We Just Clicked was a 3.5 star read for me! Full review to come on the Nerd Daily profile.

WOW. This is it, people. This is FANTASTIC.
But let me start at the beginning: I absolutely love and adore when plus-sized girls get features in books. I do. As one myself, I always love to see myself in characters, you know?
BUT HOT DAMN: Never have I related so much as I did to Bea. She is plus-plus size. By that I mean that often, there is a girl in books and she's plus sized but you wouldn't know at ALL if you weren't told. But Bea? Her experiences? Her struggles with people and clothes and all of that? YES. 100% agree.

And then, this book didn't just give me a fantastic, fabulous, lovely, showstopping protagonist to adore, but she also got all the love. I loved laughing and crying and doubting these men with Bea because again - her doubts and issues? Way too real. But I loved it. The main characters are absolute darlings and I was so torn between the top guys. I couldn't put this book down because I couldn't have chosen between them, honest to god.

I did not see either the end of the show or the end of the book coming but oh my god, both made me so, so happy.

So please, if you guys read one book this year, make it this one.

Thank you Netgalley for a copy of Run, Rebel in exchange for an honest review.

The protagonist, Amber, is torn in so many different directions. Her frustration and desperation almost flies of the page as she deals with friendship, love, family and abuse. She also has issues finding her place in the world with the cards she has been dealt. She questions her father's ideas of how a woman should be and tries to come to terms with her own (family's) poverty that contrasts her friend's wealth. This is a story about race and unfairness, feminism and the difficult task of Amber discovering who she really is.

The whole novel is written in verse and this was my first verse book ever. I have to admit that it was quite difficult for me to understand and to grasp a lot of the issues while knowing that there was something important on the page that I didn't fully understand. Maybe I should've read an easy love story in verse before this, but I doubt that it would've made the same impact. Because an impact it did make.

I liked Run, Rebel and I recommend it to everyone who loves reading about difficult subjects, about being hit with emotion twice as hard because the words Manjeet Mann finds and the way she displays them are very special. I also recommend this to anyone who likes a good book about a strong heroine, because Amber definitely is one!

Thank you very much to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC

I do not actually have many words for this book. It is out of this world, amazing, one of the best stories I have read in a long, long time.

Not only do we get the Latinx rep we deserve, the trans rep we deserve, the vegan rep we deserve (I am bowing down to my vegan QUEEN! Was there ever a more iconic girl?!?!?) - we also get ghosts. And magic. And rituals. And all of the feelings a good whodunit is supposed to evoke in us.

There is literally nothing I didn't love about this book. I was completely sucked into the world of Yadriel who can see ghosts and lives in a cemetery and sneaks around at night to get the powers he deserves. The characters were all great and I especially loved how they all interacted with one another.

I can't even think or talk about the love story of this book without aww-ing because THERE ARE FEELS. SO MANY.

I had to put the book away multiple times just for my breathing to slow and my heart to stop beating so fast, I was THAT much into it.

Long story short, I am incredibly freaking grateful for this book and this might be the best thing to happen in 2020. I SAID WHAT I SAID.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book.

I really liked Before I Saw You . It's very real in a way that all of the characters have some sort of trauma and are trying to overcome their inner demons and I thought that a lot of the things that were being said were incredibly relatable. Especially to people who have a "before and after" of some kind (hi, hello!). And I absolutely loved that aspect of it.

I also really liked the way the love story slowly grew and changed and that their friendship wasn't just one straight line but that there was hurt, there were fights, there were mistakes. As many of the other reviewers, I also wished that there was another chapter at the end. An Epilogue of some sort because I feel like we have just spent so much time with these characters and I felt a bit left hanging.

Nevertheless, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is looking for absolute ROMANCE (there are love letters involved, people!!!) that isn't your typical kind of girl meets boy.

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for this ARC

I loved the way Early Departures is structured. I love the idea of bringing someone back, of having that last goodbye, of living that last few hours like they're the most important hours on earth.

What I loved most about this book is how each and every character connected with each other. There was so much love here, so much care and I had goosebumps at the most random moments.

While reading I kept thinking: This is an important book. And I kept thinking how I was reading something absolutely amazing.

The fact that I was always scared of what would happen next, that I was constantly on my toes, waiting for the other shoe to drop has to be 100% attributed to Reynolds' absolutely fantastic writing.

Absolutely amazing!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

dnf at ~40%

I am really sorry. I am sure this is a great book, I am sure the author had the best intentions but I am just so confused. I don't understand a thing and at 40% I have to admit that I understand it as well as I did on page one.

The premise is amazing. I love the summary, the characters, the representation, all of it. A lot of the dialogue seems really random to me and I have NO idea whats happening and whenever flowers are involved the word flower is all I read. That is true for more than that one word but I thought it was especially overpowering with flower.

Oooof, what a read.

Honestly, I finished this book yesterday afternoon and I am still not quite sure what to think or where to even begin to think about it. I have talked with some of my friends about it so I'll try to put my thoughts into some coherent sentences (please bear with me). The rest of this review will be underneath the spoiler tag though, as well as trigger warnings.

