Book Reviews

My Last Duchess

My Last Duchess (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #0.5)

By:

Eloise James

Blurb:

Hugo Wilde, the Duke of Lindow, has a drafty castle, eight naughty children—and no wife. Ophelia, Lady Astley, has a fine house, one well-behaved daughter—and no husband.

Hugo takes one look at Ophelia and loses his heart, but she doesn’t want more children or a castle. She takes one look at him and heads for her carriage.

Desperate to find a duchess, Hugo identifies an appropriate lady to woo. Yet when he meets Ophelia again, the duke realizes that he will marry her, or no one.

Now he faces the greatest challenge of his life.

He must convince Ophelia that their blazing sensuality, his exquisite castle, and his eight charming children add up to a match made in heaven.

When duke finds his duchess, can he win her heart?

Review:

My Last Duchess works as a standalone novella. You don’t have to have read the other books in the series to appreciate it. Just keep in mind that it’s shorter than your standard novel.

Often, with these novellas, there is a lot of fan service to the point where it’s confusing, but that was definitely not the case with My Last Duchess. It was a nice, spicy, love at first sight, romance about the parents of characters we’ve already met. I like those.

Sunshine

Sunshine

By: Robin McKinley

Blurb:

There are places in the world where darkness rules, where it’s unwise to walk. But there hadn’t been any trouble out at the lake for years, and Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts. Vampires never entered her mind.

Until they found her…

Review:

I was at the library recently with a list of books touted as being similar to the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews. Sunshine was on several lists, and it had people I trust raving about it. The library also had it on the shelves. I’m not a huge fan of vampires, but I really, really want to find a new urban fantasy author. So I checked it out.

The book is written from Sunshine’s point of view. She is the narrator of the story and not very reliable. She’s prone to long info dumps, and when action is going on, she gets overwhelmed and doesn’t explain what’s happening very well. It was a stylistic choice that I couldn’t get behind. Things would get exciting, and then there would be pages of world-building. The world created was interesting, but I needed more interaction with people and less mopping around.

Sunshine had a long-term boyfriend that was not super serious, but they would hook up, and it was comfortable. So I hoped that there wouldn’t be any romance between her and the vampire. When she described him as having gray skin and swamp water eyes, I figured I was safe. It also helped that she had to force herself not to pass out in terror for most of the book anytime she was near him. And yet—there was a moment where they almost had sex. It was so random and annoying and nearly had me putting down the book. I have no idea what the point of that scene was, and it felt so out of place.

The world was interesting, and I wouldn’t be opposed to reading more, but this isn’t a series. It ends with an obvious opening for more books and more than a few questions unanswered, but there isn’t anything currently published. I was able to find mention of a book possibly being written, but McKinley’s website is under construction, and I have no idea if or when it will be coming out. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d read it even if it did come out.

2/5

The Trouble with Loving You

The Trouble with Loving You

By: Sajni Patel

Blurb:

Liya Thakkar is a successful biochemical engineer, takeout enthusiast, and happily single woman. The moment she realizes her parents’ latest dinner party is a setup with the man they want her to marry, she’s out the back door in a flash. Imagine her surprise when the same guy shows up at her office a week later — the new lawyer hired to save her struggling company. What’s not surprising: he’s not too thrilled to see her either after that humiliating fiasco.

Jay Shah looks good on paper…and off. Especially if you like that whole gorgeous, charming lawyer-in-a-good-suit thing. He’s also arrogant and infuriating. As their witty office banter turns into late night chats, Liya starts to think he might be the one man who truly accepts her. But falling for each other means exposing their painful pasts. Will Liya keep running, or will she finally give love a real chance?

Review:

***Trigger Warning for sexual assault***

The Trouble with Loving You put me through the wringer. I cried a lot at the end. I love it when a loving family embraces someone not from one. It always gets me.

Liya is a driven woman. She’s earned her MBA and has just been given a promotion that puts her very high up in her company. She has a group of female friends that are supportive and loving. Her family, on the other hand, is a different story. Her father is emotionally and verbally abusive, and her mother is so beaten down that she’s unable to stand up to it. I feel for Liya, her situation is complicated, and you can tell she feels like she’s being torn apart.

Jay has his own issues, but he’s also got the support system of a very loving family. They’ve been through the traumatic death of their father years before and come out stronger on the other side. It’s heartwarming. The way he pursues Liya does at times fight with my enjoyment of making sure consent is acknowledged and that a woman’s answer is taken at her word, but it doesn’t go too far. He’s never domineering, and I only noticed it because most of the newer books I’ve read have been leaning very clear on no being no. Part of that was Liya wanting him to keep asking, even though she would never have admitted it. She had high walls built up, and his methods helped bring them down and open her to love.

This was a kind of enemies to lovers romance. Often, the enemies part is too heavy, and it’s difficult to believe that they could overcome their issues and fall in love. That did not happen in The Trouble with Loving You. Liya and Jay had a rough start and didn’t like each other at first. However, they never went hard into the bitter, loathing enemy territory. It made the romance believable and that much sweeter.

The Trouble with Romance was the first book in a series, but I don’t know the series’s name. Goodreads has been pretty poor about getting that information updated, though that might be an issue with the publishers, not with Goodreads. The next book in the series comes out in September, and it’s about a character I’m eager to read. A few of the book characters were married, but there are at least a couple that I hope get their own stories.

