Back with My Makeup All Done: A Review of "The Last 50% by Karina Holly

As I sit here with my makeup all done and my hair looking less greasy than usual, I'm still trying to process the mixed emotions I felt while reading "The Last 50%" by Karina Holly. The book had a lot of promise, but unfortunately, it fell short in its execution.

I was excited to dive into this romance novel, particularly after hearing great things about the author's previous works. However, as I reached the halfway point, I started to feel a sense of disappointment wash over me. The tension and conflict that were supposed to be building throughout the story seemed to fizz out, leaving me feeling uninvested in the characters' journey.

The main conflict in the book was the one that really caught my attention - or lack thereof. James, who had been in love with both our heroine and her friend, broke up with his girlfriend to pursue Stephanie Lyndon, only to later realize that he couldn't possibly do this to James and end things with Stephanie instead. I found it suspicious that James would jeopardize their own happiness to appease him, especially considering how little they actually cared for each other.

This moment felt like a classic romance trope that I've come to despise - the "helicopter crash" scenario where two people are reunited after a tragic accident, often because of a guilty conscience. It's just not believable or satisfying, and it feels like an easy way out for authors who can't think of better ways to resolve their conflicts.

I was also reminded of another book that had a similar plot device - the best friend trope, where two people are so close they're practically siblings, but then one of them realizes they have feelings for each other. While I appreciate the idea, it's often executed poorly in romance novels, and "The Last 50%" felt like it fell into this same trap.

Despite my disappointment with the book, I still enjoyed some aspects of it. The sex scenes were pretty steamy, and I appreciated the way they added to the tension between the characters. However, it was clear that the author was trying too hard to create a sexy atmosphere at times, which felt like a distraction from the actual plot.

Overall, I'd give "The Last 50%" three and a half stars out of five. While it wasn't the success I had hoped for, I still think there's potential in Karina Holly's writing, especially with her other books. I'd be interested in reading more from her in the future, particularly since she has such an extensive backlist.

I have to admit that I was surprised by how much I disliked this book. It's not often that I'm so underwhelmed by a romance novel, but there were just too many things that didn't feel right for me. Despite my disappointment, I still enjoyed making this video and sharing my thoughts with you all. If you're looking for more authors or books to try, I hope this review has been helpful in some way. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to my channel in today's video I am going to be giving authors a second chance this video was recommended to me actually by one of my patrons they really wanted me to do a video where I read books from authors that I hate to see if maybe giving an author a second chance is a good idea and I decided I'd take on the challenge today I picked authors that I have either dnfed books from before or who I have read books from and just haven't liked in the past and I'm really curious to see how this goes I tried to give myself the best chance of liking the books possible there's like obviously a lot of different ways that I could have gone with this but I tried to pick authors that I think that I will actually enjoy the second time around so we'll tell you more about the books as we get into the video but there's also time stamps down below if you want to skip around let's get into the Vlog so I'm already starting to realize how interesting it is picking up a book from an author that you have read from before haven't enjoyed and haven't read from in a long time I didn't expect when I picked up while match to remember and start recalling the things that happened in WM but it kind of makes sense given the ties between the characters in both of those books but also so uh it makes sense because I feel like when I really stop and think about books and really try to like get down to the grit of why I didn't like them the all the things resurfaced right well met was not my favorite book for a couple of reasons and the main one being I didn't feel like the heroine and the hero were very well suited our heroine I don't believe was college educated our hero makes our heroin feel bad about that which I thought was shitty he has this sort of like I'm better than you attitude that I did not find sexy and I didn't find their like enemies to lovers thing very nice now this book is about that heroine's sister her older sister who she helps out in the first book her older sister has like a leg injury and can't fully take care of Teenaged daughter and so younger sister comes and helps her right the heroin in this book she is divorced she has a daughter who is turning 18 and is going to be graduating from college in the next couple of weeks and she is asked by a kind of like mutual friend of theirs to be a fake date to a family event for him he wants to impress his family by bringing someone who is like well established yeah and has like a good head on her shoulders and our heroine decides that she's going to do that in exchange for some help from the hero I guess he's going to like help her refinish her deck or something because she's trying to sell the house that she lives in with her daughter after her daughter you know goes to college here's the thing I'm someone who likes banter I like relationship with a little bit of angst a little bit of heat a little bit of tension and I'm not asking for every book that I read to be enemies lovers I don't even like enemies slovers I don't think you need to have an enemies slovers relationship to have angst tension and banter this book is just so sedate is the way I described it when I was just talking to my patrons when we were sprinting it's such a bland book it feels very one note while that first book kind of INF furiated me this one doesn't feel like that it does feel boring and boring is kind of a crime in my opinion when it comes to a romance because there's so many things you can do to make them exciting and fun and like delightful to read and this one it's very healthy which I appreciate we've got kind of an age Gap relationship between the hero and heroin I think he's like in his early 30s she's maybe in her 40s but there's just nothing there like I'm just so bored they they have to share a bed with each other uh they have sex whenever they are like on the Strip together it's not like oh my God finally they're together you're just like oh okay this is happening I guess where is this coming from um cuz she goes from being like self-conscious about them like sharing a bedroom and like him seeing her without makeup on and then the next day they're like oh we're going to felt like a weird transition there not really been any like great conversations believe that these two are well suited I don't know I mean I love a good himbo and I