Category Archives: Romance

Review: Past Present Future by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,
Past Present Future by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Past Present Future (Rowan & Neil #2)
Rachel Lynn Solomon
Simon & Schuster
Published June 4, 2024

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About Past Present Future

They fell for each other in just twenty-four hours. Now Rowan and Neil embark on a long-distance relationship during their first year of college in this romantic, dual points of view sequel to Today Tonight Tomorrow .

When longtime rivals Rowan Roth and Neil McNair confessed their feelings on the last day of senior year, they knew they’d only have a couple months together before they left for college. Now summer is over, and they’re determined to make their relationship work as they begin school in different states.

In Boston, Rowan is eager to be among other aspiring novelists, learning from a creative writing professor she adores. She’s just not sure why she suddenly can’t seem to find her voice.

In New York, Neil embraces the chaos of the city, clicking with a new friend group more easily than he anticipated. But when his past refuses to leave him alone, he doesn’t know how to handle his rapidly changing mental health—or how to talk about it with the girl he loves.

Over a year of late-night phone calls, weekend visits, and East Coast adventures, Rowan and Neil fall for each other again and again as they grapple with the uncertainty of their new lives. They’ve spent so many years at odds with each other—now that they’re finally on the same team, what does the future hold for them?

My Review

It can’t be easy to write a romance in which the characters begin already in love and in a relationship. Yet, this book does it, and does it well. Rowan and Neil begin their college adventure uncertain about many things, but their relationship isn’t one of them.

Reading a story about high achievers in high school having to completely readjust for college life was really fascinating. Rowan and Neil both worked hard in high school, so it wasn’t like they got to college and didn’t realize it would be hard. They just didn’t realize what kind of hard it would be, if that makes sense? They were prepared for academic challenges. But other parts of college life took them by surprise. I loved the way the author highlighted that and showed the things they struggled with in a nuanced way. It’s far more complex than nerds struggling to make new friends, though both Neil and Rowan face unexpected social challenges.

I love reading about characters who write, so I loved following Rowan’s creative journey as well. Her struggle in class, her dissatisfaction with her work, and her feelings of being stuck made so much sense.

The book has great minor characters, too. Rowan and Neil make new friends, and their closest relationships from Today Tonight Tomorrow reappear here and there. Even when they’re only on scene for a few pages, these characters felt fully formed and, in many cases, like friends I’d want to have myself.

I think readers who fell in love with Rowan and Neil in Today Tonight Tomorrow will love seeing the continuation of their story. It’s less a romance between two people, though, and more a romance of falling in love with yourself. It’s about how having a stable, loving relationship doesn’t solve everything, but it can ground you and offer a boost of confidence to help you face those questions. Past Present Future is a sweet summer read, perfect for recent high school graduates preparing to embark on the next chapter of their own journeys.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Both Neil and Rowan are Jewish. Rowan is also Mexican American on her mom’s side. Several characters are queer. At least one character has depression.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Regular use of swearing, including F-bombs.

Romance/Sexual Content
Some scenes show deep kissing. A few scenes show or lead up to the characters having sex. It’s not overly described, but there are some details. Characters exchange explicit text messages. One scene includes masturbating.

Spiritual Content
Neil attends Shabbat services. His and Rowan’s families celebrate Hanukkah. As Neil learns about psychology, he learns about the connection between the Jewish value of self-actualization and how that drove many Jewish psychologists to pursue knowledge and advances in understanding within the field.

Violent Content
A boy gets hit in the face with a frisbee. References to a past violent altercation in which a man attacked a teenager with a baseball bat. References to domestic violence.

Drug Content
Neil’s father is an alcoholic. Both Rowan and Neil attend parties or gatherings at which alcohol is served. Neil has one drink. Rowan drinks as well. At one point, she drinks too much and ends up violently ill and hung over. A minor character uses a vape pen. Neil notes the smell of marijuana at a party.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: The Worst Perfect Moment Shivaun Plozza

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , , ,

The Worst Perfect Moment
Shivaun Plozza
Holiday House
Published May 14, 2024

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About The Worst Perfect Moment

Equal parts tender and edgy, this inventive queer romance imagines what it might feel like to come of age in the afterlife.

Tegan Masters is dead.

She’s sixteen and she’s dead and she’s standing in the parking lot of the Marybelle Motor Lodge, the single most depressing motel in all of New Jersey and the place where Tegan spent what she remembers as the worst weekend of her life.

