DB
https://dbsguidetothegalaxy.wordpress.com/2019/07/16/the-summer-of-jordi-perez-by-amy-spalding/
The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles)
AMY SPALDING
Year Published: 2018
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Genre: Young Adult ~ Contemporary ~ LGBT+ characters ~ Romance
Stars: 4
Disclaimer: I received this e-arc through Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. The image header and the quote edits used are my own and the link at the top of the post links back to the book's Goodreads page. All quotes given in the review are from the e-arc and therefore might not be accurate. The summary is my own (well, I summarised the Goodreads description). All opinions expressed are my own.
Lil' summary: Abby Ives has always been the one content to just be happy with her blog about plus-size fashion and style and she seems to be thinking she'll do more of the same when she starts an internship at her favourite boutique. That seems more difficult when she starts to fall in love with Jordi Perez, the other boutique intern.
So why the best burger in Los Angeles? Well, they live in Los Angeles and burgers are amazing. Okay, the burgers are because she makes an unintentional friend, Jax, who has to go out and try burgers for his dad's app.
And then things start to change, and Abby has to decide if she still wants to be in the shadows, or step out a bit.
Review: I absolutely loved this book. It's more about fashion, it's more about a good summer. It's about love, and acceptance, and understanding why you do what you're good at. It's about finding yourself and finding more friends and even love (listen, I get happy at some cliché things, and this is definitely one of them).
Abby is such a good character. She's realistic and funny. She makes you root for her, you want her to be happy and to get what she wants. What's more is that she makes you feel like you're there – which is something I always enjoy in books and something I think is important to have – the ability to relate to a character.
Her love interest, Jordi, was a good character. I liked to see her passion of photography and was happy to see her as Abby's love interest.
Another point of the book that I really liked was the romance. It was super sweet and so cute and just something that I really liked seeing. That and it had the feeling of a total rom-com – like something you could see on the big screen.
A side character I just wanted to squeeze becuase he too great was Jax – he was absolutely delightful to read. He was kind, and a good friend to my girl, Abby. And I mean, he had the best job – where can I get a job like this? Like eating burgers in the name of helping your dad? Could we carry on to trying the other foods – like the ice-cream? Or the nachos or sushi? Yes, please, I will sign up for all of those.
All in all, a very cute read, definitely perfect for the summer and great if you need a pick-me-up book with good ownvoices representation.
dnf at 41%
I started out liking it, which is good, but started to see issues early on. I tried to just push through and stopped when I found myself just tapping to the next page. I know when I do that then it's time to stop reading. I did really want to like it but there were glaring issues and I couldn't close my eyes to them.
Most of the time I love it when a book reads like fanfiction, all right? It's great, it reads easy for me, I want to keep reading and I'd love for there to be fanfiction of that book. This book, however, reads like fanfiction in the bad way. There's no real characterisation or development because the author assumes we already know the characters from the media (whatever the format) and therefore chooses not to change their personalities. Although in here they just didn't really have any personalities. So rather stop reading than try to carry on.
Unfortunately the cover and synopsis deceived me. I thought it would be a high fantasy because it had the dragons and quests so my first thought with those are usually high fantasy books. And then when modern words and ideas appeared – trains, the word underwear (which can be used but sort of isn't) I was fine because “oh it's just a modern fantasy world”. I then grew more confused because formal words were used for family and then the grandmother... gets a granny? And on and on it went. If you want your fantasy world to be a modern one, that's all good and well, but make it consistent?
The writing style was very difficult – both from a writer's perspective and a reader's. It also made it more confusing to figure out what kind of a fantasy it was because the way it was written would change regularly. The sentences, way the characters looked and spoke about things – went from a modern way to a “normal” fantasy way constantly. That sort of back and forth is difficult for readers to receive.
Ultimately, I think the author should've spent more time writing the book and working on improving his writing. I could see Dickson's passionate about writing and the story he wanted to tell but unfortunately it was hard to see. Also, while I'm very fine with issues – real world ones – being in books but there's... almost an acceptable amount and then there was what is included in this book? Which can either help or hinder a book – depending on the author and how they manage to write it/write it into the book.
I really did try with this one so I pushed myself to 28% even though I should've dnfed earlier – because I could tell I wasn't enjoying myself. The book sounded like something I would enjoy but ultimately I realised I wasn't going to.
