Reviews: Today Tonight Tomorrow & 10 Things I Hate about Pinky
/14 Comments/by Suzanne
I’ve got two great YA contemporaries to share with you today. The first is from a new-to-me author, Rachel Lynn Solomon and the second is from one of my favorite YA contemporary authors Sandhya Menon. I had so much fun with both of these reads and am excited to share my thoughts on them with you.
Today Tonight Tomorrow Goodreads
Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon
Publication Date: July 28, 2020
Publisher: Simon Pulse
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon is one of the most entertaining and relatable novels set in a high school I’ve read in a long time. It follows senior Rowan Roth on her last day of high school and beautifully captures all of the emotions running through her head as she prepares to say goodbye to her classmates and, in essence, her childhood, and as she looks ahead to her future and her desire to become an author. Will she ever see her friends again? Has she really accomplished everything she hoped to accomplish in high school? Will people take her seriously when she tells them she wants to write romance novels? All of the emotions swirling around in Rowan’s brain as she navigates that last day of school were so relatable and really made me nostalgic for my own high school days.
Today Tonight Tomorrow is also a really fun read though. It features the most epic scavenger hunt/assassin game called HOWL where seniors are given clues that take them all around the city of Seattle, along with an armband and the name of a target, which is of course a fellow senior. If you capture your target’s armband, he or she is eliminated. The goal of the game is to correctly solve all of the clues, providing photo evidence for each, and eliminate as many targets as possible without being eliminated yourself. How much fun does that sound like? I would have loved this game when I was in high school. Heck, I’d actually play it right now! What makes HOWL even more fun though is that Rowan inadvertently ends up paired with her arch nemesis and high school rival for valedictorian, Neil McNair (or McNightmare as Rowan prefers to call him). What could possibly go wrong with this scenario? Will they work together, maybe become friends or dare I say it, even more than friends? Or will they relish the opportunity to go head-to-head one more time before they say goodbye to high school and to each other? Oh, the possibilities! I’m not going to say anymore so that you can find out for yourself, but I’ll just say I loved every minute of their time together that last day. If you’re looking for a heartwarming, contemplative read with a little side of mostly good-natured, cutthroat fun, be sure to check out Today Tonight Tomorrow. 4.5 STARS
10 Things I Hate About Pinky Goodreads
Author: Sandhya Menon
Publication Date: July 21, 2020
Publisher: Simon Pulse
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
My love for Sandhya Menon’s YA novels continues with her latest, 10 Things I Hate about Pinky. Pinky Kumar is a free spirit and a social justice warrior, and when she is passionate about a cause, watch out because nothing is going to stop her from making her dream a reality. While Pinky’s passion is an admirable quality, it does tend to rattle her conservative lawyer parents a bit, especially since they think her free spiritedness leads her to make unwise decisions at times. Pinky’s choice of boyfriends is also a frequent topic of conversation and when it’s the first topic of conversation when they arrive at their beach house for summer vacation, Pinky decides to take action so that she doesn’t have to spend the entire summer listening to her parents. When she hears that Samir Jha, a friend of a friend, has had his summer plans fall through at the last minute, she invites him to her beach house to pose as her fake boyfriend. Samir wants to be a lawyer like her parents and he dreams of going to Harvard, which is Pinky’s mom’s alma mater, so he’s the perfect boy to finally impress her parents. There’s just one problem…once they finally meet up and start hanging out, Pinky and Samir realize they can’t stand each other. Samir is so flustered and so frustrated by Pinky that he actually writes a list down of all the things he hates about her. It’s so hilarious watching the two of them try to deal with each other all summer without blowing their cover and of course every step of the way I’m waiting for that moment when they’re sure to realize that perhaps those sparks flying between them aren’t all about hate after all. I adored everything about this book. Both Pinky and Samir are adorable in their own way, and I also loved the shout outs to Ashish and Sweetie from Menon’s other books in this series. I breezed through 10 Things I Hate about Pinky in a day and was sorry to say goodbye to these characters at the end. As always though, Menon left me with warm fuzzies and a smile on my face and I really hope we’ll get even more books set in this world. 4 STARS
Can’t Wait Wednesday – LOVE SONGS FOR SKEPTICS by Christina Pishiris
/20 Comments/by Suzanne
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, which encourages fellow bloggers to spotlight upcoming releases that we’re excited about. It is a meme that I have loved participating in for over a year now, but as Jill is no longer actively posting, from now on I’ll be linking to Can’t Wait Wednesday, hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, which is a spinoff of the original WoW meme.
