the founders of GeneticAlly. It seems Jess' sample showed a 98% compatibility with someone. Not only is that the highest match the company has ever seen, but her match is one of the company's founders, Dr. River Peña, a very handsome geneticist. River comes into the same coffee shop, where Jess and Fizzy work, at the exact same time every day, ordering exactly the same thing. In her previous encounters with the scientist, Jess has determined that he is stubborn, arrogant and unpleasant. He cannot possibly be her soulmate, no matter what the numbers say. 

GeneticAlly really could use some good publicity before the company goes live, and they are willing to pay Jess to go on a few dates with River, take part in some interviews and keep an open mind about getting to know him. As Jess is pretty strapped for money, she doesn't really feel like she can refuse their generous offer. Of course, as soon as the two of them start actually seeing each other regularly, relaxing and spending more time together, Jess discovers her first impressions of River might have been wrong, and starts wondering if science might have found her perfect match.

I've read a lot of Christina Lauren's romances over the years. It's been a long time since I enjoyed one of their books as much as this one. The set-up for the romance is interesting, and likeable protagonists who are both very good at their jobs also help make this book a winner. In addition, the supporting cast is all pretty great, from Jess' BFF Fizzy, her grandparents and even her daughter, who actually seems like a realistic (if possibly a bit precocious) child, not just an annoying plot moppet. 

There is a third act complication which splits our lovers up for a bit, but unlike in a lot of novels, it didn't seem crammed in just to add to the drama, and there's a very satisfactory grovelling scene by one of the protagonists before they happily reunite. The author duo's books can vary in quality, but if you have enjoyed some of their books in the past, I would absolutely recommend this. I thought it was one of their best ones so far. 

Judging a book by its cover: A romance cover that doesn't feature cutesy cartoon people? How unusual. As a matter of fact, the UK covers for these books do feature cartoony people, and it's one of the reasons I dislike them more. The cartoon style is not to my taste, and the colour choices are odd. So I'm happy my book comes with this cover. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 19: "Love at First Flight" by Janine Amesta

Page count: 257 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Books Bingo 2025: Book Dedicated to a Parent

Thank you to Janine Amesta for granting me this ARC. It has not influenced my review, my opinions are my own. Thank you also, Emmalita, who tipped me off about this author. 

Selah Moreno's beloved stepfather always wanted to be an airline pilot, but couldn't become one for a number of reasons. So he flew hot air balloons instead. Selah trains to become a pilot instead, but when her father unexpectedly dies, and her mother and younger sisters need help, she puts her dream of flying planes on hold to take over the air balloon business. Things are not made easier when she discovers that the man she idolised made several unwise financial decisions shortly before his death. Now the family business is in serious trouble.

Selah meets the handsome park ranger Dex Westerly when he books a hot air balloon ride to propose to his influencer girlfriend. The proposal does not go well, and when the balloon lands at the end, some unexpected complications result in Selah landing on top of the humiliated man, in what would otherwise possibly have been quite an interesting embrace. When Selah and Dex next meet, he's still processing his failed relationship, but the spark that was obvious when they first met is still there. Selah doesn't have the time or inclination to become anyone's rebound girlfriend, but the park ranger is handsome and they keep running into each other. She also finds his unusual roommate, Harper, a rescued crow, amusing.

Dex and Selah agree to work together to try to raise money for a wildlife rescue program in the park. It will also help raise the profile of the Moreno family's air balloon business, which really needs more customers. The initial event is a hit, and soon, thanks to a social media post by Selah's sister which goes viral, a lot of people think that there is a budding romance between Selah and Dex, and they get more than one enquiry from the media to appear on air.

Selah has been bottling up her emotions about her father's passing since his death since she has had to be the one keeping the business afloat and supporting her mother and sisters. Nevertheless, she has made no attempt to hide that she plans to go off to be an airline pilot as soon as she can find someone suitable to help her family with the business, and her 'one foot out the door' attitude is really impacting her relationship with her sisters. 

Dex is dealing with the aftermath of his rather humiliating breakup but discovers that he doesn't really miss the woman he was trying to propose to. He is sad that he won't have a chance to build the life with her that he had been envisioning (without really ever considering her wants or wishes at the time, she clearly did not want cosy domesticity with a dude whose half-tame crow shows up to cause chaos pretty much daily). Having grown up with very distant and rather cold parents, he's drawn not just to the vibrant Selah, but her loving and affectionate family as well. 

