Review: Heroine Complex

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

Series: Heroine Complex
Genres: Science Fiction, Romance
Maturity Level: 5
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco’s most beloved superheroine. She’s great at her job—blending into the background, handling her boss’s epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.

Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.

But everything changes when Evie’s forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it’s up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles—all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda’s increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right… or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

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Heroine Complex was completely different from what I was expecting, but still everything I was hoping for. It was exciting, funny, sexy, and full of heart.

Review: Beach Read

Beach Read by Emily Henry

Genre: Romance
Maturity Level: 5
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Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

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Whew, what a book! Half romance, half “women’s fiction” about grief, half a writer’s book for writers, all spectacular reading.

Calendar Girls February: Favorite Romantic Comedy

Happy February! All the pink stuff is everywhere, and I just spent $20 on paper trash for my kid’s classmates. (He’s two…) You know what that means! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!

Obviously I’m not sentimental about Valentine’s. Honestly, I could care less about it and we don’t celebrate it. It’s a nice idea, I guess, but I don’t find it in any way romantic. But I will never criticize anyone who does enjoy Valentine’s Day! So for all you lovers out there, this Calendar Girls theme is for you!

Meet Cute: Favorite Romantic Comedy

This theme was not difficult for me at all. I love romantic comedies, but I have a hard time finding literary ones that I truly enjoy. To clarify, I don’t consider romance novels Rom-Coms, even if they’re funny. To me a Rom-Com MUST be PG-13 with sex only implied. Because that’s how the movies are. I’ve found a few I’ve enjoyed since I started book blogging, but with contemporary romance on the up-swing, good romantic comedies are not easy to come by. However, this past November I fell in love!

My choice for my favorite romantic comedy is…

Literary Fiction vs. Genre Fiction

A fight to the death!

Or at least a fight over my tbr…

I got in a conversation with my brother in law this weekend about literary fiction. I made a joke about the Academy Awards that he didn’t find funny, because he thinks I shouldn’t criticize a bunch of movies I haven’t seen. Which is totally valid, but it was a joke. Whatever. The point was, I haven’t seen (or even heard of) a single Best Picture nominee. Mostly this is because I just don’t see that many movies anymore. I’m busy, they’re expensive, and I’m not a man so I can’t just dump my children on my partner for nine hours every week. BUT! That’s not all there is to it.

I started talking to him about how when I go to the movies, since I go so rarely, I just want to have fun. That’s why most of the movies I see are either action or comedy. Occasionally I’ll watch an uplifting drama. (Watched Blinded by the Light last night and LOVED IT.) And while I’m sure the films nominated for best picture are brilliant, they aren’t what you might call feel-good films. They tend to be heavier, darker, sadder. Sometimes they have hopeful endings, but it’s not the same as watching, say, When Harry Met Sally.

Which got me to thinking. It’s really the same thing when I read.

Review: Outlander

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Series: Outlander
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
Maturity Level: 5
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Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

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Before reading this book I heard a *lot* about it. A lot of hype, a lot of hate, and a lot of strong opinions. So I came into this book with quite a few expectations. Yet Outlander somehow managed to side-step them all.

Review: Waiting for Tom Hanks

Waiting for Tom Thanks by Kerry Winfrey

Series: Waiting for Tom Hanks
Genre: Chick-Lit, Romance
Maturity Level: 4
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

Annie Cassidy dreams of being the next Nora Ephron. She spends her days writing screenplays, rewatching Sleepless in Seattle, and waiting for her movie-perfect meet-cute. If she could just find her own Tom Hanks—a man who’s sweet, sensitive, and possibly owns a houseboat—her problems would disappear and her life would be perfect. But Tom Hanks is nowhere in sight.

When a movie starts filming in her neighborhood and Annie gets a job on set, it seems like a sign. Then Annie meets the lead actor, Drew Danforth, a cocky prankster who couldn’t be less like Tom Hanks if he tried. Their meet-cute is more of a meet-fail, but soon Annie finds herself sharing some classic rom-com moments with Drew. Her Tom Hanks can’t be an actor who’s leaving town in a matter of days…can he?

