A Bookish Girl

I wish this had been a full length book instead of a novella. I really liked it, but it felt too rushed.

3.5 stars.

Starts out feeling like it's trying too hard to be cute and quirky, but after just two chapters it discovers its own natural quirkiness and just soars.

Super cute! Sweet NA story about a gamer girl and her “we're just friends” housemate & colleague who becomes well, more, obviously.

Super cute!

This was a good surprise. A student-teacher romance that has a little meat to it, as well as being miles better written than most books in this genre. A little darker and grittier than my taste, but I'll take that any day over some of the cheesy rubbish I've read lately in the genre.

I know these books are just a little fun smutty fantasy, but this one was soooo ridiculous!

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.

Total rubbish, no storyline at all. I know these are just supposed to be sexy fluff, but this is one of the dumbest ones I've read.

I was expecting more of a timeslip novel, in the vein of Charlotte Sometimes. This is just a sweet, straightforward story about a little girl's summer holiday one year. It's beautifully written, very evocative, but not much happens. The best word I can think of to describe it is “gentle”.

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.

This was not the sweet fluffy romance I was expecting. There's a lot more heavy stuff here, especially Audrey's mother being recently divorced and suffering from extreme depression. Our hero, Harry, is charming but flawed. Ultimately it's a pretty good book, well-written, but not what I expected from the cover & blurb.

Super cute, very readable wish-fulfilment story. It almost feels like a book of two halves, though, and the ending isn't as good as the beginning. There are also a few issues with spelling and grammar - you're/your, bear/bare, etc, which always spoil my enjoyment of a book. But overall I really enjoyed it, it was fluffy and romantic and I didn't want to stop reading, so it still gets 4 stars.

I can't finish this. I HATE not finishing a book, and usually it's because I seriously dislike the book, but this...was just BORING BEYOND BELIEF. I actually feel cheated, because it had all the ingredients to be something really funny and interesting, and it's about one of my favourite things in all the world (West End Theatre), and yet the author chose to tell really random anecdotes that had no bearing on anything, or stories that started out like they could be interesting, but which she just then abandoned. Like there's one bit about how it was really windy one day on her way into the office, and she had to crawl along the bridge so she wouldn't get blown over. And then...nothing. It has no bearing on anything that happens next, it's not a catalyst for a funny story about how she had to go meet an important actor looking like she'd been in a tornado...just...nothing. This book seriously needed an editor to cut this sort of extraneous filler - except that the entire book reads like extraneous filler.

Fun and readable, but the main character is one of those annoying romance heroines who makes assumptions about the male lead and what he wants, and what he's done or hasn't done, but never bothers to just ASK him. This would have been a 3 star book if not for that. I'm so tired of that trope.

Also I'd have liked a little more romance.

Perhaps not QUITE as good as the first two, but still beautiful.

This was fun, but not nearly as lovely as Geekerella. Still, Geekerella was a tough act to follow, since it's SO GOOD. But this one felt a bit more rushed (maybe because it all takes place over a few days at the Con, so there wasn't time for the love stories to develop adequately). I also found the fandom stuff a bit... forced, I guess? And I love a fandom - but it just had an air of trying too hard about it.

Still, I'm a fan of Ashley Poston, and I'll definitely read her next book.

SO EFFING ADORABLE.

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.

Very sweet story, and a very important one for kids to read. It's aimed a little younger than the children's books I generally read, but when I heard about it I decided it was something I needed to read. There weren't any books about refugee kids when I was young - I'm so happy children's books are so exciting and diverse these days, so I just wanted to read this to be a part of that!

I stalled a lot with this one. It's one of those books that's perfectly fine and enjoyable while you're reading it, but you never feel the need to pick it up again. Caitlin Moran is a really good writer, but I've enjoyed her non-fiction writing much more (strange because I usually prefer novels to non-fiction).

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.

Glorious. Adorable and funny, but with real meat behind the fluffiness. I predict this will be my favourite book of the year.

3.5 stars. Cute, fluffy, readable.

I don't know why I keep reading this sort of badly-written rubbish. Forbidden relationships are like crack to me!

I know this type of book isn't meant to be great literature, but damn, this one is awful. Terrible writing, zero chemistry or sexual tension between the characters, no shock reveals when the father finds out about the “secret baby”... just a huge waste of time.