After I finished reading Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle, I decided to watch the Netflix movie based on the book.
Going in, you should know that the movie is only very loosely based on the book. Like it’s actually so different, you can’t even compare the two. The characters have the same names and the same basic outline of their story in the book and that’s about it. Luckily, I had heard that was the case before I watched the movie, so I knew what to expect.
So usually when I do a Page to Screen review, I compare and contrast the book and movie, but I can’t really do that in this case since they were vastly different. I will say that I really enjoyed the movie in and of itself. It wasn’t a goofy, teenage movie with horrible acting and a cheesy plot. I liked the characters and I felt invested in them. They had substance. The Duke is played by Keirnan Shipka from Mad Men and Tobin is played by Mitchell Hope (Ben from the Descendants), both of whom are great actors. And Joan Cusack is The Tin Foil Woman! I didn’t recognize anyone else but that might be because I’m old.
I appreciated that the cast of the movie was more diverse than it is in the book and that there are LGBT characters as well. I don’t recall any in the book. This is a smart holiday movie that the whole family can enjoy. Teenagers will relate but adults will be entertained as well.
Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle
Publisher: Speak
Publication Date: October 2, 2008
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
An ill-timed storm on Christmas Eve buries the residents of Gracetown under multiple feet of snow and causes quite a bit of chaos. One brave soul ventures out into the storm from her stranded train, setting off a chain of events that will change quite a few lives. Over the next three days one girl takes a risky shortcut with an adorable stranger, three friends set out to win a race to the Waffle House (and the hash brown spoils), and the fate of a teacup pig falls into the hands of a lovesick barista.
A trio of today’s bestselling authors—John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle—brings all the magic of the holidays to life in three hilarious and charming interconnected tales of love, romance, and kisses that will steal your breath away.
Let it Snow is a collection of three short, loosely connected holiday romances written by three different authors: John Green, Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle. In Maureen Johnson’s The Jubilee Express, Jubilee is sent on a train to her grandparents’ house after her parents are arrested for getting in a brawl while Christmas shopping. The train breaks down in a small town next to a Waffle House, leaving Jubilee stranded.
In John Green’s A Cheertastic Miracle, a group of friends is at home watching James Bond movies when another friend working at the Waffle House calls to tell them that a train full of cheerleaders has just arrived and they need to get down there asap. The cheerleaders want to play Twister!
In Lauren Myracle’s The Patron Saint of Pigs, Addie must admit and overcome her self-centeredness to help out her friends with their teacup pig.
It’s so hard to review short story collections because the quality of the stories can vary so much. And since in Let it Snow, they are all written by different people, each story has a distinct style. Of course, John Green’s story was my favorite. No surprise there – we all know that I’m a huge John Green fangirl. A Cheertastic Miracle is John Green through and through. If I had read the stories without knowing who wrote each one, I could have picked his out a mile away. The friend group in his story has that snappy dialogue that his characters often have, and the Duke and Tobin reminded me vaguely of Alaska and Miles.
The other two stories were entertaining as well but it was Green’s that made the collection. If you’re looking for a fun YA holiday read, put Let It Snow on your list.
December 21st, 2023 in
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Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory
Narrator: Janina Edwards
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Release Date: October 1, 2029
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description
Vivian Forest has been out of the country a grand total of one time, so when she gets the chance to tag along on her daughter Maddie’s work trip to England to style a royal family member, she can’t refuse. She’s excited to spend the holidays taking in the magnificent British sights, but what she doesn’t expect is to become instantly attracted to a certain private secretary, his charming accent, and unyielding formality.
Malcolm Hudson has worked for the Queen for years and has never given a personal, private tour – until now. He is intrigued by Vivian the moment he meets her and finds himself making excuses just to spend time with her. When flirtatious banter turns into a kiss under the mistletoe, things snowball into a full-on fling.
Despite a ticking timer on their holiday romance, they are completely fine with ending their short, steamy affair come New Year’s Day…or are they?
Vivian Forest is excited to accompany her daughter Maddie to England, where Maddie has a job styling a member of the royal family for all of her holiday events. Vivian relaxes and hangs out with the staff of the cottage where they are staying while Maddie works. There she meets Malcom Hudson, who works directly with the Queen. When he gives her a private tour of the grounds, sparks fly. However, Vivian is only in England for a brief time. What will happen to their relationship when she leaves? Are they having a vacation fling or is it more?