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My selection for this week is LOVE SONGS FOR SKEPTICS by Christina Pishiris. This book grabbed my attention as soon as I saw the shoutout to fans of Sophie Kinsella and Josie Silver. It also features a second chance romance, which is one of my favorite romantic tropes. 🙂
LOVE SONGS FOR SKEPTICS by Christina Pishiris
Publication Date: January 5, 2021
From Goodreads:
For fans of Sophie Kinsella and Josie Silver comes a new razor-sharp voice in women’s fiction!
Zoe Frixos gets the whole love song thing. Truly, she does. As an editor at a major music magazine, it’s part of her job description. But love? Let’s just say Zoe’s been a bit off-beat in that department. After falling hard for her best friend, Simon, at thirteen and missing every chance to tell him how she felt before he left town, Zoe came to one grand conclusion:
Love stinks.
Twenty years later, Simon is returning to London, newly single and as charming as ever, and Zoe vows to take her second chance. But, with an arrogant publicist out to challenge her career, Simon’s perfect ex-girlfriend’s sudden arrival, and her brother’s big(ish) fat(ish) Greek wedding on the horizon, Zoe begins to wonder if, after all these years, she and Simon simply aren’t meant to be.
What if, despite what all the songs and movies say, your first love isn’t necessarily the right one? In the wake of a life-changing choice, Zoe must decide if she’s right to be skeptical about love, or if it’s simply time to change her tune…
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I’d love to hear what upcoming book releases you’re waiting on this Wednesday? Leave me your link in the comments below and I’ll stop by and check out your CWW selection for this week. 🙂
Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Finally Read in 2020 That Have Been on my TBR for Ages
/51 Comments/by Suzanne
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is actually Book Events/Festivals I’d Love to Go to Someday. As much as I’d like to go to a bookish event, I just wasn’t feeling this topic so I decided to go rogue and share a topic I have been feeling lately. What has me excited lately is that I’ve managed to knock quite a few older books off my TBR in 2020. I’ve taken part in backlist challenges for the past three years but even with those challenges, I still only manage to knock about 30-35 books that I already own off my TBR each year.
I’m guessing it’s because of the pandemic and just having so much more time to read, but whatever the case, I’ve already managed to knock 31 older books off my TBR and am over halfway through my 32nd. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up with that pace since I haven’t cut back on ARCs like I had originally planned to, but I had bumped up my goal to 50 backlist books for 2020 and I think/hope I’m going to crush that goal!
While I’ve been reading the older books, I really haven’t been reviewing them, especially since some of them have been on my TBR for 5 years or more. I did one backlist recap earlier in the year, so with this post, I’m covering everything I’ve read since then. I don’t have much to say about them, but I’ll share a few words and my rating for each.
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Books I Finally Read in 2020 That Have Been on my TBR for Ages
The first two books are science fiction titles that have each been sitting on my TBR for several years now and I’ve had Martha Wells and Becky Chambers on my list of authors I need to try for a couple of years as well. I finally made it happen this year and loved both books. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is a fun space opera that features the most delightful “found family”, while All Systems Red features a self-aware security droid who calls itself “Murderbot”, doesn’t like humans, and has hacked its own regulating module. Murderbot fascinated me because, without that regulator in place, it could have easily turned on the humans and killed them all, but instead Murderbot chooses to help them. Murderbot also loves to watch TV shows, which just cracked me up. Such fun reads and I gave them both 4 stars.
