Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Hello Stranger

By Katherine Center.

I listened to this in audiobook.This is quite the premise, right here. Like ...wow.

Sadie Montgomery has a crap family. Her awesome painter mom died when she was a teen, her cold-ass dad quickly remarried a rich snot, and stepsister Parker has made it her mission in life to destroy Sadie–an urge she has not grown out of whatsoever in adulthood. Having learned early on that her family hates her and literally won’t believe a single thing she says, Sadie’s only family is her dog Peanut, her cheerfully flaky-ass best friend Sue, and Sue’s dad that lets her live in a rooftop studio for free.
Sadie’s working as a portrait painter on Etsy and she makes the top ten in a strict portrait painting competition that has a lot of rules, like “you can only make this painting in six weeks starting right now,” and “no use of photographs” and blah de blah.

This goes EXTREMELY POORLY FOR SADIE when she has a sudden seizure in the street out of nowhere and finds out she’s got a brain issue that could kill her and requires surgery. It’s so bad that her dad, who ignores her, actually flies back to the States and tracks her down to tell her that the brain condition is what killed her mother, and he forces her to get the brain surgery IMMEDIATELY. While the surgery is a success in getting rid of what it needed to get rid of, Sadie develops a surprise case of acquired prosopagnosia/face blindness due to swelling in her brain, which may or may not go away in six weeks…or ever. This forces Sadie to try to paint a portrait when she literally can’t translate a face into a face and has to try various methods to try to get around that problem. Unfortunately, Parker is told and decides it’s a great opportunity to move into Sadie’s building and prank the shit out of and insult her at every turn. There is nothing redeeming about Parker, she’s just evil.

Might I just say that I don’t think Sue is a very good friend? No sooner does she swear things like, “I’ll never leave your side!,” then she leaves Sadie’s side. She’s always flaking off or not comprehending Sadie’s brain stuff, and towards the end of the book–I note she’s the model for Sadie’s painting–she just bugs off to Canada for spontaneous elopement and I just wanted to be all FUCK YOU, SUE. The book tries to make it “better” by claiming that Sue’s boyfriend “kidnapped” her, but I was all, “this is a failure of the rom-com bestie.” Frankly, I would have preferred that Sue suddenly had to leave town to nurse a relative. Sue’s dad, on the other hand? I love him. Dude is a hero at the end of this book.

Sadie has a compulsive need to Not Ask For Help, due to her shitty family, and probably also that she’s used to everyone but Peanut bailing on her. She’s determined to NOT tell anyone about her little problem, which makes things super awkward. And wouldn’t you know that just when you can’t recognize anyone–Sadie isn’t great at recognizing people by voice either actually and her senses are scrambled enough that she can’t track anyone well–you meet two guys that you somehow think are cute? There’s two options here:

• Dr. Oliver Addison, her clean-cut vet that she decides is her future fiance right off the bat.
• Joe, a scruffier building neighbor who she hears saying something SUPER crude and offensive about someone he slept with (I note it occurred to me that nobody would talk about a human like this, which is a hint right there), and she is utterly turned off by at first. Joe is Super Helpful to everyone in the building, especially ladies and pets, and wears a distinctive bowling jacket with his name on it.

I wondered about having a love triangle in this book, and there’s some good reason to wonder about it, especially when it seems like there’s gonna be a clear winner even if both guys seem nice. However, THAT discussion needs to be taken to the spoiler cut. It’s…DIFFERENT, is what I’m gonna say.

Overall, did I enjoy it? Yes, I was pretty fascinated by it all, infuriated at times, feeling bummed for Sadie a lot, but the ending really works. Sadie comes out of this period of hell in a mentally better place, and I’m glad for that. So, four stars there. That said, some folks might have some issues with the logistics of the romance and the crappiness of Sadie’s family, and there’s no denying that one. So, be forewarned.

 

Psyche and Eros

By Luna McNamara.

