the_boozy_baking_bibliophile's reviews
1163 reviews

I’ve read older Liza Palmer books like Conversations with the Fat Girl and the F Word and A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents and enjoyed all of them. 

This one sort of fell flat for me though. It’s about a family built around its matriarch Maren and her restaurant and cooking empire. Three daughters, each with their part to play in the family business, each desperate to win some approval from the mother with impossible and exacting standards. Each desperate for an escape from the only life they’ve known. 

This book moved swiftly but in a way where it felt like everything blended together and I had to reread to make sure I understood who said what and what that meant for the progress of the story. It was a bit messy and convoluted and while I know people like Maren exist - she felt a bit like a caricature vs a real person. 

I still like Liza Palmer and will continue to read her books but this one was not one that resonated with me or knocked my socks off. 

This is Laura Hankin’s first foray into romantic comedies and I have to say - she nails it. It’s not a cliche story where everything is sunshine and then rain or meet cutes and miscommunications. It’s real and it feels relatable. Both MCs are full of life and flaws and real problems that make them feel like people we could know. 

Sometimes it’s just the wrong time for the right person and knowing that some people are worth waiting for. 

Ruth Ware and I have a tricky history. I’m hot and cold with her books - some have been 2 ⭐️ and others 4 or 5 ⭐️- but I’ve read everything she’s written and she will always be an auto buy author for me. 

Her latest offering One Perfect Couple is capitalizing on themes I’ve seen become popular over the last 6-12 months in a thriller. 

1. A reality tv show gone terribly wrong - often purposefully by some mastermind that just wants to fuck with the contestants who are not randomly selected at all or by someone in the mix who has ulterior motives and a score to settle 

2. An incredibly remote island resort that isn’t quite fully complete/baked out/built that is most definitely not equipped to handle long term visitors and inevitably has its infrastructure collapse losing all transport, communication and sustenance/water 

She does it better than a lot of the other versions I’ve read in the last year. I didn’t spend the whole book pissed off at stupid characters or cursing the author for an obsession with Xanax. I was invested, engaged and tore through it in one day. There were situations and problems that characters faced that were realistic and relatable. Some were definitely hyperbolic but overall I couldn’t put this book down and cheered for my favorite characters to survive. 

Love Abbi Waxman! This was such a fun and quirky romcom/family drama. 

Meet the Liddles. A family made famous ala Steve Irwin style with a conservationist showman dad whose show and subsequent merch/toys are beloved by the masses. 

And then the patriarch Jasper goes missing. His plane crashes in Alaska and he was gone in an instant. No body found. All the Liddles had to move on - except the littlest Liddle Christabel was thrust into the spotlight and when it was too much, she fled. 

Now, 25 years later Christa receives the call no one ever expects while she is living and researching sea snails on the remotest of remote islands. Her father has been found and he’s alive and going on Oprah?! Where has he been this whole time? What does this mean for the whole family? And most importantly, is Christa going to lose it again?

 

Here we go again with another jaunt into the sick and twisted world of Jackson Parrish. This sociopathic narcissist sits in prison and believes he pulls all the strings with Amber - his second wife. But he’d also like to pull Daphne’s strings again, make her his perfect plaything once more. She’s doing everything in her power to keep her girls safe and away from their abusive father but money is power. Toss in an oil heiress from Texas with an axe to grind and we’ve got a fast paced thriller full of wrong turns, back stabbing and the ever present feeling of “who can you really trust?”

I think Hazelwood might have heard us when we said that her last few offerings felt like a rinse and repeat of her first big hit. Not in Love still had all the scientific elements to it but the characters felt much more flawed and raw than previous ones. And they felt like they were standing more on equal footing in some ways than the man asserting all the power. Now - don’t get me wrong, there is still some savior complex damsel in distress action but the female MC Rue is very unique and finds her voice. 

The sex scenes are spicy AF and there are a lot of them - but we are still relying on the “he’s almost too big to fit” line and idk about you guys but that’s definitely the exception not the rule IRL. But whatever - let’s escape into Giant Cock Land and lean in to the fantasy. 

This was yet another queer romance by Cochrun that had so much depth, heart and soul that it brought me to tears at least once. Really glad I have waterproof mascara! 

This one is a sapphic tale of two childhood friends turned enemies/adversaries turned road trip companions on a cross country journey to provide their one common love/link his dying wish. 

It was incredible. The realness of the flawed characters. The trauma that scarred them. The fear of allowing others in. Cochrun writes characters that you laugh with, cry alongside, relate to deeply and root for to overcome. This book is no different. 

I went into this blind after having loved Stone Cold Fox. This was a whole different ball game tho as it’s all about VAMPIRES! 

Was I ready for that? No. But did I love it? Absolutely yes! It was delicious and bloody and just what I needed. It was A positive experience all day long. 

I love Louisa Luna - ever since I got an earlier book of hers from Book of the Month years ago. I’ve been lucky enough to advanced copies of her last few and her latest is just something different altogether. 

Told mainly through the lense of Dr. Caroline, a high priced psychiatrist dealing with a variety of patients with all levels of psychological issues - from the bored and lonely to the latest - a man who claims he’s planning on killing someone starving them to death. 

A cat and mouse game to figure out who this man is, is the woman real and is Caroline telling the truth?