the_cover_contessa's Reviews (1.75k)

Thank you to Simon Element and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I was excited to get a book by Dave as I've really enjoyed the other books I have read by this author. In all honesty, I didn't even read the blurb because I know I like her writing and figured whatever it was I'd enjoy it. I was expecting a mystery perhaps with a little bit of thrill to it, but that's not really what I got. Is it a mystery, for sure. But not in the most common sense of the genre. This one is filled with a lot of family dynamics that the characters worked through and I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the story. There is a lot of heart-wrenching family drama which the characters work through.
Dave has a way of writing characters that are deep and emotional. I get sucked into them and their development. I loved watching the ones in this book morph and change a bit while still maintaining who they are. I find them very relatable and it's easy to feel their emotions through the words on the page. The characters come together through tragedy. Despite being family, they have never truly been connected. But their father's death brings them into each other's paths and they find they have more in common than they thought. It was nice watching Nora build a relationship with her brother.
The timeline alternates between present and past giving us a glimpse at the character who is no longer with us during the present chapters. Nora narrates the present chapters while the past chapters are seen through her father Liam's eyes. The past progresses towards the present as the author slowly builds the characters towards what they are in the present. 
The writing is really great in this book. It grabbed me right from the starts. I was eager to turn the pages and learn what would happen in the next chapter. I would say this was definitely fast paced as I finished it in two days.
If you're looking for what Dave gave you in her book prior to this one, you're not going to get quite as much mystery. It's there, but this book really is more about the family and how they learn about each other through their pasts and their presents. This is a slow burn mystery with family drama. Dave will continue to be an auto-buy/read author for me in the future.

Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an egalley of this debut book to read and give an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I adore a book about books. And this one promised some fun with a kind of You've Got Mail or Sleepless in Seattle theme to it. I was exicted to jump in and meet the characters and see how their story progressed.
The guts of the book have great promise. Unfortunately, the execution was far from good.
The character development is subpar. The FMC was very self-absorbed. I could see the possibility of growth for this character. I can see how her tragic past may have shaped her. But overall she doesn't grow. It's not until the very end that we see any empathy from her towards the other characters in the book. I did enjoy the MMC. He has a hard background fraught with mental health issues in his family. I would have liked to see more depth with this. Mental health is so important and I feel like the author truly needed to do more research in the area of Bipolar in order to really represent it appropriately. Even the side characters are not all that interesting and I had no real idea of who they were. I could not connect with anyone in the story.
As for the romance, it is truly slow burn. And it takes place within the pages of books, which was kind of neat. The two main characters annotate and leave information in the margins and at the backs of the books in order to communicate and get to know each other. I love the idea of that exchange taking place within a free little library but did find it rather unbelievable that the books would remain in the library and allow the characters to exchange them that way. I have many free little libraries where I live and the books are constantly changed over. Even with this I was still hoping I'd see the chemistry form and a romance truly bloom between the characters but I just did not feel their connection at all.
The pacing of this one was super slow for me. There were so many times I considered not finishing it. But I wanted to push in the hopes it would redeem itself. I honestly didn't have the desire to keep picking it up. I kept hoping when I did it would get better but it just didn't. The writing was so much telling rather than showing. The whole book had the characters showing us what they were doing and it took me out of the story completely.
The thing that threw me most was the timeline. The entire book takes place over about a year and a half but it does not flow that way at all. You go from one point jumping to months ahead without any indication it actually happened. It made the story feel very disjointed.
The links to all the classic literature may appeal to classic book lovers.
I went into this thinking it would be a meet cute romcom. That was not the case at all. There are a lot of heavy topics in this one: mental health, death, terminal illness, grief, pregnancy, infidelity, and bullying. There should absolutely be trigger warnings that go along with this one. I honestly would not even label this title a romance given the trajectory of the main characters and what they go through during the course of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children's for providing me with an egalley of this book to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
When I read the description of this book, it reminded me of Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. I loved that book so I dove into this one with pretty high expectations.
The idea of high school kids studying abroad for a semester is not really one I'm familiar with. College, yes. High school, not really. But I went with it because it wasn't the first time I'd seen this theme and I'm sure it does happen. And for it to happen in the city of Paris, and while I'm watching the Olympics take place! How fortuitous.
I loved the idea of a book set in France. I've spent a bit of time in Paris and in the French countryside, as well as other famous towns in France, and I just didn't feel like I was in France during this story at all. I wanted to truly feel like I was in France, experiencing the culture, seeing the sites, feeling the magic of the city of Paris, but I just didn't feel it. Nor could I envision it.
Unfortunately, I had a really hard time connecting with an of the characters in this book. Whitney Curry came across to me as a little bit too worried about how she looked to be honest. I did love the idea of her exploring a person of color, especially a lady, who leant much to the entertainment community. But there was so much focus on what Whitney, or anyone else around her, was wearing. I just didn't understand the point of that. I really wanted to see Whitney grow and change but she remained consistent throughout with her personality. Kind of flighty, and a little self-absorbed. Don't get me wrong, I know teens can be like this, but I needed her to grow during the story while she learned about things in Paris and I just didn't see it happen. 
As for the romantic love interest, I didn't feel the chemistry there at all. It just never grew and developed to feel real. I enjoy a good enemy to lovers story, which this sort of started out as. Or maybe a close proximity story line where the characters find things in common as they get to know each other and an attraction ensues. But that's not what was presented here. We went from Thierry, the male main character, being annoyed at having to teach Whitney French, to him wanting to spend all his time with her. There was no in-between. Speaking of learning French, when did that happen? Whitney mentions it but we never really see it happening. The two are always just out and about exploring Paris. I thought she was there for school? When did he go to school? It just seemed like this story would have been better suited to happen during the Summer at a program rather than during the school year.
And, while the plot revolves around her play she's creating to showcase the entertainer, you don't really see much of that happening. You do see her lists and what she wants to experience while in Paris. I am a sucker for a list, but they were parsed throughout the book with long bullet pointed sentences I only ended up scanning because after a while, I was bored with reading list.
Finally, her relationship with her roommates. I didn't see it. They never bonded. Did she try? Maybe a bit. But she was more focused on her lists, on Thierry, and on her play than to worry about cultivating relationships with the two girls with whom she shared a space. Having lived with two roommates my first year of college, I can tell you those were the most important relationships I had for the first few months while I was finding my bearings. But she doesn't seem to care enough to truly put herself out there to get to know them citing she feels like they possibly don't like her. 
The pacing for me was a bit slow. And I didn't truly feel like I needed to know what happened. Mostly I just wanted to be done with it. And when it did end, it was very anticlimactic. There was no intensity drawing me to the end.
Was the story cute? Sure. Will young teens enjoy it? Possibly. I just think it's missing too many elements to make for the story it was meant to be. I don't see other books by this author so it seems it's her first and maybe in the future her stories will grow. The bones are there, but the execution was lacking.