The main complications in this story are caused by Selah being so set on fulfilling her stepfather's lost dream of flying airplanes, that she won't let herself ever consider a different future for herself. Her mother is still struggling with coping without her husband, and her sisters feel like she is rejecting them and their family by planning to leave the second she gets the chance. This also means she's unwilling to really commit fully to her relationship with Dex, even though the man is clearly a treasure, telling herself that it's only a temporary, rebound relationship anyway.

Thankfully, as is always the case in romance, they find their happy ending. Harper was a cool and unusual animal companion, clearly not actually a pet, but a discerning (she didn't like Dex' ex much, but clearly loves Selah) and amusing presence in the story. After losing my own mother two years ago, the exploration of grief in books always hits me a bit differently than it used to, but there was nothing too triggering here. 

Selah's relationship with her sisters and mother was very well done, I thought. Her youngest sister comes across as rather irresponsible and bratty at first, but Amesta takes the time to make the reader (and Selah) understand why she has been acting the way she has, and the sisters find a deeper understanding of each other over the course of the book. I'm very excited to see her sisters find their own happy endings in the coming books, and will absolutely be checking out the author's previous romance novels. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 33: "Hana Khan Carries On" by Uzma Jalaluddin

Page count: 358 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR15 Bingo: On the Air

Official book description:

Sales are slow at Three Sisters Biryani Poutine, the only halal restaurant in the close-knit Golden Crescent neighborhood. Hana waitresses there part time, but what she really wants is to tell stories on the radio. If she can just outshine her fellow intern at the city radio station, she may have a chance at landing a job. In the meantime, Hana pours her thoughts and dreams into a podcast, where she forms a lively relationship with one of her listeners. But soon she'll need all the support she can get: a new competing restaurant, a more upscale halal place, is about to open in the Golden Crescent, threatening Three Sisters.

When her mysterious aunt and her teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret. A hate-motivated attack on their neighborhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana's growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival restaurant--who might not be a complete stranger after all.

As life on the Golden Crescent unravels, Hana must learn to use her voice, draw on the strength of her community and decide what her future should be.

Uzma Jalaluddin's first novel, Ayesha at Last, was a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice, set in Canada with Muslim protagonists. This novel has strong elements of You've Got Mail, where the heroine and hero have built a friendship (and maybe more) via messages in response to Hana's podcast. The love interest just happens to be the handsome, rich guy who sweeps in with a rival operation, threatening to put our humble heroine's family business out of business for good. No bookshops here, but rather halal restaurants. Also, while Aydin's family is wealthy, he's nowhere near as rich and unscrupulous as Tom Hanks' character (seriously, I have never liked You've Got Mail since the first time I saw it, the older I get, and the more I subscribe to Kill the Rich, the more unattractive Tom Hanks' character gets). Yet this plot is so beloved and so frequently retold. 

Jalaluddin introduces a subplot in her story that has nothing to do with the movie she's taken inspiration from, however, it's one of the things that makes this book really interesting and gives the reader further insight into a culture that at least to me is quite unfamiliar. Hana's auntie is extremely glamourous and opinionated and has clearly lived a very different life than a Muslim woman from her generation may have been expected to live. She gives Hana several pieces of sage advice, and it turns out that she's harbouring secrets that may impact several characters in the story in unexpected ways. 

The novel doesn't shy away from the racism that causes problems for both Hana's mother's restaurant and the one Aydin is starting. Without it becoming too heavy a subplot, it's nevertheless refreshing that the author doesn't pretend that minority groups still don't face difficulties with acceptance in majority white communities, even in a progressive country like Canada. 

I've enjoyed both the novels I've read by Jalaluddin, and her third novel is apparently a modern take on Persuasion, so I'm already looking forward to seeing how she interprets that story through a new lens. 

Judging a book by its cover: While the cover image doesn't exactly look like the no-nonsense, very pragmatic heroine this book features (it's far too ethereal and impressionistic for that), I nonetheless like the colour choices and find the soft lines pleasing to the eye. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 17: "Chick Magnet" by Emma Barry

Page count: 302 pages

Rating: 4 stars

#CBR15 Passport Challenge - Different genres (contemporary romance)

Readers of my blog know that all my reviews are crossposted over on the Cannonball Read, which celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year. I have been a participant since year two. To celebrate these momentous fifteen years, a comment diversion was suggested - where we were challenged to write fifteen-word reviews. No matter the length of the book, the review could only be fifteen small words. Now, long-time followers of my blog know that I have trouble writing a single sentence in fewer than fifteen words, let alone a full review. Nevertheless, I decided to use the comment diversion to try to help myself through my review backlog (which is now on 12 books and counting). So until I've caught up - my book summaries are going to be very short and succinct, and then I'll try to say what worked and possibly didn't work so well for me in the books.

