hanreadssbooks's reviews
207 reviews

“she had always been the one i felt the most at peace with and my world had changed drastically so that she was in the center of it.”

adorable, smutty, short, and most of all, sapphic! i absolutely loved this holiday novella. anything co-written by eden and ashley, i’ll eat up every single time. hazel and quinn’s chemistry was so delicious, and that new year’s eve plan that quinn made? so freaking sweet. this is a must-read!

“hayley robbed me of everything i was and made me want something else, to be someone new. but i can’t be greedy with her. not anymore.”

the only beef i have with this book is that i wish it was longer. i ate this up and i absolutely want more of it. short, dark, and spicy, which is exactly what i love. i will absolutely be reading more of this author’s work!

“are you gonna do it? are you gonna kiss me, cowboy?”

this was an adorable christmas novella! short and sweet, and definitely left me wanting to read more of grace elena’s work. i’m not a fan of hallmark christmas movies, but i would totally watch this one if it got picked up. i didn’t know that a christmas novella with a cowboy that uses the pet name “darlin’” would have me giggling and kicking my feet, but here we are!

thank you so much to grace elena for the opportunity to receive an e-arc of this novella!

❆ small town
❆ spicy (christmas lights!)
❆ scrooge mmc x grinch fmc
❆ mmc calls fmc “darlin’” and “chestnut”
❆ cowboy rancher mmc x ballet studio owner fmc 

“and no matter how much i’m pretending i don’t want to play with jack lansen, i absolutely do.”

i was hooked from the start of this book and it did not disappoint! elly and jack have a will-they-won’t-they thing going on full of palpable tension that you can feel coming off of the pages. even though this is a slow burn, it gets spicy (piano scene, i’m looking at you). this was such a fun read, though emotional at times, and i’m really looking forward to book three!

thank you so much to rae ryder for the opportunity to read an e-arc of this book!

★ age gap
★ slow burn
★ forced proximity 
★ opposites attract
★ billionaire romance
★ best friend’s brother 

“that's how I want to be remembered: the love of the little midnight poems”

"the couple who slays together, stays together."

okay, here we go. on top of the ridiculously cringey quote on the cover, this has to be one of the worst books i have ever read in my entire life. a letdown would be an understatement, unfortunately. 

let me start by listing out things i hated:
the excessive use of "IRL"
aly's ridiculous tiktok comments
aly losing her shit entirely over a man on tiktok that wears a mask
her ridiculous obsession with him, especially as an adult at her adult job/workplace 
that one cringe line about josh dicking her down or whatever he said 
"aly in her villain era"
"praise kink: unlocked"
“are you std free?” /during/ a sexual encounter, mind you...
“every few seconds, my inner muscles clenched as if to remind me that they didn’t have a dick to squeeze, and they were not happy about that fact”
“these masked thirst trappers had no idea how feral they made people”
“reader, i puke-laughed. and, no. i do not recommend it"
the fact that aly cannot go five seconds without sharing how sexy josh is and how her ovaries are bound to explode if she looks at him one more time
"mommy/daddy time"

things i enjoyed:
the two times (i'm being serious) i laughed at lines that were actually funny

moving on...this book has zero plot aside from the fact that josh has a "masktok" account and every single one of his followers thirsts over him, including our fmc aly. the stalker aspect was hardly stalkerish, the dirty talk during sex was vile, the "hacker" job that josh has seems a little too convenient, and someone please tell me why aly's vibrator is "molded from a famous porn actor's dick"??? and for the romance part, where was the romance? i'll be the first one to say that sex does not equal romance, and this had a lottt of sex / sexual innuendos / inner monologues about sex, yet zero romance. the only romance-type thing i can think of is how josh was averagely nice to aly's can, and even then, that is the bare minimum for your girlfriend's pet.

aly's personality traits:
having a cat
being excessively horny
having no common sense
wanting josh so incredibly bad 
having a troubling past that we don't really learn about until halfway through the book

josh's personality traits:
making everything sexual
having a "masktok" account
being down bad for aly even though he met her once
worrying about wanting to hurt/kill aly's cat on accident
worrying about being like his serial killer dad every god damn chapter

as someone who loved haunting adeline, josh felt like the dollar store version of zade meadows. i went into this book pretty much blind, the only knowledge i had was that it was a stalker romance, and i am thoroughly disappointed. also, if i had known about this "masktok" thing before reading, i would not have spent my own adult money on this book. save your time and money, do not read or buy this book unless you enjoy hate-reads.

“it had been nearly twenty three years of knowing her, but clementine matthews had been stealing the air from my lungs every second of every day since the day we were born. i had never needed a breath to live; i had only needed her.”

my heart was ripped out of my chest and shoved back in several times throughout reading this book. cael and clem, where do i even start? this book felt so real to me that a little piece of my heart is attached to it now. cael is one of the most down bad characters that i have ever had the pleasure of getting to know, and clem is one of the fiercest, sexiest characters i have ever had the pleasure of getting to know. although i’m heartbroken that i’ve finished this, i had such a wonderful ride. cael and clem will forever occupy my mind, and i wouldn’t have it any other way. 

thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to aubrey taylor for the opportunity to receive an e-arc copy of this book! 

honey pot releases new year’s day (january 1st), so don’t forget to mark your calendars and snag this masterpiece! 

★ grief rep
★ found family
★ 2slgbtq+ rep
★ second chance
★ good girl x good boy 
★ “it’s always been you”
★ childhood friends to lovers
★ + more 

“you’re my missing piece, ella. i’ll be damned if i let you just walk away from me because you’re scared.”

never in my life did i think a college baseball romance would force me to feel so many emotions at once, but here we are. i absolutely loved this book and the connections between the characters. i really appreciated how the side characters almost felt like main characters with how much attention was placed on them throughout the book. no character felt left behind, and even though there were plenty of characters in this book, i think each of them was given an appropriate amount of attention. as for arlo and ella, they are everything to me. i can’t wait to dive into cael’s story next!

dnf @ 49%

i WILL come back to this book and finish it, trust!

“help was never free, and trust wasn’t something you gave away so easily.”

interesting, captivating, page-turning. i really enjoyed this book, but i definitely finished with some questions! this was very well done for a debut, and i can’t wait to get my hands on the second book once it comes out. the mmc gave me zade vibes from haunting adeline in regard to his mission, and that was one of my favourite things about him. i do think the character development could have been expanded on a little more so readers could connect with them on a deeper level, but i did enjoy both the fmc and mmc regardless. something i did enjoy was the fmc’s determination and ferocity, and i hope she doesn’t lose that in the second book!