June 2021 Reviews (ARCs) (1)

Posted on by Trisha Tomy (Books, Reviews, and Procrastination)

From this month I think I’m going to limit reviews per week or fortnight per post, because there are just too many reviews per post right now, and it’s unfeasible both for me and you to read like this.

You can click on any of the names in the list below to go directly to the review, or you can just scroll at your leisure and window shop 😉

List of Reviews in this post:

The Mix-Up

Synopsis:

What if you meet the love of your life, but he thinks you’re someone else?

Anna and Marley are best friends. So when Anna rings Marley, panicking because she has to miss a tour of an exclusive wedding venue, Marley agrees to go in her friend’s place.

After being totally ignored by the glamorous receptionist who can tell she doesn’t belong there, Marley meets handsome hotel manager Cameron. He assumes she’s Anna and instead of admitting that she’s not the blushing bride, but the unlucky-in-love single friend, Marley plays along to see what it’s like to be Anna for a day.

After all, Marley is unemployed, single and was woken up that morning by her flatmate playing the bagpipes. Anna has a high-flying career and is planning the perfect wedding. Why wouldn’t Marley want to be her?

Only she wasn’t counting on Cameron being so smart and funny. Or this spark between them that she can’t ignore. She hasn’t felt this way about a guy in forever. But he thinks she’s somebody better.

Marley needs a way out of this mix-up to get her shot at true love. But her fictional fiancé is now standing in her way and it’s harder than she thought to stop living someone else’s life…

Review:

I received a free 3-ARC form Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

Review:
I enjoyed it, but I was very frustrated throughout it.

Let me start off by saying that I was under the impression that this was a romance book when I requested this, so I wasn’t exactly pleasantly surprised when this turned out to be, not, in fact, a romance book. And I get what the message of this book was with the ending, but still, I was advertised a romance, the synopsis says romance, this should have been romance.

Like the romance was there, but it was lesser than a side plot. It was a sub plot. No, what’s lesser than a sub plot. Like just a small thread. Lesser than a small thread.

This was more a book that explored the MC as a person. It was about the MC, about her struggles, about her relationships with her best friend, parents, flatmate, new people, potential love interests, etc. This was so much more about the MC than it was about anything else.

Which is alright, and makes for an amazing plot, unless you’ve been waiting for a romance to strike but you’re more than halfway through the book already and it hasn’t happened. Which I was.

This book is bettered described as a comedy, a comedy of errors, kinda like that hindi movie with the twins which is based on that shakespeare play, can’t remember the name. Wait I should google it. *googles* It was named A Comedy of Errors, and yes, here it is, it was Angoor! I’d got tired of the plot so fast.

Anyway, moving on, once you get past the desperation to throttle our MC, Marley, for not coming clean about this absolute disaster, and the frustration you feel with literally everything that’s going on, this is actually a very enjoyable book.

The message that it this is a story about our characters, and not men as plot devices for our romance went over very well with me. It was a nice surprise, but it would have been nicer if I had expected it more.

Other than that, this was a very entertaining read. People missing each other, misunderstandings upon misunderstandings, just your usual drama. This book is actually titled correctly. You know what, my first clue that this wasn’t exactly a rom-com should have been the cover…the fact that there are two girls on the cover and not the love interest should have clued me in, but I was oblivious. Oh, well.

On the whole, an entertaining read. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a humourous book, with slight romance (remember it’s not the main plot point), literal mix-ups upon mix-ups, loads of misunderstandings, awesome friendships that stood the test of time, and just an entertaining read.

Pre-reading review:
I keep getting approved. Then again, I keep requesting. Well, anyway, can’t wait to start!

Make Me Wilder

Synopsis:

This tent is too small for the both of us. And I like it that way.

Gabe
I was minding my business. Literally. I promised my dad I’d take care of the Wilder family adventure business in our little Oregon town of Rush Creek, which also means looking out for my mom, my sister, and my rowdy co-workers, AKA my brothers.

Now the business is in trouble. Overnight, Rush Creek has become a spa-and-wedding destination, and the new tourists aren’t interested in getting dirty—or at least not in the woods.

