This book was so sweet! I loved the two main characters, and I especially loved that their queerness was never an "issue." It just was a fact that they were queer, which was very refreshing. I loved all of the food descriptions, and it made me crave Vietnamese food! Listening to the audiobook was an extra layer because I got to hear all of the pronunciations, versus on paper I wouldn't have been able to sound those out in my reading. I also appreciated the small bits of history/social issues (eg., French colonization, tourism, etc.) which was incorporated in a nice way while not becoming the main plot. 

Their love story was so sweet and I loved hearing them come to life!!

One small thing, the narrator for Vivi was not my favorite, every time she would come on it was a bit jarring, especially since the narrator for Lan was good. Her narrations of time/place/goings-on made me think of AI voice, but her tones for characters were good... if that makes sense. 

This book was okay. I think as a series, it's been interesting to read them and delve into all the different characters' love stories. However, I think this might have to be my last one. They are not boring, and they're well-written enough. But they are lowkey a little bland. And I am left feeling kinda "...was that it?" 

christmas is OVER!!!!

This was a really quick, easy, and lighthearted read. I enjoyed the narrator, though she wasn't extraordinary or anything. 

The book is a series, and references quite a bit of stuff that happened in the earlier books. At times it was confusing and I felt like I was missing some things. However, it didn't detract too much from the story and I think only made a difference because the book was so short. 

Very cozy, very mysterious. It could've been a bit more Christams-y, but overall it was pretty good!

This book feels like it has ADHD. Like, it's a list of hobbies that sound interesting enough for me to hyper-intensely research at 2am only for it to get lost in my notes app and forgotten for the rest of eternity. It felt maybe a bit unrealistic for the main character to be in a book club, sewing, water sports, horseback riding, etc. etc. and it started to actually piss me off. The story itself was fun/interesting enough, and the Halloween aspect was cute. I loved the cute small-town setting for sure!

This has been the worst Bridgerton book by a long shot. Phillip Crane is such a horrible love interest and character in general. His inner monologue terrifies me. Even setting that aside, him and Eloise have absolutely terrible chemistry. I feel like Julia Quinn got sick of her being unmarried and just, like, tossed Crane in there. I hated it. It took me almost a month to read. I'm really hoping the next few books are not this f*cking bad. 

Golly gee, this was horrible. Absolutely gob-smackingly awful. To start, Liza and Max? Matt? Don't care, they're both terrible, annoying, underdeveloped characters. Their entire relationship (or at least 98% of it) is based on insta-love and hardcore trauma dumping. They are so out of touch with reality. I think there is a difference between knowing each other as friends of siblings for a long time before falling in love and literally falling in love after two dates. When they don't fucking have any sort of relationship prior. During these two weeks they also manage to break up fucking twice. I hate them so much. That's so fucking toxic. 

The other 2% is hiding the whole dumpster fire from Vinny, Liza's overprotective and personality-lacking brother. I actually just don't fucking care. I hope Vinny punches Max-Matt in the face. I hope Liza gets trapped in an endless time loop and is forced to look at her disgusting personality every day and relive her horrifyingly imprudent life decisions over and over and over again until she slowly loses her mind, and when she does she has to watch herself losing her mind all over again, recorded and on repeat. How is an adult woman this much of a pre-teen child. She is a threat to herself and to society. 

I think this is less about the book than about me/my own life experiences at this point. I'm still mad about this book tho. It's not good, and I don't see it getting any better. If it does I will be shocked. But I will also never know. 

My hold ran out and I don't really care enough to renew it.

This was not as good as the other two books I've read of hers (Bride and The Love Hypothesis), but I still enjoyed it. I just really lowkey hated Bee, I thought she was just like the FMC from TLH but with even less of a personality. 

I feel like Ali Hazelwood knows how to write exactly 3 characters. The first is a quirky, weird side character and there's always something about her to add a little diversity. 
The second is a tall, smart, handsome white guy love interest with blue/green eyes and muscles for days. 
The third is (I'm fully assuming this because I actually don't know her in real life) herself. 

I appreciate it though, however, I do think the reason why I didn't love this as much as TLH is because this is the same book just slightly to the left and I read that one first so it's automatically better. I think reading a third one would be overkill and I will just flat out not like it. Like hearing the same joke 3x.

Also I hated the main villain,

the switch over was just too much and too sudden

Such a fun little story! I loved her relationships with her family and friends, the hometown return aspect. I didn't really understand why Ian was so obsessed with her, but I will accept it.