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Temptation by JD Hawkins

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While my blog post itself does not contain any sexual content, this book does. This is a review for a book that is meant for mature audiences, and therefore is unsuitable for minors. This book was provided to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for also providing the press kit with the graphics and blurb. Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it)

To All the Boys I've Loved Before, now on Netflix!

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I am blasting this message on every platform I have--if you have Netflix and some spare time, please watch this wonderful, cute adaptation of Jenny Han's novel, To All the Boys I've Loved Before . This is the sort of movie I wish I'd had when I was in high school and questioning my identity as an Asian-American teen. Every movie I could think of back then that had Asian people were about Asian-Asian people and/or martial arts or whatever, and I never saw just a regular American teenager who looked like me as the main character in a movie. (Sure, there were sidekicks and minor characters. That's how it always is.) While I haven't read the book myself, I can't speak to how well it worked as an adaptation, but on its own, it was cute, funny, and fun. I do know that the protagonist, Lara Jean, and her family were made to be half-Korean, half-white (John Corbett plays their father), whereas I think the book had them as full Asian? And while I DO have thoughts ...

Living Out Loud by Staci Hart

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While my blog post itself does not contain any sexual content, this book does. This is a review for a book that is meant for mature audiences, and therefore is unsuitable for minors. Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it!) Summary : After the sudden death of her father, Annie Daschle, her mother, and her two sisters find themselves having to move in with estranged family in New York. Annie, who is 18 and who has spent her life in a small Texas town being extra  sheltered due to a congenital heart defect, is ready to make the most of their new life and is armed with her dad's old camera and a list of ways she wants to live out loud . Starting with, getting a job for the first time ever. And then she literally runs into one of the managers at bookshop/bar, Wasted Words. Greg Brandon, who never really notices any women, finds himself inexplicably drawn to Annie's sunshine and passion-filled approach to life. However, Annie's heart has always had a mind of its o...

Wasted Words by Staci Hart

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It's been a while since my last review. I had a lot of personal things going on these last couple of months (which is a story for my personal blog, and not this one), so I haven't felt motivated to get lost in fictional drama when I've had a lot of real drama to deal with :/ I WILL be getting back into the swing of things and making up for lost time, but for now, I'm going to share a review that I posted back in January on Goodreads, but for some reason didn't put on my blog. The reason why I'm bothering to repost it here is because I had already reviewed another book from this series on my blog (it's a romance series, which means that each book is a standalone, but they feature commonalities/are related), and I'm about to start the most recent one, so I want all the reviews to show up here as well :) While my blog post itself does not contain any sexual content, this book does. This is a review for a book that is meant for mature audiences, and ...

Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter

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Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Summary:  This is a large, photo-filled, coffee-table book about the musical Hamilton , which (in case you have no exposure to pop culture whatsoever [in which case, how'd you find my obscure little blog???]) is a hip hop musical about Alexander Hamilton. Thoughts:  While I do actually own a physical copy of this book (which is awesome, by the way), I chose to listen to this as an audiobook. The book itself consists mainly of the full libretto of the musical (with annotations from LMM himself about the various lyrics and musical lines, etc.), with short "behind the scenes" chapters interspersed throughout, lining up chronologically with the songs at times, and discussing the history of the musical itself from all different angles: the writing, the development, the choreography, everything. The audiobook gives you all the chapters first, with an introduction from co-writer Jeremy McCarter (as in, he wrote the chapter p...

A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas

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Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) This is officially designated book 3.1 of the ACOTAR series, meaning that it's not a full novel, but it is a follow-up to the third book. It's kind of a sequel--an epilogue, really--that sets up the spinoff novels that will come out in the future. This review may contain spoilers for the previous books in the series. For those reviews, please see below: Book 1: A Court of Thorns and Roses Book 2: A Court of Mist and Fury Book 3: A Court of Wings and Ruin Summary: Hybern has been defeated, and for now, Prythian is trying to put itself back together and maintain the peace that they fought so hard for. For Feyre, now back with her beloved Rhys and their Night Court, it means settling into her duties as the High Lady. This includes not just the typical responsibilities to their people and their kingdom, but also sorting out the aftermath of everything they just went through (losing her father, nearly losing Rhys), helping ...

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

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Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Summary: Penny Lee doesn't really feel like she belongs anywhere or with anyone (especially not her oblivious, dresses-too-young mother), and when she heads off to college, the last thing she expects to find is a friend in the form of hot coffee-shop Sam. Sam, who is amazing at baking and trying to put himself through film school, has a bunch of troubles of his own, and when he basically lands himself in the hospital, Penny happens to be there to help him. They swap phone numbers, promising to be each others' emergency contacts. Thus begins a story of two people reaching out to each other, who previously didn't have anyone to reach out to before. As they each navigate their individual lives, Penny and Sam find that they need each other for far more than just emergencies.