Review: Beautiful World, Where Are You

Author: Sally Rooney

Started reading: April 26th 2022

Finished the book: May 19th 2022

Pages: 356

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

Published: September 7th 2021

Source: Ebook

Goodreads score: 3.62

My score:

Synopsis

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still young—but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?

Review: Malibu Rising

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Started reading: March 27th 2022

Finished the book: April 11th 2022

Pages: 365

Genres: Historical Fiction, Contemporary

Published: June 1st 2021

Source: Ebook

Goodreads score: 4.09

My score:

Synopsis

Malibu: August, 1983. It's the day of Nina Riva's annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over-especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames.

But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family's generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Review: Kids of Appetite

Author: David Arnold

Started reading: January 28th 2021

Finished the book: February 24th 2021

Pages: 352

Genres: YA, Contemporary

Published: September 20th 2016

Source: Bookbox

Goodreads score: 4.01

My score:

Synopsis

Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco have a story to tell. It begins with the death of Vic’s father. It ends with the murder of Mad’s uncle. The Hackensack Police Department would very much like to hear it. But in order to tell their story, Vic and Mad must focus on all the chapters in between.

This is a story about:

1. A coded mission to scatter ashes across New Jersey. 2. The momentous nature of the Palisades in winter. 3. One dormant submarine. 4. Two songs about flowers. 5. Being cool in the traditional sense. 6. Sunsets & ice cream & orchards & graveyards. 7. Simultaneous extreme opposites. 8. A narrow escape from a war-torn country. 9. A story collector. 10. How to listen to someone who does not talk. 11. Falling in love with a painting. 12. Falling in love with a song. 13. Falling in love.

Review: Anxious People

Author: Fredrik Backman

Started reading: October 4th 2020

Finished the book: October 20th 2020

Pages: 352

Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Mystery

Published: September 8th 2020

Source: E-book

Goodreads score: 4.36

My score:

Synopsis

This is a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.

Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers slowly begin opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.

As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people.

Review: Echoes Between Us

Author: Katie McGarry

Started reading: August 6th 2020

Finished the book: August 23rd 2020

Pages: 384

Genres: YA, Contemporary

Published: January 14th 2020

Source: Ebook

Goodreads score: 4.18

My score:

Synopsis

Echoes Between Us is bestselling author Katie McGarry’s breakout teen contemporary novel about a girl with everything to lose and the boy who will do anything to save her.

Veronica sees ghosts. More specifically, her mother's ghost. The afterimages of blinding migraines caused by the brain tumor that keeps her on the fringes and consumes her whole life haunt her, even as she wonders if it's something more...

Golden boy Sawyer is handsome and popular, a state champion swimmer, but his adrenaline addiction draws him to Veronica.

A girl with nothing to live for and a boy with everything to lose--can they conquer their demons together?

Review: The Humiliations of Pipi McGee

Author: Beth Vrabel
Started reading: September 14th 2019
Finished the book: September 24th 2019
Pages: 384
Genres: Middle Grade, Contemporary
Published: September 16th 2019
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads score: 4.17
My score:

Synopsis

From her kindergarten self-portrait as a bacon with boobs, to fourth grade when she peed her pants in the library thanks to a stuck zipper to seventh grade where...well, she doesn't talk about seventh grade. Ever.
After hearing the guidance counselor lecturing them on how high school will be a clean slate for everyone, Pipi--fearing that her eight humiliations will follow her into the halls of Northbrook High School--decides to use her last year in middle school to right the wrongs of her early education and save other innocents from the same picked-on, laughed-at fate. Pipi McGee is seeking redemption, but she'll take revenge, too.

Review: The Rosie Result (Don Tillman #3)

Author: Graeme Simsion
Started reading: August 6th 2019
Finished the book: August 9th 2019
Pages: 376
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Published: February 5th 2019
Source: Kindle Copy
Goodreads score: 4.07
My score:

Synopsis

Don and Rosie are back in Melbourne after a decade in New York, and they’re about to face their most important project.

Their son, Hudson, is having trouble at school: his teachers say he isn’t fitting in with the other kids. Meanwhile, Rosie is battling Judas at work, and Don is in hot water after the Genetics Lecture Outrage. The life-contentment graph, recently at its highest point, is curving downwards.For Don Tillman, geneticist and World’s Best Problem-Solver, learning to be a good parent as well as a good partner will require the help of friends old and new.

It will mean letting Hudson make his way in the world, and grappling with awkward truths about his own identity.

And opening a cocktail bar.

Review: The Rosie Effect (Don Tillman #2)

Author: Graeme Simsion
Started reading: June 10th 2019
Finished the book: June 16th 2019
Pages: 368
Published: July 21st 2015
Source: Kindle Copy
Goodreads score: 3.58
My score:

Synopsis
The Wife Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York. But they're about to face a new challenge because - surprise - Rosie is pregnant.

Don sets about learning the protocols of becoming a father, but his unusual research style gets him into trouble with the law. Fortunately his best friend Gene is on hand to offer advice: he's left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie.

