leonalikesliterature's reviews
354 reviews

This is one of those books that is always in an airport bookstore and I never gave it a second glance, but genuinely, this is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Although Tara Westover’s education is the book’s namesake, the center focus of the story is Tara’s tumultuous relationship with her family, especially her abusive parents and elder brother.  I was surprised by how deeply it resonated with me. I don’t think a book has made me cry so often and hard in a long time! So many lines in this book stuck with me and made me feel so strongly that I had to take a break from reading. 

This book was a beautiful memoir. Each person in Tara’s life was written with such dimension and care, their best qualities shared with their absolute worst, that the reader can only see them as true and real people. I loved that Tara wrote this book as a memory, admitting when there are flaws in her recollection or gaps in the story that cannot be filled by other’s. 

This was such an amazing book. I’m sure I’ll come back to it someday. 

The writing was good, but I’m not sure… Nothing stood out to me. 

Funny, cute, and an enjoyable book!

I loved a lot of the side characters, especially Connie and Glenn. Jack and Hannah also had great character development.

Ending was a hot mess though. I thought the hostage plot twist was unnecessary. It was strange and felt out of place. Plus, there was a lot of life-is-worth-living preaching that was really cheesy and heavy handed. There are also small tints of misogyny sprinkled throughout the book in a “I’m not like other girls” fashion. 

An overall good read though. 

Absolutely beautifully written and an enjoyable read! 

I liked Sebastian, but Annabelle’s character was dull. Throughout the entire book, I felt she had no real characteristics or drive. I didn’t understand her motivations and I found her aggravating at times. 

Although I enjoyed the romance, the attraction between Sebastian and Annabelle was literally instantaneous and their relationship’s development was strange and their chemistry felt mismatched at times. Sebastian always had the upper hand financially, socially, and politically (which was the point), BUT I wish there has been more done to counterbalance this before the ending. However, I loved the yearning, the spice was great, and the ending was really sweet.

This was a great historical romance! A good first in the series and I’m looking forward to the sequels!

This book was splendid! I was so eager to finish the story, I finished the book in a day. It was humorous, adorable, romantic, and unpredictable. 

At first, I thought I wouldn’t like Eliza, but her character grows from a manipulable young girl to a strong-willed and outspoken woman. Even when she makes frustrating decisions, her reasoning is always understandable and relatable. By the end of the book, I loved her.

I’m not a huge fan of love-triangles, but this was probably the most well-written love triangle I’ve read. Eliza’s relationships with the two men develop so well in each of their own respects. Her relationship with Oliver deteriorates as it was based on a dying fantasy, while her relationship with Melville blossoms from friendship to love. I adored Melville! His and Eliza’s banter is so funny and sweet. He was a flirtatious but charming “rake,” but he respected Eliza as her own person and encouraged her independence and dreams. 

I loved the subplot with Margaret and Caroline! So beautiful! And the twists were so good! The characters and story felt so real but the writing wonderfully balanced the realism with the romance. The ending was perfect and satisfying, wrapping up everything like a big bow. I’m beyond excited to read the first book in the series next. 

I wanted so badly to like this series, but honestly, the show is just better.

I don’t understand how the author wrote this book thinking that women would find it romantic. Anthony was so off-putting. Why couldn’t he compliment Kate without bringing up how everyone else thinks she’s ugly or that she’s not as hot as her sister? 

I think Julia Quinn uses the genre of historical romance is used to justify perpetuating misogynist tropes and biological essentialism. “Men are inherently promiscuous and women need love to enjoy sex” was so awful. And the virgin trope is so so so trite. I am sick of virgin female protagonists getting “defiled” by rakes! Every time they fucked, Anthony was described as “experienced” and Kate was called an “innocent.” It was so gross! I love feminism in my historical romances, not basic traditionalist sexism. 

The Netflix show is not perfect, but a vast improvement from the books. I am done reading this series. I will just rewatch the show again and again to fix my Bridgerton cravings.

