📖 BOOK TITLE: THE REUNION 📖AUTHOR: KAYLA OLSON  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #155thBookof2024 I really wanted to love this; I mean, look at this stunning cover, but it is what it is, and I didn't love it 😩. It was like the author wanted to shove the love interest down my throat 😂😂. One thing this love story between Liv and Ransom did was make me cringe. I even lowkey hated the MMC's name 😩😑. The chemistry was not there, and it just felt as if Liv didn't have any other option than to date Ransom. Boy told you he wanted space; he didn't talk to you, and after so many years, he waltzed back into your life like he never left. The synopsis made it feel like Ransom was the reason Liv went into isolation 😑😑. Liv- I love your personality and your charisma, but your love story with Ransom was one I so detested 🙁. 📖 RATINGS : 2 STARS ⭐⭐ 📖🌸 READ IF YOU LIKE: 🌸 She has always loved him 🌸 Friends to strangers to lovers 🌸 Second chance romance  🌸 Hollywoo...

📖 BOOK TITLE: HAS ANYONE SEEN MY HUSBAND? 📖AUTHOR: KATHLEEN WHYMAN  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #154thBookof2024 I love this book, the humor! The drama! And the mystique surrounding Scott and his numerous problems. I can't believe Marie and his ex-wife married this guy. Scott is an a$$hole, and he deserves to be treated as such. Those poor innocent kids 😩. While humor was a big part of the novel, this book shines a light on serious topics such as infidelity, gaslighting, serial lying, and paternal irresponsibility towards children, just to say the least. I had so much fun laughing while reading this book and gained awareness of how lies and subtle gaslighting build up! What Scott did is unacceptable! And my heart goes out to all the things he did to the women he was with; what a gag🤮🤢. And yes, there is a love interest 🥰🥰🥰. 📖 RATINGS : 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📖 BOOK TITLE: THE ONLY BLACK GIRL IN THE ROOM 📖 AUTHOR : ALEX TRAVIS  📖 THOUGHTS&OPINIONS :  # 153rdBookof2024 Initially, when I started, I had mixed feelings about this book because it felt as though Genevieve was constantly complaining about everything, from her workplace to her coworkers, her friends, and even her relationship. And I was just bored. I got really interested when Jude came into the story, and even then it just made the story manageable. I loved how this book ended, and you can definitely see how the characters have grown ❤️. Despite how bored I was from the beginning, this book shines a light on racism, microaggressions, workplace disparities, and the rest. 📖 RATINGS : 3 STARS ⭐⭐⭐

  📖 BOOK TITLE: MY YEAR OF CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES  📖AUTHOR: RUTH F STEVENS  📖BLURB:  When Mar Meyer's husband divorces her for another woman, she reacts by abandoning everything in her past: her home, her friends, even her name. Though it's not easy to start over, Mar is young-looking, fit, and ready for new adventures-as long as she can keep things casual.  With each passing month, Mar goes from one acquaintance to the next. Among them: a fellow gym member down on her luck, a flirty hip-hop instructor, a bossy but comical consultant, a kindly older gentleman... and Charlie, a handsome best-selling novelist who wants more from Mar than she's able to give.  She learns something new from each encounter. But can she change enough to open herself up to happiness and true connection?  📖PUB DATE: September   26th 2024 📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #115thBookOf2024 Thank you to Booksirens, the publisher, and the author for providing ...

📖 BOOK TITLE: MURDER LEADS TO MARRIAGE  📖AUTHOR: SHANNON PEEPLES 📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #152ndBookof2024 Thank you to the author for allowing me to read this e-ARC and provide my honest opinions. First of all, there were so many characters that I couldn't even keep track, and there were so many side stories that I thought weren't necessary to the plot. I wanted a mystery, but I got some kind of romance for the Hurley family. The synopsis got me so hyped up, and I was so excited for the drama that comes with mystery/thriller. Unfortunately, I didn't love this story, so much dragging dialogue from unnecessary characters that when the main mystery started, which is the kidnapping of one of the Hurley sisters, something felt amiss; as quickly as the kidnap scene started, it ended almost as quickly. I felt I missed a chapter or something like that. Some things didn't add up, which was a major dealbreaker for me, and I felt as though the genre and synops...