4/5

Ready Play Two (Ready Play One #2)

Ready Play Two (Ready Play One #2)

By: Ernest Cline

Blurb:

An unexpected quest. Two worlds at stake. Are you ready?

Days after Oasis founder James Halliday’s contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday’s vault, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the Oasis a thousand times more wondrous, and addictive, than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle and a new quest. A last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who will kill millions to get what he wants. Wade’s life and the future of the Oasis are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.

Review:

Did Cline increase the references, or did Ready Player One really have this many? Holy shit, Ready Player Two was almost unreadable. Every single page was talking about some kind of 80s entertainment. Oh, they need to go to this place because of…cue a two-page explanation about an obscure arcade game. There had to be twenty pages alone on John Hughes movies and at least double that on Prince. The information dumps were at best mildly interesting, but they did not move the story forward. There were supposed to be relationships between characters, and I was meant to believe that Wade and Samantha were still in love, but that part of the story could have filled two pages.

Also, somehow, Wade became an even bigger asshole. The first chapter is you relieving every stupid decision he’s made in the last three years, and he refuses to acknowledge he might have been wrong. Then at the end of the book, he’s supposed to have changed when he experienced memories from a long-dead woman. I just—no.

I truly wanted to like this book. I wanted past me to have enjoyed something good, but after reading Ready Player Two, I can’t even go back to read Ready Player One to see if it’s better.

I could almost get past all of the references if the ending wasn’t just sooooooo bad. He’s spent the entire book learning why it was a bad idea to upgrade the OASIS, even goes so far as to say that he never logged into it again with the ONI system. Yet, he still “steals” the brain scans of all the dead people who’d used an ONI and sent them off into space. He says they struggled with the decision, wondering if they should ask, but decided that it would take too long to get an answer, so they’d do it anyway. Are you fucking kidding me??? He knew it was wrong, but did it anyway because it’s what he wanted to do.

Then magically, Samantha meets him halfway and says that she may have been wrong about her judgments of him, and he says that she was partially right. Then they’re back together again. Basically, Samantha changes completely during a quest that she wasn’t on half of the time.

They all lived happily ever after, having found love again. Even though they still lived in a world on the brink of total collapse that was addicted to their machine. A world that was suffering from extreme overpopulation, but they all had kids. I just—I can’t understand the complete lack of logic and the character’s absolute selfishness. Wade is the definition of a Gary Stu. Which, I normally have no issues with a Mary Sue character, but he is just so damn unlikeable. I can’t think of a single redeeming quality that he has. Yet in his universe, there are now two versions of him, and he’s getting everything he’s ever wanted.

I love the idea of the OASIS, even the ONI, to a degree. However, there is no denying that they’re drug pushers. They’re selling a drug at cost and then doing little to help their addicts. They have unlimited billions, trillions between the four of them, they’re the largest company in the world, and yet they can’t help with climate change? They know that people are being killed when they log into the OASIS using an ONI, yet they provide only a couple of places around the world for protection? They own the company, a company that makes unheard-of amounts of money through micro-transactions. Why can’t they use that money for good? It talks about the charities that the characters have created, but they’re so focused that it leaves out a considerable section of the population. Basically, they are children and make decisions like children. It was frustrating.

I’m giving this two stars instead of one because I was able to read the whole thing. I skimmed a lot, but I did make it through to the end. I’m being generous because of how much I remember loving the first book.

2/5

The Roommate

The Roommate

By: Rosie Danan

Blurb:

House Rules:
Do your own dishes.
Knock before entering the bathroom.
Never look up your roommate online.

The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too much to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true.

After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet…

Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.

Review:

The Roommate is an opposites-attract romance. You’ve got a trust fund debutant whose main goal in life is to make her mother proud by not causing scandal. On the opposite side is a go with the flow porn star who walked away from his family when they didn’t respond well to his career choice. I’m not going to say you can’t get more different than that, but it’s definitely not the couple you expect to happen.

Clara is more than a bit repressed. She has a Ph.D. in art history, has never lived more than an hour away from her mother, and has had a crush on her lifelong friend, Everett. Your introduction to him makes you question all of her decisions cause he’s a selfish dick.

Josh is Clara’s surprise roommate. She’s never watched porn and doesn’t find out that he’s a porn star until someone else points it out. He’s been floating through life and has a bit of an inferiority complex that he hides with his career choice. I appreciated that he didn’t come from a bad home environment. The Roommate was very sex-positive and pro-sex worker. None of them were painted as damaged. They were smart and comfortable with themselves and their sexuality.

I expected there to be an indecent proposal situation, and there were definitely moments that bordered on that, but for the most part, the relationship was almost a love-at-first-sight storyline. Sex played a huge role in the story, but the romance between them was sweet. There were lustful thoughts and gazes, but there were just as many, if not more, instances where they were cooking or talking about action movies and life.

I enjoyed The Roommate a lot. It followed a book that I really loved, so the fact that I liked it so much says nothing but good things about The Roommate. Goodreads doesn’t have this set up as a series, but looking at the author’s page, it seems like a sequel is being published in a couple of months. There were several characters that I felt could have their own book, so that makes me happy.

4/5