Hollow Kingdom is a surprisingly hilarious read about a crow named Shit Turd (S. T. for short) and a dog named Dennis who are trying to stop a zombie apocalypse and save the world. Ten Thousand Doors of January is just a gorgeous and unique read. The worldbuilding is incredible (kind of Narnia-esque with its use of the doors, which I just loved!) and the characters and their relationships and connections are just so wonderfully complicated. The story is filled adventure and danger, history and secret societies, family and love. You name it, this book has it. There’s even a dog named Bad who’s the best boy ever. I rated each of these books 4.5 STARS.
I’ve also breezed through numerous contemporary reads this year. The Royal We and American Royals fed my need for need for all things royal. The Royal We explores the misadventures of what happens when the future King of England falls in love with an American, while American Royals reimagines American History and gives us a monarchy instead of a Presidency. Both were fun reads and I gave them each 3.5 stars. I just finished Love & Luck earlier this week and thought it was a such a fun read. I loved the road trip through Ireland aspect as well as the sibling dynamic between Addie and Ian. Opposite of Always was another great read with a unique storyline. I was a big fan of the time travel element that has Jack in a loop where he keeps going back in time to see if there’s anything he can change in order to save Kate, the girl he loves. Is there choice he can make that ends with her not dying? Stories like that fascinate me since it makes us examine the choices we make in life. I rated both of these 4 stars.
How to Walk Away was my second read by Katherine Center and just like with the first, it was a 5 star, emotional roller coaster of a read for me. I also squeezed in an older Christina Lauren book, Dating You Hating You, and thought it was delightful, everything I enjoy in an enemies to lovers story. I loved the tension between the two rival coworkers and found myself chuckling most of the way through the book. I rated this one 4 stars. The Husband’s Secret was next and while not my favorite Liane Moriarty novel, it was still a compelling read that follows the fallout after a woman opens a letter from her husband that she wasn’t meant to open until after his death. Those kinds of domestic dramas are always entertaining and this book earned 3.5 stars from me. I read The Hamilton Affair after I watched Hamilton on Disney Plus. I thought this historical fiction was a very nice companion piece to the musical and it fills in some gaps in Eliza’s narrative that I found very interesting. I rated this one 3.5 stars as well.
This group of titles were all anticipated reads for me during the year they were released but that I then set aside in favor of newer, shinier releases. I just loved the way Madeline Miller brought so many well known mythological figures to life in Circe, while I gave myself a huge pat on the back for finally making my way through another George R.R. Martin book. A Dance with Dragons was everything I wanted the previous book in the series to be and I’m now back to twiddling my thumbs and impatiently waiting for Martin to finish writing book 6. Both of these reads were 4.5 stars for me. The Starless Sea and Ninth House were also excellent reads. I loved the worldbuilding in each, and while they weren’t my favorite novels by either author, I was still very pleased with them both and rated them 4 stars each.
This last group is a bit of a hodge-podge. The Fountains of Silence is an excellent work of historical fiction by Ruta Sepetys that follows what life was life living under the rule of a Spanish dictator. It featured a time period I hadn’t read much about before and it held my interest from beginning to end and gave me characters I could easily root for. Before I Fall is similar in story to Opposite of Always in the sense that the protagonist keeps reliving the last day of her life over and over again, each time making different choices to see if the outcome would be different. Again, that kind of story fascinates me so I was hooked from beginning to end. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a work of historical fiction that focuses on the life of a Kentucky woman who works as a Pack Horse Librarian. She loads library books onto her mule, Junia, and takes them out to residents who live in the hills of Kentucky. Without her, those folks would have no access to books, newspapers, etc. This fascinated me because I had no idea there were ever librarians who worked in this manner. Like Her Husband’s Secret above, Never Have I Ever is a domestic drama that starts with a book club night gone wrong and is filled with secrets, lies, and lots of twists and turns. Last but not least is Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’. I read this one and watched the Netflix adaptation and just loved everything about Willowdean Dickson and her larger than life personality and her love of all things Dolly Parton. All of these books were 4 star reads for me.
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And there you have it, until the next time I feel motivated to share what older books I’ve been reading.
How are you doing with reading books you already own this year? Have you read any of these yet?