This is a thoughtful retelling of one of my favorite Greek love stories. Eros is a rather callow, shallow-ish deity who isn't into the idea of love, hates his adopted* mother Aphrodite and doesn't like his twin Eros either, and pretty much hangs out with Zephyrus and his pets and that's it. He does rather passively prank/hurt Aphrodite a bit, which leads to him accidentally getting cursed to love Psyche, a princess that Aphrodite's taken a dislike to. If she sees his face, he'll be driven away. So Eros resorts to creative methods (shape shifting, for example) to be around her without setting it off.

* I think the author made some uh, adjustments here and there.

Psyche is awesome. She's born with a destiny, she learns from Atalanta how to be a badass, and she's a good egg. She's quite surprised to be ambushed into marriage to a "minor" god, but the two of them manage to get to hang out together enough that they work well as a couple and like each other as well as love. Then Psyche gets pregnant, has to satisfy her curiosity, and kaboom. The other half of the novel is the two of them trying to fight their way back to each other, and darned if it doesn't work.

I think I'm not feeling particularly elaborate in description this morning, but I did enjoy the book quite a lot. The jerkier tendencies of some people tone down, some deities aren't so bad after all, and Eros and Psyche get more depth from being with each other. Four stars. 

The Rom-Commers

By Katherine Center.

I listened to this on audiobook, which includes a “bonus scene”  written from Charlie’s point of view about ah, water, and then an afterword from the author herself in defense of rom-coms. 

Emma’s life drastically changed ten years ago after a rock dislodged while her parents were rock climbing. Her mother died and her father was permanently disabled. Emma gave up her career goals and pretty much everything else to be his full time caregiver. (Explaining how she has to nag her father constantly to drink water or else his Meniere’s disease will act up and make him fall over alone is a giant yikes. I told a friend of mine who’s a caregiver this story and she related.) However, she’s still friends with her gay high school ex-boyfriend Logan he’s also her agent, and he lines her up a freelance writing project: partner with famous screenwriter Charlie Yates*, who has written a rom-com and it’s terrible.

• Note: the author says CHARLIE YATES in full so many dang times I was all, STOP SAYING IT, THIS IS TOO MUCH, OVERKILL OVERKILL…I get some short names are Just Like That, but oy vey, especially bad in audiobook.

Awkwardly, Logan hasn’t exactly cleared this with Charlie so much, and it’s more of a complete ambush after Emma’s had to have her little sister take over the caregiving and fly to LA and “oh, you’re staying at Charlie’s house…” However, Logan showed a video of Emma in her teen years to Charlie and that was a selling point, as is Emma’s actual writing, even if Charlie gives her shit about not pursuing work to the fullest extent. I note the guy is divorced.

Anyway: the two of them writing a rom-com is fun, albeit we don’t find out much about the project other than it’s a modern rewrite of It Happened One Night that involves line dancing (and has some amusing moments with that topic) and Charlie’s kind of being forced into it. But they end up enjoying themselves and making the writing work. What doesn’t work so well is Charlie himself, who had cancer almost five years ago and he’s getting over the yips and sometimes is awfully crankypants. But he can have some sweet and generous moments as well, so I’m kinda conflicted as to how much I like him? I do root for Emma, who can be a bit overelaborate* but overall is a fun personality. Albeit I did not enjoy the “Emma gets SUPER DRUNK and climbs a diving board in a fancy dress and shoes that don’t fit” moment, which gave me The Wiggins big time as to whether or not she’d survive. It’s also hard going when there’s another health incident and Emma and her sister go to low blows, albeit you can see why they think those things and how they blew up under stress. 

• Sometimes as an audiobook listener, I’m all “oh dear lord, this is a LOT OF DESCRIPTION.” 