think she calls him a himbo in the book which I think is funny but I don't even think he's like really exhibiting himbo behaviors just a nice guy who's got like a good job even though it's not like a professional job I guess you could say it's like a point of contention in the book that's is like one of the plot points is that his family doesn't take him seriously cuz he doesn't have like a doctor I I think it's a perfectly fine book I read a lot of perfectly fine books and I feel like it often comes across as if I don't like anything because I think most things are just perfectly fine but this is just so perfectly fine I think a lot of people are going to pick this book up and be like okay and like forget it 5 seconds later kind of like I forgot while met literally the only thing that stands out about that book while met is that the hero was like such an ass about the heroin's education and I don't know why that's like a recurring thing like that comes up in this book too I guess yeah it's just not my favorite oh oh also also okay here's a here's a greater thread before I before I go and finish this book not only is is the banter lacking and I don't feel like the characters are compatible but I think that's a Common Thread that I see in this author's work between this book and the last book in the same series I mean this isn't the last book of the series but whatever book our heroine wants to move to a big city she has no desire to stay in the small town after her daughter is graduated her daughter did really well in the small town so the mom didn't get to pursue her dreams of living in a city after she divorced and so now she's going to get to live that dream except for our hero really likes a small town and he likes all the things that go along with the small town from what we can tell so one of them is going to have to compromise or we're going to find out that like maybe one of them oh I I was just working in the small town doesn't mean I love it like on his part or it's going to be the heroin being like Oh I really love the small town all along I like know that there needs to be like a conflict in in the story and like maybe that's going to be the conflict but but I don't think that like life desires are a conflict like I don't think that should be a conflict I think that should just be we're incompatible so I don't like that I'm not a huge fan of that component of this oh also he wants kids I think or he would be really good with kids and she did she already has a kid she's past her childbearing ears is what she says so again it's like compatibility wear not bad it's just like very block passible I'm going to go finish it though I'm going to play two dots while I do it and then we can move on to some gay stuff all right y'all I have the headache from hell so bear with me I might be bitcher than normal okay Finish while matched by jenaluca and I think I probably should have let that stay a onetime author for me correctly predicted exactly what was going to happen at the End of This Book and how these two were going to like end up together I guess it wasn't all compromise but I don't feel like what happened was convincing so hero loves being around kids loves teaching kids but has no desire to have kids of his own that makes sense normal okay fine that obviously makes them more compatible then we have our heroine and her thing was a little I I I don't know of the story she's like trying to leave this small town like her daughter is leaving the house she's like I finally get to go to like the city I finally get to move somewhere it's cool like I never really felt at home here and the whole time she's like so self-conscious because the people in this small town she feels like are judging her she does have some friends like she's a part of a book club and stuff but like she really feels like this isn't the place for her and over the course of the story she starts to realize the place she lives is the place she actually likes and I say over the course of the story I feel like it was a little too it was like too little too late for this aspect of the book for that to be the reason why these two should like ultimately work out so she goes to a run fair at like 70% marked she's like wait it's actually fun like I don't have to be the serious like buttoned up person all the time and like I should just allow myself to have fun and then she also kind of has this Epiphany that like she actually likes people in her book clubs I don't know but she's like you know what I've decided I want to live here I'm going to apologize to you for like calling your profession stupid conflict is our heroin pushing the hero away and basically like making fun of his job you know it's a mistake and she like doesn't mean it but that was not cool I really one of my least favorite conflicts is a like a mean thing said In the Heat of the Moment I don't know why that's so like unacceptable to me but I really don't like that as a Trope I think it's maybe realistic but also terrible and um that really bothered me and I just don't understand what he sees in her because she seems and unfun and okay cool you wore a corset and had your titties out of the Run Fair one time but like that doesn't make you a fun time girl this is not it for me um I just think this author's like way of writing relationships is just not it doesn't mesh well with what I like in a relationship okay we'll leave it at that two stars um let's move on to that summer Feeling by Bridget morresy so we'll admit I completely forgot what book I'd read by this author before and also like what that book was about and so I went and rewatched the clip where I'm talking about this book and I still nothing was lighting up in my brain while I was listening to myself talk about this book okay but apparently it's about this girl who's like in Show Business and she has to interact with the guy that she used to be in a movie with he's gonna be the main actor in the movie that she's producing or some it wasn't good I didn't like it but I don't remember anything about it so it's like hard to compare that one to this one but this one's okay so far so this book's about our main character Garland and I'm always every time I hear that word I just think Garland I don't know why it's just like how I playfully say Garland when it's Christmas season doesn't matter it's irrelevant but I'm I have a headache and you're I'm sharing my thoughts and feelings with you so Garland is recently divorced and she thought she was going to live with her husband for forever she thought she was going to be married forever because she was so in love and she was willing to overlook any issues that might be there in the relationship it wasn't abusive or anything they just like didn't work out and he basically discovered or decided he didn't love her anymore which is upsetting to our heroine because her parents had a horrible relationship and stayed together and she didn't like that example that they set for her and so she was like I'm going to I'm going to have a an amazing love story again she's like divorced and she got divorced on Valentine's Day which is kind of I guess serendipitous cuz it's Valentine's Day today okay anyway time has passed between the divorce and now I don't know if it's years or months