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FINALLY!! A romantic comedy that was everything I wanted it to be!!!!

Waiting for Tom Hanks had everything I was hoping for: sizzling chemistry without on-the-page sex; people who talk like real life without dropping f-bombs every other sentence; a hapless heroine who is neither a damsel in distress or a bad-ass; quirky side characters that don’t get annoying in their cliches; preposterous situations that didn’t take themselves seriously. If more romance novels were PG-13 rated like this one I would read them ALL THE TIME. This was a feel-good book that gave me all of the fuzzy tingly romance things without the awkwardness of stumbling across a sex sequence while sitting on the couch next to my mom. I loved it, and I will absolutely be reading anything else Winfrey writes, and I am also taking suggestions for more PG-13 romance novels. ❤

P.S. All of the bonus points for nerd rep.

Review: Red White & Royal Blue

Red White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Genre: Romance
Maturity Level: 5
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius—his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations and begs the question: Can love save the world after all? Where do we find the courage, and the power, to be the people we are meant to be? And how can we learn to let our true colors shine through?

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I should start by saying that I have never reviewed a romance novel before. I don’t actually *like* romance novels, and if I had known this was one I never would have put it on hold from the library. All the YA bloggers were reading it, and so I just assumed it was YA. So my opinions of this book will reflect what I don’t like about the genre, and I honestly don’t know much of anything about the genre and have nothing to compare it to.

Review: Star-Crossed

Star-Crossed by Minnie Darke

Genre: Chick-Lit
Maturity Level: 5
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

When childhood sweethearts Justine (Sagittarius and serious skeptic) and Nick (Aquarius and true believer) bump into each other as adults, a life-changing love affair seems inevitable. To Justine, anyway. Especially when she learns Nick is an astrological devotee, whose decisions are guided by the stars, and more specifically, by the horoscopes in his favorite magazine. The same magazine Justine happens to write for. As Nick continues to not fall headlong in love with her, Justine decides to take Nick’s horoscope, and Fate itself, into her own hands. But, of course, Nick is not the only Aquarius making important life choices according to what is written in the stars. 

Charting the ripple effects of Justine’s astrological meddling, STAR-CROSSED is a delicious, intelligent, and affecting love story about friendship, chance, and how we all navigate the kinds of choices that are hard to face alone.

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Here it is! Finally! THE ROMANTIC COMEDY I’VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR!!!

Reading Star-Crossed was exactly like watching a classic RomCom. It was sweet, and funny, and had just the right amount of mischief.

Soul Ripping Romance Tag

Way back around Valentines Day The Orangutan Librarian tagged me in this very simple yet obviously-I-have-to-do-it tag. If you aren’t following The Orangutan Librarian yet, you are seriously missing out and you need to go fix it NOW. That being said, you are probably going to see a lot of the same things in this tag, because we are too much alike considering we are, in fact, not even from the same species.

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The Rules

• Thank the person who tagged you and create a pingback to the original author – Nel at Reactionary Tales.
• Share at least 5 (but more are welcome) romances that tugged your heart strings. They can be from books, movies, TV shows, manga; anything you can think of! They can be examples of sad tears, angry tears, happy tears or a combination of all three.
• Nominate 5 (or more) people to share their emotional traumas
• (Note: Try not to spoil the story for your readers in case they would like to check out these romances on their own)

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My Favorite Romances

Ron and Hermione

My OTP. Forever. I will fight you to the death on this one, especially if you’re going to try tell me that Hermione aught to have ended up with Harry. Or if you are going to tell me that Harry Potter is horrible.

Review: Next Year in Havana

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance
Maturity Level: 4
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

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Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba’s high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country’s growing political unrest–until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary…

Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa’s last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth.

Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba’s tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she’ll need the lessons of her grandmother’s past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

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This was a lovely book with a beautiful story, however it lacked the effortlessness of my very favorite books.