Rating: 99% | A+ | ★★★★★
Warnings: + Sexual content Synopsis (from Goodreads): A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really. Spoiler-Free Section I haven't stopped thinking about Beach Read since I finished it almost two weeks ago. I've read five books since then, but this is the one that's stayed in my mind. Beach Read rehabilitated the contemporary romance genre for me. I've read some popular contemporary romances that I didn't enjoy (The Hating Game and The Kiss Equation come to mind) and I was fully expecting to be disappointed by Beach Read too. But this book surpassed all of my expectations and more. It's hilarious and smart and sincere and angsty and oh-so-perfect. Beach Read seems to set itself up for failure by employing all of the typical tropes: the small town with wacky inhabitants, the rivals-to-lovers romance, and the writer with incurable writer's block searching for new inspiration. And Henry doesn't reject or subvert these tropes; in fact, she goes all in—and that's what makes Beach Read so endlessly endearing. (Click "Read More" for spoilers.)
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Rating: 87% | B+ | ★★★★
Synopsis (from Netgalley): A mysterious First Lady. The intrepid journalist writing her biography. And the secret that could destroy them both. Tired of covering the grating dysfunction of Washington and the increasingly outrageous antics of President Henry Caine, White House correspondent Sofie Morse quits her job and plans to leave politics behind. But when she gets a call from the office of First Lady Lara Caine, asking Sofie to come in for a private meeting with Lara, her curiosity is piqued. Sofie, like the rest of the world, knows little about Lara—only that Lara was born in Soviet Russia, raised in Paris, and worked as a model before moving to America and marrying the notoriously brash future president. When Lara asks Sofie to write her official biography, and to finally fill in the gaps of her history, Sofie’s curiosity gets the better of her. She begins to spend more and more time in the White House, slowly developing a bond with Lara who, to Sofie’s surprise, is entirely candid about her mysterious past. The First Lady doesn’t hesitate to speak about her beloved father’s work as an undercover KGB officer in Paris—and how he wasn’t the only person in her family working undercover during the Cold War. As her story unfolds, Sofie can’t help but wonder why Lara Caine is rehashing such sensitive information. Why to her? And why now? Spoiler-Free Review: Our American Friend is heartbreaking, fast, slow, and as twisty as one of its protagonists, First Lady Lara Caine. Pitoniak constructs an emotional retelling of the last decades of the Soviet Union through Lara’s eyes—first as a young child, then as a teenager, and finally as the wife to the most powerful man in the world. Lara’s story feels authentic; the reader is almost there with her eating ice cream on the streets of Paris and trudging through the black markets of Moscow. Pitoniak ends her novel with a series of complex twists, both tragic and joyful in their completion. Simultaneously, Sofie—the other protagonist—feels incredibly real and as dedicated to New York as Lara is to Paris. As a New Yorker, I always enjoy romanticizations of Manhattan; Pitoniak skillfully delivers. The only qualm I have with the novel is that it is unquestionably a thinly-veiled critique of the Trump Administration. The politics are hardly an issue—in fact, I think Sofie’s conflicting opinions over sympathizing with Lara covers much of the real-life conflict over Melania Trump—but the disjointed nature of the critique is. The novel could have functioned without also taking on the burden of shadowing the Trump Administration; it simply is too soon for that. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Rating: 78% | C+ | ★★
Synopsis (from Netgalley): 1665. It is five years since King Charles II returned from exile, the scars of the English Civil Wars are yet to heal and now the Great Plague engulfs the land. Alethea Hawthorne is safe inside the walls of the Calverton household as a companion to their daughter. She waits in anticipation of her brother William's pardon for killing a man in a duel before they can both return to their ancestral home in Measham Hall. But when Alethea suddenly finds herself cast out on the streets of London, a long road to Derbyshire lies ahead of her. Militias have closed their boroughs off to outsiders for fear of contamination. Fortune smiles on her when Jack appears, an unlikely travelling companion who helps this determined country girl to navigate a perilous new world of religious dissenters, charlatans and a pestilence that afflicts peasants and lords alike. Spoiler-Free Review: Used to reading about royal court intrigues, I was pleasantly surprised by The Master of Measham Hall. Abney creates a complex story with rich historical details and characters, drawing on a lesser-known period of English history and a lesser-known group of English individuals. Alethea, the protagonist, feels keenly and humanly. However, the pace is slow and I felt that there was little climax in the novel. Nevertheless, it was a solid debut showcasing an impressive breadth of historical knowledge. Thank you to NetGalley and Duckworth Books for providing me with an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Rating: 100% | A+ | ★★★★★