This is a cute little holiday romance. It’s part of The Wedding Date series but from what I gathered on Jasmine Guillory’s website, it’s not a series that you have to read in order, but there are characters who are the main characters in one book and supporting characters in others. Anyway, you could totally read this book as a stand-alone – I don’t think I missed anything by not having read the others. After reading this book, I do want to read the others at some point.
I liked that the main characters were over fifty and were still portrayed as sexual beings with desires and passion. At the same time, they had a maturity that comes with life experience that I appreciated. I listened to the audiobook, which was great except that the narrator had a pretty bad English accent when she read the dialogue of the British characters. If fake accents bother you, you might want to read this book in print!
Royal Holiday is terrific addition to a romance lovers’ holiday TBR.
December 20th, 2023 in
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Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: November 7, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Mallory Greenleaf is done with chess. Every move counts nowadays; after the sport led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory’s focus is on her mom, her sisters, and the dead-end job that keeps the lights on. That is, until she begrudgingly agrees to play in one last charity tournament and inadvertently wipes the board with notorious “Kingkiller” Nolan Sawyer: current world champion and reigning Bad Boy of chess.
Nolan’s loss to an unknown rook-ie shocks everyone. What’s even more confusing? His desire to cross pawns again. What kind of gambit is Nolan playing? The smart move would be to walk away. Resign. Game over. But Mallory’s victory opens the door to sorely needed cash-prizes and despite everything, she can’t help feeling drawn to the enigmatic strategist….
As she rockets up the ranks, Mallory struggles to keep her family safely separated from the game that wrecked it in the first place. And as her love for the sport she so desperately wanted to hate begins to rekindle, Mallory quickly realizes that the games aren’t only on the board, the spotlight is brighter than she imagined, and the competition can be fierce (-ly attractive. And intelligent…and infuriating…)
Mallory was once a chess prodigy, but she’s given up the game for good to take care of her mom and her two younger sisters. She’s just graduated high school and she needs to get a real job. But her best friend talks her into playing a charity chess tournament as a favor to her. She ends up playing the reigning world champion Nolan Sawyer and kicking his butt! Well, after that, she gets sucked back into the world of chess and finds herself drawn to Nolan, against her better judgment.
This was such a cute YA romance. I loved Mallory’s sex positive attitude. Nolan is the one who is inexperienced, and I thought the role reversal was refreshing. Because they are teenagers, they have an innocence to them, and their relationship was adorable. How many different ways can I phrase just how cute I think this book is! Ali Hazelwood can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. She has once again created a smart, strong female lead character. This is a YA book, but I would consider it “upper YA”. It doesn’t talk down to the reader. And the main characters are all over eighteen, not teeny boppers. The bedroom scenes fade to black but that’s really the only thing reminded me that it was YA while I was reading it. I highly recommend Check & Mate for Ali Hazelwood fans and romance fans of all ages!
***Check & Mate was one of my November 2023 Book of the Month Club selections. You can join Book of the Month with this link and get a hardcover book for only $5 with no obligation to continue your membership.***
December 14th, 2023 in
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Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender
Publisher: Forever
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Logan Gray is Hollywood’s bad boy—a talented but troubled actor who the public loves to hate. Mattie Cole is an up‑and‑coming golden boy, adored by all but plagued by insecurities.
When Logan and Mattie are cast as leads in a new romantic film, Logan claims that Matt has “zero talent,” sending the film’s publicity into a nosedive. To create positive buzz, the two are persuaded into a fake‑dating scheme—but as the two actors get to know their new characters, real feelings start to develop.
As public scrutiny intensifies and old wounds resurface, the two must fight for their relationship and their love.
Logan Gray is a broody, troubled former child actor who is known to be a jerk. The only reason anyone puts up with him is because he’s also very talented. Mattie is an up-and-coming actor – the new It Boy in Hollywood. He is cast as Logan’s love interest in a new romantic movie. When asked about Mattie at an event before filming has begun, Logan says that Mattie has zero talent, which is horrible publicity for the film. The powers that be convince the two of them to start a fake relationship, hoping that the buzz around the two stars dating will create hype for the movie.
Logan and Mattie start hanging out per their obligation to look like they’re in a relationship and the line between what’s real and what’s not gets blurry. Logan is a clearly troubled person while Mattie exudes positivity. Can he help Logan without losing himself?
