danadoesbooks's Reviews (954)

Second First Impressions is an opposite attracts romance.  When Ruthie first runs into Teddy at a gas station, he thinks she is going to a costume party dressed as a granny.  She is not.

When Ruthie returns to her job at Providence Retirement Villa, she is back in her comfort zone of to-do lists and her routine.  To her horror, Ruthie sees Teddy and her boss walking into her office.  Teddy is the son of the man threatening to close the place where Ruthie works and lives.  He is also asking her to find jobs for Teddy around the property.

To her surprise, Teddy disrupts Ruthie's routine in a good way and she begins to start acting 25, her real age.  Ruthie is able to start making decisions about her own life and what she wants to do with it.

Second First Impressions was chosen for my book club this month.  While I wasn't sure if I was going to like it at first, the characters quickly won me over.  I was laughing from the first chapter on.  Renata, one of the residents at Providence, is absolutely hilarious!  Despite being a romance, it did find a way to break my heart at the end!

A book that should be epic in nature is instead focused on small moments between Blue and Red. This short novel spans eras and historical moments, but is boiled down to Blue or Red looking for the next correspondence.

Blue and Red are agents on opposing sides of a war that stretches through time.  They begin taunting each other through secret letters but eventually their connection goes beyond a rivalry.

I am so glad that my friend continuously recommends This Is How You Lose The Time War because it is now one of my favorite books.  There is a reveal at the end of the novel that makes everything click together and made me want to immediately flip the book over to start reading it again.

I will say that it did take me about 50 pages or so to get into it at first because of the short chapters.  Typically I love short chapters, but in this novel, you are constantly switching points of view between Blue and Red.  Each chapter also takes place in a completely different setting so it takes a few clues to orient yourself.  Once I was able to get the structure of the novel down, I fell in love with the characters and their situation.  I could read an entire series devoted to some of the briefest moments mentioned in this novel.

Thank you to @kensingtonbooks and @bibliolifestyle for the gifted copy of Be My Ghost!  All opinions in this review are my own.

With the department store that she has worked at for the past decade closing, Maureen must figure out what she is going to do next.  She can't stay in Boston with her meager savings and no job.  When Maureen learns that she is inheriting an inn in Florida from a woman she's never met, she packs up her apartment and drives down.

The Haven House Inn is a historic inn located in the small beach town of Haven.  The inn has a reputation of being haunted, but Maureen doesn't believe in ghosts.  However, when one of her new tenants is found dead on the front porch, Maureen may have to rely on the inn's spiritual residents to help solve the mystery.

Be My Ghost is a cozy mystery perfect for this time of year!  While the writing can be too detailed at times, the cast of ghosts and other characters that live at the inn help to make its haunted reputation seem a little more inviting.

The joke in the Elgin family is that Cade was switched at birth.  While her parents are both artists, Cade runs the gallery through her accounting expertise.  When her Aunt Ruth dies and wills her a bankrupt adult toy shop, Cade realizes this is just another Elgin family moment.

When Selena loses Ruth, she feels like her whole world is twisted inside out.  Not only did she lose her boss and landlord, but her good friend as well.  Selena was just starting to get her life back together again and now she will have no job or home.  Selena must save the store and do whatever she can to not fall for Cade.

I was in such a reading slump at the beginning of August.  In my last few weeks of vacation, I couldn't get into anything I picked up.  Luckily, I picked up Satisfaction Guaranteed.  I flew through the first 100 pages of this novel.  It's really funny but also very serious at times.  While the tone of this book is generally light, it also delves into deeper topics like grief and toxic relationships.  There is enough denial of feelings between Cade and Selena that when they finally do get together, it's amazing!

The most vivid memories I have of elementary school are being in my school's library.  I wish I knew the exact number of times I checked out Sideways Stories from Wayside School because it was one of my favorites.  A huge reason why it was one of my favorites was because it had a character named Dana who wore glasses, like me.  Luckily, I eventually bought my own copy!