As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting Gene and Claudia to reconcile, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his apartment, helping Dave the Baseball Fan save his business, and staying on the right side of Lydia the social worker, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him the most.

Review: The Rosie Project (Don Tillman #1)

Author: Graeme Simsion
Started reading: April 21st 2019
Finished the book: April 26nd 2019
Pages: 305
Published: October 1st 2013
Source: Kindle Copy
Goodreads score: 4.02
My score:

Synopsis
Don Tillman is getting married. He just doesn't know who to yet.But he has designed the Wife Project, using a sixteen-page questionnaire to help him find the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.
Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also fiery and intelligent and beautiful. And on a quest of her own to find her biological father - a search that Don, a professor of genetics, might just be able to help her with.

The Wife Project teaches Don some unexpected things. Why earlobe length is an inadequate predictor of sexual attraction. Why quick-dry clothes aren't appropriate attire in New York. Why he's never been on a second date. And why, despite your best scientific efforts, you don't find love: love finds you.

Review: Smothered

Author: Autumn Chiklis
Started reading: July 29th 2018
Finished the book: August 5th 2018
Pages: 288
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction
Published: August 7th 2018
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads score: 3.67
My score: 

Synopsis
Eloise “Lou” Hansen is graduating from Columbia University summa cum laude, and she's ready to conquer the world. Just a few minor problems: she has no job, no prospects, and she’s moving back into her childhood bedroom. Lou is grimly determined to stick to a rigorous schedule to get a job and get out of her parents’ house. Shelly “Mama Shell” Hansen, on the other hand, is ecstatic, and just as determined to keep her at home. Who else will help her hide her latest binge-shopping purchases from her husband, go to SoulCycle with her, and hold her hand during Botox shots?

Review: The Forgotten Ones

Author: Steena Holmes
Started reading: May 27yh 2018
Finished the book: June 12th 2018
Pages: 345
Genres: Contemporary, Thriller, Mystery
Published: April 1st 2018
Source: Got a digital copy from the publisher
Goodreads score: 4.08
My score:

Synopsis
A spellbinding novel about an unspeakable secret that could destroy a family, from the New York Times bestselling author of Finding Emma.

Elle is a survivor. She’s managed to piece together a solid life from a childhood of broken memories and fairy tales her mom told her to explain away bad dreams. But weekly visits to her mother still fill Elle with a paralyzing fear she can’t explain. It’s just another of so many unanswered questions she grew up with in a family estranged by silence and secrets.

Review: The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Author: Patrick Ness
Started reading: May 3rd 2018
Finished the book: May 7th 2018
Pages: 336
Genres: YA, Fantasy, Contemporary
Published: October 6th 2015
Source: Bought the book
Goodreads score: 3.75
My score: 

Synopsis
What if you aren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?

What if you're like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.

Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week's end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.

Review: Wink Poppy Midnight

Author: April Genevieve Tucholke
Started reading: April 25th 2018
Finished the book: May 1st 2018
Pages: 247
Genres: YA, Mystery, Contemporary
Published: March 22nd 2016
Source: Celebrate Books Box
Goodreads score: 3.32
My score:

Synopsis
Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous.

What really happened?
Someone knows.
Someone is lying.

Review: The Upside of Unrequited

Author: Becky Albertalli
Started reading: January 30th 2018
Finished the book: February 19th 2018
Pages: 336
Genres: YA, Contemporary, LGBT
Published: April 11th 2017
Source: Won the book
Goodreads score: 4.03
My score:

Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.

Review: Out Of Play

Author: Joy Norstrom
Started reading: November 4th 2017
Finished the book: November 12th 2017
Pages: 212
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Published: October 27th 2016
Source: Got a digital copy from the author
Goodreads score: 3.87
My score:

Synopsis
Gillian Campbell is out of patience.

Her husband is choosing his hobby over her. And the hobby in question? Live Action Role-Play, or ‘larp’. Larp involves dressing up as a character (be it medieval knight, banshee or centaur) and participating in imaginary battles for entire weekends.

Gillian is not impressed. She seeks professional advice and is surprised when her therapist encourages her to try larp. Who knows? It may make you smile. It may make you laugh. It may even improve your sex life. How terrible could it be?

Review: Letters to Eloise

Author: Emily Williams
Started reading: September 10th 2017
Finished the book: September 17th 2017
Pages: 293
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction
Published: February 17th 2017
Source: Got a digital copy from the author
Goodreads score: 4.55
My score:

Synopsis
When post-graduate student Flora falls unexpectedly pregnant during her final year studies she hits a huge predicament; continue a recent affair with her handsome but mysterious lecturer who dazzles her with love letters taken from the ancient tale of ‘Abelard and Heloise’, or chase after the past with her estranged first love?
But will either man be there to support her during the turmoil ahead?

Letters to Eloise is the heart wrenching debut epistolary novel by Emily Williams; a love story of misunderstandings, loss, and betrayal but ultimately the incredible bond between mother and child.

