November 2023 Reading Wrap-Up 

Total books read: 5 

Total pages read: 1,657 

Days read: 25/30 

Average star rating: 3.8/5 

Challenge Prompts Filled: I stopped keeping track of the challenge prompts this month. Nothing I was in the mood to read fit with much of anything, except Chantal Reads All Day. The point was to find a new way to pick books, not to torment myself with things i didn’t want to read, so I stopped counting when it stopped being fun. 

A Proposal They Can’t Refuse by Natalie Caña  ⭐⭐⭐⭐  I got this in a Facebook group swap I joined in October and couldn’t wait to start reading! It’s an excellent balance of romance and family drama, spearheaded by a couple of spitfire-y old men. The epilogue felt a little incohesive with the rest of the story, but I’m waiting to see if this debut is the first in a series before I judge it too harshly – I could see it being a nice way to tie several stories together, but if this is a standalone then it didn’t quite fit perfectly imo. Aside from that, this was a top-notch read! Friends-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, with a heaping scoop of “actually talking about your problems is the first step to solving them?” Sign me UP! This one packs an emotional punch in a few places, especially if you’re sensitive to cancer mentions, but it was handled wonderfully from where I’m sitting, and fed into a delightful story. I can’t wait to find out if we’ll get to see any more of these families!  

Prompts filled: BTBL – 2022 Debut Novel; Popsugar – Features two languages; Romanceopoly – The Bar/MC works at or owns a bar 

One Night on the Island by Josie Silver ⭐⭐⭐(¾) 

Many thanks to the local librarian who sat this one out in my book bag last month! I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I’m trying to read those down before they’re all due back, so I gave it a shot. Almost from the very first page, I was enraptured; now I’m trying to convince myself that moving to a remote island village in Ireland is not the move I want to make in my life. Because wow did this make it sound cute and idyllic and wonderful. The romance wasn’t quite everything I was looking for, but I suppose the ending befits the story: it’s almost as much women’s fiction as it is contemporary romance. Honestly, the biggest thing I'm missing as a reader was the aha moment where the title falls into place and makes sense. That's always such a fun moment, and as much as I enjoyed the every bit of the story, I wish I’d gotten to enjoy that feeling too. But honestly, how bad can a book be if it makes me tear up at a robotics meeting? 

Booked on a Feeling by Jayci Lee  ⭐⭐⭐(¾) 

This is a cute bookstore romance! I love book-themed books as a concept; they’re not quite meta, but there’s something close to a fourth-wall break, I think, that makes them very entertaining to me. It’s childhood/best friends to lovers, with solid anxiety rep, which I always love to see in stories. Aside from that, it was sweet, it was cute, it was sort of unremarkable, as romance stories go? I did like seeing Lizzy build friendships and find herself as her relationship with Jack developed, and it certainly wasn’t panful to finish. Mostly it was a solid, middle-of-the-road fluffy romance. Plus books and bookstores. It’s also about books and bookstores. 

Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer  ⭐⭐(¾)  Listen. Sometimes you don’t read a book because you think you’ll like it. You read it because it’s so absurd that you can’t believe it actually exists and you need to know more. That’s why I was interested in Hope Never Dies. It’s been on my radar for a couple of years, but somehow I never though to check the local library. Then I stopped in on a whim one day, on my way between robotics and work, and found this book AND the sequel on the 50 cent sale rack. For a dollar, I’ll try reading almost anything, but it gets BETTER because the librarian gave them to me for free. I was so excited to dig in, knowing that it was sure to be absolutely ridiculous. And it was. This book is crack. It’s just crack. Biden is the jealous ex-girlfriend watching Obama move on after his presidency, until a murder brings them back together and they become a pair of private investigators trying to find out who killed the Amtrak conductor. It’s a wild ride, start to finish, and worth absolutely every page. But that’s not the same thing as a “good” book. Just a book that’s worth reading if you like to laugh at the absurd. 

CRAD November Prompt: set in a different time than your October book 

Too Much is Not Enough by Andrew Rannells  ⭐⭐⭐⭐(¾)  An excellent memoir! I’ve been a fan of Andrew Rannells for years, and actually tried to start this book the year it came out, but life did the thing and I never got around to finishing it. It’s fun, it’s heartfelt, it covers his life before his career really took off, and that’s always a chapter of life I’m interested in. It’s not a memoir I’d say is really applicable to everyone, but if you like theater, or if you like Andrew Rannells, definitely check it out. 

