Book Review – Page 4 – World of Bai

Book Review: “Ugly Love” By Colleen Hoover

This is my third book by Colleen Hoover and to say I am a fan of her writing would be an understatement! So far I have read Verity and It Ends With Us and they were both my top two favorite books! Lets see how Ugly Love stacks up.

“When life gives you lemons, make sure you know whose eyes you need to squeeze them in.”
Colleen Hoover, Ugly Love

About The Book

Author: Colleen Hoover

Publisher: Artia Books

Published Date: August 5th, 2014

Page Count: 337 Pages

Main Genres: Romance, New Adult, Contemporary

GoodReads Rating: 4.23

“Ugly love becomes you. Consumes you. Makes you hate it all. Makes you realize that all the beautiful parts aren’t even worth it. Without the beautiful, you’ll never risk feeling the ugly. So you give it all up. You give it all up. You never want love again, no matter what kind it is, because no type of love will ever be worth living through the ugly love again.”
Colleen Hoover, Ugly Love

Synopsis

When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.

Synopsis is pulled from Goodreads

“Love isn’t always pretty. Sometimes you spend all your time hoping it’ll eventually be something different. Something better. Then, before you know it, you’re back to square one, and you lost your heart somewhere along the way.”
Colleen Hoover, Ugly Love

Rating

Review

I listened to this book on audio and I typically don’t do full book reviews for audio books but I have all of my other Colleen Hoover books here on my blog so I figured why not?

I convinced my boyfriend to read this book with me and he is still in the middle of the book but I plan on sharing his thoughts as well.

I gave this book 4 stars because the writing was not exactly my favorite compared to Verity and It Ends With Us. I just feel like her earlier books might not be my favorites and I feel like that is to be expected because your writing will really progress the more you write and publish your work.

I feel like my least favorite part was the narrator for Miles. I really didn’t love his voice. However, Miles was my favorite part of the story. His background is so tragic and I can completely understand why his character is so grumpy and sad all the time.

I am a sucker for the grumpy sunshine trope but I wouldn’t quite say that is the trope of this book because Tate is also a grumpy character. I almost wish this was a book only about Miles and Rachel. But it wasn’t and over all Miles and Tate had a complicated love story that in the end I did end up falling in love with.

“I know the thought of confronting your past terrifies you.It terrifies every man. But sometimes we don’t do it ourselves. We do it for the people we love more than ourselves.”
Colleen Hoover, Ugly Love

QOTD: What Colleen Hoover books have you read?

Book Review: “The Roughest Draft” By Emily Wibberley

I recently became a VIP for The Once Upon A Book Club Subscription Box and this was my first book from their subscription box. I immediately dove into this book because I was excited to read it and find out what the gifts were that came along with the book and I was not disappointed!

If you would like to order your own book box from Once Upon A Book Club please click this link for a discount!

“…sometimes relationships don’t die. They just don’t grow. Kept from sunlight, from nourishment, they never flourish.”
Emily Wibberley, The Roughest Draft

About The Book

Author: Emily Wibberley

Publisher: Berkley Books

Published Date: January 25, 2022

Page Count: 317 Pages

Main Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction

GoodReads Rating: 3.68

“Forever is about reaching into the future, into years far away and unknowable. Always is about every second of every day. It’s as far reaching as forever, it just starts sooner.”
Emily Wibberley, The Roughest Draft

Synopsis

Katrina and Nathan wrote a best selling book together four years ago and haven’t spoken since due to some writing fallouts that led to Nathans divorce and Katrina’s writers block. Still having a contract to write one more book together they are forced to reconnect and knock out another bestseller in two months. Will they be able to put their rocky past behind them or will they let their contract fall to pieces?

“Fiction comes from truth. It is a wonderful, imaginative, flourishing thing grown from a seed of real feelings, real desires, real fears. No artist ever creates from nothing. We work from what we’ve experienced, inspired by the unique piece of the world we see. It’s why art cannot be replicated.”
Emily Wibberley, The Roughest Draft

Rating

Review

As said above I got this book from Once Upon A Book Club and so after this review I will be showing you what came in the box. These are gifts for you to open as you read the book. Please only scroll all the way to the bottom if you are ok with spoilers!

This book was a slow burn but it was really worth it! You feel the connection between the two characters immediately and you are just rooting for them to get together from the start.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book. They both had silly little quirks they had to overcome throughout the book that really added some much needed contrast to the writing and characters. Chris’s character was easy to hate which I thought was perfect for this books over all story because we needed something to despise while reading.

The thing that I hated and loved the most was the ending. It was super fast which flowed really well but I was left wanting more of their relationship. Overall this was a really fun read that I think you will really enjoy.

“There’s no truth to these pages, but the trick of fiction is to make you think there is. I let myself fall for it as often as I can.”
Emily Wibberley, The Roughest Draft

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Book Review: “Things We Never Got Over” By Lucy Score

Now that I have finished this book I have officially reached my 2022 reading goal of 40 books! In all of 2021 I read 35 books so I am already killing it this year and I still have four months to go! I would also like to point out that I read this 500 paged book in less than a week along with listening and finishing an audio book so I have been really on top of my game.

