We Are Okay

We Are Okay

By Nina LaCour

Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit and Marin will be forced to face everything that’s been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.

I mostly picked this one because (a) reviews said it was short and (b) it was available at the library - and in fact had been on my TBR list for some time, even though I have no idea when or why I added it.  It's not something I would  normally go for, i.e., it has no plot, and concerns the emotional goings-on of a young teenager who mopes around after several of her family members die. 

It sounds kind of maudlin, but you know, in the way that teens really dig.  The author does a great job of not falling too deeply into that hole, despite the subject matter.  Yes, it does make you cry (even me, who hates sentimental teenagers and found families and other such wholesome activities, and even though I could feel myself starting to cry, and tried to will myself not to fall into the trap).  

It's a profoundly sad book.  The present storyline involves the narrator, Marin, planning for and receiving a visit from her old friend/ex-girlfriend Mabel, from California, during winter break. The past storyline, is pretty much what you think it will be from the outset, i.e., Marin graduates high school, starts getting involved with Mabel, and then her grandfather, with whom Marin has grown up after her mother died surfing, basically commits suicide by walking out to sea, leaving her to find out that he was hoarding all of her mother's memories.  This upsets her, leaving her to flee California like she's wanted for a felony, hence her current hermit-like cocoon at school in New York.  

Mabel's visit gets her to open up, grieve, talk, and begin planning how to exist again, rather than just remain in stasis.  It is, as I mentioned, very light on plot, very heavy on character drama.  The romance with Mabel is more wistful and in the past than an active relationship.  This is one of those books where you kind of read them for the catharsis jolt you get.  Does it feel weird and manipulative? Yes.  Does it prevent you from crying? No. I knew what was coming and I still cried.  

So, is it a good book? It's well written, and contains a decent enough story.  It's a sweet story, and no one is really the villain.  Mabel comes across as inhumanly patient, but aside from that, it's decently realistic, I guess.  For a YA novel.  There was a phase of my life that this would have hit all those synapses, but I'm a little more jaded and less wallow-y now.  I'd still recommend it to any teen girl.

05: A Sapphic Book

 

 

 

The Ex Hex

The Ex Hex 

By Erin Sterling

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.

That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendant of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.

Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.

 This was firmly "fine"! Contemporary romances are not really my thing, although I do keep trying them for some reason, thinking that I'll enjoy them much more than I actually do.  But this one left a more favorable impression than most for me, probably because of the setting and details were just so...comforting.  Not that it was a soothing book, but more like it felt kind of nostalgic, like watching one of those old kids' movies about witches, like Halloweentown or Hocus Pocus, but you know, with some sex in it.  I will say that I think Hocus Pocus's greatest misstep was making Binx a cat for like, the whole movie!  Let's give the tweens something to sigh over!  Between him and Vincent Kartheiser in Masterminds, I had a type.  Look, floppy hair was in back then, I'm not making excuses.

Anyway, for adults who like witches, Rhys is a great update to Thackery Binx.  He's hot, he thinks the heroine walks on water, he's helpful, yada yada yada.  I mean, the characters themselves are not the point.  They're both kind of bland people, unexceptional and unexceptionable, I would say. They don't have a big misunderstanding (although how Rhys broke the betrothal which led to the break up in the first place - was that ever explained? Did I blink and miss it? I feel like that's a story there, right?), they cooperate well in their investigation - such as it is. They acknowledge they're both adults now, nothing but the burden of a long distance relationship is stopping them from banging boots now.  It's nice not to have that heavy angst. It's basically Hocus Pocus for all the ladies who were children when the movie came out.

Like I said, it's the scenery and details which keep you interested. I hate to say it, but I skimmed some of the dialogue between them (and missed some of the sex scenes) because they're just not that exciting when they're not in a haunted house, trying to capture a ghost, or whatnot.  But when they are? That's when the magic happens, haha.  Or at least, the good parts.  More talking cat, more angry tchotchkes, more ghosts and pumpkins and fall weather and pointy hats and burning candles and the color purple!   I will probably read the next one, having forgotten all about this book except that I vaguely liked it, but it's not a real priority. And it'll feel just like some comfortable pyjamas to cozy up into.

Anyway, not thrilling, not terrible, resoundingly "fine!"

 35: A Book with a Constellation on the Cover or in the Title

Trail of Lightning

Trail of Lightning

By Rebecca Roanhorse

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters—and it is up to one young woman to unravel the mysteries of the past before they destroy the future.