Synopsis (from Netgalley): Now that Soraya Nazari has graduated from university, she thinks it’s time to get some of the life experience she feels she’s lacking, partly due to her strict upbringing—and Magnus Evans seems like the perfect way to get it. Where she’s the somewhat timid, artistic daughter of Iranian immigrants, Magnus is the quintessential British lad. They have little in common, so there’s no way Soraya could ever fall for him. What’s the harm in having some fun as she navigates her postgrad life? And he could give her some distance from her increasingly complicated home life, where things are strained by her father’s struggles, her mother’s unhappiness and her eldest sister’s estrangement under a vague cloud of shame fifteen years earlier. Distracting herself with Magnus is easy at first. But just as Soraya realizes there’s more to Magnus than she thought, long-buried secrets, and hard questions, begin to surface—will any of her relationships survive the truth coming out? Moving between modern-day London and revolutionary Iran, The Mismatch is a gorgeously written coming-of-age story that follows a young woman as she finds love in a most unexpected place, and a path in life amid two different cultures. Spoiler-Free Review: A good book should make you sympathize with the characters. A great book should make you empathize with the characters; it should leave you so shaken at the end that you’re not quite sure whether you’re yourself or whether you’re a character. The Mismatch is a great book. Jafari writes in the vein of Sally Rooney’s Normal People—delving into the story of a young protagonist who desperately tries to carve out her own place in the world—but with her own unique woman-of-color perspective on the tried-and-true cliché millennial experience. I teared up, felt my heart hurt, and desperately whizzed through the last fifty pages wanting, wanting, wanting more. As the child of immigrants myself, I felt Soraya’s crises so very keenly—the guilt associated with her parents, the bottled-up anger, the constant need to flee. I’d never identified so much with a book, nor has a book ever so perfectly put my feelings into words. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Rating: 67% | ★★
Synopsis (from NetGalley): 1584: Elizabeth I rules England. But a dangerous plot is brewing in court, and Mary, Queen of Scots, will stop at nothing to take her cousin's throne. There's only one thing standing in her way: Tom, the queen's trusted apothecary, who makes the perfect silent spy . . . 2021: Travelling the globe in her campervan, Mathilde has never belonged anywhere. So when she receives news of an inheritance, she is shocked to discover she has a family in England. Just like Mathilde, the medieval hall she inherits conceals secrets, and she quickly makes a haunting discovery. Can she unravel the truth about what happened all those years ago? And will she finally find a place to call home? Non-Spoiler Review: Marchant writes with secure and detailed knowledge of Elizabethan England; her description of Elizabeth I’s court and the Babbington Plot is fluid and perfect for acclimating non-history buffs to the era. However, the characters fell flat for me. Both protagonists react with little emotion to their difficult situations. Both romances also seem to materialize out of very few substantial interactions, making it difficult to sympathize with the story. The pace of the plot is also slow, though consistent. Overall, this book is perfect for fans of Elizabethan England, parallel stories in different eras, and (sort of) second-chance romances. Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Rating: 95% | A | ★★★★★
Synopsis (from Netgalley): Amelie St. James, prima ballerina of the Paris Opera Ballet and sweetheart of Paris, is a fraud. Seven years ago, in the devastating aftermath of the Siege of Paris, she made a decision to protect her sister: she became the bland, sweet, pious “St. Amie” the ballet needed to restore its scandalous reputation. But when her first love reappears and the ghosts of her past come back to haunt her, all her hard-fought safety is threatened. Dr. Benedict Moore has never forgotten the girl who helped him embrace life again after he almost lost his. Now, years later, he’s back in Paris. His goals are to recruit promising new scientists, and maybe to see Amelie again. When he discovers she’s in trouble, he’s desperate to help her—after all, he owes her. When she finally agrees to let him help, they disguise their time together with a fake courtship. But reigniting old feelings is dangerous, especially