Jenni from the book

We're back with the first book blog post of 2023! It's taken me a lot longer than I would've liked because I've been battling my way through one of the worst reads of all time (see book 5 for the full scathing review). But we've made it, and so here I am, sharing my thoughts (and potentially a few spoilers) on the last 5 books I've read.

Every time I rate a book on goodreads, I have to google their rating system to remind myself of the scale, as it’s kind of confusing. While 3 stars out of 5 would normally mean average, on goodreads it means ‘I liked it’, whereas 2 stars means ‘it was ok’ (ie average). So this book got 2 stars from me because there’s no other way to sum it up; it was ok. Eight perfect hours tells the story of when Noelle met Sam; a chance encounter during a blizzard which turns into 8 hours spent together before the road reopens. They chat, they laugh, they share secrets, they share something else? But American-based Sam is heading home when Noelle meets him, so she thinks she’ll never see him again. Little did she know that fate had other ideas, and she finds herself bumping into him over and over again. But is there a larger power at play, and is there another reason that these two souls were destined to come together? So straight off the bat, I didn’t like the idea of falling in love with someone in eight hours. It’s all way too unrealistic; that’s one working day! But I tried to keep an open mind as I started this book and did find myself enjoying parts of it. I liked the writing style and I could feel that the author had put effort into the plot and the character development. The problem was that effort doesn’t equal greatness, and unfortunately every aspect of this book fell a little short for me. I enjoyed that Noelle had some depth; a tragic past and a demanding life and the feeling of the weight of the world on her shoulders. But I failed to believe that a tragic, non-familial, loss at the age of 17 would still have such an enormous effect on your life in your mid thirties, and I wanted to shake her for the way she pandered to her anxious mum and layabout brother. I also enjoyed the heavy subjects woven in like post-natal depression, anxiety following health struggles and the way that loss changes you. But non of them were handled with enough tact or care, and everything felt very surface level. Like the effort had clearly been put in to develop Noelle's best friend, Charlie's character, who may seem like she has the perfect life with her own business, dreamy husband and perfect new baby. But underneath, she's struggling with post-natal depression. Effort, right? But then her post-natal depression was completely cured after Noelle takes her baby out for one walk! Effort perhaps, but the execution and follow-up was poor. The main problem with the book for me though was the central storyline; Noelle and Sam's love story. It just didn't click for me. I believed that they were kindred spirits going through very similar situations with their long-term ex-partners, their parents and their pasts. But did I believe they had even an ounce of chemistry or romantic love? Not at all. They seemed more like helpful companions in each other's lives rather than two people who were undeniably supposed to be together. The whole thing just fell very flat. And even as someone who loves the concept of serendipity and fate, these two bumping into each other by chance literally every 5 minutes was simply too much. I did enjoy the journey that Noelle went on personally though. The story of letting go of pain and daring to reach for her dreams, and I liked that her dreams weren't anything too crazy or unbelievable. Noelle's story on its own was kind of nice, but the actual book overall was sorely lacking. So a 2 star, it-was-ok rating was more than fair!

Now this was a good book! Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn have been inseparable since their college swimming days, even with their lives taking them in different directions as they've gotten older. But their shared passion takes a dark turn when Lissa drowns swimming off the coast of the luxury island resort she owns with her husband. Now, as Georgie, Bronwyn and the rest of their friends gather to remember Lissa, the strange circumstances surrounding her disappearance has everyone looking over their shoulders and second guessing all of the other guests on the island. And when Lissa is the only person found dead, it's a race against the clock, and the stormy weather, to escape the island alive. I loved this book! It's told in a mix of chapters from both Georgie and Bronwyn's points of view, and yet you get the sense from the get-go that Georgie is the main character of the story. The most fascinating part for me was how complicated her and Lissa both were. Don't be fooled, this isn't a story of Lissa as a poor sweet victim. It's clear from the start that even her own friends and husband had their fears about what she was capable of, and I loved the dark twists that came up as more of the past was revealed. I did guess the ending, so it wasn't a complete mind-boggler, but it was a good twist nonetheless and one I really enjoyed seeing play out. I also really liked the luxury island setting (it doesn't specify where but it implies The Maldives or Bora Bora type of place) because it flips the idea of paradise on its head. If you're scared there's a murderer among you, suddenly the remoteness and privacy don't seem like such good selling points. I also really liked the writing style and the pace of the story. The author was able to weave in a number of compelling sub plots and narratives without taking away from the main story (like Georgie's fear of commitment or Bronwyn's struggles with balancing motherhood). You got the sense of all of the characters being pretty deep and well developed, even with several main characters to try and convey within a relatively short book. My only small niggle was that there was a lot of descriptions about swimming, which was fine at first but became a bit too in-depth (pardon the pun). It got to the point where it didn't feel like we needed to know certain things and the added description didn't give you anything as a reader. But overall, this was really well written. The ending actually had 2 twists (both of which I guessed), but the second is definitely the one to hold out for. It meant that right up until the last page, this book kept you wanting more.