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

I had this on my list for SO LONG, and I was excited to read it, I swear, but then I read some mishegas about the author being decried as appropriating Navajo culture and mashing things together, which s a shame, since it doesn't affect the quality of the book, but did, perhaps undeservedly, dampen my enthusiasm. I would describe it as akin to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, in tone and style, and I also fell off that series after just a few books, so who knows but that I wouldn't have gone much further anyway.  

The idea is still very cool, and it sounds like the second book explores the Big Water disaster that resulted in the setting, which sounds cool, but execution-wise, the pieces just didn't gel for me.  It may have been my fault, for assuming, for example, that Neizghání was like a mentor/father figure to her (since he found her at age 16 and taught her how to fight monsters), so the incorporation of her being in love with him and being heartbroken at his departure was weird and never gained my sympathy.  Maybe the first book should have been her fighting monsters with Neizghání, and the ending being his departure.  That seems like it would have had a lot more emotional resonance (plus maybe Coyote's beef with Neizghání would have made more sense). 

Here's an early example: Maggie is sent off to track down a monster which has abducted a little girl.  She finds the monster, but the girl is too far gone to save.  She brings back the girl's head for the family, but then just drops it off at the front of the compound, so we never see the family's reaction to either (a) her "rescue" or (b) their child's head. It's like we have to rush along to the next plot point so fast that we don't have time to explore Maggie's life or her interactions with people.  We've lost out on building that connection.

And I couldn't figure out why she ever trusted Coyote, since she says in the beginning that he's tricked her before.  Without actually knowing their background and previous interactions, her conversations with him just felt like I was missing a bunch of context and subtext. I still don't understand what the point of Coyote's mission to Canyon de Chelly was in the first place.  Was that supposed to lead her to Neizghání sooner?

And I don't get why Kai's death was necessary or useful.  Perhaps there's some part of Navajo lore that would have explained it to me, but why would she assume that Kai would be reborn? Or that Tah would be brought back because of Kai's death?

I really liked the monster hunting at the beginning - the trade sequence, the desperation of the locals and the lost little girl.  But it starts to feel a little underbaked soon after she meets up with Kai.   Without the relationship with either Neizghání or Tah, there's very little emotional underpinning here.  When I should be anticipating her fight with Neizghání with dread, all I feel is confusion that she ever agreed in the first place and disdain for her choices (especially since it's "to the death" and Neizghání... can't... die... right?).  I mean, even if we accept that they had a lover-quality relationship, him leaving her spurs her on in a fight to the death in a cage match? Girl, look at your life. 

I just couldn't get into Maggie's head or heart enough to ride along with her decisions or feelings. It's like listening to a friend who constantly makes bad choices, and eventually you get impatient that you're still hearing this hard luck story all over again. I like the setting, I like the background, I like the details, but the characters lacked depth and the book lacked an emotional hook, for me. 

I don't think I'll be getting the next book in the series. This is certainly more of an episodic series than her other, so the plots are all pretty well tied off, even though we're waiting on Kai's rebirth and there's a looming threat of Neizghání breaking out of the hoops.  But I just didn't want to spend more time with Maggie or the other characters.  

39: An #OwnVoices SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) Book

Girl A

Girl A

By Abigail Dean

She thought she had escaped her past. But there are some things you can’t outrun.

Lex Gracie doesn't want to think about her family. She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents--her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the home into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings--and with the childhood they shared.

What begins as a propulsive tale of escape and survival becomes a gripping psychological family story about the shifting alliances and betrayals of sibling relationships--about the secrets our siblings keep, from themselves and each other. Who have each of these siblings become? How do their memories defy or galvanize Lex's own? As Lex pins each sibling down to agree to her family's final act, she discovers how potent the spell of their shared family mythology is, and who among them remains in its thrall and who has truly broken free.

I 'd like to say I knew what the (or "a", I guess, since both are revealed very closely in time) "twist" was from the very beginning, but if I'm being honest, I could only so far as to say that I was mildly irritated that there were supposedly seven rescued people but only six chapters, and that we skipped Boy C and went from Boy B to Boy D.  Normally that would alert someone that yes, Boy C is missing and therefore probably not alive, but I was like, Hey, maybe I can't count, or keep people straight, and I'm just along for the ride, so take me where thou wilt.  So yeah, I was not really surprised that Boy C was summarily dispatched as soon as we knew his name, although it was honestly heartbreaking to know he'd died the moment we knew who he was.  And the other death twist was also not a huge surprise, although I'd been misled by the conversation about wedding guests, and Girl A's comment that Evie and Delilah didn't get along.  

