If you're looking for a beautifully written romance that doesn't hold back, Seven Days in June is your next read.

☀️ A love story that spans fifteen years featuring an erotica writer and a novelist who wrote each other into their books. It took them seven days during their senior year in high school to fall in love and seven days fifteen years later to reignite it. ☀️

☀️ I don’t really think it’s fair that the blurb calls Shane a novelist and Eva an erotica writer. They’re both novelists.

☀️ Technically, this is a second chance romance written in a standard second-chance-romance way (time jumps from before and now highlighting some mysterious reason why they broke up), but this is done so damn beautifully. If you don’t like this trope, try it anyway.

☀️ Content warnings for sexual assault, drug use, and self harm (probably more)

☀️ Can we just talk about the narrator of the audiobook for a second? She’s perfect. I swear she’s part of the reason why I think this book is beautifully written: it’s beautiful to read AND to listen to.

☀️ Eva suffers from severe migraines and it runs in her family. I also suffer from migraines, though not as intensely as she does. I did feel seen by some of these scenes though because having a migraine is some of the most painful shit I’ve ever experienced and when people read this story, maybe they’ll understand.

☀️ There’s this interview at the end of the book that highlights Tia’s own struggles with chronic migraines and it just adds to the authenticity.

☀️ On a lighter note, Tia Williams brought chapter headings back! And they’re all phrases pulled from the chapters! Love it.

Overall, this is a terrific love story with serious themes and a raw delivery. Highly recommend.

Everything I stated in my volume one review still stands: amazing story, beautiful artwork, and I love the modern twist on this visual retelling of Persephone and Hades. If you haven't read the second volume yet, be warned: the rest of this review is going to get spoilery.

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I love how we're able to see the corporate life of the Underworld and meet more people that live there. The world building is really coming together in this volume and the romantic tension is amazing. I understand why Minthe is a thing from a writer's perspective, but I don't like it. I don't think we're supposed to. The storytelling is gorgeous. I loved the episode where Hades is writing Persephone the letter and we see things unfold visually as he writes this letter; it's almost like a movie scene. I wasn't as blown away with this volume as I was the first, but I think that's because I know what to expect. Seeing a darker side of Hades was fun, too.

Emily Henry has this habit of taking tropes that I typically despise and turning them into stories I devour. Second chance romances are not my thing, but she made it work.

It’s common knowledge in the creative writing world that your main character has to have a concrete goal to strive for. It needs to be something solid and measurable. Something like ‘happiness’ isn’t good enough because it’s not something you can measure.

Emily Henry laughed in every professors’ face and said, “Challenge accepted.”

Happy Place honestly has a weak premise, so don’t judge the book by the description alone. Harriet and Wyn broke up, but they didn’t tell anyone because they didn’t want to pull their friends and families down. There’s this annual trip that their friend group takes and they’re faking being together for the betterment of the group.

Everything explodes from there, as you can tell.

This is the only four star rating I’ve ever given her books. I felt like Oprah with this author (you get five stars, and you get five stars) until Happy Place. Here’s why.

Emily Henry is famous for her banter and there’s a good amount of it, but not as much as I’m used to from her writing. I also felt that the foundation of this plot was much weaker than her other ones (miscommunication trope… yuck).

This may get me side eyes from some of her die-hard fans, but didn’t Happy Place feel like a watered down People We Meet on Vacation? There were similar themes with the back and forth in timeline and mystery on what happened with the breakup… it just kind of let me down in comparison.

That being said, this is still a four star book. I enjoyed reading it and I’m glad I ended up buying a copy. Even though the romance didn’t really land for me, the theme and friendships did.

The theme of Happy Place is finding yours. As someone who struggles with finding happiness, I teared up a few times toward the end of this one (like all Henry books, if we’re being honest). I left a career that I poured a bunch of money into in order to find my happiness two years ago and I really wish it was this easy.

Anyway, the friendships made this book for me. I adored the friend group and how they survived adulthood and separate lives, discussing how friendships bend and change… but they don’t have to burn out.

Also, Julia Whelan is an amazing narrator if you prefer audiobooks. The way that she performs some of these scenes is mind-blowing.

Overall, it was good. It satisfied my need for spring-to-summer vibes with the vacation home, the water, and the small town coffee shop.

Onto the next!

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Joris Chamblain, Anne-Lise Nalin, and Europe Comics for an eARC of this graphic novel!

Okay. So, I have some seriously mixed feelings about Sager’s latest release.

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I fell in love with Taylor Jenkins Reid. This is the third book of hers that I’ve read and I will read them all.

I swear I’m not a historical fiction fan, but somehow TJR is one of my favorite authors. That speaks wonders, I promise.

When I read The Dead Romantics last fall, I was awestruck enough to declare Ashely Poston a favorite author, despite not reading any of her other books. I preordered The Seven Year Slip as soon as it was announced and finally got around to reading it a little over a month after its release.

Externally, we’re following a story about a woman and her aunt’s magical apartment. After suffering the loss of her aunt, Clementine inherits her beloved apartment. Shortly after moving in, she discovers that the stories her aunt told her in childhood were true: this apartment slips seven years into the past (hence the name of the book).

This is a romance book with a supernatural spin and it’s wonderful. I’m not usually a fan of time travel books, but I absolutely adored this one. It’s the perfect summer read if you’re looking for a romance book with loads of food references and some deeper messages.

“The art stays the same, but you change, and as you change, so does what the art means to you—even as it allows you a window into who you once were and the people you once loved, and still love.” This is a quote from the author’s note, and it perfectly describes the depth of this novel. It’s a romance book, but it’s so much more than that.

There are some heavy topics of grief, suicide, change, and having the ability to embrace that change.

She mentions in the author’s note that if we were to come back to this book, we’re not going to be the same people we were the first time reading it… that books are like time capsules. I’ve never thought of my hobby that way before and it made me cry. Yes, I cried at the author’s note.

Spoiler

I cried when she was able to see her aunt again thanks to the slip in the apartment. I kind of wish we had a longer scene there, but I think it added to the magic that we didn't see it.

I thought back to my favorite book that I revisit often and realized she was right. I’m never the same person during a reread. Looking for Alaska offers something new each time I read it. Maybe I’ll write a blog post specifically around the time travel of rereading, but I really appreciate the thought that went into this book and the messages Poston wove into the prose.

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Do I want to go watch When Harry Met Sally after reading this? 100,000 percent yes.

Maybe this book is just what I needed, but my god. I’ve been DNFing books like crazy and this guy pulled me from the edge of a reading slump.

☕️ Usually I would insert a brief synopsis right here in my reviews, but I think going in blindly is the right call. All you need to know is that it’s a fall romantic comedy with When Harry Met Sally vibes. You’re welcome. ☕️