Hey there! Yo girl, Mia is here. I am back with another monthly wrap up, a successful one this time. For those who don't know, who are new here, I do that every time, decide that I will read this and that and at the end of the month, I have read only 2 of those prior decided books. But this time, I have read only those books which were in my TBR. So those who were looking forward to me reading the books in February TBR, this is exciting for you guys.
So, February, Valentine's month, all books I read were from romance genre, 7 in total. Though my TBR had some diverse books as well like Seven Days In June, which is black people rep, different from the primary "american" romance, and Red, White and Royal Blue which is LGBTQ rep. I was really excited to read those books but midway through the month my pace changed, and I had to skip those and prioritise my studies. Anyway, I hope I read them within this year and let's talk about the books that I did read this month.
Rating System :
🌠Stars -
⭐ : Either dnf'd or wondering why bother finishing
⭐⭐ : Okay.. but whatever, do something about the plot holes
⭐⭐⭐ : Hm.. but I don't feel it
⭐⭐⭐⭐ : You gave me something good which could've been better
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ : Talk about my favorite
❣️ Hearts -
🖤 : Disappointed really.
💛 : Oh.. I read it? Yesterday? No impact.
💚 : Confused if I should lower the ratings
💙 : Happy got to read it.
💜: I looooved it but boy where did you miss??
❤️ : Giddy, Crying, Screaming. Don't talk to me rn pls
✨No hearts, No stars : HATED
✨ ❤️ heart, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ stars : ALL TIME FAVOURITE
Get A Life Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
Pretty much everything I read this month was a catch up to the hype. Really popular books and I was expecting to be blown throughout the month, but that's just not how it works. The Brown Sisters series was one of the series I have to finish reading this year, this was the first book and ughhh. I am sorry, but I just totally couldn't relate to anything good that has ever been said about this book (aside from the cute cover).
This book is about Chloe (cue the title) who's a computer geek, chronologically ill, indoor girl, seeking her independence and basically "get a life". Because of her sickness, majority of her life she has lived with her parents, surrounded by all these people who love her and take care of all her needs. Her friends and boyfriend are all a thing of past, and she has no "normal person" thing left in her. After a near death experience, where she thinks she is gonna get run over by a car, she realises she might die and she needs to get a life. She moves out of her parent's house to live in an apartment, all on her own. It's her romance with her landlord-ish (he's secretary something of the building) person, Redford Morgan, who's also a painter, with a past. And Chloe makes a deal with him that she would make him a website for his paintings and all, if he helps her "get a life".
My problem with this book was like a big deal to me, majority of audience remains unbothered . I won't say much about it... but as an example, there's this instance in the book, where Red fingers her, makes her orgasm on a public stone monument's steps. And this is there first time doing something intimate, she was drunk half an hour ago, and she's been in a dry spell before this for many years, due to her sickness. And that's their love. I really hope you don't make your judgement just over my opinion, read the book, good for you if you like it. I dnf'd the book soon after that. I gave it 0 stars. 🖤 Heart.
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren
So here's the deal. This is a enemies-to-lovers, fake marriage romance. Olive's sister is getting married, but the night of wedding, everyone gets terrible food poisoning because of eating sea food at wedding buffet, except Olive and her nemesis, Ethan, groom's brother . Because of the food poisoning Olive's sister can't go to the honeymoon she won at a raffle which is non-negotiable and she doesn't want to waste it. So, she asks Olive to go in her place, pretending to be her, and enjoy a vacation. Ofcourse, Ethan will come too because his bother offered him his place and they have to pretend to be married at this vacation and there's all these couple activities included in their package and PURE RICH FUN!
Why I liked this is for a number of reasons. First of all, I loved the banter between these two. I loved the arc when they are enemies, snarking at each other, and then they go to these activities and some past stuff is revealed, you know, they are enemies because of a misunderstanding, and they resolve all of that, ugh! So good. Olive's family, all uncles, cousins and aunts, everyone live in this close quarter which is so heartwarming to see. This book gave me a lot of butterflies in the stomach, it's just so light and you're gonna get a good time. I rated it a 4.5 stars. 💜 Heart.
All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana Zapata
After I finished reading The Unhoneymooners, the close family trope reminded me of MZ because most of her books have these close families like in From Lukov With Love and Wait For It. Ok... let's just say that I should stop saying she's my favorite author, because it's not like I like everything she writes. I have dnf'd 2 of her books and rated 3 of her books below 4 stars and although that's still better than what I rate others, it's till sometimes disappointing. Though, From Lukov With Love and The Wall Of Winnipeg And Me are 2 of my all time favorite romances, maybe I am just interested in sports romances or slow burns, and MZ's writing someeeeetimes gets boring, so yeah.
