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Tag: Online relationships

Book Review: What I Like About You

April 5, 2020 / / 0 Comments

What I Like About You – Marisa Kanter – Simon and Schuster – Published 7 April 2020

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Synopsis

There are a million things that Halle Levitt likes about her online best friend, Nash.

He’s an incredibly talented graphic novelist. He loves books almost as much as she does. And she never has to deal with the awkwardness of seeing him in real life. They can talk about anything…

Except who she really is.

Because online, Halle isn’t Halle—she’s Kels, the enigmatically cool creator of One True Pastry, a YA book blog that pairs epic custom cupcakes with covers and reviews. Kels has everything Halle doesn’t: friends, a growing platform, tons of confidence, and Nash.

That is, until Halle arrives to spend senior year in Gramps’s small town and finds herself face-to-face with real, human, not-behind-a-screen Nash. Nash, who is somehow everywhere she goes—in her classes, at the bakery, even at synagogue.

Nash who has no idea she’s actually Kels.

If Halle tells him who she is, it will ruin the non-awkward magic of their digital friendship. Not telling him though, means it can never be anything more. Because while she starts to fall for Nash as Halle…he’s in love with Kels.

My thoughts

What I Like About You is about blogging, a love triangle with only two people, online relationships and friendships, books, cupcakes and more books. It’s also about family, growing up and learning to be a better friend. This reads like a great teen novel. The characters have realistic teen voices, from their integrated use of social media and text speech, to facing the problems of finishing high school. It’s a fun, lighthearted book.

Halle Levitt is better known to her many online followers as Kels, book reviewer, blogger and cupcake baker. When she and her brother move in with their grandfather while their parents go overseas for work, she doesn’t expect to come face-to-face with her online (and overall, let’s be honest) best friend, Nash. Shocked, she doesn’t tell him who she is, just introduces herself as Halle. As she gets to know Nash in real life, becomes friends with his friends and maybe even fall in love with him, it becomes harder for Halle to know how she is going to reveal that she and Kels are the same person.

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Book Review: Tweet Cute

January 21, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Tweet Cute – Emma Lord – Wednesday Books- Published 21 January 2020

♥♥♥♥♥

 

Synopsis

Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming ― mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.

Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.

All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life ― on an anonymous chat app Jack built.

My thoughts

Tweet Cute is seriously cute. But not in a cringey, saccharine way. It is one of the most genuine, adorable but realistic and heartfelt and, yes, cute books I’ve read in ages-maybe ever. It’s a story about social media, a story about family and the ways in which we fight for them. A story about growing up and trying to decide what to do with your life. It’s a story about the most incredible baking and comfort food. Seriously. Pack snacks. And it’s a story about falling in love, and YA contemporary readers are sure to fall in love with this delightful book.

Pepper is in control of her life. Swim team captain, top grades, and a place amongst the genius students of her fancy New York high school. So what if she feels like she doesn’t really belong, would rather have her family whole again and be living in Nashville, and maybe even have some genuine friends. When her mother insists that she take over their company’s Twitter feed as they launch new stores around the country, Pepper doesn’t expect to have one of her tweets directly challenge a local family-owned deli or for her to have to go head to head with a fellow classmate as he seeks to defend his family’s deli. As Pepper and Jack wage war on Twitter, their paths keep crossing in real life.

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Book Review: On Magnolia Lane

October 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

On Magnolia Lane – Denise Hunter – Blue Ridge Romance #3 – Thomas Nelson – Published 6 November 2018

♥♥♥♥/♥

 

Synopsis

Pastor Jack McReady has secretly carried a torch for Daisy for two long years. She’s a member of his congregation, after all, and she’ll never see him as more than a trusted counselor. Jack’s best friend Noah has taken every opportunity to encourage his lovesick friend, but when Noah catches wind that Daisy has joined an online dating site, he takes matters into his own hands and orchestrates a meet-cute of the most unconventional kind.

Owner of the local flower shop, Daisy Pendleton is content with her small-town life, but she’d sure like someone to share it with. After several disastrous first dates, she’s about to give up—and then she finds a seemingly wonderful man online. Daisy gets to know TJ through a series of messages but finds herself spending more time with Pastor Jack outside of the church at the same time. What she doesn’t know is that her online prospect and Jack are one and the same. 

