Book Review: "The Night We Met" by Abby Jimenez

“Maybe that’s how you learn truths about yourself, when you’re withered down to nothing so it’s easy to see what’s left."

Abby Jimenez has done it again! Ever since I read her first book back in 2019, each year I eagerly anticipate her next one. I always know she’ll make my heart swoon and she’ll definitely get me choked up, at the very least. Thanks so much to Forever and Abby for the complimentary advance copy!

Larissa and Chris didn’t quite have a meet-cute. They met at the end of a concert, she needed a ride home. She felt like Chris seemed a little grumpy, so she chose to ride home with Mike, Chris’ best friend. Larissa and Mike start dating shortly thereafter.

But as Larissa and Chris get to know each other better, they quickly discover how perfect for each other they are. They both love to eat (especially bread), they love to read, and soon Larissa is co-parenting Woofarine, the overly active dog Chris rescued.

While Chris definitely has feelings for Larissa, she’s his best friend’s girlfriend. He knows he can’t cross a line or he’ll destroy a long-standing friendship. And while Larissa is attracted to Chris, she’s happy with the way Mike treats her. But the truth is, anything that makes her happy, Chris actually does for Mike—and not always with his knowledge. How can Chris stand idly by and let the woman he’s falling for be with someone else who doesn’t have the capacity to take care of her the way she wants and needs?

There are a few issues in the book that could be triggering; check out the author’s note at the beginning to be sure. I found this really emotional yet also hopeful in places, and as always, the dog is adorable but completely manic! I loved this.

The book publishes 3/24.

Book Review: "I Know How This Ends" by Holly Smale

How would you live your life if you know what is going to happen? Margot is a meteorologist whose life was upended, both personally and professionally, when her 10-year relationship ended just before she got married. Since then she’s more than just a little unstable, and while she’s been dating, the men all seem to have red flags.

One day she has a vision of herself with a man she’s never met, but the vision makes her happy. And when she meets Henry, a single dad, she realizes she is happy and optimistic for the first time in a long while.

Yet as she continues to get glimpses of different aspects of her future, she isn’t sure whether to trust what she sees. But if everything she sees will come to fruition, should she pursue a relationship with Henry, or can she outrun her destiny?

“I’d thought I’d loved Aaron—so much, for so many years—but now that love seems…contained, somehow, like a storm inside a bottle. When inside me was all the weather—all the rains and the fires and the hurricanes and the clouds, the rainbows and the dews and the tornadoes and the halos—waiting to be unleashed. I just had no idea, until I was shown how much of everything I could be.”

As she tries to figure out how to navigate her hopes and fears, she also realizes she has to work on the next steps in her career as well as her relationships with her family and friends. And how can she tell Henry what she’s seen?

I really enjoyed Holly Smale’s previous book, Cassandra in Reverse, but this gave me all the feels. I love books which deal with fate and destiny, especially as it pertains to love and relationships. This really made me think, and I can’t wait to see what Smale does next!

Book Review: "The Flip Side" by James Bailey

James Bailey's The Flip Side is a funny and poignant look at a man who has decided to let fate call the shots in his life.

He had the perfect plan. Josh is going to propose to his longtime girlfriend on New Year’s Eve on The London Eye, which she has always wanted to visit. The next thing he knows, his relationship is over, he’s lost his job and his apartment (although he gets to keep their obese pet rabbit), and he’s moved back in with his parents. Disaster on all fronts.

As he laments about how his life has fallen apart and the choices he has made, he decides to decide no longer. Instead he’s going to leave every decision to chance—to determine his path through each day of his life, he’ll flip a coin. Whatever the coin decides, he’ll follow.

But what starts out as a bit of a joke to his family, friends, and others around him becomes more serious when they realize Josh intends to keep flipping that coin. Where will it lead him? Will it help him plan his future or guide him into further trouble and despair?

I really enjoyed this concept. Sometimes I think we plan too much and it causes fate to step in and mess things up, so would a coin toss be better?

