Reading Update: 10%

 

Hazel is about to turn 30 and feels like she's never truly ever let herself go. So, when she goes to fix a book out of place at the bookstore she works at and sees a highlighted line about going on an adventure, she's going to follow the clue. 

It doesn't hurt that Noah, the hot fisherman, has agreed to go along on her adventures with her. 

I'm about 10% in and the setting feels cozy adorable and the tension with Noah and Hazel both liking each other but thinking they'd never have a chance with the other, has me anticipating all the sweet and sexy moments about to happen on their treasure hunt of clues! 

The Cinnamon Bun Book Store by Laurie Gilmore (Aug. 29th) purchase link

Vegan Pizza Rolls recipe

Review: The States

The States by Norah Woodsey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

What if her days of failure with her family, the monotony at work, and the regret in her peaceful moments were only half her life? 

What if, at night, she could go to Ireland and do all that she wished, without having to face who she had been, or who she had become. 

With the, what might of have been regrets of Jane Austen's Persuasion, a touch of scifi for some speculative fiction flair, and a few elements that reminded me of how I felt about unanswered/left unexplained things in the tv show The Leftovers, The States pulls you into troubled Tildy's life. She's technically an heiress because her family owns a cosmetic empire but that's slowly crumbling as her father makes one bad business decision after another. Knowing her family the way she does, she's the middle child of three girls, she's set up a separate life for herself as a data scientist. When she gets called in by her father for a family meeting, she learns he wants her to give him her shares of the company, sell her grandmother's land in Ireland, and move with the family from New York to Florida. The mention of the land in Ireland drudges up her memories of the childhood love she left behind and we learn why she's so melancholy. 

Someone like him wouldn't want someone like her, she told herself. The someone he knew her to be. 

On the heels of learning that her family is going to have to finally deal with their dwindling funds, she comes across an advertisement for a sleep study, run by an old college friend. With a combination of a drug and a sort of brain wave monitoring skull cap, she'll be able to lucid dream for hours. They're looking to help people with things like PTSD be able to visualize ways to help themselves but Tildy wants to live the life she gave up eight years ago. It's a little tv show Severance but Tildy remembers her dreaming, even if she starts to use it too much and her sense of real and fake starts to erode. 

This was her fifth session, and a sense of menace was now unmistakable. 

At around 350pgs long, this had moments of feeling like it lit fic meandered, Tildy's feelings about not being able to fully turn her back on her family and punishing herself for it when she chose them over her Irish love, start to feel overly mewling and repetitive in her self-flagellation indulgence. A new character gets introduced about halfway through that brings in some more family backstory, with some mystery/thriller vibes and forces Tildy's hand to finally make decisions. The scfi comes in with an AI named “Russell” that was created by her mother, who died, and is supposed to help the family with life, decisions, and, I guess, a way to feel still connected with their mother. It was one of those The Leftover elements that I felt didn't quite get flushed out enough, along with how Tildy starts to use the lucid dreaming machine too much and the dreams start to have a feeling of menace to her. The Persuasion connection is pretty loose and just about Tildy and the boy she left behind in Ireland, Aidan, and how she regrets it and how he made good. 

What if she couldn't tell the truth from the lie any longer? 

This had some slice of life to it, so you're going to have to be ready to sit for more of a long haul. A little into the second half, Tildy starts to grow some backbone and she moves to Ireland and we get her having a little struggle of distinguishing real from the dreams as some fate has her running into Aidan and the friends she'd included in her dreams because of her cyberstalking of him. There was some hinting at possibly some more scifi or fate, as Tildy learns that there was some truth to her dreams. I thought the ending felt a little quick as Tildy suddenly gets decisive after three hundred pages of ineffectual bemoaning; not sure there was enough shown of Tildy building up the strength for this sudden action. Overall, I was captured into Tildy's life but her woe is me attitude was laid on for a long enough time that it did get tiring, the scifi lucid dreaming addition kept me going but some of these elements didn't feel flushed out enough, but the little bit of romance did deliver a pretty sweet ending. This was a little something different story that you're going to have to slow down for, be willing to not get all the answers, but at least give you a little smile at the end.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

Sunday is for eating and reading 

📚🍽 

Tildy volunteers for a lucid dreaming experiment and finds she gets to live out a what might have been life when she regretfully left Ireland years ago. 

