The Romance Book-a-Thon: A Personal Review of Seven Romance Novels

As I embarked on my romance book-a-thon, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and trepidation. The challenge was to read seven romance novels within a short period, and I knew that it would be a test of my endurance and reading habits. My first review is for "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much from this book. The title seemed a bit misleading, and I was worried that the novel would follow the traditional romance plot structure. However, as I read on, I discovered that this book is more than just a romance novel. It's a sweeping tale of love, loss, and identity that explores the complexities of Evelyn Hugo's life through her seven marriages. The writing style is engaging and witty, with a dash of old-school Hollywood glamour that transported me to a bygone era. Allie Hazlewood's writing is indeed very fun and light, making it an easy page-turner.

After finishing "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo," I felt like I needed a break from the romance genre. The next book on my list was "With Friends Like These" by Sally Rooney. I had been putting off reading one of her books for a long time due to the controversy surrounding her writing style, specifically her decision not to use apostrophes around dialogue. I finally took the plunge and read this book, which has been on my TBR list for ages.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed "With Friends Like These." The novel is more literary fiction than traditional romance, exploring themes of friendship, love, and identity through the eyes of its protagonist, Francis. Rooney's writing style is unique and refreshing, often disassociating from the reader to convey the inner turmoil of her characters. While it may not be a typical romance plot structure, I found myself completely invested in Francis's journey, which was both comforting and uncomfortable at times.

Moving on to my next review, I turned to "With," by Jessica Knoll is not present but "Meet Me at Midnight" is, however the first name given Jessica Pennington seems a bit off. I haven't seen this book very many places, but it's young adult romance with a summery vibe and takes place in two lake houses.

I have to admit that I struggled to get into this book. I read about 20 pages of it on the plane, but my brain just started thinking about other stuff, and I never felt like I was actually experiencing the story. The words didn't seem to translate into visions in my head, and I found myself getting lost in my own thoughts. As a result, I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish this book or recommend it to anyone.

For now, I think I'll take a break from romance novels and try out some different genres. If you have any recommendations for non-romance books, please leave them in the comments below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello girlie pups i'm going to try to read seven romance books in seven days why it's it it sounds genuinely exciting to me that's why like i just want to read romance books all week so i'm gonna try to do it fast i figured we could do it together and then we could see which romance books are good which ones are bad let's start with the most hyped up romance book right now every summer after by carly fortune this is the summer book right now and it has been compared to love in other words the summer i turn pretty and people we meet on vacation which are all exceptionally popular romance books so i am so excited to read this okay it is monday at 3 45 p.m starting pretty late but this is her debut novel and it has so much hype already i don't know how they did that it's childhood friends to lovers which is my favorite trope ever i'm starting late in the day with this one but i'm already 56 pages in that's not very far but let's start reading i'm also very tired so i might fall asleep let's find out this book has past and present timelines which always keeps things more interesting and kind of easier to read fast i'm on chapter six summer 16 years ago i don't think i've ever read a book with such a huge timeline gap a new thing well new to me a new thing i'm giving a try is tabbing my books i got these little pastel tabs from amazon i'll link them down below if you want them but i choose one color and then i tab parts that i think are cute quotes scenes that i would really like to go back to to kind of refresh my memory about a book especially if i read a book and it's five stars i really wish i could just like go through the my favorite parts of the book but if i don't tab them that i i don't know where to go so i've been trying it out and it's actually really fun because since i know that at any moment i could tab a quote or something i feel like my brain pays attention to each sentence more so it's been really fun plus it just feels like after you read a book so satisfying it really feels like you put your mark on the book hey guys 905 pm i'm having an allergy attack the update is every summer after i'm on page 202. this book is actually really short i think it only goes to like 300 pages which is awesome at night time i also will switch to kindles that this huge lamp right here doesn't hurt ryan's eyes and also reading on kindle at night is great because you can just lay down and you could read so many pages because you don't have to worry about how you're holding your books so i actually get a lot of reading done like that even though it's 9 p.m i'll still finish the book tonight even in bed but i think that this book is about to set the standards really high for this entire week because if you have read love in other words the childhood friends to lovers trolls is almost exactly the same in this book which means that i love it and it's amazing so i'm not going to speak too soon because there's still going to be a reveal of like whatever the tragic thing that separated them was and sometimes that reveal ruins everything so we're going to find out if it's a good reveal or not actually i think they haven't seen each other in 12 years which is almost exactly like love another awards i