Amanda

The parts about his return to WWE and the various feuds/storylines (especially the stuff about the Shawn Michaels storyline) were interesting. The stuff about metal bands, not so much. The problem with audiobooks is that you can't skim until you get to something interesting. Not bad at all, especially when graded on the curve of ‘wrestling memoirs,' but not something that'll stick with me that long, I think.

(Probably more like 4 or 4.5 stars, bumping it up because of the Buc-ee's stop and the mostly realistic Texas geography.)

A lot of fun and a quick read, a really nice note to end summer romance bingo on for me. Love the nerdy heroine and how she doesn't have to change anything about herself or her interests in order to find love. I thought it was interesting how it was (entirely, as far as I recall) in close third-person with Olivia's perspective - alternating between the romantic leads seems to be a little more common, but I didn't mind this at all, though it did make his motives and qualms a little more opaque. I love that this road trip features a Buc-ee's stop; for any non-Texans who have read this book, Buc-ee's is a real place and it is amazing, though I don't personally care for the beaver nuggets. From the blurb, I was expecting this to be a bit more enemies-to-lovers than mutual pining, but I like both of those tropes, so I'm happy either way! This is the final book in a series - while I don't think my reading experience suffered from not having read the other three, this was enjoyable enough that I'm planning to go back and read the others.

(2109 summer romance bingo: road trip.)

Books I will always be interested in: memoirs about growing up fundamentalist/evangelical. This one was excellent. I do wonder what happened to Aaron after high school graduation - especially coming out and all that stuff.

Both main characters felt underdeveloped to me - I didn't get as much of a sense of Betsy as a secret rebel under a proper society lady, and the whole fear about her mother's reputation affecting her didn't seem like it ever came to much of anything. And as far as Jeremy, I didn't like how all the bad things that happened to him were the fault of his evil cousin. I thought his PTSD was well-done, and I thought it would have been more interesting to have him actually have suffered from effects of that instead of it all being the cousin trying to steal the title. I wanted more of the development of their relationship, and maybe of Thaddeus being a serious rival instead of just this pleasant guy who was hanging around. This is probably 2.5 stars, rounding up, and I think I need a bit of a break from historical romances at the moment.

This is the audiobook and I've been trying to listen to it off and on for most of the year. It's not winning out over any of my podcasts at this point, so I'm calling it. I may return to it later, but it's not grabbing me at all at this point and I'm not sure why.

Had a hard time getting into this one for some reason, and the plot suffers by comparison to [b:A Week to Be Wicked 11738128 A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove, #2) Tessa Dare https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1321335382s/11738128.jpg 16687336] (which is one of my favorites of all time). I liked Sophie, wish there had been more of her sisters, and didn't really care all that much about King or his drama with his dad. Not a bad book at all, and I liked it for the most part, but I'm glad I got it from the library instead of buying it. (Also, read A Week to Be Wicked if you haven't.)

This isn't anything you don't already know (or I don't already know, but I am a public defender), just drilled down to focus on the lowest-level offenses, where the vast majority of people actually have their interactions with the criminal justice system. Definitely worth the read if you're interested in reform and mass incarceration.

(4.5, rounding up - not tagging as historical fiction because it's set less than twenty years earlier than the publication date, and not tagging as YA because I don't think it is, even though it won a YA award. Anyway.)I LOVED THIS. It's like [b:The Westing Game 902 The Westing Game Ellen Raskin https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356850909s/902.jpg 869832] crossed with a murder mystery crossed with [b:Dramarama 437590 Dramarama E. Lockhart https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437512851s/437590.jpg 3085471] (which is super underrated and I love), all set in the late 90s, and you might as well just go ahead and call this my catnip. Half a star deduction because I wasn't as interested in the adult characters and because the villain was just a little too flat as a character, but those are minor nits. I want to give Alice and Rabbit huge hugs and tell them it'll all be okay. And I want to reread this now that I know how it ends and see how everything fits together. It's phenomenal.

Not “true crime” in the conventional sense, though it does follow one specific murder case through investigation and trial. However, the victim of that murder is a young black man, as are his killers, which isn't usually the case in most true crime stories (or at least not the ones that get the most attention). Leovy also takes a wider perspective, focusing on the steady drumbeat of unsolved murders happening while the main case is still pending. One of the things you hear a lot about in criminal justice is overpolicing of poor and minority communities (which is absolutely a problem), but this book sheds light on how those communities are, at the same time, tragically under-policed when it comes to the most serious crimes. People are arrested for minor drug charges or traffic violations, while others can literally get away with murder. It's a disservice on both sides of the equation, and this book should spark conversations about what we're really doing with police resources and whose lives are ending unvalued.

(Disclosure: the author is a friend.) This book is so beautifully written and heartfelt and I just wanted to give Caroline and Georgia and even Matt and Toby gigantic hugs (and none for Jake, bye). I'm 36, so not at all in the target age range, but this book brought me back to that late-high-school feeling of wanting more, but not being sure what that “more” is or how to get it. I didn't have the same high school experiences as Caroline, so I didn't identify with her in that exact way, but the emotions were so real and so perfect. This isn't a heavy book at all or one with a Message, but it touches on some very real feelings and situations and does it all beautifully.