Who doesn't love a classic rom-com brought into the modern day? I hate you I love you was a reimagination of You've got Mail, where instead of rival bookshop owners, they're rival lawyers, and instead of online email buddies, they're twitter confidants. Victoria is a brilliant lawyer who's worked incredibly hard to pull herself up form the money struggles she came from. Owen is also a brilliant lawyer, but his motivations are to make the world a better place, given that he's never had to worry about money in his whole life. Right from the second she first beats him in court, Victoria and Owen are bitter rivals, each believing the other is the opposite of everything they stand for. Luckily, they each have an anonymous online friend who they can vent to and who just totally gets them. Obviously, it turns out that the real identity of their online friend is their real-life enemy. But who doesn't love an enemy-to-lovers story right? Well, even though I do love the genre and all its tropes, this one didn't pull it off overly successfully. Mainly because the enemies element wasn't really there. The blurb said they have a one night stand and then struggle to deal with their growing attraction. But I assumed there would be a big build-up to those things. It's literally where chapter one begins. And they don't so much have a one night stand, as they do begin a casual relationship. There's not much 'fighting' the attraction, put it that way. So the enemies vibe never quite comes through, meaning that what we're then dealing with is two people having a situationship in real life, and a super close friendship online (unbeknown to them). Having said that, I did still enjoy this book. Even though the main premise of the book falls short, the writing style and character development were really good. I felt like both Victoria and Owen were really deep characters with a lot to say, and I liked the way their bond felt like it grew pretty organically. The storyline was obviously predictable (not least because it was a re-write of something we all know and love), but it didn't necessarily make it unenjoyable. Sometimes there's pleasure in knowing how something turns out. The only thing that did make the story annoying is that it was a classic example of how the whole main conflict could've been solved with a quick conversation. There's so many romcoms (in particular) where the only source of plot development is a mix up or a miscommunication and this was a frustrating example of that. But for a fluffy holiday read, this was a pretty good book.

This book was a little different for me; a little mellow, a little soft, a little quiet. Something that felt targeted at women maybe twice my age. But I really ended up loving it! I had my reservations about Graeme Simsion (he triumphed with The Rosie Project and has majorly flopped with everything he's written since) but with the addition of Anne Bust as co-author, this one was another triumph. Two steps Forward is the story of two perfect strangers, who both find themselves semi-spontaneously walking the centuries-old Camino pilgrimage from France to Spain. They both have different motivations for walking it, and different weights that they carry with them as they walk. Zoe, an artist from California, has impulsively decided to walk it after the death of her husband. With no money and nothing better to do, she sets out with none of the right gear, and no idea, but she has fanciful thoughts about finding herself and some solace along the way. Someone who has no such romantic thoughts is Martin, an English engineer. He's walking the pilgrimage for practical reasons; to road test a cart of his own design with the hope of taking it to market when he's done. But with plenty of emotional baggage of his own (including a messy divorce and a somewhat estranged relationship with his teenage daughter), it isn't long before the magic of the Camino starts to work on him too. Starting the journey in the same French town, these two strangers quickly find their journeys, and stories, becoming intertwined. They certainly don't think much of each other at first, but as they begin to grow closer, they realise there's more to the other person, and to themselves than they ever cared to notice. With plenty of picture-painting, colourful side characters and comical misunderstandings, it's set to be a journey for the ages. And when the pilgrimage is done, what exactly are each of them going to find at the finish line? So, like I say, a much quieter and softer read than I normally choose. It was also (perhaps ironically) a book more about the journey than the destination. Although there was the romance element to it, it wasn't a book you felt was waiting for the happily ever after. There was real enjoyment in the journey that each of these complex, damaged and compelling characters went on and you were really rooting for each of them, separately and together. I mean, for two people in their middle age, you'd think they'd be more emotionally intelligent. They both took an awfully long time to come to some realisations that you as a reader could see almost straight away. And their communication and ability to read a situation was next to zero! Although, as a reader that bit was quite fun. It held an interesting lesson about making judgments and how the way you experience something can be completely the opposite to how someone else does. I loved the way authors wrote two sides of the same story all the way through actually, not only int he scenes where Zoe and Martin are together, but also in all the funny coincidental ways their paths cross without them realising. A few reviews I read said they felt the story was too bogged down in detail but that was actually what I loved most. The vivid picture of the Camino and the experience that they shared on it was what took this from an average later-in-life rom-com to a rich story full of surprises. Plus, I love travel so I was obviously bound to enjoy all the parts about the towns, the sites, the food and all the rest of it. Did it make me want to walk the nearly 1,000 miles that they did? Not quite. But it did make the journey sound a whole lot more magical than I'd have thought before.