This is a slightly wacky, but fun and good-hearted story, with memorable characters that made me laugh occasionally. It was a good book to read in the midst of being depressed because I missed family Thanksgiving!! Bailey is a really engaging writer, and I look forward to seeing what's next for him.

William Morrow Books provided me with a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review.. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "Forever Eve" by JB Lexington

Forever Eve is a super-steamy and thought-provoking book about a woman’s search for true love and happiness.

Izabel thought she had it all when she met Bo. He’s handsome, sexy, and well-connected, and his father is grooming him to be the future governor of Illinois. Izabel has had to make sacrifices because of his and his father’s ambitions—like postponing their wedding until Bo has made a name for himself politically—but she knows it will all be worth it.

But the pressures on Bo cause him to have anger and control issues, and Izabel feels like she’s walking on eggshells all the time. Even their wedding night turns into a nightmare when Bo’s anger gets the best of him, and he tries to keep her from seeing her free-spirited best friend, Natalie, whose lifestyle he disapproves of. (He also knows Natalie hates him.)

When Bo is out of town for business, Natalie convinces Izabel to attend a session with a Past Life Regression therapist. Izabel is unprepared for how this session will rock her world. And when she meets a handsome and familiar man, it opens her eyes to the things she has been keeping bottled up—and the things she so desperately wants.

While the scenes of abuse may be triggers for some, there aren’t many and they’re not too extreme. There’s some serious steam here, but at its heart this is a book about a woman realizing she deserves so much more than she is getting.

The author provided me with a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig

Wow, Matt Haig's newest novel, The Midnight Library, was absolutely beautiful.

“...sometimes the only way to learn is to live.”

Nora has decided she wants to die. She’s just so unhappy and doesn’t feel like she or her life matter to anyone. She's disappointed everyone in her life, and she doesn’t think her death will have an impact.

She finds herself in The Midnight Library, which is filled with books that each contains a life Nora could have lived had she made a different choice or picked a different path. Some books even contain lives she never imagined.

With the help of an old friend, Nora explores the options the library offers her. But sometimes the choices aren’t easy to make, and sometimes a decision has ramifications she could never fathom. Ultimately, she needs to understand what living a life really means, and whether it’s worth fighting for, before the choices she makes or doesn’t make doom the library—and her—forever.

I loved this book so much. Matt Haig is an amazing writer (I also loved his How to Stop Time) and this is such a moving, thought-provoking book. Many of us have felt the way Nora has, so this book had particular meaning for me.

This is definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Book Review: "A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom" by John Boyne

A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom is a sweeping look at love, family, history, and destiny.

Have you ever read a book that you felt you couldn’t describe properly? That’s definitely the way I feel about John Boyne’s newest book. What I can say, however, is once again, his storytelling blew me away.

We start at the dawn of time, 1 AD. A baby is born to a warrior and his wife, amidst his father’s acts of violence. The baby has an older brother, who mostly resents him.

The story shifts as time passes, changing locations, names, certain facts, but the general thrust of the story remains the same, as if to say that what is destined will happen no matter who or where you are. We travel through history, getting glimpses of historical figures and events through time, all the way to the future.

At times this felt more like interconnected short stories than a cohesive novel. This was an interesting concept and I loved what Boyne has to say, that no event or emotion is unique to just one person. In the end, though, I don’t know that this worked for me as much as I hoped it would. But his storytelling transcended it all, so much like I felt about Fredrik Backman's Anxious People, the writing elevated the book, in my opinion.

If you’ve never read Boyne before, please read The Heart’s Invisible Furies, The Absolutist, and A Ladder to the Sky.

NetGalley and Hogarth Books provided me with a complimentary advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "Percy Jackson & The Olympians, Book 1: The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan

Yeah, I’m about 15 years late to the party on this one!

I don’t know why I never read these books before. I was a huge fan of Harry Potter and other books like it, and I really liked the mystery series Rick Riordan wrote before he reinvented himself, but for some reason these never made it on to my radar. So when a friend suggested a buddy read of the series, I jumped at the chance.

