Today’s post covers the second half of the books I read in June 2021. I shared the first half of the books I read here. My top books of the month can be found here. I also read Love Scenes which I reviewed here and The Seven Day Switch, which I reviewed here. I will be linking up this post with the Show Us Your Books Link Up, and the Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. If you’ve read any of these books or are interested in them, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Title: An Unorthodox Match
Author: Naomi Ragen
Genre: Contemporary Jewish Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, 9/14/21
Source: Library
Why I Read It: Sequel Coming Soon
My Rating: 3 Stars
The publisher contacted me to ask if I wanted to receive and review Naomi Ragen’s new book that comes out in September. It is a sequel to this one, so I decided to get this one from the library first. As it turns out, they sent me copies of both! Unfortunately, this was nowhere near as good as I remember books by Naomi Ragen being when I read them in the past.
“California girl Lola has her life all set up: business degree, handsome fiancé, fast track career, when suddenly, without warning, everything tragically implodes. After years fruitlessly searching for love, marriage, and children, she decides to take the radical step of seeking spirituality and meaning far outside the parameters of modern life in the insular, ultraorthodox enclave of Boro Park, Brooklyn. There, fate brings her to the dysfunctional home of newly-widowed Jacob, a devout Torah scholar, whose life is also in turmoil, and whose small children are aching for the kindness of a womanly touch. While her mother direly predicts she is ruining her life, enslaving herself to a community that is a misogynistic religious cult, Lola’s heart tells her something far more complicated. But it is the shocking and unexpected messages of her new community itself which will finally force her into a deeper understanding of the real choices she now faces and which will ultimately decide her fate.”
This book looks at the Orthodox community in Boro Park and I didn’t think it was portrayed in a way that would make people appreciate the way of life there. The people were shown to be very distrusting and not accepting of outsiders. At the same time, the non religious world is not portrayed well either. There were cringe worthy scenes in which the characters were shown to be racist, ableist, and fatphobic. I was interested in the story of Jacob’s teenage daughter, and I hope she is featured in the sequel. Also addressed in the book were post partum depression and suicide.
Title: It Happened One Summer
Author: Tessa Bailey
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Avon, 7/13/21
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
Spoiled rich girl travels to small town and falls for a grumpy but lovable local – that’s a trope right? In some ways, It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey reminded me of The Simple Wild. Piper is apparently modeled after Alexis from Schitt’s Creek. I only managed to watch maybe two episodes of that show, but I know I’m in the minority with that!
“Piper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father’s dive bar… in Washington. Piper hasn’t even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won’t last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can’t do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be? She’s determined to show her stepfather—and the hot, grumpy local—that she’s more than a pretty face. Except it’s a small town and everywhere she turns, she bumps into Brendan. The fun-loving socialite and the gruff fisherman are polar opposites, but there’s an undeniable attraction simmering between them. Piper doesn’t want any distractions, especially feelings for a man who sails off into the sunset for weeks at a time. Yet as she reconnects with her past and begins to feel at home in Westport, Piper starts to wonder if the cold, glamorous life she knew is what she truly wants. LA is calling her name, but Brendan—and this town full of memories—may have already caught her heart.”
Piper gets into some trouble and her mean step father sends her to the sea side town in the PNW where her father lived and died. He owned a bar and Piper and her sister Hannah take over the mess. Within minutes though, they are cool with the dirt and bugs and get busy cleaning the place out. Brendan is the local fisherman with a dangerous job who can’t help but step in and help out. With only a few clashes and very little teasing and dislike of one another, the two fall in love, and soon after begin the over the top steamy scenes that the author is known for. This was a solid rom com with a slightly predictable but sweet story sprinkled with raunchiness.
Title: Rock The Boat
Author: Beck Dorey-Stein
Genre: Contemporary
Publisher: Dial Press, 6/29/21
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3 Stars
I played the audio while reading much of this book and it helped me get into it (plus it was fun to see some of the editing changes that were added to the audio version). You may have heard of this author from her memoir From The Corner of The Oval, which was about her work as a White House stenographer under Obama, and Rock The Boat is her fiction debut.
