GENRE OF THE WEEK # 1: 💞ROMANCE👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨👨‍❤️‍👨👩‍❤️‍👨 - Page 3

Originally posted by: foreverlazy

I've been looking to read this trilogy for a while now, but I just haven't been able to get around to it. This part really sold the book for me though because a lot of the grumpyxsunshine books I read sometimes just have an unnecessarily rude MMC, so knowing that this book gives us such a respectful and supportive man is definitely a big positive for me.

Oh Talia writes really good MMCs - at least in the two books I’ve read by her. Another author you should read if you want nice guy MMCs is Abby Jimenez.

Originally posted by: LizzieBennet

Oh Talia writes really good MMCs - at least in the two books I’ve read by her. Another author you should read if you want nice guy MMCs is Abby Jimenez.

Oh yeah, Abby Jimenez is another author I've been meaning to read from but haven't gotten around to!

Book Title: The Henna Wars

Author: Adiba Jaigirdar

Sub-Genre: Contemporary/YA/LGBTQIA+

Year Published: 2020

Language: English

Narrative type: first-person/single POV/present tense/HEA

Trope/s: childhood friends to rivals (kind of) to lovers

Triggers: bullying, racism, homophobia, character being outed

Maturity Rating: 0 (it's YA!)

Book Rating: 4

Synopsis or Book blurb: Nishat doesn’t want to lose her family, but she also doesn’t want to hide who she is, and it only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life. Flávia is beautiful and charismatic, and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat decide to showcase their talent as henna artists. In a fight to prove who is the best, their lives become more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush, especially since Flávia seems to like her back.

As the competition heats up, Nishat has a decision to make: stay in the closet for her family, or put aside her differences with Flávia and give their relationship a chance.

Spoiler-free review:

I’ve been meaning to read Adiba Jaigirdar’s work for a while now because, come on, a coming-of-age story about a queer Bangali girl living abroad? This is something I dream-journaled about and I’m really happy that teens now can have a book like this. I’m going to try and keep my thoughts as organized as I possibly can (keyword: try).

=>Nishat

• I want to start off by saying that Nishat is a fantastic protagonist. I might be a little biased and irrationally protective of her, but I found Nishat to be a very balanced main character. She might come off as self-centred in certain parts of the book but I think a lot of people overlook what she’s going through and the fact that she is apologetic towards Priti and towards her friends. .

• Nishat is also absolutely hilarious. The fact that she bought all the henna from the store Flávia was going to use was amazing, that is a businesswoman, I don’t care what anyone else has to say. Her resilience is something I would’ve looked up to if I had this book when I was younger. Scratch that, it’s something I think I can still look up to now as an adult.

=>Nishat and Flávia

• This book wasn’t as romance-heavy as I anticipated, but I was really invested in Nishat’s story and I think Nishat and Flávia’s relationship was still given the space to grow and to shine.

• I was expecting a rivals-to-lovers storyline, but instead, I got a childhood friends-to-somewhat rivals-to-lovers storyline which I think preferred. Childhood friends-to-lovers is my favourite trope and I like the way that it was done here.

• Nishat referring to the first time they see each other again at a wedding as her “Bollywood moment” was so cute! And it was so sweet that they still remembered certain things about each other.

• Overall, despite all the hurdles in their relationship, I did actually like their story.

=>Things I really appreciated, in no particular order.

• The trigger warning at the beginning. Some people were so shocked by the level of racism and homophobia in this book as if we weren’t made aware of this. I appreciate trigger warnings because as much as I love reading, I have my limits. Also, yes this is my PSA for everyone to read the trigger warnings!

• Nishat getting happy when Priti’s impressed by the henna that she did, because older siblings seek just as much validation from their younger siblings as they do from them.
  

• I mostly enjoyed Nishat and Priti’s bond as well. I didn’t grow up with sisters myself, but there were moments where I either related to Nishat as an older sister, or her and Priti reminded me of my cousins. Them calling each other ‘gadha’ and ‘chagol’ is just the beginning in terms of Bangali expressions that were used in the same way other authors would use very American language and expect everyone else in the world to just connect the dots.

