September 2022 Book Review
Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover
4/5
This was the third Colleen Hoover book that I read, the first being Verity, second being It Ends With Us. Reminders of Him was so much slower, less intense, and the emotions were drawn out instead of having a rush of adrenaline like the other two brought.
It starts with Kenna, our main character, who has just gotten out of prison for serving time for involuntary manslaughter. Once she gets out, she is back in the same town that her four year old daughter lives in. The daughter that was taken away from her after she gave birth to her in prison. The daughter whose father is why she was in prison to begin with.
Her story, from the get go, is gut-wrenching but, for some reason, it was hard for me to be super interested in her storyline. Who I was interested in though, was Ledger. It was easier to connect with his inner battle of trying to figure out if Kenna was good or not. I admired the way that he stepped up in taking care of Diem, Kenna’s daughter, without even knowing Kenna. He often showed true emotions of what I imagine being a parent feels like.
Reminds of Him is worth a quick read and will probably resonate with some better than others. But, overall, I think this one was lacking. Hoover takes a real, raw, and heavy situation and turns it into a flowy, love story. Where you would expect grit, there is weakness. And when you do get those pops of tenacity they are in the wrong place.
In the end though, I was crying. Not for Kenna, but for Diem, who is a lucky girl to have as many people as she does in her life.
The Maid by Nita Prose
4.5/5
Sometimes, I think, when we read books in a certain order it can affect what we think about them. I read this one after the heavy Reminders of Him. And let me tell you, this one was a light, PG-rated novel that I enjoyed after reading Hoover’s book. With that being said, looking back on the book, it was just “okay.”
Molly is our main character. She works as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel when one day, one of the Hotel’s more frequent guests is found dead by Molly. The story unfolds in a Clue like fashion of checking each suspect off the list as it goes on.
Molly is definitely on the spectrum with what seems to be a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder. Her mother was hardly in the picture growing up so she lived with her Gran and they took care of each other until she passed. Her Gran was the one who guided her through life, mainly with Molly’s issue with social cues. In my original quick review once I was done reading, I thought, “how refreshing to have someone who is a little bit more naive and not jaded.” Then I realized how problematic this was.
No one in the book seems to think or even mention that Molly is on the spectrum. She is just “different and weird.” This especially bothers me when she is the accused murderer and everyone just goes with it as if she has ever exhbibted this type of behavior before.
Thankfully Molly has people in her life that want to help her and probably know that she is autistic even though they never come out and say anything to that effect. This one wraps up in a neat, little bow. It is an easy read that doesn’t require much effort, but after further analysis it is a touch problematic.
I would still recommend this one and you all can decide for yourself how much this aspect about the book bothers you!
The Space Between by Dete Meserve
5/5
The Space Between grabbed my interest from the start. Sarah is an astronomer working for NASA and when she returns home to California from Washington, D.C. she finds that her husband is missing.
This one almost seems like it was going down the Gone Girl road, but it turns away from that quickly. Ultimately, Sarah ends up doing most of the investigating herself.
Sarah and her husband were going through a rough spot in their marriage and before she leaves to go on her trip, she suggests getting a divorce. So, when she returns to find him missing she has major guilt. Obviously your husband going missing is a terrible way to “get back to roots” and the early days to remind you why you fell in love with someone in the first place, but I think that’s what it does for Sarah. So many people lose sight of why they’re even together between kids, work, and growing up and getting older.
There did seem to be some inconsistencies in the story and the end seemed kind of rushed after a drawn out first 10 chapters. Meserve keeps you engaged though throughout the entire story although again, towards the end, it does get a little predictable.
Good read that gives you the warm and fuzzies at the end. Murder, mystery, and love all working together.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
5/5
This one was weird in the best way. I have never really been a fan of time travel in books; it just gets too…weird. But, this one does a great job of keeping it grounded to real life even though you have to make a choice to believe her situation because medically, it just doesn’t really exist.
Nora is a depressed, lonely, could-have-been living alone in London. One night she can’t take it any longer. Her overdose takes her into the Midnight Library where she is able to choose any life or decision that she might have made throughout the years that she had not made in her current life.
This dives deep into all the what-ifs of life and as usual, as these types of books do, shows you that life is not always greener on the other side. Although, there are some life’s that she spends a lot of time in and really likes, she always finds herself back in the Midnight Library.
Personally, this book really helped me through some rough times. Being in my late-twenties, not married, no kids, no big house and seeing the world around me achieve all of these things on a weekly occurrence is hard to watch. Unfortunately, with the help, or demise, of social media, we all get to see the highlights of people’s lives’, thus making you feel like you’re never doing enough. At the end of the day, I have to ask myself, would I really want anything differently than it is right now? The answer is always no. So, all of my choices leading up to where I am right now, were the right choices and even though I wish I would have done some differently, I don’t regret anything I’ve done.
Haig does a fantastic job of bringing you back down to Earth. Creating a story that most likely a lot of people experience and showing you that it isn’t all bad after all.
Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
5/5
Ugh. Hoover does it again. This book…just wow. The emotions it provoked out of me were next level. I realize that it probably won’t be that way for everyone, but this one was special to me.
Tate meets Miles in San Francisco where she moves in with her brother, Corbin, to finish her masters in nursing while also working at a local hospital. Miles is an airline pilot and works for the same airline as Corbin. Tate and Miles don’t necessarily hit it off in the beginning, but one thing is for certain, there is a strong physical attraction between the two. They finally agree to basically be friends with benefits. There is to be no asking about the past or the future. It is to be purely physical between them. This situation, as you can already guess, gets complicated.
Tate finds herself falling for Miles more and more each day. She tells herself she has to quit, that she’s only going to get more hurt in the end. She cannot understand why Miles can’t commit to having a real relationship – something he hasn’t done in 6 years and no one knows why.
Miles has some ugly secrets and an excruciatingly painful past. Love to him is dead. He does not think that he deserves it or is capable of giving it. Towards the end of the story, we finally get to hear Miles’ narrative. It will break you. It will make you feel sad for someone completely fictional. But, here you are crying about it and rooting for him.
As Hoover does so well, this book is a rollercoaster of emotions. It is passion, desire, devastating, and hopeful. It makes me want to read it all over again, right now!
**Shelby meets Ryan. Shelby had just gotten out of an emotionally exhausting four-year relationship. She was not looking for anything. She just wanted to have fun and re-discover her young adult self. Ryan tells Shelby that he is incapable of any more love, that he is not good at it. “Please don’t fall in love with me.”
Shelby, of course, falls harder for Ryan than she has ever fallen for someone before. She wants to spend every moment with Ryan, even if they will never be more than friends or friends with benefits. This is the pain and the unrealistic expectations she puts herself through until she finally decides enough is enough. That this will never amount to anything more than what it is and that she needs to move on. One day, somehow, something clicked with Ryan. He confesses his feelings, he lets himself be and feel love, he continues to be the best boyfriend, partner, and best friend Shelby has ever had.
Shelby loves Ryan.
Ryan loves Shelby.