The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone #2) by Abby Jimenez

It was with much reservation that I read The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez after despising The Friend Zone, the first book in the series. I am happy to report that this book was much better and it was worth giving Jimenez another chance, although she's still on my watchlist. 

Sloan is grieving a loss. She's been hanging on by a thread for a couple of years when she rescues a lost dog. She calls the number on the dog's tag, but the owner doesn't respond, so she starts taking care of this dog. The owner Jason eventually calls Sloan back and he's overseas and he can't get to the dog right away, so Sloan takes care of the dog. Soon Sloan and Jason start texting regularly and then he comes back to Los Angeles, and love blossoms.

Interesting characters: Our heroine suffered a terrible loss in the first book in the series and in this book, she's really dealing with the grief. I thought she was interesting, her job as an artist was interesting, and her love of the dog made me like her. BUT. Oh, for heaven's sake. Always with the "doing the women's work" of cooking and doing the care work. And while in many ways Jason is a dream, he's also a stereotypical "man" fixing the things and hunting the animals.  (How did these two meet in Los Angeles anyway?) Something about all this heteronormativity felt...off.

Believable conflict: I think all of this came off as reasonable to me. Someone who has been through trauma might speak to this better than I can, but Sloan's grief seemed plausible to me. It seemed like she might have some challenges in a new relationship. Once she decided to go all in on the relationship, though, it seemed like that grief just melted away and maybe that's right? Maybe that's how it goes? It just seemed abrupt.

But then there was a situation that was just these two people love each other, but they are in different places in their lives and maybe they can't be together. It's the best part of Evvie Drake Starts Over and the second half of the novel reminded me of that book a lot. It's not miscommunication or incompatibility, it's that these two characters have dreams and goals that are currently in conflict with one another. 

Emotional tension: Sure. Jimenez can write a tale and make you care about the characters. You want Sloan to succeed. You want Jason to make her happy.  Their banter is great. Their chemistry is great. The conflict causes stress and you definitely want that stress to be resolved by the end of the book.

Happily ever after: This was well done, I think. I mean, it always has to be children with Jimenez (she said after having read all of two novels), but at least there wasn't any trickery about IUDs falling out.  (Still bitter about The Friend Zone. I will never get over it.)

Lines of note:

"No! You can't send him to a shelter!"

His hand froze on the mic, and he arched an eyebrow. "Because this is your dog?"

"No, because he'd be terrified. Haven't you seen those ASPCA commercials? With the sad dogs in cages? And the Sarah McLachlan song?" (page 6)

Whenever the cat is yowling pathetically for food or I accidentally step on Hannah's foot and she looks all wounded, we always say that they're going to report us me to Sarah McLachlan. 

"If I'd taken you to a carnival and won you a stuffed animal, that would be part of the date, right? Or if I'd bought flowers or paid for a movie?"

"Yes. But that's typical date stuff. Buying me parts to fix my sink isn't."

"So you want me to be typical?" He grinned. (page 92-93)

Is this sweet or not? I couldn't tell.

He'd never met the best version of me, and for some reason he still seemed to want to be here. (page 134)

Aw. This is 100% sweet. 

A solid entry from Jimenez. 3.5/5 stars

The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone #1) by Abby Jimenez

In The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez, Kristen Peterson meets Josh Copeland because he's the best friend of her best friend's fiancée. Kristen is already seeing somebody and boy is she a mess. She works at home with her adorable dog because she has a lot of health issues.  Josh and Kristen get along great and soon he starts working for her as a side hustle. Meanwhile, Kristen's boyfriend breaks up with her and the sparks really start flying. But Kristen has a secret and she won't share it with Josh and it's keeping them apart. 

(At this point, I am going to spoil the book. You've been warned.)

Interesting characters: Hm. They're interesting, but Kristen's "not like other girls" and Josh's guns and ammo characteristics are not favorites of mine. They are well-developed and I enjoyed a lot of the banter they had, particularly in the first half of the book. There's a great bar trivia scene.

Believable conflict: (MAJOR SPOILERS) Kristen has fibroids and has decided to have a hysterectomy to help her with her pain management. Josh really wants children. Kristen keeps this from him, but admits that she's attracted to him and keeps pushing him off because she knows that she's (going to be) infertile.  This is real life and I get it. I thought it was dumb of her not to just tell him, but I also understand that being vulnerable about fertility struggles is not something a lot of folks feel comfortable doing.  This conflict is honest and I wish more authors would write about things like this in romance novels.