Then Lucy comes to town, all blond hair and silky blouses and spike heels. It’s her job to give Wilder Adventures a makeover. Camping to glamping, rafting to paddle board yoga, fishing trips to girls’ night sunset cruises. If she gets her way, Wilder Adventures will become Wilder Romantic Adventures.

Lucy hates small towns, getting messy, and anything involving the woods or the water—which pretty much makes her Not My Type.

That doesn’t explain why when I see her, I can’t look away. Why when I touch her, I can’t stop. And why, even though I know no one can talk a city girl into small town life, I’m still trying.

She’s driving me wild. All I can do is make her wilder.

Review:

I received a free 3-ARC form Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

This is 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5.

I really enjoyed it!

Let me start out by saying that the line which sold me this book, the first line of the synopsis:

This tent is too small for the both of us. And I like it that way.

was nowhere in this book. I checked. they were never even in a tent, though they were in a shelter made form sticks, but this line was not there and that was so disappointing.

But, moving on, I actually ended up enjoying this!

The sex and the inclination for this and literally thinking about sex for a lot of time in this book did put me off a bit (which is where some of the 0.5 stars I cut off went), but the emotions? God the emotions were amazing.

Heartbreaking angst and then ending with tooth rotting fluff; Serena Bell knows how to write a good romance. I just couldn’t stop reading this once I started, finishing it in one day! It was so addicting, the way I like my romances written.

It was so good, in fact, that even though these two fell in love in under three weeks, it felt authentic and not insta-love. Which if you know me even a little, is one of my pet peeves. I could believe these two actually knew and loved each other.

And the final cherry on the top was their willingness to let each other go in order for the other to live their life as they wanted (for some reason I’m tearing up as I write this); that is one of my absolute favourite tropes when it comes to a romance: the fact that you love the other person so much, that you’re willing to let them go in order to not pull them back. It really dials up the angst and makes for an even better ending when executed properly, which Serena Bell did!

That love declaration at the end really brought tears to my eyes, and while I didn’t expect that surprise, and I also really wanted him to beg, like Amanda did (I really want to read Amanda’s love story, because I think there’s potential for a second chance romance there), but in the end it was just so sweet I let it go.

I also really loved the Wilder gang, and I’m pretty excited to read their stories as well. There was an excerpt for the next one, which is about Brody and Rachel from this book, who were behaving very puzzlingly, but seem to have an interesting explanation for all of it.

I also really enjoyed seeing the way Lucy worked on the marketing; I never really considered how important it is that brands advertise themselves to women for better sales, but I guess a lot of stuff makes more sense now. I also really enjoyed her way of working on details, the author did a really good job exploring her job.

On the whole, an amazing romance with the perfect angst to fluff ratio. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys romances with forced proximity, great angst, would not mind slightly sex heavy books (thankfully here lust did not try to pass off as love), and just a very enjoyable romance that ticked nearly all of my boxes.

Things Are Looking Up

Synopsis:

Milly has been waiting for this moment forever and finally it’s just an hour away – an interview with Vogue magazine and the opportunity to get her Louboutin-clad foot in the door. There’s just one problem – totally engrossed in her mobile phone, Milly doesn’t see the bus that is fast approaching – until it’s too late…

When Milly next opens her eyes, the consequences of her accident become clear. Everything she has worked for and dreamed of suddenly feels out of reach. But there is one bright spot on her horizon – the reappearance of her ex Jed, in all of his six-foot-four, broad-shouldered glory, with the most piercing ice blue eyes Milly ever saw.

Once used to working in a whirlwind, Milly now has the chance to reconsider how to live. Will she rush back to the treadmill, get her head down and back to business, or is there a whole other life waiting for her, if she’ll just look up to see it?

Review:

I received a free e-ARC form Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

This is 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

I really loved it!

The newest from Maxine Morrey has not disappointed! This is a book I was slightly sceptical about since the second chance romance is one of the tropes where I end up not liking the execution more often than not, but I should never have doubted, this one had an amazing execution.

I loved our characters, Milly and Jed, and I loved the slow burn in this. While most second chance romances end up falling back in love in a very short time frame, here these two were living together for literal months, but nothing. Just slow, slight pining, nothing that’s on the forefront of both their minds; the perfect recipe for a slow burn.

