Katharine Forsyth
My history with Sally Thorne's books has been wildly varied.
I LOVED The Hating Game. I thought it was completely unputdownable, funny, sexy, and probably one of the best romantic comedies I'd read.
Then came 99% Mine. I really, really disliked this book. A really unlikeable main character, coupled with very little plot stretched out over hundreds of pages of repetition, plus conversations that went round and round in circles... it was just bad. And the writing style felt so different to The Hating Game, it was almost like a different person wrote it. If I'd read this book first, I would never have picked up another book by Sally Thorne.
So then comes Second First Impressions. Would it be more THG or more 99%M? And the answer is... it's right in the middle. The plot and characters are so much better than 99% Mine, which is a definite win. But the writing style is still more like 99%M than THG. It lacks the “must keep reading” factor, the fun, and the joy of THG.
To be honest, the writing style Sally Thorne has now isn't my thing at all, and so this will probably be the last book I read by her. But I'll still reread The Hating Game when I want a fab romance that I can't put down!
I really enjoyed this. I expected full-on smut from the cover, but there's literally only one sex scene right towards the end. It reads a lot more like a light romance/chicklit novel than the sexy sexy times type of romance novel that the cover suggests. I think it's been very mismarketed.
Difficult to rate a book that's so personal, and that's so important for heterosexual people like myself to read to understand more about what our LGBTQ friends and family go through. But I just didn't think this book was particularly good, even though I'm glad I read it.
As usual, I am super irritated that this has a completely different title for the UK and USA markets. Why do publishers still do this? I just want one title so I can easily find it and chat to my friends all over the world about it. I don't care whether it's called “Oona out of Order” or “The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart” - I just want it to be CONSISTENT.
On the up side, it sounds lovely and I'll read it either way!
There was something really heartfelt and warm about this book. Simple and lovely.
Contented sigh
I've read three of the St Mary's series, and while I loved the first one, books 2 and 3 didn't really do it for me. But this, I loved! I hope the next one is as good, because I'm definitely going to read it.
Not nearly as good as “First Semester”. The writing was fine (I mention this because the writing in these smutty romances is often appalling), but I didn't care about the characters and the sexual tension didn't work for me. Blaaaaaah.
Eh. Not very well-written (although there was some fun banter between the leads), and there was zero sexual tension or “Forbidden Romance; we can't get caught” tension. That's what I read this stuff for!
This was the first book I've ever read with a non-binary main character (there's a very minor non-binary character in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series as well, and I think that's the only other time I've read about one in fiction). I'm forty years old, and I am SO happy for all the young non-binary and gender-queer people that they have a book like this right now! What a time to be alive. I'm also happy that straight, cis teens (and older people like me) can read this stuff so we can learn to empathise with and understand people who don't fit the gender norms we've had instilled in us since birth. I still have an absolute ton of questions about being non-binary, so I'm definitely keen to read some more books about it!
All that aside, this book is absolutely lovely, too. WIN. Not only is it an important story, it's a really good one, too. We got to know Ben, the MC, pretty slowly, and at first I was worried that they didn't have much personality, but as time goes by they come out of their shell, and I just fell in love with them - though not as much as Nathan, the love interest. swoon Damn, there are some great book-boyfriends (and girlfriends) out there in YA at the moment.
I loved this book because even though I'm a straight cis girl, and the bulk of my romance-reading has been ‘straight girl loves straight boy', it completely doesn't MATTER who falls in love with who, as long as I still feel the butterflies, and can't put the book down till they get together! Bravo Mason Deaver for creating a book that promotes empathy, understanding, and love being love in all forms.
Glorious. Adorable and funny, but with real meat behind the fluffiness. I predict this will be my favourite book of the year.
This isn't remotely a Christmas romance, though the last 20% of the book does take place at Christmas. So if you're looking for a warm and lovely Christmas romance, don't be duped by the title like I was.
I'm so frustrated with this book, because it had a really great premise, and the bits that were cute and fun showed how good it could have been if the author had just kept it cute and fun. But no. Instead, we get two main characters with soooo much emotional baggage that they can barely do anything except have internal monologues about how damaged they are (and some dialogue too). The entire book is just them convincing themselves and each other that they can't be together, even though they really fancy each other. And to fill a few hundred pages with ONLY that, means that the same basic conversations happen over and over and over and over until I just started skimming them in frustration.
And then to make matters worse, the ending is super rushed.
This might be a two star (it was ok) read, but because it irritated me instead of just making me go “meh”, I'm downgrading it to one.
DNF at 20%. Usually I love this kind of story, but this one was just dull, and none of the characters were remotely interesting. I couldn't give a damn if the main characters ended up together or not, which is kind of the entire point of a romance novel! Also the writing was pretty iffy. To be fair, I've read far worse writing, but I'll forgive a lot for a compelling story. This had neither.
Such a sweet and wholesome book about a trans pre-teen finding her place in the world. Life-affirming! Every kid should read this book.
2.5 stars.
It kind of felt like it was trying too hard to be a cute, quirky YA book, and not totally succeeding. A nice enough read, but not for me.
This is REALLY good. It's not often you find such an open, full-on sex-positive YA book, especially when it comes to gay sex. There are other YA authors who give a positive representation of sex (Jenn Bennett is a good one), but ‘Jack of Hearts' is REALLY open about it. Kudos to LC Rosen for this!
Also, even if there wasn't any of that, the story is still great, so it's thoroughly readable and more-ish. Great job all round.
This book didn't really work for me, and I know exactly why. TJR made the decision to tell the story as one long interview piece, which I can totally understand. It's an interesting way of approaching a story about a rock n roll band. Unfortunately it just left me cold, because it was all “this happened and then this happened” and there was no emotion to any of it. I never felt compelled to keep reading because it was all just very detached. I never felt connected to any of the characters. I do think Reid is a good author and I enjoyed Evelyn Hugo much more than this. I just don't connect well with this storytelling choice.
A classic case of “It's not you, it's me”, this book just isn't for me. I follow the author on instagram, where she posts beautiful photos, and is absolutely hilarious, so I added both her books to my TBR list. However, neither the style nor the rather unhappy subject matter are my bag. That's fine. Not everything is for everyone!
Usually when I DNF a book it's because it's bad, and then I rate it one star, but in this case I'm not giving a rating because I'm sure other people will love it - it just wasn't for me.
Why do you do this to me, Maureen Johnson? I can't wait AGAIN to find out what happens next! So cruel.