Emotional tension: Eh. 

Happily ever after: (Seriously, there are SPOILERS) The ending of this book is going to stay in my head forever. Kristen accidentally gets pregnant because her IUD came out during one of her heavy flows (!) and has a completely healthy pregnancy and this whole fertility storyline thing was just swept away.  Look! A healthy baby boy who is completely biologically yours and your husband's! I was so mad.  Why couldn't they go through more struggles with adoption or surrogacy? Why couldn't they just NOT have kids because of the expense?  I know that romance novels are supposed to be wish fulfillment, but I can't help but feel terrible for the women out there reading this book, relating to the storyline, going through their own fertility struggles, and then getting blindsided by the pregnancy at the end.

Jimenez wrote a couple of interesting things in the afterword. One, this whole fibroids/surprise pregnancy thing actually happened to one of her friends. Two, "Kristen's happy ending was never about getting pregnant. It was about her allowing herself to be loved, despite what she felt were shortcomings." I feel sorry/happy for her friend, but I still think Jimenez had a responsibility to play the odds of what would happen in this situation (i.e., no pregnancy) AND I think if the HEA was about just finding love, the pregnancy should have been left out. Her afterword did not sway me from my opinion that this was a terrible, terrible ending.

Women's health is not taken seriously by the general public (did we learn nothing from Invisible Women?) and most medical practitioners. I've seen it repeatedly be disregarded in romance novels, too (see When He Was Wicked and The Bromance Book Club). I think it would be great if romance novel authors wrote about hard topics and took them seriously. But if they're not going to resolve tough topics in a way that makes sense in the real world, then they shouldn't write about them because they're doing more harm than good with their false sense of optimism. I'm still pissed at The Bromance Book Club for not dealing with anorgasmia in women and I may not ever get over it. Romance novels deal with issues of sexuality, interracial dating, sexual trauma, and mental health, so it's not as if romance novels can't engage fruitfully in hard social topics while still maintaining the possibility for a happily ever after.

End soapbox. 

This book has a fun beginning, but there is a huge trauma in the middle of the book and then there's the pregnancy thing at the end. (LOOK AT THAT COVER! Does that look like the cover of a book where there's a HUGE BIG BAD THING in the middle of the book? Where's the dog on the cover? What is even happening with this book?!)

(Also, there's a scene where the main character is at the hospital for what seems like a day or two and she never talks about who is walking/feeding her dog and then when she gets home she just falls into bed like SHE DOESN'T HAVE A DOG WHO NEEDS CARED FOR. And no mention of the dog in the epilogue scenes. Argh.  I'm irate on behalf of this (fictional) dog.)

End soapbox for real. 

20 Book Reviews

We're ramping up to my blog's 20th anniversary on Sunday! I'll post a list of twenty things every day between now and Sunday and it will culminate, anticlimactically, on Sunday.

Today I'm going to do a stroll through the memory lane of my archives. I write a lot of book reviews. Here are some I'd like to draw your attention to. 

Most Viewed Reviews 

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn - I went HARD on Quinn here and I think that's why it's one of my most viewed posts of all time. 

Today Will be Different by Maria Semple - I didn't like this book, but I wasn't terribly mean about it. I don't know why so many people click on this one. 

Moonglow by Michael Chabon - Such a good book, friends. 

Time and Again by Jack Finney - I wrote this review in 2016 and currently have zero recollection of the book. Why are people reading this review so much?

Meanest Reviews

Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez - I am still so angry about how Jimenez didn't take women's health seriously in this book. 

Song of Susannah by Stephen King - I am laughing at my referral to King as "an egomaniacal piece of lint." 

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout - "He's an alpha dipshit who insists on calling Poppy a nickname she doesn't like, repeatedly assaults Poppy, and yet, we're supposed to think he's simply swoony." I did not hold any punches with this review. 

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid - In retrospect, maybe I didn't have to go quite so hard on this one. It's fine. But it is sort of too much tennis.

Books I Still Think About

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi - I learned so much about the institution of slavery in this book and I am a huge stan for how powerful and good this book is. 

Birth by Tina Cassidy - We still don't know the optimal time to cut the umbilical cord!!! Billions of babies have been born. BILLIONS. I think about this nearly weekly. 

American Hippo by Sarah Gailey - People riding hippos like they're horses!! This image lives rent free in my head. 

