juliannewarren12's Reviews (73)

If you are reading this in 2025 and on… Trigger warning El*n M*sk is mentioned in the bonus chapter lol

All three novellas were very cute and I enjoyed how they are were connected. I think the bonus chapter really tied it all together beautifully. 

I wish Below Zero was longer because it felt too rushed. I think it would’ve been better as a novel so we could feel more of the tension between Ian and Hannah. The whole plot felt rushed but was still enjoyable. 

I think Ali Hazelwood does best with longer novels but reading them straight through (like in Love to Loathe You) helped make the characters seem more developed. 

Under One Roof has the most character development so naturally it was the best but I would lovveeee to read Below Zero in a longer form. 

This was my first intro to Ali Hazelwood and safe to say I am hooked. I genuinely couldn’t put this book down and read it in one day. I enjoyed the balance of romantic and (especially female) platonic friendships throughout the story. 

This book would be rated higher for me if every twist wasn’t so predictable.

The only part that actually made me gasp was when Tom assaulted Olive. The pain of experiencing that and then hiding it from Adam was beautifully written in my opinion. I think Ali perfectly captured Olive’s struggle of deciding if she should tell Adam and risk him losing his relationship with Tom or not.

The only thing that irked me about this story was just the amount of staff willing to date students. Maybe it’s more realistic at the PhD level but I was kind of grossed out about how no one (esp other staff) seemed to care about the power imbalance of that. 

The Love Hypothesis was a fun story to read and as a biologist, this holds a special place in my heart. 

I really enjoy reading this author’s work and hope she branches out of this specific trope in the future. Just like the other two books, all you need to know is that this follows the same structure in each book (except this time there’s a dog) Personally Sofi and Leo’s relationship was the least interesting to me but that may just be because the flow of the story is getting repetitive. 

Cute story but all you need to know is that this series follows the same structure in each book: 
boy and girl already know each other from their youth -> get close and start dating with their grandpas meddling  -> big dramatic event leads to a third-act breakup -> grandpas intervene  -> couple gets back together and professes their love each other

I hope the author branches out more because her writing style is so enjoyable to read. 

This book got me out of a reading slump and is perfect for what it is- a cute romcom slow burn. It is very light to read, even the heavier topics including alcoholism and parent death. Could the characters and heavy topics been more developed? Yeah. Could the plot include more depth and twists? Also yeah. But this was still very cute and fun to read. Unlike many other reviews, I enjoyed Gabe and Chani together. I thought their interactions were pretty realistic in the “Then” chapters in terms of affection/flirting for only each other for one weekend. I also enjoyed the way the book was structured. Splitting between “Then” and “Now”, along with having each chapter end with a relevant article, withheld the right amount of information that was slowly revealed. I liked the we slowly got bits and pieces of their history. I’d be interested in a second book about this couple. 

Not the book for me but the message is powerful. As a woman, it’s hard not to relate to parts of this story. As much as I enjoyed the overall theme, I just couldn’t get into it. The lack of chapters added stress while reading. I understand the decision to not include chapters but that style is just not for me personally. All of the characters just felt so bland. I wish we could’ve gotten more about Jane’s mental health besides “I’m crazy” and “I want to kill myself.” The child was so bland as well too. I hate hate hate John so much. I know way too many men like him…

By the end I was just speed reading to get it over with. I wouldn’t recommend this book as there are others that portray female rage/being stuck in marriage and motherhood better. 

This is a memoir everyone should be reading during times like this in America (2025). This story beautifully shows the suffering, and joy, of immigrating “illegally” to America through the lens of a child in the 1990s. Watching the childlike ease harden into constant fear and anxiety way too young is very eye opening to those who’ve never experienced this. It unfortunate that many people still experience the same feats of racism and poverty while immigrating to America but I hope that this story opens up people to become empathetic. 

It took about 1/3 into the book to become interesting. The initial plot twist is very easy to predict but then the plot twist, twists about 10 more times. While it was an entertaining story, the character development/world building was lacking. The only character that had a personality to the writers was Marcie. Silas and the mob boss were supposed to be so scary, yet the lack of depth in every character made the stakes feel so small and no one was threatening at all.

I hated how they kept trying to build tension between Marcie and Kyle and then make them friends in the epilogue. They should’ve built up more tension or just completely left Kyle out of the epilogue. I’ll be honest, I still don’t fully understand what “side” Camille was on and who’s the father of her baby.

It was a quick and interesting read, but nothing mind blowing or newsworthy. The last quarter of the book is the only reason it’s not a 2 star read. 

It feels so wrong to rate a memoir, especially this one. I feel so bad for all of them and hope they are all doing okay. Shari is a great writer and did such a good job navigating how much to share without losing privacy for her family. I didn’t know much at all about this family/8 Passengers before this book and would recommend everyone to read this no matter their level of knowledge about these tragic events. 

OMG… this book truly took me on a rollercoaster of emotions. I kept having to remind myself that this is fiction and not too stress so much about Jenny’s secret, but I think it’s also so important to recognize the realness to this book. The fact that this is a fiction story but can be true for many women is just utterly devastating but I appreciate the author acknowledging that in the acknowledgments. It such an important discussion to having around current AND past views on adoption, abortion, and the flaws of the prolife movements. 

I just need to say that Bernard Quinn is an angel on earth.

The way he was so able to forgive and embrace Jenny’s secret was beautiful. He didn’t have to be okay with going 60 years without knowing about James, but he was so kind and forgiving to Jenny. The forgiveness will truly stick with me and remind me to forgive more in my life as well.

I think we can all learn so much from his character and even on just how to forgive. 

I enjoyed the plot and all of the characters but final chapters were just so powerful that it is all I can take away from this book. 

I think everyone needs to read this story asap.