madeline's reviews
776 reviews

aw man, this was bad :(

full review to come, thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC.

A really sweet and funny story of a man desperate to save his small Italian village from a quiet death, and so starts a rumor that a famous movie star will be filming locally. A lot of hijinks, a great cast of characters, and just a really nice time.

Thank you Atria and NetGalley for the ARC!

I think this book's major flaw is that it lacks any self-awareness whatsoever. Josie is an unemployed thirty year old woman living in her parents' home and in the process of divorcing her cheating husband when she realizes a last-ditch effort to save their marriage has left her pregnant. At no point does this woman with no health insurance, no job, and an unstable housing environment, living in a state that guarantees her right to an abortion even consider one, let alone any other option than raising her child. That alone seems so wildly unrealistic to me. She then proceeds to move in with her two high school best friends after reconnecting with the two men at a county fair. Do not expect any excitement out of that premise (much to my chagrin). 

But it all somehow continues to go downhill. The book is fiction with a vague romantic subplot: the love interest is a man with a tween daughter who has apparently never heard of a parenting book and was like "oh bummer my daughter hates me and I can't figure out why. Also, Josie, you're sharing a loft space as your bedroom with her when she's here for my random weekends with her in my absolute bachelor pad with no real furniture, food, or dishes. No, still no idea why she doesn't like me." Her mother is overbearing, her third roommate makes a lot of choices about Josie's body for her (give her the damn cup of caffeinated coffee if she says it's fine, Jesus Christ), and Josie's 30 years old and talks about her "bosom." I'm almost thirty and the only time I've said bosom is when trying to convince one of my favorite authors via Instagram DMs that we would be bosom friends. And all of this is done in such a "well they mean well" kind of way that I know the author spent no time thinking critically about the work that this book is or isn't doing.

Anyways, I'm giving this book two stars because I spent a large part of it being irritated that the romance hadn't started yet before I realized it wasn't a romance novel, and that's on me. YMMV, but I'd highly recommending a skip on this one.

Thank you Sourcebooks and NetGalley for the ARC.

I just... wanted a little more out of Veronica in this, I suppose. Still a great installment in the series, though, full review to come!

Thank you Berkley and Edelweis for the ARC!

This is definitely a case of "it's not you, it's me" - I'm not really one for books set in space, and I was hoping the mystery element would be compelling enough for me to get through my aversion. It wasn't, but I think I also wasn't in the right headspace to put my best effort into it, too. The book has such a great premise and an interesting cast of characters, though, and I would 100% give this book a second try and/or try the next in the series.

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!

 A 3.5 star read rounded down. I think I’m coming to terms that this series is just never going to achieve what both I and the author would like it to. The whole premise is a great concept - men read romance novels to better understand what their romantic partners want! - but most installments just can’t quite get to the point they’re trying to make. The romance novels are inevitably treated as a cheat code, rather than a path to understanding why women value emotional intimacy, and it’s irritating. 

AVMB has a sunshine country singer hero with a grumpy immigration lawyer heroine and too many subplots. His career is floundering, hers is financially unstable, her family sucks and wants him to be their new spokesperson and she’s got to convince him to take the job or lose a spot on the family charitable board, his family was poor and he feels responsible for their wellbeing. None of these, minus the horrors of the US immigration system, are fully fleshed out (and as a side note - where were these Very Good Politics in that horrific second book?). Things are running along nicely and then the conflict at 85% is so ludicrous it almost defies imagination.

As much as Adams tries, there’s still a real undercurrent of misogyny and some homophobia, too: men “bitch jokingly” about how much women pack, Colton’s friends are horrified by his naked body, and how terrible Gretchen’s family is is reinforced by comparing the traditional gender norms Colton’s mother fits into and hers does not.

And look, I’m being nit-picky here. None of these issues rise to the level of making me not want to recommend this book. But when an author sets out to do this much work with their books and repeatedly falls short, it seems like the kind of thing one should point out in a review. I wish that the author and her team would put in the effort to really take these books over the finish line, and that’s all I have to say about it.

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!

CW:

the shitfire that is the US immigration system, alcohol consumption, financial insecurity remembered and on the page, physical abuse by a sibling remembered, emotional abuse from family members remembered and on the page, a physical altercation, an arrest, infidelity of a non-narrative character

 

What an incredible start to my October reads - this Gothic horror was absolutely everything I was hoping it would be. Intensely atmospheric, thick with description and incisive thinking about colorism, classism, colonialism, religion, and feminism. It's tightly plotted and the whole thing feels like a ticking time bomb, ramping up the dread and the discomfort till you're fit to burst. The comp to REBECCA is simultaneously spot on and just scratching the surface of what this book is. So, so good.

Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for the ARC!

Definitely the standout of the series for me!

This is essentially a book-long grovel, for Dom mostly but for Willa as well. They're both trapped on an island and forced to face the failings of the first part of their relationship and why they were together. Dom has a Big Secret that was the reason for him breaking off the engagement in the first place, and my personal opinion is that Big Secrets should be revealed to the reader before the other person/people in the relationship which doesn't happen here. When this happens, the reader often spends too much time feeling like there's no good reason for them NOT to be together, and then the reveal is a bit too little too late. Here, though, I think that it's paced pretty well into the plot, and I didn't spend a ton of time feeling like BUT WHY.

And it's a bit of a slow burn too, which I also don't really love and really didn't mind here. Once Dom and Willa get together? Whew. They sure do make up for lost time. 

Overall, a really great read. 

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!

I really, really love Joanna Shupe's strong, independent heroines. I think they're a - historically accurate, and b - just a real joy to read, and she really does succeed at writing a hero who's worthy of them. Where she doesn't always stick the landing for me is in writing an ending that I really find convincing.

I've realized lately that what I really love in a romance is at least the final 10% of the book (can you tell I read a lot on my Kindle?) to be the romantic interests together and happy and living their lives. It's really tough for me to see them get together for the final time at 94%, because my poor heart just needs a little more lovin' between them and a clear vision of their future together. And as much as I understand the promise of the premise, Nellie and Andrew were a pair where even I questioned whether or not they'd really end up happy together at the end.

I love Joanna's writing and the work she's doing for the genre, and boy this book was HOT. Nellie and Andrew's will-they-won't-they relationship was teased perfectly across the series, and this was really a great finish for them. As always, I cannot wait to see where Joanna ends up next: from Instagram it looks like Boston for at least a little bit, which I would LOVE. I love that she writes in a lesser-utilized time period: now let's go for new cities, too!

Thank you Avon and NetGalley for the ARC!