think good morning it's the next day i have finished every summer after by carly fortune last night and wow did it set the standards for this video up high because this is a five-star read quite literally the only place we can go from here is down or more five-star reads which i'm hoping to find more five-star reads isn't that what every reader is looking for just a book that tells them more about themselves or to find a world or characters that they just fall in love with we must move on to the next book for tuesday there's so much hype about the book that i'm about to open on tik tok right now oh i got ryan a sleep mask so that i can read at night oh whoa it's kind of bigger than i thought i love covers like this it's like that matte silky cover i'm obsessed with these covers oh my gosh that literally gives this book points also look how cute it's called funny you should ask by alyssa sussman such a unique cover and i love red and pink together absolutely stunning everyone on tick tock said they flew through this book let's see it's like 340 pages so you also have a then and now timeline and they also said that if you love celebrity fan fiction you're going to eat this up because basically there is a 20-something writer who has to interview the new james bond for this movie and a lot of people say he gives off chris evans vibes i match the book i'm so excited to start this i just want to start now and then i'll let you know how it's going and what it's about oh my gosh the dedication says for john all my stories are love stories because of you that is adorable prologue dang i never really see prologues in romance books book lovers by emily henry had a prologue and i was like what is this look what i ordered i'm gonna need this because i'm about to go play ultimate frisbee with my friends for like two hours i'm only 44 pages into this which means i'm gonna be up on my reading she is it's flowing very nicely though so far so i like it good morning girlie pups it is the next day even though i'm wearing the same outfit because it matches and i'm feeling so conflicted about the review about to give this book funny you should ask it was in fact fast-paced good writing flowed very nicely addictive you could say which are all qualities that i really admire in a book because i just want to have a fun time when i read a book and i had a spectacular and fun time reading this book but if i'm going to be nitpicky about it i will say most of these romance books follow a very specific structure and there's usually a third act conflict and sometimes you can tell that the author just has to follow that structure and so they make up a conflict and then they resolve it in the next chapter and that's what happened and it kind of bothered me a little bit because i was like okay of course when the conflict's not believable i don't know because it was almost really believable in this one but then they resolved it so quickly that i was like okay i don't know also the other thing is that they've only ever hung out seven days in their entire life that's like what this relationship is about they've got the past and the present and we have 10 years in between that and so it's not my favorite trope because the romance books that i really love is when you have a lot of yearning and you have that soulmate feeling because they've known each other their entire lives and they have all this history whereas these people obviously just they just don't know that much about each other because they haven't known each other very long but another thing i really did like is she is a writer in this book and i just love reading books where they're writers because i feel like you get some more quotable lines you got to see her blog posts and she had some really cool lines from her blog post that i like and something about books about authors it's just so like emotional in a way so i really like that i would probably give this a four stars maybe a 4.5 stars but i'm just gonna be nitpicky because the last two chapters kind of threw me off there but also how am i supposed to rate this objectively when it's so cute how am i supposed to do that if this was just i try to think if this just had a plain white cover what would i think about the words inside but it's hard to separate how cute this cover is with the book and i did have a really fun time so if you want a quick little summer read i would recommend good morning it's the next day we are on romance book number three i have chosen to read the cheat sheet by sarah adams i've been wanting to read this for so long because people say that it's super cute football player and ballerina which i have not read a book with dancers in it maybe ever pretty shocking um as you can see i already have a bookmark in it because i'm about 111 pages in and i just found out that there is fake dating trope in here which is one of my favorite tropes and so far it is so this is like the lightest fluffiest cupcake on a sunny day with cute little puppies like it is just a cute light-hearted fun romance i thought it was going to be y a but it's definitely not y a i don't know just going based off the cover and the no spice i was like oh it's why a but it's not i don't think at least they're like full-fledged adults he's in the nfl i think i'm gonna really really really like this book it's giving me five star vibes but i don't want to speak too soon so far all the books have been very good nothing has been terrible but i kind of want to throw a curveball in here and maybe read conversations with friends by sally rooney because sally rooney people either love her or hate her and i really want to see what i think about her writing so that might be pretty interesting but i'm just going to go enjoy this book because i really love it so far hi guys we've switched locations and i have 30 pages left of the cheat sheet i'm gonna finish the last 30 pages this book is so sweet it's so cute i just finished the cheat sheet and i actually just learned a new term instead of spice because that can kind of mean different things to different people you can say open door or closed door romance book so now i know