ARC Review: Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Rating: ★★★★☆

Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: July 14, 2020
Source: ARC via Netgalley

The Hating Game meets Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by way of Morgan Matson in this unforgettable romantic comedy about two rival overachievers whose relationship completely transforms over the course of twenty-four hours.

Today, she hates him.

It’s the last day of senior year. Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been bitter rivals for all of high school, clashing on test scores, student council elections, and even gym class pull-up contests. While Rowan, who secretly wants to write romance novels, is anxious about the future, she’d love to beat her infuriating nemesis one last time.

Tonight, she puts up with him.

When Neil is named valedictorian, Rowan has only one chance at victory: Howl, a senior class game that takes them all over Seattle, a farewell tour of the city she loves. But after learning a group of seniors is out to get them, she and Neil reluctantly decide to team up until they’re the last players left—and then they’ll destroy each other.

As Rowan spends more time with Neil, she realizes he’s much more than the awkward linguistics nerd she’s sparred with for the past four years. And, perhaps, this boy she claims to despise might actually be the boy of her dreams.

Tomorrow … maybe she’s already fallen for him.

My sincere apologies to the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for the fact that this review has taken me two years to write. I was approved for this ARC shortly before I took what was supposed to be a brief hiatus from blogging that ended up turning into a two-year break. I figured that I should knock this one out pretty quickly after resuming blogging, and I’m so glad that I did! It took me more than two years to pick up this book but less than 24 hours to finish it.

Today Tonight Tomorrow is everything I love in a YA contemporary. It’s everything I love in a romance novel. It’s everything I love in a book, really, and it’s the first fiction in a long time that I’ve genuinely enjoyed. It’s an enemies-to-lovers romance featuring high school rivals. Both Rowan, our main character, and Neil, our love interest, are fully developed characters that exist completely outside of their relationship to each other. Neil wants to study linguistics, which made me so happy because that’s what I studied in college, and you never see linguists in fiction! We also get a lot of scenes of Rowan not concerning herself with Neil, which is always nice to see in a romance.

My only critique of this book, really, is the fact that Rowan is so into romance novels and yet she falls into the same pitfalls the characters always do when it comes to misunderstandings and miscommunication. I get that she’s a teenager, but if she’s read as many romance novels as she says she has, you’d think there’d be some amount of “hmm, I wonder if this is really what’s going on here.”

Aside from that, though, this book was really fun. It was cute, it was a little steamy, and it was a lot of fun. I’ve already put We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This on hold and I can’t wait to read it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the free ARC of Today Tonight Tomorrow in exchange for my honest review.

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Book Review: Faith by Julie Murphy

Faith by Julie Murphy

Rating: ★★★★☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
Source: Borrowed

From Julie Murphy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dumplin’, comes the first in a two-book origin story of Faith, a groundbreaking, plus-sized superhero from the Valiant Entertainment comics.

Faith Herbert is a pretty regular teen. When she’s not hanging out with her two best friends, Matt and Ches, she’s volunteering at the local animal shelter or obsessing over the long-running teen drama The Grove.

So far, her senior year has been spent trying to sort out her feelings for her maybe-crush Johnny and making plans to stay close to Grandma Lou after graduation. Of course, there’s also that small matter of recently discovering she can fly….

When the fictional world of The Grove crashes into Faith’s reality as the show relocates to her town, she can’t believe it when TV heroine Dakota Ash takes a romantic interest in her.

But her fandom-fueled daydreams aren’t enough to distract Faith from the fact that first animals, then people, have begun to vanish from the town. Only Faith seems able to connect the dots to a new designer drug infiltrating her high school.

But when her investigation puts the people she loves in danger, she will have to confront her hidden past and use her newfound gifts—risking everything to save her friends and beloved town.

I was surprised that after all of the hype that Julie Murphy’s previous books had gotten, I really heard nothing about Faith until it showed up at my library. I’ll read anything this woman writes, so of course I immediately placed a hold on it and waited for my copy to come in.

Like always, Murphy’s writing is really engaging and accessible. I always enjoy reading her books because they’re so comforting to read. I always like her characters and nothing happens in her books that stresses me out too much. Faith was no different.

There was a lot about this book that I really enjoyed, but there were also things that didn’t sit quite right with me. It almost seemed like Faith was deliberately sabotaging her relationships because she was so intent on not telling anyone what was going on in her life. So much drama would have been avoided!

But overall, I did really like this book and I’m curious to learn where this series is going.

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Have you read Faith? Is it on your TBR?
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Mini-Reviews: On a Sunbeam, Goldie Vance Vol. 1, & The Tea Dragon Society

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: October 2, 2018
Source: Borrowed

An epic graphic novel about a girl who travels to the ends of the universe to find a long lost love, from acclaimed author Tillie Walden.

Throughout the deepest reaches of space, a crew rebuilds beautiful and broken-down structures, painstakingly putting the past together. As Mia, the newest member, gets to know her team, the story flashes back to her pivotal year in boarding school, where she fell in love with a mysterious new student. When Mia grows close to her new friends, she reveals her true purpose for joining their ship—to track down her long-lost love.

An inventive world, a breathtaking love story, and stunning art come together in this new work by award-winning artist Tillie Walden.

As I’ve come to expect with Tillie Walden, the art in On a Sunbeam is absolutely stunning. She has such a way with color palettes and using color to highlight emotion. Unfortunately, the art really stole the show, because the plot and characters left a lot to be desired.

