As a wise man once said, sometimes she goes, sometimes she doesn’t go. As always, these may be the perfect book for you, but they just weren’t right for me at the time.
💕Live, Ranch, Love by Emma Lucy — This one just had too many cliches for me. A British FMC who is a positivity influencer inherits a Colorado ranch and the manager is a total jerk to her. Excuse me SIR, she is now the person who will sign your paychecks, maybe quit calling her princess in that tone. I was not interested in seeing how the relationship progresses after that.
💕Undead and Unwed by Sam Tschida — I’m actually pretty sad that I didn’t like this one, and I really tried. I made it to about 60% before I threw in the towel. But you cannot convince me that a woman who was turned into a vampire at the age of 29 in the 1700s did NOT know how to survive and be an adult. Tiffany tries to say that she “died” at 29, before she learned how to be an adult. Excuse me??? You turned 300 years ago, you were probably married at 16-18 so you KNEW wtf you were doing by 29. GTFO with that nonsense.
💕Donut Summer by Anita Kelly — I typically love Anita Kelly romances, so I thought I would eat this YA romance up. But weirdly enough, some of what happens to Penny is just too much for me. Penny is parentified and forgotten by her parents (one of her moms is working all the time and was never on page before I stopped reading and the other is only around to ask Penny to babysit) but she’ll defend her neglectful parents til the end. And I just….didn’t want to read about the emotional neglect. And the enticement of a romance to genderqueer Mateo wasn’t enough for me to go through that trauma.
💕Fall For Him by Andie Burke — I was immediately confused when both main male characters had five letter names that begin with the letter D (Derek & Dylan, for the love of god why). And then when the second letter D character is more confused about blood getting on his dog and not the injury of first letter D character, I knew I wasn’t interested. Maybe it’s the healthcare provider in me, but please show some care or humanity?
💕Battle of the Bookstores by Ali Brady — An enemies-to-lovers story about two competing book store managers? You’ve Got Mail inspired? Sounds exactly like my kind of book. Except the Meg Ryan of this book was not very likable. In fact, she was pretty mean and rude. I struggled with believing that her Tom Hanks would actually forgive, forget, and fall into instalove. So after one too many mean comments, I abandoned the story and decided to watch You’ve Got Mail instead.
💕Backhanded Compliments by Katie Chandler — I really thought this was just a sapphic read about two rival tennis stars. But they also develop tattoos of their soulmate’s name? I thought my audio switched to the wrong book for a sec when that was mentioned. It felt like a strange edition and felt like the only thing bringing the two together. Alas, the narrators were good, so I enjoyed the narration until I eventually quit.