what to look up if you want like a closed-door romance book that means you don't get to see any like explicit scenes or like descriptions of that so this is a closed-door romance which is a good term to know i didn't know that if i'm gonna be picky i'm gonna say 4.75 stars because it's not like i don't know i just i've been loving giving books five stars lately but then when i think about like my all-time favorite books if i don't have a higher score to rate them as then i guess it kind of defeats the point of like having a delineation between we need to have a six star scale honestly like they should i should have my five star books because i love this so much i would recommend it to everyone to read and then have like six star books that are like these just hold a special place my heart type of things look i was trying to take a cute instagram thing i'm really i'm really bad at flatlace so not sure how that's going to go next i want to read something wilder by christina lauren i got it hardcover and this book is so pretty if you guys don't know christina lauren they are co-authors and they wrote the un honeymooners loving other words so many different amazing romantic comedies and this one is about lily she's a tour guide for treasure hunts in the red rock canyons of utah is this a second chance romance i don't know we're gonna have to figure out the tropes the tropes in this one are fake dating and friends to lovers and i love friends to lovers because they just have so much history and this one is kind of like can you get out of the friend zone i was just so happy there was no annoying third act conflict so i love this book and i will be recommending it in a lot of my book videos i'm gonna go try and tan and start this book i'm so excited okay the next day i finished something wilder yesterday this book i wish i had a camera filming me live for my live reactions because this honestly this book was hilarious because obviously if you've already read two books from an author or these are co-authors then i'm just picturing happy romantic comedy right as one does it's like what they've always written and this book suddenly takes a turn to be a mystery adventure indiana jones hiking hunt heist situation there were so many plot twists i was like what book am i reading i had to check the cover and be like am i reading the right book are these the correct authors i will be honest it was really difficult for me to get into at first because it's written in third person and i haven't read a book in third person in so long i'm usually in the head of whoever the character is which is something i love about reading is like getting to hear their inner dialogue it is dual pov but it's third person so i don't know i feel like the first 180 pages was just kind of setting up the background of the main character and then the setting and then it's a second chance romance so they haven't seen each other in like 10 years and they don't know why but they you do get to know why they haven't seen each other in so long pretty quickly which i was happy about i was like okay do not tell me i have to wait till the end to find out why they haven't seen each other in 10 years because sometimes it just gets annoying so you find out pretty quickly and then you start going on this adventure i would say it is very summery because you're hiking in utah if you like hiking definitely read this book it's like a hiking murder mystery it's not a murder mystery but it is a mystery and honestly this reminded me of the inheritance games because they have to basically go on a treasure hunt so for the most part i think i'm just confused because i just was not expecting this from christina lauren they obviously are very good authors so that was great and the romance was good but i feel like this book is not really that much about the romance so if i would have gone into it thinking like oh a fun summer romance but mostly mystery book then i would have been able to rate it better so i think i'm gonna give it four stars but it was actually kind of hilarious i was updating ryan every time there was a plot to us i was like oh my gosh there's another podcast there's not a podcast the plot twists were good i feel like that part was fun but um definitely took me some time to get into and i feel like the third person i just can't something about third person i don't know so yeah that was interesting so these are the four books we've read so far i was supposed to read seven books in seven days and i'm gonna be honest with you today is sunday it is the seventh day and i've only read four books but i think i'm gonna start what is it called it's called stuck on you it's on kindle only right now and i think it's like a novella which is a shorter book from ali hazelwood who wrote the love hypothesis i gave that book five stars it's like one of my top three romances and people have been hyping up this novella that she wrote on tik tok and i think it's really short and her writing is just it really does feel like wattpad writing so it's super easy to read so i'm gonna read this i'm on chapter three so far and it's pretty good if i finish this book today that means we will have read five books in seven days and then i'm just gonna keep reading seven books so that the title is correct but i did fail at um seven books in seven days this week was literally the craziest week to choose to do this video though so maybe we can try this reading challenge again okay i read under one roof by ali hazelwood um i should have checked how many pages there were on goodreads first because i didn't realize it was like barely over a hundred pages so basically i just paid three dollars for a two-hour experience which is fine but it does feel like i just paid a lot of money for like a wattpad book which is also fine but not what i was looking for i really am just excited for her new book to come out in august i think she has so many fans so i feel like so many people are gonna read that as like uh oh so excited for her new book to come out but not what i was looking for it was just a bunch of random scenes between these characters that you don't get to