I really enjoyed the insight into a job that I’ve admittedly not seen much of and don’t know a lot about; freelancing. And how it’s being taken over by influencers, and people are losing their jobs because the new generation is more in demand. I really empathised with Milly, and the way she lost so much of her income just because she was in an accident and wasn’t able to fulfil her obligations.

It is sad, the way this industry waits for no one; if you don’t fight your way through and keep fighting, you’re not going to get any part of the cake.

The only thing for which this isn’t rated 5 stars is the way we would sometimes pick up characters and really forget about them? I wanted to see more of Henry and Ava, and Rosie and Alfie, and I wish they were more present in the rest of the book.

Hector, the dog, was such an amazing character really, and I just loved him and all his interactions with our characters. I did resent Christine a lot, and that thing she did at the end was a real dick move and though I was pretty sure she was lying, just how much she was lying made me hate her a lot.

I just loved the angst; Maxine Morrey does amazing angst. The tension is just amazing, the whole finding their way back to each other slowly, surely, it’s just so beautiful; I was almost crying at the end when finally kissed. God, for some time there I was worried that there wasn’t a happy ending.

I absolutely loved the ending, it was just so SWEET!! The epilogue was available on the author’s website, and I really loved the way it tied everything up. I will absolutely be reading more by Maxine Morrey in the future.

I also really loved the overall message of this book; how much are we really missing by not looking up from our phones? There’s such a beautiful world out there, that’s ours, but we stay lost in our own. You just have to look up.

On the whole, an amazing read, and one I recommend to anyone who enjoys romance, really well-done angst, insight into freelancing and its hardships, the second chance romance trope, sweet love interests who are just really perfect, great friendships and the support dog who is really so much of a character by himself.

The Love Song of Ivy K Harlowe

Synopsis:

Ivy K. Harlowe is a lot of things.

She’s my best friend.

She’s the center of attention.

She is, without fail, the hottest girl in the room. Anytime. Anyplace.

She has freckles and dimples and bright green eyes, and with someone else’s energy she’d be adorable. But there is nothing cute about Ivy. She is ice and hot metal and electricity.

She is the girl who every lesbian wants, but she has never been with the same person twice. She’s one-of-a-kind but also predictable, so I will always be Andie, her best friend, never Andie, her girlfriend.

Then she meets Dot, and Ivy does something even I would have never guessed—she sees Dot another day. And another. And another.

Now my world is slowly going up in smoke, and no matter what I do, the flames grow higher. She lit that match without knowing who or what it would burn.

Ivy K. Harlowe is a lot of things.

But falling in love wasn’t supposed to be one of them…unless it was with me. 

Review:

I received a free e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

This book f*cked with my head.

Even now, I can’t bring myself to write a lot about this because I think about this and all the mindf*ckery is coming back to me. God, where do I even start.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy this book, but I was very, very confused for a very, very large part of this book. Like, seriously confused. Hence, the mindf*ckery.

Let us start with the fact that I literally thought this was a romance?!! And like a childhood-friends-to-lovers thing?!?! But it was not?!?! (I’m trying to figure out how much I can say in this review without spoiling it for other people)

Okay, so I saw the other reviews and apparently it’s not that much of a spoiler if I tell you that our POV wasn’t any of the MCs. She’s literally a side character. So we’re like supposed to see a whole romance form an outsider’s POV. Which is an amazing way of writing (I’ve dreamt of doing something like this), but it does get old if your reader literally doesn’t know it’s going to happen.

I went into this book fully prepared to ship Andie and Ivy, and around halfway through I’m shipping both with other characters. Which was not okay with me because I really like to know who I’ll be shipping upfront, rather than figuring it out. The latter does work for me in some cases, but then I don’t like them being advertised to me? If that makes sense?

Away from the romance, the characters themselves were amazing to read about, with a few exceptions. I didn’t like how entitled Andie feels in regards to Ivy, and I didn’t like how judgemental Ivy was at times. But then I feel that both those flaws made them the realistic characters they are. (are you seeing what I mean about the mindf*ckery?!)

Dot was really my favourite character, I think. I loved her, even though I, like Andie, felt like she was being too much in the beginning, she slowly grew on me like she did on Andie and the others as well. I legit thought she might die, for a lot of time there, though.

