Literary Quote of the Month

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one." - George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

Friday, September 29, 2023

First Lines Friday... A Controversial Romance


 I wasn’t sure what to expect when I walked into Cafe Rev, but it sure as hell wasn’t a picture of myself behind the register under the cheery headline “Do Not Serve.” A yellow frown face magnet held the photo in place.

First of all, I’d never set foot in Knockemout, Virginia, let alone done anything to warrant a punishment as egregious as withholding caffeine. Secondly, just what dd a person have to do in their dusty little town to have a mugshot hanging in the local cafe?

Ha. Mug shot. Because I was in a cafe. Gosh, I was funny when I was too tired to blink.

                                ... Things we Never Got Over by Lucy Score

I got an email last friday from Fairyloot announcing that this book, Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score, was available to order. Now if you're not familiar with Fairyloot (and I am definitely going to have a post about them and a few other businesses like them), it's a company that has a book box subscription service for mostly fantasy books. But what makes them different from say The Book of the Month club are the covers that these books (and the sprayed edges)have. OMG, these covers are beautiful. And some of the designs that are sprayed on the paper edges are gorgeous. Okay, that's for another post, but we really need to talk about them soon (come back Sunday... hint, hint)!

What I wanted to say about this book was that after I saw that Fairyloot was going to have one of their exclusive editions made, I went to google it and read what the story was about and find out who the author was. Amazon had a 4.5 star rating, which usually says a lot, but I wanted to look at what the 1 star ratings were that I noticed was part of the rating scale. Well, those 1 star ratings really had intense feelings about this book. Basically, everyone, even the lower ratings, liked the main character Naomi, but the love interest created a big rift in how women felt about the book. And "bad boy" and "jerk" were the nicer comments. It seems that the love interest, according to the bad ratings, was domineering and controlling. A red flag for a real relationship. The high ratings loved the romance in the story. Calling the love interest a grumpy bad boy, but that Naomi stood up for herself and eventually love found a way. The beginning of the book, and this First Lines Friday post, I thought was really interesting. I liked Naomi's voice and I liked the writing, with that little bit of snarky humor. 

The question is, which reviews do you trust?

I think reviews are good to read for the most part, but really, we all have our own tastes and what someone else likes or doesn't like isn't necessarily how I'm going to feel about it. So, I read a bit of the story if I can, which tells me if I like the authors writing. And even before reading a sample, I read what the book is about. If it sounds like a story I might enjoy and if I'm able to read a sample of the authors writing and I like it, then I'll give any book a fair chance. There is one thing that is an absolutely no go for me is violence against animals. I can't watch a movie with it and I can't tolerate a book that has it. 

Do you have any absolutes in your reading?

Happy reading... Suzanne


1 comment:

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

I don't like Bad Boy Love Interests. Not in real life and not in books!

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