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders - I didn't immediately love this one, but it has grown on me so much. I find a lot of the book's images haunting and I can't get them out of my head. 

Best Series

Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb - Seriously, this saga altered my life and is an example of true characterization. Fitz and Nighteyes are with me forever.

Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante - I know that maybe it's just J who will appreciate this, but these books make me feel so seen.

The Expanse by James S.A. Corey - Just...so good. Another example of a series where the characters will become part of you. 

Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells - I didn't love the latest edition of this series, but it's hilarious and dark and Murderbot's level of misanthropy is perfect.

Best Reviews

Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoag - Smilla is such a great character. And then the ending of that book was a big disappointment. 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton - I despised this book, but worked so hard on reading it for book club only to find no one else did the work. Also, the review was a lot of work. Basically, so much work.  

The Ghost in the House by Sara O'Leary - I did enjoy this book, but mostly this review is all about the fact that the author commented on my review!

Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall - I like that I showed illustrations from the book to make my points. It's a wonderful book. Hard, but wonderful. 

Do you remember any of these reviews? Has an author of a book you read ever commented on your blog?

Eight Questions for Readers

In another ripoff from the podcast Books Unbound, I'm going to ask and answer some questions from their 128th episode. 

1) I love this genre, but I didn't love this book.

    So many romance novels here. Which one do I pick? I'm going to go with Fix Her Up by Tessa Bailey. It's like I traveled back in time fifty years reading this book.

2) I rarely read this genre, but I really love this book.

    Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty - I don't usually read westerns, but this was great. 

3) I love this trope, but I didn't like this book.

    Trope: Dragons

    Book(s): The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffery - I *should* love this series, but the sexual violence and gender relations are too hard to look past when reading it today. 

4) I hate this trope, but I love this book. 

    Trope: Marriage in Peril

    Book: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones - Such wonderful observational writing.

5) I love this author, but I didn't love this book.

    The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante - I adore the Neapolitan quartet and The Lost Daughter, but this novel did not have the same magical spark. 

6) Who is an author you previously disliked, but you read another book by the author and enjoyed it?

    Abby Jimenez - Remember how bitter I was about The Friend Zone? That book is deeply upsetting. But I did enjoy Yours Truly. Serious whiplash while reading Jimenez. 

7) I love this cover, but I didn't like this book.

    The Interestings by Meg Wollitzer - What is the book about anyway?  Fun cover, though.

8) I don't love this cover, but I love this book.

    My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante - The Europa edition has a particularly terrible cover.

******************

Do you have any hot takes on these questions? Favorite books from genres you don't usually read?

January 2022 Book List

I think I'm going to try to do monthly book lists instead of quarterly lists this year so that it's not just a giant list every time.  I'm also going to attempt to do a rating system of some sort because I was jealous of all the stats that Stephany was able to put together. I think this might also be a way for me to see if the books I read for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge actually do bring me some sort of joy or if I should let that go and focus on just reading books off my TBR list.  Anyway, it's an experiment.

1/6: Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera (library ebook, 2019) - YA book that tells me yet again I am not the audience for YA. 2.5/5 stars

1/8: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (library, 2014) - Time travel done right. 3.5/5 stars

1/8: Soar High (Sons of the Survivalist #4) by Cherise Sinclair (Kindle purchase, 2021) - I didn't think this series was as strong as Masters of the Shadowlands, but it was a compelling enough read about a woman recovering from trauma as she fell in love. 3/5 stars

1/8: A Rogue of One's Own (League of Extraordinary Women #2) by Evie Dunmore (library, 2020) - I love this setting, but wasn't completely sold on the couple. 4/5 stars

1/12: A Queen in Hiding (The Nine Realms #1) by Sarah Kozloff (library audiobook read by Imogen Church, 2020) - Fabulous epic fantasy. 5/5 stars

1/12: Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and illustrated by Hugo Martinez (library, 2021) - Fascinating look at the history of slave revolts from a feminist perspective, as well as a peek into how historians work. 5/5 stars

1/12: Buzz Off (Queen Bee Mystery #1) by Hannah Reed - An acceptable mystery set in the area where I live. 2.5/5 

1/15: The Queen of Raiders (The Nine Realms #2) by Sarah Kozloff - (library audiobook read by Imogen Church, 2020) - Fabulous epic fantasy STILL. 5/5 stars