Chick Magnet: Hot, but struggling small-town vet and earnest chicken influencer fall in love after the pandemic.

If you want a longer summary, there are over two hundred reviews of this on Goodreads. This book was recommended to me by my good friend and fellow romance aficionado Emmalita. There were so many parts of it that I liked, but I really couldn't get past what a central part chickens played in the story. I don't like birds. I have always found them pretty creepy. That I frequently got dive-bombed by seagulls every summer visiting my grandmother in the west of Norway probably didn't help. I'm very fond of eggs, they're very tasty, but I really don't like chickens. I find them unnerving. So the fact that Nic's whole life revolves around chickens was somewhat of a downside to me. Now, this is unlikely to be a big deal for most readers, but I still wanted to explain why this wasn't higher than four stars for me. 

Will is very handsome (described basically as a big, blond viking) and really loves the job he's doing as a small-town vet. However, with the pandemic massively reducing the number of clients his clinic receives and so many more customers ordering their pet supplies online, he's really having a hard time making ends meet. He feels awful about not being able to keep his business afloat or being able to afford to pay his employees. It takes him quite a while to face up to the depression that he's feeling as a result of this. While he tried to resist, he watched his new neighbour Nicole "Chick Nic" Jones' videos about chicken keeping and was taken with her beauty and charm. Her videos caused a lot of people to adopt chicks during the pandemic, and then get bored with them as they grew bigger and harder to take care of. Hence he's a bit judgmental and dismissive when he first meets her, and pretty rude when she comes to his clinic with a sick chicken. 

Nic has moved across the country to escape her emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend, who broke up with her in a video that went viral. His gaslighting and lies convinced even her best friend that Nic was the villain of the piece and she needs a fresh start. She meets Will when chasing an escaped chicken in the rain, and finds him rather attractive, but his rudeness when she's vulnerable and terrified for the health of her chicken makes him seem a lot less appealing. 

However, they live across from each other, and it's hard to avoid each other in a small town. They strike up a friendship and as they get to know each other better, they try to help the other, making their lives easier in whatever way they can. Nic is pretty nervous about getting involved with someone new, based on her previously very toxic relationship. Will is depressed enough and feels like so much of a failure that he doesn't seem to realise that he deserves to be loved. Neither of them is healed by the power of love, but both of them feel better when they spend time with the other person.

Emma Barry is a good writer and her characters feel like real people, even the ones who are less nice. While Will gets along well with his sister, he has a strained relationship with his father and brother, and as his clinic keeps getting closer to bankruptcy, family dinners get more and more difficult for him. Nic has chosen to move to the town where her beloved grandmother once lived but has no real connections there. Thanks to Will, she meets a lot of like-minded people and can work on setting down actual roots in her new hometown.

The author herself apparently keeps chickens, so I get why she writes so affectionately about the birds and keeping them. As I mentioned, this is unlikely to be a big issue for most people. This is a lovely book, which deals with several heavy topics in a sensitive way without ever making the book seem too angsty or challenging. 

Judging a book based on its cover: With cartoony covers still being all the rage in the publishing world, you don't see a lot of naked man chest anymore. So I appreciate this book doing its own thing and giving the female gaze some eye candy. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 62: "The Right Swipe" by Alisha Rai

Page count: 400 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Having been burned pretty comprehensively in the past, both in her personal life and in business, Rhiannon Hunter has now worked hard to make her dating app one of the main competitors on the market. Now she'd like to buy the large, successful, but nevertheless a lot less modern company of one of her competitors, and she goes to a big tech conference with that in mind. Unbeknownst to Rhi, the owner and co-founder of this company is very eccentric and also suffers from social anxiety. So instead of appearing at the conference herself, she sends her nephew to act in her stead. Rhiannon is dismayed to discover that the handsome man is none other than the man who she shared a very steamy night with a few months ago, and who then ghosted her, never to be heard from again. To discover that he is now a spokesperson for the company she wants to acquire, and seems very close to the owner means having to spend more time with him, and Rhi is not one to forgive and forget once she's been hurt.