(4.5, probably, rounding down.)

I don't mind cute/cartoonish covers, and it makes a lot of sense with this story and its lightly comic touches, but the clipart for the male figure's face here is just weird and doesn't match well with the rest of the cover for me, or with the description of Martin in the book. This is kind of a silly complaint, especially considering I read this on Kindle, but there it is anyway.

I haven't read this author before, or much contemporary like this (i.e. no one is royalty), but I really enjoyed this book a lot! There's not a lot of conflict, at least not between characters, so if you want romance with high drama, this probably isn't for you. Even the closest thing to a villain in the story doesn't appear very much and is dealt with pretty easily (and mostly off-page, which is a little unsatisfying, but not a big deal). I really like both the main characters, especially that they're a little older (mid-40s, so certainly not ancient, but not young, either) and settled in their careers. I also loved Rose's ex-in-laws and Martin's daughter, who were all a lot of fun, and the weird little side characters, like the all-goth girls' softball team and the English teachers who are just a little bit off (though they're right that Wuthering Heights is NOT a romance). It's not really magical realism, but it's just off enough to add some extra humor and fun. I'll be looking out for the next book in this series for sure!

(2019 summer romance bingo: “someone wears a costume,” (twice!) though it would also work for “prom” and possibly a loose interpretation of “sassy grandparent”)

A fascinating combination of memoir and history of the funeral industry. Maybe not for you if you're squeamish, as some of the descriptions are pretty gross (though nothing as intense as [b:Stiff 32145 Stiff The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Mary Roach https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347656489l/32145.SX50.jpg 1188203], if I remember correctly). Also, there's some description/discussion of stillbirth and infant death, if that's something you don't want to read about or listen to. The author reads the audiobook of this and her experience from “Ask a Mortician” really shows, as she's a very entertaining narrator.

Yes, how inconvenient emancipation must have been for the poor innocent plantation owners. What the actual fuck is wrong with this person.

(2.5, rounding up.) This was okay, I guess? It sort of felt like two books blended together - the first part in Scotland and England, and then the second half, after the MC returns to Chicago. I feel like not very much happened in the first half and then too much happened in the Chicago half, especially in the last 100 pages or so. This just never really came to life for me, and I'm not sure why. I didn't care for Logan much (and occasionally actively disliked him), for a couple of reasons: 1) “YouTube viral video star” is just about the least-enticing possible profession for a romantic lead to have, short of “ICE agent” or “billionaire,” and 2) I don't think you get to be upset with your girlfriend for your relationship starting as a vacation fling when your whole deep secret/manpain backstory is about how your father died suddenly and now you're afraid of relationships.. Also, this isn't anything to do with the writing, but if Logan is consistently described throughout the book as ginger, why in the world does the cover dude have brown hair?

I guess I just feel like all the characters were underdeveloped, really - even Cassie, the MC, I don't feel like I ever really got into her head in more than a superficial way, and the supporting cast was even more thinly written. Cassie has four friends who have about two character traits each (one of which is their hair color, and if you took a shot every time Delaney's “strawberry blonde” ponytail was mentioned, you'd probably die) and are essentially there to set up four more books in the series. Anyway. The writing was overall good, but the pacing was off and the characters were thin, so this is a lot of words to say that while this wasn't awful, I probably won't come back to this series.

Reread - trying to set up a family budget this time. More applicable, but still basically a pamphlet.

The takedowns of various financial “experts” are fun - if you just read one chapter in this book, make it chapter three, “The Latte Is a Lie,” which is all about how cutting out your Starbucks run every day won't make you a millionaire and a lot of people are making big money by shaming regular people about things like that. The real problem is stagnant wages combined with skyrocketing costs for things like real estate, healthcare, and education, combined with a massive reduction in the societal safety net. People can't save as much because they're essentially trying to do more with less. I feel like since this book came out, a lot of what's in it has become almost common knowledge, or maybe that's just that I'm friends with a lot of frustrated millennials. Either way, this was easy to read and definitely educational, though there was a lot in here that I was already aware of. And now I still have no idea what a variable annuity is, but I know I shouldn't get one.

1) I cannot believe this is a real book, but 2) I can totally believe that this is supposedly an “inspirational” romance

I wish there'd been a little more about the culture that's grown up around cancer, particularly breast cancer, in America - what there was I really enjoyed, like the chapter or so about the Komen Foundation. The science and history of treatment was the biggest part of the book, interspersed with some more memoir-style sections about the author's own cancer and treatment. I hadn't heard about this book before randomly picking it up from the new releases shelf at the library, but it was engaging and educational on a topic I didn't know much about previously.