know very well and then it just ends in a open door romance scene and i was like oh that's that's literally it so cool cool cool cool allie hazelwood's writing is very fun and light and it i guess counts towards my seven books this week which i am falling behind so nice little hundred pages i guess that counts let's move on to the next book i think it's finally time to read a sally rooney book with friends by sally rooney this has been on my tbr for so long she does not use apostrophes around dialogue i need to find out what this lady's writing is about is this even romance i don't even know i finally read a sally rooney book i understand the sally rooney girlies now the reason i put off reading one of her books for so long is number one people give her books five stars or one star there's just no in between and i actually did try to start reading normal people and i got like 20 pages in and i just could not get used to the no quotation marks around people's dialogue and for some reason when i started this book i was reading it and then i realized afterwards that i had been reading dialogue without quotation marks but i didn't even notice it so i don't know what is so different but i saw another person's review that said that they like this book way better than normal people and a lot of the scenes from here are in normal people i feel like this is more literary fiction and romance but it's not the typical romance plot structure where there's like a meat cue and then they fall in love and then there's a third act melodrama where they break up and then they resolve it and they get back together and then there's an epilogue where they have kids and they get married this is more about like almost a coming of age of francis who was 21 years old and her and her friend bobby meet this older couple who's kind of famous in some sense and they both start having an affair with the married couple and then you just go through francis's inner dialogue which is what makes this book so interesting because all of her characters are morally gray and flawed but you get to see the inner dialogue of francis and i feel like she is both extremely aware of her emotions but also completely confused by them and doesn't know how to handle them so you see her handle them in very strange ways but she's so honest about them that it just makes you feel like a normal human being when you read about her because you're like oh everyone experiences extreme emotions and doesn't know how to handle them and something about that is so comforting but her writing style is definitely unique it feels like you're reading about a person who is just disassociating all the time because of how kind of like sterile and cold the writing is and sometimes i felt like i needed to take a break because i was just getting kind of sad reading it it was so good i really liked it and i'm really glad that i like sally rooney because i really want to have some sort of an opinion or just like understand why so many people are obsessed with her so i'm gonna give this a 4.5 stars and it was definitely exactly what i needed to change up the pace of this video because so many romance books are structured the exact same way and this was more like literary fiction style so it changed up the pace quite swimmingly and i really enjoyed it and i'm using big words because i just read solidarity all right i think we're on to our last romance book which is so crazy not in seven days but more like nine days okay so this is the book i've been reading it's meet me at midnight by jessica pennington i haven't seen it very many places but it's young adult romance and it's very summery it's like at two lake houses um and i'm just gonna be honest with you this is how far i got last time i was reading it i was on the plane and i just never felt like i actually was experiencing the book like i would be reading it and it never the words never transformed into visions in my head and my brain would just start thinking about other stuff so i don't know guys might just dnf this i think i'm gonna take a break from romance now please leave me recommendations in the comments of books that are not romance because i have never read so many in a row in an entire month and even the really good ones in this video i'm starting to feel a little bit numb so i think i'm gonna try out some different genres please comment which ones they should be um i hope you enjoyed this video i hope you maybe got a romance recommendation of it but i will see you guys somewhere else on the internethello girlie pups i'm going to try to read seven romance books in seven days why it's it it sounds genuinely exciting to me that's why like i just want to read romance books all week so i'm gonna try to do it fast i figured we could do it together and then we could see which romance books are good which ones are bad let's start with the most hyped up romance book right now every summer after by carly fortune this is the summer book right now and it has been compared to love in other words the summer i turn pretty and people we meet on vacation which are all exceptionally popular romance books so i am so excited to read this okay it is monday at 3 45 p.m starting pretty late but this is her debut novel and it has so much hype already i don't know how they did that it's childhood friends to lovers which is my favorite trope ever i'm starting late in the day with this one but i'm already 56 pages in that's not very far but let's start reading i'm also very tired so i might fall asleep let's find out this book has past and present timelines which always keeps things more interesting and kind of easier to read fast i'm on chapter six summer 16 years ago i don't think i've ever read a book with such a huge timeline gap a new thing well new to me a new thing i'm giving a try is tabbing my books i got these little pastel tabs from amazon i'll link them down below if you want them but i choose one color and then i tab parts that i think are cute quotes scenes that i would really like to go back to to kind of refresh my memory about a book especially if i read a book and it's five stars i really wish i