Melissa Rose

Tag: contemporary-romance

  • Review: Say You’ll Remember Me

    by Abby Jimenez

    Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

    Synopsis:

    Say You'll Remember Me book

    Xavier and Samantha fall hard and fast for each other. But the day after their epic first date, Samantha leaves Minnesota to help her family take care of her mother, who has early onset dementia, in California.

    Even though they barely know each other, Xavier and Samantha can’t forget each other, and they can’t move on. And even though they know it seems like a terrible idea, they start a long-distance relationship that wears on them both financially and emotionally.

    With Xavier financially bound to his new veterinary practice and Samantha determined to be there for her family, they don’t see how they’ll ever be able to live in the same state for the foreseeable future. As hard as it is, not being together feels a thousand times worse. Can they figure out a way to make it work?

    Review:

    This was such delightful, sweet story that warmed my heart. I flew through this book in two days, which is really fast for me. There was so much I loved:

    –That Xavier is a veterinarian who’s extremely passionate about animal welfare. I have such a soft spot for fellow animal lovers and so appreciate that they recur throughout Abby Jimenez’s books. 

    –The idea of two people with such strong chemistry that they couldn’t stay away from each other, even though they’d only met once, lived 2,000 miles apart, and a romantic relationship didn’t make logical sense. That’s what strong love will do: push you to do things that make no sense to anyone else.

    –Samantha’s family dynamic and seeing the challenges they faced dealing with her mother Lisa’s dementia. It felt so real and heart-wrenching, but also moving. I loved the way they all banded together and supported one another through the hardest, scariest moments of this disease.

    And even as Lisa’s condition worsened, they were still so determined to care for her, form their own new memories of her, and do everything in their power to give her the best quality of life they possibly could.

    –The way Samantha unlocks something in Xavier and draws him out of his shell. When they first meet, he’s so closed off and even curmudgeonly as a direct result of his terrible childhood. But she gives him someone he feels like he can truly trust for the first time in a long time. He feels safe to let his guard down, be vulnerable, and experience real joy.

    It’s so sweet and hopeful: No matter what we’re going through now or what awful things we’ve experienced in the past, we can still have these magical moments with people who allow us to appreciate the beauty life can have.

    Small Quibbles:

    Say You’ll Remember Me seems like it’s been pretty divisive, with readers either loving or hating it. I’ve seen some criticize the book because they didn’t understand the connection between Xavier and Samantha.

    That wasn’t my experience, but there were times I thought Abby moved too quickly through their dates, summarizing big sections where I wish she’d slowed down and given us more fleshed-out scenes. I think more scenes would’ve gone a long to helping more readers feel Samantha and Xavier’s connection, and those of us who already did to feel it even more strongly.

    I’ve also seen at least a few readers criticize the language for using too much contemporary slang. I admit that did bug me a little. Especially early on, there were a lot of Gen z phrases (e.g. pick me, out of pocket), that didn’t necessarily feel natural to the characters. To me, it felt more like an author in their 40s trying a little too hard to relate to readers in their late teens and early 20s.

    Similarly, there were several references to the character Rhysand from Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR series. I love this character and I love ACOTAR, but the reference felt forced rather than organic. It would’ve been different if the characters were big readers and talked about books a lot, but they weren’t and they didn’t.

    Lastly, I felt like Samantha and especially Xavier should’ve been a little bit older. They’re 28 and 29, respectively. But Xavier has owned his own vet clinic for two years, which means he opened it at roughly age 27. Yet, vet school—according to my Google search—lasts 4 years, which means Xavier most likely would’ve finished school at about 26.

    I find it hard to believe that a year out of school, with no money to his name, he was able to secure a loan and open his own brick-and-mortar business. He should really be at least in his early 30s for his situation to feel plausible.

    But this is all just me being nitpicky. Criticisms aside, the book made me so happy and pulled me in so much, and that’s what matters most.

    I’m still working through Abby Jimenez’s books (I need to read the Part of Your World series), but so far Say You’ll Remember ranks pretty high. It’s above the Friend Zone series, and right below Just for the Summer—my current favorite.  

