Book Review: "This is Kind of an Epic Love Story" by Kacen Callender

This is Kind of an Epic Love Story is a book about the often-blurry line between friendship and love, and how hard it can be to let yourself be vulnerable.

Can a book touch your heart and annoy the f—k out of you, simultaneously? I'd answer "yes" resoundingly after reading this book. (More on that later.)

Nate is a huge movie fan and dreams of becoming a screenwriter but he doesn’t believe happy endings are possible in real life. Ever since his dad died leaving his mom grieving even years later, he has equated love with getting hurt. It also hasn’t helped that his best friend Florence, whom he dated for a while, broke up with him and yet still seems unsure whether she did the right thing. But she wants him to find someone else, someone to make him happy.

"I don't really know what's worse: living without love so that you don''t get hurt, or getting hurt repeatedly in an attempt to find it."

Nate’s emotions are further thrown into turmoil with the return of Ollie, his childhood best friend, on whom Nate had an intense crush before he moved away. Ollie reawakens those feelings again, although he returns from Santa Fe in the middle of a long-distance relationship with a boyfriend. Regardless, Nate is unsure of what he wants—Florence? Ollie? Nothing?

As he tries to write his first script and juggle his feelings, he wonders whether love is even worth pursuing if in the end someone winds up getting hurt or grieving over the end of a relationship. Why risk your heart just to feel pain and sadness? If he keeps pushing people away, what happens then?

I thought this book so perfectly captured the jumble of emotions when you are falling in love with your best friend. It’s really beautifully written.

My issue with the book, however, is that so much of the plot dealt with the characters not telling each other how they felt, but instead pushing people away or lying until someone got angry. Every chapter had one character mad or hurt because of the actions of another, and after a while that got frustrating. I know this might be realistic, particularly among teenagers, but how many times can you read essentially the same thing, where a character doesn't tell another the truth, and everything blows up?

Other than their tendency to avoid conflict and telling the truth, I enjoyed these characters and their complexity. I also loved the way Kacen Callender simply made the characters' sexuality a non-issue. Nate went from Flo to Ollie and no one ever said, "Wait, now you're into guys?" What a wonderful world it would be if things worked that way...

Book Review: "The Worst Best Man" by Mia Sosa

Over the last 12-18 months, I've read a lot of rom-coms. They're the perfect foil for some of the heavier stuff and thrillers I read, and they never fail to put me in a good mood—and in some cases, even choke me up. (Not that that should surprise anyone who follows me, given that I cry watching television commercials sometimes.)

I've found that rom-coms fall into one of a few tropes: friends-to-lovers, where long-time friends suddenly realize their feelings for one another but are afraid to voice them for fear of ruining the friendship; meet cute, where there's some unexpected encounter that sparks an interest between two people, often strangers; second chance, reuniting former lovers or former rivals after a long separation only to see there's still (or suddenly) a spark; and hate-to-love, when two people who can't stand each other for whatever reason suddenly realize the animosity is covering up some serious chemistry. And with most rom-coms, once you can identify the trope, you can generally predict how the book is going to go, and that often doesn't diminish its appeal.

Mia Sosa's new book, The Worst Best Man, falls squarely in the hate-to-love category. Lina is a wedding planner who takes total control for her clients, but she is utterly thrown for a loop when her fiancé, Andrew, decides he doesn't want to get married—the morning of her wedding. The coward can't even tell her himself; he gives that assignment to his brother, Max, who apparently said some things while the brothers were drinking the night before that led Andrew to cancel the wedding. (And the worst part of it is, Max doesn't even remember what he said to his brother.)

Lina has never forgiven Max for his role in ruining her life. So needless to say, she’s unprepared to come face-to-face with Andrew and Max in the midst of an interview for an exclusive wedding planner job for a hotel chain. She has to pair up with Max on a marketing presentation to win this job, while Andrew will work with her competition. When she realizes she has no choice but to collaborate, she lets her guard down, only to discover her animosity might be hiding something else, something stronger.

Max desperately wants to win this job to prove he’s his own man, not just a carbon copy of his brother. He also can’t deny that he wants Lina—but he isn't interested in playing second fiddle to Andrew once again.

I loved how Sosa incorporated Lina’s Brazilian heritage into the book. The Worst Best Man is steamy (super steamy, actually) and fun, but it just didn’t wow me. Even though I know how rom-coms usually end, I found this almost too predictable, and the story seemed to drag for me.

Still, lots of others have loved it, so I may just be cranky. If this sounds like fun to you, give it a shot!