can't remember but Garland is going to summer camp with her sister Dar and again to me that just sounds like Darla D Darla and gerland they are at the summer camp and this is an adult summer camp I guess Garland like drives Uber I guess a couple of her passengers own adult summer camp and like asked if she wanted to come so she's at this adult summer camp to like let off some steam have fun she's swearing off love but she is not swearing off fun but then she meets Stevie and she's like instantly attracted to Stevie and then she realizes that this guy that she had a chance encounter with many years ago is Stevie's brother and so she thinks she should be pursuing Stevie's brother but really she like has a thing for Stevie and she figures that out I mean pretty early on that she kind of has a thing for Stevie um and not stev's brother at like 34% it's fine I don't want to say that about like all three of these books I'm really hoping the pack like comes through just because the way that one has like been pitched to me I think I really like that one but this one like I love the idea of summer camp setting I think that's really exciting but the execution of it's pretty boring and I'm not really getting the relationship development here I am getting like a little bit of banter and fine which I'm appreciating between Garland and Stevie like I like their friendship I think it's fun I'm not really feeling like a palpable sexual chemistry going on but I am I guess at least buying into the Friendship portion of things and maybe as the book carries on like I'll really be like okay wait these two need to Bone down not quite there yet but it's fine it's very okay I don't want to say about all these bgs but like you know at least it's a short one you know it's like a short Vlog of you just listening to me BET right no one wants like an hour of that but like 20 30 minutes like that's that's reasonable isn't it these are questions I have to ask myself when I make videos I promise I like bgs I I'm getting old I think I just need to acknowledge that right now because I actually enjoyed this book and it wasn't for the romance I enjoyed the message um okay so I can't even remember the name of this book summer something Summer by Bridget Mory I ended up actually enjoying the like takeaway message and or the growth that our heroin undergoes and I like that significantly more than the romance basically our heroin's problem is that she isn't really good about speaking up for herself because she isn't really looking to rock the boat which makes sense given that her family or her parents were like constantly arguing growing up and that kind of like stressed her out she promised herself like she didn't want environment like that uh in her own life and so she never really stood up for herself in her marriage she never really asked for what she wanted that kind of like comes up in summer camp too she like has to sort of like actually pursue the things she wants and she's starting to like realize that even though she's undergone some like physical changes that she's happy with she hasn't necessarily undergone the I guess character growth that she needs to go through to be happy in her life and upon meeting Stevie she starts to kind of make these changes and and someone that she feels like she can want to say stand up to but someone that she feels like she can be herself with and like be completely honest with and I thought that was sweet I will say I think like the romance component of this book was kind of weak and definitely uh install ly for sure but I really liked the summer camp Vibes I felt like that was a really fun setting for a romance and it's one of those books that while I probably won't remember it very far into the future if someone was asking me for like a really Breezy low stakes um LGBT female female romance like I would recommend this one I also liked the sexuality and how that was handled the sexuality also liked how Garland's sexuality was handled she discovered she's byy over the course of this like summer camp Adventure which is probably like a week or two long it's like not a very long period of time but she doesn't really like seem to undergo any sort of like Crisis when she's figuring out her sexuality not that it's wrong if you do I just thought it was cool how it was handled like she was like you know what I have kind of like put aside my feelings for women over the years but actually do really like them and I was like you know what good for you girl I respect it I like it overall I just feel like this was a a solid if not perfect romance for me again like the Romantic component I don't think I'm sold on I think maybe that's my issue with this author's books I don't know that I'd like rush to pick out more from her but like this is a perfectly fine three star read and I'm like actually pretty happy with it so if you are looking for low stakes romance I would pick this one up stakes in the sense that like nothing really bad happens sometimes I mean we want that in life I don't know if yall are the same way but like a lot of the times I will pick up or watch a television show that I've already watched before because I know what to expect and that really lowers anxiety for me it's kind of the same with a good low stakes Romance you know you know what you're going to get at the end which is a happy ending and you're not going to have a lot of like obstacles in the way of the characters until that point so I liked that we get Garland kind of like facing her uh ex-husband which I kind of liked too like they have like a I don't want to say final encounter but she does get to kind of like put that relationship to bed she doesn't really feel like there's a lot of closure before that point so yeah I don't know I thought it was fine a book that I am actually very much loving is packed by Karina Holly I do have the physical copy which I'm reading I got this from half price books for like six bucks but I'll put a picture right here while I talk because you know doing my makeup I love a good friend to lovers like let's make a packed kind of story so this book is about our two main characters Stephanie and Lyndon Lyndon is Scottish which like we love uh they've been friends since their mid-20s when our heroine was dating the hero's best friend uh they didn't date for very long and that was kind of how you know her and Lyndon developed this friendship and now they're all kind of three friends the guy she dated was named James which is important because he's like a character in the story Beyond just that meeting at the beginning or like Beyond them dating for just a little bit lyen and Stephanie have this relationship where they feel like they can kind of tell each other anything they know each other really really well they make this packed at like 25 that if by 30 they don't have a really steady relationship or they're not already married they'll marry each other and Stephanie is kind of like she kind of thinks it's a meme she kind of thinks it's a joke but she agrees to it and Lyndon is like kind of serious about it and we find out pretty quickly that Lyndon is just like serious about Stephanie in general like he's kind of always had a thing for her he's always thought she was beautiful but doesn't really want