Author: Anna (Page 3 of 48)

BOOK REVIEW – The Hook Up (Game On #1) by Kristen Callihan

July 31, 2017 / Anna

The Hook Up (Game On #1)
by Kristen Callihan
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
The rules: no kissing on the mouth, no staying the night, no telling anyone, and above all… No falling in love.

Anna Jones just wants to finish college and figure out her life. Falling for star quarterback Drew Baylor is certainly not on her to do list. Confident and charming, he lives in the limelight and is way too gorgeous for his own good. If only she could ignore his heated stares and stop thinking about doing hot and dirty things with him. Easy right?

Too bad he’s committed to making her break every rule…

Football has been good to Drew. It’s given him recognition, two National Championships, and the Heisman. But what he really craves is sexy yet prickly Anna Jones. Her cutting humor and blatant disregard for his fame turns him on like nothing else. But there’s one problem: she's shut him down. Completely.

That is until a chance encounter leads to the hottest sex of their lives, along with the possibility of something great. Unfortunately, Anna wants it to remain a hook up. Now it’s up to Drew to tempt her with more: more sex, more satisfaction, more time with him. Until she’s truly hooked. It's a good thing Drew knows all about winning.

All’s fair in love and football…Game on.

What I liked
● Drew was surprisingly decent and kinda cute? Can I have a Fuck Yeah?
● The sex scenes were pretty hot, I’ll admit ;
● The characters finally got some layers during the second half ;
● Compared to most new adult novels, the writing was pretty good – not that it’s saying much, because eh, there’s a lot of crap out there.

What I didn’t like
● I’m just gonna warn you that the first 20% are filled with insta-love/lust of epic proportions – prepare yourself to roll your eyes something FIERCE ;
● I’ve read too many romances to stand another Let’s fight and break up for absolutely no reason drama feast – we didn’t go into Anna’s self-esteem issues in depth so it made it very hard to understand her attitude?
● I’m sorry, but Iris and Anna were terrible friends in my opinion, and I never got the impression that they even cared about each other ;
● There was a distinct Not Like Other Girls fuckery going on and I just can’t stand that shit, okay? Anna did say that most women were awesome, though, hence why I didn’t rage ;
● I’ve said that the sex-scenes were hot but unfortunately they were also very repetitive and I might have stifled a yawn several times ;
● This is probably on me and my propensity to read romance novels lately but the you are my home felt so cheesy to me, I couldn’t help but laugh ;
● The plot was really long-winded, so much that I had to check the percentages and frown on a hourly basis?
● I’ll probably forget the whole thing very soon ;
● Actually I think I’ll have a hard time to remember it tomorrow ;
● What am I even talking about right now? Is that a book review?

► Bleh. Go on with your life, you’re not missing anything without The Hook Up. Now I need to read great books because my average rating is a bitch.

BOOK REVIEW – Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson

July 30, 2017 / Anna

Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Divided by time. Ignited by a spark.

Kansas, 2065. Adri has secured a slot as a Colonist—one of the lucky few handpicked to live on Mars. But weeks before launch, she discovers the journal of a girl who lived in her house over a hundred years ago, and is immediately drawn into the mystery surrounding her fate. While Adri knows she must focus on the mission ahead, she becomes captivated by a life that’s been lost in time…and how it might be inextricably tied to her own.

Oklahoma, 1934. Amidst the fear and uncertainty of the Dust Bowl, Catherine fantasizes about her family’s farmhand, and longs for the immortality promised by a professor at a traveling show called the Electric. But as her family’s situation becomes more dire—and the suffocating dust threatens her sister’s life—Catherine must find the courage to sacrifice everything she loves in order to save the one person she loves most.

England, 1919. In the recovery following the First World War, Lenore struggles with her grief for her brother, a fallen British soldier, and plans to sail to America in pursuit of a childhood friend. But even if she makes it that far, will her friend be the person she remembers, and the one who can bring her back to herself?

While their stories spans thousands of miles and multiple generations, Lenore, Catherine, and Adri’s fates are entwined.

4.5 stars rounded up, because genuine tears and laughs are the most precious things, aren’t they? Midnight at the Electric relates several stories entwined, stories about loss and courage and hope and choices. You jump straight into new characters’ lives and you just care instantly and isn’t it baffling? When I see that I can read an entire book without giving a damn whatsoever and that Jodi Lynn Anderson manages to create a connection between her characters and I in the span of 2 pages, I feel awed.