TW: suicidal thoughts, mental illness, talk of HIV, explicit sex scenes, alcohol and drug abuse.

So listen. I want to go through all the points that are whirring through my head one by one. As I said, this book is a whirlwind, I laughed, I was sad, I was outright disgusted and so much more.
So let's get this bread and start!

- The graphic sex scenes
Oh. Boy was I uncomfortable. During each of Leo's encounters with his clients I wanted nothing more than close my eyes, put my hand over them for good measure and hope that they would go away. Of course they didn't and while at the beginning I was straight up horrified, I do know why they are so vital for this book. There is a scene later on, when his friend Sara asks Leo why he didn't get a normal weekend job if he needed money so badly. And I admit, I thought the same at the beginning. But as soon as Sara asked him, my reaction was "Because he just got dumped, he's broke and he feels constantly horrible about himself. It was as much about the money as it was for validation." The kind of validation his friend's couldn't give to him because he wouldn't believe them when they told him he was great. He craved to be told he was goodlooking and smart by absolute strangers who didn't know about any of his baggage. It honestly makes so much sense that he chose this particular field.

The second reason why the sex scenes were important was because sometimes I was outright anxious and scared for Leo. He would go to a stranger's house who was double his age, part take in drug consummation and then would let the other man do with him whatever he wanted. No negotiation, no questions asked, nothing. Each sex scene was incredibly telling of how Leo felt at the time. He would be a little more attentive when he was feeling alright and he'd let completely go when he wasn't. At one point, he doesn't even talk to his friends anymore and lets himself be used and as a reader that evokes all kinds of strong feelings. Anxiety, pity, sadness... It was intense.

- The main character
Leo is... complicated. He is bi-polar, he just got dumped by his ex-husband who is now parading a younger and more successful man in front of his face and he is dealing with his money issues. That in itself is a lot. He also seems a little uncomfortable with meeting people who he doesn't already know. That is when he actually has to talk to them, just sex seems to work out fine. Leo is a troubled young man who is trying to get by and who is seeing how beautiful life could be because all of his friends have better jobs than him, make more money than him and are seeeeeeeeemingly happier than him. And it is so sad to watch. He is sarcastic and witty and so beautifully written that I was immediately completely immersed in his story and his thoughts and instantly liked him.

- the mental health rep
The mental health rep was wonderful. Leo is bi-polar and has times where he is on top of the world. Other times, he is feeling so low that he is thinking about simply not emerging from a bath tub. As hard that is to witness, I think that it is a great way to get a glimpse of what a mentally ill person is going through. As a reader, you become much more sensitive to how the character is feeling and it is hopeful that this can be taken away from the book and used in real life.

-the vegan rep
EVERYONE. The vegan rep. Holy shit. Not going to lie, I would give this book 5 stars for the vegan rep alone because it made me so freaking happy. I cannot start to tell you how much I hate lengthy descriptions of chicken or other dead animals in a book I had enjoyed until then. Because it's like a switch for me. I like a character, I read about their feelings for meat and I automatically like them less. It's just... this is something so very dear to my heart and to read about a character who was lowkey vegan without being preachy was exactly what my vegan heart needed. Because the hunt for the half off hummus tubs is real. Also the thinking about which sides you can make into a full meal at a restaurant you haven't chosen yourself. Fries are the universal friend of vegans everywhere and I LOVE TO SEE IT ACKNOWLEDGED!! I cannot stress this enough: this. made. me. so. happy.

- the characters
I am such a fan of the characters. They are all absolutely amazingly written and so fleshed out that I could not only keep them apart (which... is sometimes a struggle for me, not gonna lie) but I could also remember every fact about them. Sara in particular was a character I loved (even though I went in with LOADS of prejudice towards that name but that's just me lol) and honestly, the way Leo's friends had his back at all times and in any situations even though Leo felt lonely regardless was great. This book was definitely an homage to friendship and I absolutely loved seeing it. If I had one critique point about the characters though, it would be that the whole cast felt very white. I think the only person that was black was one of the men Leo's client Jimmy brought with him to Prague and i would have loved a more diverse friend group.

- the setting
Listen. As a person who is not British and who doesn't live in London but who actually feels that London is their actual home, I am ecstatic. Just the mentions of where Leo would go and in which part of town the parties were, made me feel like I was actually there. I also loved the descriptions of Paris and Prague which are also two cities I absolutely adore but due to what happened there, I didn't dwell too much on the cities themselves while reading. But London, man. Loved it. It made me miss London so acutely that I have much "Fernweh" today.

-the pacing
Here I have some critique, but it tiny. I feel as if the ending was a little rushed. The time between Leo deleting the apps and that (HILARIOUS) last sentence felt like it was going by way, way faster than the rest of the book and I would have loved to accompany him more on his way to get his life "back on track" as I felt that was an important part of the story. However, every single open question was answered at the end so I am quite happy non-the-less!

All in all, I had an interesting time reading this book. I honestly couldn't put it down and read it on one day and during a reading slump no less! This book is here to make you uncomfortable and to feel and as much as I was creeped out, cringing, outright scared for Leo, I appreciated that immensely immediately after reading. I can honestly just recommend you to give it a try, I promise you that you'll love it!