to jeopardize the friendship and then as the course of The Story Goes On we kind of notice the way that Stephanie definitely has feelings for Lyndon as well especially as he starts to date other people in a more serious capacity it's like she's never really been scared of him being like fully taken by someone because he kind of sleeps around and is like a Manor or whatever though I will say Stephanie sleeps around as well yeah she never really takes seriously the fact that lynon could like find someone um and when she's kind of like well I don't like this and also the girl's kind of terrible so 50% into the book there's sort of like a breakdown I guess of both lynon and Stephanie's relationship she's dating this guy who like is a couple years younger than her and isn't a very serious person really nice guy but like definitely not you know longterm courage potential or anything like that lynon is dating someone who he liked initially but like her personality has changed a lot over the course of their relationship like used to go hiking together and like do all these adventurous things and now all she wants to do is like stay home and isn't happy with the fact that Lyon is friends with Stephanie we all go on a like friendship sort of camping trip together like a little couple's occasion basically Aaron who is Stephanie's boy friend so Aaron and Stephanie lynon and Natalie I think is her name and then we have James their friend um and Penny his girlfriend so they all go on this like camping trip do a true through dare situation and of course people making out with people that they shouldn't be and Lyndon and Stephanie are kind of you know realizing that they kind of need to act on their feelings for each other and that they should probably break up with the people that they are with I'm curious to see if that'll actually happen as like the story carries on I think that's like the thing that I'm most curious about at this point is like their relationship's going to develop and how they're going to overcome this like like jeopardizing of friendship I feel like that's always what happens in friends to relationships is like people are too scared to admit their feelings for each other cuz they don't want to ruin the Friendship I'll be curious to see if they get together like pretty soon or if the rest of the book is them kind of like plotting along and the ending of the book is when they're going to get together that's like my one thing about friends to lovers uh romances is that you never know at what point in the book these two are going to get together if the majority of the book is going to be spent with the characters apart I don't know I feel like I have like a good balance in my romances I don't want the characters to get together too early I feel like romance the whole point of it is that they should be building their relationship and or I guess building to getting into a relationship for the majority of the book but I do also like to see just a touch of when what their relationship looks like once they get together like I don't want them to get together in the last chapter and then that's it like I do want to see happy moments and also how they handle like adversity in their actual relationship I'm really liking this this is just my kind of story in general I really love a childhood friends to lovers I mean I do love childhood friends to lovers that's not what this is though um I do just like a friends to lovers relationship where you can see that these two have like longing for each other I just like a good angsty story I always have and probably always will just like is this actually highlighter it looks like blush that's not being pale um flying through this I like the way that it's written I wouldn't say this is like the most thrilling romance that I've ever picked up I'm kind of okay with that like I don't need things to be super fastpaced or like plot heavy for me to enjoy them if the character Dynamics are built right and I really like both of our characters lynon I think uh I'd like to learn a little bit more about him besides just his like Playboy Tendencies but Lyndon has like opened up her own clothing store and her own business after you know she worked really hard to get there and just really like that like I like her character I'm going to finish this one and then I will pop back in with my makeup all done my hair less greasy all right so I finished the pack by Karina Holly I'm a little dis appointed in this I'm not going to lie I was so excited about it up until that 50% Mark and then like I kind of feared the tension sort of fizzled in a way that I didn't love the third act conflict s like main conflict in this book was just a little bit silly for me so I don't think it's much of a spoiler I mean honestly like I'm sorry I don't really think that you can really spoil romances I'm going to tell you what happens in this book so basically we have our James friends with both our hero and heroine and he kind of pops up and says something to the effect of like I've always been in love with her I'm going to broke up with my girlfriend I think I'm going to pursue Stephanie Lyndon is like obviously in a panic because he hasn't told James that he has a thing for our heroine and that he's been sleeping with her for months so this is sort of like Troublesome and he ends up I say he Lyndon ends up breaking up with Stephanie because he's like I can't possibly do this to James and I find that kind of suspicious considering fact that James is not a very close or good friend to either Stephanie or lynon it doesn't make sense that they would jeopardize their own happiness to I guess try to appease James and so it's just weird to me that lynon decides to just kind of of break up with Stephanie after they've like declared their love for each other already that like kind of a weak excuse and then we also have just a classic romance uh tropy thing that I can't stand and I think I need to like take a stand so we can get the word out to authors that this isn't cool though I haven't really seen this that much in like modern Romance of that makes sense romance has written in the past decade uh we have a helicopter crash our hero his profession is to fly helicopters and he gets in accident that obviously reunites the hero and heroin and James feels guilty and he's like you know what youall can be together blah blah blah I don't like that I just think that's kind of stupid and it's again It's upsetting because I feel like this had a lot of Promise in some ways this was kind of reminding me of a recent Elizabeth oror book that had kind of a similar like best friends but we don't want to upset our mutual friend sort of thing going on um and I thought this would be executed better but I just feel like that last 50% really just like makes this book not as good as I wanted it to be I think i' still rate it like three and a half Stars I think it was fun in some ways I think the sex scenes were kind of fun as well but I just think that the tension was broken maybe a little bit too soon and I wanted a stronger thir that conflict here's the thing I think a lot of us understand the need for good third act conflict but we get annoyed when authors do something that feels out of character for the characters or feels a