sarah_thebooknerd's Reviews (879)

Rebel

Beverly Jenkins

4.0

adventurous challenging medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I'm still very solidly in my historical romance mood lately and I just love Beverly's love stories. The swoon factor with them wins me every time. I devoured this book in like 24 hours. A teacher who is wanting to help freed slaves learn to read and write and running from an abusive father and running into the pirate/ businessman that helps her and they end up falling I mean yes, yes, yes!

Out of the Blue

Jason June

3.25

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I wanted to love this one but the cheating trope showing up so late into it and sometimes how selfish Russ is just made me mad at times. I love mermaids and love that there is a nonbinary mermaid that is wonderful and so needed. I also love fat MCs and the rep here for that was great. I get the young mess up and that is part of growing up but I wanted to see Russ grow a bit more given some of their behaviors here.

The Road of Bones

Demi Winters

5.0

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I love this book so much and now I am devastated I have to wait until 2025 to read book 2! I knew I should have bought book 1&2 before I started. From the process of me buying book 1 to starting book 1 it was picked up by trad pub.

GAHHH I need it now.

Her Own Happiness

Eden Appiah-Kubi

3.5

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Not in Love

Ali Hazelwood

3.0

emotional funny medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I have so many mixed feelings on this one. Thank you to PRH audio for a free copy to read.

Let's start with the narration- I really did not care for the FMC narrator. It made the FMC sound so judgy and whiny and it was hard for me to read because of that.

This is one of Ali's steamist of books and he has it bad for her, like so BAD. I loved the sex positivity with this in terms of showcasing people hooking up, that is how these two first mee through a hookup app and that is how they normally do things in their life but when they are forced into a proximity situation with work things evolve.

There are some plot holes with Rue's upbringing- I loved the conversations about food insecurity and that having to parent the younger sibling aspects and guilt Rue talks about but there were def some major issues and it was left more for us to decipher how someone who was struggling with having food at home would have the means to join competitive figure skating. It maybe is due to a friend helping but that part wasn't 100% clear and needed to be flushed out to really bring in the depth that I think was lacking with this backstory to Rue.

The part that has me so confused is the body descriptions for Rue and what is depicted on the cover./ what is her body type. I am going with straight sized but the body is described as soft, jiggly, lush, curvy and "mediterranean"- what the hell does that even mean!? I googled it and really means thick bottomed which makes sense then with the cover because we cannot see her bottom but as someone who craves more body diversity this seemed to be skimming it or was blatantly ignored then on the cover. I am just not sure which and that bugs me.

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

Amanda Montell

3.0

informative reflective fast-paced

Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss, and Finding Home

Gina DeMillo Wagner

Review to come

Now Us, Again

Leonor Soliz

5.0

lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

I loved this a lot. It’s a short story novella with a second chance and I loved the chemistry coming from these two immediately. There was tension and that is also hard to pull off in a short book. I found myself wanting more when I finished which doesn’t shock me because I always want to read more from Leonor.