In the front office, she meets Zelda, a cute and sarcastic girl Tegan’s age who is, in fact, an angel (wings and all). According to Zelda, Tegan is officially in heaven, where every person inhabits an exact replica of their happiest memory. For Tegan, Zelda insists, that place is the Marybelle—creepy minigolf course, revolting breakfast buffet, broken TV, and all.

Tegan has a few complaints about this.

As Zelda takes Tegan on a whirlwind tour through Tegan’s past to help her understand what mattered most to her in life, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If Zelda fails to convince Tegan that the Marybelle was the site of Tegan’s perfect moment, both girls face eternal consequences too dire to consider. But if she succeeds…they just might get their happily-ever-afterlife.

Full of humor and heartbreak, The Worst Perfect Moment asks what it means to be truly happy.

My Review

First of all, what a fantastic opening line. I love it. This book starts off with a bang, for sure. I like Tegan, too. She’s sparky, but so wounded and vulnerable underneath, and even when she doesn’t mean to let readers into that, she does. Her character easily kept me reading the book.

Zelda, the angel who designed Tegan’s personal heaven, grew on me a little. She’s very Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which I love seeing in a female-female romance, but isn’t my favorite trope, so I struggled with that. She’s goofy and fun, but determinedly crude, which, again, is not my favorite. Too many “butt-face” comments for me.

The scenes that revisit Tegan’s past and show what actually happened, especially the moments she doesn’t want to remember, hit hard. They showed how complex trauma and grief can be. Each one built up emotionally so that by the time I hit the final flashback, it hit hard. That was so well done.

Readers looking for a new spin on the Manic Pixie trope and who enjoy no-holds-barred humor will probably enjoy this one a lot.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Tegan and a few other girl characters are romantically interested in girls..

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Lots of crude comments. Lots of swearing. A few f-bombs.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two girls.

Spiritual Content
Tegan wakes up in the afterlife, in which heaven is supposed to be living at the site of your best memory forever. Purgatory is for people who die with too much unresolved trauma, and means people watch memories of their lives and have the emotions they experienced painfully scrubbed away. Hell, of course, is eternal torture.

Angels are assigned different jobs. There are guardian angels and angels who design a heaven scenario for someone. Tegan visits a counselor, someone who helps her process her death.

Tegan attended Catholic school for a part of her education. There are some references to sins and Catholic doctrines like purgatory, but very little reference to God or faith practices.

Violent Content
References to a girl on a bike being hit by a car, which killed her.

Tegan remembers arguments between her parents, which seem scary and chaotic to her. She sees her dad lose it and kick a door repeatedly. The story deals with abandonment by a parent.

Drug Content
Tegan’s aunt gets drunk and tells her something cruel.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Not If You Break Up With Me First by G. F. Miller

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, Romance, , , , , , , , ,

Not If You Break Up With Me First
G. F. Miller
Aladdin
Published June 4, 2024

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About Not If You Break Up With Me First

Two friends who have unhappily found themselves in an accidental relationship try to drive the other one to call things off in this tongue-in-cheek middle grade romance.

Childhood friends Eve and Andrew are destined to be together— everyone says so, especially their friends and classmates who are all suddenly crush-obsessed. So when Eve and Andrew’s first eighth grade school dance rolls around and Eve, feeling the pressure, awkwardly asks Andrew to go with her, everyone assumes they are Officially Dating and Practically in Love. Overwhelmed, Eve and Andrew just…go with it.

And it’s weird. Neither of them wants this dating thing to mess up their friendship, and they don’t really see each other that way. But they also don’t want to be the one to call things off, the one to make things super awkward. So they both—separately—pledge to be the worst boyfriend or girlfriend ever, leaving it to the other person to break up with them. It would be genius…if the other person weren’t doing the exact same thing.

My Review

This is kind of How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, but make it middle grade and where they’re both trying to get the other person to break up with them.

What really makes this great is the writing. Some scenes are hilariously awkward. Others nailed middle school so perfectly, I felt like I had time-traveled. It’s silly, sometimes gross (fart jokes, etc), but it doesn’t skimp on heart.

The chapters alternate between Eve and Andrew’s points of view, so readers are in on each person’s plan to drive the other to dump them and why it seems like a good idea. Writing both viewpoints also shows us how much Eve and Andrew miss their friendship, what they value about one another, and their hurt feelings and loneliness.