Just as Daisy’s love life starts to look promising, a mysterious woman appears in town. Daisy is faced with a revelation about her family that turns her world upside down, and she looks to both TJ and Jack for help.

Jack must find a way to reveal himself as her online suitor without breaking her heart and losing her trust. As Daisy faces Jack’s betrayal, she’ll have to learn to extend grace to herself, her family, and the man she’s grown to love.

My thoughts

On Magnolia Lane is utterly delightful. A story about grace and forgiveness in the face of betrayal, of falling in love even if it’s a little unexpected, and of community coming together to support and protect, On Magnolia Lane is so very easy to savour and enjoy.

Daisy Pendleton doesn’t mind being single, but she’d really rather like to find a wonderful guy who can love her and she him. That’s why she has joined a dating site and suffers through blind date setups. Jack McReady has been in love with Daisy for years, but knows she doesn’t see him as anyone other than her pastor. When Jack’s friends create him an anonymous profile on a dating site, Jack has a chance to show Daisy another side to the man she thinks she already knows.

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Book Review: Things I’m Seeing Without You

September 5, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Things I’m Seeing Without You – Peter Bognanni – Dial Books – Published 3 October 2017 

♥♥♥♥

 

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Tess Fowler has just dropped out of high school. She can barely function after learning of Jonah’s death. Jonah, the boy she’d traded banter with over texts and heartfelt e-mails.

Jonah, the first boy she’d told she loved and the first boy to say it back.

Jonah, the boy whose suicide she never saw coming.

Tess continues to write to Jonah, as a way of processing her grief and confusion. But for now she finds solace in perhaps the unlikeliest of ways: by helping her father with his new alternative funeral business, where his biggest client is . . . a prized racehorse?

As Tess’s involvement in her father’s business grows, both find comfort in the clients they serve and in each other. But love, loss, and life are so much more complicated than Tess ever thought. Especially after she receives a message that turns her life upside down.

My thoughts

This novel takes all the sadness and numbing grief of losing someone and presents it in such an upfront and honest way. Picturesque scenery, dry whit in the midst of heartbreak, broken families trying to heal and help in the only way they can, new beginnings, living funerals, dogs in rocket ships, and love – Things I’m Seeing Without You is brutal and beautiful. How is it that I spent so much time laughing while reading this book when it made me want to cry? Amazing.

Tess Fowler has dropped out of school in the wake of her boyfriend’s suicide, her grief and depression overwhelming. Sure, she only met Jonah once but all their online conversations in the past months were no less real or effecting than any face-to-face relationship. She loved him and his death has left her shaken. With nowhere else to go, she turns up on her father’s doorstep. In the following weeks, Tess begins to help her father run his funeral business and meets new people who change her life in ways she never saw coming.

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Book Review: Alex, Approximately

March 3, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Alex Approximately

Alex, Approximately – Jenn Bennett – Simon Pulse – Published 4 April 2017

♥♥♥

Synopsis

Classic movie buff Bailey “Mink” Rydell has spent half of her junior year falling for a sensitive film geek she only knows online as “Alex.” Two coasts separate them until she moves in with her dad, who lives in the same California surfing town as her online crush.

Faced with doubts (what if he’s a creep—or worse?), Bailey doesn’t tell Alex she’s moved to his hometown. Or that she’s landed a job at the local tourist trap, the oddball Cavern Palace Museum. Or that she’s being tormented daily by Porter Roth, a smart-alecky yet irritatingly hot museum security guard. But when Porter and Bailey are locked in the museum overnight, Bailey is forced to choose whether she should cling to a dreamy fantasy in Alex or take a risk on an imperfect reality with Porter. The choice is both simpler and more complicated than she realizes, because Porter Roth is hiding a secret of his own: Porter is Alex. Approximately.

My thoughts

Mixed feelings. On one hand I enjoyed reading Alex, Approximately. It was predictable (and sometimes unpredictable) in a satisfying way. And yet there were a few things that made me disengage.

I didn’t even read the synopsis before knowing I wanted to read this book. I loved Jenn Bennett’s previous novel Night Owls, (AKA The Anatomical Shape of A Heart) and so it was an easy choice to put this book on my to-read list. And then the synopsis sounded pretty awesome too.