    Favorite Quotes:

    “You think it’s the big memories you should be chasing … But the small memories are the fabric of your life, the ones so inconsequential that you don’t even remember them. You just remember how you felt when you were making them.” (243)

    “I was willing to work harder for her than I’d ever worked for anything or anyone including myself. Loving her gave me purpose. It made me feel like I knew what my life was supposed to be about. I felt focused and calm and like a frantic search I hadn’t known I was on was over. This was what I was here to do, this was who I was here to be with.” (279)

    “I wanted the luxury of mundane cohabitation. I wanted to get sick of him. I wanted to see him so much, his bad habits exasperated me. I wanted to be so tired of his shit, I looked forward to him going out on his boy’s weekends just so I could get some alone time, and then once he’s gone, I’d miss him so much I can’t stand it and I’m miserable the whole time because he’s my best friend.” (309-310)

  • Review: How to End a Love Story

    by Yulin Kuang

    Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

    Synopsis:

    Helen Zhang relocates to LA to work on the TV adaptation of her YA series, The Ivy Papers. To her dismay, her staff writers include Grant Shepard, her high school homecoming king who was involved in the tragic accident that claimed her little sister’s life 13 years earlier.

    As the two learn how to untangle their pain and work together, they realize there’s something more between them. But can they have a future when they share such a traumatic past?

    Review:

    I loved this book so much! It was incredibly heartfelt and moving. Yulin Kuang somehow managed to tackle heavy subjects—ranging from PTSD to suicide—with nuance and sensitivity, while also balancing them with humor, romance, and spice. I could not be more impressed.

    I love romance books where the leads have to overcome a significant obstacle in order to be together. And my God, I can hardly think of a bigger obstacle than, “my sister killed herself by jumping in front of your car.” (This is not a spoiler; it happens in the first few pages.)

    A big obstacle not only makes for a better story, it also fills me with hope. It’s not so much the idea of love conquering it all as it is the strength of the human spirit—especially our enormous compacity for perseverance and forgiveness.

    As hard as relationships and life can be, two people—no matter how messy—can come together to work through their issues and trauma, lift each other up, and come out the other side stronger. We can even find something beautiful in the places and people we least expect it if we allow ourselves to really know them and be known in return.

    I really appreciated that How to End a Love Story largely takes place 13 years after the death of Helen’s sister, Michelle. It highlights the way emotional pain lingers. Even if you manage to make something of your life after such a traumatic experience—as Helen and Grant both do—you’ll still carry this pain with you. If you try to hide or suppress it, it will eventually try to force itself out in one way or another—Grant with his panic attacks, Helen with her anxiety and tendency to lash out.

    On the surface, it seems like there’s no way a relationship between these two people could work—Helen and her parents blame Grant for Michelle’s death, because it’s easier than grappling with her suicide. Grant himself feels debilitating guilt over her death too. And yet, no one can understand Grant’s and Helen’s pain quite like the other. I could really feel the connection and chemistry between these two characters, and I really rooted for them—their relationship as well as their respective career success and emotional wellbeing. I cannot recommend this book enough.

    I recently learned that Yulin Kuang is the screenwriter for the film adaptations of Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation and Beach Read (she’s also the director on the latter). I’m a huge Henry fan, and I was a little nervous that the adaptations wouldn’t live up to my expectations. But after reading How to End a Love Story, I’m so much more excited for them! How fitting that this book was about book-to-screen adaptations. I feel confident we’re in good hands.

    Favorite Quotes:

    “I’d rather have a fraction of you than all of someone else.” (306)

    “He kisses her slowly, persuasively, as if they have all the time in the world—before he slows down the kiss that she’s already starting to call the best damn kiss of her entire life and it retreats from present tense into memory.” (187)

    “Helen has created a very special window into her life that’s just for her parents. Don’t look there, the view’s not as good, she would say, pulling the drapes over a messy fourth date, a failed situationship, a bad breakup, and a drunken night out. She stores up bad news like acorns in the winter and metes them out in small doses, when she finally has good news to soften the blow.” (109)

  • Review: Great Big Beautiful Life

    by Emily Henry

    Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

    Synopsis:

    Alice is an upbeat optimist who writes celebrity profiles. Hayden is a chilly Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer. The two collide when they both arrive on a small island in Georgia to compete for the same job:

    Writing the biography of Margaret Ives, a reclusive heiress now in her eighties who was once known as “The Tabloid Princess” before she disappeared decades ago.