I also really loved the rep here, there was so much rep! Ivy is lesbian (I think), so are Andie and Alyssa, and two side characters are together and polyamourous, Dot is bisexual, and if I remember right, there were some non-binary people as well? (It’s been a few days, forgive me)

On the whole, an amazing book, but I don’t know if I would say an amazing romance. The romance by itself was amazing, but I don’t know if the book as a romance was as good as I expected it to be. The whiplash was a bit too much for me. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys the whole third person POV(I have no idea what to call this), queer friend groups, an amazing romance, diverse rep, and stories about finding yourself.

Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous

Synopsis:

Sunny Song’s Big Summer Goals:
1) Make Rafael Kim my boyfriend (finally!)
2) Hit 100K followers (almost there…)
3) Have the best last summer of high school ever

Not on Sunny’s list: accidentally filming a PG-13 cooking video that goes viral (#browniegate). Extremely not on her list: being shipped off to a digital detox farm camp in Iowa (IOWA??) for a whole month. She’s traded in her WiFi connection for a butter churn, and if she wants any shot at growing her social media platform this summer, she’ll need to find a way back online.

But between some unexpected friendships and an alarmingly cute farm boy, Sunny might be surprised by the connections she makes when she’s forced to disconnect 

Review:

I received a free e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed it!

It took me so long to start writing this because I had a duplicate edition in my shelves, and I despise having duplicate editions, so I spent nearly 15 minutes figuring out the best way forward. The crux of this paragraph is that this book has been on my shelves since April 22. Thank you, and let’s move on to the review.

Let me start out by saying that though this was a very enjoyable book, I still didn’t think it was amazing, somehow? It was great, but nothing very special somehow?

Like, I really loved the whole insight into YouTubers, social media in general, what social media has done to us, how we can be better handling it, making time not only for our hobbies but enjoying life as well along the way, and all, but some things didn’t completely sit right with me.

My main criticism of this book would be that the dialogue in some places was very clunky somehow? I don’t know how exactly to say this, but it was as if some of the dialogues sounded scripted, and nothing like someone would actually open their mouth and say spontaneously in a conversation, and most of these kind of dialogues were the kind where we’re expressing progressive opinions or something, which is great, but I’d have liked it to sound more natural.

Another thing I didn’t completely like was that it was only one month. One. It’s really not that much of a time to go without internet and phones (or maybe I’m biased saying this because my addiction is books, which does not primarily involve social media and internet, though the two are intimately connected the way I use it.)

Edit: Right after I almost finished this review draft, my parents did the whole addiction crackdown and told me I could have no more breaks till I was finished with my boards, which is at least 8 months, and now I feel like a hypocrite when I read the last paragraph, because here I am, doing the exact same thing I was judging. End of edit.

One other thing was that this seemed like a very whimsical, unrealistic, somehow just not very plausible scenario somehow? In some places I would go it’s really not that serious, god, get some priorities, while in others I would completely relate to the character’s’ outlook on everything. It’s a great way to write fiction, but with the serious issues that were being addressed, the writing would seem a bit out of place.

I will say this, none of my issues are really very serious issues, and didn’t even affect my enjoyment a lot, just a few times.

I loved Sunny’s character since I saw quite a bit of myself in her…the addiction, somewhat with the not knowing your sorta mother tongue (or at least what everyone assumes you should be able to speak fluently), her insecurities, her handling of social media (though I will say this, I’m glad to be in not as much of a sticky situation as she was).

I liked the way the romance wasn’t really the main point of this book, especially since this only took over a month, so the decision to not have love declarations of any kind was much appreciated by me (looking at you, Kasie West)

Other than that, there’s really not that much in this. The escapism is pretty enjoyable, and the whole hiding phones and dealing with people at summer camp shenanigans made for a very entertaining read. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys teen romances (though not exactly),, a non-pandemic summer, summer camps, farms, and animals, and want to see what it’s like having a social media addiction.

I Kissed A Girl

Synopsis:

Can an up-and-coming horror actress
and the makeup artist for her newest “creature feature”
turn on-set chemistry into the romance of a lifetime?

