Skip to main content

Book 60 - The Love Haters by Katherine Center

Quick read. I really like Katherine Center’s voice. Videographer Katie Vaughn accepts an assignment to create a promo for the Coast Guard highlighting the heroic Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson. Her job is riding on being able to pull off this mission. She’s not at all qualified, and has to quickly learn to swim. Luckily Hutch’s Aunt Rue takes Katie under her wing. Katie gets caught up in lies told by her colleague, Cole (who happens to be Hutch’s brother), and just as she’s getting closer to Hutch the lies implode. 

The book spends a lot of time focusing on self criticism and self love. I like the message, but at times it was a lot of inner dialogue. Katie insists she not someone who’s beautiful but just doesn’t know it, but her former fiancĂ© is a mega star and still pines for her, and Hutch seems smitten right away, so that feels a little hard to believe. I liked Katie’s interactions with her best friend/cousin, Beanie, and her times with Rue’s crew, known as The Gals. It makes me want to take a trip to Key West, too. (7.5)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book 40 - The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

Classic fake-dating trope mixed with The Hating Game. Catalina Martin needs a boyfriend for her sister’s wedding, so the whole family doesn’t look at her with pity. The groom’s brother is her ex, and he’s recently engaged. The only one willing to help is her enemy colleague, Aaron Blackford. Nothing new of overly inventive, although the Spanish flavor was nice. Slow burn and then a fair amount of spice. Aaron seemed to have pretty good people and communication skills once he was fake dating Catalina, so I’m not sure why he didn’t use those skills before to apologize and express his feeling for her. There’s nothing overly memorable about the book, but I enjoyed it. I’ll happily read the next one about Catalina’s best friend. (8)

Book 41 - What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon

There was a lot I really liked about this book. My favorite character, hands down, was the setting of Amsterdam. It certainly made me want to go visit, wander the streets, and eat all the foods. Dani Dorfman and Wouter van Leeuwen fell in love in high school, when he was a foreign exchange student from Amsterdam, staying with Dani’s family in LA. After he returned home, the break up was curt and painful for Dani. For some reason she still decides to move to Amsterdam when a work opportunity arises, and then is determined to figure out a way to stay when the work opportunity falls apart. Dani and Wouter run into each other (literally, which seems to happen a lot in romance novels), and forge a hesitant partnership as Dani needs to find a new apartment after the one she initially had floods, and Wouter has a place for rent. Dani will be booted out of the country if she can’t find a job in 90 days, and Wouter needs to be married to inherit his family’s home. The needs-to-be-married-for-in...

Book 63 - Book Boyfriend by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Jennifer and Scott are work rivals at a publishing company. He scoffs at her favorite fantasy series, so she’s shocked to see him at a week-long fantasy immersion vacation. Enemies to lovers, always fun.  I love this duo’s writing style, like the line about Princess Bride-ing it down a hill and other clever turns of phrases. I’ll read whatever they write just for that. I liked how they incorporated the fantasy world, Elytheum, into the story, even if it was a bit over-the-top and unrealistic. I’m not a big fantasy reader, and I wasn’t sure what a fae is (Google confirms my thought that it’s like a fairy), but I could appreciate how ingrained the series is into Jennifer’s life.  I liked Jennifer and Scott’s interactions, for the most part. I think the biggest flaw is that the only thing really keeping the characters apart is their suspicion and fear. Which got a little repetitive. And Jennifer’s self reflections got a bit tedious for me. All in all it was a cute read. I liked t...