Bailey has moved across the country to live with her dad, moved to the town where her long-term pen pal, Alex, lives. She just hasn’t told him yet. As she settles in to a new job, new friends, and even some new enemies (the gorgeous, but annoying surfer workmate Parker), Bailey is determined to find Alex and see if they share the same connection face to face as they do online.

Alex, Approximately is set in coastal mid-California. Hot summer days, beaches, surfing – it’s a great setting and the smell of sunscreen almost seeps through the pages. As does the small, surf town vibe.

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Book Review: #famous

January 25, 2017 / / 0 Comments

#famous

#famous – Jilly Gagnon – Katherine Tegen Books – Published 14 February 2017

♥♥♥♥

Synopsis

In this modern-day love story, Girl likes Boy, Girl takes photo of Boy and posts it online, Boy becomes accidentally insta-famous. And what starts out as an innocent joke spirals into a whirlwind adventure that could change both their lives—and their hearts—forever. But are fame and love worth the price?

Told in alternating points of view, #famous captures the out-of-control thrill ride of falling for someone in front of everyone.

My thoughts

#famous #awesome #funnybookyoumustread #touchingaddictive #ICouldWriteThisWholeReviewInHashtags

I anticipated that #famous would be a fun book, I just never expected that I would enjoy it as much as I did. For some reason I thought this book might be a little cliché or done before, maybe a teen-y kind of book with two dimensional characters. And what I got instead was complete awesomeness. #famous is funny, clever, and simply downright addictive. I devoured this book. It was so very easy to read and I didn’t want to put it down.

Rachel has had a crush on Kyle forever. When she takes a covert picture of him working at Burger Barn and posts it on a photo sharing website, she only expects her best friend to see it. It’s not like she has many followers. But the photo suddenly explodes on the website, making Kyle into an overnight sensation and thrusting Rachel into the limelight with him – but for all the wrong reasons. As Kyle and Rachel deal with the fallout of the picture including TV talk show appearances, they may have a chance of becoming friends, even through all the crazy.

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Book Review: In Real Life

February 7, 2016 / / 0 Comments

In Real Life

In Real Life – Jessica Love – St. Martin’s Griffin – Published 1 March 2016

♥♥

Synopsis

Hannah Cho and Nick Cooper have been best friends since 8th grade. They talk for hours on the phone, regularly shower each other with presents, and know everything there is to know about one another.

There’s just one problem: Hannah and Nick have never actually met.

Hannah has spent her entire life doing what she’s supposed to, but when her senior year spring break plans get ruined by a rule-breaker, she decides to break a rule or two herself. She impulsively decides to road trip to Las Vegas, her older sister and BFF in tow, to surprise Nick and finally declare her more-than-friend feelings for him.

Hannah’s surprise romantic gesture backfires when she gets to Vegas and finds out that Nick has been keeping some major secrets. Hannah knows the real Nick can’t be that different from the online Nick she knows and loves, but now she only has night in Sin City to figure out what her feelings for Nick really are, all while discovering how life can change when you break the rules every now and then.

My thoughts

In Real Life is a contemporary about two teens who are best friends online but have never met. Unfortunately, what could have been an interesting and fun romance, was instead trivial and full of drama.

Nick and Hannah have been best friends online for years, but when Hannah decides it’s finally time to meet she sets off to surprise Nick at his band’s performance in Las Vegas. But Nick has a few surprises of his own for Hannah, none of which Hannah is all that happy about. They have one night to sort things out and rescue their friendship.

The first couple of chapters alternate between real time and different past times over the course of Nick and Hannah’s online friendship. As Hannah journeys to Las Vegas with her sister and best friend, the alternations stop, with the chapters staying focused on Hannah in the current time. I think continuing the flashbacks would have cemented the idea of Nick and Hannah’s friendship, showing readers how important their friendship is to each other rather than trying to reiterate this. Instead we are left with Hannah’s uncertain feelings and endless comments about how nervous she is about meeting Nick, how important he is to her, and that they really are not anything more than friends, but then suddenly, oh yeah she’s totally in love with him and now he just broke her heart. On and on. Okay, enough already. We get it when you say it the first time! I mean, they really couldn’t title this book anything else, because clearly the amount of times the words ‘real life’ are used in the story made it an obvious title (21 times if you are interested. And yes, I counted. The word real was used so many times I gave up counting).      Continue reading

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