could just like go through the my favorite parts of the book but if i don't tab them that i i don't know where to go so i've been trying it out and it's actually really fun because since i know that at any moment i could tab a quote or something i feel like my brain pays attention to each sentence more so it's been really fun plus it just feels like after you read a book so satisfying it really feels like you put your mark on the book hey guys 905 pm i'm having an allergy attack the update is every summer after i'm on page 202. this book is actually really short i think it only goes to like 300 pages which is awesome at night time i also will switch to kindles that this huge lamp right here doesn't hurt ryan's eyes and also reading on kindle at night is great because you can just lay down and you could read so many pages because you don't have to worry about how you're holding your books so i actually get a lot of reading done like that even though it's 9 p.m i'll still finish the book tonight even in bed but i think that this book is about to set the standards really high for this entire week because if you have read love in other words the childhood friends to lovers trolls is almost exactly the same in this book which means that i love it and it's amazing so i'm not going to speak too soon because there's still going to be a reveal of like whatever the tragic thing that separated them was and sometimes that reveal ruins everything so we're going to find out if it's a good reveal or not actually i think they haven't seen each other in 12 years which is almost exactly like love another awards i think good morning it's the next day i have finished every summer after by carly fortune last night and wow did it set the standards for this video up high because this is a five-star read quite literally the only place we can go from here is down or more five-star reads which i'm hoping to find more five-star reads isn't that what every reader is looking for just a book that tells them more about themselves or to find a world or characters that they just fall in love with we must move on to the next book for tuesday there's so much hype about the book that i'm about to open on tik tok right now oh i got ryan a sleep mask so that i can read at night oh whoa it's kind of bigger than i thought i love covers like this it's like that matte silky cover i'm obsessed with these covers oh my gosh that literally gives this book points also look how cute it's called funny you should ask by alyssa sussman such a unique cover and i love red and pink together absolutely stunning everyone on tick tock said they flew through this book let's see it's like 340 pages so you also have a then and now timeline and they also said that if you love celebrity fan fiction you're going to eat this up because basically there is a 20-something writer who has to interview the new james bond for this movie and a lot of people say he gives off chris evans vibes i match the book i'm so excited to start this i just want to start now and then i'll let you know how it's going and what it's about oh my gosh the dedication says for john all my stories are love stories because of you that is adorable prologue dang i never really see prologues in romance books book lovers by emily henry had a prologue and i was like what is this look what i ordered i'm gonna need this because i'm about to go play ultimate frisbee with my friends for like two hours i'm only 44 pages into this which means i'm gonna be up on my reading she is it's flowing very nicely though so far so i like it good morning girlie pups it is the next day even though i'm wearing the same outfit because it matches and i'm feeling so conflicted about the review about to give this book funny you should ask it was in fact fast-paced good writing flowed very nicely addictive you could say which are all qualities that i really admire in a book because i just want to have a fun time when i read a book and i had a spectacular and fun time reading this book but if i'm going to be nitpicky about it i will say most of these romance books follow a very specific structure and there's usually a third act conflict and sometimes you can tell that the author just has to follow that structure and so they make up a conflict and then they resolve it in the next chapter and that's what happened and it kind of bothered me a little bit because i was like okay of course when the conflict's not believable i don't know because it was almost really believable in this one but then they resolved it so quickly that i was like okay i don't know also the other thing is that they've only ever hung out seven days in their entire life that's like what this relationship is about they've got the past and the present and we have 10 years in between that and so it's not my favorite trope because the romance books that i really love is when you have a lot of yearning and you have that soulmate feeling because they've known each other their entire lives and they have all this history whereas these people obviously just they just don't know that much about each other because they haven't known each other very long but another thing i really did like is she is a writer in this book and i just love reading books where they're writers because i feel like you get some more quotable lines you got to see her blog posts and she had some really cool lines from her blog post that i like and something about books about authors it's just so like emotional in a way so i really like that i would probably give this a four stars maybe a 4.5 stars but i'm just gonna be nitpicky because the last two chapters kind of threw me off there but also how am i supposed to rate this objectively when it's so cute how am i supposed to do that if this was just i try to think if this just had a plain white cover what would i think about the words inside but it's hard to separate how cute this cover is with the book and i did have a really fun time so if you want a quick little summer read i would recommend good morning it's the next day we are on romance book number three i have chosen to read the cheat sheet by sarah adams i've been