little bit weak and like you're just trying to fabricate something I feel like a good third. conflict can actually bolster and strengthen a relationship because it can cause the characters to actually have to face some of their fears I felt like the conflict in this book was just a little bit unfounded and a little bit it didn't bring the characters like together in the way that I wanted it to um we just like wasn't the right conflict I think for this pairing so three and a half for this one that being said I feel like this video was interesting it wasn't the success that I wanted it to be but I feel like the last two books that I read for this video were actually pretty decent and I would actually be interested in Reading from both Bridgette morsy and Karina Holly again Karina Holly like has such an extensive backlist that I feel like I might like more books from her in the future I didn't really love I think it's like my Nordic king or something like that I thought was like fun if if a little silly I mean this was like popular kind of right after like 50 Shades came I mean this came out in December of 2014 so for like this coming out in that era and like holding up pretty decent I'm like not I'm not mad at it but I had fun making this video even if it wasn't a total success I hope this kind of inspired you maybe to pick up books from authors that you haven't had luck with in the past thanks so much for watching love you all so much and I'll see you in the next onehello welcome back to my channel in today's video I am going to be giving authors a second chance this video was recommended to me actually by one of my patrons they really wanted me to do a video where I read books from authors that I hate to see if maybe giving an author a second chance is a good idea and I decided I'd take on the challenge today I picked authors that I have either dnfed books from before or who I have read books from and just haven't liked in the past and I'm really curious to see how this goes I tried to give myself the best chance of liking the books possible there's like obviously a lot of different ways that I could have gone with this but I tried to pick authors that I think that I will actually enjoy the second time around so we'll tell you more about the books as we get into the video but there's also time stamps down below if you want to skip around let's get into the Vlog so I'm already starting to realize how interesting it is picking up a book from an author that you have read from before haven't enjoyed and haven't read from in a long time I didn't expect when I picked up while match to remember and start recalling the things that happened in WM but it kind of makes sense given the ties between the characters in both of those books but also so uh it makes sense because I feel like when I really stop and think about books and really try to like get down to the grit of why I didn't like them the all the things resurfaced right well met was not my favorite book for a couple of reasons and the main one being I didn't feel like the heroine and the hero were very well suited our heroine I don't believe was college educated our hero makes our heroin feel bad about that which I thought was shitty he has this sort of like I'm better than you attitude that I did not find sexy and I didn't find their like enemies to lovers thing very nice now this book is about that heroine's sister her older sister who she helps out in the first book her older sister has like a leg injury and can't fully take care of Teenaged daughter and so younger sister comes and helps her right the heroin in this book she is divorced she has a daughter who is turning 18 and is going to be graduating from college in the next couple of weeks and she is asked by a kind of like mutual friend of theirs to be a fake date to a family event for him he wants to impress his family by bringing someone who is like well established yeah and has like a good head on her shoulders and our heroine decides that she's going to do that in exchange for some help from the hero I guess he's going to like help her refinish her deck or something because she's trying to sell the house that she lives in with her daughter after her daughter you know goes to college here's the thing I'm someone who likes banter I like relationship with a little bit of angst a little bit of heat a little bit of tension and I'm not asking for every book that I read to be enemies lovers I don't even like enemies slovers I don't think you need to have an enemies slovers relationship to have angst tension and banter this book is just so sedate is the way I described it when I was just talking to my patrons when we were sprinting it's such a bland book it feels very one note while that first book kind of INF furiated me this one doesn't feel like that it does feel boring and boring is kind of a crime in my opinion when it comes to a romance because there's so many things you can do to make them exciting and fun and like delightful to read and this one it's very healthy which I appreciate we've got kind of an age Gap relationship between the hero and heroin I think he's like in his early 30s she's maybe in her 40s but there's just nothing there like I'm just so bored they they have to share a bed with each other uh they have sex whenever they are like on the Strip together it's not like oh my God finally they're together you're just like oh okay this is happening I guess where is this coming from um cuz she goes from being like self-conscious about them like sharing a bedroom and like him seeing her without makeup on and then the next day they're like oh we're going to felt like a weird transition there not really been any like great conversations believe that these two are well suited I don't know I mean I love a good himbo and I think she calls him a himbo in the book which I think is funny but I don't even think he's like really exhibiting himbo behaviors just a nice guy who's got like a good job even though it's not like a professional job I guess you could say it's like a point of contention in the book that's is like one of the plot points is that his family doesn't take him seriously cuz he doesn't have like a doctor I I think it's a perfectly fine book I read a lot of perfectly fine books and I feel like it often comes across as if I don't like anything because I think most things are just perfectly fine but this is just so perfectly fine I think a lot of people are going to pick this book up and be like okay and like forget it 5 seconds later kind of like I forgot while met literally the only thing that stands out about that book while met is that the hero was like such an ass about the heroin's education and I don't know why that's like a recurring thing like that comes up in this book too I guess yeah it's just not my favorite oh oh also also okay here's a here's a greater thread before I before I go and finish this book not only is is the banter lacking and I don't feel like the characters are compatible but I think that's a Common Thread that I see in this author's work between this book and the last book in the same series I mean this isn't the last book of the series but whatever book our heroine wants to move to a big city she has no desire to stay in the small town after her