Jenni from the book

I'm really trying to reduce my screen time at the moment and so I'm largely swapping out watching one more episode with reading instead. I've always loved reading and I love when I have these bursts of passion for it again. It certainly helps when the current book is a fabulous one. Although to be honest, this has been a mixed bag. It started terribly, gradually got better and then plateaued at the end - prepare yourself for spoilers up ahead.

Ali Hazelwood books are usually my guilty pleasure. She writes extremely loveable women-in-STEM characters, who fall in love with the type of unrealistic men that only exist in romance novels, in a totally cheesy but grin-inducing clichéd rom-com way. You don't read one of her books for a groundbreaking plot or a realistic love story. You read them because they're fun and reminiscent of an early noughties chick flick. HOWEVER. Her latest offering, Love, Theoretically was nothing short of a car crash. It promised a Pretty Woman-esque tale of crossed wires and electric sparks and it just came across as one giant political commentary from the author about how hard it is to work in STEM, with a side of a controlling crazy guy wrapped up in a pretty package.

Elsie is a theoretical physicist by day, and a fake girlfriend by night. Well, she didn't go into science for the money, and fake girlfriending helps her make ends meet while she's hating every second of the teaching-instead-of-tenure impasse her career is at. Besides, her personality is uniquely suited to being a fake girlfriend. She's an incurable people pleaser and prides herself on being able to adapt herself to everyone she meets, presenting them with the most sparkly version of Elsie that she knows they'll like best.

But her carefully crafted gig is threatened to all come crashing down when she finally gets an interview for a prestigious position and she finds that one of the deciding board members is Jack Smith. Not only is he famed for publishing a paper that undermined the entire profession of theoretical physics (and so she naturally hates him), but he's also the brother of her favourite fake girlfriend client. Does she have a sabotage-based war on her hands, or could she be in for an even harder fight; resisting the urge to fall in love?

From the synopsis, I expected fun and games between the two of them, as she fought for the position she wanted and he tried to stand in her way, with witty banter and longing looks thrown in for good measure. Add in a layer of complication from the fake girlfriending and maybe him thinking it's real, leading to the delicious taste of simple miscommunication that all rom-coms base their central plot points on. Instead, what I got was an interview process that was done and dusted by about page 20, a fake dating miscommunication that was explained and tied up in a bow about 10 pages after, and no other fake girlfriending anecdotes after that. In other words, the supposed main plot points were totally glossed over and then left. And what remained was just a long commentary on how unfair interview processes in STEM can be, and how favouritism and pre-determinism can be stacked against candidates (especially female ones). Honestly, if I worked in academia myself, I probably would've been like 'I feel so heard'. But for the rest of us? Yawn.

The even more problematic part of this book for me was the central love story. Not only did it lack any kind of tension, build-up or excitement of any other kind, but Jack was a menace. And what's scary is that he's written to be the dream man that any modern woman would want to be with. He's designed to be feminist, honest, empowering and amazing in bed. But for people with higher emotional intelligence; he's controlling, manipulative and a love-bomber (at best). It's scary to me that teenagers would be reading this book and longing for a guy like that! At one point, Elsie says she wants to sleep with him, and he starts badgering her about how to make her come and even when she's clearly uncomfortable with the bluntness of the conversation, he keeps persisting and says he refuses to sleep with her until she can answer the question. Weirdo, much.

Despite all its problems, there were still likeable parts of this book, and I did find it quite addictive reading. Ali Hazelwood just excels at writing loveable female leads I think. She goes a tad too far with picking one or two things and making them their entire personality (this time it was Twilight and cheese) but I can forgive that. Will I read another of hers? The jury is still out on that one.

Another absolutely terrible book that I was choking through to get it done and dusted (once I start a book, I almost never abandon it). This was essentially a desperate cash grab thinly veiled as a novel. I mean, you can hardly blame Coleen Hoover for writing a sequel after It ends with us blew up on TikTok (and then everywhere else). As a business decision, I respect it. It's probably the easiest money she's ever made! As a reader? I absolutely hated it.

I was actually an early discoverer of the original book and read it in early 2018 only a year or so after it came out. I loved it and wrote about it in my Jenni from the book post at the time about what a beautiful and heart-breaking story it was. It made you think, it made you feel, it made you question. It did everything. I came away from reading it with tears absolutely streaming down my face. However, I didn't come away from it wanting a sequel. Why would I? The book wasn't supposed to be the story of Lily and Atlas. It was supposed to be an eye-opening tale of love and abuse in relationships and how tightly the two are often wound together. And it was an ending of strength and bravery and hope. I think that's all I wanted and needed from the ending. SPOILER ALERT: the first book ends with Lily finally finding the strength to leave her abusive husband Ryle after the birth of their daughter, and she then bumps into her first love Atlas in the street, and it kind of hints that maybe there's a way those two may find their way back to each other. It was nice. It was hopeful, it was subtle, it didn't detract from Lily and what she'd been through. It was almost as if the book was never supposed to have a sequel.