📖BOOK TITLE: MIDNIGHTS WITH YOU  📖AUTHOR:  CLARE OSONGCO 📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #151stBookOf2024 Midnights With You is incredibly painful and sad—I say painful because it shines a light on the amount of harm that painful parent-child relationships cause on children and young adults. Upon seeing the cover, I was expecting a young adult romance, and I didn't even read the synopsis, so I was so shocked to discover the content. It was extremely painful to read and witness what was happening to Deedee, who felt so lost, so unloved, carrying all the shame and guilt all for no reason. Before reading, please ensure you read the trigger warnings, and I am going to add it to my review: This story contains on-page depictions of a parent being emotionally abusive, slapping, depression, grief, and racism. It also mentions the off-page death of a parent and off-page domestic violence and contains a brief scene of on-page sexual harassment. This is the kind of story...

📖BOOK TITLE: THE UNEXPECTED GUESTS (BOOK TWO) 📖AUTHOR: RUTH F STEVENS  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #150thBookOf2024 Thank you, Booksirens and the author, for granting my request to read this e-ARC and provide my honest opinions. Having read the first book, "My Year of Casual Acquaintances," I decided to request the sequel, thinking it will be way better than the first. Honestly, I was bored, but I still felt as though I needed to finish the book; there were too many side background stories that I felt were not necessary to the plot. I loved Charlie & Margaret and the evolution of their relationship. Thank you once again for the opportunity to read this e-ARC.  📖RATINGS: 3 STARS ⭐⭐⭐ Check out my review of the first book in the series: MY YEAR OF CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES

📖 BOOK TITLE: ONE CHRISTMAS WITH YOU  📖AUTHOR: MARI SUGGS  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #149thBookOf2024 The Christmas season is upon us, and I think this is a good Christmas pick. Light on spice but big on drama 😅. What would you do when you spend Christmas with your best friend's family and you find out the stranger who you had a one-night stand with is her brother? 😂😂. Trevor was a whole vibe, and I totally love him 🤭🤭. This would have been easy had it been Eloise was not in a relationship with Dr. A$$hole and if she had not discovered that said doctor was cheating on her and who, by the way, she is still with. 😑 All through this book, I kept screaming, Eloise!! Because she was driving me crazy with her decisions concerning her relationship and her parents. Oh, thank God for Trevor. 🤭😍 This book will take you back and forth because there is a lot of drama in this book, some that will make you roll your eyes and some that is so unnecessary. 😅. Re...

📖 BOOK TITLE: LEASE ON LOVE 📖AUTHOR: FALON BALLARD  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #148thBookOf2024 Lease on Love is the perfect found family trope and finding friends in unexpected places, though I didn't quite connect to the love story between Sadie and Jack. They make quite a pair with the "opposites attract" trope. I felt the love story was not properly built/developed. Imagine this girl gets laid off from her job, starts thinking of downsizing to a lesser-paying apartment, calls her buddies to a happy hour, and while being drunk, stumbles on a roommate-finding app and stumbles on Jack's profile 😅 and, fixes a time for a "date" to meetthe boy.. Boy meets girl, clears the confusion up, offers his house for a little amount, and accepts girl as his roommate instantly. To me it felt as if Jack needed companionship, and the moment he stumbled on Sadie... he found what he was looking for. Sadie's transition from "This guy is okay, duh 🙁...

📖 BOOK TITLE: KISSES, CODES AND CONSPIRACIES  📖 AUTHOR : ABIGAIL HING WEN  📖 THOUGHTS&OPINIONS :  #147thBookOf2024 Kisses, Codes, and Conspiracies is one novel that I should have definitely loved! The drama, the plot, and maybe a love triangle? But unfortunately I couldn't connect to this story. This is a YA novel, and the shit that went down in this novel is way out of league for a couple of teenagers and a five-year-old (forgive me for my language)! So each time I read, I would reason that this is so unlike any YA 'mystery' novel I've read, and what even made me so uneasy was stringing a 5-year-old along for all the mishaps that happened! Overall I didn't really enjoy what went down in this novel and the romance between Tan and Winter.  📖 RATINGS : 2 STARS ⭐⭐