The book really felt like 544 pages of really beautiful art with some words added in as an afterthought. Maybe that’s not a completely fair assessment, but I really felt like something was missing from this story. This was still a nice book, but at almost 550 pages, it’s pretty large to be missing a strong story.

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Goldie Vance, Vol. 1 by Hope Larson

Rating: ★★★★☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: October 11, 2016
Source: Borrowed

GOLDIE VANCE IS ON THE CASE

Sixteen-year-old Marigold “Goldie” Vance has an insatiable curiosity. She lives at a Florida resort with her dad, who manages the place, and it’s her dream to one day be the hotel’s in-house detective. When Walter, the current detective, encounters a case he can’t crack, together they utilize her smarts, skills, and connections to solve the mystery…even if it means getting into a drag race, solving puzzles, or chasing a helicopter to do it! 

Goldie Vance was the super cute detective story that I never knew I needed! I picked this one up from Hoopla on a whim and I’m so glad I did. Everything from the setting to the characters to the art was really well-done. My only criticism would be that everything that happened felt really convenient.

I’ve already borrowed the next volume and I’m hoping to read it soon!

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The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill

Rating: ★★★★☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: October 31, 2017
Source: Borrowed

From the award-winning author of Princess Princess Ever After comes The Tea Dragon Society, a charming all-ages book that follows the story of Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, and the people she meets as she becomes entwined in the enchanting world of tea dragons.

After discovering a lost tea dragon in the marketplace, Greta learns about the dying art form of tea dragon care-taking from the kind tea shop owners, Hesekiel and Erik. As she befriends them and their shy ward, Minette, Greta sees how the craft enriches their lives—and eventually her own.

I’d heard a lot about how cute The Tea Dragon Society was, and I have to say, it lived up to the hype. It was just so… nice. It’s very cute and full of casual diversity and characters who accept others just the way they are. And the dragons! These are the cutest little dragons I’ve ever seen in my life and I want one so badly.

This book was great, I just wish that it had been longer and more developed.

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ARC Review: The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune

The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune

Rating: ★★★★☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: July 14, 2020
Source: ARC via Netgalley

Some people are extraordinary. Some are just extra. TJ Klune’s YA debut, The Extraordinaries, is a queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves.

Nick Bell? Not extraordinary. But being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right?

After a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City’s mightiest hero (and Nick’s biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he’ll do it with or without the reluctant help of Seth Gray, Nick’s best friend (and maybe the love of his life).

Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl meets Marissa Meyer’s Renegades in TJ Klune’s YA debut.

 

I have this really bad habit of requesting books on Netgalley without fully reading the synopsis. I just knew that this book had a fun cover, had something to do with superheroes, and was written by T.J. Klune, who I’ve only ever heard good things about. As I was reading, I wrote in my little reading journal “It’s like Renegades meets Fangirl!” and wow… that’s literally in the synopsis. For once, the comparison worked!

First things first, this book was a ton of fun. This was the fun, quirky, nerdy superhero book I never knew I needed. Nick and his friends were great and I absolutely believed in this world where superheroes are real and the police are just exasperated with them. This book almost felt like a movie because it was so descriptive! I could almost see everything playing out in front of me.

I loved how Nick kept trying anything he could think of to make himself an Extraordinary and he never gave up regardless of how many times he failed or how many people told him he was crazy. Also, I thought I knew what was going on with the various superheroes (and villains?) but I did not.

There are at least two major plot points that are hinted at and left open at the end of the book. This was a little bit frustrating for me because I really wanted answers, but now I see that this is going to be a trilogy and things make a little more sense. The next book has no title or cover yet, but it’s set to come out at some point next year. (Do what you will with that information.)

All in all, this was a super fun book and I would definitely recommend it as long as you’re okay with waiting for answers. I would also recommend not taking it seriously, because it’s meant to be a little bit silly.

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ALC Review: The Switch by Beth O’Leary

The Switch by Beth O’Leary

Rating: ★★★★☆
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: April 16, 2020
Source: ALC via Netgalley

Eileen is sick of being 79.
Leena’s tired of life in her twenties.
Maybe it’s time they swapped places…

When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen’s house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She’d like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn’t offer many eligible gentlemen.

Once Leena learns of Eileen’s romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. But with gossiping neighbours and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend with in the city, stepping into one another’s shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected.

Leena learns that a long-distance relationship isn’t as romantic as she hoped it would be, and then there is the annoyingly perfect – and distractingly handsome – school teacher, who keeps showing up to outdo her efforts to impress the local villagers. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, but is her perfect match nearer home than she first thought?

 

In case you hadn’t heard the news, Netgalley now has audiobooks! I was really excited to find Beth O’Leary’s new book available for download and got to listening right away.

First things first, I loved both Eileen and Leena. I could totally relate to Leena’s struggles with a stressful job and a long-distance relationship. I also loved Eileen and I think she’d be such a great grandma to have! Just like with The Flatshare, O’Leary touches on some deeper topics than just swapping lives. Leena’s dealing with grief and there’s a lot of commentary on mental health and healthy relationships.

I really liked both Eileen and Leena’s romances in this book. Both characters ended up with such sweet romances with such great people. I think this book had a great message about finding love and happiness and not just sticking with the same thing (or the same person) because it’s what’s comfortable.

As for the audio, both of the narrators did a great job. I will say that I listened at 1.75x speed, though, because they spoke so slowly! But sped up, it was really easy to listen to this book.

Overall, I’m giving this four stars because although I enjoyed it, I never really had trouble setting it down.

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