So what this abomination of a book did was essentially take an epilogue and stretch it out over 350ish pages in the name of making a bit more money with absolutely no story to tell. The whole book is basically just that Lily has still left Ryle and is continuing to deal with the challenges of co-parenting with him and his anger. And Atlas is still a successful guy who had the worst start in life, who is continuing to try to do the best he can do despite his troubled past. And that's it. The story doesn't go anywhere from there. There are no major plot points, the relationship between Lily and Atlas is accelerated at an often creepy pace, and the author attempts to make up the word count by having Atlas write Lily these insanely long (and just plain insane) letters. Droning on about the past and how much it meant to him and how she saved his life. Honestly, it was like 10-15 years ago, you'd think they'd both have something else to talk about by then. In fact, we never see the two of them talk about anything other than their tough, intertwined past. They don't flirt, they don't joke, they don't play, they don't share any stories of their day or their passions in life. Their only connection is both of them escaping abuse many years ago. And somehow that's a love story I'm supposed to root for?

The book has loads of other problematic and tone deaf elements too to the point where none of it is actually enjoyable to read, and it made me wish more than ever that I didn't have a no-abandoning-books policy. Even if you loved the first book beyond all reason, do not buy this sequel.

Wow this was such a good book, and a nice change of pace for me. I'm being drawn to much darker books lately and this one just jumped right off the shelf to me. Alix Summers is a woman who has it all. A ginormous house, two beautiful children, a successful podcast series, a doting husband. Who cares if she feels slightly bored and like the podcast has gone as far as it can go? And who cares if said doting husband keeps going out on massive benders and staying out all night? Maybe Alix's longing to mix things up is what draws her to Josie Fair. Unassuming and a little odd, the two women first meet on what turns out to be both of their forty fifth birthdays. Alix thinks little of it, until Josie turns up a few days later with a proposition; make her the subject of a new podcast series. Josie claims her life is on the brink of change and wants Alix to document it as she goes. While she finds Josie a little unsettling, she can't resist the temptation of delving into her life and the strange and complicated stories she has to tell. But maybe temptation is there to be resisted after all. Before she knows it, Alix is pulled into a dark web of secrets and as Josie entangles herself in Alix's life and home, Alix finds herself in a true crime podcast of her own. With deadly consequences.

I loved the style of this book. It was essentially told as a Netflix documentary, which was based on a podcast, which was based on the original true events. So you almost got 3 different styles of writing; a documentary where multiple different characters were being interviewed, a podcast script from Josie and Alix' point of view, and a traditional storytelling of the events as they happened. The documentary was supposed to be coming out a few years after the original events, so I liked the jumping around from one timeline to another, one with the gift of hindsight and one with a sense of foreboding.

The author did an amazing job of making Josie super creepy. You often think of creepiness as a look or a vibe, so to capture that just through the written word was really quite something. Alix on the other hand was a really lovable character. Not lovable in the sense of sickly sweet, but lovable in the sense that she felt so real. She felt like a woman that any of us could know in real life; kind and flawed and generous and burdened. Her inner thoughts and the way that the author had her probe her own beliefs about Josie and her husband and the world were really intelligent, and I liked the character arc from the beginning to the end of the book.

With thrillers like this it's really hard to review it without completely giving away all the major spoilers. But I'll essentially say that the book reveals early on that BAD things are going to happen. It presents an interview from the documentary and mentions something like 'before all the killings happened'. So you know off the bat that multiple people will be dying at some point. The fascinating part is that the ending leaves you not knowing what to believe. You're basically presented with 3 or 4 different viewpoints from the Fair family; Josie, her husband Walter and their two daughters, Erin and Roxy, both of whom are now grown up. With themes of paedophilia, grooming, abuse, murder and sociopathy, all contained within this one crazy family, you can start to gain some insight into why the book as a whole, and the ending specifically, is a bit of a headspinner. A headspinner that I would wholeheartedly recommend.

Well, this was a delightful little read. If you're someone who enjoys non-stop thrills and excitement from their books then this one maybe isn't for you. But if you enjoy a light read that's totally transportive and wholesome then you'd probably enjoy this one as much as I did. It's the nineties, e-mail is getting big in workplaces, and capitalist bosses are scared that employees will use it to slack off from work. Cue Lincoln. He is hired as IT security and his job role is very simple; monitor the email security filter and read through any that get flagged for against-company-policy chat. Seeing as Lincoln is an introvert with very little social life, he doesn't mind the boring work or the unsociable hours (even if he had hoped he'd be doing something more exciting). He sticks it out on the basis that the good pay might finally lead to him moving out from his over-bearing mother's house, but he gets more than he bargained for when he falls in love with someone he's never met. 

