I don't typically go for chick-lit like this. I bought it blind
934397
I don't typically go for chick-lit like this. I bought it blind. The only thing I knew was that a movie was in the making, starting Emilia Clark. I expected cheesy and predictable. It was quite sweet. I read it in 2 days, and I missed The characters afterward and thought about the book for a long time after. Charming and thought provoking.
(I had no idea the institution in the book even existed. I researched that too, out of curiosity. I really dwelt on this book for quite some time. I even considered the sequel but it sounded awful and the reviews are wretched. I figured I'd leave Lou and Will in my memory as they were. :)
4785209
Call me naive, but when I read the description for this book I thought I was getting a romantic chick lit book, great for the beach, a plane ride or hanging out at my in-laws. What I got instead was a very erotic novel, which mainly consists of very graphic sex scenes. I'm no prude, so graphic sex scenes doesn't bother me, but all this book really seem to be is a bunch of graphic sex scenes with a little dialogue sprinkled in between as filler. It felt forced, and the backstories for the main characters like a cliche, I don't feel like a whole lot went into the description of the characters other than their looks and how hot they are.
4349237
I thoroughly enjoyed Falling Down even though it was really different from what I would normally read. Even though Jesse and Lucy had a way of hanging all their private business out for everyone to know, it was written in such a way that I was not really offended by it but rather thought it was funny.
Blush though was a complete surprise to me. I did not enjoy it as much and it took some turns that were completely unexpected. For example, (Spoiler Alert) I could not understand how Jesse could even contemplate sharing Lucy with Xander especially considering that she went ballistic when other women approached Jesse. It just seemed weird and completely out of the characters that were being built. I finished the book mainly because I wanted to see where it was going. But I did not enjoy it as much
4365704
That sounds like a dismissive title, and I don't mean it to be. The thing is, *I* don't like chick lit, and in the normal course of things this is not the type of book I would have read - a woman during WWII attempting to start a business as a fashion designer, having an affair with a famous and tragically doomed aviator...and with his wife...

If the tragically doomed aviator in question had not been the real life Antoine de Saint-Exupery, I wouldn't have read it.

I have all of Saint-Exupery's works, and it's a pity that these days all anyone seems to have read is The Little Prince. I have actually read a memoir - decades ago - by a woman who had been hired as a translator for the Saint-Exupery's while they were in the United States - which was the first I'd heard of the "private" Saint-Exupery and his relationship with Consuelo, his wife. ... and I think interest was renewed in him again in 1998, when the wreckage of his plane was found in the Mediterranean Sea.

Saint-Exupery had a complicated relationship with his wife Consuelo, which is very much in evidence in Studio Saint Ex. The book switches narratives -between fashion designer Mignonne Lachapelle, a Canadian who returns to New York when she learns that her fashion designs have been stolen by her professor and are now a big hit, and then told from the perspective of  Consuelo de Saint-Exupery.

I found some of the narrative - of both women - powerful - but the intrigues got on my nerves after a while, for all that something similar probably happened in real life. Author Szado does provide an afterword in which she gives the real ilfe history of some of her characters - and points out that the relationships as told in her book are fictional.

The last words of the afterword: "Antoine de SAint-Exupery's many biographers differ significantly in their interpretation of this complicated and contradictory man and his tempestuous wife." So I say, if you're interested in Saint-Exupery, read those biographies. If you like chick-lit - and it does keep your interest - read this.
3306833
What I should have said "no" to was buying it! I only got halfway through
646667
It's a book filled with short stories and magazine articles. Most of the book seemed to center around romance and feminism (the crazy man-hater kind), so i wasn't very compelled by it. Do books like this really need to exist with all the media we have easy access to today?
1763242
I read this blind.
Which means I didn't look at the plot or the author, or anything.