Review: We Are All Made of Stars

Author: Rowan Coleman
Started reading: July 23rd 2017
Finished the book: July 24th 2017
Pages: 432
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance
Published: January 28th 2016
Source: Borrowed from library
Goodreads score: 4.09
My score:

Synopsis
Stella Carey has good reason to only work nights at the hospice where she is a nurse. Married to a war veteran who has returned from Afghanistan brutally injured, Stella leaves the house each night as Vincent locks himself away, unable to sleep due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

During her nights at the hospice, Stella writes letters for her patients, detailing their final wishes, thoughts and feelings – from how to use a washing machine, to advice on how to be a good parent – and posts them after their death.
That is until Stella writes one letter that she feels compelled to deliver in time, to give her patient one final chance of redemption...

Review: Holding Up the Universe

Author: Jennifer Niven
Started reading: June 19th 2017
Finished the book: June 21st 2017
Pages: 391
Genres: YA, Romance, Contemporary
Published: October 4th 2016
Source: Borrowed from the library
Goodreads score: 3.94
My score:

Synopsis

Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed “America’s Fattest Teen.” But no one’s taken the time to look past her weight to get to know who she really is. Following her mom’s death, she’s been picking up the pieces in the privacy of her home, dealing with her heartbroken father and her own grief. Now, Libby’s ready: for high school, for new friends, for love, and for every possibility life has to offer. In that moment, I know the part I want to play here at MVB High. I want to be the girl who can do anything.

Everyone thinks they know Jack Masselin, too. Yes, he’s got swagger, but he’s also mastered the impossible art of giving people what they want, of fitting in. What no one knows is that Jack has a newly acquired secret: he can’t recognize faces. Even his own brothers are strangers to him. He’s the guy who can re-engineer and rebuild anything, but he can’t understand what’s going on with the inner workings of his brain. So he tells himself to play it cool: Be charming. Be hilarious. Don’t get too close to anyone.

Until he meets Libby. When the two get tangled up in a cruel high school game—which lands them in group counseling and community service—Libby and Jack are both pissed, and then surprised. Because the more time they spend together, the less alone they feel. Because sometimes when you meet someone, it changes the world, theirs and yours

Review: All the Bright Places

Author: Jennifer Niven
Started reading: May 26th 2017
Finished the book: May 27th 2017
Pages: 378
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, YA
Published: January 6th 2015
Source: Borrowed from library
Goodreads score: 4.20
My score:

Synopsis
A Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

Review: The Otto Digmore Difference (The Otto Digmore Series, #1)

Author: Brent Hartinger
Started reading: May 7th 2017
Finished the book: May 7th 2017
Pages: 174
Genres: Contemporary, LGBT
Published: February 21st 2017
Source: Got a digital copy from the author
Goodreads score: 4.37
My score:

Synopsis
Otto Digmore is a 26-year-old gay guy with dreams of being a successful actor, and he’s finally getting some attention as a result of his supporting role on a struggling sitcom. But he’s also a burn survivor with scars on half his face, and all indications are that he’s just too different to ever find real Hollywood success.
Now he’s up for an amazing new role that could change everything. Problem is, he and his best friend Russel Middlebrook have to drive all the way across the country in order to get to the audition on time. It’s hard to say which is worse: the fact that so many things go wrong, or that Russel, an aspiring screenwriter, keeps comparing their experiences to some kind of road trip movie. There’s also the fact that Otto and Russel were once boyfriends, and Otto is starting to realize that he still might have romantic feelings for his best friend. Just how far will Otto go to get the role, and maybe the guy, of his dreams?

My thoughts

I was so surprised by this book! I was getting in there with no expectations at all actually. The fact that Otto Digmore is 26 years old is a nice change for once. I read books with main-characters who are a lot younger, usually around 16/18 years old. The book is exactly as long as it should be, not too long, not too short, just the right length.

Pros

• Otto: Otto is maybe my #1 favorite male main-character so far! The way he describes his feelings and makes everything feel so relatable is very strong. He is very self-aware and constantly thinking about the way the world sees him and the way he wants them to see him. I can relate with that, since it's one of my characteristics as well.
• Character development: Otto felt like a different person at the end of the book. I love how he is growing as a character, as a person and as a friend to others as well. He is getting so much insight from the different people around him. Utterly clueless at the beginning of the book and more emotionally involved with others at the end.
• References: The references in this book are awesome. The references to different actors, but to movies and series as well. You'll just have to read it to understand what I'm talking about, but it totally felt like something unique and so relatable.
• 1-sitting: I read this book in 1 sitting and it didn't even cost me that much time/energy/effort. It was so much fun and I was kinda sad that the book ended. Lucky for me; this was book 1 in a series!

Cons

Can't think of any, really.

Overall

This was a very relatable story. The book overall was a feel-good story for me. Even though Otto is struggling with himself, his dreams and people around him, I highly recommend this "Road Trip" together with Otto!

Other opinions about this book

"Hits the narrative sweet spot."

- NPR's All Things Considered

"Downright refreshing."

- USA Today

"Touching and realistic... hilarious."

- Kirkus Reviews

Memorable quotes from this book

"I am what I am. Like the truth is what it is. It's not good or bad, it just is. The truth is neutral. We're the ones who decide if something is good or bad."

What book did you read in 1 sitting recently?