Posts Tagged: Cute

Friday, September 27, 2019

Adorable if Lacking Tension: Well Met by Jen DeLuca

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I received this book for free from Berkley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Adorable if Lacking Tension: Well Met by Jen DeLucaWell Met by Jen DeLuca
Published by Berkley on September 3rd, 2019
Genres: Adult, Romance
Source: Berkley
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three-half-stars

All's faire in love and war for two sworn enemies who indulge in a harmless flirtation in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author, Jen DeLuca.

Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him?

The faire is Simon's family legacy and from the start he makes clear he doesn't have time for Emily's lighthearted approach to life, her oddball Shakespeare conspiracy theories, or her endless suggestions for new acts to shake things up. Yet on the faire grounds he becomes a different person, flirting freely with Emily when she's in her revealing wench's costume. But is this attraction real, or just part of the characters they're portraying?

This summer was only ever supposed to be a pit stop on the way to somewhere else for Emily, but soon she can't seem to shake the fantasy of establishing something more with Simon, or a permanent home of her own in Willow Creek.

All I heard was enemies to lovers and Well Met immediately had my attention. I dove in expecting some good banter and cuteness and I definitely got a LOT of cuteness. So, Well Met is truly a bundle of softness and cuteness but I also felt like the plot itself wasn’t always gripping?? No I wasn’t expecting an adventure or murder mystery amidst its pages but I felt like even with the plot revolving around the Renaissance Faire, there wasn’t any amount of urgency or tension in that regard. It sort of just felt like we were gently floating through the happenings of the Faire and everything that came with setting it up and running it through.

The romance itself was adorable but I also felt that it was also missing something?? Well Met is pitched to us as an enemies to lovers so I really really wanted banter but there wasn’t really that much of that? Their dislike of each other doesn’t even seem that well founded and I barely read it as a dislike because it was clear they were lusting after each other. Also, Simon was just mean sometimes and that threw me off a little.

As I got to know the characters better, I warmed up to them and once the Faire was under way and the romance in full swing, I couldn’t help but ship them. Emily stressed me out sometimes with how much she’d take on just to feel wanted/needed but I am glad she got a good character arc that ended with her acknowledging those issues and finding a way to value herself and her time. Once Simon’s backstory was revealed (a sob story), I couldn’t help but like him because that’s WHO I AM. He also had a good character arc that unpacked his issues and let him deal with them in a healthy manner.

Here is the thing about Well Met, I think due to just a general lack of plot tension, it is slow going and I sometimes drifted in and out of the Faire semantics stuff, but once you hit that 50% mark, the slow going doesn’t seem as bad because the romance is a bundle of softness and adorableness. You sort of just end up becoming lost in it and want to absorb the rays of sunshine jumping out of this book. Well Met is the PERFECT summer time read (even if it isn’t technically summer anymore…) The characters, primary and secondary, truly do make this book worth reading and I do hope we get to come back to this world and see a couple more peeps get their happy endings.

three-half-stars

3.5 Hot Espressos

A Delightful Summer Read for Your TBR: The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

Posted by on 05/31/2018 • 3 Comments

I Believe in a Thing Called Love was one of my very few five star reads of last year so I was eagerly anticipating the release of The Way You Make Me Feel. While The Way You Make Me Feel was not a five star read for me, it was still absolutely delightful.

Clara Shin is the class clown. Her life revolves arounds making snarky remarks and pranking her enemies. When her prom prank results in the school almost being burned down, both her and her arch nemesis are suspended. Clara’s dad is able to negotiate a deal that may just be worse. She has to spend the entire summer working on her dad’s food truck with her arch nemesis Rose and use her earnings to pay the school…

Cute But Not Much Else: Cast No Shadow by Nick Tapalansky & Anissa Espinosa

Posted by on 11/29/2017 • 1 Comment

Cast No Shadow was a surprise graphic novel I received but it looked really cute and I couldn’t help but read it right away. Of course, this was some time ago and I am only now getting around to writing the review for the book so forgive me.

Greg has no shadow and is kind of an outcast. One day, he discovers a haunted mansion and ends up falling in love with the resident ghost. Obviously, things get a little complicated and there is some good angst going on there too.

The graphic novel is as cute as it sounds but doesn’t necessarily leave a lasting impression. Not every book I read, or anyone reads, needs to be revolutionary but I think the premise is so unique that I would…

Review: The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Posted by on 10/07/2016 • 8 Comments

I KNOW IT’S TOO EARLY to be reading Christmas-y books but I am already getting into the mood for the holidays and I really wanted to be reunited with Dash & Lily so I READ THE BOOK and it was 100% worth it. Also, to be fair, this book comes out this month so I am allowed to read a christmas-y book in October.

The biggest issue I had with this book (because rarely is a book perfect) is that it was a lot more angsty than the original Dash & Lily. Lily was justified in being angsty but the lack of communication between Dash & Lily was so off-putting given that they had been good at in the first book. If Dash & Lily just talked to each other,…

Review: Frazzled by Booki Vivat

Posted by on 10/05/2016 • 3 Comments

I just started my last-ish year of college and the main character of Frazzled starts middle school in this book yet despite the clear age difference, never has a book been more applicable to my life.

Frazzled is absolutely adorable, quotable and extremely relatable. It’s about many things. Familial relationships, changing friendships and the need to find your “thing”. I think we can all agree that finding your “thing” is not as easy as it seems. It is actually quite stressful and Abbie Wu would agree with you.

Abbie is not at all excited to start middle school (I mean who would be?) because it is “the middle of all middles” and is thus guaranteed to suck. When school starts, she struggles with the change but her friends find…