ARC Review: You Have a Match by Emma Lord

You Have a Match by Emma Lord

Rating: ★★★★★

Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: January 12, 2021
Source: ARC via Netgalley

A new love, a secret sister, and a summer she’ll never forget.

When Abby signs up for a DNA service, it’s mainly to give her friend and secret love interest, Leo, a nudge. After all, she knows who she is already: Avid photographer. Injury-prone tree climber. Best friend to Leo and Connie … although ever since the B.E.I. (Big Embarrassing Incident) with Leo, things have been awkward on that front.

But she didn’t know she’s a younger sister.

When the DNA service reveals Abby has a secret sister, shimmery-haired Instagram star Savannah Tully, it’s hard to believe they’re from the same planet, never mind the same parents—especially considering Savannah, queen of green smoothies, is only a year and a half older than Abby herself.

The logical course of action? Meet up at summer camp (obviously) and figure out why Abby’s parents gave Savvy up for adoption. But there are complications: Savvy is a rigid rule-follower and total narc. Leo is the camp’s co-chef, putting Abby’s growing feelings for him on blast. And her parents have a secret that threatens to unravel everything.

But part of life is showing up, leaning in, and learning to fit all your awkward pieces together. Because sometimes, the hardest things can also be the best ones.

By this point, you may have noticed that I’m in a bit of a pattern of apologizing at the beginning of my reviews. This review is no exception, because I was approved for this ARC on Netgalley in July of 2020, this book released in January 2021, and here we are in October 2022 and I am finally posting my review. My apologies.

But I loved this book, okay? I think I’d probably love anything Emma Lord writes. I even love her Twitter feed! I love her love of Taylor Swift and fanfiction and her sense of humor. I love the stories she comes up with, her characters, her dialogue, all of it. So the fact that I loved You Have a Match is probably not very surprising.

There’s a lot to love about this book. Emma Lord’s writing style is so… charming. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but her books give me this warm, fuzzy feeling. In this book, family relationships take center stage as our main character finds out through a DNA test that she has a sister she didn’t know about. I’ll do a little digression here and say that I have done a DNA test and, given that I was never that close with my dad’s side of the family, I’m always paranoid that I’m going to find out I have a secret sibling! Up to this point, though, the closest relative I’ve found is a second cousin.

In addition to the whole sister thing, there’s a cute little friends-to-lovers romance on the side. We all know how I feel about those, so that was just a little added bonus.

All in all, You Have a Match is another great book from Emma Lord, and it’s cemented her place on my list of auto-read authors.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the free ARC of You Have a Match in exchange for my honest review.

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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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Have you read Today Tonight Tomorrow? Is it on your TBR?
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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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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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ALC Review: Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

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

A captivating and utterly original fairy tale about a girl cursed to be poisonous to the touch, and who discovers what power might lie in such a curse…

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story.

As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison.

Soraya thought she knew her place in the world, but when her choices lead to consequences she never imagined, she begins to question who she is and who she is becoming…human or demon. Princess or monster.

I finished Girl, Serpent, Thorn almost a week ago and I’m still not entirely sure what I think. The premise was good. It was interesting, engaging, and just dark enough to keep me reading but not make me overwhelmed. The writing is also good. Bashardoust clearly knows her way around words, and the writing was never clunky and the dialogue was never forced.

The problem I had with this book mainly boils down to one thing. This book did not work for me as a standalone. Let’s get one thing straight: there is a lot going on in this book, and it’s only 336 pages. There was not nearly enough room for Bashardoust to develop both the characters and the plot, so events seem to jump around pretty quickly (and often conveniently), and aside from Soraya, very few of the characters feel like real people.

Another issue I had with this book was the romance. This was hyped up to be a great f/f romance, and while, yes, I suppose there is technically a f/f romance to be found here, it’s so minimal that you could blink and miss it. I loved the chemistry between Soraya and her female love interest and just wish it would have been fleshed out a little more. While it’s nice to finally have a YA fantasy novel that doesn’t prioritize romance over action, this romance was such a tiny part of the book that I almost wondered why it was included at all.

As for the audio, I thought the narrator did a great job. I did, as usual, have to listen on 1.75x speed to not fall asleep, but that probably says more about me than about the book.

In the end, if you’re really into YA fantasy and retellings, you might enjoy this.

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