Harisa
Despite the fact that this took me 1.5 months to finish (which, for me, is a long time) I am giving this book 5 stars. It was a slow start–a lot of time spent on character building and world building but WOW was it worth it. This book is sad, and tough to read at time which also contributed to why it took me so long. But it is so worth it.
Very powerful novel. Very relatable, beautiful, fleshed out characters, and so many lessons to learn. One of my favorites Rivers novel so far. I will forever respect her for providing Christian literature that doesn't shy away from reality.
Quite solid 3.5 stars.
VERY cute, the characters were wonderful. I could connect and relate to both of them and loved their personalities. If you're looking for a fairly predictable fast romance novel this is definitely it. I will be reading the rest of the series probably and will start following the author. She reminds me a lot of Julie James except she doesn't focus on FBI/U.S. Attorney romances.
The stars are lowered for the obvious romance novel tropes that did make me literally cringe at times but that's what you get when you read these.
I did, however, laugh out loud also fairly often so this was fun! When she said his hugs were more comforting than making lists and plans and eating ice cream I laughed! So precious and as an avid list maker, I can definitely relate.
2.5 because I'm a nice person.
Listen, the love story between Aiden and Erin was good, it was cute! I liked a lot of it, it was well done, as was the character development between Aiden and Erin. I was even willing to looking forward the ignorant remarks made about lawyers being “the opposite of nurturing” and the comments about a Estates/tax lawyer not being able to be cute. I rolled my eyes, was annoyed enough to share with my friends (one who is interested in becoming an estates/tax lawyer and is VERY cute) but that wouldn't have been enough to put it so low.
HOWEVER, the NUMEROUS subplots got to be way too much in themselves. There were so many subplots and they were SO weird. One or two ~different~ subplots to get the author's agenda about surrogacy, adoption, menopause, or mental health issues would have been enough but THIS many? Chill. It took away from the story and got weird at times. TMI to the max.
Finally, the kicker, was the extremely rude comments made about Eastern Europeans who grew up in a “turbulent region” and therefore are now con people and crazy because that's what the environment made them. The worst part of this comment is that this particular woman/man were from Bosnia, and if the author took some time to know Bosnian politics she would see why this is SO offensive. Maybe being Eastern European myself and the fact that the “bad guy” has the same name as my late grandfather makes me bias enough to have you ignore how offensive this plot point is but like the Serbians committed genocide against the Bosnians and that's why it was so “turbulent” so how you gonna victim blame and stereotype an entire ethnicity like that? Not okay.
This was very bad. Very bad.
A few disclaimers:
I generally really like this author, I have read basically her entire FBI/Attorney books and have given all of them a 3+ rating. This one, however, was written many years earlier which I think is part of the problem.
Also, the entire story is unrealistic in a way I simply cannot ignore. Being a law student, working in various law firms, and taking employment law in general this book was painful to read when it came to looking at the realism issues. Besides that, it was overly cheesy, I hated the characters and just didn't care about them, and the weird democrat v. republican and feminist subplots were VERY weirdly and badly done. Very upsetting.
4.5
According to Goodreads it's romance week SO LET ME LIVE.
This was ADORABLE and SO CUTE AND SO CHEESY BUT IT WAS WONDERFUL.
Minus half a star for the main character being stupid and the unnecessary drama of her being stupid but it was only like 3 pages of her being stupid so it's fine. Overall, very very cute and the hero was like PERFECT so unrealistic but also a good pick me up.
I first started watching WhatTheBuck/BuckHollywood on Youtube when he was doing his show on celebrities. I have stuck by his youtube channel since and am really excited to get a chance to read his book.
** Note: This book is available for FREE on amazon for a limited time, so you should all download it! **
I liked this book. It was sweet and felt like a having a conversation with Michael, just like his videos did. The writing style helped a fast book go even faster and I fully enjoyed the content of the book. I have no kids myself and I watch YouTube but I still learned a lot about the younger generation watching/making videos on YouTube. His arguments for the pros of YouTube were respectfully stated and well thought out.
Definitely recommend.
I'm wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. This was beautiful. Powerful. Depressing. Almost cried but I was listening to this at work so I had to keep it together.
Points taken off for the writing style when told through Miles' POV. Read very much like “Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe” which was weird, because Miles is an adult. It also semi-took away from the story.
Also points off for the love story crossing far into cheesy territory and not enough of an emotional connection built between the two characters. Not a very believable connection nor something I was necessarily rooting for.
However, the sub-story that was told through Miles' story made up for any of that.
This was weird. I didn't like it at all.
This is my second Colleen Hoover novel that I disliked, and I actually hated the characters on this one. So, I will continue to try and read books by this author but we may be giving up.
Oh, for a novel that has a similar theme WAYYYY better done check out: Easy, by Tammara Webber.