I’ll say this for Emma: if she’s interested, she asks you out. However, Charlie pretty brutally rejects her a few times for vague reasons despite obviously liking her back, and having had that happen to me, boy, did that trigger some shit for me personally. By the time you find out what it is–it makes sense but I’ll cover it in the spoiler space–I was all, WHY CAN’T I JUST GET SOME EXPLANATION FOR THESE THINGS, BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE NICE!!!.... Don’t mind me, I’m just a crazy person :P 

In the end, Charlie makes amends very well, and the book ends on a very pleasant realistic happily ever after, which I enjoyed. Four stars. 

Full Speed to a Crash Landing

By Beth Revis.

Disclaimer: I read this very short novella when sleep deprived and that might explain that I’m missing some processing of what was going on here.

This is a space adventure in which we meet our narrator, Ada Lamarr, when she’s got a hole in her ship and she’s seriously about to RUN OUT OF OXYGEN before she gets rescued by a government ship also there to loot around. Ada is charming and insouciant and Super Helpful on volunteering to help the crew do a salvage mission on a dangerous planet. We reasonably presume she’s up to something, but Ada is not the kind of narrator to let you in on what’s secretly going on. She’s the sort of person who’s honest about what she reveals, but she won’t reveal everything. 

Ada also has the insta-hots for the brains of the operation, Rian, and it appears to be a mutual scheme-y soulmate connection. Both suspect they know what the other one is up to or at least they can deduce it. Their connection and vibe is super hot.

That said, I’m not sure what the heck was going on here. Sol-Earth is a dying planet having ecological disasters and Ada might just be motivated enough to do something about it, even if only for the right price. Some of the people on the ship also seem inclined in this direction. Some kind of Secret Information is being gotten. And then Ada poofs away, leaving a fuming Rian behind to write reports and try to figure out what the hell is going on. End novella!

So, on the one hand, fun writing and fun style and chemistry. On the other hand, I’m not sure what was going on here and dare I say it…why isn’t this longer and more explanatory? The writing style seems to assume we get what Ada is talking about, and while I know nobody wants to be all Basil Exposition in a sci-fi adventure, I got less of it because I didn’t quite get what was going on in the world. This review does a better job of getting it than I did.

Three and a half stars. 

Truly Madly Magically

By Hazel Beck.

Previous book here.

I’m still not sure why I’ve continued with this series because the same sorts of stuff that annoys me–super magical powers nobody’s heard of out of nowhere, romances not all that baked, etc. still bother me in this one. And yet, here I am. At least they’re from the library.

Ellowyn and Zander were together in high school, then had some kind of ugly breakup and have been publicly kinda hating each other ever since, albeit they’ve toned it down around their friend group. However, secretly every Beltane they fuck like bunnies. Due to Ellowyn getting randomly poisoned at Beltane this year (see previous book), her birth control failed, and now it’s time to publicly admit she’s pregnant and get back together with him.

I’m usually a fan of old-loves-get-back-together romances, but I wasn’t really into this one or really get why they were all MFEO either. It sounds like Their Giant Breakup was entirely because Zander’s mom was sick and he just…couldn’t spit it out (somewhat literally), but why the hatred and vitriol for years? It seemed too much for so little. 

What I did enjoy with this book was that there’s the final showdown/competition/um,whatever the heck this was between our group’s new coven and the totally evil, smugass bitches that make up the Joywood. You can probably guess how it ends, but I thought it went reasonably and fairly for the group, and they managed to thwart these awful people.

Three stars. 

The Breakup Tour

By Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka.

I listened to this in audiobook. I really like these authors, but this was probably not my favorite of theirs. 

Riley Wynn (basically Taylor Swift) is “the breakup queen” and primarily writes breakup songs, and after her recent quickie marriage and quickie divorce, has written “The Breakup Album.” Riley is still kinda smarting from her movie star ex not really caring about her, and also she’s apparently still not over her college boyfriend of nine months, Max. Max broke up with her/didn’t go on tour with her because his family business–senior living–needed him. To this day ten years later, Max is still working at the family business and playing piano there. Riley decides to come back into Max’s life to let him know that her hit song is about their relationship. Does she want him back? I guess so. Hey Max, would you like some fame? Go on tour to play the piano for one song? After Max finds out the family business is probably going under, he goes for it.