daughter is graduated her daughter did really well in the small town so the mom didn't get to pursue her dreams of living in a city after she divorced and so now she's going to get to live that dream except for our hero really likes a small town and he likes all the things that go along with the small town from what we can tell so one of them is going to have to compromise or we're going to find out that like maybe one of them oh I I was just working in the small town doesn't mean I love it like on his part or it's going to be the heroin being like Oh I really love the small town all along I like know that there needs to be like a conflict in in the story and like maybe that's going to be the conflict but but I don't think that like life desires are a conflict like I don't think that should be a conflict I think that should just be we're incompatible so I don't like that I'm not a huge fan of that component of this oh also he wants kids I think or he would be really good with kids and she did she already has a kid she's past her childbearing ears is what she says so again it's like compatibility wear not bad it's just like very block passible I'm going to go finish it though I'm going to play two dots while I do it and then we can move on to some gay stuff all right y'all I have the headache from hell so bear with me I might be bitcher than normal okay Finish while matched by jenaluca and I think I probably should have let that stay a onetime author for me correctly predicted exactly what was going to happen at the End of This Book and how these two were going to like end up together I guess it wasn't all compromise but I don't feel like what happened was convincing so hero loves being around kids loves teaching kids but has no desire to have kids of his own that makes sense normal okay fine that obviously makes them more compatible then we have our heroine and her thing was a little I I I don't know of the story she's like trying to leave this small town like her daughter is leaving the house she's like I finally get to go to like the city I finally get to move somewhere it's cool like I never really felt at home here and the whole time she's like so self-conscious because the people in this small town she feels like are judging her she does have some friends like she's a part of a book club and stuff but like she really feels like this isn't the place for her and over the course of the story she starts to realize the place she lives is the place she actually likes and I say over the course of the story I feel like it was a little too it was like too little too late for this aspect of the book for that to be the reason why these two should like ultimately work out so she goes to a run fair at like 70% marked she's like wait it's actually fun like I don't have to be the serious like buttoned up person all the time and like I should just allow myself to have fun and then she also kind of has this Epiphany that like she actually likes people in her book clubs I don't know but she's like you know what I've decided I want to live here I'm going to apologize to you for like calling your profession stupid conflict is our heroin pushing the hero away and basically like making fun of his job you know it's a mistake and she like doesn't mean it but that was not cool I really one of my least favorite conflicts is a like a mean thing said In the Heat of the Moment I don't know why that's so like unacceptable to me but I really don't like that as a Trope I think it's maybe realistic but also terrible and um that really bothered me and I just don't understand what he sees in her because she seems and unfun and okay cool you wore a corset and had your titties out of the Run Fair one time but like that doesn't make you a fun time girl this is not it for me um I just think this author's like way of writing relationships is just not it doesn't mesh well with what I like in a relationship okay we'll leave it at that two stars um let's move on to that summer Feeling by Bridget morresy so we'll admit I completely forgot what book I'd read by this author before and also like what that book was about and so I went and rewatched the clip where I'm talking about this book and I still nothing was lighting up in my brain while I was listening to myself talk about this book okay but apparently it's about this girl who's like in Show Business and she has to interact with the guy that she used to be in a movie with he's gonna be the main actor in the movie that she's producing or some it wasn't good I didn't like it but I don't remember anything about it so it's like hard to compare that one to this one but this one's okay so far so this book's about our main character Garland and I'm always every time I hear that word I just think Garland I don't know why it's just like how I playfully say Garland when it's Christmas season doesn't matter it's irrelevant but I'm I have a headache and you're I'm sharing my thoughts and feelings with you so Garland is recently divorced and she thought she was going to live with her husband for forever she thought she was going to be married forever because she was so in love and she was willing to overlook any issues that might be there in the relationship it wasn't abusive or anything they just like didn't work out and he basically discovered or decided he didn't love her anymore which is upsetting to our heroine because her parents had a horrible relationship and stayed together and she didn't like that example that they set for her and so she was like I'm going to I'm going to have a an amazing love story again she's like divorced and she got divorced on Valentine's Day which is kind of I guess serendipitous cuz it's Valentine's Day today okay anyway time has passed between the divorce and now I don't know if it's years or months can't remember but Garland is going to summer camp with her sister Dar and again to me that just sounds like Darla D Darla and gerland they are at the summer camp and this is an adult summer camp I guess Garland like drives Uber I guess a couple of her passengers own adult summer camp and like asked if she wanted to come so she's at this adult summer camp to like let off some steam have fun she's swearing off love but she is not swearing off fun but then she meets Stevie and she's like instantly attracted to Stevie and then she realizes that this guy that she had a chance encounter with many years ago is Stevie's brother and so she thinks she should be pursuing Stevie's brother but really she like has a thing for Stevie and she figures that out I mean pretty early on that she kind of has a thing for Stevie um and not stev's brother at like 34% it's fine I don't want to say that about like all three of these books I'm really hoping the pack like comes through just because the way that one has like been pitched to me I think I really like that one but this one like I love the idea of summer camp setting I think that's really exciting but the execution of it's pretty boring and I'm not really getting the relationship development here I am getting like a little bit of banter and fine which I'm appreciating between Garland and Stevie like I like their friendship I think it's fun I'm not really feeling like a palpable sexual chemistry going on but I am I guess at least