Down the Rabbit Hole

Hi friends! I can’t believe it’s already the end of February, can you? My, does time fly by quickly! Maybe it’s because this month is a shorter month, but month #2 of 2021 has already just gone by.

I hope this month has been at least a mildly good one for you. Even if you’re cooped up inside like I am, at least we always have different worlds to immerse ourselves in through what we read, hmm?

So today, I am posting what I’ve read this last month, and the ones I hope to be getting to really soon.

What have I read this month?

I would say this is a good month for me in terms of reading numbers. I find it hard to read super fast while juggling full-time work, socializing with people I care about and rest. But I definitely savored and enjoyed a number of these.

Here are the superlatives befitting some of these titles.

Favourite book: Lore by Alexandra Bracken

I never expected to love this book as much as I did. While I like Greek mythologies, they don’t hold any special place in my heart or anything. But the perfect blend of lore (aha, see what I did there?), pacing, characterization and unexpected twists just hit me in all the right places. I could barely put it down (even during my lunch breaks from work)! Review for this will be coming out REALLY soon so stay tuned!

Most surprising book: Influence by Sara Shepard and Lilia Buckingham AND Game Changer by Neal Shusterman

I couldn’t decide on which surprised me more. I thought Influence would be more chick-lit with Sara Shepard style mystery thrown in somewhere, but it’s a story about influencers after all, right? Wrong. It has so much more depth than I gave it initial credit for, with a focus on the dark side of social media fame that oscillate from truth to deception. You can find my review here.

Likewise, I thought Game Changer would be a football story since our protagonist is a football player (not hugely my kind of thing), but Neal Shusterman didn’t disappoint with his usual thought provoking rhetoric asking us to reflect on our own world today and what needs to be changed. If this was his response to 2020, I think he used the lockdown time wisely. For more of my thoughts on this book, you can check it out here.

New author book: The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon

This is my first Rachel Lynn Solomon book and I really liked it. It had a dynamic duo starring in the enemies-to-lovers trope that made it work, and a fun show (aptly named The Ex Talk) that tied everything else together and added that little element of fun/lightheartedness even when the emotions intensified. I don’t read nearly as much adult romances as I probably could, but I know this is a gem in the genre. You can read my full review here.

Not-so-favourite book: You Have a Match by Emma Lord

I don’t like criticizing books as much – mostly because I understand it’s an author’s hard work and I sympathize with that – but I just didn’t love this as much as Emma Lord’s previous debut novel. It’s not a rom-com as the book mostly focuses on the protagonist’s newfound relationship with a sister she never knew she had. It’s about the families you’re born into and the ones you call family. Maybe with a different mindset I could’ve loved this more, but it just didn’t work for me. My review can be found here.

Current reading list

These are the current titles I have from the library I have started on, and the books sitting on my nightstand I probably should read.

Sadie by Courtney Summers
Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam
A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer

These are all big titles, including one that will be our next buddy read here at Down the Rabbit Hole! I have my fingers crossed they will be as good as I hope they will be!

My TBR list

High priority books on my TBR that should hopefully be coming to me in the next few weeks are:

The Project by Courtney Summers
Ten Rules for Faking It by Sophie Sullivan
Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
A Pho Love Story by Loan Le
Give the Dark My Love by Beth Revis (I will get to this one, I promise!)

Most of these titles are romantic contemporaries, a slight departure from my heavily-laden fantasy/mystery books. It’s about time I dig into this genre more. I’m also super excited for The Project with its interesting premise written by a fellow Canadian whom I had the pleasure of meeting once in my teen years. It should be exciting next month!

Let me know if you have read or want to read any of these! Or even better, what books have gotten you through this last month while the world is still dealing with a pandemic? Any good recommendations?

discussion, musings

Let’s Talk Bookish – How has blogging affected your reading?

February 26, 2021February 25, 2021 Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Welcome to the last Friday of February! Welcome to the last session this month of the weekly meme, Let’s Talk Bookish, hosted by Rukky and Dani on their respective blogs:

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books & Dani @ Literary Lion, where they discuss certain topics, share their opinions, and spread the love by visiting each others’ posts.

Feb 26: Has blogging affected your reading in a positive or negative way? If so, how? Do you think the pressures to produce content can result in a bad relationship with books? How do you balance blogging and reading? Do you think you would have started blogging if it weren’t for books or vice versa?

For me personally, blogging has affected my reading in a positive way. Andge is the one who actually started this blog, and she only brought me on as a partner in 2018. While I have always loved books, I tended to binge books whenever I missed them, rather than having any sort of constant flow. However, now with running this blog, I am ~~forced~~ motivated to always have a running (albeit short) TBR. Without this blog, I honestly wouldn’t be reading nearly this much, nor nearly as quickly (24 books this year already!) – so I really appreciate being brought onboard.

That being said though, there is definitely a paradigm shift when it comes to reading books now. When I read now, I consciously think more about the specific plots, characters, literary devices – things I can mention for the review. I feel like I’m even more conscious about specifically how much I like a book and what points I have to back it up. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, as being an aware reader is a good thing, but it is definitely different from when I didn’t have to think about it.

