justinlife's Reviews (916)

I appreciate that the title of the book says it all. It tells you what you're going to get. In this YA novel, we get the enemies to lovers trope along with a fake relationship trope. Honestly, the fake relationship trope is my favorite b/c it's a bit dumb but so much fun. This book also helped me understand the beats of the YA genre- overly independent teenagers dealing with adult issues b/c the adults in their lives don't care. Emotional neglect is a big one and all of those are on display in this book. 

I didn't find this book tiring or exhausting but thought it fun to see how the enemies move beyond their preconceived notions about each other. Seeing teenagers having to support families and having to deal with emotionally abusive parents or neglectful parents is hard. What I liked about this book was how they worked through it and how receiving help in difficult situations can hard. The story is told in dual narrations and we get two characters, Jonah and Dylan, who have different circumstances and try to figure out their feelings while dealing with their own emotional issues. 

overall a solid read. 

This is a solid read if you don't have any understanding of academia and you enjoy professor/predoctoral student relationships. We get great bi representation, we get fun characters and a look at academic life that's both accurate and inaccurate. At times, I was like "this is fiction, just enjoy" but my brain wouldn't let me. While I enjoyed the leads, one of the leads felt flat and closed off in a way that didn't seem normal, interesting or human. The other was more amiable and Oliver makes up for it with fun supporting characters. I have a harder time with workplace romance, particularly if there are people in power working to get the couple together. It stresses me out. If one of the leads had been more open and I might have enjoyed it more. 

Overall though, I liked it and would read more by Oliver. 

This book is a perfectly fine book to read for a quick summer break. It's not too tense, not too stressful, and overall an easy reading experience. 

There is sexual violence and because half the story is set in 1930-40s North Carolina, there's racism. The book centers around a young woman who is released from prison to restore a mural per a request in a will. This leads to her wanting to know what happened to the original artist and leads her on the smallest of quests. 

Overall it's a decent read. I finished it pretty quickly. I don't know if I would read more from Chamberlain but good for her for creating characters and stories that have mass appeal. I felt like the title didn't match the story as much and that's ok.

I've been a sucker for cute covers recently and this take on the Grease story made me curious. You have the bones of the story- boy spends summer with boy, ends up at boys school, hijinks ensue. Having that base helped give Gonzalez room to re-envision some aspects of the story and make it queer. Here we have a first person narration that isn't self loathing. Oliver moves from California to North Carolina where his family was sharing the summer so his mom can be closer to her sick sister. Little does he know that the school he's attending is the one that his summer fling, Will attends. Will isn't out and a star basketball player.

It's fun to see her take the things we know from the movie and twist it and have fun giving it new directions. This was one of the better YA novels I've read. It was sweet, sentimental, appropriately sad, and the young adults felt fun to read. Gonzalez adds a lot to Ollie and gives him ample opportunities to work through the stress of death, mortality, and also self respect.

It's a really good read that I can see myself coming back to.

They are really selling me on the cute covers. This one was adorable and I'd thought I'd check it out. 

The story follows Cooper, returning to visit a farm he grew up and worked on in the summer of his youths and how he doesn't want to admit his crush for Whit so instead antagonizes him. This has a lot of the classic rom com tropes- almost willfully ignorant or naive lead character, people's inability to communicate, and people misreading situations. 

Overall I liked it. It was fun to read about queer farmers falling for each other and this book had some spice to it too. The spicy scenes were better written than some of the other books I've read. 

I think my main issue was that it needed more editing. Some passages felt unnecessarily dense and wordy. It's a good read though and I'll read more from Kit Oliver. 

I really need to do better about not buying books that have fun cute cartoony covers. What can I say? I love them. 

Kosoko Jackson wrote this book and in the acknowledgements that this was a difficult book to write, which was surprising to me because it seemed like he had so much fun with it. This book was a lot of fun and felt like a queer take on a Hallmark movie. Xavier gets dumped and moves back to small town Maine to wallow as he searches for direction. He ends up working at Logan's restaurant in order to make some cash to get where he wants to go. Logan, the owner, the hot dad that everyone in town wants, might just be eating up (pun intended) Xavier. 

I enjoyed reading this book from Xavier's point of view. Jackson did a brilliant job with this character. He was just the right amount of rom com annoying but was never intolerable. He was fun, sarcastic, and used his humor to deflect. He felt lived in and the story overall moved fairly quickly. 

There were a couple of points that felt unbelievable that would be somewhat of a spoiler, but that's the point of those Hallmark movies right? We need ridiculous moments. Overall, Jackson's writing soared and his character work was marvelous. All were fun to read. There is a little spice, but it's not too much. Seasoned just right.  

I think if you title your book this, it should be kind of epic. And it wasn’t. 

The story is told in first person narrative by Nate, a Junior in high school who lost his dad 7 years ago. His old friend comes back to town and feelings get reignited. 

I wasn’t expecting this to be a high school story. I wasn’t thrilled with Nate’s perspective or actions, but he’s a teenage boy. They do dumb things and feel dumb feelings and think dumb thoughts. 

I appreciated the characters’ fluidity and how it didn’t seem to matter what gender anyone was dating. I appreciated seeing someone hard of hearing as a main character. It was fun great to see how that can work out. 

Overall this book is just ok. But I’m an old crone so there’s that. I hope the people who need to read it can enjoy it. 

This is a solid YA read that's less romance and more a personal journey with mental health. The cover is cute, and I'm a sucker for a cute cover. 

The novel is told in first person narrative and explores anxiety and clinical depression while being a young adult figuring out their athletic journey and potential romance. It was overall a fun read. I'm glad there are novels for young queer people who might need to see someone working through mental health issues. This was done with respect and care. 

Overall, it's a good enemies to lovers tale. One of the problems I had was there were a lot of supporting characters that made it hard to remember. Both characters have a full life and it felt real, it was just a lot to keep up with. 

This was a lot of fun. I’m not one for supernatural road trip books, but Slayton’s view of the afterlife was fun to explore. The characters get growth and he continues to shape a world that I want him to play more in. Adam Binder is a great protagonist and I love we get books like this. The ending felt a bit rushed but Slayton writes so well that I didn’t realize how fast I flew through this book. 

I hope there’s more here.

I really enjoyed this follow up. Slayton writes a well structured, fun sequel to White Trash Warlock. Here Adam deals with his family while Vic deals with the Immortals. I appreciate how Slayton paces his novels, how he shows his characters kindness and compassion, and how he writes to where you don't want to put it down. The world that he built does get expanded upon some, but not much, which is fine. He created a solid base in the first one. Adam is still Adam and the characters that have been changed by the events in the first book seem to deal with it in their own way. 

Looking forward to book three.