Lilah Silver’s a young actress who dreams of climbing out of B-list stardom. She’s been cast as the lead in what could be her breakout performance…but if she wants to prove herself to everyone who ever doubted her, she’s going to need major help along the way.

Noa Birnbaum may be a brilliant makeup artist and special effects whiz-kid, but cracking into the union is more difficult than she imagined. Keeping everyone happy is a full-time job, and she’s already run ragged. And yet when the beautiful star she’s been secretly crushing on admits to fears of her own, Noa vows to do everything in her power to help Lilah shine like never before.

Long hours? Exhausting work? No problem. Together they can take the world by storm…but can the connection forged over long hours in the makeup chair ever hope to survive the glare of the spotlight?

Review:

I received a free e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I really loved it!!!

I’m finally reviewing this after my pretty long hiatus from reviewing (I have 24 books I need to review, TWENTY FOUR) and this is going to be a review filled week if everything goes to plan. Review after review after review coming your way.

SO, after I finished the mindf*ck that was The Love Song Of Ivy K Harlowe, I needed a good, normal, predictable, angsty yet fluffy rom-com, and THIS F*CKING DELIVERED ON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY WANTS.

I loved our MCs, most of the time, at least; I didn’t like how judgemental Noa was of the romance genre in general, and she never really completely apologised, or even acknowledged out loud to Lila that maybe she was being too judgemental, but because I ended up really enjoying this, I decided to let it go. Also, both of them were Jewish, which is a rep I haven’t actually read a lot of, so that was amazing to read about!

I really loved Chrissy’s friendship with Noa, and Lilah’s complete friend group; they were such good friends and such a great support, to both of them, and I just loved it! There was a whole lot of rep in this, bisexuality, trans, lesbian, polyamory, gay (that last scene was so cute!), and others I might not remember, and I loved this diversity!

I also loved the way this book got into the whole movie making industry, especially horror, which is not a genre a particularly enjoy or watch (mainly because my parents don’t really watch it so then I just haven’t) and I loved all the behind the scenes we got, both on the acting as well as the makeup artists, stunt artists, and other different people like the on site scientist (God, I feel sorry for that guy).

The one thing I didn’t completely love was the way we were like building up to this something with the guy who was giving her the creeps, and then nothing happened on that front, and then we were having this nice rom-com when suddenly there were snakes and murderous creepy stalkers (I don’t really know about murderous, but I think we can agree that that was attempted murder, or rather manslaughter). But I still didn’t hate it a lot, so I didn’t change my rating for any of it.

I just loved the fluff to angst ratio in this, it was perfectly balanced, but tooth rotting fluff interspersed between hardcore angst, denial, and feelings. I will definitely be checking out more books in the future from Jennet Alexander.

On the whole, an amazing rom-com, though with slightly out of this world ending that kinda reminds me of of the bollywood movies from the 80s and 90s (because those are the only ones I’ve really watched, and then also only some of them), like Angoor. I loved it, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys f/f rom-coms, loads of lgbtq rep, the whole celebrity romance thing, insight into the film industry and the art of makeup, and amazing fluff to angst ratio.

Temper The Flame

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Synopsis:

A curse. A betrayal. A love that could break her.

When Ivy is taken to a compound outside of London to meet with a group of angels, she thinks she’s going mad. Faced with the truth of powers she never knew she had and a world much bigger than she realised, her life couldn’t be more complicated. Or so she thought. When Devlin crashes into her life, Ivy must decide what is more important: finding the love, passion and adventure she’d never allowed herself to dream about, or protecting her heart. She could have everything she never knew she wanted… if she only dared to let someone in. Caring makes us vulnerable, but when everything Ivy believes is pushed to the limit, who will be by her side to see her through the dark?

Review:

 received a free e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I was so disappointed by this book.

You know what, I was going to round this up to 3 stars, but I had threatened to cut off a star if they’d had sex at that point in the book when she felt exhausted, and they did, and so here we are with 2 stars.

I don’t even know where to start. I thought this book was going to be good, and it did start out great, but I should have known from the moment they first kissed that this was bound to be a disaster.

Let me start out by saying that the concept for this book was great, but the execution was just not. Maybe it was okay for someone who was not expecting a run of the mill fantasy standalone with some surprises, but I was and so it was not okay. I had expected some surprises. Not a whole truckload of them.

