A Bookie's Books

Weather Girl Book Review: A Romantic Seattle Story

Oh, weather girl! Here is the review where I gush about the book, Weather Girl.

The Book:

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon cover, A blue background with a rain foreground, an umbrella hides two figures behind it, the only thing of the figures we can see is the feet and legs, one is wearing blue jeans and brown boots, the other is in a red dress and yellow boots with clouds, the title and author are written in blue — Weather Girl cover pulled from Goodreads

Title: Weather Girl

Author: Rachel Lynn Solomon

Published January 11th, 2022 by Berkley

Genre: Romance, Fiction, Adult

Pages: 330

“Ari Abrams has always been fascinated by the weather, and she loves almost everything about her job as a TV meteorologist. Her boss, legendary Seattle weatherwoman Torrance Hale, is too distracted by her tempestuous relationship with her ex-husband, the station’s news director, to give Ari the mentorship she wants. Ari, who runs on sunshine and optimism, is at her wits’ end. The only person who seems to understand how she feels is sweet but reserved sports reporter Russell Barringer.

In the aftermath of a disastrous holiday party, Ari and Russell decide to team up to solve their bosses’ relationship issues. Between secret gifts and double dates, they start nudging their bosses back together. But their well-meaning meddling backfires when the real chemistry builds between Ari and Russell.

Working closely with Russell means allowing him to get to know parts of herself that Ari keeps hidden from everyone. Will he be able to embrace her dark clouds as well as her clear skies?” -Goodreads

Weather Girl Review:

This is one of my favorite books of 2022 thus far! It will be the easiest review I have written in a while because I have LOVED IT!

Weather Girl has everything I love: Washington, rain, spice, drama, and a scheme to get their bosses together!

I was born and raised in Washington state, so I was excited to pick this book up at The Strand, especially since I was so far from home. My least favorite thing is when books or movies have location plot holes, such as it takes X amount of hours to get somewhere when it really only takes X, or the two places the person lives and works are on literally the opposite end of the state. This book represented Washington so well! I even heard a mention of this itty bitty town called Darrington. A few friends from college live there and so I rushed to text them about their town being in a book.

The writing was so beautiful and stunning in the Weather Girl book. Romance book with this simple style of writing has been hard to come by that didn’t make me feel stupid in a month or two, like Heartstopper.

I loved the number of weather puns that Solomon sprinkled in. Sometimes I didn’t notice them, and then my brain had a “Hold on, what did that say?” moment and it was a good laugh. Some of them were glaringly corny but in the best way.

I devoured Weather Girl in a few days. This is largely related to the two main characters because they were so fun.

The protagonist, Ari, has depression, and she struggles with hiding that from her love interests and friends. She is frustrating at times, but in the end, she makes the right decisions. It was fun falling in love with her. I also went through a similar experience to her, a breakup, so when I opened the book we were at the same place in life.

Russel was amazing! He is one of my top love interests for the year. He is a “fat hero,” as I saw in many reviews. He is sexy and knows exactly what to say. He never does anything toxic or weird. He cares for his family and for Ari in ways I wish a man would care for me.

I love to see representation and this book served it. Both Ari, Russel, and many side characters, are Jewish. There is also talk about body image, stretch marks, and other things not normally mentioned in books. It is not all lean, mean bodies in this book.

I love everything about Weather Girl. The romance was exciting and fun. I have a new love for the rain. It was nice to see my home through this book while I was gone. This book should be read by anyone from Washington or looking for a cute, sweet romance. I hope you all liked my review of the book Weather Girl.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 5

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All My Love to This Book: All My Rage

The Book:

Tan background with purple and red writing saying All my rage and Sabaa Tahir
To filled in semi-circles overlap each other — All My Rage Cover pulled from Goodreads.com

Title: All My Rage

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Published March 1st 2022 by Razorbill

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Pages: 384

“Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him—and Juniper—forever.

