I Love You So Mochi

I Love You So Mochi

By: Sarah Kuhn
Narrated by Natalie Naudus
Release date: 28 August 2019
Listening length: 8 hours, 7 minutes
My review: 4 out of 5 stars 

Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Kasie West, I Love You So Mochi is a delightfully sweet and irrepressibly funny novel from accomplished author Sarah Kuhn.

"As sweet and satisfying as actual mochi... a tender love story wrapped up in food, fashion, and family. I gobbled it up." -- Maurene Goo, author of The Way You Make Me Feel Kimi Nakamura loves a good fashion statement.


She's obsessed with transforming everyday ephemera into Kimi Originals: bold outfits that make her and her friends feel like the Ultimate versions of themselves. But her mother disapproves, and when they get into an explosive fight, Kimi's entire future seems on the verge of falling apart. So when a surprise letter comes in the mail from Kimi's estranged grandparents, inviting her to Kyoto for spring break, she seizes the opportunity to get away from the disaster of her life. When she arrives in Japan, she's met with a culture both familiar and completely foreign to her. She loses herself in the city's outdoor markets, art installations, and cherry blossom festival -- and meets Akira, a cute aspiring med student who moonlights as a costumed mochi mascot. And what begins as a trip to escape her problems quickly becomes a way for Kimi to learn more about the mother she left behind, and to figure out where her own heart lies. In I Love You So Mochi, author Sarah Kuhn has penned a delightfully sweet and irrepressibly funny novel that will make you squee at the cute, cringe at the awkward, and show that sometimes you have to lose yourself in something you love to find your Ultimate self.

This was an adorable "find yourself" kind of story. Kimi seems to have had her life mapped out (for her) for most of her life, but in her senior year, she drops her art class. This begins the journey of finding out what she wants to do with her life. That journey takes her to her family's roots, in Japan. I love that the estranged grandparents are the ones to extend the invitation. When in Japan, she meets a mochi mascot... love is in the air! I loved the vivid descriptions of the areas she was visiting. Just a fun, light read.

Beach Read

Beach Read

By Emily Henry
Narrator: Julia Whelan
Release date: 19 May 2020
Listening length: 10 hours and 13 minutes
My review: 4 out of 5 stars

The Instant New York Times Best Seller from the Number One New York Times Best-Selling Author of People We Meet on Vacation

“Original, sparkling bright, and layered with feeling.” (Sally Thorne, author of The Hating Game)

A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes best-selling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

This was a mostly lighthearted rom-com book. This starts out as the story of a woman, dealing with the grief of losing her father and finding out he had a side she didn't know. Now the words that used to come to her so freely, aren't coming. Can she still write if she can't even believe in happily ever after? The way that this book weaves the whole story together is just beautiful. Makes me really cling to the happy right now moments. <3 Definitely will be looking for more books by this author.

If We're Being Honest

If We're Being Honest

By Cat Shook
Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney
Listening length: 11 hours, 8 minutes
Release date: April 18, 2023
My review: 3.5 out of 5 stars

For fans of We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange and All Adults Here by Emma Straub, Cat Shook’s debut novel If We’re Being Honest is the snappy, smart, heartwarming story of the Williams family, and the sweltering summer that rewrote their history.

When Gerry, the beloved Williams patriarch, dies suddenly, his grandchildren flock from across the country to the family home in Eulalia, Georgia. But when Gerry’s best friend steps up to the microphone to deliver his eulogy, the funeral turns out unlike anyone expected. The cousins, left reeling and confused, cope with their fresh grief and various private dramas. Delia, recently heartbroken, refuses to shut up about her ex. Her sister Alice, usually confident, flusters when she spots her high school sweetheart, hiding a secret that will change both of their lives. Outspoken, affable Grant is preening in the afterglow of his recent appearance on The Bachelorette and looking to reignite an old flame with the least available person in town. Meanwhile, his younger brother Red, unsure of himself and easily embarrassed, desperately searches for a place in the boisterous family.