It's erotica, but it's not in your face erotica. It's subtle, and the plot is intriguing. The romance is just a part of the plot.
1559393
Sorry if this review is analogous to a break up via text message. It's not you, it's me. I am not really your target demographic. I was curious to read your book that explored female fantasies, but they didn't interest me. I felt like I was watching one of those Twilight movies, looking around me in dismay. What was everyone getting so worked up about?

So, it's not you, it's me. I am just not really responding to this at this time. I am not in the mood--or maybe I will never be in the mood. There are probably plenty of readers who would enjoy this, just not me. I remember I was in a used bookstore in Berkeley once and I overheard a coed say that she was "just going to get a heavy breather and go for it." Looking around there were shelves and shelves of Harlequin Romances. Bodice rippers, I hear they are called. Fabio was on the cover of several of them. Perhaps that coed, and her many sorority sisters, would enjoy this book. Or maybe I was judging it too harshly and it was actually tantamount to Pride and Prejudice. A Jane Austen-like novel that is seemingly in the romance genre--concerned with matchmaking and gossip--but could be appreciated on a different level as an astute observation of the human condition.

But I couldn't get into it. The heroine was trying to get you to sympathize with her over her lover's ex-girlfriend who had gotten pregnant and gotten back together with him. I couldn't pledge my allegiance to her. Later, there was an art auction. It was mostly about a secret society whose mission was to empower women and realize their fantasies. But I couldn't suspend my disbelief. Don't let my opinion deter you. What do I know? You might love this book. It's not you, it's me. I'm just not that into it.
3398047
Yikes! Another one of those 'everybody-loved-it-but-me' kind of books. To be fair, I really didn't know what to expect with this book. I signed up for an ARC based off of the blurb, which was totally giving off an anti-heroine vibe. I was looking forward to reading something different.

Unfortunately, the blurb totally didn't prepare me for two things: There's some love triangle in it, which I feel will eventually become a full-blown, bang-your-head-against-the wall love triangle in the second book. And speaking of a second book -- yes, this one ended on a huge cliffhanger. And for those of you who says it's there on the title, it's not okay. It's on Goodreads but putting #1 on the title doesn't always mean it's a continuing series. It could have been a standalone. But this one ended on a cliffhanger. A bad one at that.

This book was too short, I thought. But then I looked at the page number where it says 205 and I went, "huh?" because really, it felt short to me. But then I was reading the ARC, so I don't know the final page number of the published book, but I stand by my initial reaction. The author could have continued on and given us a whole story without chopping the book into two. The cliffhanger was unnecessary. The only reason I could think of of why it's there was for the shock value. Without it, this book just bored me.

I tend to get bored with books when its characters keep reminding me about who or what they are. Blaire just won't let me forget how bitchy and how much of a gold digger she is. Every time she makes a decision, she'd go inside her head and whine about how unloved and unworthy she was. After the nth time it happened, I was over it. Meh.

And despite what the blurb says, she was no anti-heroine. She's a Mary Sue in disguise. She's so beautiful that every guy she meets fall in love with her. She's literally so beautiful that men lose their minds and their wallets to be with her. They instinctively knew there's something about her. Of course, those who think she's a beyotch are women (the girlfriends, wives of these men who find her irresistible, and her parents.) I didn't see beyotch; I saw a pitiful little girl who is lost in her ambition. I would have loved her had I found something redeemable about her but nope. She clearly knows what she is doing. She knows who she is but instead of doing the right thing, she goes and do something stupid. And her reasons? Her parents ignored her. She was unloved. Somehow, I just didn't buy her reasons. She had beauty and brains and feels unloved, so she becomes a gold digger. Somehow, it's a huge leap to be believable.

The men in her life, while they are both hot and so handsome they make her instantly wet, are as two-dimensional as a cardboard box. One was overly sweet and the other was too rich for his own good. Hence, her dilemma. Except for the size of their bank accounts, the two male leads sounded the same. Their devotion to Blaire was inexplicable. She's a gold digger and a beyotch, as Blaire like to remind readers, but they just can't help but fall in love with her in just a day. Yes, because men just love gold diggers. I just didn't get it. The narrative didn't ring true for me.

