thebiglittlelibrary's reviews
623 reviews

3 ⭐ Enjoyable but forgettable

I definitely had a good time reading this story, but it's only been a day after I finished, and I'm having a tough time remembering what even happened. Be right back. I'm going to look over my kindle highlights and notes.

*10 minutes later*


Okay, so with that refresher, here are my thoughts. . .


I enjoyed the found family trope. Liv, Deiss, Phoebe, Mac, and Simone seemed to make up the perfect little group of friends. They each have their own unique personalities that don't seem to go together at first, but they make it work. It was fun seeing them bond in college during the flashbacks and their interactions during the present.


However . . .


I honestly don't get why anyone is friends with Simone. Even during college, she was the most random addition to the group. She's rich, spoiled, and unaware, and just an unlikeable character. I was confused but accepted her place in the group at the beginning, but after Simone reveals Deiss' secret, I am dumbfounded and pissed off. If I were them, I'd drop her. I was shocked that the friend group just swept Simone's betrayal under the rug.

Also, did she or did she not have a crush on Deiss??? I still don't know.


I liked Liv and Deiss, but I wanted more. This is a classic friends-to-lovers story, but where was the lovers part? After 70% of this book and loads of sexual tension, Liv and Deiss FINALLY have sex only for the author to skip right over it. Um, WHAT??? Deiss is HOT and I needed to see him rock Liv's world! I live for the spice, so leaving out the dirty little details pains me. And after this one almost-spicy scene, there's no more. So if you're interested in a steamy romance, this is not it.


There were so many different plot points that had me confused as to where the story was headed.

- Liv learns to say the word 'no' and changes her life plan/career.
- The pact not to hook up with anyone in the friend group.
- Background drama between Phoebe and Mac. Will they or won't they get together?
- Liv's life financially gets flipped upside down.
- Liv and Deiss tiptoe around their feelings for one another until they finally cave in.
- Deiss' secret past.
- Liv also struggles with her past.
- Simone betrays Deiss and Liv.

These were just a few of the major events that happened in the story, and as you can see, it was a lot to digest. Also, the story tended to jump into the next drama-filled moment, quickly patching up the previous conflict or leaving it unresolved. I think this is part of why I don't feel attached to the characters or the story.



Overall, this was a relatively fun contemporary romance. I love the travel aspect and the found family trope, but the idea that you should forgive your friends for anything is a terrible message. There should have been a bit more to the ending and dealing with Simone.



Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review! As always, all opinions are my own.

4 ⭐ How is this story adorable and sexy all at the same time????

I've seen so many people on Booktok and Bookstagram rave about The Kiss Quotient, so I finally decided to give it a go. And let me tell you . . . I LOVED IT!!!! In fact, once I started, I couldn't put it down! Seriously, I started it at 9pm and finished it at 1am.


So why did I love it so much?


Stella and her perspective as a multidimensional person with Asperger’s syndrome. I haven't read many stories where one of the main characters has autism spectrum disorder, so this was a wonderfully eye-opening experience. And since half the story is in Stella's POV, we are really able to understand who she is, how she operates, and the challenges she faces.

I also appreciated that Stella's Asperger syndrome doesn't drive the story. Yes, it's an important part to her character, but the real conflict has to do with her parents pressuring her to get married and have babies as well as her insecurities about sex. Stella's problems are very normal, and in fact, I bet most of us have had to deal with these same ones.


Michael and Stella make the cutest couple. You wouldn't expect a male escort and an econometrician to fall in love but here we are. I don't even know how it's possible that their relationship is sweet, yet damn sexy all at the same time! I love how Michael is so patient with Stella and always very considerate of her needs, and how Stella is caring and honest with Michael. The absolute respect and complete acceptance they offer one another is something to envy. Seriously, these two are perfectly made for one another, and it makes me so happy knowing they're off living their happily ever after in this fictional book world.

"Michael was mint chocolate chip for her. She could try other flavors, but he'd always be her favorite."

This quote made my heart melt. ❤️ Oh, and let's not forget that Michael calls her "My Stella".

3.5 ⭐ An entertaining office romance/enemies-to-lovers story

I totally enjoyed this, even though there were many cliches and nonsensical things about this story.


WARNING: Prepare for swearing.


- Lucy and Joshua's office games, like The Staring Game. They legit just stare at each other while as some sort of powerplay. WTF is wrong with these people?