It was fine, I guess? Not bad, but Hannah's reasons for the relationship at first were so poorly explained I had to restart the book from the beginning because I could not remember them. Also, I am extremely over descriptions of what the male lead's genitals are doing at any point that's not a sex scene, and even more over personifying said genitalia. I like the writing, and I'll read the next one in this series for sure, though.

This was fascinating and I'm embarrassed by just how little of it I knew beforehand, though in my defense it's been just about 20 years since I took AP US History. Anyway. I enjoyed this and learned a lot from it, and I appreciate how straightforward and clear-eyed Loomis is about organized labor - while he's clearly on the side of workers throughout, he's also definitely willing to point out where racism or sexism or just flat-out terrible leadership undermined the movement's ability to succeed. (Especially in the early chapters, I was continually amused by the clear disdain for the AFL/Samuel Gompers.)

I especially appreciated the chapter about slave resistance and rebellion before and during the Civil War, and the last two chapters about the PATCO strike and the rise of the SEIU and public sector unions. I would've liked a little more about things like the current wave of unionization among online workers and/or attempts to unionize gig workers like Uber drivers, but those may be too recent to have made this edition.

Enjoyed this way more than I was expecting to (even after all the positive reviews). I was also raised evangelical in north Texas, so I identified with a lot of the earlier parts of the book. Jessica seems like an excellent hang and I admire the hell out of her for being so honest in this and making it through some truly awful experiences. John Mayer can jump off a cliff.

Interesting but a little disjointed - it's a lot of snapshots of restaurants/chefs at various points in the last 15-20 years of the American food scene, some of which get more than one chapter and some of which we never return to. The short chapters on Tom Colicchio, Ree Drummond, and Guy Fieri are more like essays and were some of the standouts to me, especially the Guy Fieri one. The rest was interesting, but seemed to lack additional context to bring it all together - what changed in American culture, and how did the food and restaurants highlighted here reflect that? Was a switch flipped in 2004 and all of a sudden everyone wanted artisanal chicken nuggets? There's not much of that macro analysis here, but the micro deep dives into the stories of these chefs over time are interesting, especially the ones like Andre Prince Jeffries. The writing is fun and engaging but I wanted more from the book than it ended up being.

3.5 stars, rounding down. If this were the sort of thing I liked, I would probably have really liked this! I don't dislike it at all, but I'm just not big into science fiction combined with romance, so I wouldn't have picked this up if not for the Ripped Bodice Summer Romance Bingo. I liked the crew/found family situation here, especially the backstory about Tess and Jax. The alternating between first-person for Tess and occasional dips into third-person for Shade's POV was kind of an odd choice - while it didn't really bother me too much, I'm not sure why the author made that decision.

Extra half a star for Bonk the space cat and his self-cleaning litter box. Between that and Tess's birth-control injection that apparently lasts a decade, this might be a pretty decent dystopia, all things considered. (That's a joke, I don't want to live in a dystopia, whoops we already do.)

(2020 summer romance bingo: “the final frontier,” could also work for “I'm on a boat,” I think, since it's a spaceship. Other possibilities: secret identity, maybe a generous interpretation of bootleggers.)

Writing was better than [b:Not the Girl You Marry 44082130 Not the Girl You Marry Andie J. Christopher https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550779727l/44082130.SX50.jpg 68549157], and I found these characters more engaging and complex than in that book, but the plot here just didn't make much sense to me - I know the author is (or was?) an attorney, but if she ever practiced criminal law, I'd be surprised. As a defense attorney, it really got in the way of my enjoyment of the book, because 1) at the beginning, it talks a lot about this big case of hers and the complaining witness backing out at the last minute, which definitely happens, but then ... she just shrugs and goes to Vegas? It's never brought up again, not even in a sidebar "oh, it's too bad we had to dismiss this case" type of way, and maybe it's meant to show she's burnt out, but it's odd to spend that much time on it at first and then never mention it again. 2) A big huge motivating factor for her in this is to get a fellowship and pay off her loans, which I totally understand but also ... income-based repayment is a thing and so is public service loan forgiveness. I have a ton of loans myself, and they're a lot, but this just seemed like a sort of cliche thing to be a motivation (especially because, again, Vegas trip). 3) This is the most minor, but there's an aside about how she hates having to offer plea bargains, because she'd rather have people face trial and be put away for a long time. Which, ugh gross, but also, people go away for long periods of time after plea bargains as well, and felony case loads are big enough that most cases are resolved by plea, so a DA who insisted on taking everything to trial wouldn't last very long. All of that probably isn't that big a deal if you're not me, but unfortunately I am me, and it did interfere with my enjoyment. I expected to like this more than I did, which is kind of a bummer, because I do like the premise (fake marriage is one of my favorites and so is mutual pining), but I certainly didn't hate it. Kind of like the movies it's based (loosely) on, it's a good way to spend an afternoon but maybe not something that'll stick in your mind for a long time. But In These Times, sometimes that's all that's needed, a little bit of distraction and relaxation.

Hardest of passes. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3269424400?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1