    Alice and Hayden don’t know why Margaret suddenly wants to emerge from her life of anonymity after all these years, but they want to find out almost as much as they want to write her life story. While they try to figure out what she’s playing at, they discover an undeniable spark between them.

    Review:

    I keep hearing how this book is so different from Emily Henry’s other novels, but I didn’t feel that way at all. Great Big Beautiful Life felt like classic Henry to me. Her writing style is the same, and I found so many traces of her other books. Notably:

    • People We Meet on Vacation: Alice and Hayden reminded me of Poppy and Alex with their grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract dynamic. Both women are bubbly, chatty, and outgoing, while the men are quiet, reserved, serious, and contemplative.

    • Book Lovers: Though the dynamic is a bit different, Alice and Hayden working on the same biography was reminiscent of Nora and Charlie editing their mutual client’s novel together.
    • Beach Read: Alice and January have so much in common: They’re both writers struggling with the loss of their father. They both fall for acclaimed writers who they worry don’t take their work seriously. And they both grew up with a sick family member, which made them each feel like they always had to put on a brave face to make everyone else feel better and not be a burden.

    Without giving too much away, I’d also like to point out that a cult called comes up at some point in GBBL—the People’s Movement for Metaphysical Healing—which calls to mind the New Eden cult that Gus writes about in Beach Read. We even follow Gus and January as they interview former cult members and their famlies—just as we watch Alice interview Margaret.

    Even the “story within a story,” which most people seem to point to as the major departure for Henry, didn’t feel like a big leap for me. Most of Henry’s main characters are either writers or professionals working in the world of books. And while it doesn’t go nearly as in depth as GBBL does with Margaret’s story, Book Lovers spends a fair amount of time on Dusty’s novel Frigid . In Beach Read, we learn a lot about the novels Gus and January are writing: The Cup is Already Broken andThe Great Family Marconi, respectively (all of which are, arguably, mini stories within a larger story).

    To be clear, I’m not criticizing GBBL for its overlap with Henry’s other books. It’s normal for writers to revisit similar themes and ideas. If anything, I feel like I kind of know Henry a little bit now and have a better understanding of what her preoccupations are. And I think she’s been setting herself and her readers up for GBBL for a long time.

    I really liked GBBL overall, especially the ending, which I’ve seen a fair amount of criticism of. But to me, everything came together in a really satisfying way. I won’t say more than that to avoid spoilers.

    I also enjoyed Margaret’s story quite a bit, with its explorations of inherited trauma, parasocial relationships, and fractured identities. I know this story within a story has been divisive, with some finding it tedious and boring. Admittedly, it moved a bit slower at times than the romance plotline and required a bit more patience, but I don’t fault it for that. This, I think, is the biggest departure for Henry with GBBL: She asks us to be patient and slow down for a minute, which romance books (including Henry’s past ones) don’t often ask us to do.

    My only real issue with GBBL was that we jumped into the romance between Alice and Hayden too quickly, before I felt really invested in them as a couple. Perhaps ironically, I wish Henry had slowed this part down too. But I did ultimately enjoy their love story and rooted for them in the end.

    I’m not sure yet where GBBL ranks for me among Henry’s books. It’s not my favorite of hers, but it was still compelling and I’ll definitely reread.

    Favorite Quotes:

    “When you love someone, you do anything to give them what they need. You unmake the world and build a new one.” (410)

    “I want to be with you. Nothing else is going to matter to me more than that. Not at the end of my life. Not even now. Nothing will matter more than who I spent my time with, and I want it to be you. I need it to be you.” (411-412)

  • Review: Wild Love

    by Elsie Silver

    Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.25

    Quick Take: Overall an entertaining, sexy read with a lot of fun banter, but a little longer than it needed to be.

    Favorite Quotes: “Rosie, I’m a grown-ass man. Your period doesn’t scare me.” (275)

    “I definitely don’t hate you, Rosie. Not even close. But I can fuck you like I do if that’s what you need.” (302)

    What I Loved:

    The flirtatious teasing and banter between the main characters, Rosie and Ford, especially in the first half of the book. Their jabs at one another felt like good-natured ribbing, rather than anything with true animus behind it. I particularly loved the quippy work emails they’d send one another—these were some of the funniest moments in the book.