So if it was meant to be a shock, total failure.  But I'm not really sure what the book was going for - was it going for a meditation on what it takes to survive? Or is it a tragedy about how this family ended up in this situation to begin with? I'm going to assume the author borrowed inspiration liberally from the Turpin case, although the story is set in England (part of it takes place in Blackpool). There's other long term child abuse/imprisonment cases but to be honest, most of them come with a side of sexual abuse too, which was not really present as such in Girl A (there is a fadeout of a punishment and the implication that a wooden stake messes up Lex's ability to have children, soooo...probably present? But also unclear). 

I dunno, the book is a fast read, but because of the present and past framing aspect, it feels like we have trouble striking the right tone.  The present stuff is all about getting approval to make the house into a community center, which isn't exactly scintillating stuff. The climax of this storyline is Lex's realization that Evie died, which, since we're viewing it from her perspective and she doesn't know it (because trauma), can't be used as a build-up of tension, so we're sort of waffling about for a good chunk of story there.  

The past storyline is interesting, but we spend a lot of time on the before aspect of things, and don't get into the Binding Days etc., until the very end (although once we were in that part, I very much did not want to be. I had a dreadful foreboding about the baby, and just did not want to get into that).  It felt weird to be reading this as entertainment, like it just reinforced the feeling that anyone reading this is ghoulish.  The Marsh King's Daughter (and Room for that matter) did a better job, I think, of making this type of story enjoyable (for lack of a better word) by avoiding the POV of the primary victim, and focusing on the child who had a very different perspective. And The Marsh King's Daughter went a step further in making the main character kind of unlikeable too, a product of her environment, but still pretty cold to her mother and other people's problems. 

I think I saw that Dean's intention was to focus on the aftermath sort of, the media and attention and not on the crime itself.  If so, then I think we should have had the revelation about Evie much much earlier in the book. It springs from a decision that the psychologist (Dr. K) makes about Lex's recovery and for better or for worse, informs a lot of Lex's decisions and actions, but it comes too late to do much more than wrap everything up. There's a lot that's held back, I assume because of pacing issues (Noah's life, Ethan's participation in the final beating), that if we're making this a story about the ways these families are failed after the initial media onslaught, doesn't do justice to that aspect. G's chapter deals with this the most, but we spend very little time (if any) on Ethan or Delilah's foster situations, and how they decided to separate the kids versus having them do group sessions together. 

  

Overall, it was engrossing and kept me interested, but after I was done I felt gross and unhappy.  I needed something different right away to wash the taste out. Anyway, this may be stretching it, but the wedding is a focal point of the book, and we have a big scene there, so I'm calling it a party book. Kind of ironic, since this is the last book where you'd think, "I bet there's a party scene!" 

38: A Book Featuring a Party.

Accidentally Engaged

 Accidentally Engaged

By Farah Heron

When it comes to bread, Reena Manji knows exactly what she's doing. She treats her sourdough starters like (somewhat unruly) children. But when it comes to Reena's actual family—and their constant meddling in her life—well, that recipe always ends in disaster.

Now Reena's parents have found her yet another potential Good Muslim Husband. This one has the body of Captain America, a delicious British accent, and lives right across the hall. He's the perfect, mouthwatering temptation . . . and completely ruined by the unwelcome side dish of parental interference.

Reena refuses to marry anyone who works for her father. She won't be attracted to Nadim's sweet charm or gorgeous lopsided smile. That is, until the baking opportunity of a lifetime presents itself: a couples' cooking competition with the prize of her dreams. Reena will do anything to win—even asking Nadim to pretend they're engaged. But when it comes to love, baking your bread doesn't always mean you get to eat it too.

This one wasn't a keeper for me.  It was eh - alright - fine - but I probably won't remember much of it six months from now, and I'm not going back and picking up others in the series. Reena as a heroine is not my cup of tea.  Feeling perpetually harassed by her family and very much the failure she assumes the worst a lot (which, to be fair, is pointed out and addressed in the book) and it's kind of a downer in the book. Instead of celebrating the things she can do well - and I kept thinking she would transition over to a bakery job instead of finance and she just... never even considered it? despite having a food blog and applying for a bread scholarship - she just circles round and round the things she's unhappy about.  It's maybe a more honest approach, but not only is that not really the bread-and-butter of the romance genre, it married very weirdly with some of the more slapstick/cliche aspects of the genre, i.e., the cooking show videos, which seem to exist mainly as a plot device to get Reena and Nadim to realize how cute they are together than have any realism or introduce any real tension or obstacles for our couple.  