This book is grumpy-sunshine, slow burn, I-don't-like-anyone-but-you trope. After her divorce Aurora comes back to her birthplace, small town in mountains and she's up for some action, adventure because her mother, who went missing years ago on a trek, loved doing that, and she wants to honor her. So she rents a garage apartment online, drives up to this place and finds her landlord, Tobias Rhodes, who's really cold, brooding person who lives with his kid (you will find out more about this later), and they agree on acting like each other don't exist, because of his "protectiveness" towards his child and they didn't had the best first impression of each other. It takes them long time to warm up to each other and develop a friendship and then more, but it's worth it.
See, it was good. It would have been great if I hadn't read Kulti or Wall because, no offense, but MZ's main characters are very similar. I can't say that for all male characters but Aurora was bold, I-will-get-my-life-together, no-one-can-stop-me, girl which were the exact same qualities about Vanessa and Sal and that's just giving me the vibes that I already know her and I have read stories about her already. After that, I will just compare this story to the previous two and tell if this was better or be disappointed. The story was..."eh". But what I learnt was that, I should'nt have gone expecting as much as I did. MZ is an amazing writer but that doesn't make her a hotshot who would write one 5 star after other.
I gave it 3 stars. 🖤 Heart.
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
THE SCREAM FEST! I am not even kidding. There were so many tropes. Grumpy-sunshine, age gap, fake-dating, teacher-student, I-don't-like-anyone-but-you and.. let's not forget the spice. There's not "a lot" of it, but the only scene you get... I, personally, am no fan of spice, but those who like it, really liked the one in it.
Don't start rolling your eyes, first scene, she's kissing the first guy she sees in the room so her best friend, who's watching thinks that she's dating and moving on from her ex, and of course, it's professor Adam Carlsen. I told you not to roll our eyes, it's literally on the cover. Anyway, they decide they are going to fake date because Olive has to let her best friend think that she's dating, for a while, because the best friend wants to date Olive's date and she thinks Olive is stuck up on him and Adam has his own reasoning. And yeah, they get forced into doing "couple stuff" throughout the time they are fake-dating, on campus and they start becoming friends, and you know how it goes.
I screamed. I hope it's not a spoiler but the thing where he pins another guy on the wall and and says 'I will kill you' because he hurt his girl... that happens and it's so HOT! I gave this book a 4 stars. 💙 Heart. It was cliche at times, like the times they get forced to do some stuff, it's painfully forced, although it gives you butterflies, you can't ignore the fact that these things are highly unlikely. I enjoyed this book nonetheless, don't think too much about "how cheesy" some stuff is if you just wanna enjoy. Critically, however, the more I think about it, the less I wanna rate, but let's stick to the original rating for now.
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne
I read this book first time in 2020 and I dnf'd it after 20%, I was having a really hard time handling there sexual tension, because according to 17 year old me, they couldn't go from enemies to lovers in a snap. It repulsed me then. I decided to give it another try this year because many of my favorite Booktubers are still recommending it and the movie came out a while ago, I wanna watch the movie and I refuse to watch it before I have read the thing.
It's too popular for me to have to explain anything about it, but here goes nothing. Lucy and Josh and workplace enemies. Both in the same job position at their merged publishing house, competing for the promotion. They can't stand each other, until they can't stay away from each other.
That's your plot. This book went on and o for me. I spent 12 days reading this book. I don't know me. I finished 5 thicker books in 13 days and take 12 days reading this only. I am not in a reading slump... yet, but I am weirded out. I understood the book better this time around but I didn't feel any connection to it. I couldn't relate to the hype. When you spend 12 days reading a book, I don't think you were really into it. However, the last two chapters, how they get together and we know more about Joshua than him just being a complete jerk, I gave in. I rated this book 3 stars. 💙 Heart. For the record, I watched the movie and it was another classic case of movie << book.
Confess and Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
I read Confess before The Hating Game, Ugly Love was the last book of the month. People who love Colleen and her writing, should not be reading this. I thought both these books were terrible. The idea of the book, not so much, but the execution, yes I am talking about Colleen's writing and her characters, it was terrible.
See, I am not a salty person who has never read a romance and just goes in them to say how stupid they were. I have read romance, bad and good. I read her first book (It Ends With Us) back in 2020, and I really liked it. Last year, I read 2 of her books, Verity and November 9, rated both above 3 stars (I regret that rating about November 9 now). I don't go into her books with a negative head space that I won't like them, let's rant some stuff today, infact, I go in so excited that this would be THE book of the year (despite being disappointed every time), come on, the hype!! And then I read these books and I realise, oh shit, she can't write romance. I liked Verity because of the chills, I was against it's romance whole time and It Ends With Us is not a romance, stop saying that. However, these books, Confess and Ugly Love are supposed to be romantic, they are not.
