This was shallow, unrealistic and distasteful. It tried to promote itself as an overweight-acceptance book but thru so much of it, she was ruminating about body-shaming herself one second, and accepting the next, just to go back again and obsess in detail. It was often played off as trying to be funny but it wasn’t in the least. It just felt depressing.

For unrealistic, I don’t know of too many startups that make it in NYC for a 20-30 something. It seemed like everything miraculously worked out for Sunny and just wasn’t believable. 

And thru the whole book, she was basically just interested in one one-night stand after another. Then blogged about her sexual exploits - in a newsletter! - which felt insane and so so cringey. Who does that??

Multiple times I almost DNFd it and should have done it at the first. Really hated it. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine. 

Sweet and funny. Nice light read with great characters.

Geez Louise those last few chapters… this was very different than Emily Henry’s typical romcom. It was deep and thoughtful and had romance, family, and mystery wrapped up in it. There were times it got a tad slow in the middle but it was still just so good. 

So well crafted and told - I loved both the history and the characters. The fact that the book took two downplayed and marginalized groups during WW2 - women fighting in resistance and the Chinese resistance fighters in general in Hong Kong - just made it that much better. 

There are more and more books finally being written about the Pacific during WW2 in various countries, and of course, add to that how the Japanese had invaded and oppressed China long before that. The brutality of the Japanese during the time is truly horrific and the book showed that well, while also keeping the graphic nature of it to a minimum. 

I loved Mingzhu, Qiang, and Biyu as extraordinary female characters. They each displayed different qualities and their friendships with each other and this around them made their strengths and character development even better. 

Really enjoyed the book and highly recommend both for the history, to know how commendable and instrumental the Chinese people were in liberating their own country, and as a reminder of the strength and perseverance of women. 

Also, I love anytime the Japanese kintsugi is introduced in a book. Love the practice and art form for so many reasons. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine. 

Loved learning about the history of refugees trying to escape Franco in the 30s and then further upheaval after settling in Chile. So much I had no idea about but it was beautifully told thru the lives of a family and the people they crossed paths with. Lots of great threads about picking up the pieces after such extreme circumstances, family, mistakes, love and perseverance

This has 2 books in the same audiobook - while both were kind of repetitive, the first one was pretty good, but the 2nd was so incredibly melodramatic and the FMC was so flighty and swayed by everyone's opinion it was ridiculous.

Cute and lighthearted 

Easy and lighthearted, and super engaging. It was a great murder mystery, clue hunting historical fiction. The banter and humor was a lot of fun. 

I realize I’m in the limited minority with this one but I really disliked the book and honestly it just made me angry the entire time. I will, however, say that the writing was excellent, but the basis of the whole book was either about or revolving around Beth’s infidelity, as she burned down everything around her with her selfish decisions. 

Instead of the old adage of death by a thousand cuts, it was infidelity by a thousand decisions. Appropriate and thought provoking in its accuracy, and while I appreciated that it didn’t really sugar coat that, I also had no desire to watch it happen. For the whole book. Nor did I like that Beth’s attitude was essentially that while it was awful, and destroyed everyone around her, it was also inevitable. Actually no, it’s not. Back to those pesky little decisions…

The writing was good as other reviewers stated but I don’t get why it’s rated so high - the characters were pretty awful and didn’t get any better thru the book. It was like a bunch of immature teenagers in relationships for their own self serving reasons or ignoring glaring red flags.