The one positive was Mia Asher's writing. I totally get why her fans love her. Her writing style is easy and engaging. I just wish this book was longer and didn't end the way it did. This would have been an easy 3 despite my issues with the characters. Unfortunately, I think this one was just an incomplete book. I wanted more. And after some reading too many cliffhanger endings this month, I just couldn't bring myself to be okay with it anymore. Next time, a warning would be nice.

**An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review.***

ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
1106376
EDIT
I must say I'm surprised and annoyed at the plethora of people who want to argue with me about how I reacted to this book being super obviously offensive to me personally. I DO NOT recommend this for ladies or homos or ladyhomos. The reception this review is getting has been a whole lotta derailing and mansplaining and heterosplaining which speaks volumes about the audience of people who lurve this.

Original Review
 really looked forward to reading this,and I thought I'd love it. I love graphic novels, I love postapocalyptic scenarios and thought the premise sounded really interesting. I gotta say somehow it just didn't come together for me, maybe I've been spoiled because I've been reading The Walking Dead, but this just didn't do much for me. The artwork is cool and the premise is dope but somehow it just doesn't hang together.

I would have overlooked a little heterosexism for a seriously dope story. This wasn't it. The dialogue is stilted, the hints that we do get about rings and amulets are dumb plot devices, the one breasted motorcycle bitches are absurd. It sorta shocked me that a book about a world without men could manage to be so heterosexist and gender-normative. I shoulda realized from the first page, where homeboy is talking on the phone with his barbie-doll gf and I was pretty bored with the conversation, and waiting for the dudes to just die already. The artwork is cool, but the writing kinda sucks, and next time; try to be a little tolerant of queers. I'd think that a book based on the premise of an all female world would manage some matter of fact tolerance of lesbianism. The 'daughters of the amazons' are the most visible ostensibly lesbian group in the book. They are portrayed as violent, vicious, and insane. And whenever they got into a fight thier enemies just started gaybashing, calling them lesbos like that's a bad thing. As a queer girl and a feminist I wasn't super pleased with that.

The plot drags, and there are way too many farfetched elements like israeli military chicks and nameless secret agent people and magical effin amulets and way too much time spent on boooooooring conversations. I made it most of the way through book 1, and then I just couldn't keep reading. I was that bored.
171832
What a letdown?  I was trying to buy a book about gender and history and got what appeared to be a romance novel.
2722791
This was a surprisingly refreshing book compared to all the typical YA paranormal/supernatural stuff Ive been reading lately.  I guess this is considered as a chick lit but its not as girly as some of the other chick lits out there.  In fact, I found this book to be realistic and different as it touched on a few topics that are controversial in nature such as surrogate mothers and egg donors.  Now that I think of it, I don't think Ive read any books regarding this topic.  Obviously I knew about surrogate mothers and whatnot but haven't gotten a chance to pick up a book about it.  So I found this book to be quite enlightening and I found myself learning a lot.

The one thing I would change for this book was the lack of a timeline.  There were these random time jumps between the characters that weren't clear until either later on during that chapter or several characters POV later.  For example, I didn't realize how much time had passed between Jules giving her egg donation to India deciding she wanted a baby to Annie actually getting it inseminated until much later on in the book.  So at first, I thought that little to no time had passed but apparently it was a few years.  So I think having a better time stamp would have been an improvement just so the readers could fully understand the order of things.

Out of the four characters, I liked Annie the best mainly because she wasn't as scared as Jules was especially with the whole girlfriend situation, she wasn't as selfish as India was and she wasn't as self-centered and lonely as Bettina was.  I mean, she was probably a little of everything but at the center of her, she was strong.  Even though everyone including her husband was pretty much against the idea of her being a surrogate mother, she did what she thought was best for her family and even though she wavered, she still stuck to it.  I was very impressed and quite proud of her for doing so.  Especially when she agreed with her husband that they should have time apart from each other.  I felt that was when she grew a backbone and became someone she could be proud of.  I think her marrying at such a young age and having children didn't allow her to fully become the woman she should have been and it wasn't until she took a step back and took something for what she thought was right that she finally matured and grew.