• Obviously, I didn’t live through Nishat’s exact experience, but there were still little things that I related to which is something that rarely happens with other books. Even something as simple as her Abbu reading Bengali news while her Ammu scrolls through Facebook for gossip was enough to bring a stupidly large smile to my face. Or the comment about “weddings of people we barely knew but were somehow related to.” And in that same vein we had this line, “She’s Ammu’s aunt’s cousin’s daughter.”

(If this review seems a little disjointed, it's because I can't ramble about this book without giving out every spoiler on the planet, so... here we are)

Honestly, I don't think Ana Huang is for me. I didn't even enjoy Twisted Hate all that much. So I gave up on her altogether. I do hear the other books in the series are better (from folks on my Romance Readers FB group) so maybe I'll give them a try some time.

I've seen a lot of fandom content related to the Twisted series on my insta just because of the booktokers I follow, so I've always been curious since the fandom makes the friend group sound so close and found family-ish, but I've also heard such mixed reviews about the series that I'm like 'is this gonna be one of those books that makes mad at myself for investing time in it?'

Originally posted by: foreverlazy

I've seen a lot of fandom content related to the Twisted series on my insta just because of the booktokers I follow, so I've always been curious since the fandom makes the friend group sound so close and found family-ish, but I've also heard such mixed reviews about the series that I'm like 'is this gonna be one of those books that makes mad at myself for investing time in it?'

I personally LOVE the twisted series. Maybe because it was something that made me get back to reading after a looonnnggg hiatus...but two books out of the four are my absolute favs. The friendship thing? its very prominent throughout. Even the guys that enter the group because of their girls come into the mix real good.

Twisted Hate (Book #3) is my absolute favorite. Genuine Enemies-To-Lovers, Past-Traumas, Trial Dating, Angst during the 3rd act breakup, everything that I love is there in the book.

Twisted Games (Book #2) is the second one in the line with a great plot along with twists and turns.

Book 1 has a decent storyline but since its the first book her writing is average.

Last book's a miss. There are moments that are excellent but nothing out of the box.

I would ALWAYS recommend Twisted Hate. I am biased that way...it's steamy with the right amount of emotion and lovely banter thrown in.

Originally posted by: EuphoricDamsel

I personally LOVE the twisted series. Maybe because it was something that made me get back to reading after a looonnnggg hiatus...but two books out of the four are my absolute favs. The friendship thing? its very prominent throughout. Even the guys that enter the group because of their girls come into the mix real good.

Twisted Hate (Book #3) is my absolute favorite. Genuine Enemies-To-Lovers, Past-Traumas, Trial Dating, Angst during the 3rd act breakup, everything that I love is there in the book.

Twisted Games (Book #2) is the second one in the line with a great plot along with twists and turns.

Book 1 has a decent storyline but since its the first book her writing is average.

Last book's a miss. There are moments that are excellent but nothing out of the box.

I would ALWAYS recommend Twisted Hate. I am biased that way...it's steamy with the right amount of emotion and lovely banter thrown in.

This is literally me with the Addicted/Calloway Sisters/Like Us series (all in the same world!) because that series got me back into romance and introduced me to the world of interconnected standalones, which have become one of my favourite methods of storytelling because I love all the different tropes and the friend group's found family dynamic. I'll always recommend Addicted To You to people because no it's not the greatest piece of literature, but it's fun and engaging and every book tugs at your heartstrings just a little. But I think the books, at least for me, do have to connect really well. Like, I love it when the next couple's book starts off with maybe like, a scene that was mentioned in the previous book, but now we just get to see their POV and what happened because obviously the previous couple had no idea - I LOVE when authors are able to do that so seamlessly!

(I swear I'll get to Ana Huang's stuff eventually, just like I keep telling myself that I'll read Lauren Asher's Dirty Air series.)

Title: The Takeover (The Miles High Club #2)

Author: T.L. Swan

Year published: 2020

Narrative style: First person, dual PoV, linear

Maturity rating: Strictly Adult (Spice level: 4, PS: I read this book a while ago and since then have read many, many smutty books , so maybe my spice rating would go down a bit? Idk)

Book Rating: 3.5

Tropes: Single mom, Younger MMC, Enemies-to-lovers (I guess, but they don't stay enemies for very long), opposites attract (sorta?)

Triggers: Death/ Grief

Book blurb:

I first met Tristan Miles at a meeting where he was trying to take over my late husband’s company.

He was powerful, arrogant, and infuriatingly gorgeous, and I hated him with every cell in my body. In the shock of the century, he called me three days later and asked me on a date.

I would rather die than date a man like him—though I do have to admit it was good for the ego. Turning him down was the highlight of my year.

Six months later, he was the guest speaker at a conference I attended in France.

Still arrogant and infuriating—but this time, surprisingly charming and witty.

When he looked at me, I got butterflies.

But I can’t go there.

He’s just a player in a hot suit, and I’m just a widow with three unruly sons.

I just need this conference to be over.

Because everybody knows that Tristan Miles always gets what he wants…and what he wants is me.

Review:

I began with Book #2 in this series because I'd heard so much about it. So many people in the FB group I'm in recommended it highly and all I can say is that I get why so many are staking claim to Tristan Miles as their book boyfriend.

That said, I had so many problems with this book but almost all of them can be summarized with this one point: I can see why the FMC (& her kids) fell in love with Tristan but I cannot, for the life of me, figure why Tris fell for Claire (or her kids).

Claire is such a clueless mom. For all her possessiveness about her kids, she has no effing clue what's going on with them! It took Tris to figure out Harry's school problems and one meeting with his teacher was all it needed.

This man just gives, gives, gives and gets zilch in return. That third act sh*t that Claire pulled in regard to Tris & her kids was so WTF I cannot even! And then there was no resolution for it! The groveling scene from her was written, yes, but it had no meaning. In the end, the grand gesture came from two of her kids and not Claire herself. And Tris just effing gave up everything for her! What even??

I mean I get why this book is so loved - the author writes it like a kind of wish fulfillment for older women with kids being desired by a younger, hotter man. But when one half of the couple is doing everything for the relationship and all you get from her is her constant thoughts on how 'beautiful' he is, I'm seriously pissed.

The writing also left much to be desired. The author has an easy, breezy style of writing that I'll admit makes it easy to read (I devoured this book in a matter of a few hours), her writing style was seriously ugh in places. Didn't she have a proof-reader? And also Claire behaves like a teenager at times (she's 38 and the mother of a teen and two younger boys! WTF!) Tris does too and that was annoying. Neither of the leads seemed to have any maturity. Their characters seem to have been butchered for the sake of a few laughs.

There are many LOL moments and some awww moments, (a couple made me tear up too) but overall all I'll say is Tris deserved better. The 3.5 stars are all for him. He's awesome. I loved him. The whole reason why I shook myself out of my inertia to write this review is because of how outraged I feel for him. Sorry, Tris. Your creator let you down .

I have Elliot's book downloaded (I didn't quite like Jameson in this one so idk if I'll read his book), but I'm conflicted on if I'll read it.

Overall, I thought this author (& this book) was overhyped.

ETA: I read Elliott's book and nope, this author isn't for me!

Book Title: Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating

Author: Adiba Jaigirdar

Sub-Genre: Contemporary/YA/LGBTQIA+

Year Published: 2021

Language: English

Narrative type: first person; alternating/dual POV; present tense; HEA

Trope/s: fake dating, opposites attract, grumpyxsunshine

Triggers: racism, homophobia (specifically biphobia and lesbophobia), Islamophobia, toxic friendship, gaslighting, parental abandonment/neglect

Maturity Rating: 0 (it's YA!)

Book Rating: 5.25

Synopsis or Book blurb: When Humaira "Hani" Khan comes out to her friends as bisexual, they immediately doubt her. Apparently, she can’t be bi if she’s only dated guys. Cornered into proving her sexuality, she tells them she’s dating someone—Ishita "Ishu" Dey, the straight A student who seems more concerned with studying than relationships.