when their lives are an ocean apart. Will they be able to make it out with their hearts intact? Spoiler-Free Review: I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did, but Diana Biller writes with such richness that it's impossible not to be mesmerized by Amelie and Benedict. Paris comes alive with complex districts, injustices, and people struggling to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. The secondary characters—Benedict's family, Amelie's sister, the ghosts—expand the story beyond the protagonists, exemplifying the many types of platonic and familial love. Amelie is an incredible heroine, filled with such love and empathy not only for her sister but also for the ghosts of her past. Benedict matches her in earnestness, dedicated to his friends and his medicine. Together they make a stunning, authentic pair. I do wish more time had been dedicated to exploring their first relationship, but nonetheless, I'm incredibly happy to have been able to read this book. While sometimes gritty and emotional, it is also the perfect feel-good romance. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Rating: 100% | A+ | ★★★★★
Warnings: + Violence + Sexual Assault Synopsis (from Goodreads): The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change- in painful, devastating ways. What its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrisons's most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction. Spoiler-Free Section: On one of the first pages of The Bluest Eye, I have an annotation: "This is horrifying, and the first time in a long time that I have ever had to annotate a book to express myself." Little did I know—but much did I suspect—that my words would hold true for the rest of the novel. I would not call The Bluest Eye a "beautiful" novel; such an adjective evokes lightness and pristineness, neither of which accurately describe the novel. The Bluest Eye is not beautiful, and it does not want to be. It is, however, angrily poignant and demanding. It demands of the reader an ability to withstand pain; it demands of the reader a willingness to endure the same tragedies the characters endure. But where the reader might flinch away, the characters remain painfully impervious. This is all to say that never before have I wanted to put a book down more, and never before have I read a book faster. So when the New York Times announced their sixth annual student review contest, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. My review—for which I was fortunate enough to be given an honorable mention—is below: In the Venn diagram of "books that change your life" and "books you'd read again," the overlap in the middle is typically larger than either independent section. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, however, is one of the few books that belongs squarely in the former category. Choosing to re-confront the book in all of its unflinching glory would be akin to Herculus choosing to re-shoulder Atlas's burden. I picked up The Bluest Eye over the summer, acutely aware of the silence in my small town. I didn't want to be naive enough to believe that racial injustice didn't permeate my community. I didn't want to be naive enough to believe that I would never have to confront hate around and within myself. The Bluest Eye needs no introduction. Toni Morrison's first book, it stands proudly among its classic counterparts—all 224 pages of it. "[S]ingular as Pecola's life was, I believed some aspects of her woundability were lodged in all girls," writes Morrison in the 2007 foreword. Certainly so. What girl doesn't struggle with self-image issues, with absurd, paradoxical wishes to be thinner, curvier, shorter, taller—just perfect? Yet for Pecola, consumed by internalized racism, the issue stretches far beyond any human means of "fixing" her "problem." Her problem lies not in the color of her eyes—the heartwrenching non-blueness of her eyes—but in the mere fact that she believes her eyes are a problem. Morrison does not simply focus on Pecola's story. She tells the story of Pecola's neighbor Claudia, who narrates the story with sorrowful wistfulness; of Pecola's parents, who, though cruel, are perversely sympathetic; and even of a local mystic, whom Pecola begs for blue eyes. In Pecola's short life converges decades of mistreatment, inferiority, and above all, pain. Morrison weaves together her myriad subjects with indelible imagery and emotion. She defies all conventional shyness, past and present. In her words echo the words of generations of Black Americans. "How can a fifty-two-year-old white [...] storekeeper [...] his mind honed on the doe-eyed Virgin Mary [...] see a little black girl?" Ruminates Morrison, intensely, matter-of-fact. "Nothing in his life even suggested that the feat was possible, not to say desirable or necessary." The Bluest Eye is not for everyone. There is rape. There is murder. There are the worst slurs. But in a world where Black Americans are ceaselessly slaughtered and marginalized, one has to hope that reading the words of a Black author can spur much more than performative activism. What Black Americans endure is far beyond what I, an Asian-American teenager, can imagine. But let us consider The Bluest Eye as universal required reading and as the first step on our collective path to antiracism. Rating: 84% | B | ★★★★