1/16: Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal (library graphic novel, 2018) - Fun graphic novel about the extinction of human men. 3/5 stars

1/17: Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (library ebook, 2007) - Interesting ideas, but the logistics of this world were incredibly unappealing to me. 2/5 stars

1/19: The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson (library ebook, 2014) - When will I learn that I am no longer the audience for YA?  2/5 stars

1/20: A Broken Queen (The Nine Realms #3) by Sarah Kozloff - (library audiobook read by Imogen Church, 2020) - Suffers from middle book bloat. 3.5/5 stars

1/22: The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton (library, 2021) - Simply brilliant. 5/5 stars

1/23: The Chase (Briar U #1) by Elle Kennedy (Kindle purchase, 2018) - Pretty good romance novel. 4/5 stars

1/24: The Cerulean Queen (The Nine Realms #4) - A bit of a letdown for the series. 3/5 stars

1/26: The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone #2) by Abby Jimenez - Better than The Friend Zone, but I'm not sure if Jimenez is the author for me. 3.5/5

1/29: Birth by Tina Cassidy - Interesting non-fiction book about the history of birth across time and culture. Interesting, gruesome, and scary. 4/5 stars

1/30: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Oddly dark, but imminently readable. 3.5/5 

Total: 18 books

Average star rating: Just over 3.5/5

Did Not Finish:

(There were a lot of DNFs this month. More than in the entire last quarter of 2021. My patience was thin!)

The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn #1) by Peter F. Hamilton - I didn't give this much of a chance. I read about five pages and just gave up. Maybe I'll try again sometime. 

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo - DNF at 2%. That's what I thought about the start of this book.

The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan - DNF at 9%. I have no time for rich people doing rich people things.

Passage by Connie Willis  - DNF at 10%. Basically all I read was a bunch of doctors going around complaining about one another and one of those doctors had a magic food coat?  No, thanks.

The Tiger's Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera - DNF at page 95. I was bored and found myself playing on my phone instead of reading just to avoid the book, so I had stop reading it and move on to something else.

All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover - DNF at 45%. I know that there's an audience for a book about a depressive woman struggling with infertility, but that audience is not me.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim felt a little bit like a mini-bloggy book club because so many people were reading it. I felt obligated to read it to be part of the discussion. 

The story is told from the point of view of Mia, a college student who is home during the pandemic with her mother, father, twin brother John, and  her disabled fourteen-year-old brother Eugene. One day Eugene goes out to the woods with his father, but comes home alone, upset, covered in dirt and blood, and no one knows where their father has gone. Unfortunately, Eugene's disability means that he cannot communicate with the family or the police about what happened. 

What follows is the family's search for the father, secrets being revealed, and endless passages about the research the father was undergoing about happiness. 

I have three minor critiques here.

1) I found the tone of the main protagonist to be quite off-putting. It's relentlessly negative. The very first paragraph of the book includes the sentences: I don't believe in optimism. I believe there's a fine line (if any) between optimism and willful idiocy, so I try to avoid optimism altogether, lest I fall over the line mistakenly. (page 3)  On one hand, this relentless glass half empty attitude is great characterization, but it also made me not want to spend time with her and it definitely didn't make me feel like I cared about what happened to her family since she herself didn't seem to care very much. 

Also, don't get me started on the random musings about happiness research and the happiness quotient. I am 100% sure none of that nonsense paid off in the end.  

2) I was bothered by the use of the pandemic as a plot point. There's a point when they are in a police station and the author makes a point about talking about how everyone's wearing masks, but then describes  a woman as "looked like our high school librarian - short, flat all-white hair atop a long, narrow face with a pointy chin" (page 141), but there's no way her chin would have been visible.  In June of 2020, just about every one of my waking thoughts was about the pandemic and while I acknowledge that my experience wasn't like that of everyone's, the use of the pandemic as a plot point only when it was convenient (as in, there is an outbreak so X won't happen) didn't endear me to the story.  

3) The father is a missing person in this book. And that's fine, but it was hard to feel really invested in what happened to him when there was no development of his character because he's also an entirely missing character in the book. The author would just tell you his character traits, rather than slip in a little anecdote or remembrance about him so we'd get to know him better. 