I really like the fake dating trope and I think it was done well in Stars in Our Eyes. It’s also got the grumpy/sunshine thing going on. However, Logan has some pretty serious issues – this is not a light romantic comedy. The author states the trigger warnings upfront so I wasn’t surprised at how serious the story actually was. Sometimes I think narration could sound a little clinical when explaining certain things and it would take me out of the moment. For instance, when the characters thought about consent, their thoughts kind of read like a magazine article about consent. That’s really my only criticism.
I liked the authenticity of Logan and Mattie’s relationship. The way their issues were handled seemed realistic and made sense. This book was fun but it had substance as well. Recommended.
***Stars in Our Eyes was one of my October 2023 Book of the Month Club selections. You can join Book of the Month with this link and get a hardcover book for only $5 with no obligation to continue your membership.***
November 9th, 2023 in
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Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Narrator: Michelle Zauner
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: April 20, 2021
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband–her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.
Crying in H Mart is Michelle Zauner, of the band Japanese Breakfast’s memoir of growing up Korean American in the very white town of Eugene, Oregon. After she struggled with being one of just a few Asian kids in her schools growing up, she moved to the East Coast for college, where she met her husband. When her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she moved back home to take care of her.
First a warning: Do not read this book while hungry. In Michelle’s family, food equals love so there are a lot of vivid descriptions of tasty food. When Michelle moves back home to take care of her dying mother, food becomes even more important. As her mother declines, it’s harder and harder for her to eat. Michelle cooks all sorts of things trying to find something her mother finds appetizing.
Crying in H Mart was heartbreaking, as one would expect. The writing flows like a novel even though it’s a memoir. It’s the story of family love and identity. Michelle reads it herself, which made me even more invested in her life. Highly recommended.
November 6th, 2023 in
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The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth—another female casualty of China’s controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly risky decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter.
Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name and the wealth that comes with it, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. She’s even hired a nanny to help her balance the demands of being a working wife and mother. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.
The Leftover Woman finds these two unforgettable women on a shocking collision course. Twisting and suspenseful and surprisingly poignant, it’s a profound exploration of identity and belonging, motherhood and family. It is a story of two women in a divided city—separated by severe economic and cultural differences yet bound by a deep emotional connection to a child.
Jasmine Yang comes to New York City from China to try and find her daughter Fifi, who was adopted by an American couple because of China’s one-child policy. Once she finds her daughter, she plans to take her away. But first, she has to find a way to pay back the snakeheads that helped make her trip to America possible. She’s undocumented so it will be difficult for her to find a job.
Meanwhile, Rebecca Whitney, Fifi’s adoptive mother, is unaware of Jasmine and her plans. She’s preoccupied with her career and marriage, both of which are falling apart.
The Leftover Woman was beautifully written and intricately plotted. I had no idea how the author could possibly wrap things up until she actually did at the very end. I was very satisfied with the ending – I never could have guessed how it all came together. It’s one of those books that if you reread it, you’ll notice things you didn’t notice the first time that will make you say, “Ah ha – that was a clue!” Even though The Leftover Woman is not a thriller, there were a few plot twists that surprised me. Highly recommended.
***The Leftover Woman was one of my October 2023 Book of the Month Club selections. You can join Book of the Month with this link and get a hardcover book for only $5 with no obligation to continue your membership.***
November 2nd, 2023 in
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Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta
Publisher: Pocket Star
Publication Date: 2006
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Funny, sexy, cheerful Milagro de Los Santos has a degree from a Fancy University (F.U.) but can’t seem to hold down a good job, sell her eccentric horror stories, or have the sort of relationship suitable for the sincere and serious young woman she’s trying to be. Then at a book party for her pretentious ex-boyfriend, she meets Oswald, a fabulous man who tells her he’s interested in her writing. A mad kissing session leads to a fall, cut lips, and an accidental exchange of blood.
For the first time in Milagro’s life, she becomes sick…really, weirdly sick and has cravings for raw meat and an aversion to sunlight. The ex-boyfriend kidnaps her, accusing her of being a vampire, and the fabulous stranger’s family comes to her rescue and takes her to recover at their wine-country estate.
Oswald’s family thinks she’s a trashy golddigger. She thinks they’re awfully snobby for people who claim not to be vampires, but merely to have a genetic “condition.” Oh, and fabulous Oswald is already engaged to an equally fabulous woman, Milagro’s ex-boyfriend is still hunting her down, a decadent aristovamp visitor has taken a special interest in Mil, and she’s lost her apartment.