Book Review: "Passion on Park Avenue" by Lauren Layne

Lauren Layne's Passion on Park Avenue is the first book in her Central Park Pact series. It's the start of a fun trilogy about love, sex, friendship, and finding your way.

Naomi Powell has come a long way from her childhood, where her mother worked as a housekeeper in a prestigious building on the Upper East Side until one day she lost her job and they were forced out on the streets. Naomi is the CEO of a tremendously successful jewelry and accessories company she built herself, and she doesn’t feel she has anything to prove to anyone.

And then she finds she is in the running for a condo in the building where her mother once worked. Suddenly she wants to show these high-society snobs what she’s made of herself. She’s thrown for a loop when she realizes one of the residents is Oliver Cunningham, the son of the family her mother once worked for, whom Naomi blames for the rapid downturn of their lives all those years ago.

She’s bent on revenge, but she can’t help but be attracted to him at the same time. Damn him for being gorgeous and infuriating. She wants to let Oliver and his father know who she is and that she still is angry for what transpired years ago, but she’s unsure what her next move should be. And then there’s also an attractive producer trying to convince her to let him adapt her life story into a television movie, which is both a flattering and terrifying idea.

Meanwhile, Naomi and her two closest friends—who meet in quite an interesting way after discovering a very unique thing in common—try to navigate how to find Mr. Right instead of Mr. Absolutely Wrong. They've promised to protect each other from winding up with someone horrible.

This is such an enjoyable book and a super-quick read. I actually read the second book in this series, Love on Lexington Avenue, before this one and it really didn’t mess things up. It’s lighthearted, sexy, and lots of fun—kind of a Sex and the City but less pretentious, not superficial, and less steamy.

Can’t wait to read the third and final book in the series, Marriage on Madison Avenue!

Book Review: "19 Love Songs" by David Levithan

19 Love Songs, David Levithan's newest book, is a collection of stories and verse celebrating the big and small moments of love, life, relationships, and finding yourself. It was so fantastic!

"He liked the idea that when you fall in love with someone, the other person becomes your lighthouse keeper, even if it means staying up all night, even if it means staring out into the darkness until the darkness assumes the shape of your love and comes back to you."

In this collection, Levithan explores the highs and lows of love, from the exhilaration of the first spark to the moments where a relationship rises and where they sometimes fall. It’s also a look at how it feels to fully know yourself, to accept yourself for who you are.

Many, but not all, of the stories have LGBTQ themes or characters. Some deal with major moments and some deal with everyday occurrences. From a first date between a transgender football player and a male cheerleader or a young boy’s memories of Valentine’s Day with his mother, to a boy dressing as Santa Claus as a favor for his boyfriend or a story about self-discovery amidst participation in a school quiz bowl, these stories are heartfelt, sometimes funny, thought-provoking, and just gorgeously written.

Three stories feature characters from three of Levithan's books—Every Day, Boy Meets Boy, and Two Boys Kissing—but you don’t need to have read those to enjoy the stories.

"Words were my tools of creation. And love, I learned, is a constant act of creation, just as creation is almost always an act of love."

Levithan is among my favorite YA authors. (His one book for adult audiences, The Lover's Dictionary, is pretty fantastic as well.) His writing, his use of imagery, and the way he conveys emotions often brings me to tears because I feel so connected with what he’s saying. I got seriously choked up more than a few times while reading this.

Book Review: "Yes No Maybe So" by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed

Becky Albertalli's latest collaboration, Yes No Maybe So (this time with Aisha Saeed), is a lighthearted love story which deals with weighty issues, yet it is endearing and sweet.

"Some people are meant to change history. And some people are meant to change out of their vomity interview clothes."

Jamie Goldberg has political aspirations but knows he’ll never achieve them since he doesn’t do well under pressure. That’s not an understatement—he once referred to Jimmy Carter as a “penis farmer” rather than a peanut farmer, and he once threw up on a politician during an interview.

With his entire family focusing attention on a special state congressional election in their district, Jamie is pressed into action as a volunteer.

After serving as a de-facto errand boy for some time, as well as providing tech support to his social-media savvy grandmother (aka InstaGramm), his newest responsibility is to knock on doors and encourage people up vote. Much to his pleasure he is joined on this task by Maya, a childhood family friend whom he hasn’t seen in a while, but who seems to turn his insides to jelly. For her part, Maya thinks Jamie is cute and funny, but she’s far too preoccupied with the crises in her own life to think about anything else. Plus, her parents don't want her to date anyone she's not serious about, especially someone who isn't a Muslim.