As for the other ladies  there was something about each of them I didn't like.  In the beginning, I liked Jules  I found the reason why she donated her egg to be admirable and fully supported her.  It wasn't until the whole girlfriend situation that I was starting to dislike her.  I felt that she was scared in a city that was very liberal which literally made no sense.  Its not like it was her family she was dealing with  it was complete strangers.  To me, I didn't get it.  Isnt it easier to act like yourself with strangers because you won't ever see them again then with close friends or acquaintances?  As for India, I thought she was all for the money in the beginning and she was until she actually fell in love.  Plus the backstory for her was important since it really allowed me to find out why she became the woman she did.  And then there was Bettina who was an enigma to me.  Shes supposed to be your standard snobby pretty rich girl but apparently she wasn't not that pretty and was rather depressed.  There was a quote where she was basically saying she was never happy but I cant believe that.  She never felt happy at all?  Maybe not when she was older but surely there was a time when she was happy when she was a child.  Her parents seemed to love her.

Anyways, the one thing I loved about this book was how much each of the characters grew but instead of being so dramatic and whatnot, it was portrayed realistically.  And I liked how they all knew one another later on and ended up becoming incredibly close with each other.  I highly recommend this book  it gave me the feels.

Click here to view entire review:[...]
463390
I have liked this author's previous but this one was just not my read.  I never really understood what this book was supposed to be about - was it a character driven romance? Romantic suspense? Suspense with some romance? A dissection of the human condition?

So, still puzzling after having read it, I will call it a character driven romance, because at the 80% mark - generally the climax - they finally get together as a couple.  With that as my backdrop, I felt like it was extremely cheesy.  The scenes with Amelia and the chick lit books overwhelmed the narrative to such an extent that I felt like MH was hoping the reader would view this book as chick lit.  I don't read a lot of chick lit, so I have no idea if fans would like this.  Having gone into this thinking it was romantic suspense, the over angsty, highly repetitive, metaphor laden writing style really put me off.

There was a lot of navel gazing about life, love, our role in the world, destiny, and on and on - again, that might be the way chick lit is, and I made a mistake buying this book.  The plot was really light.  The characterizations were thin.  The heavy thing was the emotion around loss.  So, if you like books that make you feel artificially sad, this read is for you.
1747683
I love a good, light-hearted rom-com read as much as the next person. Reliable favorites are Jennifer Crusie, Rachel Gibson and Christie Ridgway. But I seem to have read a different book than the majority of the reviewers here, because I didn't think this was as fun or funny as everyone else.

For one, the main character is really difficult to like. She is whiny, feels absolutely sorry for herself, is constantly throwing a pity-party about her "terrible" life at every turn. When everyone around her who loves her seems bound and determined to help her get out of it, all she can do is complain about them and how they are so interfering. So when Des falls for her, all I could think was, "She must have a rockin' body because I'm not sure why else he would put up with all her baggage." Which didn't endear him to me much because that would mean he's incredibly shallow. Even when she acts like a complete nut ball, he keeps coming back! It was just really far-fetched, even for a chick lit novel.

The only redeeming quality of the novel is the supporting cast. They were hilarious (and gluttons for punishment, apparently, for putting up with Sadie) and sweet and a bit over-the-top. They were the only reason that I finished the book and that I didn't give it one star. I wouldn't recommend this book, but apparently, I'm in the minority :-)
565529
3.75 stars

This is quite possibly the most bizarre book I've ever read. But I actually ended up liking it a lot.

Vassa in the Night is a book I would have never picked out for myself, but I got it in one of my Owlcrate's and decided to give it a shot. I've been needing a change of pace with my genre's lately, so I picked up this one.