    That Ford carried a torch for Rosie for over a decade. In male-female romance books, I always love when the man has been in love with the woman for years, especially when she’s misconstrued his feelings, thinking he was disinterested or annoyed by her. But really, that disinterest or irritation is the guy’s way of hiding feelings he fears are unacceptable or unwanted.

    The slow burn followed by steamy sex scenes. I’ll say this for Silver: she really does know how to write a good sex scene. And I love a good sex scene all the more when I have to wait for it—the tension just builds and builds between the characters until it boils over.

    On a related note, I so appreciate that Rosie and Ford don’t have penetrative sex right away. In a lot of romance novels, the characters end up having sex the first time they kiss. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not as tantalizing or satisfying, in my opinion.

    What I Didn’t Love:

    After Rosie and Ford finally get together, their good-natured teasing turns meaner. This was the opposite of what I’ve seen in many enemies-to-lovers novels, where initial cruelty turns more playful once the characters actually acknowledge their feelings for each other.

    I hate it when fighting and cruelty are conflated with passion. Initially, I was so excited that this book seemed like it was going to flip this trope on its head, and was disappointed when it didn’t. I wish Silver had kept the initial lightness to Rosie and Ford’s banter, but as it went on, I felt like these characters seemed to bring out the worst in each other.

    Some really important secondary characters and subplots got overshadowed and didn’t receive nearly as much page space as they deserved.

    Most notably, Rosie’s brother West, who also happens to be Ford’s best friend. Their fear of upsetting West is supposed to be one of the primary reasons that Ford and Rosie are reluctant to get together. But West is barely in this book! He deserved to be in it much more, and the novel would have been more satisfying for it.

    Sometimes the language felt inauthentic to the characters. I noticed this with Rosie’s diary entries from high school—they often didn’t sound like they’d been written by a teenager. (That said, I did really enjoy the inclusion of her diary entries overall, and the way they gave us more insight into Rosie and Ford’s dynamic as teens.)

    The language felt most inauthentic to me reading Ford’s POV. His language turned flowery and poetic at times as he described the setting in depth. It felt totally inconsistent with his character. The worst offender:

    “The smell of lilacs permeates the air, emanating from the bush behind us, while the minerality of the lake water beside us adds a soft undertone.” (211)

    I know I criticized quite a few things, but I’ll say this: I liked the parts I liked more than I disliked the parts I disliked. And most of my critiques are me being nitpicky. This is an incredibly popular book and series, beloved by many romance readers. Wild Love definitely piqued my interest in Elsie Silver as an author and I plan to read more by her.

  • Review: All the Missing Pieces

    by Catherine Cowles

    Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

    Quick Take: Loved! A super engaging story that has a little bit of everything—crime, romance, tragedy, humor. It also combines one of my favorite romance tropes—enemies to lovers—with a good mystery.

    Favorite Quotes: “Be safe, Chaos. It’s going to piss me the hell off if you end up dead.” (212)

    “If I break my neck pulling this ridiculous stunt, I’m going to haunt your ass.” (266)

    I loved this book! It has a little bit of everything—crime, romance, tragedy, humor. It also combines one of my favorite romance tropes—enemies to lovers—with my love of a good mystery. It kept me guessing until the end. I lay awake at night trying to solve it, and I couldn’t.

    I worried this meant that the big reveal might be a let down with a completely left-field perpetrator, but it wasn’t. The answer made sense in the world of the novel and was all the more satisfying since I couldn’t guess it.

    Brief synopsis: Losing her twin sister compels Ridley Sawyer to become a nomadic true-crime podcaster, driving her camper van around the country in the hopes of helping solve cold cases that are similar to her sister’s disappearance—and that she suspects could be connected. When she arrives in Shady Cove for her next assignment, she’s met with resistance from the small, tight-knit community, and her biggest detractor is the town’s smoking hot sheriff, Colter Brooks.