I’m not going to do my usual plot summary because I’d imagine most of you know what these books are about, either because you’ve read these books or your children have. But suffice it to say that Percy Jackson is a kid who can never seem to stay out of trouble, because it always seems to find him. When he gets kicked out of yet another boarding school, his mother takes him to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for demigods. The next thing he knows, he's on a quest to the underworld to try and get back Zeus' master lightning bolt, which has been stolen.

I thought this was a fun way to bring mythology to life (seeing as it has always intimidated me). I really enjoyed the characters, particularly Percy and Grover. While I felt the book took a long time to get to the real exciting stuff, I liked the journey that Percy and his friends had to take.

Since this was the first book in the series, there was a lot of explanation about things, a lot more telling rather than showing, but I’d imagine that will change as the series progresses.

Does this feel a little like a Harry Potter imitation? Maybe, but it's not too distracting.

I’m looking forward to reading the second book in the series next month!

Book Review: "Into the Fire" by Gregg Hurwitz

The fifth book in Gregg Hurwitz's Orphan X series, Into the Fire is a pulse-pounding thriller with emotional heft to it.

Evan Smoak has been moving since he was young. Pulled out of a foster home and recruited into a super-secret government program, he once was Orphan X, one of the most lethal assassins ever.

When he had enough of killing because people told him to, he reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a guardian angel for those in the most desperate of situations. He’ll do whatever it takes to help those truly needing the kind of help he can provide.

Max is that person. Living a desolate, lonely life, his cousin, a forensic accountant, was just brutally murdered. The same cousin who once gave him an envelope with a key in it and told him what to do in the event he died. And now people are looking for the key, some who are clearly evil and some who hide their evil deep below the surface. Max may not be happy with how his life turned out but he doesn't want to die yet.

What seems like a dangerous but fairly simple operation for Evan turns out to be anything but. And as the puzzle becomes more and more complicated—and deadly—to solve, he is torn between this mission of the Nowhere Man he gave himself and the desire for a “real” life.

"'Redemption' was an imperfect word for what he was seeking. Confronting the world with his own code, illuminating the darkness with the guttering light of his own morality—that was a process of becoming. Becoming less sharp. More human."

This is one of the best thriller series out there. Evan Smoak is such an incredible character and Gregg Hurwitz has created an amazingly complex world, and in doing so, has written a thriller series that balances incredible action scenes with rich character development.

I can’t wait to see where Hurwitz goes with this series. My thanks to NetGalley, Minotaur Books, and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review!!

Book Review: "Maybe in Another Life" by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Man, oh man, what a book.

Taylor Jenkins Reid has blown me away again with Maybe in Another Life, another exceptionally beautiful, powerfully thought-provoking book, this one about destiny and soulmates and the choices we make.

As she nears 30, Hannah has been drifting from thing to thing, place to place. She doesn’t know what she wants from life. After breaking up with her boyfriend she decides to move home to Los Angeles, and stay temporarily with her best friend Gabby and her husband, Mark.

"Life is just a series of breaths in and out. All I really have to do in this world is breathe in and then breathe out, in succession, until I die. I can do that. I can breathe in and out."

On her first night back, at a get-together with old friends, she sees Ethan, her high school boyfriend, who broke her heart back then. They still have the same chemistry, and it’s clear there’s still possibility between them. When Gabby and Mark get ready to head home for the night, Ethan asks Hannah stay at the bar with him.

What happens if she stays? What will that mean for her and Ethan? What happens if she goes? Will that change how he feels about her? Hannah considers what both possibilities might mean. And then the book proceeds by exploring both scenarios, in alternate chapters, and the path that each scenario leads to.

"Life is long and full of an infinite number of decisions. I have to think that the small ones don’t matter, that I’ll end up where I need to end up no matter what I do. My fate will find me. So I decide to..."

I loved Maybe in Another Life so much. I am so in love with the way TJR writes, the way she pulls you into every story.

I can’t believe I have only one more of her books left to read! (Seriously, if you haven't read her books, you need to. Daisy Jones & The Six was one of my top 5 books from 2019 and One True Loves also was on my list of favorites, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was one of my favorites from 2018.)