When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.” –Goodreads

My Review:

I am loving the books that are showing incarceration as sometimes just a mistake. I like seeing “criminals” through a more positive lens. With books like Reminders of Him and Heart Bones, All My Rage joins these books showing sympathetic characters who made a bad decision and got arrested. It is positive for incarcerated people. It helps spread that perspective around.

Meeting these characters was an emotional ride. Noor had this mystique while being introduced as someone scorned by her best friend and her circumstances. Sal gave us little bits of his soul as we followed his journey after his mother’s death.

Each of these characters was flawed in the best way. Seeing these characters grow and change was awesome.

The story was mostly character-driven so there wasn’t a lot of plot points to cover. Usually, I see character-driven stories as kind of dull and boring, but maybe I haven’t been reading the right ones. This one was so good.

Tahir wove this intricate story about three people. I love the multiple POVs, especially one POV from Misbah who is not in the present timeline. Her story blended well with the story about her son and Noor.

I got love, loss, grief, pain, and most of all hope. It was amazing! It definitely was not Top Ten books other, but I still loved it.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 4

For more from me check out my newest posts:

What Am I Reading This Week?

“Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!”

The Three Ws are:

What:

Are you currently reading?
Did you recently finish reading?
Do you think you’ll read next?

I have not been doing this tag recently. I have been scheduling out my posts far in advance, but I am hoping to start doing it more as I come back from my New York trip.

What are you currently reading?

Too Late by Colleen Hoover

I love Colleen Hoover. I hear it is a lot darker than her other books, so I am excited to see the turn this book takes. Is anyone else reading a Colleen Hoover book right now?

I am reading Too Late by Colleen hoover which has big bold black text with her name. and Too Late is big and bold reading with a gradient — Too Late Cover pulled from Goodreads

What did you recently finish?

The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose

Honestly, I was not impressed with this book. I loved One Of Us Is Dead, but this book did not live up to her masterpiece.

Reading The Perfect Marriage with a strikethrough of Perfect, Jeneva Rose is written along the bottom, and two rings with a splatter of blood on the center — The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose

What do you think you’ll read next?

Glow by Raven Kennedy

Will I 100% get to this book next, I am not sure. Since I flew through the entire series last week it would be great to read this next book. I would love to finish it but then I will have to wait a long time for the 5th book.

Reading Glow with a bright embossed gold lettering and raven kennedy's name at the bottom and a gold leaf and stem on a white background — Glow by Raven Kennedy cover from Goodreads

Make sure to add a link to your post below!

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Book Covers That Exude Summer

“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” -That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s theme:

Book Covers That Feel Like Summer

The Unexpected Everything

The Last Session: Roll for Initiative Vol. 1

Heartstopper Vol. 3

World of Wonders

Every Summer After

The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett

The Summer I Turned Pretty

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

A Not-so Interesting Book called I Wish You All the Best

The Book:

I Wish You All the Best cover pulled from Goodreads.com

Title: I Wish You All the Best

Author: Mason Deaver

Published May 14th, 2019 by Push

Genre: LGBTQIA+, YA, Romance, Contemporary

Pages: 329

“When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they’re thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents’ rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.

But Ben’s attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan’s friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.” –Goodreads

My Review:

Eh…

I don’t have much about this book to say.

There was LGBTQIA+ representation, and I love to read books by LGBTQIA+ authors. This was the first book written in the POV of a non-binary person. I loved that aspect of the book. I just wish it had been executed better.

Nothing happened. Literally, nothing happened. There was no conflict, no plot, no development. I was utterly bored.

The romance was eh. I thought that would be the entire story but it was barely enough of the book to even call this book a romance.

The writing wasn’t spectacular. I have this new hatred for YA writing because it seems like they want to over-explain everything. Middle schoolers and high schooler’s-the target audience-are not stupid. I am sure they can understand the most basic sentence. You don’t have to repeat things over multiple sentences.

I attended a talk with Deaver for this book. They explained how they have gotten comments like that and said it is an invalid argument because that is YA. I have to disagree because books that shaped the YA genre like Hunger Games, Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, and The Fault in Our Stars don’t read like this. They read so well, albeit a little cringy (but it was early 2010’s).