The short chapters make this one an easy, quick read. This would work well for readers who aren’t quite sure they’re interested in romance books yet or readers looking for books about changing relationships in middle school or friend drama.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Representation
Eve and Andrew are white. Also of interest: Andrew plays quads on his school’s drum line. Eve loves science, specifically space, and compares lots of things to space phenomena. Eve’s parents separate during the story.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Brief crude humor.

Romance/Sexual Content
A boy and girl hold hands. Some mentions of kissing between other couples, but not on scene. At one point, someone asks a girl what her sexual identity is, and she responds that she doesn’t want to think about that yet, can’t she just be thirteen for now? A nice nod to kids who aren’t sure and resent the pressure of being asked as a way to explain why they aren’t dating or reject someone who asks them out.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A prank war escalates, causing some hurt feelings and consequences when shool property is damaged.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. Check out other blogs posting about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle with Greg Pattridge.

Review: Burning Crowns by Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Burning Crowns (Twin Crowns #3)
Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber
Balzer + Bray
Published April 25, 2024

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About Burning Crowns

Twin queens Rose & Wren survived the Battle for Anadawn and brought back magic to their kingdom. But danger lurks in Eana’s shadows.

Wren is troubled. Ever since she performed the blood spell on Prince Ansel, her magic has become unruly. Worse, the spell created a link between Wren and the very man she’s trying to forget: Icy King Alarik of Gevra. A curse is eating away at both of them. To fix it they must journey to the northern mountains—under the watchful guard of Captain Tor Iversen—to consult with the Healer on High.

Rose is haunted. Waking one night to find her undead ancestor Oonagh Starcrest by her bed, she receives a warning: surrender the throne—or face a war that will destroy Eana. With nowhere to turn and desperate to find a weapon to defeat Oonagh, Rose seeks help from Shen-Lo in the Sunkissed Kingdom, but what she finds there may break her heart.

As Oonagh threatens all Rose and Wren hold dear, it will take everything they have to save Eana–including a sacrifice they may not be prepared to make.

My Review

I’ve followed this trilogy since the beginning, so I’m really excited to have had a chance to read the conclusion. What a wild ride it was!

Wren and Rose share a connection, but they’re really different as people. I liked the way they related to one another but yet had their own values and approaches to ruling Anadawn. Each sister has her own romance underway from previous books, and those progress here, too. I’m not gonna lie, I kind of hoped one sister would make a different choice than she did, but I felt like the ending was satisfying nonetheless.

The romantic plot contains some of the most mature elements of the story. It does fade to black before characters go further than undressing, but the characters definitely have some lusty thoughts and desires. The rest of the story feels solidly young adult. Rose and Wren are both still figuring out how to step into their adult roles as queens. They’re falling in love for the first time. I felt like those components really anchored the story as a young adult fantasy.

Wren and Rose and their relationship stands at the center of the story. In this particular book, they face a threat from their shared ancestry, one they can only vanquish together.

All in all, I enjoyed the series, and I’m glad I read all the way to the end. I think readers who are just outgrowing Disney fairytales would like the Twin Crowns series.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Minor characters with brown skin. Two minor female characters are in a romantic relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. In two scenes, characters undress one another, and the scene fades to black.

Spiritual Content
Some characters have magic. Wren and Alarik performed forbidden blood magic in an earlier book, which bound them together under a curse. A cruel past queen raises humans and animals from the dead, creating an undead army.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Battle scenes. References to torture. Descriptions of desecrated graves.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: I Wish You Would by Eva Des Lauriers

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,

I Wish You Would
Eva Des Lauriers
Henry Holt & Co.
Published May 21, 2024

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About I Wish You Would

In this drama-filled love story, private confessions are scattered on the beach during a senior class overnight and explosive secrets threaten to tear everyone apart, including best friends (or maybe more?), Natalia and Ethan.

It’s Senior Sunrise, the epic overnight at the beach that kicks off senior year. But for Natalia and Ethan, it’s the first time seeing each other after what happened at junior prom―when they almost crossed the line from best friends to something more and ruined everything. After ghosting each other all summer, Natalia is desperate to pretend she doesn’t care and Ethan is desperate to fix his mistake.