There were random capitalisations and I think it made sense for military terms – but every time it did it just seemed to pull me out of the story; making it harder for me to enjoy. This was also a First Person pov and I couldn't get into the main character's voice. The plot was okay but not enough to make me overlook the other things.
I knew this had mixed reviews going in so I wasn't really surprised when I found that I was on the “not liking it side”. What I didn't know was how much on that side I was. I only read until about 30% when I finally couldn't take it anymore and called it quits. I also ranted to a friend about it – which is always fun to do. I understood absolutely nothing of this book. There was no character motivation for anyone, no one had any personality. I couldn't see anyone improving at all which is also why I chose not to carry on. I can't stand reading a book if there's no character development of any type.
There's also nothing in this book that made sense. Eleanor hasn't seen or heard from/spoken to her family in eight years but she's just gonna magically go back home because she had an incident at the school. Then she complains about how her family's treating her – like yeah that'll happen when you never see each other but also then she keeps trying to play by their rules, tries to placate them. Why do all of that when they make it perfectly clear that they don't like you?
Absolutely NO ONE in the book is interesting or redeemable and I would rather jump off a cliff than be in the same room as ANY of them. Eleanor's mom was the only remotely interesting character and all we know is that she's in a bathtub. I don't think we're even told what type of supernatural creature she is – which is a shame because then I would be a bit more interested.
I found it very funny (in a bad way that made me not like her – Eleanor – even further) is that Eleanor's grandmother dies, right? And in a really terrible written way too. And she tells her not to invite anyone who isn't family to the house. So, of course... what Eleanor does next is that she invites basically the entire town to the funeral. At the house that the grandmother doesn't want any non-family members to be there. Admittedly, I didn't read far enough to get to the actual funeral, but I knew it from others' reviews.
I found it hilarious that Luma, her older sister (about 20 or so reviews have said), was her older sister because I first thought she was about 12/13 – because she acted like that age. I have no idea if she ever went to school with other kids and thus got that type of interaction. I'm not so bothered by characters acting younger or older than they really are but there's a difference between that and me thinking that a 20 year old was 13.
I think the absolute WORST character is Arthur. He's said to be middle-aged, bald, and I don't even know if he's actually conventionally attractive (not that that's all important) but literally EVERYONE in the family – from the grandparents to the TEENAGERS – Eleanor whom is said to be 16?? – is utterly infatuated with him. There's a huge spoiler about him that I won't say here but uhh he is not what he appears – either at face value or chronologically and that's all I'll say. Every time I had to see him on the page I wanted to physically recoil because he was the absolute worst.
I mentioned Luma not acting like her age and Rhys also never acted like his age? He's in college so I'm guessing about 20. I could not for the life of me imagine he's that age. Everyone acted like he was this amazing person and super super cool guy and you have me in the corner there's me in the corner side-eyeing this entire family because why on earth would you want to give a lot of responsibilities to THIS guy – it made entirely no sense whatsoever.
The bit of the plot I experienced was... well, quite an experience! I don't think even if I liked the characters I could stomach the plot, or vice versa. Honestly I'm amazed that I managed to get to 30% and kept wanting to read other books in January. And that, my friends, is why it's totally okay to marks books you aren't enjoying as “will/did not finish”.
Did not finish at 12%
A Harry Potter reference. In a 2021 release. Maybe there's more. I wouldn't know. I wanted to like this book. It just, I don't know, didn't feel real to me? The characters and plus the tv show factor?
Like it's apparently very popular but... she's not popular at school? And I know it's because she doesn't want to be, but I don't know. I kind of expected something like when Mia was revealed to be the Princess of Genovia (in The Princess Diaries) and everyone was suddenly claiming to be her friend to the cameras.
It also features the friends to lovers trope, which is not a favourite trope of mine. I rarely read and enjoy these ones. I think I really need to check to see if the trope is friends to lovers, because I rarely enjoy those.
The anthology is split in two. A before and after if you will. The before being about a bad relationship, and the after is about love, finding that person who understands you, who knows you. And you feel the heartbreak, in the first half; and then in the second half, you feel the love. The second half also focuses on building a new life and creating new stories. It made me hopeful and just like the first poem says – I'm lacing my boots with my words and dropkicking the world – I'm ready to face the world head on.
Parker is one of those poets who paints pictures with the words in the poems. As you read their poems, it's like you're not simply reading anymore, you're more floating gently and listening to the words. If it makes sense. This is the first poetry book I've read from Parker and I'm definitely wanting to read more.
