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faeriesparks's review
4.0
laurenkara's review
3.0
thaictaff's review
4.0
Lily Ferrari is a protagonist that I wouldn’t want to be friends with but at the same time I understand and even relate to her a little. I like seeing cynical and realistic characters because to me it make them more real. So, I enjoyed Lily’s character and even thought she wasn’t my favorite, she didn’t annoy me or anything of the kind.
“Liberdade. Freedom. Suits you well. Tienes un alma sin limites, Lidiane.”
I wish we could’ve seen more of Mayte, I feel like we saw more of her in The Melody Of You And Me and I’m kind of disappointed because she seems amazing but we didn’t get to see her character depth. At the same time, I understand that this was a short story so this is more of a observation than a complaint.
The friendship in this book was so adorable, I loved all of the girls and their interactions were so much fun to read. It’s probably my favorite thing about this story and I really really hope the next book is about Hope and Karen because I already love them so much, plus best friends to lovers is definitely one of my favorite tropes so this would be perfect.
“We are your best friends. Your family. You can always count on us. You need us to move mountains? We’ll do it. You need us to hide a big secret? We’ll do it.”
Another thing that was on point for me was the diversity representation. Since Hollis is Brazilian I wasn’t surprised that the cultural references would be perfect, but I loved how it was acknowledged and discussed between the characters as well, and everything they say it’s so painfully accurate it’s actually sad. It did have its fun parts of it too though.
Every time someone finds out she is Brazilian, it’s met with disbelief. They ask her how come she’s white, why is her English so good, what language does she speak?
Lily hates this the most.
The only thing that actually bothered me in this novella is that it felt like things were more told than experienced, I’m not sure how to express what I mean… Let’s say a lot of the story happened in her head and we didn’t get to see much of the things actually happening. That also happened in the first book but not as much as it did in this one.
Review also posted at Read. Breathe. Repeat.
breadedbookpages's review
5.0
I would like to head this review with a special thank you. I was loaned a copy of this book by Marianne (@Mariannereads)! Thank you so much, fellow Froy admirer! Marianne and others are doing this awesome thing called #LittleKindleLibrary and they're lending out ebooks to anyone who'd be kind enough to stick to the rules! I started this book approximately five hours before I finished it and it was so cute and exactly what I needed. Anyway, onto my review!
Buckle up, kids, because this book is kind of very fluffy and very sexy and will give you a lot of good feelings! I read the first book in the Lilac Town series weeks ago and I remember liking its simple style a lot. This one impressed me even more because I personally identified with Lily so much personality-wise and body-type wise.
This installment deals with Lily, the coworker we saw in Chris and Josie's story, who likes to keep everything in her life in control and going as she likes them to go. This mostly is a result to a life before she left home where she was suffocated by her parents' rules. This side of Lily was a part I related to so much because her need for control reminded me of how I'd be like when dealing with depression. Due to this little need of hers, Lily isn't the nicest or most amicable. She can be quite rude and dry with people, which I loved. I like my heroes realistic and Lily reminds me so much of myself when I'm just fed up with people. Let's just say Lily translated so much of my own feelings to the degree that I was glaring at a CAT when I'm obviously a huge cat person.
Anyway, after a one-night stand with her co-worker's roommate, Lily develops a casual sex relationship with Matye, who is artistic and very very charming. She basically charms me into blushing and she's not even real! I quite liked how Matye challenge Lily into coming out of her perfectly controlled world and allowed Lily to expand her circle of trustees. Matye isn't the only awesome female support system Lily has, however, because THE PATHS WE CHOOSE has an incredible cast of female minor characters. Lily lives with three other ladies who help her with the most minor --dying her hair-- to the most major --stopping a plane for her to make a hella romantic confession-- (wink wonk). There is also an appearance of Chris and Josie and they are as adorable as ever as their own relationship is shown to be steady and flourishing.
This is quite character focused especially on Lily and how she somewhat deals with her own past of having left her home and with this unexpected romance that's springing in her life. I enjoyed this so much although it was very short. Hollis has an addictive style of both sweet and quite hot. I especially liked how healthy the sex scenes were.
As for diversity, this book has it all! Lily is canonically Brazillian, doesn't embrace any labels sexual orientation wise and is a plus size woman, Matye is an Afro-Latinx Cuban bisexual, and of Lily's roommates there is Karen who is a half-Japanese raised in Brazil bisexual while the other roommate Anika comes from a family of second-generation Indian-Americans.