I read this book for class, so I had to finish by a certain time. But the book felt like I was swimming in a vat of caramel to finish. There was really no growth and no anything to make this story astounding. I don’t know, I hate to not give anything positive about a book, but I honestly cannot think of anything.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 1

I Am A Broken Record: A Gail Carriger Novel Review

The Book:

Title: Blameless

Author: Gail Carriger

Series: Parasol Protectorate #3

Published September 1st, 2010 by Orbit

Genre: Fantasy, Steampunk, Romance

Pages: 355

“Quitting her husband’s house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season in the third book of the NYT bestselling Parasol Protectorate series.

Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London’s vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires — and they’re armed with pesto.
BLAMELESS is the third book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.” –Goodreads

My Review:

After a heartbreaking, and utterly shocking, twist at the end of the second book, I almost was nervous to pick this up. I won’t go too much into it but Changeless had some crazy stuff happen at the end.

I was excited to see where Carriger went with this novel, and she served up a steaming plate of the best vegetarian meatloaf you have ever had. Doesn’t sound appealing? It does to me, so we are going with it.

I loved this book. I mean this is a moot point now since I always love her books. She cannot fail me.

The romance was like the last book, a little so-so but it did have a good tension aspect that carried over from the events of the last book.

We get to see so much more lore about preternatural and the supernatural set in this book. I love the worldbuilding and the new places she goes in this book. She is AMAZING!

I am keeping this short again because I have another review to do for this series right after and I just did one and they are all going to be the same!

Please read Gail Carriger, I will die on this hill. She is amazing and deserves all the love!

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 4

Check out my latest posts here:

Here Is My The Black Kids Review

The Book:

Title: The Black Kids

Author: Christina Hammonds Reed

Published August 4th 2020 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Genre: YA, Historical Fiction

Pages: 368

“Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer.

Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids.

As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson.

With her world splintering around her, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them?” –Goodreads

My Review:

This book is stunning.

To start this review, I want to say I am a middle-class, liberal, white female. Reading this book, as with all books I have read focusing on racism, was an eye-opening experience. I love to read about communities other than my own. However, I do have my privilege, and I may write something that does not come off how I intend. I fully support the rights of Black, Latino, LGBTQIA2S+, Asian, Women and Indigenous people across the globe (in no particular order). I am an advocate for social issues, so please please correct me or alert me if anything I say sounds wrong, especially in the next paragraph.

The book highlighted a really interesting perspective on America’s society. It was written from a “rich” Black girl’s POV. Personally, I have only read books from a “poor” Black person’s POV. This was unique to me. It also highlights an “I-dont-care” vibe about racial issues from a Black girl. I thought it was unique since most books I have read (and enjoyed) are about racial issues and the protagonist fights for equal rights.

I loved The Hate You Give and this book was in the same vein, with a different vibe.

This book deserves a large readership. Hammonds Reed wrote so uniquely.

The voice of the main character was so unique. The author mixes poetry into her view of the world, or at least that is how it read. The narrator of the audiobook also fits the character so well. She read it in the bored, drawling voice of a teenager.

The main character, Ashley, is so unlikeable too. She makes mistakes and hurts the people around her. I love reading a book about teenagers and how they mess up. It is really entertaining. Ashley does not follow the path that I thought she was going to go when this story started. It was irritating, to say the least. She does not grow into the character I thought she would have, but she does grow. A lot can be said about characters who irritate you.

The story is super character-driven, which is not my favorite kind of book. There is not a lot I can say about the plot, so this review is going to be short. It also was a historical fiction, which is really not my favorite.But, I enjoyed it a lot and I hope you can enjoy it too.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 3.8

Books Releasing In the Second Half of 2022

This week’s theme:

Most Anticipated Books Releasing In the Second Half of 2022

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber
Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo
Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros
It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover
The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake
Wherever the Wind Takes Us by Kelly Harms
Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell
Whiteout by Dhonielle Clayton

Some of these sound so good! I have also already read We Deserve Monuments, so I hope everyone checks that out and checks out my blog that will come out on July 28th about that book.

