[25] Hello Stranger by Katherine Center
Fiction / Romance / Romantic Comedy, saw on “Available Now” on Libby, Audiobook

Synopsis: Sadie finally has her big break – after struggling as a portrait artist for years, she’s a finalist in a prestigious competition, and just needs to paint the perfect portrait to win the $10,000 first place prize. That’ll show her father who’s still super disappointed she isn’t practicing medicine like him and chose the difficult artist life instead. But Sadie has to have emergency brain surgery and it leaves her face blind – she can no longer see the faces she needs to paint – they’re scrambled! Sadie is one to refuse help from anyone, but maybe the neighbor she seems to be building a relationship with can help her try some unusual techniques to paint it?

Review: Wow. I’m making this book sound WAY more interesting than it is. This book was incredibly frustrating to listen to. Sadie is a bit of a brat and so, so annoying. The “twist” was incredibly obvious from the beginning and so painful to get to. So so painful. There’s a lot of subplot – Sadie takes her sick elderly dog (he survives; it’s a romance novel after all) to a new vet and falls in love with him based on his gait (remember, she can’t see faces). Sadie only feeds her dog human food and I felt so frustrated that she wasn’t taking better care of him. Sadie’s mom died when she was 14 and that was a HUGE focus of the book. Her mom was also a portrait artist and died when she was a finalist in the same competition Sadie is in. Sadie’s dad remarried right away and the woman had a daughter Sadie’s age who was horrible as a teenager and did a lot of bad things and blamed them on Sadie, and for whatever reason, still follows Sadie around and bullies her as an adult. Long story long, I was not rooting for Sadie. She made me absolutely crazy. This is the second time I haven’t really care for a book by this author – I need to remember that when I see her cute covers.

Recommend: Gawd no

[26] Full Measures (Flight & Glory, #1) by Rebecca Yarros
Fiction / Women, Saw on Kindle Unlimited and I sometimes love Yarros’s books, Kindle

Synopsis: Ember is home from college for winter break when she gets the horrible news her dad died in the war. She steps up to take care of her family, and pushes her own needs aside. Josh, her high school crush and now her brother’s hockey coach, sees her and tries to help. She’s incredibly attracted to him, but doesn’t want to jump into a new relationship (oh yeah, she caught her boyfriend cheating with her roomate right after her dad died).

Review: Gosh, this book. This SERIES. I think these books are a lot of things people DON’T like about romances:

• A man always saving the day for a woman.
• The miscommunication trope. OMFG JUST TELL EACH OTHER WHAT IS GOING ON.
• The secret trope? One character has a secret we know that the romantic partner doesn’t, and one character has a secret that we and the romantic partner don’t know. GAH. It makes it hard to follow what is going on sometimes because the author is leaving details out.
• The man telling the woman she is perfect over and over.

Basically, repeat this review for the book below. But you know what? As much as I was rolling my eyes, I wanted to finish reading it, so what does that say about me? Then I went on to read the next one and already started the third in the series. So, yeah.

Recommend? Not really, ha!

[27] Eyes Turned Skyward (Flight & Glory, #2) by Rebecca Yarros
Fiction / Women, Saw on Kindle Unlimited/next in series, Kindle

Synopsis: Paisley has a heart condition and is worried she’ll die young – like her old sister with the same condition did – so she’s checking items off a bucket list, including going to the beach in Florida, even though she can’t swim. She’s thrown in the water and a man named Jagger (who was Josh’s roomate in the first book) saves her and performs CPR. They’re instantly attracted to each other but also think they will never see each other again… until they bump into each other in the town they both happen to live in in Alabama, where Paisley goes to school and works, and Jagger is in flight school.

Review: Same as above

Recommend? Not really, ha!