I enjoyed the writing style, I will say this; the humour was very well done, and I did enjoy even the plot a bit, but the romance? NO. JUST NO. INSTALOVE. NUFF SAID.

There was so much instalove, and I am not in the mood to unpack it, and it has been like 2 weeks since I read this and I’m thankfully forgetting the major scarring stuff already. Just, let it be enough that I did not enjoy the romance, because it was mostly sex and no feelings, or more that the feelings had literally no basis.

The timeline was all over the place; first we were going super fast (on that note, how on earth did she master those skills so fast? It was like 2 weeks?!) mastering super skills, falling in love, getting betrayed, fighting people, making no sense, lust, lust, more lust, did I mention lust?, and then BAM it looks like the book is pretty much over by 70%, and like what can you possibly squeeze out of the 30% of this book that is still left.

Haha, turns out, you can squeeze out a six months later that makes absolutely no sense, two new characters I have no prior knowledge of, and a bisexual Hades who is supposed to be a parent here having sex with one of the (actually two of the) new characters.

What else even was there in this book. I can’t remember anything else, so BYE-BYE, you can go now, and don’t pick this up if you were looking for something that would make sense.

I just remembered what I came up with in my old review drafts for this (the ones in my head):

this book is like SJM on drugs. I stick to it. At least SJM does better romance, if nothing else.

Also, if one other person puts a greek God, namely Hades, in something that is a angels something fantasy (I have no clue what these are called), I will blow a gasket. THERE ARE LITERALLY NO OTHER GREEK GODS HERE. WHY, OH WHY THEN, ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH, IS THERE HADES?!

All that being said, if you’re looking for a short, crack-fic like, i.e. light and not too much thought provoking and to pass the time, then you might enjoy this. Just nothing too serious. And it is funny.

Twice In A Lifetime

Synopsis:

Amelia might have met The One. But is she twenty years too late?

After her husband left her out of the blue, the only relationship 48-year-old Amelia Simpson has enjoyed recently is with Nutella and Pinot Grigio. While her 8-year-old twin boys, Jasper and Rupert, keep her busy, Amelia dreams of a life more than washing muddy rugby kits and weekly chats with best friends Sian and Jamie.

Amelia needs some magic back in her life – but magic seems in short supply in her small Welsh town. So when she finds the phone number that was given to her twenty years ago by a handsome stranger in New York, Amelia wonders whether he might be The One That Got Away. But when Sian takes matters into her own hands, launching a worldwide hunt to find the handsome stranger Amelia met outside Tiffany’s two decades ago, Amelia finds herself on a flight to the Big Apple to reconnect with her ‘Perfect Patrick’. But as the two explore the sights of NYC, has Amelia reconnected with The One? Or will she discover that the sparkle she was missing is actually closer to home?

Review:

I received a free e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is 2.5 stars, rounded down.

I would honestly have given this 3 stars were it not for the absolute disgust and disappointment I felt regarding the MC.

I wanted to rant about this book so bad. So, naturally, I went and spent 5 hours on youtube watching videos.

Anyways, getting back to the point, I just didn’t like this. The MC is supposed to be a woman in her 50s, but I can’t honestly in good faith believe that any woman would be this gullible. Like, it was so obvious she was being taken advantage of (avoiding spoilers by using slightly vague and misguiding phrases? check!). It was so obvious that someone who had never even read a single case of people being scammed would have realised what exactly was going on.

It was so obviou—okay we’re getting off track, but I hope you get the point.

It wasn’t even a plot twist, it was so obvious. Who on earth gives their bank details to someone they have met once, twenty or so years back, for five freaking minutes, and then ignores an overdrawn email!? On that note, who gives children access to credit card details, enough for them to be able to overdraw!? Now, you might say my parents are too strict, but at least they have the good sense of never letting us do something like this, and drilling it into our heads what exactly qualifies as plain stupidity and ignorance.

I just, I don’t even want to write this review any more, I was so disappointed. How does a woman even do this!?! I am bewildered. I get that the author might have had this plan of making it super obvious for some reason, like showing you exactly how stupid you were going to be if you ever fell for something even remotely like this, like overdramatising something to make a point, but it just annoyed me to hell and back. no, to Alpha Centauri and back. Actually, to the edge of the known universe and back.