When the senior class carries out their tradition of writing private letters to themselves―what they wish they would do this year if they were braver―Natalia pours her heart out. So does Ethan. So does everyone in their entire class. But in Natalia’s panicked attempt to retrieve her heartfelt confession, the wind scatters seven of the notes across the beach. Now, Ethan and Natalia are forced to work together to find the lost letters before any secrets are revealed―especially their own.

Seven private confessions. Seven time bombs loose for anyone to find. And one last chance before the sun rises for these two to fall in love.

My Review

I really needed a candy romance book right about now, so I was really glad to find this one on my list. The short chapters make it especially binge-able, and the tension between the two estranged best friends makes it easy to keep reading well past bedtime (which I did.)

I like that Natalia is an artist and that her art impacts the story. There are moments when she describes how she’s feeling in terms of art or color. Ethan, by contrast, drifts into sharing strange facts when he’s stressed, which is really cute.

Almost the whole story takes place during an overnight camping trip for the rising senior class at Natalia’s and Ethan’s school. The first couple of chapters take place a few months before, and the last chapter takes place long afterward, functioning sort of like a prologue and epilogue.

The romantic plot of the story holds a lot of tension, with Natalia and Ethan recalling a kiss from months earlier that neither is sure whether the other regrets. The senior camping trip marks the first time they’ve seen each other in a while, and it creates a kind of forced proximity. The secret letters part of the story added some interesting components and quirky side characters and subplots.

Fans of J.C. Cervantes will probably like this quick, intense love story.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Natalia is Latine on her mom’s side. Includes minor characters of other races and gender identities/sexual orientations.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently. One character uses transphobic language and deadnames a nonbinary character.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. A boy and girl remove their tops while kissing. References to sex. References to romance between a girl and nonbinary character.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Two boys get into a fistfight. One character uses transphobic language and deadnames a character. References to sexual coercion, mostly off-scene. In one scene, a man boxes a girl into a corner, bracing his arm on the wall over her, and makes some comments with sexual undertones.

Drug Content
One teen character gets inexplicably drunk at the campout.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Northranger by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Graphic Novel or Adaptation, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Northranger
Rey Terciero
Illustrated by Bre Indigo
HarperTeen
Published June 6, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Northranger

In this swoony and spooky teen summer romance graphic novel set on a Texas ranch, sixteen-year-old Cade Muñoz finds himself falling for the ranch owner’s mysterious and handsome son, only to discover that he may be harboring a dangerous secret.

Cade has always loved to escape into the world of a good horror movie. After all, horror movies are scary–but to Cade, a closeted queer Latino teen growing up in rural Texas–real life can be way scarier.

When Cade is sent to spend the summer working as a ranch hand to help earn extra money for his family, he is horrified. Cade hates everything about the ranch, from the early mornings to the mountains of horse poop he has to clean up. The only silver lining is the company of the two teens who live there–in particular, the ruggedly handsome and enigmatic Henry.

But as unexpected sparks begin to fly between Cade and Henry, things get… complicated. Henry is reluctant to share the details of his mother’s death, and Cade begins to wonder what else he might be hiding. Inspired by the gothic romance of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and perfect for fans of Heartstopper and Bloom comes a modern love story so romantic it’s scary.

My Review

I really wanted to read this book when it came out, but my review calendar was out of control, so I bought a copy to add to my TBR stack, and was super excited to get to it finally. NORTHRANGER is inspired by Jane Austen’s classic Northanger Abbey, and like that novel, it features a main character who loves spooky stories. The lines between his favorite movies and real life begin to blur in some interesting ways, giving the story a suspenseful edge without any true horror elements. It’s got more of the fun, ghost stories by the campfire as a kid vibe to it.

I really liked both Cade and Henry as characters. They have really different personalities, and the panels show a lot of facets to them. I also thought the way the story showed the tension between Cade and his family because of his identity and how he internalized pressure and judgment from them was very well done.

It took me a while to finally get to read this one, but I’m so glad I did. Terciero is definitely an author I’ll be following for future books. I can see HEARTSTOPPER readers liking this one, especially the sweet M/M romance elements.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Cade is Latine and his stepdad and younger sister are also Black. Cade and another character are gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two boys.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Cade hears rumors about a possible murder and coverup. Brief racist and homophobic comments appear in the book as well.

Drug Content
One character is an alcoholic and drinks in several scenes.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog.