Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Casey McQuiston has become one of the most talked about writers over the last few years, as her debut novel, RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE, took the book communities (and my!) breath away. Her second novel, ONE LAST STOP, came out just a few weeks ago, and needless to say, had a lot of expectations to fulfill.

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all. (Synopsis from Goodreads.com)

Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations. I was initially weary of this story because of the sci-fi elements that I do not usually enjoy, but the time travelling part of the plot was actually one of my favourite elements of the story. Instead, I had a lot of trouble with the actual romance. I have recently discovered my dislike for the “love at first sight” romance trope. I much prefer “friends to lovers” or “hate to love”, because with those tropes, the characters form some sort of connection and/or chemistry between them before they, inevitably, fall for each other. While I liked both August and Jane, the two main characters in this story, I had hard time placing them together in a romantic way, at least until the very, very end of the story. To me, the romance fell short, which is obviously very unfortunate, because the romance is the central plot in this novel.

I will admit, that while I like and enjoy McQuiston’s writing style, a lot of the stuff in this novel went straight over my head. There were a lot of random plot lines that were mixed into this story, especially at the end, which made me start to skim the last quarter of the novel (and that’s after I had already spent three straight days working through it!). A lot of the plot lines were unnecessary to me, and had a few of them been eliminated, I might have ended up enjoying the romance more!

The one things I REALLY enjoyed about this novel was August’s friend group. August’s roommates were some of the most fun and enjoyable characters to read about. There personalities and interests were all very different from one another, which I think made them work together that much better. I would normally say I would like to have read more about the side characters, but because of the length of this novel, the information that McQuiston shared about them was the perfect amount.

Overall, this novel really disappointed me, and I ended up giving it a 2/5 star rating. Because of how much I loved RW&RB, I will definitely pick up the next book McQuiston writes, because I’m hoping that my dislike of this book is a fluke. I should mention that I am the unpopular opinion when it comes to this book, so if it does interest you, I’d still recommend checking it out.

Good Night Book Owls!

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

And more importantly, welcome to my review of my new favourite book of all time. Yes, you read that correctly! I have been waiting for a book to hit my feelings like a truck, and boy oh boy, this one did just that.

Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget and seven days to get it all back again… From the author of The Perfect Find, this is a witty, romantic, and sexy-as-hell new novel of two writers and their second chance at love.
Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone’s surprise, shows up in New York.
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York’s Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can’t deny their chemistry-or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.
Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva’s not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered. . .
With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual. (Synopsis from Goodreads.com)

This book was absolute perfection from beginning to end. It really is a true work of art. Tia Williams has created a near perfect story, with perfect pacing and writing, which all go along with wonderful new characters that readers become attached to right off the bat.

All of the characters in this novel pull all of the elements of the story together. The amount of characters in this book was surprisingly on the higher side when it comes to literary fiction/contemporary novels, but each character was important to the flow of the story. Even though Eva and Shane are the two main characters in this story, my favourite character was Audre, Eva’s daughter. She was very mature and incredibly self-aware for her young age, but she still had many juvenile characteristics which made her character seem so realistic. Audre and I shared a lot of similar traits when I was her age (at least from what I can remember), which made her character so enjoyable to me. Some of my other favourite characters were Cece, Eva’s editor, and Ty, one of Shane’s students. But of course, this story would not have been so great if I didn’t absolutely love Eva and Shane together as a couple, and as individuals. Eva and Shane are one of my favourite fictional couples ever, and each scene between them served as a masterclass for the perfect amount of lust, tension, and true love.

The writing style of this novel was one of my favourite aspects of it. Throughout the novel, there are many flashbacks to the time when Eva and Shane were high school lovers, and going through in immeasurable amount of harm and sadness. Both of them were addicts, and dealing with terrible home lives. At the same time, the reader is witnessing them re-connect after several years apart, and watching them fall for each other all over again as grown adults. The contrast between these two timelines was quite stark, but also very necessary to include to make sure that the reader understands how both characters have developed and grown immensely overtime.

Words truly cannot express how much I loved this book. I rated it 5/5 stars, but would’ve given it 500/5 if I could have! If this book interests you in any way, be sure to check it out at your local library or bookstore, as it releases in bookstores today! Thanks to HBG Canada for sending me a finished copy of this beautiful book!

Good Night Book Owls!