The canvassing teaches them about political action, how the smallest action can have a ripple effect. It also teaches them about each other—how the anti-Semitic actions of the opponent’s supporters affect Jamie, who is Jewish, and how a bill forbidding people from wearing head coverings affects Maya and her family. They throw their all into campaigning for their candidate as they find themselves increasingly drawn to each other. But Maya has already told Jamie she's not allowed to date, and Jamie is nervous of screwing up their friendship, so what should they do?

Is this book fairly predictable? Sure, but it’s tremendously enjoyable, charming, and romantic. Albertalli's books tend to balance the emotional angst with an equal dose of positivity, and I really like that.

What I also enjoyed about Yes No Maybe So is how it made me feel seen. Growing up Jewish I rarely saw (and still don’t often see) characters like me, and books where actual Jewish holidays are celebrated rather than mentioned, and dealt with authentically. To see a character say an actual Hebrew prayer in this book was a wonderful thing.

I devoured this book in just a few hours. So now I wait for Albertalli's next one...

Book Review: "All Your Perfects" by Colleen Hoover

"If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim."

Then: Graham and Quinn meet on one of the darkest days of their lives. Quinn returns home early from a trip and heads to her fiancé's apartment to surprise him. She finds Graham pacing outside the door, because his girlfriend is in the apartment, sleeping with her fiancé. Quinn cannot believe that her life has essentially fallen apart, but why can't she take her eyes off Graham?

Now: Graham and Quinn's marriage is falling apart, a little more each day. It seems like the things they've said—and even worse, the things they haven't said—have taken too much of a toll. How could they have gotten to this point given the intensity of their love for one another, their vows to do things differently than the relationships which have come before theirs? Is there anything that can be done to save their marriage?

"It's strange how I can miss a person who is still here. It's strange that I can miss making love to a person I still have sex with."

In All Your Perfects, Colleen Hoover traces the arc of a relationship, from the first spark until the moment where the participants have to decide whether to keep on fighting or to throw in the towel. Using chapters which alternate between past and present, she illustrates the minor faults and major cracks that threaten a relationship—the hurts, the mistakes, the lies by omission, and the overflow of emotions that sometimes get in the way of rational thought.

I found this book moving and powerful, yet frustrating at times. It deals with the issue of infertility and the emotional anguish it inflicts, so that may be a trigger for some who have dealt with similar issues. The characters are complex and flawed, and not always as sympathetic as they should be given what is transpiring. But Hoover's storytelling ability once again shines through, making this emotional story tremendously compelling even as your heart aches for these characters.

I can't believe I read my first CoHo book just last fall, and this is now my fifth. I love the way she pulls you into her characters' lives and immerses you in their emotions. While All Your Perfects wasn't quite perfect for me, I still devoured the book in just a few hours (thanks, bronchitis-related insomnia) and felt emotional when I was done.

Haven't read CoHo but love this genre? What are you waiting for?

Book Review: "10 Blind Dates" by Ashley Elston

Good lord, this book is just one giant ball of adorable!!

Sophie’s pregnant older sister is on bed rest, so their parents decide to visit her for Christmas, leaving Sophie to stay with her grandparents and extended family of cousins. But before she heads to her family’s house, Sophie goes to a party to hook up with her boyfriend Griffin, since she'll be missing him for a while.

When Sophie arrives, she overhears Griffin telling his friend he’s happy Sophie will be away and that he’s considering breaking up with her, that she's gotten boring and too serious. Shocked and devastated, she heads to her grandparents’ house.

Before the pressures of school and spending time with Griffin took priority, Sophie used to spend so much time at her grandparents' house, inseparable from two of her cousins and the son of her grandparents' next door neighbor. They used to be like the Four Musketeers, and it isn't long before they fall back into that pattern.

Sophie’s grandmother doesn’t want to see her miserable, so she proposes a plan: let 10 members of the family set her up on blind dates, one a day, and hopefully it will take her mind off her heartbreak. She gets one opportunity to say no to a date as well. While the whole thing makes her a little nervous given certain members of her family (they all insist one set of first cousins are evil), she figures she has nothing to lose.

Some dates are fun and some are ridiculous—like participate in a live nativity scene as Mary, having to fend off a handsy date and a goat enamored with her costume. Her family gets ultra-competitive about all aspects of every date, too, but the whole exercise mostly makes Sophie feel better about things. Of course, Griffin begs and begs for another chance, which confuses her, as does her feelings for a person who has always been out of reach for her.

I predicted what would ultimately happen in this book very early on and yet I didn’t care in the slightest that I was totally right. 10 Blind Dates is so charming, so endearing that I fell in love with it completely. It’s the perfect start to my month of reading mostly rom-coms and romance!!