And yes, they get married despite knowing each other for all of what, two months (about 95% of which they acknowledged they were lying to each other about significant things)? Some of the belief in a happy ending is the suspension of disbelief about mundane life things, so having a depressed heroine is fine, but trying to pair it with a quickie wedding/elopement that magically solves all problems and it becomes a very hard sell. 

This might just be a personal pet peeve, but I had a very hard time remembering that Nadim had an English accent, even though they mentioned it every other page - they way he's written doesn't sound that English, I guess, which, YMMV, but was an unnecessary distraction. And the way he keeps referring to his being from Africa instead of Tanzania. I don't know any Tanzanians, but that seemed "sus" to me. Yes, I'm trying to pick up the newfangled slang. And the foot fetish! That absolutely did not work for me. Sure, fetishists need love too, but what a thing to introduce. This book takes some weird turns, for sure: foot fancying, orgies (not a joke), green card marriages. 

What did I like about it? Descriptions of food.  There's some recipes in the back that I actually wanted to try, except then I read them and it seemed like more work than I want to do, cooking-wise, at this stage of my life, i.e., I ain't cooking nothing when I got this baby hanging on me. 

I liked that everyone did disclose things (although, geez, what a family of hypocrites) and that even talking about some things that had been very hurtful (Reena telling her sister Saira that Saira's anti-fat screed had kiboshed her own book deal and blog) didn't wind up with people falling into each other's arm - which is also the case in real life when you tell someone you've been holding a grudge against them for months and months. 

Overall, I would have preferred something where the main characters are a little more self-confident, a little more adult, and a little less unnecessarily complicating things for themselves. I did think this quote was both amusing and a perfect summary of that: 

"Anderson, before we film the segment, Nadim and I have a confession. We weren't really engaged when we entered the contest." She explained everything, their parents setting them up, their refusal to be married, and the fake engagement to enter the contest.

Anderson frowned. "So you're not really married?"

"Yeah, we're married now, but we weren't engaged when we made the videos," Nadim said.

"So you weren't a couple back then?"

"No, we were a couple." Reena said. "Just not engaged."

Anderson shrugged. "You guys are making this more complicated than it needs to be. Your parents set you up, you were a couple, and now you're married. Sounds like you were engaged to me. I'd like to start in five minutes. Are you ready?"

18 - A Romance Novel by a BIPOC Author

 

 

Vassa in the Night

Vassa in the Night

By Sarah Porter

 

When Vassa’s stepsister sends her out to buy lightbulbs in the middle of the night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters―and sometimes innocent shoppers as well.

But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and ferocious cunning. With Erg’s help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch’s curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won’t be playing fair….

I really wanted to like this one, but almost from the beginning I found myself disenchanted with it.  Part of my problem I think, is that the author assumes more familiarity with the original Russian folk tale than I had.  Even though we had flashbacks to Vassa's mother, father, Babs/Bea's relationship and Picnic and Pangolin, none of them really explained what was going on with the BY franchises, why Babs and Bea weren't friends (or how they'd become friends in the first place, and what kinds of powers each had), or how Vassa fit into the continuation of these events from the past.  Erg, the doll, tied Vassa to the magical world, but also, Erg was where Vassa put her own feelings in when her mother died? So, then, if the Erg feelings are absorbed back into Vassa, does that mean that Vassa is no longer drawn to the magical world? Because that's the reverse of how those things usually work: you have to become a complete person before your magic works correctly is a time-honored trope of the genre.  And for good reason!  It makes sense, unlike this book.

Characters just float in and out of the book, and frequently we'll be in the middle of a scene just to cut away and be abruptly transferred to a "night/dream" sequence and never really resolve or wrap up the first scene.  It was very disjointed, and didn't feel intentional.  If it was intentional, great, I hated it.

I also objected to the dialogue and characterization.  Is this chick fifteen? Why does she sound so stilted when talking to people? Why is she so casual about the decapitated people in the bodega parking lot (why is everyone so casual about the decapitated people in the parking lot)? Apparently magic is acknowledged and recognized in this world, but when obviously bad magic is extending night-time and a local franchise is murdering people, uh, the reaction is to watch more tv? Okay, fine, I guess.  But seriously, everyone's frankly ho-hum attitude is a really weird choice to make for the author.  It's like, how serious is this problem? Clearly no one else cares, so why should we?  Even to the point that teenagers are playing games with the store where the potential risk is getting their head (or other parts) cut off?  Everyone's decisions and thought processes in this book are just...confusing.  In a bad way.  