wanting to read this for so long because people say that it's super cute football player and ballerina which i have not read a book with dancers in it maybe ever pretty shocking um as you can see i already have a bookmark in it because i'm about 111 pages in and i just found out that there is fake dating trope in here which is one of my favorite tropes and so far it is so this is like the lightest fluffiest cupcake on a sunny day with cute little puppies like it is just a cute light-hearted fun romance i thought it was going to be y a but it's definitely not y a i don't know just going based off the cover and the no spice i was like oh it's why a but it's not i don't think at least they're like full-fledged adults he's in the nfl i think i'm gonna really really really like this book it's giving me five star vibes but i don't want to speak too soon so far all the books have been very good nothing has been terrible but i kind of want to throw a curveball in here and maybe read conversations with friends by sally rooney because sally rooney people either love her or hate her and i really want to see what i think about her writing so that might be pretty interesting but i'm just going to go enjoy this book because i really love it so far hi guys we've switched locations and i have 30 pages left of the cheat sheet i'm gonna finish the last 30 pages this book is so sweet it's so cute i just finished the cheat sheet and i actually just learned a new term instead of spice because that can kind of mean different things to different people you can say open door or closed door romance book so now i know what to look up if you want like a closed-door romance book that means you don't get to see any like explicit scenes or like descriptions of that so this is a closed-door romance which is a good term to know i didn't know that if i'm gonna be picky i'm gonna say 4.75 stars because it's not like i don't know i just i've been loving giving books five stars lately but then when i think about like my all-time favorite books if i don't have a higher score to rate them as then i guess it kind of defeats the point of like having a delineation between we need to have a six star scale honestly like they should i should have my five star books because i love this so much i would recommend it to everyone to read and then have like six star books that are like these just hold a special place my heart type of things look i was trying to take a cute instagram thing i'm really i'm really bad at flatlace so not sure how that's going to go next i want to read something wilder by christina lauren i got it hardcover and this book is so pretty if you guys don't know christina lauren they are co-authors and they wrote the un honeymooners loving other words so many different amazing romantic comedies and this one is about lily she's a tour guide for treasure hunts in the red rock canyons of utah is this a second chance romance i don't know we're gonna have to figure out the tropes the tropes in this one are fake dating and friends to lovers and i love friends to lovers because they just have so much history and this one is kind of like can you get out of the friend zone i was just so happy there was no annoying third act conflict so i love this book and i will be recommending it in a lot of my book videos i'm gonna go try and tan and start this book i'm so excited okay the next day i finished something wilder yesterday this book i wish i had a camera filming me live for my live reactions because this honestly this book was hilarious because obviously if you've already read two books from an author or these are co-authors then i'm just picturing happy romantic comedy right as one does it's like what they've always written and this book suddenly takes a turn to be a mystery adventure indiana jones hiking hunt heist situation there were so many plot twists i was like what book am i reading i had to check the cover and be like am i reading the right book are these the correct authors i will be honest it was really difficult for me to get into at first because it's written in third person and i haven't read a book in third person in so long i'm usually in the head of whoever the character is which is something i love about reading is like getting to hear their inner dialogue it is dual pov but it's third person so i don't know i feel like the first 180 pages was just kind of setting up the background of the main character and then the setting and then it's a second chance romance so they haven't seen each other in like 10 years and they don't know why but they you do get to know why they haven't seen each other in so long pretty quickly which i was happy about i was like okay do not tell me i have to wait till the end to find out why they haven't seen each other in 10 years because sometimes it just gets annoying so you find out pretty quickly and then you start going on this adventure i would say it is very summery because you're hiking in utah if you like hiking definitely read this book it's like a hiking murder mystery it's not a murder mystery but it is a mystery and honestly this reminded me of the inheritance games because they have to basically go on a treasure hunt so for the most part i think i'm just confused because i just was not expecting this from christina lauren they obviously are very good authors so that was great and the romance was good but i feel like this book is not really that much about the romance so if i would have gone into it thinking like oh a fun summer romance but mostly mystery book then i would have been able to rate it better so i think i'm gonna give it four stars but it was actually kind of hilarious i was updating ryan every time there was a plot to us i was like oh my gosh there's another podcast there's not a podcast the plot twists were good i feel like that part was fun but um definitely took me some time to get into and i feel like the third person i just can't something about third person i don't know so yeah that was interesting so these are the four books we've read so far i was supposed to read seven books in seven days and i'm gonna be honest with you today is