“The longer I live, ” she looked up at the ceiling, “the more I think our big mistakes are not about having bad intentions, but just not paying attention. Just bumbling along, a little self-absorbed.”

I want to label this book as slow and then I don’t, because I’ve noticed that people associate slow and quiet to long and boring and that just won’t do. At no moment did I feel anything but enthralled, yet that’s true that’s Midnight at the Electric isn’t an action-packed novel.

Action-packed, again an adjective that annoys me, because there’s nothing that frustrates me more than trying to explain how futile actions are when it comes to pacing. A novel can be filled with events and a chore to get through all the same. Another – and yes yes yes I’m talking about this beauty – can be one million times more compelling even if it mostly deals with relationships and all that we humans ever feel and dream or fear.

“Lily shrugged. “I think that’s what you say when you can’t have something you want, isn’t it? You say you don’t want it in the first place.”

Above everything, Midnight at the Electric explores the strings that hold ourselves back. Does leaving is breaking them or is that another thing entirely? This question has been at the heart of my early years as an adult, and at 32 now, the only thing I can say is that I’ve found my answer, but that I genuinely believe that there’s no such thing as an universal one. Go and find yours.

Jodi Lynn Anderson‘s writing is stunning in all the ways that count for me, emotional without forcing and filled with these thoughtful moments that ring so true, as Leonore’s definition of grief :

“Sadness is only something that’s part of you. Grief becomes you; it wraps you up and changes you and makes everything – every little thing – different than it was before.”

The quote above is why I’ll always come back to her books, even if the subjects don’t appeal to me at first glance : because I know that in the end, her stories are so full of life that they’ll always contain little parts of me, they’ll always perfectly capture that feeling of possibility, and isn’t that the most magical side of life? I guess they just inspire me, and I can’t say that’s true for many books. I can’t recommend them enough.

BOOK REVIEW – Pretty Face by Lucy Parker

February 20, 2017 / Anna / 0 Comments

Pretty Face (London Celebrities #2)
by Lucy Parker
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Highly acclaimed, award-winning author of Act Like It Lucy Parker returns readers to the London stage with laugh-out-loud wit and plenty of drama

The play's the fling

It's not actress Lily Lamprey's fault that she's all curves and has the kind of voice that can fog up a camera lens. She wants to prove where her real talents lie—and that's not on a casting couch, thank you. When she hears esteemed director Luc Savage is renovating a legendary West End theater for a lofty new production, she knows it could be her chance—if only Luc wasn't so dictatorial, so bad-tempered and so incredibly sexy.

Luc Savage has respect, integrity and experience. He also has it bad for Lily. He'd be willing to dismiss it as a midlife crisis, but this exasperating, irresistible woman is actually a very talented actress. Unfortunately, their romance is not only raising questions about Lily's suddenly rising career, it's threatening Luc's professional reputation. The course of true love never did run smooth. But if they're not careful, it could bring down the curtain on both their careers…

I had written a little bit of a warning at first, stating that I would probably come across as condescending in this review and reaffirming that my aim was not to shame readers for enjoying romance novels I personally want to burn (not Pretty Face!), but then my warning *did* come across as condescending so I guess I CANNOT WIN so let’s write this review okay don’t hate me.

I need to face facts : I’ve not been able to call myself a romance reader for a long time. Those days are long gone, crushed under the weight of eight packs, sexism, instalove, slut-shaming and *secret wounds* (that will only be revealed around 70% because WHERE’S THE FUN OTHERWISE HUH). Also, I’m kind of… cynical? Sometimes? (which is funny for someone born on February 14th, but moving on). If there was a period of my life when I couldn’t stop reading them (you don’t want to know), now… Not so much.

Actually, I haven’t read a contemporary romance since –

*scrolls through shelves*
*scrolls some more*

I got one! October 26th, and, oh, MY, I had forgotten this one!

(never underestimate the bliss of oblivion. Truly. It was a gift)

I’m not even sure it counts, given that I had to DNF it due to a)extreme stupidity, b)girl hate, c)this sentence : “He smiled and I smiled. It was sort of contagious.” Wow, what a dream. *shivers* How can we possibly recover from such nonsense?