Dexter and Sinister, the disembodied hands for example.  Are they unwilling agents of Babs Yagg? Cooperative villains? Dexter has a change of heart and decides to help Vassa and get itself killed in the process for.. what reason, exactly? Because Babs is mean to him (again)? Or is it because the plot required it?

And there's a lot of people complaining that Vassa didn't actually do much (or anything) herself to solve the tasks given to her, which is also true.  Vassa's primary purpose was going into the store in the first place, and after that... unclear how she derives any character development since she blacks out a lot and the problem gets solved without her involvement.  And frequently, she creates these problems, by having no damn sense.  She see-saws between unbelievable naivety about her situation and the dangers, and some sort of "inner understanding" of all things.

I think there's the germ of a good book in there, but I was pretty disappointed by this one.

 

Normal People

Normal People

By Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

There was such an emphasis on "good" versus "bad" - whether or not Marianne or Connell were "nice".  I understand some of that, to a degree, since it's something I struggle with as well - do my interactions with this person make me nicer, how can I be nicer to people - but there was such a focus on it, it was hard to tell if it was coming from the author or the characters.   There's a point at the end where Marianne thinks about how Connell's life has been shaped by the first fateful decision to sleep together - where he went to school, how he dates people, his attitude - and marvels at the impact they have had on each other.  That's the beauty of Normal People, to narrow in on that piece of astonishing truth. 

One thing that did drive me crazy though: the book is basically shorter sections, generally taking place weeks or months apart, and switching viewpoints between Marianne and Connell.  We'd end one, and then pick up the next, usually halfway through a scene, and then the narrator would flashback at some point to what happened since the last section.  For example, Marianne and Connell would sleep together, and then the next section be them breaking up, and we'd have to flashback to see what happened in the interim.  It's fine to do it, but it felt way overused and got pretty stale by the end. I'd be like, ho hum, here we go again, waiting to see how things got fucked up this time.    

For all that I've been complaining about these contemporary romances involving people jumping into long term commitment, Normal People sure was the antidote to that! The push and pull of the relationship went on for years.  I think though, it was a good pace - nothing felt out of character or surprising, although, I am going to complain that once again, we miss out of some of the most important character development by skipping through long swathes of time towards the end of the book - in this case, both Connell's anxiety/depression treatment, and Marianne's masochistic sex habits.  The ending is optimistic and hopeful, with Marianne basically telling Connell that they'll come together and you do believe her (at least, I did) but it's built on this idea that both Connell and Marianne have matured and know themselves well enough to avoid their earlier pitfalls, and honestly, I'm not sure that foundation is supported enough since we've effectively glossed over both of their "recoveries".  

It's a nice enough book, not going to become a favorite of mine, but well-written.  Now that some time has passed since I finished it, I think my main feeling of the book looking back is "wistful" although that's not something I necessarily thought of while I was in the midst of reading it.  I ended up taking some time off reading "serious" fiction for awhile after this one, I felt like I just needed more lightweight books to lift my serotonin, although, as always, it's the thought provoking and difficult books that inspire me to read more.  Normal People does a good job of narrowing in on a specific phase of some people's lives - let's call it the "college years" - where each relationship becomes a building block of your adulthood and decisions feel like they echo down the rest of your life, and while all this is going on, you make stupid decisions because communication is a learned skill and most people can't do it very well when they're in their early 20s.  A lot of the first half of the book is like that - hurt feelings and missteps because one of them assumes the other's intent or some such, and that felt realistic for the most part, but I can also see where readers might lose patience with characters whose heads are basically up their own butts pretty often.  Perhaps that's why we feel optimistic at the end of the book even though (as I said above) I don't think Rooney covers enough of the critical turning point for readers to believe in the ability of Connell and Marianne to handle a relationship well: it's because we have been there ourselves, and we have done it successfully. 

In a Holidaze

In a Holidaze

By Christina Lauren

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this one, mostly because I wasn't entirely sure if the authors intended us to think that Mae and Andrew were endgame, or if it was supposed to be Mae and Theo.  Look, she made out with Theo in the first chapter, and like, every two or three chapters, someone would say that Theo's been pining after her.  Which, I know, is not an obligation for Mae to end up with him.  But Mae was pining after Andrew, and they ended up together, so what's different? So I spent a lot of time basically waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Without that suspense, I suspect I wouldn't have been so rapt in the book.  It was fine, but had none of the bite that I liked so much from The Unhoneymooners and now I guess I'm just going to chalk that one up as an anomaly, since I haven't really gotten the same enjoyable feel from their others.  