    With the growing popularity of true crime in recent years and the heated debate around its ethics, I loved the way the book handled this contentious topic with such care, openness, and thoughtfulness. In short, there’s a right way to do true crime that can bring communities together, find justice for victims and their families, and potentially pave the way for healing. There’s also a wrong way to do true crime, which exploits these tragedies for personal and financial gain and in the process, dehumanizes victims and their families while forcing them to relive the worst moments of their lives.

    In All the Missing Pieces, the community of Shady Cove is suspicious that Ridley falls into the latter category, that she’s only digging into the town’s painful history to get more followers for her podcast and boost her own popularity. But one by one, they see how passionate Ridley is about justice, and that the purpose of her podcast is to garner enough interest in cold cases to uncover new, previously missed details that could be the key to solving them. In doing so, Ridley hopes to give families closure and stop the perpetrators of these crimes from hurting anyone else. The community bands together behind her, especially when they learn that Ridley’s own sister was kidnapped and never found. The book nearly had me in tears several times as Ridley confronted her trauma and helped Colt do the same.

    The only reason I didn’t give this book five stars is because I often found the language lacking. While there were some good quips throughout, the novel had a lot of sticky sentences the editor in me itched to simplify. There were also several chapters that ended with hokey and maddening cliff hangers. I’m not against cliff hangers in general, only when they’re used to trick the audience into thinking something terrible is about to happen (e.g. Ridley thinks someone is hiding in her closet waiting to attack her, but turns out it was just her cat).

    My last main critique is that some of the sex scenes felt logistically absurd (they’re standing in the middle of a room and he’s holding her with one arm, really?). But I can hardly hold it against Cowles when this is a recurring issue I see in many romance books, and the scenes were still sexy and fun.

    Overall though, All the Missing Pieces tells a super engaging story that manages to be both incredibly moving and a lot of fun. I’m definitely interested in reading more by Cowles.

    I’m really hoping for a spinoff with two of the secondary characters (I won’t say who to avoid any spoilers). And I think there’s a good chance we’ll get one. Cowles sets it up perfectly.

  • Review: Tangled Up In You

    by Christina Lauren

    Star Rarting: ⭐⭐⭐.75

    Quick Take: A little silly and even at times absurd, but overall really fun and entertaining, with two romantic leads who truly bring out the best in each other.

    Favorite Quote: “Observing the world through Ren’s eyes made Edward realize how often he didn’t really pay attention to what was going on around him. He moved through life constantly on the offense and went into every interaction with an objective. It meant he missed the details, missed the moments that made life worth living.” (p. 226)

    This contemporary romance novel centers on Ren, a sunny 22-year-old who’s spent her life largely isolated from the world on a farm with her controlling parents. When she leaves to go to college—her first time ever going to school—she meets Edward (aka Fitz), her sexy, guarded classmate with a secret criminal record he’s trying to expunge.

    When they embark on a cross-country road trip together over spring break, Fitz shows Ren the wonders of the wider world, while she shows him the beauty of navigating that world with an open heart.

    Truthfully, I was a bit lukewarm on this book at first. Ren’s innocence and naivety initially made her feel incredibly young—to the point where she felt even felt like a child, so I couldn’t picture her as a love interest, nor did I want to. It also took the sexual tension much longer to really surface than I typically prefer from romance novels. But once Ren’s childlike innocence began to fade and she really began to embrace her sexuality and attraction to Fitz, I was hooked and couldn’t put the book down. Ren and Fitz really brought out the best in each other and balanced one another so well.

    I also really appreciated and enjoyed how incredibly smart, strong, and capable Ren was. There were so many things she could do that Fitz couldn’t, from recovering their stolen wallets to fixing their broken-down car. Rather than feeling defensive and insecure, Fitz just admired and respected her for it. I loved that dynamic and how it upended gender stereotypes.

    Without spoiling anything, I’ll acknowledge that some of the plot points felt a little ridiculous and really stretched the bounds of credulity, but you know what? It was fun and I’m here for it. I did wish the ending went on a bit longer—I would’ve loved a full-on epilogue. Without it, the ending felt a tad rushed. This and the slow start prevented me from rating the book four stars, but overall this was such a fun and entertaining read with a lot of heart.

    Fun fact: The novel was inspired by Tangled. I didn’t realize this until reading the acknowledgements, but now that I know, it makes so much sense.