I hope everyone who was celebrating this weekend had a wonderful holiday weekend. Huge apologies from me for not blog hopping most of last week.  I think busy season at work finally caught up to me and I pretty much crashed and burned every evening after I signed off from work and even though I planned to play catch up with blogging on Saturday, I ended up napping most of that day as well.  Today is deadline day though so hopefully I’ll be back to my normal blogging habits this week.  I will try my best to play catch up but may end up having to just start fresh this week since I’ve just missed so many posts.  Anyway, I’m back today with a couple of reads I managed to fit in last week in spite of the crazy busy schedule.  These were mostly read while sitting in the parking lot at my son’s soccer practices, lol.

Author: Samantha Markum

Publication Date: April 12, 2022

Publisher:  Wednesday Books

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley.  All opinions are my own.

I love a good boarding school story so I couldn’t resist requesting Samantha Markum’s debut YA contemporary novel, This May End Badly, which is set at Weston, a prestigious all girls boarding school.  I was especially intrigued by the premise that there is an equally prestigious all boys boarding school, Winfield Academy right across the street and that the two schools have a century-long rivalry that is ongoing.  I was hooked on the story from the opening pages, which centers on epic beginning-of-the-school year pranks the students from each school play on each other.

As entertaining as I found the pranks, however, I will admit that I got off to a very rough start with the protagonist, Doe.  She’s the prank mastermind at Weston and she is also obsessed with Three, a boy at Winfield that she considers to be her arch nemesis.  Even though she’s a senior and should be applying to colleges and preparing for her future, she is completely obsessed with escalating the prank wars between the schools and even more obsessed with getting under Three’s skin in any way she can, especially once it’s announced that the two schools will be merging into one next year and Doe suspects that Three’s family had something to do with it.  I could understand her frustration that Weston, which has been her safe haven since her parents divorced, would basically cease to exist after the merger, but in the early chapters of the book, she just came off as immature and obnoxious.  I read a couple of reviews on Goodreads that advised being patient with Doe, that she would eventually grow and learn from her mistakes, and I was glad I stuck it out because there really is tremendous character growth with Doe.

Even though I struggled a bit with Doe in the beginning, the same cannot be said of her friend group. I adored these young women.  They were so much fun when it came to helping Doe with the pranks, but it wasn’t all fun and games for them either. They truly cared about Doe and were not afraid to step in and give her tough love when she needed it, when it was clear she had lost her way and was crossing lines she shouldn’t be crossing.  These girls are friendship goals!

I’m also a big fan of the fake dating trope so I was really into the plot line where Doe fake-dates Three’s cousin and fellow Winfield Academy student, Wells.  I did think it was a bit odd that Doe chose to fake date Wells just to annoy Three, but the reason aside, Wells and Doe were so cute and sweet together.  I loved their banter and loved it even more when their feelings for one another started to change so that it became more about them and less about annoying Three.

The ending of the novel is also fabulous, particularly in the way it brings those rival schools and their pranking super powers together for a very worthy cause.  I found myself very proud of all of these kids by the time I finished reading.  If you’re interested in reading a book about friendship, falling in love, and standing up for what you believe in, you should give This May End Badly a try.  3.5 STARS

Go Hex Yourself Goodreads

Author: Jessica Clare

Publication Date: April 19, 2022

Publisher: Berkley Books

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley.  All opinions are my own.

I’ve been enjoying all of the witchy rom-coms that have come out recently and Go Hex Yourself by Jessica Clare is the latest addition to this fun trend.  It features two of my favorite romance tropes, enemies to lovers and grumpy/sunshine so I hoped it would be a perfect fit for me.  I’m thrilled to report I was not disappointed!

The story follows Reggie Johnson, a young woman who answers a newspaper ad and thinks she’s going to be working as a design assistant for Spellcraft: The Magicking, her favorite card game.  When she is led into a lab instead of an office and her new employer, an elderly woman named Dru, starts talking about casting spells and creating potions, Reggie begins to suspect that her new job might not be exactly what she thought it was.  Reggie is skeptical that magic is real, that is until someone curses Dru with a sleeping spell.  Reggie is forced to work with Dru’s nephew, Ben, a sexy but surly warlock who has been nothing but rude to her ever since she first arrived on the job.

I really adored Reggie right from the start.  She’s very much an underdog character and those always have my heart.  She’s in debt up to her ears, thanks to her awful parents, who do shady things like sign up for endless credit cards in Reggie’s name and then not paying the bills, ruining Reggie’s credit in the process. Reggie has a big heart and loves them anyway, but at the same time, is disheartened that they keep taking advantage of her.  Overall, Reggie is a spunky and resilient character but I did like seeing this more vulnerable side of her when it came to her parents.

I also really enjoyed both Dru and Ben. Dru comes across as a bit silly and possibly senile when Reggie first meets her, but it soon becomes clear that she’s quite a character and that there’s way more than meets the eye when it comes to her.  Every time Reggie and Dru interacted, I could practically picture Dru with a little twinkle of mischief in her eyes.  She’s a pretty lovable character. Ben, while not quite as lovable early on in the book, grew on me quickly as we started to get more chapters from his perspective.  It becomes clear that he is not nearly as surly and grumpy as he first seems and that he is mostly misunderstood.  Like Reggie, he has also been shaped by heartbreaking experiences with his parents.

While I found the witchy aspect of the book entertaining and intriguing, especially the curses and the fact the witches in the book were inspired by Roman times, and then of course, the hilarious magical cast of secondary characters, what really kept me thoroughly invested in the story was watching Reggie and Ben finally start to bond and open up to one another while they’re working to uncurse Dru.  What develops between them is special and it was just lovely to watch.  Fans who like a bit of steam in their romance reads will also not be disappointed.

If you’re enjoying the witchy rom-com trend as much as I am, you’ll definitely want to check out Go Hex Yourself.  4 STARS.