Can she be sincere and serious long enough to defeat her powerful enemies, save her new friends, and get back in time for cocktails at Casa Dracula, the place she’s come to think of as her home?
Milagro meets Oswald at a book party for her jerk of an ex-boyfriend. They end up making out so heavily that they both fall down and cut their lips, exchanging blood. The next day, Milagro falls ill. Her symptoms include craving raw meat and sensitivity to sunlight. Her ex kidnaps her and tells her she’s a vampire now. However, Oswald’s family rescues her and takes her to their estate. The family insists that they are not vampires and neither is she. They say they suffer from a genetic condition and she has a virus.
The writing of Happy Hour at Casa Dracula was not the greatest – many cliché metaphors and whatnot. (Also, the word transvestite is used several times. I don’t think that word is okay to use now? This book was published in 2006 though, so it was probably okay then.) But I know the focus for these types of books is plot and I did think the story was amusing. I know nowadays, most romance readers want spice so fair warning: There is zero spice in this book. All love scenes fade to black. Lastly, I always like to document whenever Unitarians are referenced in popular culture since we so rarely are. When Milagro is trying to talk a girl out of being a Satanist, she says, “And you should find a decent religion. I’ve heard great things about the Unitarians.” Thanks, Milagro!
This book is the first in a series of four. I’m still deciding whether or not I liked it enough to read book two. This book doesn’t end with a cliffhanger so I feel pretty satisfied.
October 30th, 2023 in
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How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Publisher: 37 Ink
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.
In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.
How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.
How to Say Babylon is Safiya Sinclair’s memoir of growing up in a strict Rastafarian household. I learned so much about that culture – all I knew up to this point was that Bob Marley was a Rastafarian and that smoking pot has a role in it. Safiya was not allowed to cut her dreadlocks or wear pants. Her father was intent on making sure she wasn’t corrupted by the outside world – what he called Babylon. She wasn’t allowed to have friends who weren’t Rasta. When she starts attending an elite private school on scholarship, she’s made of fun of by the other kids for being what they call a dirty Rasta.
Safiya’s father also beats her and her siblings when they disobey him, even for minor infractions. The belt he beats them with hangs up where it’s visible and can remind everyone of what’s coming for them if they act up. When Safiya gets older, her mother helps her submit her poetry to competitions and she becomes a fairly well-known poet in Jamaica at a young age. You can tell reading this book that she is a poet. Her prose is beautiful – so descriptive. The book reads like a novel. I had to keep reminding myself I was reading a memoir. Highly recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
October 19th, 2023 in
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Evil Eye by Etaf Rum
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: September 5, 2023
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description
Yara Murad has worked hard to outrun the demons of her tumulous childhood in Brooklyn. Now ensconced in suburban North Carolina, Yara has achieved everything she aspired to: She is highly educated and teaches art at a local college. She is also a wife and mother, raising two precocious daughters with her businessman husband, Fadi. But her marriage is nothing like the high-conflict relationship she witnessed between her parents as she was growing up, and she knows her life is world’s better than her mother’s, with the kind of freedom her mother had only dreamed of.
Yara is growing more and more unhappy with her life. Her goal before she got married was to have more autonomy in her marriage than her mother did. She agreed to marry Fadi only if she could go to college and then get a job after they married. That kind of freedom is rare in her culture. She slowly realizes she is not as free as she thought she was. She went directly from her father’s control to her husband’s control. Sure, her husband is more permissive than her father was with her mother and her, but permissive is the keyword. She still has to ask him before she can do certain things. The breaking point comes when she wants to go abroad as a chaperone on a student trip and Fadi says she can’t. There is also an incident at her workplace and she has to go to counseling because of it.
Evil Eye was an authentic portrayal of depression and how it can cause both sadness and anger. It’s also about the struggle that women have to balance family and work life. In Yara’s case, she actually wanted to work more but her husband would only let her work during the hours that their kids were in school. She feels adrift.
I liked Evil Eye but I thought it got a little repetitive. That may have been the point though. Yara feels like her life is on autopilot, doing the same thing day after day. I feel like I got the point though and it could have been trimmed up a bit. That’s a small quibble though. I do recommend Evil Eye. I liked it enough that I recently bought Etaf Rum’s first book, A Woman is No Man and I can’t wait to read it.
Evil Eye was my Book of the Month selection for September. You can use my referral link and get your first book for $5 and free shipping with no obligation to continue your membership.
October 16th, 2023 in
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