Decided to start this series because I love the show and I’m obsessed with regency-era historical romances right now.

During the first half of this book, I was convinced it would at least be 3 stars. The writing was pretty good. I loved the banter between Simon and Daphne, and I loved Simon’s character.

Unfortunately, the second half of the book ruined everything for me. Daphne becomes insufferable and she crosses so many lines.

I can understand why Daphne desires a child so desperately. During that era, women didn’t have a lot of ways to feel purposeful besides having children. HOWEVER, what Daphne does is unforgivable. I thought her behavior was bad in the show, but oh my god the book is so much worse! Trigger warning!!! Daphne r@pes Simon when he is intoxicated and unconscious so she can try to get pregnant when she knows he doesn’t ever want children. It’s genuinely so fucked up. I actually felt disgusted when reading that scene because she describes how “powerful” she feels in the moment. Before that scene, Daphne and Simon explicitly talk about why he doesn’t want children and she tries to guilt him into having a baby, and then the book frames HER as the victim. As if Simon is depriving her of something she’s entitled to, despite the fact that she agreed to their marriage knowing he didn’t want kids. Daphne doesn’t even apologize for it, even though that wouldn’t make it okay, but Simon comforts her because she didn’t get pregnant from assaulting him. Regardless of his reasons, Simon is allowed to not want to have kids and he doesn’t need to be convinced to have children! He feels violated after the fact, but it’s twisted so apparently he’s upset because he hates himself, not because he’s mad at Daphne for violating him. At the end of the book, Daphne tells Simon he should decide to have children for himself and NOT for his father, but her advice lacks any credibility because it just seems like a manipulation to get him to give her babies. I hated this conflict in the show and I hate it even more in the book. People who want to be childless are not broken people who need fixing.

Wish this book had ended very differently, but I will read the second one and hopefully it’s not as bad.

A good story, but not a good romance. 

On the writing: Personally, I don’t like 1st person perspective so I didn’t like that change, but I also found that the writing in this book was more generic. The descriptions and the imagery in this book was lackluster compared to the earlier books.

My biggest frustration with THP was that readers know Quan as a sexually experienced and sex-positive person, but his romantic interest, Anna, is still a sexually repressed and clueless female partner. After reading book one and two, where both of the autistic leads were virgins, I was so bored by Anna’s shyness and sexual repression. The cover art made me imagine Anna as cool and adventurous, but she was just an anxious introvert. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I am tired of reading about cliche innocent women who need to be taught sex by experienced men and Helen Hoang has written 3 of them (Esme wasn’t a virgin, but Esme was still inexperienced in a lot of ways so she kind of counts). I wanted Quan to be with a woman who was an equal in his experience, not someone he had to guide and teach. 

In general, I found Quan and Anna’s romance lacking. I liked but tolerated Anna and I loved Quan, and although I liked them together, I wish Anna had done more for Quan. Their relationship always seemed based on Quan helping Anna with her struggles and it was cemented that way for the rest of the book. Where was the love for Quan??? 

Overall, I did enjoy this book and I thought it was good. 3 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The ending was really sweet and I was so happy Anna reconciled with her mom at the end. I appreciated a lot of the topics discussed within this book, like the toxic family relationships and the hardship that caregivers experience. This book is not a standard romance and it’s tone is definitely different than the first two books. Although I enjoyed Helen Hoang’s books, I think her third book’s romance was repetitive and I’m okay with the series being over. 

I thought Khai and Esme were cute for each other and I liked their awkward chemistry. I cried a little bit when I was reading the parts about Andy 🥲 The ending was a bit overly dramatic and I wish some things had been resolved with more clarity and care. Although there were some plot-points that were sloppily rushed at the end, I genuinely enjoyed reading this book. Definitely not a perfect book, but it was a good read. 

Em yêu anh yêu em 
So beautiful 😭