In an effort to reread books I already own, I chose Sideways Stories from Wayside School as my children's classic.  I am happy to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my reread.  Maybe it was more nostalgia than anything else but there were still stories that made me laugh.  I was surprised at how many I still remembered.

While there were more books in the series, and apparently a new one that came out recently, nothing beats the original one!

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and the author for the gifted copy of The Siren.  All opinions in this review are my own.

The Siren is a movie being filmed in the Caribbean starring one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Cole Power.  Power's ex-wife, Stella Rivers, is starring opposite him and his son, Jackson, is directing the film.  When a hurricane threatens to hit the island they are filming on, the characters must confront their actions from a night years earlier.  Told in multiple points of view, it is revealed that long kept secrets are closer to being revealed than they have ever been.

While I was reading, I thought I had all the pieces and I was just waiting to see how everything would come together.  However, the author had some twists waiting!  As the hurricane got closer and the tension between the characters grew, I couldn't put it down!  This was the end of summer thriller that I needed!

Thank you to @readforeverpub and @quicunquevult for a gifted copy of Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake!  All opinions in this review are my own.

Rosaline Palmer is a single mom to an intelligent and hilarious daughter, Amelie.  As she is one home repair away from asking her parents for money, Rosaline is accepted to appear on the beloved baking show, Bake Expectations.  Rosaline's plan is to win the competition and have enough money to give Amelie the life she deserves.  However, when Rosaline meets her competitors, she fears winning this show may not be as easy as she thought.

This was my first book by Alexis Hall and I cannot wait to read more!  I was laughing out loud from the first chapter of Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake.  While it is a romance at its heart, this novel is full of hilarious and wonderful characters.  Rosaline's daughter, Amelie, is funny but still childlike which can be a difficult character to write when they are privy to adult topics.

Because of the reality TV show set up, this novel reminded me a lot of One to Watch which I also loved.  Hall does an excellent job of making sure each competitor on the show has their own personality so you can distinguish between them.  There is also an important balance of including what's happening each week with the show but also progressing the story.

I am so excited that this will be part of a series!  I loved the Bake Expectations structure and I can't wait to return to it in Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble!

I cannot recommend Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake enough, but fair warning, you will want baked goods while reading!

I keep saying that I won't start a series until they are completed and then I start a series that is notoriously unfinished.

I enjoyed A Game of Thrones more than I thought I would.  While the first few hundred pages were good, I read them at a slower pace than normal for me.  However, I hit a point towards the middle of the book when all I wanted to do was keep reading and I finished the remainder quickly.

Overall, S is a beautiful book.  I love all of the small details that were included to make you feel like you were reading an old library book.  However, I found the book itself to be too tedious to read.  Maybe I would enjoy it more if I reread it because I already know the story and can appreciate the process more.  For right now, I just feel accomplished that I finished it.

I think I just found my favorite book of the year!  The Cat Who Saved Books is a love letter to books and readers.  With sarcastic humor and powerful quotes, this short novel is a worthwhile read for all book lovers!

Thank you to HarperVia, BiblioLifestyle, and the author for the gifted copy of The Cat Who Saved Books!  All opinions in this review are my own.

When Rintaro Natsuki's grandfather dies, Rintaro retreats into his shell.  He stops going to school and spends all of his time in his grandfather's second-hand bookshop.  While Rintaro is trying to make sense of everything, a talking tabby cat named Tiger arrives and requests Rintaro's help to save books.  Tiger leads Rintaro on multiple adventures to help stop people who claim they love books but are actually doing more harm than good.  Through his travels with Tiger, Rintaro learns to become confident in himself and trust what is important.

Originally published in Japan in 2017, The Cat Who Saved Books is an adventure like no other.  Tiger the talking cat is really funny and seeing Rintaro's growth over the course of the novel is heartwarming.  While the novel is under 200 pages, it will make you contemplate various aspects of reading, like whether it is worthwhile to reread a book or read a new one and the threat of some titles disappearing forever.  I will be recommending The Cat Who Saved Books to everyone!

The Cat Who Saved Books is available on December 7, 2021!