Her days are now living the life her family wants, but her nights are her own. 

This is is described as a modern reimaging of Persuasion, so of course, I'm Here For It! (Please tell me there's some kind of The Letter in this) 

The States by Norah Woodsey purchase link

Chicken Sausage Orozo recipe

Reading Update: 50%

"Mama died three years ago," Vanessa replied. "She found the fogs and cold of the winter very trying. The Doctor said she should go to a warmer climate, but it was . . . something which we could not . . . afford." 

"You are poor?" the Marquis enquired.  

Damn, dude! Why do you have to call a girl out like that 😭

And,

"Are they really breathtakingly wonderful?" 

"I am sure you would think so," the Marquis replied.

Gagged!

Review: Phantasma

Phantasma by Kaylie Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Ophelia was now the eldest Grimm. A dead mother made her much more than an orphan. 

Phantasma opens with Ophelia's mother dying in the night, causing Ophelia to hurry and perform a ceremony where she is transferred her mother's magic. Her younger sister Genevieve, has always wanted to leave their family necromancy business behind, resenting how it tied Ophelia to Grimm Manor, their home. However, Ophelia won't turn her back on centuries of family history and intends to take over the business of helping people communicate with the dead. Until bankers show up and suddenly they only have a few weeks to pay off a severely due loan their mother inexplicable took out, before they lose Grimm Manor to the bank. Ophelia senses that Genevieve knows more than she's telling and when she leaves a note saying not to worry and she'll be back in a couple weeks, Ophelia just knows Genevieve has entered Phantasma, a haunted mansion just arrived in New Orleans, and plans on entering herself to find Genevieve. 

For as long as she could remember, the voice had been there, in the darkest corners of her mind, telling her to walk through certain doorways or her entire family would perish. 

This started off with a really cool concept, a traveling haunted mansion run by devils where contestants can enter and try to make it through levels based on the nine Circles of Hell, where if they are the last person standing, they'll receive a Devil's Grant (basically a wish granted). There's explanation of paranormal hierarchy, with Ghosts, Apparitions, Phantoms, Devils, Specters, and the like, which I thought was going to lead to a pretty detailed structured rich world. Ophelia even enters the mansion pretty early, around 15% to get the story rolling right away. However, I kind of found a lot of the elements added to create atmosphere ended up feeling a lot like window-dressing, leaving me ultimately disappointed in the lack of depth. 

The golden bauble had been in her family for generations, enchanted with a powerful magic that bound it to its wearer. 

This takes place in New Orleans but as the vast majority of the story is inside the Phantasma mansion, you won't get the feel for the city. I don't remember the time period being explicitly mentioned but with Ophelia riding in carriages and a motor vehicle being a sensation, along with her dresses and male attire of vests mentioned, it seems like it's supposed to be Victorian era. But the vernacular feels pretty modern, ex. - “I fucked his best friend on the back of a float”, “Who in the unholy fuck is knocking on peoples’ doors this early in the morning?”, and “For fuck’s sake,”. I'm guessing the clothes are Victorian era to help set the Gothic tone this was mentioned as having but Gothic stories are all about atmosphere, usually a big chunk created from the restrictions of the time, and well, language plays a decent part of helping to mesh the time period with the reader and I can't say I felt the Gothic atmosphere at all, the clothes were window-dressing. 

Phantasma. The Devil’s Manor. A place often spoken about in whispered rumors and haunting cautionary tales in the dark. 

The romance comes in when a Phantom named Blackwell, who Ophelia actually met before entering Phantasma, makes a bargain with her, he'll help Ophelia get past the levels if she helps him find a heart and key, what he told her needed to be set free from Phantasma when they first met but can't remember saying. Blackwell has no memory of existing outside of Phantasma but picks someone every time the mansion starts it's games to try and help him get free. A locket Ophelia wears around her neck that has been passed down through generations of women in her family warms when it's around Blackwell and she takes this as sign to trust him. She's also pretty physically attracted to him. You probably can tell where this is leading and a little before the half-way point, we start to get “Good Girl” scenes. The dirty talk was there but the emotion was not for me, there just wasn't enough emotional or relationship depth developed and as such, all those physical scenes may have used the trendy hot words but they were window-dressing and I found my eyes glazing over whenever the clothes came off. 