Book Review: "You Were There Too" by Colleen Oakley

Wow, talk about a crazy, thought-provoking, emotional ride!⁣

⁣ Mia and her husband move to Hope Springs, a small Pennsylvania town, to escape personal and professional disasters. But while Harrison takes a job as a surgeon at the local hospital, Mia can’t seem to find anything to occupy her time or her mind, which makes her worry about her pregnancy, her third after two miscarriages.⁣ An artist, she also can't seem to find the focus to create anything new.

⁣ She is also troubled by her dreams. Since she was a teenager she’s dreamed of a handsome man. She sees him clearly, but she doesn't recognize him at all. Through the years the dreams have been intense, some sexual and some troubling. Who is this man? What do these dreams mean?⁣

⁣ Then one day she meets him, in the most innocent of circumstances. It unravels her, especially when he tells her he’s been dreaming of her, too. Is she making too much out of all of this in an effort to compensate for everything else in her life? If not, how could this be possible? Did they meet at some point before? If not, how could they both be dreaming of someone they’ve never met?⁣

⁣ As they try to find answers, Mia realizes that her relationship with her husband is suffering at the same time. Why is he pulling away from her? She must decide which is more important: what is real or what might be destined in dreams.

⁣ ⁣ This is a really interesting book which raised a lot of questions for me. I enjoyed it but it took a while to hit its stride and at times it meandered a bit. However, it left me a total emotional wreck at the end.

⁣ ⁣ One thing I know for sure: this is my first Colleen Oakley book, but it won’t be my last!!⁣

Book Review: "Me Myself & Him" by Chris Tebbetts

The tagline for this book says it best: "One broken nose. Two versions of the same story. Infinite possibilities."

It's the summer before college, before Chris and his two best friends, Wexler and Anna, all go their separate ways to different schools. One night, while doing a hit of whippets outside the restaurant where he works, Chris passes out face-first, breaking his nose. When his estranged father, a famous physicist in California, hears what Chris did, he demands that Chris come and live with him for the summer and work at his lab—or he won't pay for him to go to the college of his choice.

The thought of having to leave his friends during the last few months they'll spend together, and live with a father he still resents for leaving, is utterly unappealing. But Chris doesn't seem to see any alternative—the college he wants to attend has a great film program and it's his ticket out of small-town Ohio. As he begins to sense a newfound chemistry between Wexler and Anna that will leave him behind, he heads to California, unsure of how the summer will go in all aspects.

But in another timeline, Chris hides the truth of what happened from his parents, just telling them he fell. He gets to keep his job and stay home for the summer, but he's not sure how to handle Anna and Wexler suddenly becoming a couple, leaving him and his sparse romantic prospects even more depressing. He knows he'll never find a boyfriend in his small Ohio town, and why bother when he's about to leave? However, little by little the summer starts to fall apart, as the truth about his accident starts to get revealed and his relationship with his friends becomes strained. Chris wonders if there's another version of him somewhere else, living a better life.

The chapters in Me Myself & Him alternate between Chris' "real" story as he spends the summer in California and deals with his father, and the "other" version in which he stays in Ohio and no one is the wiser about what happened (not really). This is a fascinating, poignant, thought-provoking book which meshes familial dysfunction, the fear of growing apart from your friends, and wanting to be loved for who you are with musings on alternate realities, religion, and fate.

I really enjoyed this book and thought Chris Tebbetts did a great job laying out the story and the alternate path Chris' life could have taken. Even though he's a bit misanthropic, I really identified with so many of his feelings, with wanting things to change but also wanting them to stay exactly the same, wanting your friends to be happy but not wanting your relationships to change, and just wanting someone to be with, all while trying to figure out who you are.

I think of this as the gay, not-quite-stoner version of Sliding Doors. It's utterly entertaining and a really enjoyable read.

NetGalley, Random House Children's, and Delacorte Press provided me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!

This book will be published July 9, 2019.