Warnings: + Violence Synopsis (from Goodreads): The wolves are circling and a young king will face his greatest challenge in the explosive finale of the instant #1 New York Times-bestselling King of Scars Duology. The Demon King. As Fjerda's massive army prepares to invade, Nikolai Lantsov will summon every bit of his ingenuity and charm—and even the monster within—to win this fight. But a dark threat looms that cannot be defeated by a young king's gift for the impossible. The Stormwitch. Zoya Nazyalensky has lost too much to war. She saw her mentor die and her worst enemy resurrected, and she refuses to bury another friend. Now duty demands she embrace her powers to become the weapon her country needs. No matter the cost. The Queen of Mourning. Deep undercover, Nina Zenik risks discovery and death as she wages war on Fjerda from inside its capital. But her desire for revenge may cost her country its chance at freedom and Nina the chance to heal her grieving heart. King. General. Spy. Together they must find a way to forge a future in the darkness. Or watch a nation fall. Spoiler-Free Section: lelivreenrose started with a review for King of Scars, the first book in the Nikolai duology. It's only fitting that I also review the second and final book in the series. Two words to describe Rule of Wolves: too much. It's unusual for books in the same series to vary by more than a few points. (The Traitor's Circle series, which I reviewed last May, for instance, had a modest jump of 9 points between its first and last installment.) As a diehard Leigh Bardugo fan, I was loath to judge Rule of Wolves so harshly, but it had to be done. Rule of Wolves suffers from excess. Its excess of storylines. Its excess of characters, especially villains. Its excess of plots and points of view. Reading it gave me the impression that Bardugo was cramming enough storylines for another novel and a half into a single novel. That being said, almost none of the storylines added between the last novel and this one were developed enough to stand on their own. I'm still mystified by what Bardugo wanted to accomplish with this book. A collection of shallow but sentimental stories? A superficial expansion of the Grishaverse? To tie up Nikolai, Zoya, and Nina's stories without making it too "boring"? In effect, while Rule of Wolves certainly feels bloated, I would still prefer this bloated book to multiple flat novels with all of the storylines spread out. It's a paradox that makes my head hurt even now, hours after finishing the book. The book's simplistic storylines—especially ones introduced in this book and then neatly wrapped up by major acts of deus ex machina—served little purpose aside from adding exasperating suspense. But there were positive qualities as well. Nikolai and Zoya undergo satisfying transformations. Nina's chapters, while still not tempting enough for me, always pulled me in eventually. And I enjoyed the cameos from Bardugo's others books, especially at the end—arguably the story's strongest point plot-wise. This is a weak addition to the Grishaverse. But still, in my opinion, worth reading. (Click "Read More" for spoilers.) Rating: 99% | A+ | ★★★★★
Warnings: + Sexual content Synopsis (from Goodreads): A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. Spoiler-Free Section: Anyone scrolling online on a book sub-section of the internet (#booktok on TikTok, #bookstagram on Instagram, the booktube community on YouTube) will have seen The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue a thousand and one times—non-hyperbolically. Released just three months ago, Addie has trounced her literary competitors, vaulting to The New York Times Best Sellers list fewer than three weeks after her publication; she has stayed there since. Those eager for me to create the inaugural negative review for Addie will be sorely disappointed. This is a near-flawless book, and I thank that my past self had the good sense to run out and buy a copy before vendors ran out. (My friend, a few weeks late to the rush, had to impatiently wait more than a week to receive her own copy.) What makes Addie so universally enthralling is not only Addie's story, but also the paradoxical grace and bite of V.E. Schwab's words. According to Schwab, Addie was a decade in the making—and it shows. Each line oozes careful craft and intentional diction, spinning together a story with all of the glamor of a fairytale but also all of the pain that few writers dare to touch. Addie, Henry, and Luc are the rare characters that exist wholly as people, with no additional mental contortions required of the reader. (Click "Read More" for spoilers.) |