December 2023 Reading Wrap-Up 

Total books read: 6 

Total pages read: 1,214 

Days read: ?/31 (I didn’t do a good job keeping up with my planner this month because I was so busy. But I know I read at least half the days, so for the sake of my EOY counter, I’m going to call it 20.) 

Average star rating: 3.79/5 

Challenge Prompts Filled: Still not counting these. Oops?  

In The Likely Event by Rebecca Yarros  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  This. Book. Was. Incredible! I actually started it late November, but it was after the first of the month when I finished it, so it’s a December book. And a damned good one. I was recommending it to people before I’d even finished it because I was enjoying it so much (my deepest apologies to head coach, who I traumatized by giving it a chili pepper ranking, and then having to explain THAT scale). It’s a little bit out of my wheelhouse, but it’s good to spread my horizons sometimes. It’s action-packed, romantic, compelling as all hell (even if I don’t usually love dual timeline, this one held my attention from the very start and I finished it at 1 a.m., crying in my reading chair), and probably three pepper spicy, if that’s something that matters to you. 

The Trouble With Christmas by Amy Andrews  ⭐⭐⭐(¼)  This one took AGES to read. After I finished In the Likely Event, I wanted to switch to Christmas reading, starting with this thrift store find. Over two weeks later, I was still working on it, and I don’t even know why! I was busy, and it’s one of the longer books I read this year, but it didn’t feel like it moved that slowly. It’s definitely not a fast paced read, but the story never lagged or made me want to leave it behind. It’s cute, it’s Christmassy, she’s a struggling artist and he’s a veteran rancher, she ropes him into pretending to be her boyfriend for a harebrained scheme, and it’s really not a spoiler to tell you that they fall in love for Christmas. What’s not to like? 

Miracle on Three Kings’ Day by Beth Laycock  ⭐⭐⭐  Full disclosure: after The Trouble With Christmas took so long, I focused on novellas so I’d have a prayer of reading five books for December. My holiday season was super busy, and I had a bunch downloaded that I’d been meaning to read anyway. This was a fun take on celebrating non-Christmas winter holidays, without a single flake of snow on the ground. It’s quick, it’s steamy, I felt like I could picture the main characters at every step of the way. Solid rec, if you’re looking for something short and engaging without too much depth. 

Hazel’s Christmas Duet by Olivia Rian  ⭐⭐⭐(½)  I love a love story that’s not just about the romance, and this was exactly that! Hazel is new to town, finding her footing with new friends and rediscovering herself after a bad breakup. It’s a Hallmark movie in a mini-short, cozy and warm, and featuring a festively-named kitten. Easily something I could curl up and read beside a fire, if the fire didn’t mean that my apartment needed evacuating. 

Noah by Callie Vegas  ⭐⭐⭐  Uh. This is not a Christmas book, it turns out. It’s a Valentine’s Day novella –the miscommunication is on me; the series is called “Holiday Flings,” and I mistakenly assumed that meant “the holiday season,” not “every book in the series is set during a different season.” Not a bad read, but people with reading habits like mine should know that it is VERY NSFW. Well written, we all know I love a single parent trope, but I spent every minute of it hoping that no well-meaning guest would ask what was on my Kindle. Just ... be aware of that. 

The Clause in Christmas by Rachael Bloome  ⭐⭐⭐⭐  I really came in under the wire and finished my last read half an hour before my friends came over for New Year’s Eve game night. But I finished it, and that’s what counts! One of my favorite cheesy Christmas movies – this feels like a tangent, but bear with me – is The Christmas Calendar, and this reminded me a little bit of that! The premise was only very loosely similar: 24 Christmas tasks, distributed one day at a time, to get ready for the holiday, but it had the perfect vibe. As much as I was invested in the romance – I was VERY invested in the romance, trust me – I was waiting with every page to find out what the next Christmas task would be and how Cassie would embrace it. And a cute romance on top of that? What a way to wind things down for 2023!