There is quite a healthy deal of conversation about Lily and Matye's cultural backgrounds and a ton of cute moments both sexy and not.
P.S. If you are not okay with reading sexual scenes, the ones in this book aren't as frequent and they're not as explicit as one might think... But anyway, yeah, they're there.
bookdeviant's review
4.0
I've been having trouble putting my words for this one down, but my feelings are in fact just really simple when I think about it. If you read my review for The Melody of You and Me, my feelings have barely changed. These two novellas are fairly similar, but not in a negative way.
Lots of new characters were introduced all at once, and I found it hard to follow right away. Lily has three roommates, and then there's Mayte's friends. Karen, Hope, and Anika, who are Lily's roommates, are hard to keep apart, and I'm still unsure who is who whenever one of them is mentioned. Then, there was this Naomi girl who was mentioned a few times, and I can only guess that she was Mayte's friend. I did, however, appreciate how all of them were diverse--either queer or POC. One of them is Japanese, one is Brazilian, like Lily, but I can't for the life of me remember who is. Josie and Chris reappeared quite a few times, and I really enjoyed seeing how their lives were getting on and how their relationship had developed in the elapsed time.
The relationship, however, between Lily and Mayte seemed . . . lackluster. I couldn't really see the chemistry between them, and throughout the story I really only saw them for how they described their relationship: as a casual thing. Maybe that was the point, to see how it grew as the novella went on, but there was minimal development through the story.
Lily's background was also very washed over. It was mentioned, but it was almost as if Hollis didn't want to outright say what the problem really was. I loved the development in that area, but since I don't really want to get into spoilers (which I think I have already), I don't want to say much more.
Lily herself had the most development, the most solidity. I really loved her character, how unapologetic she was about who she was. Probably my favorite part was how consent was constantly asked throughout the sex scenes, as well as how they went over their boundaries early in their arrangement.
four stars - Overall?
I really enjoyed this one, and it kept me up late with all of the steamy scenes. Again, the third person present tense writing was really odd and clunky, and sometimes it almost felt like I was getting the story told to me by some random narrator. I also didn't really feel the chemistry (but that doesn't mean the sex scenes weren't good. They were.)
Would I Recommend?
To anyone looking for diverse and sexy new adult romances. I never thought I'd find myself getting into this genre, but Hollis has managed to drag me here with hearts in my eyes.
Trigger warning for homophobia.
chantal550's review
4.0
Mayte and Lily start seeing each other casually after a one night stand they share. Mayte is moving to Florida soon and their arrangement is a no strings attached casual relationship. But of course little by little they start falling for each other. This was everything I wanted and more.
There was a lot of telling instead of showing with characterization and some descriptions.
For example, there's a scene when Lily goes to Matye's house to help her pack her things for the move and it said something like "she organized everything really well it didn't take long." If she had painted an image of how the boxes looked or how specifically they were organized it would have been a stronger scene. Lily would be described as coming off as rude and angry to people all the time but I never saw evidence of that in the text and it would have been stronger characterization if we could deduce that on our own. This is a short novella so its no surprise the characters weren't very fleshed out or well developed. A few more rounds of editing would have helped make this book stronger all over.
Despite the negatives I loved this book so so so much. It was adorable, it made me feel so warm and fuzzy. I loved seeing cameos from the first couple in the series being cute and happy together. The representation was amazing pretty much everyone was gay and dating women. The main character is Brazilian, Mayte is Cuban, Lily doesn't identify herself but Mayte is bisexual. I loved reading about Lily's background and seeing her and Mayte bond over the similarities in their cultures. There were amazing discussions in this book about love, relationships, what it means to be latinx, found families, friendships, and so much more. I wish this book was longer I would have loved to read in-depth deep conversations about these topics and themes.
All in all this book had a few negatives but more than made up for them in the positives. I wish more books like this existed. I can't wait to read more from this author and the series. If you love romantic stories or the casual relationship turns real trope check this one out it's truly wonderful.
Spoiler
The ending had me bawling the cliche airport scene where the main character chases the other down runs through the airport and declares their love for them. I loved seeing two females in this cliche scene I've seen done so many times in a heterosexual relationship story.brittanyallyn's review
4.0
bookishromancee's review
3.0
Cute, Lovely short f/f romance! A lot of diversity which I love! Even though I really enjoyed reading this book, I think it could have been amazing as a full length novel! It woule have been nice for the final scene to be more detailed!