sunday it is the seventh day and i've only read four books but i think i'm gonna start what is it called it's called stuck on you it's on kindle only right now and i think it's like a novella which is a shorter book from ali hazelwood who wrote the love hypothesis i gave that book five stars it's like one of my top three romances and people have been hyping up this novella that she wrote on tik tok and i think it's really short and her writing is just it really does feel like wattpad writing so it's super easy to read so i'm gonna read this i'm on chapter three so far and it's pretty good if i finish this book today that means we will have read five books in seven days and then i'm just gonna keep reading seven books so that the title is correct but i did fail at um seven books in seven days this week was literally the craziest week to choose to do this video though so maybe we can try this reading challenge again okay i read under one roof by ali hazelwood um i should have checked how many pages there were on goodreads first because i didn't realize it was like barely over a hundred pages so basically i just paid three dollars for a two-hour experience which is fine but it does feel like i just paid a lot of money for like a wattpad book which is also fine but not what i was looking for i really am just excited for her new book to come out in august i think she has so many fans so i feel like so many people are gonna read that as like uh oh so excited for her new book to come out but not what i was looking for it was just a bunch of random scenes between these characters that you don't get to know very well and then it just ends in a open door romance scene and i was like oh that's that's literally it so cool cool cool cool allie hazelwood's writing is very fun and light and it i guess counts towards my seven books this week which i am falling behind so nice little hundred pages i guess that counts let's move on to the next book i think it's finally time to read a sally rooney book with friends by sally rooney this has been on my tbr for so long she does not use apostrophes around dialogue i need to find out what this lady's writing is about is this even romance i don't even know i finally read a sally rooney book i understand the sally rooney girlies now the reason i put off reading one of her books for so long is number one people give her books five stars or one star there's just no in between and i actually did try to start reading normal people and i got like 20 pages in and i just could not get used to the no quotation marks around people's dialogue and for some reason when i started this book i was reading it and then i realized afterwards that i had been reading dialogue without quotation marks but i didn't even notice it so i don't know what is so different but i saw another person's review that said that they like this book way better than normal people and a lot of the scenes from here are in normal people i feel like this is more literary fiction and romance but it's not the typical romance plot structure where there's like a meat cue and then they fall in love and then there's a third act melodrama where they break up and then they resolve it and they get back together and then there's an epilogue where they have kids and they get married this is more about like almost a coming of age of francis who was 21 years old and her and her friend bobby meet this older couple who's kind of famous in some sense and they both start having an affair with the married couple and then you just go through francis's inner dialogue which is what makes this book so interesting because all of her characters are morally gray and flawed but you get to see the inner dialogue of francis and i feel like she is both extremely aware of her emotions but also completely confused by them and doesn't know how to handle them so you see her handle them in very strange ways but she's so honest about them that it just makes you feel like a normal human being when you read about her because you're like oh everyone experiences extreme emotions and doesn't know how to handle them and something about that is so comforting but her writing style is definitely unique it feels like you're reading about a person who is just disassociating all the time because of how kind of like sterile and cold the writing is and sometimes i felt like i needed to take a break because i was just getting kind of sad reading it it was so good i really liked it and i'm really glad that i like sally rooney because i really want to have some sort of an opinion or just like understand why so many people are obsessed with her so i'm gonna give this a 4.5 stars and it was definitely exactly what i needed to change up the pace of this video because so many romance books are structured the exact same way and this was more like literary fiction style so it changed up the pace quite swimmingly and i really enjoyed it and i'm using big words because i just read solidarity all right i think we're on to our last romance book which is so crazy not in seven days but more like nine days okay so this is the book i've been reading it's meet me at midnight by jessica pennington i haven't seen it very many places but it's young adult romance and it's very summery it's like at two lake houses um and i'm just gonna be honest with you this is how far i got last time i was reading it i was on the plane and i just never felt like i actually was experiencing the book like i would be reading it and it never the words never transformed into visions in my head and my brain would just start thinking about other stuff so i don't know guys might just dnf this i think i'm gonna take a break from romance now please leave me recommendations in the comments of books that are not romance because i have never read so many in a row in an entire month and even the really good ones in this video i'm starting to feel a little bit numb so i think i'm gonna try out some different genres please comment which ones they should be um i hope you enjoyed this video i hope you maybe got a romance recommendation of it but i will see you guys somewhere else on the internet\n"