madeline's reviews
776 reviews

An incredible translation by Sophie R. Lewis. Unfortunately, the original text is lacking - it's very White European/American cisgender woman-centric, with very little thought given to trans women or women of color.  Many of the points that Chollet raises are interesting and insightful, but would have only been deepened by thinking about, for example, women who cannot bear children. I guess that in 2022, I'm pretty tired of "feminist" texts that are really only engaging with the cisgender woman experience. And, too, a book that's thinking about the enduring legacy of witchcraft can only be improved by including witches of color - this seems like a major miss.

Thank you St. Martin's and NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a 3.5 star read, and I'm torn on whether to round up or down here. The value of the book is more in its parts than in its sum - there are a lot of really delightful vignettes but I'm not sure they all really come together well; the problem, I think, is likely in the pacing. But it was genuinely funny, and very hot - I don't remember the first book being this steamy. Good, not great.

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

a three star read for an uncompelling but fine western-fantastical novel, but the ending knocked it down to a two for me. disappointing.

thank you little, brown and netgalley for the arc.

colin is redeemed for me by two things: one, that he admits to himself that he's jealous of penelope's success and is ashamed of himself for being jealous, and two, that he is not his loathsome brother benedict.

the critiques that many others have had for this book are mine as well. it's disappointing to see colin's lack of support for penelope, it's disappointing to watch her give up an incredibly successful career to support him, colin is whiny and flat, and the lady whistledown drama is given a lot of airtime that may have been better spent on the couple.

somehow, anthony remains my favorite bridgerton brother - gregory, good luck. honestly, i've missed the sisters, and i'm eager to move onto eloise's book.

Rachel Beck needs a fresh start: she's been wrongfully fired from her job, her daughter's father is unreliable, and she just feels stagnant.  That fresh start comes as a job for a new inn on an island on Lake Erie in Ohio.  The inn's proprietor, Mason, gives her free reign to decorate as he brews the beer for the inn's taproom, but they keep crossing paths, and it's tough to deny their growing chemistry.  Rachel's determined to create a life just as she wants it - can it include Mason?

This book just wasn't for me.  I didn't find it particularly compelling, and the connection between the two main characters somehow felt much more genuine to me before they got together rather than after.  Additionally, there's a lot of detail about her sister, who set off on a sailing journey after her fiancé died by suicide, and her sister's new relationship.  I explicitly avoided Doller's first book in this series because of the way she lost her fiancé, so it was frustrating to have to still read what is a lot of information about Anna for a book that's not her's. 

I think the final knell for me was the conflict introduced at 90%.  I think this is too late to bring in your one last challenge - it's a lot to wrap up in very few pages.  But it's also totally manufactured and Rachel even acknowledges that it could have been totally avoided if she'd not gone with her gut reaction.  It was super irritating to me.  

Thank you St. Martin's and NetGalley for the ARC!

CW:

parental abandonment, mentions of suicide, unreliable co-parent, divorce, non-narrative character has lost a child

Days after her mother Carol's death from cancer, Katy Silver boards a plane to Positano, Italy.  The trip that she was supposed to take with Carol, her best friend, is now a trip for one - an opportunity for healing and some introspection, as in the hard weeks leading up to her mother's passing, Katy told her husband she's not sure she can be married to him anymore.  Positano is exactly as Carol described, and Katy is looking forward to reconnecting with the memory of her mother through the places she loved, until she runs into Carol in the hotel lobby, 30 years old, happy and healthy.  A trip that started as an opportunity for mother and daughter to bond that turned into an opportunity to mourn has been turned on its head once again - what Katy learns about her mother reveals a new woman to her.

This is a really sweet book, the kind I can envision being passed between mothers and daughters to think about their own relationships with each other.  Katy is absolutely devastated by Carol's death, reeling from the double loss of her mother and her best friend.  I think this makes her kind of a weak character to some, as she does seem incredibly paralyzed by grief, but to me it seems realistic.  When a parent dies, the child often has to mourn them twice, once for them as a parent and once for them as a human with their own interests and motivations, and that seemed very present.  The character of

Adam irked me, but only because as a voracious romance reader I wasn't interested in any threat to Katy's husband Eric, who had already been set up as a good guy.

Although the prose was occasionally a bit over the top, One Italian Summer was a really nice pretend vacation after a few days of being iced into my apartment in the cold Midwest.  If you're looking to think through some grief, or to escape to the Italian coast, this is a must-read.

Thank you Atria and NetGalley for the ARC!