I won’t lie, I stopped reading romance novels because I just couldn’t stand them anymore – and this is the moment someone usually walks in to tell me that we choose to be angry about offensive tropes, that we just fucking choose to disconnect from the story we’re reading, that we refuse to let it go and just enjoy it, that we –

I can’t get past slut-shaming in a book, let alone a romance novel. I can’t. Not only because
✔ it’s offensive,
✔ often includes sex-shaming,
✔ polices what women should/shouldn’t wear in public,
✔ contributes to rape culture,
but because it’s lazy storytelling at its best. Yes. It IS. No author who includes slut-shaming in his romance deserves my praise. Period.

Why am I saying it’s lazy? Because see, in Pretty Face (that does not contain slut-shaming in any way) : Lucy Parker‘s story could have derailed a million times.

① Margo, the love interest’s ex, could have so easily been a vapid and hateful woman because of *reasons*. She is not, which means that the author had to actually create a real personality for her, complex and real – the author who uses a stereotypical and damaging portrayal does not. And do not even tell me some women act that way, because that argument doesn’t hold one second : in 90% of romance novels, the exception becomes the norm. Pl-ease. It’s Lazy Writing 101.

② When the male lead expresses sexist bullshit towards the MC, it won’t disappear from my mind later because he’s in love and we must forget and forgive he even said that (because he’s hot, because he’s a man – stereotypes work both ways – because the author couldn’t be bothered to actually deal with this issue) Nope. In Pretty Face , Luc has to actually think about it and deconstruct his biased ~~bullshit~~ narrative. Not lazy, and how so much more interesting.

③ Think about this : a woman meets her new boss who is full of shit when it comes to double standards – and who’s been pretty vocal about how dumb he thinks she is because she’s hot and plays a man-eater in a stupid soap. 90% of the time, said-woman will exchange a few words with (his abs) him and literally decide that they should get married because hot damn she’s obsessed with that little ass and fall in instalove. As a result, we the readers will get no character growth, not an ounce of building up and barely any tension. What’s the point, then? Tension is everything in romance as far as I’m concerned. But fear no more – in Pretty Face , if Lily’s intrigued by Luc, there’s no such thing as instalust or instalove. The treatment of double-standards, sexist stereotypes and, hey, knowing each other will have to come before exchanging iloveyous. It changes everything.

So I’m sorry, but your romances full of girl hate and sexist jerks? It’s not that I choose to not like them.

Of course it’s predictable and somewhat unrealistic at times, but if Pretty Face made me realize something, it’s that I’m pretty lenient with clichés when they’re not offensive : indeed it contains all the scenes you could expect from a romance novel, yet it didn’t annoy me one second. Perhaps that’s because I rarely read them anymore. Or perhaps the writing and the characters were compelling (and funny!) enough for me to root for them and to enjoy these beloved scenes. Icing on the cake, you get a male lead who actually understand the concept of boundaries, who is not a player (that trope gets old) and a MC who isn’t the Ultimate Lamb Who Is Not Like Other Girls. Mind. Blown. Adds a storyline that was actually interesting (and this is coming from someone who don’t like reading about actors for some reason) and you’ll get a fun, feel-good novel that’ll put a smile on your face (and we sure need them). If I had a complaint to address, though, it would be that as far as I know, the whole cast really lacks diversity – all the characters are straight and white – for a story taking place in London, I found it unrealistic, and that’s a pity. And before people say it – it’s not that diversity is a trend, but that diversity should be a given : we’re (fortunately) not living in a full white, straight world, are we?

Little hearts provided by Vecteezy!

*arc provided by Carina Press through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

BOOK REVIEW – Homegoing by Ya Gyasi

January 21, 2017 / Anna

Homegoing Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day.

Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

I can’t help writing about Homegoing for the simple reason that it is BRILLIANT. I don’t even know how many times I fell in love and got my heart broken but DAMN IT WAS WORTH IT.

The truth is though, many readers won’t read it, because of several excuses :

First off : Homegoing deals with slavery, through an incredible family saga. The truth is, I’ve always been wary of sentences like, we already know about this so let’s move on.

Haha.

We see how it goes when people *think* they know enough about History.

Proof #1 – French people rewriting history and stating things like, “we fought in 1940 so fuck off refugees!”