And like, even if you ignore all of that, suddenly there’s this new love interest who’s supposedly been here all along, (I actually feel sorry for the guy), and supposedly the MC has had feelings for him ‘all along’, and I’m like WHEN. WHEN THE HELL WERE THESE FEELINGS EVER THERE. THEY WERE NOT. THESE FEELINGS DEVELOPED MAGICALLY.

And even if you ignore even that aspect, the supposed ‘romance that was waiting for her all along’ or some shit has like two chapters to develop. What the hell. I just, I was so done by this book by then, that even if the ending was good, I was just feeling too irritated to care.

I will say this, the author definitely has potential, the writing was intriguing, when it was not too whimsical and out of this world ignorant, that is, and I did enjoy the beginning of this.

Which reminds me, Sian is such a bad friend. Like the worst of the worst. I don’t even know why the MC is still friends with her, but she is. I just hated her. If I had a friend like Sian, I would immediately cut ties. IMMEDIATELY. What kind of friend doesn’t look out for their friends and knowingly dupes them like this!?

That’s it. I just don’t want to think about this anymore. I would only recommend this to people looking for a light-hearted, or rather too light-hearted, extremely unrealistic somewhat rom-com, and would not mind easily duped MCs.

How Not To Mess With A Millionaire

Synopsis:

Interior decorator Zoe Ryan’s life resembles a bad country song. Her boyfriend dumped her, her car died, and she was recently handed a pink slip. What’s a girl to do? Leave everything behind for a bit….in Positano, Italy. And when she gets there, she finds a surprising extra—millionaire restaurateur Dante Sabbatini in the kitchen. In his underwear. Making coffee. It’s suddenly not only hot outside, but exactly what is he doing inside, in her temporary kitchen?

Dante’s plan was to escape to his family’s beach house for some quiet and privacy. What he didn’t know was that his meddling, matchmaking nonna rented the entire house to a sexy stranger at the exact same time as his stay. It took him months to clear his schedule—there’s no way he’s leaving now.

With both refusing to leave, Zoe and Dante agree to be temporary roomies, but secretly aim to try to drive the other out. He plays his music as loud as he wants and will wear as little clothing as possible, and she’ll just go ahead and adopt that pig she fell in love with in town. But suddenly their game of one-upmanship takes a very sexy detour, and they can’t believe what happens next.

Review:

I received a free e-ARC from Entangled Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

This is 4.5 stars, rounded up.

I just loved this!!

Though it was somewhat slightly more focused on sex than I prefer, it didn’t interfere too much in my enjoyment, and I ended up enjoying A LOT. Primarily because of the amazing angst.

This author knows how to do angst, and I will definitely be checking out more of her books int he future because of this. IT WAS JUST AMAZING.

I also really loved the whole forced proximity thing, and while I was a bit sad that the whole and-there-was-only-one-bed ended up in not as much of the trope like it’s usually executed (they had sex before, and there was no waking up tangled or anything), I STILL LOVED IT.

All that being said, the pig was definitely my favourite character 😉

The angst to fluff was just perfect, and the whole letting each other go for the good of the other person and whatnot, *chef’s kiss* I just cannot express how addicting this read was.

This is exactly the kind of thing I read romance for, perfect angst (why can’t I stop saying angst), perfect fluff, perfect drama, short but not too short to feel like instalove, while at the same time not being too drawn out as to make me weary.

I also really, really loved the whole trying to get the other person to leave thing by making them hate you, or whatever you might call it, I had so much fun in the beginning of this book.

The one thing that kinda rubbed me the wrong way was the grief, and not the grief explicitly, but more the him dealing with it by making that stupid decision, but then, we ended up with the perfect angst so no complaining from me.

I cannot praise this enough, I just loved it. I recommend this for anyone looking for an amazing rom-com, with perfect angst, hot millionaire love interests, love the forced proximity trope, slight enemies to lovers, and would not mind sex scenes. And don’t forget the pig.

Well, that’s it for the first 10 days of June, hope you enjoyed!

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