This book is notoriously Very Poetical–big words used, y’all, and tons and tons of poetic angst, drawn on, long, long, long. Riley is very sure of herself in her art and how she creates it and uses her pain, and that she still has the hots for Max, but in the end has issues letting go of being “the breakup queen” and that causes more Big Mis breakup moments. Max is just as poetic and angsty and big word-y, so they’re soulmates on that level, I suppose. As someone who’s listening to this while commuting, I found myself being annoyed at how long that stuff dragged on and how pretentious-y it was getting to me. Maybe I just need to listen to more action novels and not romance in the car? I seriously got all, “oh, for god’s sake, emo kids, pull your heads out of your butts already,” and descriptions also dragged on quite a bit. I swear it was just a half hour of Max trying to go across a stadium (though I was in a heinous traffic jam at the time, maybe that’s why). 

That said, I don’t get why a nine month relationship ten years ago has that much of a hold on both of them. I mean, I could presume why for Max, but Riley’s definitely been dating/marrying more, and I guess I didn’t feel the old “this one is for me” with them. It just felt like they needed a bit more going on, cookies only ¾ baked. I also didn’t super get why Riley’s mom got divorced–though that finally happens at the end–but that’s a thing, too. They had a lot of push and pull drama and when Riley’s friendly ex Hawk (he was fun, more of him in a sequel perhaps?) is all, “Riley likes drama and I did too and maybe that’s why we shouldn’t try again,” he has a point.

Anyway. I wasn’t as into this as I expected to be, unfortunately. Maybe others would be into it more than I was, but the emo-ness and drawing out descriptions was too much and the “why this one?” was a bit too little. Three stars. 

 

The False Princess

By Eilis O’Neal.

(Also read in audiobook, so I have no clue on the spellings and am taking a guess on those.) 

Princess Nalia finds out the day after her sixteenth birthday that she’s lived a lie her entire life. A prophecy said that the king and queen would only be able to have one child and she might die before she turned 16, so a ringer baby was substituted in and the original was raised anonymously in a convent. Now that the original Nalia has thwarted the prophecy, the false princess–now referred to by her given name of Sinda–is quickly kicked out, with a small bag of gold (enough to support her for a year) and a few dresses, to go live with her only surviving relative. 

Now that is fucking COLD. We never find out what it was like for Sinda to be raised by the king and queen (if she was), but these people can’t even say “thank you for your service” or “we loved you” or anything beyond “I’ll pray for her.” COLD, COLD, COLD and oddly enough, it’s only the villain of the piece who even comments on this! The king and queen had no contact with their biological kid and I wonder if they even tried to attach to the one she had, assuming they just had her to get killed in their kid’s place. (This is all the weirder considering that nobody actually tried to kill the public princess for sixteen years.) I think the author should have covered that, but alas, she did not. Sinda’s trauma is hard for her to figure out, and she tries to be stoic, but she’s so accommodating that she doesn’t even protest what happened, and that’s something that’s commented on. 

We find out that Sinda’s mom abandoned her after birth, her father was depressed and agreed to give her up, and her aunt isn’t mean, but she’s very taciturn and not a welcoming or loving personality.  Sinda is forced to live the life of a peasant when she has no working peasant skills or talents, and the only guy who’s interested in her just wants her for her former status. It’s not going very well when surprise, she busts out with magic! Turns out her abandoning mother had magic and her aunt was hoping it wouldn’t manifest. But now that the impersonation spell put on Sinda is wearing off, her own natural magic starts busting out all over. This catapults Sinda into a better life. She can’t join the wizards’ college because she’s a broke peasant, but she does find herself a lovely eccentric mentor, Philantha, who I thought was great and should have been more involved in the plot than Sinda lets her be, alas.