buying into the Friendship portion of things and maybe as the book carries on like I'll really be like okay wait these two need to Bone down not quite there yet but it's fine it's very okay I don't want to say about all these bgs but like you know at least it's a short one you know it's like a short Vlog of you just listening to me BET right no one wants like an hour of that but like 20 30 minutes like that's that's reasonable isn't it these are questions I have to ask myself when I make videos I promise I like bgs I I'm getting old I think I just need to acknowledge that right now because I actually enjoyed this book and it wasn't for the romance I enjoyed the message um okay so I can't even remember the name of this book summer something Summer by Bridget Mory I ended up actually enjoying the like takeaway message and or the growth that our heroin undergoes and I like that significantly more than the romance basically our heroin's problem is that she isn't really good about speaking up for herself because she isn't really looking to rock the boat which makes sense given that her family or her parents were like constantly arguing growing up and that kind of like stressed her out she promised herself like she didn't want environment like that uh in her own life and so she never really stood up for herself in her marriage she never really asked for what she wanted that kind of like comes up in summer camp too she like has to sort of like actually pursue the things she wants and she's starting to like realize that even though she's undergone some like physical changes that she's happy with she hasn't necessarily undergone the I guess character growth that she needs to go through to be happy in her life and upon meeting Stevie she starts to kind of make these changes and and someone that she feels like she can want to say stand up to but someone that she feels like she can be herself with and like be completely honest with and I thought that was sweet I will say I think like the romance component of this book was kind of weak and definitely uh install ly for sure but I really liked the summer camp Vibes I felt like that was a really fun setting for a romance and it's one of those books that while I probably won't remember it very far into the future if someone was asking me for like a really Breezy low stakes um LGBT female female romance like I would recommend this one I also liked the sexuality and how that was handled the sexuality also liked how Garland's sexuality was handled she discovered she's byy over the course of this like summer camp Adventure which is probably like a week or two long it's like not a very long period of time but she doesn't really like seem to undergo any sort of like Crisis when she's figuring out her sexuality not that it's wrong if you do I just thought it was cool how it was handled like she was like you know what I have kind of like put aside my feelings for women over the years but actually do really like them and I was like you know what good for you girl I respect it I like it overall I just feel like this was a a solid if not perfect romance for me again like the Romantic component I don't think I'm sold on I think maybe that's my issue with this author's books I don't know that I'd like rush to pick out more from her but like this is a perfectly fine three star read and I'm like actually pretty happy with it so if you are looking for low stakes romance I would pick this one up stakes in the sense that like nothing really bad happens sometimes I mean we want that in life I don't know if yall are the same way but like a lot of the times I will pick up or watch a television show that I've already watched before because I know what to expect and that really lowers anxiety for me it's kind of the same with a good low stakes Romance you know you know what you're going to get at the end which is a happy ending and you're not going to have a lot of like obstacles in the way of the characters until that point so I liked that we get Garland kind of like facing her uh ex-husband which I kind of liked too like they have like a I don't want to say final encounter but she does get to kind of like put that relationship to bed she doesn't really feel like there's a lot of closure before that point so yeah I don't know I thought it was fine a book that I am actually very much loving is packed by Karina Holly I do have the physical copy which I'm reading I got this from half price books for like six bucks but I'll put a picture right here while I talk because you know doing my makeup I love a good friend to lovers like let's make a packed kind of story so this book is about our two main characters Stephanie and Lyndon Lyndon is Scottish which like we love uh they've been friends since their mid-20s when our heroine was dating the hero's best friend uh they didn't date for very long and that was kind of how you know her and Lyndon developed this friendship and now they're all kind of three friends the guy she dated was named James which is important because he's like a character in the story Beyond just that meeting at the beginning or like Beyond them dating for just a little bit lyen and Stephanie have this relationship where they feel like they can kind of tell each other anything they know each other really really well they make this packed at like 25 that if by 30 they don't have a really steady relationship or they're not already married they'll marry each other and Stephanie is kind of like she kind of thinks it's a meme she kind of thinks it's a joke but she agrees to it and Lyndon is like kind of serious about it and we find out pretty quickly that Lyndon is just like serious about Stephanie in general like he's kind of always had a thing for her he's always thought she was beautiful but doesn't really want to jeopardize the friendship and then as the course of The Story Goes On we kind of notice the way that Stephanie definitely has feelings for Lyndon as well especially as he starts to date other people in a more serious capacity it's like she's never really been scared of him being like fully taken by someone because he kind of sleeps around and is like a Manor or whatever though I will say Stephanie sleeps around as well yeah she never really takes seriously the fact that lynon could like find someone um and when she's kind of like well I don't like this and also the girl's kind of terrible so 50% into the book there's sort of like a breakdown I guess of both lynon and Stephanie's relationship she's dating this guy who like is a couple years younger than her and isn't a very serious person really nice guy but like definitely not you know longterm courage potential or anything like that lynon is dating someone who he liked initially but like her personality has changed a lot over the course of their relationship like used to go hiking together and like do all these adventurous things and now all she wants to do is like stay home and isn't happy with the fact that Lyon is friends with Stephanie we all go on a like friendship sort of camping trip together like a little couple's occasion basically Aaron who is Stephanie's boy friend so Aaron and Stephanie lynon and Natalie I think is her name and then we have James their friend um and Penny his girlfriend so they all go