“When Kate Campbell’s life in Manhattan suddenly implodes, she is forced to return to Sea Point, the small town full of quirky locals, quaint bungalows, and beautiful beaches where she grew up. She knows she won’t be home for long; she’s got every intention (and a three-point plan) to win back everything she thinks she’s lost. Meanwhile, Miles Hoffman—aka ‘The Prince of Sea Point’—has also returned home to prove to his mother that he’s capable of taking over the family business, and he’s promised to help his childhood best friend, Ziggy Miller, with his own financial struggles at the same time. Kate, Miles, and Ziggy converge in Sea Point as the town faces an identity crisis when a local developer tries to cash in on its potential. The summer swells, and white lies and long-buried secrets prove as corrosive as the salt air, threatening to forever erode not only the bonds between the three friends but also the landscape of the beachside community they call home.”
The beach town in NJ seemed to be Cape May ish. The 30 something main characters relive their teenage years and deal with old resentments they should have been long over. Sadly, this book was not a hit for me. However, if you like reading about older millennials still coming of age, you may like it more than I did. You may have caught in my Instagram stories where I showed an awful mistake claiming that the Lincoln Tunnel goes under the Delaware River. (It goes under the Hudson). Happily, this mistake was fixed in the audio, and therefore the final version.
Title: Survive The Night
Author: Riley Sager
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Dutton, 6/29/21
Source: Publisher via Net Galley
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
Riley Sager is an extremely popular thriller writer and this is his 4th book and my third I’ve read of his. After a slow start, it was a very quick and entertaining read.
“It’s November 1991. Nirvana’s in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer. Josh Baxter, the man behind the wheel, is a virtual stranger to Charlie. They met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to Ohio. Both have good reasons for wanting to get away. For Charlie, it’s guilt and grief over the shocking murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the Campus Killer. For Josh, it’s to help care for his sick father—or so he says. The longer she sits in the passenger seat, the more Charlie notices there’s something suspicious about Josh, from the holes in his story about his father to how he doesn’t want her to see inside the trunk. As they travel an empty, twisty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly anxious Charlie begins to think she’s sharing a car with the Campus Killer. Is Josh truly dangerous? Or is Charlie’s jittery mistrust merely a figment of her movie-fueled imagination? One thing is certain—Charlie has nowhere to run and no way to call for help. Trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse played out on pitch-black roads and in neon-lit parking lots, Charlie knows the only way to win is to survive the night.”
I ended up guessing both of the twists, but I did love the ending of this one!
Title: Accidental
Author: Alex Richards
Genre: YA Contemporary
Publisher: Dutton, 6/29/21
Source: Library Audio App
Why I Read It: Catching up on Net Galley reviews
My Rating: 4 Stars
This book is about gun violence and gun safety. It was at times difficult to listen to and yet a worthwhile read.
“Johanna has had more than enough trauma in her life. She lost her mom in a car accident, and her father went AWOL when Johanna was just a baby. At sixteen, life is steady, boring . . . maybe even stifling, since she’s being raised by her grandparents who never talk about their daughter, her mother Mandy. Then he comes back: Robert Newton, Johanna’s father, bringing memories and pictures of Mandy. But that’s not all he shares. A tragic car accident didn’t kill Mandy–it was Johanna, who at two years old, accidentally shot her own mother with an unsecured gun. Now Johanna has to sort through it all–the return of her absentee father, her grandparents’ lies, her part in her mother’s death. But no one, neither her loyal best friends nor her sweet new boyfriend, can help her forgive them. Most of all, can she ever find a way to forgive herself?”
Johanna was raised by very caring grandparents, who hid the truth from her to protect her. This made me question whether they were right or wrong to do that, and whether it was her father’s right to tell her after being out of her life so long. Ultimately, she had a lot to process and she was lucky to have some supportive friends as well as a new boyfriend to help her through.
Title: The Charm Offensive
Author: Alison Cochrun
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Atria, 9/7/21
Source: Traveling Book ARC
Why I Read It: It was my turn!
My Rating: 5 Stars
I really enjoyed this story about the behind the scenes of a reality dating show and what happens when the norms of these shows is challenged.
“Dev Deshpande has always believed in fairy tales. So it’s no wonder then that he’s spent his career crafting them on the long-running reality dating show Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star. Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off. As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.”
Dev and Charlie were such a great couple. The LGBTQ and mental health rep was great. I also loved the side characters and would love to see a sequel featuring Daphne’s story!
This concludes my June reads, with 6 books in addition to the ones I covered in previous posts. Overall, in June I read 17 print books, 2 ebooks, and 6 audio books!
Have you read any of these books or do you want to? What have you been reading lately?