When Hani approaches her about fake dating, she agrees on one condition–that Hani help her become more popular so she can win the school’s head girl election. It’s the perfect plan to help them achieve their goals, until Hani’s friends become jealous that she’s spending more time with Ishu. They’ll do everything they can to drive a wedge between them and ruin Ishu's chances of becoming head girl.

Now, Hani has a decision to make: does she break off her relationship with Ishu for the sake of her friends? Or does she tell Ishu how she really feels and turn their “fake” relationship into something real?

Spoiler-free review:

What a difference a year can make! I want to preface this by saying that I absolutely adore The Henna Wars, but there was a significant change in Adiba Jaigirdar’s writing in this book that I was very very happy about. I thought that the pacing of the story was much better and I think that it definitely stands on its own. I was a little worried about the stories in both books being too similar when that was most certainly not the case. There are similar themes for sure, but as someone who read both books back-to-back and in one sitting, I can assure you Hani and Ishu’s story is very different from Nishat (and Flávia’s).

Before I start gushing over how cute Hani and Ishu are, I want to take a second to talk about them individually.

=>Hani

• I love Humaira ‘Hani’ Khan with all my heart! I connected to both Hani and Ishu on a very deep and personal level, but Hani especially as a fellow Bangali. Obviously, there were little things like the no sleepovers rule (which yeah Hani lied about, but it’s very much so a thing that to this day I still don’t understand). Or dawats! Most of my family friends and I are adults now, so we unfortunately don’t have dawats the way we used to when we were younger, so this little tidbit definitely had me reminiscing a little. There was this one part in the book where I think Hani said something about there not being an Irish equivalent to a dawat and my dumb brain immediately thought of doing the Irish goodbye at a dawat. I put the book down and laughed about this for at least half an hour because if you know anything about desi parties, then you would know that a South Asian goodbye is probably the polar opposite of the Irish goodbye.

• Okay, wait, I need to like rant about Hani’s name because I don’t even think that Nishat or Priti were given dak naams. Ishu’s frustration about the nickname Hani’s friends gave her is so f*cking real y’all. Yes, it’s cute when friends have nicknames for each other, but you shouldn’t be using a nickname as an excuse to not properly pronounce your childhood best-friend’s name like what the actual f*ck. And it’s like, because they call her that, so do most if not all of the other students. Like Ishu said, it’s literally one extra syllable. If Hani can learn how to pronounce Aisling and Dierdre, they can learn how to say Humaira. Also, I don’t know about other Bangalis who read the book, but there is a certain way that I was pronouncing Hani in my head, so I felt incredibly vindicated when we learned that Hani’s family is in fact Sylheti.

• I absolutely loved Hani’s relationship with her parents! I personally thought her off-screen coming-out story (not a spoiler, I swear!) was executed better than Nishat’s, and not really because Hani’s parents were so supportive from the get-go, but because of the conversation between Hani and her mom specifically where she explains what their thought process was when Hani first came out. Hani’s parents were so supportive and made her feel comfortable enough to share her problems with them, while also being firm when she was in the wrong. I think that’s why they were such a good foil to Ishu’s parents, but more about them later.

• I was actually very surprised by how prominent Hani’s relationship to Islam was in the book. My own relationship with Islam is obviously very different from hers. Even when I lived in Bangladesh, I saw very few people around me actually pray or insist that I do the same, so I’ve never been connected to religion the way Hani is. To me, it’s almost like it’s the one thing she can always depend on. Hani’s religion is the safest constant in her life, so it hurt every time she would mention having to hide that part of herself away from her friends.

• Now, we all know Hani is a bit pushover and throughout the book, she unfortunately let her friends and others get away with a lot of bullshit (which was totally understandable, albeit heartbreaking). But the little moments that let you see that she’s got a little bite to her made me so happy! Like at Dee’s birthday party when everyone was being so shitty to her and someone said something like “Do you need a special kind of pizza?” and she hit back immediately with, “So do you, you’re a vegetarian” and then she said that she’d ask Dee to provide an alternative. Like, my girl said kill ‘em with kindness and she was so real for that. Or when Aisling said something about ‘heterophobia’ and Hani snapped at her? Brilliant, amazing, fantastic, no notes.