I am excited to get some of my preorders like The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber. I will probably preorder/pick up these other books as soon as I can.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Another Gail Carriger Review?! Here Is My Changeless Review

The Book:

Gray background made of clouds, gradient London skyline near bottom, blimp at the top of the cover, female in blue dress and steampunk style hat holding onto a railing, title and author name written in blue — Changeless cover pulled from Goodreads.com

Title: Changeless

Author: Gail Carriger

Series: Parasol Protectorate #2

Published April 1st, 2010 by Hatchette Book Group

Genre: Steampunk, Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 389

“Alexia Maccon, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears; leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria.

But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. So even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can. She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.

CHANGELESS is the second book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.” –Goodreads

My Review:

I am going to keep this short since, at the time of writing, I have read the next book and am onto the next.

I love Gail Carriger, but damn she writes A LOT.

All of these reviews are going to sound the same because I love her books and they are all similar. They are all really well done and have the same sort of plot line.

That being said, a lot of her books seem to blend together, so I am not 100% on all the events in this book, hence why I am keeping this short.

The saddest part of this book for me was how we slowly got away from the romance portion of the book. There was no more slow-burn like the first. The characters are happily together. That is always great, but there is not a huge extent of books anymore. There is no waiting to get together tension, there is just them being loving.

We got introduced to beloved characters from the prequel series Etiquette and Espionage in this book. I was so excited to see familiar characters again.

I wonder who else she will bring in.

Carriger is so witty and fun. Her writing is always amazing and she definitely deserves the read. Check out my review of Soulless, the first book in this series if you are interested in starting.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 4

For more check out my latest posts:

My Policeman: A Book Review

The Book:

Title: My Policeman

Author: Bethan Roberts

Published August 3rd 2021 by Penguin Books (first published February 2nd 2012)

Genre: Fiction, Romance, LGBT

Pages: 304

“It is in 1950’s Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. He teaches her to swim, gently guiding her through the water in the shadow of the city’s famous pier and Marion is smitten–determined her love alone will be enough for them both. A few years later near the Brighton Museum, Patrick meets Tom. Patrick is besotted, and opens Tom’s eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world of art, travel, and beauty. Tom is their policeman, and in this age it is safer for him to marry Marion and meet Patrick in secret. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed.

In this evocative portrait of midcentury England, Bethan Roberts reimagines the real life relationship the novelist E. M. Forster had with a policeman, Bob Buckingham, and his wife. My Policeman is a deeply heartfelt story of love’s passionate endurance, and the devastation wrought by a repressive society.” -Goodreads

My Review:

Did I read this book solely because of Harry Styles?

Yes.

Did I leave this book with so much more?

YES!

This book is going to be made into a movie and one of the main characters is being played by Harry Styles. It was a major factor (really the only factor) in me picking up this book.

It was fascinating. The writing was spectacular. The two character’s voices used were amazing. I love all three characters, Marion, Tom, and Patrick. They were all imperfect characters, which is apparently what I now enjoy.

Lots of reviews complain about the two gay characters being miserable the entire time. I have to agree that yes it would be nice to have less traumatic portrayals of the LGBTQIAS2+ people in media, especially books. I thought that this book seemed pretty historically accurate (at least according to very very limited research on my part) and was that not the point? To look at the lives of three people who make mistakes, and the woman who makes a really horrible mistake and wrecks the lives of others.

I don’t know. I am an ally to the community, so I really cannot make those judgements for the community.

I thought the mistakes and miserability of all three characters were amazing though. None of the characters left unharmed. I hated them all, except for maybe Patrick, he did not really do anything wrong. He was a victim of happenstance and Marion’s rash actions.

Getting away from the problems of the books, the book was beautifully written. It was poetic and touching. It highlighted a slice of life, and I felt so sympathetic to all the characters (in a sense). The writing is why I stay saying this book is good even with the controversy I said earlier.

I loved it, it was beautiful, please go read this book!

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 3.6