📖 BOOK TITLE: REZ BALL  📖 AUTHOR : BRYON GRAVES  📖 THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #146thBookof2024 I am really surprised that this is a debut novel! I really have no words to describe what I felt when I was reading this book so I am going to leave my review like this.  Wow!!! I am no basketball enthusiast but I'm so glad I discovered this book, I am so glad I got to read this book! You can see how raw the emotions are, you begin to feel what the author felt when he was penning down this book! We need more books like this!! Time to go and watch the movie!! 📖 RATINGS : 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📖BOOK TITLE: THREE HOLIDAYS AND A WEDDING  📖AUTHOR: UZMA JALALUDDIN & MARISSA STAPLEY  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #145thBookOf2024 Three Holidays and a Wedding is the perfect holiday book! I kept smiling throughout this book. And yes, I have a favorite couple! Anna and Chase 🥰🥰 Turbulence on the air makes two strangers, Maryam Aziz and Anna Gibson, who would soon be best of friends, spill out some of the things they have never voiced out. It is all good because neither one of them thinks they will see each other again, and Maryam didn't think there would be anyone nearby to hear what she has to say, but alas, Saif does! Saif has been Maryam's crush for so long, and now he knows that Maryam is kind of into him. As you would have guessed, I didn't really enjoy Maryam and Saif love story; a lot was going on with the Aziz family and with Maryam herself. I could not even feel the chemistry between Maryam and Saif. As for Anna and Chase, their chemistry w...

📖BOOK TITLE: STATISTICALLY SPEAKING  📖AUTHOR: DEBBIE JOHNSON  📖 PUB DATE: DECEMBER 03 2024 📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #144thBookOf2024 Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for granting my request to read this e-ARC and provide my honest opinions. The last book I read was really sad and very emotional, so definitely it spilled over to this as well. Gemma Jones' life is one that was definitely heartbreaking. She had a child at sixteen, didn't know who the dad was, had to go through it all without a solid support system, and still had to give the baby away😪. Despite all the hardship she faced, she still made something out of herself. For me, Gemma giving her baby away was a very beautiful thing for her to do. Even at the age of sixteen, she thought and knew that raising her baby would be nearly impossible as she was still a child herself. Her mom would have been of help, but being an addict and her mood flaring up all the time wasn't the best ...

📖BOOK TITLE: THIS CLOSE TO OKAY  📖AUTHOR: LEESA CROSS-SMITH  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #143rdBookOf2024 This is a very sad story, and you absolutely have to find out the triggers before you start reading. This book contains suicidal attempts, jail time, death of a spouse and a child, infidelity, divorce, and PTSD, just to mention a few. This book broke my heart for all different reasons; initially it started slow, but it began to take shape over the course of the chapters. What happened to Emmett* was very terrible, but it still doesn't excuse his behavior for being dishonest to Tallie 😪. I felt for his loss. I am still feeling his loss😭. Anytime I think of what happened to him and his family, I break down because nobody deserves to go through what he went through. Through Tallie Clark, I learned the need to be kind and care for people around us, even strangers, without losing sight of yourself. To Tallie, because you are an extremely kind person, I wi...

📖BOOK TITLE: JOSH AND GEMMA MAKE A BABY  📖AUTHOR: SARAH READY  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS: #142ndBookOf2024 Josh and Gemma make a very beautiful couple, and please, my fellow booklovers, tell me we have a couple name for them 🥺😄. Gemma's new year's resolution is to have a baby, but unfortunately she is single, not to mention divorced, but Gemma doesn't need a Mr. Right when she has Josh Lewenthal, who by the way is her longtime brother's best friend, who also by the way makes a perfect sperm donor, who also by the way deflowered Gemma when there were kids😅 It's perfect, right? Until it isn't... baby making is a whole different business entirely, and I love the way this book wasn't entirely focused on the couple but shines a light on infertility. Making a baby is not as easy as introducing a sperm to an egg; it goes more than that, and when your sperm donor is your brother's best friend, who you are getting closer to, and you are also ki...