Dad was one of those naturally hyper-skeptical people. You know the type, who equate cynicism with depth and intellect, who go around saying "anecdotal proof" is oxymoronic, who demand objective evidence, by which they mean quantifiable and replicable data from double-blind placebo-controlled tests. (page 270)

Wouldn't it have been so much better if we'd had a scene in which the father did/said those things instead of just having the main speaker say it? It was a really frustrating part of the book because the father was so crucial in just how much you as a reader would care about the outcome of the book.

But my biggest critique is one that I'm not seeing or hearing much, so I'd be curious if my reading is wrong. 

I feel about how this book deals with disability the same way I feel about how The Friend Zone deals with women's health. I'm going to enter into some spoilers here, so if you're going to read this book and want to go in cold, stop reading. (SERIOUSLY! SPOILERS AHEAD.) 

Remember how in The Friend Zone, Abby Jimenez wrote an ending in which a woman's IUD falls out during a heavy flow and has a completely normal, healthy pregnancy ending in a healthy baby? Do you remember how Jimenez wrote an author's note about how this totally happened to her friend and it wasn't actually about the pregnancy ANYWAY.  Do you remember how irate I was? Because it downplayed the difficulties that so many women have with fertility and dismissed the most likely outcome of the character's situation?  And, also, using birth as the ending of a romance novel makes the book much less interesting. Wouldn't it have been so much better if the couple had to overcome this obstacle and go in a different direction?!

Well, here I am feeling the same way about THIS BOOK. In the end, it turns out that while Eugene cannot speak, he can communicate. And the book just ignores the reality of what life is like for so many people who do have disabilities that means they cannot communicate. And then in the author's note, the author has the GALL to write about how this DOES happen and the technology does allow for some people with certain types of disabilities to communicate, even if they were thought to be nonverbal before. 

But what are the odds? The odds are that this WOULD NOT HAPPEN THIS WAY. Eugene would not be able communicate, the case would go cold, the family would have to adapt. And I think that would have made for a much more interesting story and ending overall.  Why are there not more people in the disability community upset about this?!

Anyway, this was a miss for me. I haven't read the author's debut novel, Miracle Creek, and I don't think this is encouragement for me to do. 2/5 stars

Lines of note:

When an emergency happens, you expect the whole world to shut down, or at least you wish it would, because, of course, your own world has. (page 122)

I remember how ordinary the world was when my MIL was dying. In that house, everything was centered on taking care of her and how we would make her last days as good as possible, but we still had to go to work, find insurance providers, and buy groceries. It just all seemed surreal. 

I thought how I didn't really look at my friends' parents, how they seemed more like blobs who perform societal roles rather than distinct people whose specific facial, vocal, and other features I actually process and retain. (page 136)

I mean, isn't this true about most people we know? We don't really take in all the visual information we're provided with, do we? (Or maybe you do. I certainly do not.)

Math, I dismissed as something akin to manual labor, merely indicative of one's ability to contribute to society in a menial way, like a worker bee to a hive. But verbal acuity, that was what I myself admired and equated with intelligence. Didn't everyone? Wasn't that why everyone loved those fast-talking (and therefore smart) characters in The West Wing? (page 271-272)

Huh. I don't really feel this way, but I found myself persuaded by this argument.

Hat mentions:

They commented publicly on John's post, and less than a minute later, in this private platform, they posted selfies with huge smiles, confetti, party hats framing looks of orgasmic joy plastered on their faces - it seemed lewd, like I should avert my eyes, the incontrovertible evidence punching me in the gut. (page 246)

"I asked this woman if I could use her phone to text you, but she was all suspicious, and her hat blew off so I got it for her, and she went crazy and told me to get away." (page 279)

Yours Truly (Part of Your World #2) by Abby Jimenez

I have a seriously conflicted relationship with Abby Jimenez, the author of Yours Truly.  The Friend Zone pissed me off so badly that I swear my blood pressure goes skyrocketing when I even THINK about that book even though it honestly had the possibility of being a good book. The Happy Ever After Playlist was pretty good, though. Life's Too Short was terrible. 

So it was with some serious reservations that when Stephany recommended this book HIGHLY, I took it out from the library. And, boy was she right. This is a nearly perfect romance novel. 

Briana Ortiz's life is not great. Her brother is sick, her divorce is going to be final soon, and it looks like her promotion is on the line because of the new guy, Jacob. Plus the new guy is a bit of a dick. But then he writes her a letter (OMG! a letter! you know I got super pumped) explaining that he has anxiety and then it turns out he needs a fake girlfriend to attend a wedding.  I don't think I need to explain to any of you what happens next, do I?

