Books and Sensibility

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new adult

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

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Rating: unrated  | Swoon Reads | Contemporary New Adult | Release Date: 1/23/2018 

Let’s Talk About Love is an upbeat, modern romance-y novel that feels way more like millennial (Gen Z ?) women’s fiction than like a true romance.

Alice loves a pleasing aesthetic, her best friends and herself–asexuality and all.  When she meets her new co-worker the sweet, generous and soon-to-be teacher Takumi she finds herself on a journey to balances her smoldering attraction with her identity as asexual.

I think I basically agree with Carrie’s review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, this book has a lot of drama and angst that comes from characters not talking to each other but I also like following them around as they try to tackle this whole adulting thing.

Alice was recognizable as a young person today, she loves Tumblr, fandom, bingeing tv and making memories with her friends.

I personally had a hard time seeing this book as a romance because Takumi felt–to use a term Kat uses a lot–unknowable to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to romances where we get into the other characters but he never felt like a real person to me. He was just a little too perfect.

After by Anna Todd

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  • Release Date:October 1, 2014
  • Genre:Contemporary Romance / New Adult
  • Pages:592
  • Publisher:Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster)

I’ve been known to do a bit of hate reading of NA, but since starting the romance blog(shameless self promotion is shameless) I’ve rounded a corner and have learned to understand and appreciate some of the genre’s tropes. I’m prepared to visit a generically named-idyllic-college with its brooding alpha rich boy-manwhore heroes and ingenue virgin heroines. But  After seemed to take those tropes to a whole new level….It honestly felt like it tried to be bad on purpose. This book was just so bizarre.

 

As many of you know this was originally One Direction fanfiction (er, real person fic ? bandfic ?) that got crazy popular on Wattpad. I actually started this on Wattpad after hearing about Todd getting a 3 book deal. I didn’t think it’d be my speed, but I figured it would be unrealistic contemporary crack fun. It seemed like there had to be some kind of hook that garnered this story 6 million views and pushed this book to well over 500 pages.

Needless to say, I was wrong.

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Book Review : Suddenly Royal by Nichole Chase

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  • Release Date: April 23rd 2013
  • Genre: New Adult/ Women’s Fiction
  • Pages : 464
  • Publisher: Avon

The story of an American woman who discovers she is a duchess  sounded a lot more interesting when I started this book than when I finished. This concept of normal women finding themselves mixed up with royalty is nothing new with movies like The Princess Diaries and The Prince and Me but I couldn’t find the same  charm in Suddenly Royal.

 

Samantha Rousseau is a graduate student working towards her PhD and taking care of her cancer stricken stepfather. Her life is turned upside down when it’s discovered she is a long lost duchess from the France-expy country Lilaria. Suddenly this American girl is plucked from obscurity and into the world of royalty, paparazzi and fame all while  keeping her eyes out for Prince Alex aka Prince Yummy.

Chase executed the premise well, explaining how the families are being brought together but there wasn’t much of a follow through as far as plot was concerned.

 I don’t know if it was the cookie cutterhero or the low ball conflict but the more I thought about it the more I realized this wasn’t the kind of story I expected. We get a lot of Sam going to Lilaria and about her responsibilities,  but honestly it wasn’t that interesting. . . just a lot of people telling her things.  I wanted something more akin to the  first season of Downton Abbey. I wanted more awkward dinner parties, culture shock,  witty banter and actual tension between the leads.

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Mini Reviews : New Adult Novels

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New Adult or NA novels seem to be taking over! Every week it seems like more and more are being released and this week I take a peek at two NA novels.

The Space Between by Victoria H. Smith

This New Adult novel follows the relationship of a pair of 19-year-olds from two different sides of Chicago; Derek, the privileged adopted son of a Senator and Lacey, a struggling opera prodigy from the wrong side of the tracks with a mother dying of cancer. When these to meet in a blaze of passion, they have to overcome racism, class and their own family to be together. Seeing a romance that focuses on a biracial girl and Korean guy was definitely a first for me and I liked that Victoria wrote about this type of relationship. The plot relies a lot on insta-lust and I was kind of annoyed of how Lacey is constantly described as desert with chocolate eyes and caramel skin. Falling on the steamier side of NA, so there are quite a few scandalous scenes. This is the first in a series, so I’ll be interested to get the other ones if I stumble across them. Also how great is this cover !-  ★★★



If You Stay by Courtney Cole

Pax Tate is a selfish, trust fund baby with an addictive personality and Mila Hill is an orphaned artist living a quiet life with her sister. Their first encounter is anything but romantic when Mila discovers Pax overdosing in his car. This gruesome meeting unravels into a NA story that is the rather standard good girl meets broken bad boy with a fair share of steamy moments. The story packs on the melodrama and angst with everyone having dark secrets. After about the third revelation it started to feel a bit… soap-operatic ? This book also has healthy a bit of slut-shaming, which I think I’m just getting used to in YA/NA fiction at this point. I don’t know if this is done to create foils for the main female characters, but if you are an openly sexually active female, chances are bad things will happen to you. If you want an angsty, steamy romance this may be your kind of book. I think this story had  a lot of potential in the beginning, but if you’ve read any kind of NA before this story will seem generic. Also,a  month after reading it, I barely remember anything about it. –  ★★ + .5