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[7] The Honey-Don’t List by Christina Lauren
Fiction / Romance / Romantic Comedy, Saw in “What’s Available” section in Libby

Synopsis: Carey Douglas is the long time assistant to the wife of home remodeling reality show couple and is overworked and exhausted. The couple is about to go on a week-long book tour without Carey and she is ecstatic to have a week alone on her couch, when there’s an incident and sudden risk that the world may see that the couple actually hates each other. Carey and the snooty engineer James are forced to go on the tour after all, and try to work together in close quarters to hide the true feelings of their bosses from the public eye.

Review: This set-up is fun – coworkers who can’t stand each other but must work together to get through this damn book tour – but the book wasn’t quite a hit for me. I liked the drama of the reality show stars actually hating each other, but that took over a bit of Carey and James’s story. Carey and James, and their relationship, felt a bit underdeveloped to me. But that’s okay – it was a fun, fluffy read, and I got what I needed out of it!

Recommend? Sure

[8] The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
Fiction / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure, Currently Reading “Season 3, Episode 23: Book Flights + Goals for Reading and Business”

Synopsis: Cara is a traverser, someone who travels between earths in the multiverse, collecting information to help Earth 0 learn from what’s happened on other earths. You can only traverse to earths where your doppelgänger is dead, and since Cara is an outlier from the Wastelands, she is dead on 372 earths. Things run awry when she travels to an earth where she was told she’s dead, but actually isn’t.

Review: This book has a lot going on with social commentary on race, class, and wealth, and I was just there for some light-hearted sci-fi, so I didn’t get what I wanted out of it. And while I liked Cara enough, I did not like her enough to understand why anyone would go along with her plan at the end of the book. When you took away all the social issues, the plot wasn’t interesting enough for me. What a bummer; I had high hopes for this one!

Recommend? No

[9] Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Fiction / Literary, Saw in “What’s Available” section in Libby, loved Little Fires Everywhere

Synopsis: When teenager Lydia Lee dies in small-town Ohio in the 1970s, the secrets her family has been keeping and the roles they’ve unwillingly been playing all come to light.

Review: This is the character-driven family-drama I am here for, YASSSSS. Lydia’s family is mixed-race in a time when it’s not greatly accepted. Her Chinese American father has struggled to fit in all his life, and his children do too. Her mother is resentful that she gave up her dreams of becoming a doctor to have a family, and puts all the pressure on Lydia, the middle child, to succeed. The oldest child, Nath, is successful in his studies, but completely ignored at home… but not as ignored as the youngest child, Hannah. The family dynamics were so interesting and heartbreaking in this book. I need a part 2! I think I wrote that after I read Ng’s book, Little Fires Everywhere, as well.

Recommend? Yes