Favourite Quotes:
her shadow:
what is more innocent than a girl and her cat?
I'm not sure if the next quote is considered an official quote from the anthology but I do like it very much:
I'm lacing my boots with my words and dropkicking the world.
a web of hopeless romantics:
we have the entire world/at our fingertips,/so why should we limit ourselves/to only what's around us?
This is a very much romantic anthology. It speaks for itself. You can feel the love with every verse. But it's part love and part loss. And there's no separate parts like Part 1: Love and Part 2: Loss. They just blend together and it's both love and loss. And it's very interesting because normally you would definitely have those two conflicting themes separate, but Taplin just puts them together and somehow it works.
As well as being both love and loss, the anthology also shows the bad side of love alongside the good side. How love can be amazing and beautiful but also deadly and dangerous.
Yes, I did rate it 3 stars. Sometimes I felt it went too mushy with the love. Not that there's anything wrong with mushy love (well, unless you're not interested in that mushy love
Warnings: sexual assault. Homophobia. Possibly others further into the book.
I picked this up because I liked the premise and people were speaking about it. I also got to like 40-something % and found myself just swiping through the pages.
So yeah. I figured if I was absentmindedly turning the pages, it meant I wasn't actually interested in the story.
I was interested by the synopsis because it genuinely sounded like something I'd want to read but it wasn't enough to keep me going. I really tried to push through and finish the book because it's under 300 pages but when something happened in the book and I was like “Oh I'm supposed to be all shocked” and instead I was just.. skim reading and paging with a blank face. I liked how the author wrote for the most part – the ‘old' sounding narration. Unfortunately then modern dialogue came in and too much of that threw me off and I couldn't get into the book fully.
The characters were the tiniest bit interesting but it also wasn't enough. Gris, especially, was dramatic with his words when it didn't call for it and his figures of speech were unnecessarily dramatic as well. I'd understand and maybe like it if it were part of the character's personality – but it didn't seem like that. I liked Thanatos more than Gris but (once again) not enough to keep me reading.
slides $2 and a home video of me dancing to a Hozier song to the publishers
PLEASE RELEASE THIS SOONER
A copy of this book was e-mailed to me in exchange for an honest review.
Okay, before I start the actual review, let me just fangirl for a moment.
cue fangirlingOh my days, this is an absolutely amazing book! I hope the author writes a thousand books akin to this, because I'll read the heck out of all of them. And of course, what would a fangirl moment be without this: asdfghjkl I just can't even! Scance/Vacar (ship names for the two main characters-don't judge me, those are the best I could come up with-I like Scance the best) are OTP and I hope this book becomes a movie so I can see some Scance action on the screens! EEPcease fangirling
Are you looking for a New Adult novel that once you start reading, you physically cannot stop until your eyes feel like they're in hell? Well, look no further! Get off your horse, make camp and get ready to read a fantabulous book!
No, but like seriously, the amount of times I swooned in this book is more than when I read All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (if you haven't read it, you're wasting your time!). By the time you're onto the second chapter of Use Somebody, you'll want to stay home and do nothing until you've finished the book (I was contemplating not going to work).
The story is that Scar (full name Scarlett Rossi-thumbs up for the Italian surname) moves back to her hometown after a traumatic experience at college (which you, the reader, can read it and cry for yourself). She begins at an ice cream shop (a place I should never work at, because all the ice cream would be eaten on the first day, more like in the first hour.) Her co-worker is Vance Holloway, an adorable little s*t who loves pancakes, has great taste in music and somebody I would love to go out, mostly for his enthusiasm. Along with adorable moments, like the inevitable thinking of the pair's friends that the two are together (because, of course, a guy and a girl can never be simply friends-eye roll), this novel is so adorably heartbreaking, you'll find yourself reaching for a tissue and wanting to work at an ice cream shop.
Final Verdict: An undoubtedly wondrous well-written novel that reaches into your heart and squeezes it so hard that you won't be able to breathe for a few days.
Would I recommend this novel to anyone?: Abso-flogin'-lutely.
I think The Distance Between Us is one of the first YA romance books that I have read. It is also the first book written by Kasie West that I have read. I immediately shared this book with my best friend, knowing that she would love it.
The Distance Between Us is sweet, filled with charming moments that captured my heart. From the first paragraph until the last sentence, I was glad that I chose to read the book.