on this like camping trip do a true through dare situation and of course people making out with people that they shouldn't be and Lyndon and Stephanie are kind of you know realizing that they kind of need to act on their feelings for each other and that they should probably break up with the people that they are with I'm curious to see if that'll actually happen as like the story carries on I think that's like the thing that I'm most curious about at this point is like their relationship's going to develop and how they're going to overcome this like like jeopardizing of friendship I feel like that's always what happens in friends to relationships is like people are too scared to admit their feelings for each other cuz they don't want to ruin the Friendship I'll be curious to see if they get together like pretty soon or if the rest of the book is them kind of like plotting along and the ending of the book is when they're going to get together that's like my one thing about friends to lovers uh romances is that you never know at what point in the book these two are going to get together if the majority of the book is going to be spent with the characters apart I don't know I feel like I have like a good balance in my romances I don't want the characters to get together too early I feel like romance the whole point of it is that they should be building their relationship and or I guess building to getting into a relationship for the majority of the book but I do also like to see just a touch of when what their relationship looks like once they get together like I don't want them to get together in the last chapter and then that's it like I do want to see happy moments and also how they handle like adversity in their actual relationship I'm really liking this this is just my kind of story in general I really love a childhood friends to lovers I mean I do love childhood friends to lovers that's not what this is though um I do just like a friends to lovers relationship where you can see that these two have like longing for each other I just like a good angsty story I always have and probably always will just like is this actually highlighter it looks like blush that's not being pale um flying through this I like the way that it's written I wouldn't say this is like the most thrilling romance that I've ever picked up I'm kind of okay with that like I don't need things to be super fastpaced or like plot heavy for me to enjoy them if the character Dynamics are built right and I really like both of our characters lynon I think uh I'd like to learn a little bit more about him besides just his like Playboy Tendencies but Lyndon has like opened up her own clothing store and her own business after you know she worked really hard to get there and just really like that like I like her character I'm going to finish this one and then I will pop back in with my makeup all done my hair less greasy all right so I finished the pack by Karina Holly I'm a little dis appointed in this I'm not going to lie I was so excited about it up until that 50% Mark and then like I kind of feared the tension sort of fizzled in a way that I didn't love the third act conflict s like main conflict in this book was just a little bit silly for me so I don't think it's much of a spoiler I mean honestly like I'm sorry I don't really think that you can really spoil romances I'm going to tell you what happens in this book so basically we have our James friends with both our hero and heroine and he kind of pops up and says something to the effect of like I've always been in love with her I'm going to broke up with my girlfriend I think I'm going to pursue Stephanie Lyndon is like obviously in a panic because he hasn't told James that he has a thing for our heroine and that he's been sleeping with her for months so this is sort of like Troublesome and he ends up I say he Lyndon ends up breaking up with Stephanie because he's like I can't possibly do this to James and I find that kind of suspicious considering fact that James is not a very close or good friend to either Stephanie or lynon it doesn't make sense that they would jeopardize their own happiness to I guess try to appease James and so it's just weird to me that lynon decides to just kind of of break up with Stephanie after they've like declared their love for each other already that like kind of a weak excuse and then we also have just a classic romance uh tropy thing that I can't stand and I think I need to like take a stand so we can get the word out to authors that this isn't cool though I haven't really seen this that much in like modern Romance of that makes sense romance has written in the past decade uh we have a helicopter crash our hero his profession is to fly helicopters and he gets in accident that obviously reunites the hero and heroin and James feels guilty and he's like you know what youall can be together blah blah blah I don't like that I just think that's kind of stupid and it's again It's upsetting because I feel like this had a lot of Promise in some ways this was kind of reminding me of a recent Elizabeth oror book that had kind of a similar like best friends but we don't want to upset our mutual friend sort of thing going on um and I thought this would be executed better but I just feel like that last 50% really just like makes this book not as good as I wanted it to be I think i' still rate it like three and a half Stars I think it was fun in some ways I think the sex scenes were kind of fun as well but I just think that the tension was broken maybe a little bit too soon and I wanted a stronger thir that conflict here's the thing I think a lot of us understand the need for good third act conflict but we get annoyed when authors do something that feels out of character for the characters or feels a little bit weak and like you're just trying to fabricate something I feel like a good third. conflict can actually bolster and strengthen a relationship because it can cause the characters to actually have to face some of their fears I felt like the conflict in this book was just a little bit unfounded and a little bit it didn't bring the characters like together in the way that I wanted it to um we just like wasn't the right conflict I think for this pairing so three and a half for this one that being said I feel like this video was interesting it wasn't the success that I wanted it to be but I feel like the last two books that I read for this video were actually pretty decent and I would actually be interested in Reading from both Bridgette morsy and Karina Holly again Karina Holly like has such an extensive backlist that I feel like I might like more books from her in the future I didn't really love I think it's like my Nordic king or something like that I thought was like fun if if a little silly I mean this was like popular kind of right after like 50 Shades came I mean this came out in December of 2014 so for like this coming out in that era and like holding up pretty decent I'm like not I'm not mad at it but I had fun making this video even if it wasn't a total success I hope this kind of inspired you maybe to pick up books from authors that you haven't had luck with in the past thanks so much for watching love you all so much and I'll see you in the next one\n"