This month’s reading recap is a touch short. Hot off of a bad reading slump, I eased back into reading more consistently and managed to read four pretty good books!
The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest – Took me forever and a day to get through this book. Partially because life was lifing but also because the book pacing felt slow. The Neighbor Favor by Kristina Forest follows Lily Greene, an overwhelmed assistant to a pertinent editor who is stuck in the past at a small press. Lily has dreams of working on children’s books but is stuck editing nonfiction. While her family means well, they want to push her towards a “real” future and to find love by setting her up on blind dates. A lover of fantasy, Lily decides to email the author of one of her favorite fantasy novels to share her love for the story. What she didn’t expect was to hear back from the author, which started an email friendship with N. R. Strickland, the author. The friendship abruptly comes to a close, resulting in Lily getting ghosted, and a year later she’s still hurt.
Nick Brown is finally setting down roots in New York City. After traveling the world working for World Traveler magazine, he gets the opportunity to finally settle in one place when his book gets resold and is set to be republished while he works on the sequel. That’s right, Nick is N.R Strickland and what Lily doesn’t know is that her fine ass neighbor is none other than her email penpal who ghosted her a year prior. Now Lily needs a date to her sister’s wedding and she wants to ask her fine ass neighbor. After a brief run in where Lily has the courage to ask, he declines but she asks him to help her find a date as a favor to her (hence the title). You can already tell where this is going. I thought their romance was cute but again, the pacing of the story overall felt slow. I wasn’t necessarily enticed to continue reading and took long breaks in between. It didn’t fully capture my attention but I did read the whole thing. This is the first book in Kristina Forest’s Greene sisters series, where the next two books are set up later in this novel. Overall, I give this book three stars because while it took me a while to read it, the book was still well written where Lily and Nick were both layered characters that added nuance to their love story
The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce – Read my review here!
Just For The Summer by Abby Jimenez – Just For The Summer is Abby Jimenez’s latest book (available on Kindle Unlimited btw) that starts with a Reddit AITA thread. Justin has a unique experience with relationships where after he dates a woman and they break up, their next partner ends up being their last leading to marriage. It’s happened too many times to be a coincidence so Justin thinks he’s cursed. In his AITA post, he’s asking whether he is the asshole for naming his ugly adopted dog after his friend who ended up dating one of Justin’s former dates and moved in together, leaving him and their pricey lease hanging. Emma, a travelling nurse, read this thread and commiserated with Justin because she also has the same curse. At the suggestion of her friend Maddy, Emma messages Justin to share that they both have that in common and thus begins a harebrained plan to get Emma and Justin the happily ever after everyone else gets after they date them. Their plan: date each other for an agreed upon amount of time and then break up because the next people either of them date will be The One. Easy enough except they didn’t account for real life to get in either of their ways; where their very simple plan to date each other gets complicated once feelings start to swirl and outside factors begin making lasting impacts.
If you’ve read any of Abby Jimenez’s books, then you’ll know this story is going to be full of real life problems and complications that aren’t solved in a chapter. Justin and Emma’s stories are both incredibly nuanced where you can easily get sucked into their stories and piece together how they are the way they are. There’s a bit of drama for both characters, but Emma specifically, that comes to a head and challenges Emma’s entire being. One of the main messages of the story is to choose empathy though Emma is empathetic to a fault. Also, if you’ve read some of Abby Jimenez’s other books, you’ll notice some familiar side characters that pop up in this story and honestly bring the rest of the books full circle – I personally love Easter eggs like this and was shook when I started putting two and two together. Overall, I was easily drawn into the story and wanted to keep reading and reading to find out how their relationship would evolve and what would happen next. That said, I give this one four stars. Check out my reviews for two of Abby Jimenez’s other books Part of Your World and Yours Truly here and here
The Next Best Fling by Gabriella Gamez – Marcela Ortiz has a problem. She’s been secretly pining for her best friend, Ben Young, since college. When Ben drops the bomb that he’s proposing to his longtime girlfriend, Marcela is ready to spiral as now her feelings legit need to stay secret. Faking happiness for the couple, she has to attend their engagement party, which is where she runs into Ben’s brother, Theo. He’s about to confess his feelings to his brother’s fiancée when Marcela stops him and leaves the engagement party with him. Now everyone thinks they’re hooking up, which turns out to be a blessing in disguise; Marcela can help Theo keep his secret while burying her own in a fake relationship with her unrequited love’s brother. What could possibly go wrong? Okay I really wanted to like this story but unfortunately, Marcela and Theo’s chemistry fell flat and hollow to me. I find it hard to believe that two people that are in love with two different people can be into each other that quickly, even if it’s just physically. Despite that, I loved the plus size rep in this book. I identified with Marcela’s insecurities and experiences with men; they’re unfortunately universal for other plus sized baddies. Other than that, I enjoyed the messy drama that unraveled, which helped keep me engaged throughout.