📖BOOK TITLE: THE MULLIGAN CURSE  📖AUTHOR: DIANE BARNES  📖 PUB DATE: FEBRUARY 5TH 2025 📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #141stBookOf2024 Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for granting my request to read this e-ARC and provide my honest opinions. Who wouldn't want to go back in time and change one of the life-changing decisions? Who wouldn't want to see how life should've turned out if you took an alternate path? Mary Mulligam has been having some pains in her mouth due to the recent emergence of her wisdom tooth; this scenario should have been perfectly normal had it been Mary Mulligan wasn't in her fifties. So now you see what drew me into the story—who doesn't love a good time travel novel? The plot was set right; the emergence of Mary's wisdom tooth is due to her having some serious life regrets; she thinks she has not done enough with her life. Now she is old and lonely; her husband doesn't have enough time for her, and her...

📖BOOK TITLE: HATE FOLLOW  📖AUTHOR: ERIN QUINN-KONG 📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #140thBookOf2024 No doubt this book brought about some important points that call for discussion, but personally, I felt there was a lot going on, from some form of dependency on alcohol to coping with the loss of a loved one, a new boyfriend, a cancer diagnosis, bullying, bribery, etc. Where do we draw the line between what to post as parents and what not to post? No offense, but all the things Whitney did for her socials, I did not see one single thing wrong with it, and if that was not enough, Mia's best friend family suggested seeing a lawyer, and they have never seen Whitney's account. I found it really creepy that the Garcias were too accepting of the whole situation. Yeah, Whitney had to do what she had to do; she gave her family a stable income and used writing as therapy. A mother and her daughter who have not properly moved on from their husband and father's death—Whitne...

📖 BOOK TITLE : EVERYONE THIS CHRISTMAS HAS A SECRET (BOOK 3)  📖 AUTHOR : BENJAMIN STEVENSON  📖 THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #139thBookOf2024 Counting down to Christmas is fun, but have you ever wanted to find out the main suspect in a murder right before Christmas? It just makes Christmas a whole lot better 😈. This book—my amateur sleuth skills failed me because I failed to even figure it out before Ernest did. I didn't even come close at all 🤯😩. Benjamin Stevenson did a fantastic job with this series. Ernest is a wonderful character, and all his antics are going to stay with me for a long time. I would hate to see Ernest go 😪. And I hope the next book is not about a murder set at a wedding, but if it is, I am definitely reading it!  📖 RATINGS : 4 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Check out the books in the Ernest Cunningham Series 🕵️‍♂️ Book 1:  EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE Book 2:  EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT

Happy new month, booklovers!  Welcome to another segment of Readers Recs! Are you on track to meet your reading goals for the year?  If you're not, no need to beat yourself up! We've all been there. Sometimes, we just need a fresh start or a new title to spark our interest. Here are five different book recommendation list that you might enjoy: 1.  THE 250-PAGE CHALLENGE : Most of the time, all we need is a few short and sweet reads to pique your interest. 2.  RIVALRY NEVER FELT RIGHT : Who doesn't love academic rivals to lovers 🎓. 3.  READ IN COLOR: PURPLE EDITION : Shake up your reads with a bit of color 💜. 4.  LOOKING FOR YOUR NEXT FAVE YA BOOK : I love YA and I hope you love it as well! 5.  MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS : It's okay to not be okay! Happy Reading, booklovers! Until next time, stay bookish and wonderful!! Image from goodreads

📖 BOOK TITLE: FOLLOW ME  📖AUTHOR: ELIZABETH ROSE QUINN  📖 PUB DATE: MAY 6TH 2025  📖THOUGHTS&OPINIONS:  #138thBookOf2024 Ok, it's time to breathe, actually maybe a breath or two because what did I just read? 🤯🤯 I was expecting a cozy mystery because how can a grown woman of twin boys disappear without no trace? But then the story turned, and I was not expecting this dark tale. I say dark because it was definitely too dark for me—after the murder(s) that took place, I had to stop reading and start doing other things (like scrolling through Facebook) to stop my brain from playing the images/movie-like trance it has conjured. Like this book was crazy, momfluencer kind of crazy. You'll ask how monfluencers and murders relate, and I'll tell you you definitely have to read this book to actually find out the answers. Before diving into this book, know that there are some heavy themes being discussed in this book, which include: drug addiction, postp...