“Ophelia,” he repeated, tasting every syllable. Her name on his tongue sounded like a wicked prayer. “You are exactly the person I’ve been waiting for.” 

Along with being a lifelong romance fan, I've been a lifelong horror fan, why I was so excited for this but while the levels would occasionally have some gory descriptions of deaths, window-dressing in place of any actually feelings of horror, tension, or fear. This felt more New Adult to me, in regards to maturity of characters and tone and I'd put Christopher Pike books ahead on the feeling horror scale. The levels Ophelia has to complete don't last very long and while we get to know some other contestants and devils, they're more blip on the radar secondary characters. As we raced through the trials when it's time to complete them, lingered on Ophelia wandering through the mansion trying to find what Blackwell's looking for, and hopped from physical scene to physical scene between the two, I felt the middle second half started to feel stretched out. 

A deep sense of dread began to sink into her gut that being within Phantasma wasn’t going to be the thing that broke her. 

The ending really rushed Ophelia's and Genevieve's plot, but delivered on answers. Ophelia learns some family secrets and what Blackwell's story really is, and while it is pretty obvious (I would say blindingly obvious and Ophelia should have realized much sooner) what the answer was to what connects and could solve Blackwell's issue, it was an enjoyable plot thread. Once Ophelia and Blackwell figure out some things, the ending again feels a bit rushed as it jumps to give readers a quick look at where things are and are headed. One element that I thought worked really well and want to mention is Ophelia's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, since this was a paranormal book, I was wondering where this element was headed. Ophelia hears a “Shadow Voice” in her head that causes her to have to do things in threes, otherwise the voice says her family will die. The story showed how this tormented Ophelia and the struggle of how living with such a form of OCD can effect people and I thought how Ophelia battled it showed a care and respect for this aspect of her character. 

While I found a lot of elements to be window-dressing and the romance didn't have the depth to deliver the emotional connection I like to feel from my romance leads, others who like a little descriptive gore without the deep emotional horror feel, trendy dirty talk scenes, and a New Adult vibe, might want to give this lighter horror and romance mash-up a try.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

The dark side has cookies 😈 

Since my weekend read was all about cutesy, going to change it up with some fantasy horror romance 

Ophelia's sister has disappeared. Hoping that the prize of a single wish will help save her, Ophelia enters Phantasma. A haunted mansion that's a maze full of monsters, demons, and temptations. 

When fears threaten to take over, a mysterious stranger named Blackwell offers her a bargain. 

Should she trust him? 

This sounds wildly interesting. As a lifelong horror and romance fan, I'm giddy for this! 

Phantasma by Kaylie Smith preorder (Sept. 3rd) link

Chocolate Chip Cookies recipes

I used half milk chocolate and half dark chocolate for the chips

Review: Tangled Up in You

Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

Still, she was so ready for the change, she could practically taste it. 

Ren's twenty-two but finally about to have her first real world experience, going to college. Raised by parents who lived on a farmstead and off the grid, Ren's found some way to get them to allow her to attend community college classes. When a science course reveals a secret that her parents have been keeping from her, Ren ends up on a road trip with, Fitz, the campus local rich playboy. The trip opens Ren's eyes to all the possibilities life has to offer and the possibility of love. But when her parents find out she's left the state and where she's headed, lies, danger, and love from unexpected places, swirl all around her. 

What a surprising thing you are, he thought. 

Tangled Up in You was an re-imagining from the Disney movie Tangled. Printed by a Disney publishing company, you get a ton of cute pulled characters and moments from the movie, along with some kisses only moments. Ren started off seeming like a Disney princess, talking to animals, but even though she had that sweet naivety, there was still a common sense core that made a better fitting for a real world setting. There were moments that felt a little overly cheesy for the “real world” but I thought most of the story managed to put these characters in a believable New Adult contemporary plot. Fitz was, of course, captured by Ren's long blonde beautiful hair and big green eyes, but his own character issues had him fighting to keep things on the friend level but when the road trip starts, around 25%, they learn more about one another and develop deeper feelings. 

Ren had barely seen anything in the world, and Fitz had already seen too much. 

The road trip had them going on adventures like Mount Rushmore, Wall Drug, and a Nashville festival, getting alternating chapters of Ren and Fitz's point-of-view helped immensely in letting the reader into their thoughts and feelings, making it easier to feel and believe in their growing emotions. They open up to each other and it's easy to see why both would be drawn to the other. When the third act black moment happens, some of it I had called and some was a surprise but it will definitely ramp up the tension. 

He liked her. Too much, in fact. And she liked him, too. He knew she did. But God, this would be so much easier if she didn't. 

The ending delivered danger and high emotion, something that I'm not quite sure fit the more cutesy feeling beginning but it will definitely keep you locked in. If you like golden retriever girlfriends who get their more guarded boyfriends to lighten up and expose their softie side, then you'd definitely enjoy this. The ending danger was a bit jarring but their happily ever after was sweet. I hope Disney commissions more re-imagined stories like this!

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

Why not go into the weekend with a sweet, feel-good romance? 

Ren grew up on a homestead that was off the grid, so when she finally leaves to attend college, she's ready to experience all life has to offer 

Fitz has a plan, he's going to graduate at the top of his class, pass himself off as the rich player everyone thinks he is, and finally get his past criminal record wiped clean. 

But a simple assignment throws these two together, and suddenly they're road tripping and figuring out what really matters in life. 

This sounds sweet, with all the hurts of growing up and finding out who you are 

Tangled Up In You by Christina Lauren 

Spicy Shrimp egg roll in a bowl recipe

I made fries on the side and pour a Guinness for some at home Happy Hour

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Review: The Truth According to Ember

The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

“I’m pretty sure this is a bad idea.” 

The Truth According Ember was a story of what can happen when all those little white lies you told start to add up. Ember is twenty-five years old living paycheck to paycheck after her younger brother skipped out on bail and she lost the money she had saved to continue her college classes. After not even receiving a call for an interview after the umpteenth job application, she and her bestfriend Joanna come up with the idea to check the Caucasian box instead of the Native American one and fudge her credentials a tad bit. Lo and behold, she gets called in for an interview, lands the job and even finds herself soon promoted. However, the lies are starting to snowball and that little interoffice HR rule about not allowing romances, seems more like a suggestion when Ember and the IT guy Danuwoa have chemistry impossible to ignore. 

I was just Ember Lee Cardinal, a sometimes liar, but mostly an overall good person. 

This was all told from Ember's pov and in a way that readers are on her running thoughts ride, this isn't typically my personal favorite writing style. I started to feel it lead to overly describing on focuses I didn't care about anymore and thought paced in a way I started to find exhausting, if this style doesn't bother you, though, your mileage will vary greatly from mine. I also thought this had more of a New Adult chik-lit feel but for Ember being twenty-five, all of her pop culture references felt pretty dated (yes, I know about those quirky youngin's that love older movies (Say Anything) but all the references were like this). For the most part, Ember is a character you're going to root for, even when some of her white lies will start to have you stressed out and yelling for her to stop. Starting from a place unprivileged, she tries to out play a system that wants to keep her locked out of it. There's definitely confronting racism, sexism, and nepotism moments in this. 

Being caught kissing him in front of the CEO’s nephew was the absolute worst thing that could ever happen. 

Danuwoa comes into the picture pretty early, they have one of those relationships where Ember's always somehow embarrassing herself in front of him and telling him obvious lies to make herself look better (she's borrowing the car, not the owner of a 1996 holding on by a thread Toyota). Even though we don't get his pov, it's easy to read that he likes her and, mostly, finds her obvious lies amusing. However, I found the romance fairly weak, this is more Ember's new adult, coming into my own, slice of life story. For the vast majority of the story, Danuwoa is a paper doll, it's not until around 70% that we get a deeper look at his character and background, he has a younger sister he cares for because his parents died. He's the acts perfect, looks perfect interest for the heroine that I, personally, didn't find had much substance to his character make-up. They go on a work trip where suddenly, there's only one bed!, and we get a feeling required hot bedroom scene and from there you'll get all the buzz and bullet point words and phrases that stands in for emotional depth romance. 

This all started because I just wanted to be an accountant, damn it. 

The latter half is about Ember talking about how important this job is to her and thinking about how that HR rule about not dating could ruin things but inviting Danuwoa up to her floor for a hot quickie because her boss is supposed to be gone an hour, it just didn't fit right and felt ignore previous character building in favor of hot scene, so I guess, again mileage may vary. Danuwoa also proclaims once how important the job is to him but he's more of the “doesn't want to be a dirty secret” and wants to just come clean to HR. It, of course, all blows up in Ember's face, the romance and job lies, and we get Ember learning some life lessons and what she really wants out of life. 

There's some family life issues going on for Ember, relationship with her brother, father, and community that I enjoyed, I found myself wishing this just would have been made a contemporary fiction coming of age and left out trying to add enough romance to get a romance tag. The relationship between Ember and who became a bit of a work mentor, Natalie, was one of my favorite relationships in the book, that friendship would have been great to see grow. Also, Ember learning to ask for help from her community and getting a talking to from her Auntie felt like it could have been a great heart of the story. 

The writing style of riding Ember's thoughts, created a pace I started to find exhausting and along with a romance I didn't find myself invested in, had this not hitting the right mark for me but I also think there was some great coming of age and cultural issues threaded into here that definitely hit right.

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Review: Bride

Bride by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Buddy Read this with the wonderful Wanda, for all our thoughts, quotes, and comments: Bride buddy read 

Thought Misery had a bit of an Ilona Andrews heroine vibe, which made me wish for more than one pov (Misery's) so that I could get more depth on some of the plot threads and character emotions. 

Some surprises and steamy scenes, and I would definitely jump on board again if Owen every gets his own book. 

A little bit of Gothic vibes, mystery, suspense, and romance, with more of a New Adult tone, to me.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

My busy life continues, but although this came out Aug. 6th, I didn't want to miss out on reading it and adding a little treat! (Or getting to shout out Corporate Avenger on Instagram) 

Ember's got a new job and a new love interest, the IT guy at work. 

But the no-dating policy and a scheming colleague could ruin it all, leading Ember to keep snowballing little lies. 

When staying silent becomes too hard, even when you could lose it all by finally telling the truth

This is tagged rom-com (but we've been there before!) so expecting this to be a little lighter with some great wit 

The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava purchase link

Oreo Rice Krispie bars recipe

Review: The Story Collector

The Story Collector by Evie Gaughan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

‘Maybe,’ she thought, ‘this is what following your heart feels like.’ 

The Story Collector was a story of finding your way after you've lost it, with tales of fairies and loads of charm. The story opens with some tension as Sarah and her husband have obviously decided to split and it's time to have that first Christmas now apart. Sarah's at the airport when a ceramic sheep and newspaper article about locals saving a fairy tree about to be cut down, all lead to Sarah changing her ticket from home to Boston, to Ireland. There, what could be considered little puckish intervenes, lead to Sarah staying in Thornwood village, where she'll heal, find herself again, and maybe find love again. 

Her mother and her sister Meghan were the practical ones, but Sarah and her father were the dreamers. Or at least she used to be. All of the magic seemed to seep out of her after The Big Bad Thing. Maybe Ireland was the place to find it again? 

It's obvious that something traumatic happened to snap Sarah out of the routine of slowing losing herself in her marriage over the five years they were together (it gets revealed later in the story what this was, but it's fairly obvious it was a miscarriage). Sarah's dealing with grief and a bit fogged from it when she arrives in Ireland but gets led to Thornwood. There, she ends up staying in a cottage and finding a diary of a young girl named Anna that lived there in 1910. The diary tells the story of an American coming to Thornwood and Anna becoming his assistant as she leads him around the village to listen and record people's stories of “The Good People”. The story then alternates between Sarah's timeline and Anna's and we get fairy stories with Anna and the American and Sarah learning to heal and meeting the owner of the cottage she's staying at. 

Even a broken heart still feels. 

Grief and loss, along with good and evil stories of fairies are throughout the book but they're never explicitly dived down into, more touched on to keep a lighter tone to the story. The first meeting between Sarah and the cottage owner where she's picking flowers in a field and he's the tall conservation officer who reprimands her for picking the flowers, he has his own grief tied into he doesn't want her picking the flowers, will have a little zing hit you, as you feel the promised magic between them (especially when his little yappy dog clues Sarah into what a softie he is). There was also a little building romance in Anna's timeline as her and the American slowly grow to know one another, but like the grief and frightening tales of fairies, the romance is more touched on, than delved into. 

I greatly enjoyed the charm of this one but thought for the taking it's measured time pace for most of the story, the ending felt very rushed. Anna's story has some ending drama and a wrap-up that may leave some left wanting and while Sarah's story has her healing and becoming herself again, her happily ever after came abruptly in a way that I didn't feel I got to sit and enjoy the ending ride, it went too fast. Regardless of the rushed ending though, this story will have you feeling the magic and I recommend if you're wanting something that acknowledges the struggles of grief but doesn't completely darken the tone, tells tales of the fairy folk, and will overall charm you.

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Reading Update: 15%

I have no friends on the left, and only enemies on the right. So I ground myself and look straight ahead. 

At my future husband. 

Buddy Reading this with Wanda over at GoodReads!

Bride Buddy Read

Reading Update: Page 1

 

I'm putting the phone on silent and diving into burritos and magical realism 

Two timelines, 100yrs ago and present day weave together as a young Irish girl helps an American translate fairy stories and New Yorker Sarah visits a seemingly quiet village in Ireland. 

All is not what it seems and secrets are treading between everyday and otherworldly 

This sounds cozy mystery magical! 

The Story Collector by Evie Woods purchase link

Green Chili Chicken Burritos recipe

Review: The Villain Edit

The Villain Edit by Laurie Devore
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

What could be better publicity for my writing career than a romance author looking for her own happily ever after? 

Jac is thirty-two and just moved back home after getting a taste of what she thought was her dream of being a successful author living in New York. However, the dream was short lived, that big three book publishing contract disappears when her first book tanks and the second barely sells and she spends all her money trying to be the fun, single, successful author living in the big city. This leads to a drunken night of answering an online casting call for a reality tv show where the contestants battle it out for love, a la The Bachelor. 

I lean forward toward him eagerly. “And who am I?” I ask. 

He flashes me a sly grin. “A lit match on a very dark night.” 

If you're a fan of The Bachelor, then you might end up liking this more than me, but you're going to have to want to see the underbelly of what makes the show. Told all in Jac's pov, it's clear that all these events have already happened and the reader is getting the backstory, the story catches up to the present in the latter second half. We see Jac have a one-night stand before she's set to start filming and, oh no, the one night stand turns out to be Henry, a producer on the show. This sets-up the whole, are the feelings between them real or is Henry “producing” Jac to make great tv? Along the way, Jac feels an instant connection and chemistry with the man everyone is vying for, Marcus, and there's a little bit of a love triangle. I say little bit, because this is more about Jac trying to find herself. 

I keep questioning what's real and what's not and who I even am or thought I was. 

Jac is set-up to be the “unlikable heroine” in the story and the tv show. And here's the thing, while I didn't actively not like her, I grew disinterested in her and the story. It's toned in pretty bitter vibes, bemoaning botox, having to be skinny, looking a certain way, etc., which yes, all tiring issues women have to deal with but I'm not sure I ever felt Jac actually being tired and done with it. She uses all these advantages she has to “win”, which she likes in her “I want to stand out but am uncomfortable being the center of attention” personality. There's some annoyance that this is her “role” but, to me, her jaded personality doesn't really hate it, it's bothersome to her but she's written fairly dead inside, excuse me, “walled off” (works if character is walled off to other characters but me as the reader probably needs to see/feel at least some of the behind the wall emotion) and I can't say I ever really felt her hate it, because she fits the mold, even if it takes some energy for her too. Secondary characters never truly get filled out, this being all from Jac's pov and her sucking all the air out of the room. 

And that's not what I meant, it's never what I meant, because the happiness I need is so much bigger than romance or fairy tales or beautiful dinners where I starve because starving is how everyone might like me best. That's not real. That's not what I want. 

I don't know, maybe I've just read too many, “publishing is horrific”, “people on social media are horrific”, and toned writing that brings not a single ounce of joy to the characters or world. This is coming from someone who's nickname was “Daria”! I like jaded, cynical, and unlikable women because usually the character is saying a whole lot through these characteristics. I'm not sure the author accomplished what she set out to here, Jac felt like empty “not like other women”. And, at the risk of being like a social media reviewer character quoted in the story, because that seems like the du jour thing to do right now, I wouldn't recommend this for the romance, not strong enough for me. I would recommend this is you want more of a bitter toned story about how reality shows like The Bachelor aren't really about the love.

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