CWs:

death of a parent from cancer, caretaking for a dying parent, separation from a spouse, infidelity/seeing someone else in a separation

 Junebug McBride is tired of being the only girl in a house with four brothers, destined to do all the cooking and cleaning and none of the fun stuff.  The clear solution?  Order a mail-order bride for a brother or two, and Kit seems like the most palatable choice.  Ireland-born Maddy Mooney has just arrived in the States before being whisked off by her employer, Willabelle Lascalles, who has agreed to move to far-off Montana and become Kit’s bride.  But when Willabelle up and disappears, Maddy is left to assume her identity – and her affianced status.  Can Maddy prove she’s the right wife for Kit?

The premise of this series is absolutely delightful, a meddling younger sister writing off for wives for her brothers.  The McBride family is loud and brash, but they love each other.  Maddy, too, is enterprising and willing to work hard.  I really enjoyed this book, and I cannot wait for the rest of the series.

But this book really struggles with pacing.  The first 20% of the book is setup, with some meandering plotlines that could have been excised, I think, in order to devote more of the book to the burgeoning relationship between Maddy and Kit: we don’t get any real acknowledgement of their shared interest until about 70% in the book.  By that point, there’s a lot to wrap up and not a lot of room for it.  When there’s a slight pause before their first kiss, Kit thinks to himself that that wait was “painfully long,” and boy howdy did I agree with him – we’re 85% of the way into the book.  

Overall, though, this book is really fun.  There’s tons of great characters, and it’s so funny to watch Morgan and Kit realize their plan to lady up their sister under Maddy’s influence will come back to bite them.  I’m really looking forward to the rest of the books!

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!

CW:

deaths of parents, stillborn siblings, separated from siblings, minor injury

this could have been 100 pages longer and i would have loved every minute.  i cannot wait for the rest of this series.

Of all the books I've read for my book club, the Veronica Speedwell is likely my favorite find.  Another fantastic installment in this series.

Veronica and Stoker are tapped to evaluate the heir to a noble family when he returns from being presumed dead.  This heir carries a personal secret of Veronica's, and of course, things for her and Stoker are never as simple as they seem.

I really struggle with books that have one character hiding something significant from the other, so I spent about 20% of this book supremely uncomfortable.  Thankfully, it becomes clear to the reader, if not Veronica, that the secret is not a secret at all, and that space is being created for her to reveal it all.

This series is incredibly self-aware of its place and time, which I really appreciate.  Still, there are times where I'd like to see it go just a little bit further from awareness to action, specifically the sarcophagus that Veronica and Stoker have.  But overall, I think this series is so emblematic of the good work that historical fiction can do to right the narrative about "the old days" and who had power then.

At this point, there's basically one thing that could get me to stop reading this series, and I think this book makes it clear that that's not in the author's plan.  I'm on the edge of my seat for the next!

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!

 Gracie Reid's to dos: Find a new job after her gross boss fired her. Get Mom into a better nursing home. Decide if she wants to be famous Chinese actress Wei Fangli's stand-in for the next few months. Don't fall in love with Fangli's best friend Sam Yao if she says yes. Take multivitamin. Laundry.

Previously an Audible Original, this really delightful celebrity romance is making its physical debut this spring. It was such a fun and touching read - Gracie is struggling to take care of her mother with Alzheimer's, as well as dealing with the fallout of sexual harassments at work and trying to launch her fledgling planner business. Her relationships with Fangli and Sam are both tender and warm, and it's wonderful to watch Gracie settle into the long-term friendships she's been craving.

Gracie has depression and anxiety, and it's revealed that Fangli likely does as well. In a way that's probably familiar to people with either/both of those diagnoses, she feels really stuck at points and is also unable to really verbalize how terrible her boss's behavior was until she has a lot of distance (much like Tiffy and her past relationship in THE FLATSHARE). I think the book has been dinged unfairly for that.

Why I'm not giving it a full five stars is because I am perhaps too much of a moral relativist for this to totally work for me - Gracie has a real existential crisis over when it's "okay" to pretend to be Fangli and when it's not. I don't really see the ethical dilemma there: the important parties have consented to the sham. I found this a little tedious.

This was a really fun read, and I'm hoping that Fangli gets her own story! She sure deserves it.

Thank you Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the ARC!

CW:

workplace sexual harassment, parent died of cancer (remembered, off-page), parent with Alzheimer's (on-page), depression and anxiety, non-narrative characters with controlling parents