The cousins’ eccentric parents are in tow, too, and equally lost—in love and in life. Watching over them all is Ellen, Gerry’s sweet and proper widow, who does her best to keep her composure in front of the leering small town.

Clever and completely original, If We’re Being Honest reminds you that while no one can break your heart like your family can, there’s really no one better to put you back together.

Although I received a copy of this ebook in exchange for a review, all opinions remain my own. Thank you Netgalley and Macmillian audio for the opportunity to listen to this book.

I really enjoyed this story of love and loss. It is about a family that comes together after the sudden loss of their patriarch. When a secret comes out about his life (during his funeral no less) it rocks everyone in the family. Told from almost every viewpoint in the family, this book gives a broad sense of how everyone handles grief and secrets differently. I love how real this felt. There were a few parts that felt a little too "happily ever after" but I guess that does sometimes happen. It was a fun listen and i would probably pick up another of Shook's books to listen to.

Little & Lion

Little & Lion

by: Brandy Colbert
Narrated by: Alisha Wainwright
Listening length: 8 hours, 12 minutes
Publicization date: August 8, 2017
My review: 4 out of 5 stars

Read for my March 2023 Reading challenge, prompt 7: the B in LGBTQIA+ Bisexual health awareness month. Little is a bisexual character in this book. 

A stunning novel on love, loss, identity, and redemption, from Publishers Weekly Flying Start author Brandy Colbert.

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. LA is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.

But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself - or worse.

When Suzette comes home from her New England boarding school, she isn't sure what to expect from her stepbrother, recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The summer is spent with the two of them trying to reconnect, her trying desperately to make things "the way they were" and him trying to live with his bipolar disorder. This book does a pretty good job with making the illness feel real. As someone living with someone with the disorder, it paints a real picture of how things can be. You want desperately for them to be able to lead a normal life, clinging to those moments where it feels like it used to be, then the lows come again. So frustrating. I cannot imagine it for a teenager, but through this book I can, just a little bit. This book brings out the theme of mental illness in a way that is easier for teenagers to understand. It is a disorder, not a disease. There is so much more to this book then just the relationship between Suzette and her stepbrother though. It is so worth picking the book up. Will she return to boarding school? Will she reunite with her old school friends? It is just a fun book to read with some really serious parts mixed in.

My Grandmother Asked Me To tell You She's Sorry

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy, standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa's best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother's stories, in the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa's grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa's greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother's letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones, but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

While I didn't enjoy this as much as Backman's previous book, A Man Called Ove, I did enjoy this one very much. This one is from the viewpoint of a seven (almost eight) year old girl. You meet her and her grandmother and go through some time with the both of them. The dynamics of the family are fun. Elsa lives with her pregnant mother and step father in what seems like an apartment building. I find it funny, she calls her sibling-to-be "halfie" because it will be her half sibling. Anyway, Elsa and her family share the top floor with her grandmother.

She visits often with her father who is also remarried with step-children. The only two tenants on that floor. Throughout the book you get to meet all the tenants of the building and learn more about Elsa's wonderful eccentric grandmother.

Don't want to get into details and give it away. But this is a wonderful story and is quite emotional at times. Beckman has a way of bringing out the raw emotion in his books, very real.

Eleanor & Park

“Bono met his wife in high school,” Park says.
“So did Jerry Lee Lewis,” Eleanor answers.
“I’m not kidding,” he says.
“You should be,” she says, “we’re 16.”
“What about Romeo and Juliet?”
“Shallow, confused, then dead.”
“I love you,” Park says.
“Wherefore art thou,” Eleanor answers.
“I’m not kidding,” he says.
“You should be.”

Set over one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.

TW: Ableism, alcoholism, underage drinking, bullying, child abuse and marijuana use.

