stitchesandstationery's Reviews (306)

There is not a universe in which I personally could not give this book 5 stars. Between the positive representation of someone with depression (someone who is actively seeking treatment for their depression, who knows that this is something they will probably live with forever, but still ends up happy) and the positive representation of a chubby lover (someone who knows they're fat and is self-conscious about it with new partners), there wasn't a way in which this book did not emotionally destroy me. I have never felt so seen by a book, so represented, and so exposed for the world to see. This was a beautiful and painful experience, and I have so many WONDERFUL highlighted quotes from this book.

Russell is my mountain man dream, Ari is the personification if masking, Elodie is me if I had discovered musical theater before I turned 15. I just..I could not possibly love this book more. From the author's note all the way through to the end, everything was perfect to me, and felt so real.

Thank you to NetGalley, Melissa Ferguson, and Thomas Nelson Publishing for the opportunity to receive an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Savannah Cade wants nothing more than to get her manuscript published - the same manuscript she has been working on for four years. Through a twist of fate, she's given the opportunity to submit her manuscript to one of the top publishers in the business. Unfortunately, it isn't quite up to snuff and it gets rejects and unless she performs a major rewrite, she doesn't have a chance of Baird Books picking her up. With the help of a mystery editor she finds in the confines of her secret hideaway, she's able to make the necessary changes and somehow find her Happily Ever After in the process.

Between the cover, the blurb, and the setting, this should have been a slam dunk for me. But it wasn't. Personally, I couldn't get into the flow of the writing style, I didn't connect with Savannah (we get it, she's ~ordinary~), Will was boring, and the fact that the grand finale was their first kiss was...not for me.

Even though I'm not the reader for this book, I still think it should be given a chance, especially if you like:

Rhi is the powerful, brilliant, and sexy founder of the popular dating app, Crush, and Samson is the ex-NFL player turned spokesperson for her rival company. They've hooked up once (thanks to her own app), and it left them both with a whole mix of emotions. Without knowing who the other is, they both attend a tech conference and end up meeting up for the first time since That Night. They're forced into closer proximity to one another as they decide to take a leap that will help both of their companies, and that goes, well, exactly how you'd expect it to when two people have known each other as intimately as they have.

I loved both of them. Rhi started as a boss babe who never slept with the same man twice (a trauma response to her last serious relationship) who was then able to balance her professional life and her focus on her work and her career with her relationships - with her family, her friends, and with Samson. Samson was multidimensional and powerful, and while I originally found myself wishing he hadn't been a hulking ex-linebacker and had been the mildly geeky owner of a rival company, the added element of CTE and the death of both his father and his uncle was surprising. It added a wonderful level of depth to Samson that made him even more loveable.

They diversity of the characters in this book should definitely be acknowledged - there is completely wonderful representation of different races, different sexualities (okay we could have seen more of this, but it was there), and different levels of mental wellness. It was fascinating and fun and steamy as hell.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Ashley King, and City Owl Press for the opportunity to receive a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion and review!

I don't take this opportunity lightly, and as much as I would love to give every book I read a 5 star review, sometimes I just can't. I wanted to like this book - a HEA rom com featuring a tennis pro and a single parent with a charming 8 year old? I honestly didn't think it could possibly miss the mark for me.

Overall this book was fine. There were things I disliked about it (I think King and I have different ideas of how "donned" should be used in a sentence, and most of the conversations between Simone and Alex didn't feel realistic and authentic to me), but there were also things I did like about it (the tennis aspect, the relationship Simone has with her sister, the found family Alex ended up with). They all kind of shook out in the wash.

While it was romantically a slow burn, it definitely wasn't in terms of the lust aspect. Other reviewers have mentioned how much they loved the tension between the characters,

but I didn't feel much tension - each time they were together, they acted on their attraction to one another??

I do genuinely think there are people out there who will love this book, I just didn't end up being one of them. 

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Ava Wilder, and Random House Publishing - Ballantine for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

Grey is a young-ish actress verging on irrelevancy after her long-running teen drama wrapped a year ago, and Ethan is an unintentionally semi-retired DILF needed to make a PR comeback. Neither is perfect, both are completely flawed with a whole cargo hold full of baggage, and both are completely in lust with one another. But can they deserve one another?

Tropes featured include fake dating, one bed, as well as grump and sunshine - and once you marry that with rich people in Hollywood, how could I possibly resist?

One thing I'd really like to commend Wilder on is her ability to create conflict between the two main characters without relying on miscommunication as a plot point. I also think this novel that could have been a lighthearted contemporary romance was able to dig deeper and handle some tough topics - without digging too deep and straying from the intended genre.

Overall, Wilder did an amazing job and this book was a joy to read and a blast to fly through. Mark your calendars for June 14th, 2022!

First, I love anything surrounding food so this was an automatic win for me. I was picturing the Great British Baking Show if it had been filmed inside the house instead of on the lawn, but I really should have been picturing Chopped instead. Oh well! Second, the love between Dahlia and London is just so pure and adorable and wonderful. They are both so real and raw and flawed and lovable that it's impossible not to swoon as they discover their feelings for one another.

I think another thing I should state is how uncommon it is to read a book with a nonbinary main character, and how much I genuinely enjoyed that element of this book.

First of all, let me say that apparently Colleen Hoover's books give me literal, physical anxiety. I'm not just saying they stress me out, I'm saying they make my chest hurt, make my head feel heavy, and make it feel like I'm floating in Jello.

Second of all, this book was painful and rude and hurtful. Every single character in this book was flawed, except for maybe Scotty, but every single character in this book was also just completely and totally full of love.

Real Housewives meets Gossip Girl? Sign me up. There were twists and turns I was NOT expecting, relationships I never saw coming, and lessons about real people that I would have expected to be out of place. This was a fun read, and I am so glad I finally picked it up!

I had never read a cozy mystery before this year, and now I've read two in one month! Molly was wonderful. I loved having a neurodivergent main character who was allowed to just be her. I appreciated the inclusion of the hateful people around her, and the ways people take advantage of her because she doesn't understand.

Molly was a joy to read about, Mr. Preston and Charlotte are angels, and JUAN MANUELLLLLL. That's all.

I really enjoyed this and think it was a wonderful take on mysteries and thrillers. The setting and the crime were creative and well thought through. I greatly enjoyed this one and would recommend it to almost anyone.

Brit Bennett is INCREDIBLY talented and I am in awe of the way she blends plot with truly beautiful prose.

I've never read anything like this before - an omniscient narrator that is actually a group of people? Fascinating. The characters were so layered and dimensional and so...alive.

This was a work of art, honestly. Something everyone should read once, but that doesn't quite have re-readability?