Interesting characters: Oh, boy, do these two do it for me! Jacob is *whispers quietly* very much like my dear husband. I am not Briana, but the accommodations she makes for Jacob made me feel very seen. Your mileage may vary on these two, but they very very much appealed to me. Their banter is funny, there's a dog (Lieutenant Dan!), a cat (Cooter!), and relationships with people outside of their romantic relationships. Two thumbs up. (Don't sue me, Siskel and Ebert estates.)

Believable conflict: Yeah. These two are both getting out of intense long-term relationships and it's clear that they're reacting to the past relationships, which is totally understandable. They also do things like reflect on their own behavior and communicate about reasons for their actions later (sometimes in letters *I swoon*).

Emotional tension: Oh, yes!! They aren't physical for so long and I just want them to do a kiss on the cheek or something!!

Happily ever after: This is the "nearly" in "nearly a perfect romance novel." The ending. Uff-da. I have thoughts, but there are two main issues that I don't really want to say because it's a spoiler, but just know that if you despise this ending, you are not alone. 

4.5/5 stars (docked fully half a star because of that ending)

Lines of note:

I knew from years of therapy that I was ruminating. That the encounter had probably been nothing to her, but to me it felt like the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened. A decade from now I'd be lying in bed and my eyes would fly open and I'd remember the incredulous way she'd looked at m  - me, the guy who had the audacity to walk into her ER room and talk to her about running toward a critical patient, one she obviously knew and cared about. (page 22)

I have a recurring nightmare about a phone call I had when I was twelve or thirteen. True story. I won't share my trauma with you, but it's there.

I wondered if I could keep doing this. I was miserable here. I was miserable at Memorial, and I would probably be miserably wherever else I went too. Maybe this was my life now, just existing and hating every minute of it. (page 29)

Sometimes I think this is me. I'm the problem, not the world. 

I'd always known what I was and was not capable of, even as a child. Your parents tell you that you can grow up and be anything. But I knew from the earliest age that wasn't true. I remember my teacher telling me I could be president one day, and me replying that I didn't want to because I didn't like parades. (page 89)

1) I do not lie to my niblings about things like this. This started because I have a different view on religion than my in-laws and I promised myself that I'd never lie. I have answered direct questions about God, Santa, and comic book characters that differ greatly from how their parents would answer (and always reported to the parents so they would know if the kids had questions). I have also talked to my niece who has a severe physical disability about what her future job prospects are (i.e., you can be a landscape designer, but you're never going to be the person who plants the flowers).  

2) You could maybe be a flower. Or a gumball machine. Or a t-rex. (See the comments in Nicole's post to know what this about.)

Eating was intimate. It took me a long time to truly feel comfortable doing it in front of someone. (page 98)

My husband hates to have people watch him eat. Hates it. I don't make eye contact with him during meals; like he's a rescue dog at a shelter. 

"...but I have as much willpower as a piece of broccoli." (page 251)

This was hilarious. And goes to talk about the tension in this book. Also, this is how I feel about Payday candy bars. And gummy bears. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

People in wedding veils and birthday hats hooting and cheering, shouting over the music. (page 11)

A selfie in front of Minnehaha Falls. She was wearing sunglasses and a gray baseball hat in that one. (page 84)

This book takes place in the Twin Cities, only you don't really know that except for a brief mention of Edina and this Minnehaha Falls namecheck. It still made me happy to be there. 

He had his hat-in-hand, puppy-dog look again. (page 139)

A squirrel in a cowboy hat and chaps riding a turtle. (page 149)

I'm not going to explain this quote. You just have to read the book yourself to learn!

Jacob looked relieved that his gift had hit the mark and turned back to me with the puppy-dog, hat-in-hand smile that always made my face go soft. (page 232)

52 Most Popular Romances of The Past Three Years

Goodreads released its list of the most popular romances of the past three years (released in February of 2021). As is my wont, I determined to get through the list.  I have a lot of issues with the list (no Love Lettering!), but mostly it is that there's too much reliance on a few authors (Christina Lauren shows up five times on the list, Colleen Hoover four times, and Jasmine Guillory five times) and not enough diversity of authors.  It turns out that I think this list is absolute junk, but once I started, I had to finish. 