So basically Mae realizes she's in a time loop, decides that it's a sign she's meant to be with Andrew, confesses her feelings to him, they have sex a few times, she tells him she made out with his brother in another time, they fight and make up and everyone forgets (or politely ignores) what a nutcase she was that week when she was insisting she was in a time loop and then six months later she and Andrew get engaged.  I'm like that blinking guy gif.  Whoa, nelly! I mean, maybe you have known each other for the last twenty five years, but I think you could afford to wait more than two months before deciding to get hitched (the proposal took six months, but apparently Andrew asked for permission on their two month anniversary, which isn't eyebrow-raising AT ALL - we don't need to end romances on marriage or babies, it's fine if we take more than a few months to determine if this relationship is going to go the distance).  

I found myself tired of all the traditions - snowman making, tree buying, scavenger hunting, and it wasn't even my twenty-fifth time of doing them.  Maybe it's because I'm not reading this in December, but I was way over the Christmas feeling. 

The Happy Ever After Playlist

The Happy Ever After Playlist

By Abby Jimenez

Two years after losing her fiancé, Sloan Monroe still can't seem to get her life back on track. But one trouble-making pup with a "take me home" look in his eyes is about to change everything. With her new pet by her side, Sloan finally starts to feel more like herself. Then, after weeks of unanswered texts, Tucker's owner reaches out. He's a musician on tour in Australia. And bottom line: He wants Tucker back.

 

Well, Sloan's not about to give up her dog without a fight. But what if this Jason guy really loves Tucker? As their flirty texts turn into long calls, Sloan can't deny a connection. Jason is hot and nice and funny. There's no telling what could happen when they meet in person. The question is: With his music career on the rise, how long will Jason really stick around? And is it possible for Sloan to survive another heartbreak?

 

 I read the first book in this "series", The Friend Zone and really disliked it.  I thought the whole "infertile woman magically makes baby" just completely took the point of that book and wrenched its head off like a daisy.  Up to that point, it was fine, but as of that moment, I basically walked away from it.  To the extent that in this book, haha, I didn't actually remember that these were the same characters here as were in the The Friend Zone, and Sloan's fiance died in that book (in service to the plot device of "life is short, so let's bone").  Which is all to the better, since if I'd known that, I probably wouldn't have picked this one up.

But I did like it!  Well enough, at least.  I found both Sloan and Jason to be kind of unrelatable - Sloan is grief-stricken, yes, but she and Jason both go from 0 to 100 in basically two weeks: from online chatting to deciding to sell your house and travel the road with this guy?  I liked the part where they flirted and texted about the dog, but then as soon as Jason's back on the same continent, they basically ignore the dog and become that couple that drives everyone crazy because they insist on spending every single minute together being self-satisfied with how much in love they are.  That makes it sound like I hated the second part of the book, and I honestly didn't but I also didn't feel that bad when they ran into trouble and Jason decided that he had to sacrifice the relationship so Sloan would take care of herself, and the only way to break up would be by saying he was cheating on her.  That is the sign of people who revel in drama.  It was a little exhausting to read.  And now I'm sort of talking myself out of liking the book! Just break up!  This is not some Bronte novel where the heroine will die of consumption because you left her!  Why the need to salt the earth??

 

All I can say is that Sloan and Jason are characters that you do want nice things for - they both seem decent and hardworking people, who are total a-holes, but by golly, would I be so over them if I was a friend.  I wiped most of Kristen's character out of my mind after The Friend Zone but she's so pushy here, trying to get Sloan to bang her way out of grief that Sloan seems downright levelheaded by comparison.   And this is a person who, as I mentioned before, up and sells her house to tour with a musician after several weeks of dating.  

And not for nothing, but whatever happened to Tucker, the dog? He's basically dropped like a hot potato, and frankly, the explanation for how/why he jumped into Sloan's sun roof ("he's very energetic") was so thin it was transparent.  Justice for Tucker!  

Anyway, obviously this was a vast improvement on The Friend Zone, but still not something I'm planning to return to, nor do I expect to pick up the third, unless, as happened here, I forget about the earlier books and am persuaded by overwhelmingly positive reviews.