“There’s a difference between taking care of someone because you love them and taking care of someone because you want them to love you,”
Lucy Score, Things We Never Got Over

About The Book

Author: Lucy Score

Publisher: That’s What She Said Publishing

Published Date: January 13, 2022

Page Count: 568 Pages

Main Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Adult

GoodReads Rating: 4.31

“Sooner or later, you have to accept that you’re not responsible for other people’s choices. Worse, sometimes you can’t fix what’s wrong with them.”
Lucy Score, Things We Never Got Over

Synopsis

Naomi is a runaway bride on her way to the smallest of small towns to save her twin sister from some kind of trouble yet again. But instead of finding a warm welcoming town she is faced with a grumpy Viking of a man who thinks she is her no good twin sister Tina, here to stir up more trouble. After putting the man in his place she quickly finds out that Tina set her up to steal her car and a bag full of cash and left her with an 11 year old niece she didn’t know she had.

Naomi is now the sole guardian of her niece in a small town with no money where the only person she knows is a Grumpy man who already got on her nerves. She is quick to lay out a plan on how she will make a life for her and her niece but is she truly ready to be a parent?

“I’d lost myself while trying to convince someone else that I was what he wanted. I’d forgotten who I was because I’d let someone else take over the definition.”
Lucy Score, Things We Never Got Over

Rating

Review

This book has been all over my Bookstagram and Booktok so I have been super excited to read this for quite sometime. I received this as a gift for my birthday last month and I am so grateful!

This book hooked me from the first chapter! I read this while at the beach and sped through the first half of the book in one sitting! I read the rest today on my day off under a nice shady tree and loved every moment of it. I truly believe the hype for this book is well deserved and I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t pick it up yourself.

One thing that I struggle with in steamy books are the sex scenes. 90% of the time they talk way too much and it just feels awkward and strange. Maybe I don’t have enough experience reading steamy books and maybe I like less steam. To be honest me and my boyfriend just laugh at the words being used to describe things. Like being milked gets talked about several times in this book and that is not a sentence I would ever say.

My favorite part of this book was Naomi’s relationship with Waylay, her niece. They just fit like glue and became the best part of the book. I love Waylays smart mouth and the love Naomi automatically has for her. Just over all the whole community of this book was much needed and I love the found family trope that is so strongly presented in this whole book.

QOTD: How is your reading goal going this year? Do you even have a goal or do you just read for fun?

“When you trust someone to see you for who you really are, the betrayal is a thousand times worse than if you hadn’t handed them the weapons in the first place,”
Lucy Score, Things We Never Got Over

Book Review: “I’m Glad My Mom Died” By Jannette McCurdy

As I write this review I am watching ICarly. I grew up loving ICarly and it was something me and my brother really enjoyed doing together. When I heard Jannette wrote a book about her life I was so excited to read it, but sadly I failed to pre order it and of course it was sold out immediately the day it released. Luckily I am a Scribd subscriber and they had the audio book as part of my subscription. Let me tell you, I devoured this book!

“I take a longer look at the words on her headstone.
Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful, strong, thoughtful, funny, genuine, hopeful, playful, insightful, and on and on…
Was she, though? Was she any of those things? The words make me angry. I can’t look at them any longer.
Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?”

Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died

About The Book

Author: Jannette McCurdy

Publisher: Simon and Shuster

Published Date: August 9, 2022

Page Count: 320 Pages

Main Genres: Non Fiction, Memoir, Mental Health

GoodReads Rating: 4.72

“I’m becoming an angry person with no tolerance for anyone. I’m aware of this shift and yet have no desire to change it. If anything, I want it. It’s armor. It’s easier to be angry than to feel to pain underneath it.”
Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died

Synopsis

Jannette was only 6 years old when her mother decided she should start her acting career, stating she only wants Jannette to have all the opportunities she never had growing up. Jannette and her mother were best friends or so Jannette thought until she started realizing in her adulthood that her mothers intentions might have not been the most pure. Follow along Jannette’s heart breaking story of becoming a young childhood actress with many eating disorders brought upon her by her own mother and how she worked to overcome the impossible.

“I don’t like knowing people in the context of things. “Oh, that’s the person I work out with. That’s the person I’m in a book club with. That’s the person I did that show with.” Because once the context ends, so does the friendship”
Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died

Rating

Review

To say this book was heartbreaking would be an understatement. I feel like Jannette had her childhood taken away from her without her even knowing which is so sad!

When watching ICarly you would never be able to tell that she was going through so many difficult struggles in her life which only comes to show that she was a very talented actress but she never really got to make that choice for herself. When she told her mom she didn’t want to act her mother would gas light her into thinking it is exactly what she wants and needs in life.

Jannette’s story is so heartbreaking and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what I would have done in her shoes. She is unbelievably strong for coming out and telling her story and I am grateful she was part of my childhood.

I hope everyone will take the time to read her story because it needs to be heard!