And my god, this book is weird. BUT the writing style sucked me into the story and I felt like I got lost in the pages of this peculiar story.

Why did it take me so many years to understand that Night is something you can talk to, something that might even decide to watch over you or kiss you just when you're about to crumple from loneliness?

The story begins when one of Vassa's stepsisters asks her to go to the local convenience store to get light bulbs for their apartment. But Vassa's Brooklyn isn't like our regular Brooklyn, it's one under the curse of longer nights and sparse days. And the local convenience store isn't convenient at all, it's a place that beheads shoplifters and hooligans, run by Babs Yagg.

Vassa might be able to break the curse Babs Yagg has on the neighborhood, but she also might get herself killed.

No matter who I couldn't save before, no matter if I'm stuck being a random mess of a girl, I'm still going to save something.

Like I said before, this book is just plain weird. But at the same time it's enchanting. I went into this book expecting not to like it based on numerous negative reviews and a low average rating, so imagine my surprise when I just couldn't put it down.

I have no clue who I would recommend this one to, it's a hit or a miss for a lot of people. The only real negative thing I have to say about this book is the plot wasn't very coherent. While I enjoyed reading this very much, there were lots of times where I thought to myself "what the heck is happening right now?".

Sarah Porter is a brilliant writer, talented at what she does. I would be happy to read more by her in the future and see the world through her unique eyes again.

You don't have to be human to be a person. I mean you don't have to be human to be somebody. I don't know you that well, but you seem like way more of a somebody than lots of humans I know! Really.
1374531
I am a fan of Jane Austen and Regency romance, but this is book not what I expect from the genre.  I don't expect the average Regency romance to be as historically accurate as Georgette Heyer's novels, but I don't care for being constantly hit over the head with anachronisms.

The female main character supposedly "went to college" and then started her own publishing business as a young single woman.  This should have been the first clue that the author was making no attempt whatsoever to hew to historical reality.  The male romantic lead mocks her early in the book saying "A women's college, is that what they call a hotbed of lesbianism these days?"  The female lead later reads a "smutty story" involving bondage written by the male lead and then comments that it "makes me hornier than a camp full of soldiers."  If you can imagine characters from Jane Austen saying or doing these things you have a better ability to suspend disbelief than I do.

I'm not a prude, but I do expect a certain amount of gentility and circumspection from characters in this genre.  However this book reads like Penthouse meets Jane Austen.  If that's your thing, then you'll love this book.  But I would have found the characters' crude turns of phrase startling in a book set in modern times, much less ones from this era.  I had long since lost interest in the book and was only skimming to see how ridiculous it got by the time I hit quotes like "This is my room, my dear Lady Hastings.  Or do you not remember that you came here last night famished for cock and wouldn't leave me alone until I'd f***ed you well and good?"

As for the characterization, what their was of it, the main male lead was almost likeable but the female lead I found judgmental and arrogant.  She wasn't likeable, much less believable.

This book would be better characterized as Regency porn rather than Regency romance.  Like I say, if that's what you're looking for more power to you.  But I felt misled about what I was getting with this book.
3647317
I have to admit I don't know anything about "chick lit", but I bought this book after reading the author's web page for years and wanting to see the final result of her work.  Carrie Pilby turned out to be a good story built on a premise of this 19-year-old woman living a life alone in New York, a city of millions - that sounds impossible, but it happens more than you'd think in this fast-paced world.  There's a lot of sarcastic or ironic humor among the descriptive view of Carrie's life and how she observes those around her from the unique perspective of someone who graduated college early and spent most of her life away from the mainstream.  What I liked most of all about the book was the plot, and how her psychiatrist had her put together a set of goals that eventually pull us through the book, setting up the different threads within.  That made it a real page-turner for me.  Like I said, I don't know much about chick lit and I don't know if this book is indicative of others in the genre, but I suspect that it's ahead of the pack and I personally found it a good read and worth checking out.