Samson Lima is a former football pro who made himself very unpopular with a lot of fans and supporters when he quit in the middle of a major game because his best friend was seriously injured on the field and the only way Samson could protest the owners of the team risking his friend's life by putting him back in the field was by walking out and throwing the game entirely. Samson lost his father and more recently his uncle to CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). He had no intention of ghosting Rhiannon after their hook-up but was told his uncle was dying and had to rush to his bedside. Since Rhi never uses her real identity when occasionally using her dating app to meet guys, and certainly hadn't given Samson her phone number, he had absolutely no way of contacting her when it became clear that she'd blocked him in the app. Now he's trying to help his uncle's widow to drum up publicity for her flagging matchmaking company by publicly looking for love. Of course, as soon as he sees Rhi at the tech conference, the only woman he's really interested in spending more time with is her.

Rhi eventually reluctantly gives Samson a chance to apologise, and some internet research proves that he's really not lying about his uncle's recent passing. Barely healed emotional wounds from her past makes it very difficult for her to trust men, but she can't deny the attraction she still feels for the handsome, charming, athletic, and obviously caring man. When Samson, after one disastrous first date where he can't take his mind off Rhi, suggests a series of social media videos where Rhiannon, the dating expert, coaches him on modern dating, to promote both the companies they represent, he has the perfect excuse to keep spending time with Rhi and slowly convince her that she's the only woman for him. 

This book has thousands of positive reviews on Goodreads, and I'd heard many good things about it on the various review sites I follow. Nevertheless, it never really connected with me emotionally, the way the best romances do. It was just ok, and now, about a month later, I'm struggling to remember plot details. I think this is a definite case of just the wrong book at the wrong time for me with this one. I've liked books by Alisha Rai before, and it's not like I have anything violently against it. I may even re-read it at some point, to see if I like it better a second time when my brain is in a more receptive place for the story it tells. 

There's a lot to like here - a strong, yet slightly prickly heroine, who has worked hard and faced a lot of adversity in a male-dominated and sexist industry. There's the close friendship between Rhi and her best friend, who was able to fund her business thanks to a healthy inheritance from her husband (the BFF is the heroine of the next book in the series). Samson is a very nice beta hero, who cares deeply about his family members and getting justice for other athletes facing the same problems that eventually killed his dad and uncle. All of these things make me pretty sure that I may just not have been in the mood for this book when I read it, but it fit into several of my reading challenges, so onto the list, it went. 

I may give it another chance in a year or so. Based on the sample chapter for the next book in the series, I'm very much looking forward to that one - a reclusive, plus-size ex-model and her handsome bodyguard. 

Judging a book by its cover: Another contemporary cartoon cover, this one almost Pepto-Bismol pink. At least the little cartoon heads of the protagonists look pretty cute. I don't think there can be any doubt that this is a romance novel, aimed firmly at a female demographic. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 40: "My Favorite Half-Night Stand" by Christina Lauren

Page count: 384 pages
Audio book length: 7 hrs 8 mins
Rating: 3 stars

#CBR12 Bingo: Friendship (the friendship between the two protagonists and the rest of their group is really central to the story)

Official book description:
Millie Morris has always been one of the guys. A UC Santa Barbara professor, she’s a female-serial-killer expert who’s quick with a deflection joke and terrible at getting personal. And she, just like her four best guy friends and fellow professors, is perma-single.

So when a routine university function turns into a black-tie gala, Mille and her circle make a pact that they’ll join an online dating service to find plus-ones for the event. There’s only one hitch: after making the pact, Millie and one of the guys, Reid Campbell, secretly spend the sexiest half-night of their lives together, but mutually decide the friendship would be better off strictly platonic.

But online dating isn’t for the faint of heart. While the guys are inundated with quality matches and potential dates, Millie’s first profile attempt garners nothing but dick pics and creepers. Enter “Catherine”—Millie’s fictional profile persona, in whose make-believe shoes she can be more vulnerable than she’s ever been in person. Soon “Catherine” and Reid strike up a digital pen-pal-ship...but Millie can’t resist temptation in real life, either. Soon, Millie will have to face her worst fear—intimacy—or risk losing her best friend, forever.