Sinda also reunites in the city with Kiernan, her longtime best friend/obvious soulmate who she’s never gotten romantically involved with (or even really conceived of doing so) given their past differing status, and now current differing status. It’s very obvious that Kiernan is ride-or-die for her, no matter how clueless she may be or how she periodically freaks out and tries to drive him away or thinks he’ll walk out on her after a brief incident. (Everyone else in the book is all, “girl, get a clue!”) Per Kiernan, who’s still at the castle, she finds out that the current princess wants to meet her, and that girl (previously known as Orion) sneaks out to do so. Sinda’s surprised that the two of them feel a literal pull towards each other as a result of the spell put on them for making Sinda resemble Nalia. 

But after feeling the pull to go to the castle one dawn, Sinda comes across something that totally tears apart everything she’s been told about this situation. The kingdom’s about to make a giant mistake, and Sinda and Kiernan realize that they’re probably the only people who can investigate what went on, and that they’re not likely to be believed.. Sinda does need to let other people in more (and it’s kind of irritating that she adamantly refuses to let her mentor in on the issue), and she does need to figure out what her motivations are here for saving a kingdom that wasn’t the nicest to her, all things considered. I did enjoy the mystery of what had happened and how S&K had to investigate it–involving psychic powers, lies, magical ties and a longstanding grudge. It works.

Overall, I really enjoyed listening to this book. Even if Sinda’s behavior gets a bit “oh girl, don’t do that!” for her and well, everyone, the mystery is cool and the book works, even if I think a few things could be elaborated on more. Nice resolution, too. Four stars.

Apprentice to the Villain

By Hannah Nicole Maehrer.

Previous book here. This one’s also been audiobooked. 

I have really gotten into this series, and found this book to be even more fun. There’s plenty of plot going on, starting with a rescue, a fake death and dramatic reveals. In this book, our evil heroes get outed, which leads to complications–and per the title, a promotion for Evie.

King Benedict continues his quiet path of evil. Did I mention there’s dramatic reveals? There’s a lot of that going on here, like “wow, so THAT’s what happened to X?!” level of stuff. There’s also a prophecy and the issue that the kingdom of Rennedawn seems to be running low on magic due to the king. Our gang of evil people end up traveling around, meeting all kinds of interesting creatures, and it’s a good time. I found Evie’s encounters with creatures to be particularly delightful, even and especially the time she’s drunk off a magic flower and has to solve a riddle. 

Evie’s family takes center stage in this one, with finding out what happened to people–a lot of ‘em–and one person going in the opposite direction. While she hasn’t exactly gone magical herself, she does have a few surprisingly odd magical things happen to her, which is intriguing. It’s implied that while Evie’s a good person, one should watch out for a good person who’s been betrayed, and has some incentive to level up in her work. 

As for our hot villain, well, yeah, it’s clear these two are in love, and Tristan has all these secret “awww” moments about Evie that are quite endearing. There is one moment in particular–it involves pink–where I just flat out died and it was adorable. However, Tristan is still in full “I’m evil, I can’t have love” mode and there’s that prophecy thing again. He has an encounter with destiny that doesn’t sound good, but will things go that way?

The other characters also get some depth, particularly Becky, as we find out about her interesting past. There’s less rivalry going on between Becky the Order Muppet and Evie the Chaos Muppet, which is a lovely development. 

I have really enjoyed listening to these one right after the other, and am sad to be done for the time being. However, I did find out that this series is based off the author’s TikTok series, “The Morally Gray Villain’s Personal Assistant,” and I am working my way through 200+ TikToks (and I don’t even like how TikTok runs, so that’s saying something. Why must it just constantly replay the video over and over instead of auto-playing the series?). I note the video series is the same characters, but different plots from the books. 

(YouTubes of 1-20, 21-40, and 41-60 here.)