QOTD: What is your favorite Memoir

“I’m done being a good sport. I resent being a good sport. If I wasn’t such a good sport to begin with, I wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place. I wouldn’t be on this shitty show saying these shitty lines on this shitty set with this shitty hairstyle. Maybe my life would be entirely different right now. I fantasize about it being different.”
Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died

Book Review: “Under The Whispering Door” By TJ Klune

TJ Klune has written two of my favorite books, now including this one. I read “The House in the Cerulean Sea” By him last year and it was easily top five of 2021. I was so excited to finally read this one because it has been catching my eye for months! This book made me feel all the emotions and I can’t wait to convince you to read this next!

“The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share tea, you become family.”
T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

About The Book

Author: TJ Klune

Publisher: Tor Books

Published Date: September 21, 2021

Page Count: 373 Pages

Main Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Romance

GoodReads Rating: 4.20

“We live and we breathe. We die, and we still feel like breathing. It’s not always the big deaths either. There are little deaths, because that’s what grief is.
T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

Synopsis

Wallace Pierce is a no nonsense lawyer. He doesn’t take no for an answer and that is exactly why he has such a successful firm. But because of his rough personality he doesn’t have many friends or really none at all, and an Ex Wife who wants nothing to do with him.

Work is his entire life, until one day he wakes up in a church starring at his own coffin, with only a handful of people in attendance. No one seems to hear his complaints except one young girl he doesn’t recognize.

Mei is a reaper sent to take Wallace to Hugo, the Ferry Man for the in between place of life and death, who’s only job is to help people who have died come to terms with their untimely fate and help them cross to the other side.

Follow Wallace’s untimely journey through death and grief while he learns to accept his new life.

“Life is senseless, and on the off chance we find something that does make sense, we hold onto it as tightly as we can.”
T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

Rating

“Everyone loses their way at some point, and it’s not just because of their mistakes or the decisions they make. It’s because they’re horribly, wonderfully human. And the one thing I’ve learned about being human is that we can’t do this alone. When we’re lost, we need help to try to find our way again.”
T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

Review

This book was so beautiful! I felt all the emotions while reading this book, I laughed, I cried and even got angry at times!

I will be honest with you, I hated Wallace as a main character for the first few chapters but it is essential to the story for you to hate him. He becomes such a well rounded character in the end that you just fall madly in love with.

Speaking of which, the over all character development in this book is spot on. Every character in this book has a different personality that really changes over the course of the book which makes it really enjoyable to read.

So, if I loved this book so much why is it only 4.5 stars? Well, that is because in the middle of this book the story got a bit slow and a tad bit repetitive. It was nothing major but it did take me sometime to get through. Once you reach the last 100 pages though, I promise you will fly through this book!

“It’s never enough, is it? Time. We always think we have so much of it, but when it really counts, we don’t have enough at all.”
T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

QOTD: What TJ Klune Books have you read?

Book Review: “A Man Called Ove” By Fredrik Backman

After reading “Anxious People” By Fredrik Backman almost two years ago and hating it, I vowed to never read another book by this author. Well ever since I read that awful book I have been seeing people rave about “A Man Called Ove”. I kept pushing off reading this one due to the author but I finally caved and started to listen to it at the beginning of this month, man oh man did Ove tear my heart apart!

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”
Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

About The Book

Author: Fredrik Backman

Publisher: Atria Books

Published Date: July 15th, 2014

Page Count: 337 Pages

Main Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Humor

GoodReads Rating: 4.37

“He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced.”
Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

Synopsis

Ove is a grumpy widow who only wants to join his wife in death. However, his neighbors have different plans for him. To Ove it seems that no one in his neighborhood can actually fend for themselves, he gets interrupted time and time again to fix things for others or help someone in an emergency because if he doesn’t who will? Even though he might be a grumpy old man you will find he has a heart of gold that will make you melt and a past that will leave you sobbing.

“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person’s life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. Memories, perhaps.”
Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

Rating

“Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn’t.”
Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

Review

I was in literal tears through most of this book. I promise, you will need a box of tissues to read this book.

I don’t know how he did it but Fredrik Backman had me hooked from the first chapter and I never once looked back. This is a super heavy book that has changed my life and will probably forever hold a place in my heart.

I loved all the characters despite the fact I typically hate grumpy characters in books. Ove is easy to hate at the start but once you start hearing about his background you fully understand why he is the way he is and you will end up loving him.

I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone but I would also like you to understand before reading this that there are some major trigger warnings to be aware of. First and most importantly, suicide. The mention of suicide is in basically every chapter. They also go into details about several different ways one can kill themselves, so if you are not mentally and emotionally in a good place please don’t pick this up till you are ready. Second is death of a loved one, besides suicide death is mentioned over and over in this book and if you have lost a spouse, child or close loved one recently please take care of yourself. Lastly, somethings that were briefly mentioned; Cancer, car crash and vulgar language.

If you are on the edge of reading this please do! However please take care of yourself while reading this book.

“We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like ‘if’.”
Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

QOTD: What is the saddest book you have ever read?