I NEED to stop being fooled by Sophie Kinsella. That's it, I'm absolutely not falling for any of her terrible, primary school level writing ever again. I will never again be fooled by the interesting blurbs and packs of worshipping fans. She is a terrible author. And the only reason I read this one after hating the last of hers that I read is because I'd already bought it (unfortunately). The trouble is that she wraps up her terrible stories and terrible characters and terrible writing style in the most alluring of plots. The blurbs always sound great, and I wish she would switch careers to synopsis writing, and then pass her ideas to other (better) authors instead of mangling them herself every time. Like the blurb for this book, Love your life, set the scene of Ava, a hopeless romantic who still believes in true love and fate, rather than dating apps and their algorithms. She feels like the universe is proving her right when she goes to Italy on a writers retreat and falls head over heels in love with her perfect man, Matt. Embarking on a whirlwind affair, the two of them get lost in their baggage-free holiday bubble and despite not even knowing each other's real names (or much else for that matter), they're sure they're made for each other. But when they return to London, they're forced to return to reality with a thud. From annoying habits, to diet, to lifestyle, to career paths, they quickly find out they not only don't have much in common, but they are complete opposites. As the tensions grow and problems seem to be unfolding quicker than they're resolved, Ava and Matt start to question, even though they love each other, can they love each others lives? See? Sounds like an interesting question of what it really means to love each other and what successful relationships are built on. Is it about compatibility, chemistry, passion? But no, that interesting question was entirely lost behind every insufferable character in this wretched book. Ava was naive, whiny, obsessed with her friends and her dog (like weirdly). incapable of finishing anything, weirdly unrealistic and living in a fantasy world, completely hysterical half the time and the worst example of a female character I think I've ever read. I mean, Matt wasn't much better. He was sort of serious and clipped and exasperated all the time, but he wasn't downright irritating like Ava and all her friends were. The most infuriating part of this book was that Ava and Matt's relationship wasn't failing because of their differences. Opposites attract, that's well known. Having different tastes in art, or one of you being vegetarian and the other not, does not a failed relationship make. But essentially, they agreed to continue to try and live in the bubble they'd met in. So they agreed to not tell each other about their pasts or past relationships, they agreed to have a maximum limit on questions they could ask each other, and neither of them were ever truthful about the other one. It was so weird. Like if you were in love with someone in real life, and you found you hated their taste in books, wouldn't you just say? Maybe tease them about it a little. But instead, there was this approach from both to plaster on a smile and pretend everything was amaaazing all the time. So then the tension obviously came from having to lie and fake stuff, rather than the difference itself. Which essentially turned the whole plot into a house of cards! Big differences break relationships apart, yes (like religion, or wanting children, or where you want to live), but things like one of you using Whatsapp more than the other would like, or having a cold bedroom? I've never heard anything so ridiculous. The book briefly picked up for me when they broke up, and each went on a journey of self discovery. In the laziest way possible, might I add; the author just did a '6 months later' chapter *yawn*. But I thought this book might at least have a meaningful ending to make up for the rest of it. Something about what the relationship taught them and how people come into your lives for a reason and how just because you don't end up with someone, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be grateful for them. But no. Another terrible and lazy move; they ended up together (spoiler alert, but at this point who cares). Now, I'm not saying that the differences they had would mean they shouldn't end up together. Aside from the terrible communication skills and complete lack of honesty between them, I never actually felt or sensed any real connection between them! No love, no passion, no nothing. And if the premise of not being able to love their lives was weak, the loving each other felt even weaker. A nothing book that I truly wasted my time on, hopefully so that you don't have to.