- The work-obsessed, uptight, ODC guy versus the bubbly, friendly, scatterbrained girl aka Zooey Deschanel in New Girl. It's fun but such a cliche dynamic.


- Josh's weird obsession with 'nice guy' and how he is not one. What's wrong with being a nice guy? Sorry, you have daddy issues that stuck with you into adulthood, so your girlfriend left you for your 'nice guy' brother. Grow up. Go to therapy. Don't be a dick. Jeeze.


- The CONSTANT reminder that Lucy is 5-fucking-feet tall and Josh is a giant. This annoys the fuck out of me. Why are all the female protagonists in EVERY SINGLE rom-com so short, and the guy is incredibly tall? I wouldn't find this so annoying, but it was mentioned a ridiculous amount of times. We get it. He can pick her up like she weighs nothing. Fuck off.


- Lucy's CONSTANT objectification of Josh was gross. Like, I get he's jacked, but stop ogling and making him and ME uncomfortable.


- The scene where Lucy gets sick and Josh magically becomes nice and spends the weekend taking care of Lucy. If I was Lucy and the guy I hated took me home and took care of me (changed my clothes, washed my sheets, cooked me food), I'd be weirded out. Let's face it; it's only considered sweet and cute because Josh is hot.


- It makes no sense that Josh doesn't disclose that the wedding they are attending is that of his brother and *spoiler* his last ex-girlfriend was bizarre. Who the fuck wouldn't warn their date, especially if he liked her. This was just so weird and never would happen in real life.


- Honestly, Lucy and Josh are the most dysfunctional characters I've ever met.

The fact Josh was secretly in love with Lucy this whole time, so instead of just treating her like a grown adult, he acts like a child? And there are many unresolved issues with his family. Talk about issues. . . this man desperately needs therapy.

And Lucy. Is she a child? The things she says make me cringe. If I heard a grown 28-year-old woman saying the things she says, I'd hightail it out of there. I mean, it makes sense now why she doesn't have any friends besides her parents. But still, no friends??? That's a huge red flag. It's also strange how much she obsesses over a man she allegedly hates. Then, when things romantically progress, Lucy can't seem to process her feelings for Josh and keeps pushing for them to have this magical 'one night' together instead of actually using her brain to examine the situation. How dumb is she??? Lucy is a weird, emotionally immature person who I cannot relate to.


- I still don't know how Lucy and Josh went from hateful co-workers to lovers. It's almost like their romance is so ridiculous and illogical that I can't actually process how they actually got there in the end. This is for sure not a realistic or healthy relationship, BUT it's entertaining.



Overall, I enjoyed the story and read it in one sitting, but I swear these characters are absolute idiots and just weird. They almost seem like caricatures instead of relateable human beings. I know it's a rom-com, so my expectations aren't high, but can someone actually write a story in this genre that's not overly cheesy and cliche? If I wanted that, I'd just watch a damn Hallmark movie.


So should you read it?

Regardless of all my shit-talking above, I liked this story and will probably reread it, if only to do a psychological analysis on Josh and Lucy. So yes, I'd recommend The Hating Game if you like contemporary romance because it was entertaining, even though I wanted to strangle the main characters.

4 ⭐️ A story about a missed connection and second chances between two co-authors.

The romance was unexpectedly beautiful. I don’t like cheating (emotional or physical) stories, but this was different. You could tell how much Katrina and Nathan loved and respected each other on some fundamental level. But unfortunately, Nathan was married and loved his wife, albeit in a different way. Both Katrina and Nathan struggled to come to terms with their feelings for each other while trying to be respectful of Nathan's marriage. There was some unintentional emotional cheating but nothing physical really happened until the relationship was over. These characters were so conflicted that I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. It's just so obvious that they are soulmates who meet each other at the wrong time. But I loved how they finally find their way back to one another.

Also, I just adored the way Nathan describes Katrina. It truly gave me butterflies during his POV chapters. ❤️


FYI, the spice is very PG13, so non-existent. There's a paragraph or two where we see the characters get frisky, but it's not graphic. Instead of sex, the story has a lot of moments of sexual tension and smoldering.


The writing was brilliant - a lovely combination of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Emily Henry. The metaphors and extended symbolism used throughout this story were beautiful. And the author's prose offered amazing insight into the characters, descriptive settings, and overall amazing attention to detail. I will admit though, there were some moments when the writing was stiff and the flow wasn’t quite right so it took some effort to read. This is intelligent writing so if so you actually have to read each and every single word to follow the story. If you’re a skim reader, you’ll need to slow down.