Four stars. I’m having a lot of fun with this. 

Big Little Spells

By Hazel Beck.

Previous book here.

This book features Rebekah, Emerson’s slightly younger sister,  the family rebel. After being dragged back to St. Cyprian, the Joywood coven, who hates them, kinda has to acknowledge that they have powers despite the coven saying they did not. This translates into “We’re going to force you to go back to high school” (in their late twenties?!?!? SO weird) and be schooled, punished, and humiliated while being re-tested again. And the Joywood plans on them failing. 

Okay, so that plot is straight up weird. Adult prom, anyone, with random teens? Dragging in their friends who did pass? The sister’s absentee jerk parents being dragged back to town to be snooty at them? It’s Rebekah’s nightmare, of course. Rebekah also has some issues with hottie immortal Nicholas Frost, who was some kind of weird mentor to her as a teen, but squealed on her when she had her moment of rage. It’s one of those destiny things, we’re told. 

I don’t know why I went out and got this book right after finding the first book to be a three star one. It has similar issues to the first one, in which I like the voice but am kind of confused on the magical-ness (I’ll say I get more of it here, but my confusion is more like “high school!?” rather than “how’d this come about?” That said, I still want to know what “Confluence Warrior” and “Chaos Diviner” REALLY mean.), and the romance is another kinda-insta-one with another stoic man that doesn’t show much personality. So those aspects of it are still “not loving that.”

However, Rebekah’s voice? Awesome. After being failed on her pubertatum (a word everyone hates), Rebekah refused to be wiped, and had herself a little magical kaboom-ish sort of incident before she blew the hell out of town. Nowadays she works to suppress her magical stuff, got a lot of piercings and tats (a no-no), and is very much “This is who I am, I’m not a rule-following school nerd.” You absolutely felt Rebekah’s pain and feelings being forced to confront all of what she left behind and the social shaming she got there. So if you’re a rebel sort, you’ll relate to this one big time, I think. 

Also, the ending? Another kaboom moment, and I really liked it! Good job! There’s also a subplot of witches dying suspiciously young, which is presumably being set up for the next book. 

Three and a half stars. 

 

Pegasus

By Danielle Steel.

So Alex and Nick are German nobility/widowers with kids who are best friends in the 1930’s. Then Nick finds out that (a) his dad randomly knocked up a teenager and married/divorced her long enough to get a kid out of the bargain, (b) the teenager was half Jewish, and ( c) he’s being investigated by the Nazi government for this and he and his sons need to flee ASAP before they end up in camps. Arrangements are made, but Nick is all “what am I going to do for a job since all I know how to do is ride and go to parties?” and Alex, a trainer of Lipizzaner stallions, kindly gifts him with a pair and also some Arabians, and sets him up to be a circus performer.

This is quite a setup, isn't it?!?! 

Moving to Florida and joining Ringling Brothers is definitely A Switch in life for Nick, but it works out well. Nick’s not a snobby dude, and he and his sons fit into circus life. You wanna read about circus life, that stuff is fun. The story goes back and forth between Florida and Germany, where Alex loses what he had remaining and takes up smuggling Jews (more on this below the spoiler cut), and his daughter Marianne is moved to England for her own safety. 

Nick falls in insta-love with Christianna Markovich, of the notorious “we perform on a high wire with no net, even though two of the family members are in wheelchairs” Markoviches. Let me tell you, there is SO MUCH HARPING ABOUT HOW THERE’S NO NET, and so much heavy foreshadowing about NO NET, that after a while I was all, “okay, fine, just have her fall off and get paralyzed already!” (Discussion of this plotline below the spoiler cut.) 

The romance in this book in general is pretty quickie and not very developed, as some of the younger generation fall in love, but there’s a war on. Overall, it was pretty pleasant and fun, but not a story massively full of depth. I did like how the descendants of both families met at the end, that was very cute.

Three and a half stars.