kalventure's reviews
522 reviews

 Imagine this: you're weeks into a reading slump and missing your favorite hobby so much. You glance at your colorful bookshelves longingly, with a silent wish that something would grip your attention so you can get lost in another world. A blue spine stands out among the paperback shelves... and here Beach Read is. You don't know where it came from or how long its been there. But it calls to you so you get comfortable, crack it open, and are swept away by the most delightful of books.

Beach Read is an absolute delight and I wish I could read it for the first time again. I don't read a lot of romance, so the fact it was on my shelves is a bit surprising to me but I am so glad I own a copy of this delightfully funny and sarcastic rom-com! It feeds my soul in a way I don't think I can articulate and quite frankly has opened my mind up to a slew of new reading opportunities.

Beach Read is as much about writer's block as it is about romance. It's a love letter to fiction and the craft of writing when for one reason or another it's become difficult. It's about the craft of writing romance novels while itself being a romance novel - I adore how meta it feels.

The writing is instantly and effortlessly engaging and the book is simply devourable - the very definition of a beach read. Emily Henry is skilled at writing tension and attraction: every interaction between the pair sparks. And as a Type A person who is very competitive, the whole concept of the writing bet between these two authors speaks to me.

You see, January Andrews has gone through it the last year and is very late to deliver her newest romance novel because it turns out it's difficult to write about happy endings when your whole worldview has been shattered. She heads to a small town in Michigan to hunker down and write, only to find her next door neighbor is her rival from university. Her ridiculously good looking rival who barely knew she existed and is a "serious literary fiction" author.

Augustus Everett. Gus. I don't know why I am always for the broody type. One thing I really enjoyed about Gus is that January's memory of him in college doesn't quite match him in reality (isn't that always the case?). First impressions and assumptions held over the years are tested while they both try to write their next book.

Enter: the bet.

January is to write a dark and gritty literary fiction book, Gus to write a romantic comedy. Each week they arrange outings and lessons to introduce each other to their genres. And as the weeks pass, they get closer and I felt like a giddy schoolgirl hoping they would hurry up and kiss already.

The barbed banter between Gus and MC is so good that I found myself laughing out loud often, falling quickly for this writing pair and hoping they would get together. All of the characters are soo full of life and well rounded, and I found myself relating to everyone at one point or another. The world Henry crafted feels lived in and real.

The way Gus stole my heart should be illegal. He is flawed and jaded and our view of him is limited to January's POV, and I honestly kind of loved that (although Gus POVs would have been cool, too).

This book is feel-good with a ton of heart for the genre. I had no expectations going into it and this book was exactly what I needed to shake the last vestiges of my reading slump: it's quick paced and laugh out loud funny, and it won't be the last book by this author that I read! 

 

I really enjoyed Where Dreams Descend and was so excited to read the finale of the duology and get answers. What is Glorian? Why can't people remember things? Why is Jack a butt? I love how everything came together, characters dealt with the consequences of their actions, the beautiful writing, and revelations were made, but I did find myself a little confused and frustrated by all the lying and gatekeeping of information.

The duology is plotted well and I love that all the mystery of Glorian laid out at the end of Where Dreams Descend take center stage in this book. The worldbuilding is vast and expands our understanding of the world Angeles created but I struggled with keeping everything together. There's this moment in the book where Kallia asks "What the fuck is going on?" and that's basically how I felt most of this book.

Revelation after revelation, at times it felt like the plot was a giant WTF wrapped up in a character who doesn't tell the truth to conveniently make all of this confusion possible. I am not a fan of the miscommunication trope where everything would basically be fine if someone would have spent 5 minutes at the start. While the allure and mystery of Jack in the first book kept my annoyance at bay, for some reason it bothered me more in WNB. I never really got a valid sense of why; rather, I found a very good reason for him to be honest with her if he really wanted to ~protect her~. Then again, characters -- just like people -- don't make sense sometimes!

The theme of memory and trust are again at the fore throughout as Kallia and the reader are never really sure what is true. Reality blurs and so much is unknown by our main characters, and the way worldbuilding is revealed is like standing on shifting sand… constantly leading you to readjust your footing.

Overall I enjoyed this debut fantasy duology and would recommend it to fans of magical fantasy stories where trust is precious and the book keeps you guessing.

eARC provided by the publisher Wednesday Books for my honest review. This has not impacted my reading opinions or the contents of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and subject to change upon final publication. 

Not a bad book, just a bit weird and I’m not in the right mood for it. May revisit the book later.

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This book was somehow both what I expected and not at all what I thought it would be. I've heard a lot of fantastic things about Ruth Ware and being a fan of Agatha Christie I figured this book would be a fun one. Not saying that it wasn't, but I think my own impressions and expectations of what this book would be hampered my reading experience a bit.

What this book isn't: a locked room mystery or who-dun-it
What this book is: a mysterious past and family history uncovered piece by piece, with a tiny bit of thriller elements near the end

I don't know, maybe Knives Out just kind of lives in my head rent-free and the plot setup led my brain to make certain assumptions. In terms of what the book is: I enjoyed the mystery and how it unfolded, but I won't say more about that for obvious reasons.

Having personally grown up without a lot of money and experiencing my own periods of poverty, I relate a lot to Hal and her situation -- particularly to the intense guilt one feels for a small "splurge" like picking up fish & chips for your one meal of the day. The poverty representation, as well as the juxtaposition with her "family's" life of luxury, is well done without feeling like it is a main focus.

I found the narrative a little repetitious at times in the way that anxious thoughts spin around in our heads sometimes; it was a little off-putting to me because of the third-person perspective. This lead to a bit of an uneven reading experience for me where I would skim until things felt like they were progressing again.

Overall this was an enjoyable mystery to cozy up under a blanket and read over the course of a couple rainy days. I am looking forward to picking up The Woman in Cabin 10 at some point now that I've experienced Ware's writing style.

It pains me to say that this book just wasn't for me. Miller created an intricate and interesting world, but it fell short of its potential. I found the worldbuilding overly complicated and the exposition convoluted, and I struggled to understand what was going on at any given time. Somehow the narrative was both vague and repetitive, which was frustrating for me to sift through. I'm a reader who's big on worldbuilding and it's a shame that it didn't work for me. While I was intrigued to figure out what the heck was going on, unfortunately all of the characters fell flat to me and I just didn't care.

At the end of the day, this book just didn't suit my reading preferences and I decided to DNF and move on to other books. Just because I didn't enjoy this book doesn't mean that you won't.

eARC provided by Sourcebooks Fire via Edelweiss for my honest review. This has not impacted my opinion nor the contents of my review. Quotations are from an uncorrected proof and are subjected to change upon final publication.