The balance between blogging and reading for me is: what books do I potentially need to review and which can I just enjoy at face value? The books I usually don’t save to review are the ones either already reviewed here, or old classics everyone has already read (just me being behind the ball, as usual). I definitely wouldn’t have started (or agreed to) blogging if it weren’t for my love of books though. Not sure I really have any other interest that would make me want to share my public opinion about online!

If you’re a blogger, how do you feel about blogging and reading? Or if you’re only a reader of blogs, any reason you don’t blog yourself?

Join us again next week for the beginning of the March prompts for Let’s Talk Bookish! As usual, please follow the original two content creators on their blog (linked above), as usual. Stick around this weekend for our monthly wrap-up and anticipations for next month. Happy weekend everyone!

4 star, adult

Review: The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon

February 25, 2021February 25, 2021 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Public radio co-hosts navigate mixed signals in Rachel Lynn Solomon’s sparkling romantic comedy debut.

Shay Goldstein has been a producer at her Seattle public radio station for nearly a decade, and she can’t imagine working anywhere else. But lately it’s been a constant clash between her and her newest colleague, Dominic Yun, who’s fresh off a journalism master’s program and convinced he knows everything about public radio.

When the struggling station needs a new concept, Shay proposes a show that her boss green-lights with excitement. On The Ex Talk, two exes will deliver relationship advice live, on air. Their boss decides Shay and Dominic are the perfect co-hosts, given how much they already despise each other. Neither loves the idea of lying to listeners, but it’s this or unemployment. Their audience gets invested fast, and it’s not long before The Ex Talk becomes a must-listen in Seattle and climbs podcast charts.

As the show gets bigger, so does their deception, especially when Shay and Dominic start to fall for each other. In an industry that values truth, getting caught could mean the end of more than just their careers.

The Ex Talk is a fun and heartwarming story about storytelling and connecting with one another. The premise follows two rival coworkers at a radio station, Shay and Dominic, who are told to host a new radio show about exes giving out relationship advice. First of all, do we trust the advice coming from people who have broken up? But then again, if this was a real podcast, I’d probably be one of the first to check it out, let’s be honest.

This enemies-to-lovers trope was super well done. It’s one of the tropes I enjoy reading about, but I find some books have too much bitterness in the initial relationship that I don’t feel the blooming love, or they were practically like friends from the start. It isn’t the case here. Shay and Dominic are very different people. She’s content with her place in life while he’s ambitiously shooting up the ladder as fast as he can, potentially stepping on a couple of toes in the process. I liked that their differences were honestly explored so that their attraction and eventual deeper feelings made sense. Otherwise, it would just be lust, wouldn’t it?

The pacing was a little slow going at first, but I learned a lot about being on the other side of public radio from these parts. We also have other focuses in this story, including Shay’s feelings about her mom remarrying after the loss of her dad a decade ago. I liked that we got so much insight into why radio was so important to her, and the ongoing struggle holding onto the one thing she shared with her dad.

Some interesting things that stuck to me from other books in the romance genre was:

A) Dominic was Korean and I loved that it’s such a nonchalant thing thrown in there. I don’t see nearly enough Asian male romantic leads who are not written by Asian authors. Plus, a bit of the Korean American culture is present when Dominic introduces his favourite Korean restaurant foods to Shay.

B) Shay is about 6 years older than Dominic, a fact that is constantly highlighted. While some people may think this is no big deal and the emphasis Shay made in her own mind about being with someone younger may seem annoying, I kind of get it, especially for people in their 20s with different milestone markers that you hit in the decade. I’m in my 20s and I empathize with what Shay is feeling. Dominic had just graduated from his masters while she had been working for several years now. Maybe he seemed a little young in that sense because he was just starting out.

It’s not quite the norm as much as older men dating women a lot younger than them or in different life stages. But that makes me like this change more because it’s not always seen, and it helps normalize this for hopefully future generations.

C) The show snippets between chapters were some of my favourites. I don’t read enough romances to know if this is absolutely unique, but I really enjoyed the transcripts for some of their episodes and fan reviews of the show. It created a little bubble of fun and airiness as a breath of fresh air even when the emotion of the story intensified.

I also liked the way Solomon went about concluding this story. It wasn’t super neat with a bow on top. There were messy feelings, real life decisions and an understanding that we may not always have it together or know where life is leading, but that’s okay. The romance felt real even with the issues that came up (um, lying to everyone on your show?). This book is definitely cute AND heartwarming, a nice dive into relationships and what makes or breaks them.

Overall Recommendations:

The Ex Talk has a fun premise about fake exes pretending to be exes to host a relationship show. As that description depicts, it’s a mix of laughter and intensity, especially when real feelings chase these rival coworkers where feelings should not exist. The pacing was steady and the emotions just ramp up as you cheer for Shay and Dominic for their show’s success but more importantly for their happiness that may only be found in each other. I liked this more than I initially thought, and it definitely left warm feelings in my heart long after the book was closed.