Spoilers ahead
I thought Confess was a stupid book, and since not many people talk about it as heavily, Confess is a known stupid. I rated this book No stars. No Heart. I don't “hate” it, like I would trash talk about it for the rest of my life, but there definitely was not one good thing I could talk about it aside from the idea of the art gallery, which I doubt is authentic.
Now, Ugly Love is of different sorts of bad. It's THE book I won't shut up about how bad it was. It was toxic, shame to all women because it promoted women being ok with being treated like a doormat in the name of love, it promoted so much toxic masculinity. And the behaviour Miles and Rachel were using against their parents was so problematic. I literally had theories about all three characters for their actions, Obsessive Love Disorder being Miles' and being trapped inside a body of 13 with low self esteem being Tate's.
This book was about Tate who moves in with her brother and gets involved with her neighbour and her brother's best friend in a friends with benefits kind of situation. His rules are clear, don't ask about past, expect no future (which is standard codes for fuckbois but both are feeling pretty lusty towards each other, so it works, or doesn't.) Semi-plotline goes about Miles' past relationship, where as soon as he looks at Rachel, when he is 17!, he is like “I am in love with her” “You'Re GOnna Fall IN lOver witH mE RacheL” which I thought was overdramatic, but throughout the book it keeps going on and on and I seriously think he needs to be admitted into torture camps and given electric shocks when someone screams Rachel's name into his ears. It's disturbing and freaks me out. He takes a photo of her on spot and sends it to his friend captioning that she's gonna hold his babies. Their single parents fall in love with each other and obviously only place this could go is them being step brother and sister but despite that, they continue this, do not come clean to their parents about their situation, and in retaliation of their single parents liking each other, they go behind their backs and do all sorts of steamy stuff even when they move in together. This is so messed up and in present, the trauma of his past is affecting him like, he fucks Tate and after that he's like, “Close the door behind you when you leave”. I am telling you, Tate has NO SELF RESPECT. She obviously catches up feelings for him, for whatever reason, like the only time they talked to each other it was about rugs and curtains and everything else it was just sex. He continues to treat her like that, her only argument being “I know how you look at me, so stop telling me that you don't love me” and he keeps reminding her, “it's not happening, I have problems and it's just sex”. They continue to let it happen nevertheless. There's this one instance where he fucks her after the umpteenth time upsetting her (last time he upset her was because he fucked her on their table and after he was done he just went into his room and shut the door, just like that. I mean, even in an only sex arrangement, that's so disrespectful, especially since she feels something for him and he knows it and she cries on the floor thinking what was that, which is reasonable), he latter said sorry about it, no explanations, another reminder of his rules, and this time when he is fucking her , he says Rachel's name (she has no clue who that is, except someone in his past) and she lets him finish and they are both crying and it's disgusting. You get the gist.
It's a book 300 some pages and so toxic and the characters, all of them, have so many issues. I have only rubbed on upper ones, because although I am spoiling stuff for you, it's not all. What actually happens, what gives him trauma and the resolution is the worst part. It's not in a good way. I think this book needed more time, more efforts and a lot less romanticizing, so we could focus on each character's problems, but we shoot all of that under the rug because the main plot is them getting together. I have no clue whatsoever what about this book people like, what about this book do people think is cry worthy, what about this book is romantic, what about the characters do people think is likable or even reasonable to their actions. Why does Tate have such low self respect that as soon as she sees his sexy body she forgets however he treated her, what takes Miles to realise the consequences of his actions, does he realise them at all.. and Rachel. Her only reason was that she was 18 and angry and she felt guilty but since she got to move on, it all was ok, let Miles go to hell, he must have figured something out for himself.
I have so many problems with this book and what it promotes. The writing is bad. That's all I have to say about it, painful.
If you haven't already guessed gave it No stars. No Heart.
That's all the seven books I read in February. I have a few books I am excited to read next month, now that I finally come out of the boundation of reading only romance. I don't know if I would be able to read a lot because with every month exams are coming closer, but one thing is for sure that I am not gonna force myself into reading books that I don't think I will like or books that I don't immediately like within first 100 pages. It only gets worse from there on. I hope you had a good month in reading. I read three books I didn't like at all, 2 books I liked but I can't talk about them a lot because I have a feeling that I liked them in the moment, and if I talk a lot about them, I will jinx it. And 2 books that disappointed me because of my expectations. Let me know what you read and were they any good? Some recommendations would be appreciated as well. I will see you in the next post.
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