September 2025 for the next book??? A WHOLE YEAR TO WAIT! UGH!

If I could give this title more than 5 stars, I would. This is by far my absolute favorite Katherine Center book. The audio, with Patti Murin's narration, was PERFECTION. Reading this a second time was even more amazing than the first.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an egalley of this title to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Katherine Center is quickly becoming one of my favorite chick lit/contemporary romance authors. Her books are fun and funny, with just enough quirk in her main characters to make them extremely endearing and relatable. And this book, THIS BOOK!, is my most favorite by her to date!
Emma Wheeler has spent her life wanting to write screenplays. But her obligation to caring for her disabled father has taken the front seat to her dream. When she's given a chance to help rewrite a rom-com screenplay for one of the most famous screenplay writers, Charlie Yates, she jumps at it, even with the fear in her mind that something can go horribly wrong while her sister cares for their father. She and Charlie click and the screenplay begins to take shape, as she teaches him the meaning of romance, and they slowly form a closer bond. But when there is an emergency in her family, Emma knows she must put them first and leave Charlie behind, even if her heart tells her it will break if she does.
I first have to say how many times I laughed in this book. SO. MANY. TIMES. Literally laughing out loud and getting strange looks from those around me. But I didn't care because to say Center thoroughly entertained me would be an understatement. Her ability to write hilarious scenes with intriguing dialogue and characters who tear at your hear strings is amazing. I was thoroughly enchanted by the story line and the characters from the very start. And my heart was cheering for a happily ever after, though it seemed an impossible task.
The writing style is so much fun. Mostly because Center has the FMC, Emma, talking to her audience. I have rarely seen this done in books and have always worried this would not work well. But it works so well for this book. It really helps the reader to form a connection with the FMC. It made me totally invested in the story. It was as if she were my friend and she was telling me the greatest story of her life.
Emma Wheeler's character is fiercely loyal to family. Her tragic past shapes her future. I want to take her in my arms and just give her the biggest hug, tell her everything will be alright, tell her she's not at fault for things, and tell her to just live her life and not feel so guilty. She never puts herself first. And it's always in the back of her mind that her tragic past is her fault and she has to somehow make up for what she thinks she's done. At the same time, she has a let's make lemonade out of these lemons attitude. She can see the good in situations outside of her own. And her determination to teach this to Charlie is unsurpassed.
Charlie Yates would seem to have it all: great career at a young age with many awards to show for it, a nice house, and plenty of money. But he's lonely, and a recluse, and doesn't believe in the good things in life. He's been hurt too many times to think that you can make lemonade out of lemons. When he meets Emma, he's determined to not change his mind. He's closed off to any possibility of happiness. But she slowly unravels his grump tendencies and he begins to realize there is more to life than the tragedies that happen to us.
It was easy for me to fall quickly in love with both Charlie and Emma. Their characters are unique and unconventional.
And the supporting characters are a lot of fun. Emma's dad, who is disabled but has the most amazing outlook on life. Emma's carefree sister, Sylvie, with whom she has a best friend relationship. Logan, Emma's ex boyfriend and friend, who has the best quote in the book: "You're lonely. He's lonely. It's like an incubator for fornication." T.J., Emma's nemesis and fellow screen writer. And a slew of other fun side characters to show what the Hollywood screen writing and acting scene is like. And, best of all, Jack Stapleton, from The Bodyguard, makes an appearance and it's lovely how it ties the books together (though you can read this as a stand alone as it does not make a true difference to the story line). I loved them all.
I truly had a hard time putting this one down. And when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it and thinking about how I could get back to it. The pacing was perfect. I truly enjoyed the build between the male and female main characters. And I appreciate Center building a romance but not using spice. Don't get me wrong, I love some spice, but she makes the romantic connection through dialogue and situation and it's really just quite perfect.
Center does address a few topics that are sensitive; cancer diagnosis, tragic loss of a family member, and psychological child abuse. But she does so with great care and mastery adding lighthearted banter and situations where possible to even it all out. She also helps the reader see the bright side of things that can hurt us. Her story both ripped my heart out and healed it all at once. And I love how she doesn't sugarcoat things and shows romance from the imperfect side of things.
This book is about life and loss, love and tragedy, and understanding things happen but those things ultimately can shape you into a better person. It's full of life lessons that we all need to learn.
5 stars