I read Eleanor and Park in February of 2017. Here is my review from then: The ONLY thing I didn't love about this book was the ending. Felt like I was ripped off when I got so involved in the characters lives.

This is another of the books that jumps back and forth viewpoints between Eleanor (awkward, poor new girl) and Park. At first, it is just the story of the two of their lives and how they circled around each other. From the first pages, I had a feeling there was something deeper then Eleanor was letting out, but that info wasn't revealed until late in the book.

Loved this story. Love that it wasn't a perfect "love story" or even a perfect story. Love almost every page of this book.


Gave this book four out of five stars on goodreads.

This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl

A collection of the journals, fiction, letters, and sketches of the late Esther Grace Earl, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 16. Photographs and essays by family and friends will help to tell Esther’s story along with an introduction by award-winning author John Green who dedicated his #1 bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars to her.

My rating: four of five stars

This book is a story about a girl with thyroid cancer, but it is so much more than that. I love the style of this book. It is a compilation of Esther's journal posts, drawings, pictures and letters as well as updates posted by her parents. This book showed her life, what she loved, what she was passionate about. I love that it included lots of pictures. Esther lived a short but full life. Going in to the book I knew it would be sad, but I had to read about this girl who impacted so many lives in her short 16 years.

The Sister Pact

A suicide pact was supposed to keep them together, but a broken promise tore them apart
Allie is devastated when her older sister commits suicide - and not just because she misses her. Allie feels betrayed. The two made a pact that they'd always be together, in life, and in death, but Leah broke her promise and Allie needs to know why.

Her parents hover. Her friends try to support her. And Nick, sweet Nick, keeps calling and flirting. Their sympathy only intensifies her grief.

But the more she clings to Leah, the more secrets surface. Allie's not sure which is more distressing: discovering the truth behind her sister's death or facing her new reality without her.

I received a copy of this e-book in return for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: four out of five stars

This book was a tough read for me. It is about a girl who's sister commits suicide. While it looks to everyone else like she is just coping with the loss, what she is really struggling with is the fact that her sister did it without her. They had a suicide pact.

My current struggles with depression and my experiences with family with extensive mental health issues made this book really hard for me. My heart hurt to read about poor Allie trying to figure out how to go on without her sister, really struck a cord with me. Allie slowly learns things about her sister, things that her sister kept hidden behind her façade of being a "perfect" person. I love that Allie used her art as a way to express her grief. The characters were all very easy to relate to and understand.

Allie's struggle with an addiction to over the counter and prescription medications is a very real problem in today's culture. Its hard finding the right words to adequately describe how I felt about this book. While I did like the book overall, it was hard to read. Hard to see someone struggling. Hard to read about someone coping with a loss as big as a sister's suicide.

Overall this one gets four of five stars. I will say, I wouldn't recommend this book for the younger high school kids. Personally I wouldn't want my girls to read it until they were older, just a little too deep I think. Just a personal note.

The Bucket List

The Bucket List by Emily Ruben
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was given a copy of this ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions remain my own.

Leah thought that the turmoil in her life had come to an end. That is, until the boy-next-door who’s just moved in, turns out to be none other than her old childhood best friend, Damon. Rekindling their friendship, the two become inseparable and life seems perfect, until Leah learns a tragic secret; Damon is terminally ill and has only one more year to live.

Leah and Damon decide to embark on an adventure to have the time of their lives and cross out every to-do on their ‘Bucket List’. With the clock ticking and time precious, will they be able to complete every goal before time runs out?

It's hard putting into words how I feel about this book. There were times when it was so clique it was almost painful, but then others that were so real and so raw. I have been through the loss of someone I love and the pain is hard to explain. Ruben did a really good job with that.

Some of the things that Leah and Damon did were incredible, some of those stories were almost too much for me. Clique sex on the beach scene, clique dancing in the rain. Just felt like stuff I had heard before. 

One thing I did appreciate was that Damon's life ended with his bucket list incomplete. Kind of sums up the whole book.