And how cool that this story written about two authors in love is actually written by a husband and wife author team! Apparently, they came up with this book idea on their honeymoon.


I've seen other reviewers saying the issues between Nathan and Katrina are simple and obvious, but I thought it makes sense why these two couldn’t just talk their problems out. Writing is how Nathan communicates and that wasn’t going to change until he grew as a character. Katrina is a sweetheart but seemed too afraid to live the life she truly wanted. They both had their own subtle issues that are slowly worked through throughout this story.



Overall, The Roughest Draft was a well-written story that I found captivating from start to finish. I felt so many things - angst, anger, love, and heartache - but the ending is HEA and left me satisfied.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review! As always, all opinions are my own.

4 ⭐️ A charming rom-com that made me laugh out loud quite a few times

When a groom, who doesn’t believe in love, asks his wedding crasher to becomes his fake girlfriend and then ends up falling in love

2 ⭐️ So much potential


Summary:

A fanfiction writer by day and an assassin by night, Jen kills bad guys to help her mother pay for cancer treatment. But when her next target is the star of her favorite show and fanfiction, Gemini Divided, she goes deep undercover to find out why.


My Thoughts:


Even though the premise is ridiculous and unbelievable, I actually liked it. It gave me Miss Congeniality vibes except if Sandra Bullock was the one sent to kill Miss United States.

Female assassin. Undercover assignment. Celebrity crush. Secrets and lies. Suspense. Thriller. Mystery.

There were so many elements to this story that I loved, but the delivery wasn’t quite there. Here are a few things that hindered my enjoyment of the overall story.

There were a lot of repetitive inner thoughts. Throughout the story, Jen kept having this internal crisis on whether or not she should kill Will. Obviously, I get it. Characters should have a crisis to overcome. But it was the same question and answers over and over again, “should I kill Will?”, “no, I don’t want to because he seems like a good guy but I have to prove he’s not bad”, or “I have to because if I don’t my mom won’t have a way to pay for her medical bills”. These thoughts could have been mentioned three times and I would have been satisfied. But it was constant, so I zoned out.


This story is also extremely wordy. Again, lots of inner thoughts, and unnecessary descriptions. I was mostly interested in the dialogue so I had to skim most of it to stay interested.


There were a few things that certain characters did or said that were so implausible I couldn’t get into the story. For example:

- When the new waiter at the coffee house straight up tells Jen she’s old and asks if she has a real job. Wtf? No one says that.
- Will not being able to handle weird 14-year-old fangirls was a stretch. I’m sorry, but what? Either be mean to them or hire security.
- The producer hiring a hitman to kill Will for happening to see the crates? Will is the lead actor in an incredibly popular TV show. He’s high profile and not really replaceable to the show. A producer would confirm if Will saw something he shouldn't before hiring an assassin to kill him.
- Once Jen and Will are on the run, she gets jumpy and unfocused. That doesn’t make sense. She has training from her military days and has 2 years of experience killing, she wouldn’t be freaking out when things get complicated.
- Jen not going to jail, but instead is given a clean slate by the FBI is unlikely. I get it. This is a fictional romance thriller, so we need these characters to have their happy ending, but the odds of this happening are slim. Maybe she would have a deal worked out with them but to get off completely free after assassinating a bunch of people? I doubt it.
- Jen's mom later learns what she did and simply says, “You shouldn’t have done it, of course, but I understand. If I had your skills, and something threatened you that way, I’d have done the same thing.” It’d be devastating learning that my daughter resorted to killing people to pay for my medical bills. Honestly, I’d have said, "let me die because saving my life is not worth risking your future."
- Will wanting to be romantically involved with Jen after knowing everything seemed far-fetched. Sure I could see forgiving her is possible, but wanting to actually date someone who has been killing people? No thanks.
- Also, when Will says, “When you disappeared, there was a hole in my life where you should have been, even though we hadn’t known each other long.” You’ve known each other for THREE days! Chill out bro. But I guess that’s romance for you.


Overall, Gemini Divided had a lot of potential - an exciting, fun concept but it just didn’t deliver.


Thank you to NetGalley and Books Go Social for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review! As always, all opinions are my own.