I’m sorry WHAAAAT? Nope most didn’t. Nope. Stop saying this. STOP. You’re merely showing how uneducated you are. Same with the ones who think that the EU was created solely for fighting the United States. Can you just stop? It’s starting to get embarrassing, Trump.

Proof #2 – Two days ago I’ve read a comment on Facebook stating that “Palestinians were just ARABS who should come back to their country of origin.”

Oh my God school is GREAT. TRY IT.

Proof # 3 – And then you have this :

(you can read her post here)

The disheartening and offensive papers this poor prof had to read show again that what we can be fairly uneducated on subjects we *think* we know, and in my opinion,
1) it’s never too early to start educating people about this and
2) we have to reevaluate what we know fairly often because our self-assessment scale is often broken.

About my first point : of course we’re not going to teach slavery in Kindergarten, BUT children of 8 to 10 can start dealing with these subjects. In my class, for example, I teach the broad lines of triangular trades, according to the National curriculum. Yes, we talk about how Bordeaux and Nantes’s merchants became rich because of it, and at this point, I don’t care if some pupils come from these families. They need to know it even more, because… you don’t get to be proud, guys. You don’t. I don’t care about fake patriotism. It’s unhealthy to create some phantasmagoric history of your country. It always is. I think that one of the worst misunderstandings these days is that bullshit that makes people say that you are being unpatriotic if you point your country’s flaws and horrors. It’s the opposite, guys. I am being patriotic when I talk about the French involvement in slavery. I am, because I am trying to make my country better in the future. By hiding behind fake news and rewritten history, you are not. You are missing the point entirely, because what you’re so proud of isn’t your country but merely a fake, dangerous and empty shell.

Then there comes the compelling excuse. “I’m not reading that serious book of yours, I’m here for the entertainment, ha!” You know what though? Homegoing is compelling and enthralling, I fell in love twenty times, my heart constantly breaking itself then healing then breaking then – the FEELS. .

So. Let’s sum it up.
1. You’re gonna fall in love and ship the fuck out of some of them and care and she manages to do that in 20 pages EVERY FUCKING TIME. Brilliant.
2. You’re gonna be captivated and forget everything that is not these characters.
3. The FEELS. Prepare your heart because WOW OKAY? I felt so offended and furious and despaired and FULL.
4. You’ll be a little further from an ignorant jerk. IN OUR WORLD THAT COUNTS.
5. It’s an ownvoice novel.
6. The writing is perfect did I say that????

Tell me now why you shouldn’t read this book.

Fucking tell me.

RELEASE DAY POST – Fearless Flying by Karen Gordon

November 3, 2016 / Anna

I am so happy to announce the release of Karen Gordon‘s new romance novel, Fearless Flying!

About the Book

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000040_00005]

An amazing job, check

An adorable apartment, check

A super supportive best friend, check

There’s only one thing missing from Vivienne Ramsey’s perfect life…

And after ten years of waiting the time is finally right for her to seduce her dream man. Tonight she’s going to wear Danny out in bed until he dies a happy man. But before she can begin her carefully crafted strategy of seduction he’s headed for the door. And for once in her over-organized life Vivienne doesn’t have a back-up plan.

If he had only read the memo about his part in her happily-ever-after.

So… Want my early thoughts? The truth is, I started it yesterday and I wish I could read ALL DAY but life’s a bitch and I have to, you know, work. ANYWAY, look out for my review next week because if you’ve followed my romance experiment, you know that it gave me more fails than wins… (yes, that’s an understatement!) One might say that I’m hard to please in romance … The thing is, I CANNOT love a novel oozing slut-shaming and sexism through every page, and unfortunately most of them are FULL of this kind of infuriating (and damaging) stereotypes… Good news though, from what I read of Fearless Flying so far, I’m pleasantly surprised 🙂 CAN I HAVE A FUCK YEAH?!

Author Bio

karen-gordon Karen Gordon is an indie author who loves supporting strong and sexy women in fiction and in real life.

Born and raised in St. Charles, Missouri, she found her love of extraordinary stories about ordinary
places by finding excitement in mundane suburbia. Although she currently writes romance and chick lit, you never know what she might do next. (You’ll never find a woman-hating, bad-boy hero though.)

She currently lives with the loves of her life, three very cool geeky men and one perfect puppy, just outside of Memphis, TN.

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