Beth and Jennifer are work besties and they regularly email back and fourth. While journalism calls for a lot of communication, their emails mostly veer towards what's going on in their love lives, what they're up to at the weekend, and a whole string of sarcastic and dirty jokes. They know that their emails are monitored, but they haven't been caught yet and they're hardly saying anything bad. Lincoln thinks so least of all. When their emails to each other begin to pop up in his 'to be checked' pile, he finds himself fascinated by their sharp wit, their funny anecdotes and their lovely bond. Lincoln knows he should scorn them for using work emails for personal chit chat, but their conversations become entertainment that pass the long hours with very little to do. Soon after, he becomes captivated by Beth and the way she sees the world. And by the time he realises he's falling in love with her, it's too late to let her know how. Can these two star-crossed lovers ever make it IRL?

The reviews on this book are a little mixed, with a lot either loving or hating it. The main criticisms from those who hate it are basically saying it's giving Joe Goldberg from You. Okay, it is a little creepy. Lincoln is able to get access to their inner most thoughts through their emails, and he keeps reading even when he feels he shouldn't. BUT they do know their email is monitored. They shouldn't be having the chats they are, and it is technically Lincoln's job to read through it. I didn't get so much a creepy vibe from him as I did a nosey one, and given the same circumstances I would 100% read it all, so I'm on his side. I think the author went some way to counteract this criticism as she wrote Beth's character a little creepy too, having her follow him around and spy on him after developing a crush. So maybe it's more of a Joe and Love situation?

I really enjoyed the way the book was written though, and everything besides the emails is from Lincoln's point of view. So you get to experience his life, his thoughts, his friends. It was quite nice to have a male lead character like him; under-achieving but sweet and lovable. Normally women are written to be the ones whose dreams didn't get realised, whose lives ended up less than fulfilling. And men who are written this way normally end up bitter or crazy because of it. Having a male protagonist who you were able to root for in small but realistic ways was really nice and while his life was a little boring, his arc and development was very believable and wholesome.

It was also quite skilful how the author got Beth and Jennifer's characters across so strongly through only their emails. It did strike as very unrealistic as to why they would a) know so little about each other, and b) go into such dramatic detail over work email. But obviously for the sake of the book and the writing style, you have to overlook this dash of realism.

I don't know that I really believed in the love story of this book, and the ending of that element felt a little clumsy and strange. For me the real love story was the one that Lincoln had with himself; the way he healed, grew and dared to dream a little bigger.

My mum always likes to buy me books by authors named Jennifer or Jenny, so a lot of the time, that criteria trumps the actual book itself. This one is a great example of a perfectly enjoyable book which if it weren't for the Jennifer author, may not have got read. The blurb tells you it's the story of Sophie Dempsey, a good girl in a family full of crooks and criminals. While her family all love a good scam and like to live dangerously, Sophie is more content living a quiet life and trying to keep her siblings out of trouble. Her and her sister's videography business takes an interesting turn though when instead of being booked for yet another wedding, their sort-of-sister-in-law calls them up to help with a project in her tiny hometown; Temptation. The people of Temptation are all very intrigued by the mystery film people who turn up, none more so than mayor Phineas Tucker. From a long line of Tucker mayors, Phin is also trying to live a quiet life and stay out of trouble with his over ambitious mother. Naturally the two worlds colliding causes friction (of the sexual kind too) and it isn't long before secrets are spilling, scams are afoot, and someone turns up dead. Not so much of the quiet life afterall for Sophie and Phin?

I really don't know how to fairly score or summarise this book. On one hand, I really struggled to get into it. Like for months. I kept picking it up but it just refused to grab me. Then once I was on holiday and forced into my more immersive reading habits, I found myself wanting to inhale it. I guess a holiday is the perfect place for it actually. The writing style is very basic and under developed, the plot kind of moves at a really weird pace which has you questioning if the things in it are really supposed to be happening or not, and there were almost too many storylines all crammed into one so it felt a bit chaotic and confused.

Having said that, the connection between Sophie and Phin was one that I really enjoyed, and each of their personal journeys was really nice. Her putting some demons to bed and finding some peace; him figuring out how to cut the anchor and live more freely. It was a nice meeting in the middle for both of them and actually their love story was quite realistic and lovely. It was the rest of the book where the author went freestyle!

To say the blurb promised blackmail, gossip and murder, it wasn't nearly as exciting as I was expecting. All of those things didn't happen until like page 250, so they were far from the main point of the story. What it actually was was a nice immersive read that really transported you to the town of Temptation (in whatever the hell year the book was supposed to be set) and it was just a very fun read. Take it on holiday with you, and just stick at it if it doesn't grab you right away.