Just as a note, I frequently ended up writing "not a romance novel" and what I meant by that is that it didn't prioritize the romance as the central storyline of the novel. Many of these are perfectly good  novels, but they don't meet the basic criteria for a romance novel. 

1. Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (library, 2019) - I read this in August of 2020. It was an adorable book, but I was not in the mood for a light, fluffy political romance in the midst of the end of the Trump administration. 

2. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang (library, 2018) - I wanted to like this book more than I actually did.

3. One Day in December by Josie Silver (library ebook, 2018) - Meh.

4. The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren (library ebook, 2019) - Pretty good first half, but the ending was quite problematic for me.

5. In Five Years by Rebecca Searle (library, 2020) - This should hardly be classified as a romance novel at all.  It's about female friendship, really, so if you know that going in, you'll be better prepared.

6. Beach Read by Emily Henry (library ebook, 2020) - A perfectly fine book.

7. The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory (library, 2018) - A perfectly forgettable book.

8. Regretting You by Colleen Hoover (library, 2019) - There's a romance element to this book, but it's not really the central storyline. It's mostly about a mother/daughter relationship after a trauma.  Good, but hardly something I'm going to remember a month from now.

9. Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center (library, 2019) - Another forgettable book.

10. Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks- (library ebook, 2018) - Sparks is so cheesy. This book was cheesy, predictable, and probably not worth your time.

11. The Bride Test by Helen Hoang (library, 2019) - Another Hoang book that I want to like, but didn't really.

12. From Blood and Ash by Jennifer Armentrout (library ebook, 2020) - Legitimately a bad book.  

13. All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover (library ebook 2018) - DNF at 45%. This book's heroine is depressed because she's dealing with infertility problems and her marriage is in peril. I think this is an important topic, but not one that speaks to me and after one too many scenes of obligatory sex for procreation purposes, I peaced out. I'm glad this book is out there for people who it resonates with, but I'm not that audience.

14. The Proposal (The Wedding Date #2)  by Jasmine Guillory (library ebook, 2018) - Very good meet-cute. The rest was fine. 

15. The Kiss Thief by LJ Shen (library, 2019) - Ugh. Why is mafia romance a thing?

16. Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (library, 2019) - I like Hibbert's writing a lot.

17. How to Walk Away by Katherine Center (library ebook, 2018) - I want to like Center, but her books are just forgettable to me.

18. I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella (library, 2019) - Pretty good. I liked the family dynamics more than the main romantic storyline, but it was a nice diversion to read this book.

19. Matchmaking for Beginners by Maddie Dawson (library, 2018) - Not a romance novel. It made me irate.

20. Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren (2018, library) - Pretty good.

21. The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone #1) by Abby Jimenez (2019) - Women's health should be treated with respect. Thumbs way down from me. WAY DOWN.

22. The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver (library ebook, 2020) - Not a romance novel.  It's a good book, but a romance novel it is not.  

23. One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London (library ebook, 2020) - This book left me with an overwhelming feeling of disappointment.

24. Pretty Reckless (All Saints High #1) by LJ Shen (2019) (library, 2019) - DNFed at page 70. I am too old to be reading about teenagers and I have little patience for their bullshit. 

25. 99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne (library, 2019) - DNF at page 95. So much of this book was utterly confusing, particularly the dialogue. Thorne seemed to think we could actually read fictional minds. I didn't have patience to get through this.

26. Hate Notes by Vi Keeland, Penelope Ward (library ebook, 2018) - A solid romantic comedy with witty dialogue.

27. The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club #1) by Lyssa Kay Adams (library, 2019)  - Funny. Superficial. 

28. Well Met by Jen DeLuca (library, 2019) - Very good entry. I enjoyed the RenFaire setting and liked the characters.

29. The Switch by Beth O'Leary (library, 2020) - This is a solid book I enjoyed greatly. The romance element was not the main story arc, so beware.

30. In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren (library ebook, 2020)- Another non-romance novel on the list. Subpar implementation of what could have been an interesting idea.

31. Meet Cute by Helena Hunting (library, 2019) - The rom-com involving an orphaned child and two unethical lawyers. Not my jam. 

32. Heart Bones by Colleen Hoover (library, 2020) - I think this is the best Hoover I've read yet. YA romance novel about two kids trying to deal with childhood trauma.  

33. The Mister by EL James (library ebook, 2019) - This is a bad book. A really bad book relying on stereotypes, confusing action scenes, and the male gaze. It touches on a really important topic, human trafficking, but does so in such a superficial way that was disappointing. Thumbs way down. 

34. Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren (library, 2018) - I liked this one! I knew Christina Lauren would eventually hit with me.  

35. The Simple Wild by KA Tucker (library ebook, 2018) - I waited more than four months for this to arrive on my library hold list and then the hero was a jerk. DNF at 50%. 

36. Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women #1) by Evie Dunmore (library, 2019) - This really is an excellent romance novel. I'm 100% on board with its inclusion in this list. 

37. The Wedding Party (The Wedding Date #3) by Jasmine Guillory (library ebook, 2019) - Guillory is a good writer, but enemies to lovers doesn't do it for me.  

38. If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane (library, 2020) - I really did like this book, but the main plot is not the romantic plot. Still a very worthy read. 

39. Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren (library, 2019) - Very boring. Heroine lets the hero get away with things she shouldn't have. Thumbs down.

40. Fix Her Up (Hot & Hammered #1) by Tessa Bailey (library, 2019) - Terrible leads. Felt like it was written decades ago. Huge thumbs down.

41. The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone #2) by Abby Jimenez (library, 2019) - Much better than The Friend Zone, but there are still problems with this.  Pretty okay.

42. Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas (2018) - Age gap romance I didn't even try to read. I'm sorry, but I knew from the excerpt on Goodreads that I would have nothing positive to say about this.

43. The Chase (Briar U #1)  by Elle Kennedy (Kindle purchase, 2018) - I liked the female friendships in this novel. The hero was a bit of a snooze, but the main character sort of snuck up on me. 

44. You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle (library ebook, 2020) - DNF at 40%. The fighting and meanness between the couple were not my cup of tea.  

45. From Lukov With Love by Mariana Zapata (Kindle purchase, 2018) - So many loose ends at the end of this book. It was an okay romance novel, but I found the constant use of the word blink (191 times!) to be distracting and the slow burn was too slow for me. 

46. Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert (library, 2020) - Hibbert is a wonderful writer and I think about this book a lot.  Zafir is an exciting, unusual hero.  

47. Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall (library, 2020) - Hall is a genius and I like his humor, real-life scenarios. It's obvious why he's the reigning leader of queer romance literature.

48. Royal Holiday (The Wedding Party #4) by Jasmine Guillory (library, 2019) - Mature characters in a romance novel. Pretty okay.

49. Party of Two (The Wedding Party #5) by Jasmine Guillory (library, 2020) - Yet another snoozefest from Guillory. Fine to read, but not memorable at all.

50. The Hunter (Boston Belles #1)  by LJ Shen (2020) - Look, I'm going to be perfectly honest. I couldn't find this book at any of the library systems I have available to me and based on my DNF of a previous Shen book on the list, a description of the book on Goodreads, and the first few pages previewed on Amazon, I just opted out.  I'm not going to spend money or time on this book.

51. Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin (library, 2018) - This is a perfect book for someone who is not me.

52. Don't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane (library, 2018) - I liked the cover of this book and the side characters. The main romantic plot was lackluster.

Here's how it all worked out:

Loved	Liked	Meh	Actively Would Not Recommend	DNF/DNS
Well Met	Red, White, & Royal Blue	The Kiss Quotient	Every Breath	All Your Perfects
Bringing Down the Duke	Beach Read	One Day in December	From Blood and Ash	Pretty Reckless
Take a Hint, Dani Brown	I Owe You One	The Unhoneymooners	The Kiss Thief	99 Percent Mine
Boyfriend Material	Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating	In Five Years	Matchmaking for Beginners	Birthday Girl
	The Two Lives of Lydia Bird	The Wedding Date	The Friend Zone	The Hunter
	Hate Notes	Regretting You	Meet Cute	You Deserve Each Other
	The Switch	Things You Save in a Fire	The Mister	The Simple Wild
	Heart Bones	The Bride Test	Twice in a Blue Moon
	Love and Other Words	The Proposal	Fix Her Up
	If I Never Met You	How to Walk Away
	The Chase	One to Watch
	Royal Holiday	The Bromance Book Club
	Heart Bones	In a Holidaze
		The Wedding Party
		The Happy Ever After Playlist
		From Lukov with Love
		Party of Two
		Ayesha at Last
		Don’t You Forget About Me

Basically, this list was not great. I will probably not be relying on Goodreads for my list of books to read from here on out!