While Christina Lauren's contemporary romances used to be a sure hit with me, and always seemed to entertain and give me the requisite levels of swoon, ever since they went away from really rather explicit and steamy books after completing their Wild Seasons series, their output has been decidedly up and down in quality. While some still really work for me and I would happily recommend them, like Dating You/Hating You and Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating, others are best left forgotten entirely, like Roomies. This one, I suspect, falls somewhere in the middle, but it didn't really fully work for me at the point when I was reading it, certainly.

For a romance to work, I need to be able to root for both protagonists and want them to have a happily ever after. Unfortunately, for most of the book, Millie is basically lying not only to her larger group of friends, but to Reid, her best friend and the man she keeps secretly communicating with through the dating app. The authors try to give the readers reasons for why she keeps up the charade for as long as she does, but it made it difficult to like her and I certainly didn't feel like she deserved a happy ending for far too much of the book's runtime. That is a major problem in a romance novel.

Now, our hero, Reid, is fine. I also really liked the bigger group of mutual friends who surround Millie and Reid and make up a very important part of the story too. While Millie and Reid are the only POV characters (narrated by a woman and a man on the audio), the book would not work half as well without the many hijinks of their circle of friends. They were part of the reason I kept reading, even when I was pretty unsure about whether Millie and Reid would ever work as a couple. Open and honest communication is incredibly important, Millie sucks at open and honest communication.

There are reasons given for Millie's emotional reticence, I just found myself getting increasingly more frustrated with them. She was a text book case of "See a therapist!" and so many of her hang-ups could have been fixed if she'd been sensible and just talked to someone about all of this. She does realise that she's done a bad thing by deceiving Reid for much of the book, and does some quality grovelling towards the end. It was enough to earn the book a full three stars, which, considering there were sections where I wasn't sure I even wanted to finish the book, seemed unlikely the book would achieve until the final third or so. Having now finished the book, I don't necessarily regret reading it, but I wouldn't recommend anyone but die-hard completist Christina Lauren fans read it, and even then, only if they can find it on sale or at a library.

Judging a book by its cover: I'm not wild about this cover, it's very non-descript. Is it yellow? Is it lime green? Who knows? The little text bubbles are a nice touch since the characters communicate a lot with each other on their phones, but I think this cover is yet another sign that Christina Lauren are trying to move more into women's fiction or chick lit, rather than straight out romance. If it wasn't for the actual title of the book, you'd never guess that this was a romance novel.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 95: "GMorning, GNight!: Little pep talks for me & you" by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonny Sun

Page count: 207 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Official book description:
"Good morning. Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life today. Make, do, create the things. Let others tussle it out. Vamos!"

Before he inspired the world with Hamilton and was catapulted to international fame, Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspiring his Twitter followers with words of encouragement at the beginning and end of each day. He wrote these original sayings, aphorisms, and poetry for himself as much as for others. But as Miranda's audience grew, these messages took on a life on their own. Now, at the request of countless fans, Miranda has gathered the best of his daily greetings into a beautiful collection illustrated by acclaimed artist (and fellow Twitter favorite) Jonny Sun. Full of comfort and motivation, Gmorning, Gnight! is a touchstone for anyone looking for a lift.

I see on Goodreads that some people absolutely loved and adored this book, while others felt it was a cheap and underwhelming effort from Miranda, trying to cash in further on his fame. I think I'm much more in the former category, and as someone who has followed Miranda on Twitter for a long time, and have enjoyed his inspirational little tweets in "real time", I was very excited when I learned that many of them were to be collected in a book.

It may also be that I was reading through these during a stressful and emotionally exhausting period in my life, but a lot of these little poems truly spoke to me and made me feel so much better. I'm not lying when I say that I cried more than once when reading, just as I smiled. Some of these sayings may be trite and simple, but I believe the intention behind them is to help, to support, to inspire and to cheer up and for me, they more often than not made me feel better and motivated and inspired, rather than annoyed, as some people seem to have gotten. Miranda seems to me as a person who works really hard to try to stay positive, even when the world around us is doing its damnedest to wear us down. These little Twitter verses is one of the ways in which he fights the gloom, and I'm thankful for that.

Some of the illustrations in the book are better than others. With the simple black and white line drawings, it would probably work as a colouring book, as well, if one wanted to use it as such.

Judging a book by its cover: This book has a relatively simple cover, it's one of the illustrations made by Jonny Sun for one of the tweets collected in the book. I like his drawing style. It's very clear and no-nonsense.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.