Caymen's sarcasm is refreshing and makes one laugh when reading. She is a character who is realistic and not materialistic like most female characters tend to be. She's bright, but doesn't want to study after school, rather choosing to help her mother out in the doll store. She can sniff out a rich customer in the first few moments and doesn't want to become friends with Xander, knowing that he'll become bored with her and leave, as her mother told her.
Xander is one of my favourite book boys. He's cute and funny. He doesn't brag about how much money he has, which is good, as it is rather irritating (I know that from first-hand experience). He doesn't seem to live up to his father's expectations, which is why he and Caymen spend their Saturdays on ‘career days', to find each other's dream job. I loved his scenes with Caymen, as he seems to be somebody who understands her.
This book is meant for anybody who is looking for that sweet teenage romance book. I strongly recommend this YA novel for any reader wanting to read a light romance novel.
http://www.katyasmind.blogspot.com/2014/03/monday-1.html
Loved this book. Finished it in my history class and I was so annoyed by the ending that I slammed my hand onto the table, earning a look from my teacher.
Can't wait to read the next book and watch the movie.
I really like anthologies but this one definitely missed the mark by a lot. I didn't like any of the stories, I found myself flipping through a lot of them and decided to dnf it early and just barely skim some of the stories.
It was quite boring. All of the stories. They needed a lot of work. If I managed to finish the book I'd probably rate it a full 1 star out of 5. Maybe 2 if I were feeling generous.
This book felt more like a nonfiction true crime book/podcast/documentary than an actual thriller. Even though I don't really read/listen/watch them, I just didn't get the feeling that this was meant to be a book? Maybe I would've liked it more had it been a podcast or a fictional documentary.
Also, as much as I don't really want to say this – Paul Adams was not an interesting character. It was like waiting paint dry, if I may be so bold as to say.
I felt like this book kept hinting at something supernatural, like the murders or the murderer were something supernatural, but looking at some spoiler reviews tell me that's not the case. And it just, I don't know, feels like North tried to push that ‘is it supernatural, is it not?' angle in a way to keep people reading? If a book is supernatural or includes a supernatural plot/characters – I want to know. I don't want to ‘keep reading for the suspense'.
I really wanted to like this one. I pushed nearly to 50 percent – which is quite far as usually I know by 10 or 20% if it's a book for me – but I kept trying to make it work for me. It had a cute cover, it looked like it was about something important and apparently it did find its audience – which is great! I'm glad that it was able to mean something for someone – just not for me.
It read like a book I could easily find in back in 2010s. We're nearing the end of 2022 (still cant believe that) and reading this really felt like I was a teen again reading cringey reads. By cringey I mean unnecessary stereotyping of various characters just because they're a cheerleader? A pretty girl must be one that has no ‘real' thoughts and so on – I was very unimpressed and that was a big reason for me not wanting to read anymore.
I also didn't like the style of writing – it contributed to my dislike of the book and also made it feel like a book stuck in the 2010s. It's not that I didn't like Jess, I I just didn't think much of her because of how she saw everyone else. And okay, sure, I understand how that's not her fault, her circumstances are much different and all that – but even that didn't help my feelings towards her/the book.
This was a new cover for an older title – and I could tell (that it was an older title). The writing let me quickly know I wasn't going to make it further into the book. When I say that I could tell it was an older title; I mean the characters were so stereotypical. Like I can deal with a mean girl but only if she's interesting other than just being mean. There was also too much world-building and it wasn't done in a good way – just, pushed onto the page. I want to be interested enough to learn more about the world, not wanting to just skim read because there's too much info dumping going on. I have the sequel (as an arc) but won't pick it up.
Apparently this is meant to be a fast-paced book – I definitely did not get that vibe. As with Goth Girl, I really tried to push myself to read and like this book, and I eventually decided this was not worth it. I really liked that it was diverse and I enjoyed seeing the Bronx rather than New York or another standard American setting – especially when they added a bit of history – that I did enjoy. That was sort of all that I enjoyed about the book.
The book didn't scare me – I love horror movies so when I read a horror book I want that same feeling. I unfortunately didn't feel the same way, which might've been another reason for my dnf – that I couldn't get into the book because the horror wasn't enough for me.
Even though I got to nearly 60% I still felt like I didn't know anything about the characters, and yet I had been given a lot of information about them. I think the writing was fine enough, I just couldn't find anything about... anything to really dig into the story and enjoy. Much like Goth Girl, this will find their audience and others will enjoy it.