• Okay, let’s talk about Hani’s shitty ass friends. One of these days, Aisling and Deirdre will get punched in the throat and it might not be by Hani or even Ishu, but it sure as hell will be me or Nik. When Adiba Jaigirdar said ‘toxic friendships’ in the trigger warning, maybe I should’ve taken her more seriously because it was so hard to have to see Hani go through what she did with those two. The joy I felt when she finally stood up for herself and got away from that situation was just unreal.

=>Ishu

• Ishita Dey - my sun, my stars, my long-lost twin! Ishu and I have almost the exact same personality in that we’re both very angry all the time. I was surprised to see us start off with her point of view because in my head, since Hani was the one to suggest fake dating, we’d get her perspective first to build up to that point, but I do see why we started off with Ishu. But anyway, back to Ishu. I love that her grumpy, take no shit, almost antagonistic personality is set up from the get-go. And so much of that starts to make more sense once we meet her family.

• Let’s talk about Ishu’s parents. F*ck them. They’re not good parents at all because the expectations they put on their daughters is very much so one of the more extreme examples of desi parents. Ishu absolutely has second-child syndrome because of them, and it’s only heightened when her parents set their sights on her as their new golden child. Their parenting not only f*cked with both Ishu and Nik as people, but it damaged their relationship when they were young as well.

• Okay, now let’s talk about one of my favourite supporting characters ever - Nikhita Dey aka Nik aka she eldest daughtered so hard that now she’s come back with a vengeance to save her little sister before their parents can do any more damage than they already have. Also, there was this quote from her - “A PowerPoint of why Aisling is a bitch.” (icon behaviour)

=>Hani & Ishu

• I love everything about them! I knew going in this was enemies-to-lovers adjacent along with fake dating, but nobody told me it was grumpyxsunshine?!

• Hani was so down bad for Ishu, it was the cutest thing! Her dressing up for Ishu and then Ishu not even noticing will never stop being funny to me. But Ishu’s also crushing so hard, as seen in this moment specifically from one of their “dates” - Ishu literally staring at Hani eat and then saying “Okay, don’t have a f*cking orgasm from that hot chocolate.” Like, Ishu please she’s fragile.

• I think something else I appreciated was Ishu doing what she thought were simple, practically bare minimum things like looking up Halal places to go eat for Hani, which Hani was literally floored by. It is so clear that she’s such a people pleaser that no one had ever thought to put her needs first, and then Ishu’s love language is just being aggressively accommodating.

• Their sleepover/sharing a bed scene was super cute, albeit brief.

I have a lot more that I think I want to say about this book, but it’s hard for me to put into words because these characters and their relationship mean so much to me. (Also, if my ranting feels all over the place, it's because I cut stuff out because of spoilers!)

Originally posted by: foreverlazy

This is literally me with the Addicted/Calloway Sisters/Like Us series (all in the same world!) because that series got me back into romance and introduced me to the world of interconnected standalones, which have become one of my favourite methods of storytelling because I love all the different tropes and the friend group's found family dynamic. I'll always recommend Addicted To You to people because no it's not the greatest piece of literature, but it's fun and engaging and every book tugs at your heartstrings just a little. But I think the books, at least for me, do have to connect really well. Like, I love it when the next couple's book starts off with maybe like, a scene that was mentioned in the previous book, but now we just get to see their POV and what happened because obviously the previous couple had no idea - I LOVE when authors are able to do that so seamlessly!

(I swear I'll get to Ana Huang's stuff eventually, just like I keep telling myself that I'll read Lauren Asher's Dirty Air series.)

I am yet to read Addicted series. I have heard so much about it...and ofc I haven't read a series in AGES! But I'm going to read the mindf*ck series first...it has been put off for FAR too long!

The best series I ever read off of bookstagram recs was "THE DARK VERSE" series by my baby @runyx. NOTHING and I mean NOTHING even comes close to the suspense/ romance/ angstand whatever sorcery those books have. Waiting for the last book or you could stay starving for it!

Have you read Dreamland Billionaire series by Lauren Asher? My fav is Declan's book.

I read one book in dirty air series. I don't remember which though...guess it was 3rd. Decent book, nothing excellent though!