Book Review: Expiration Dates

📚 Book Review: Expiration Dates

Rebecca Serle

📚 My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫

📚 My Review: The premise of Daphne knowing her relationships’ lengths was intriguing, and the writing kept me engaged. However, the story sometimes felt predictable and fell a bit short for me and I was just left wanting more. That said, the romance was sweet, and the journey of her personal growth stood out. It's a thoughtful and enjoyable read for fans of magical realism in romance!

📚 Goodreads Synopsis: Being single is like playing the lottery. There’s always the chance that with one piece of paper you could win it all.

From the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer comes the romance that will define a generation.

Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake.

But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.

Told with her signature warmth and insight into matters of the heart, Rebecca Serle has finally set her sights on romantic love. The result is a gripping, emotional, passionate, and (yes) heartbreaking novel about what it means to be single, what it means to find love, and ultimately how we define each of them for ourselves. Expiration Dates is the one fans have been waiting for.

Book Review: The Husbands

📚 Book Review: The Husbands

Holly Gramazio

📚 My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

📚 My Review: I loved the first couple chapters of this book. It's a unique premise and it had a few LOL moments.. but then it got a bit slow paced in the middle and by the last 1/4 of the book it was just more of the same and I kind of lost interest. That said, the last chapter wrapped everything up nicely and was super cute!

📚 Goodreads Synopsis: When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?

Book Review: The Burnout

📚 Book Review: The Burnout

Sophie Kinsella 

📚 My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫

📚 My Review: This was a sweet story about love and rediscovery. At times I found the pace a little slow but I enjoyed the writing style and the idea of finding yourself—and maybe finding love—amid exhaustion was heartfelt and charming.

📚 Goodreads Synopsis:  Sasha has had it. She cannot bring herself to respond to another inane, “urgent” (but obviously not at all urgent) email or participate in the corporate employee joyfulness program. She hasn’t seen her friends in months. Sex? Seems like a lot of effort. Even cooking dinner takes far too much planning. Sasha has hit a wall.

Armed with good intentions to drink kale smoothies, try yoga, and find peace, she heads to the seaside resort she loved as a child. But it’s the off season, the hotel is in a dilapidated shambles, and she has to share the beach with the only other a grumpy guy named Finn, who seems as stressed as Sasha. How can she commune with nature when he’s sitting on her favorite rock, watching her? Nor can they agree on how best to alleviate their burnout ( manifesting, wild swimming; drinking whisky, getting pizza delivered to the beach).

When curious messages, seemingly addressed to Sasha and Finn, begin to appear on the beach, the two are forced to talk—about everything. How did they get so burned out? Can either of them remember something they used to love? (Answer: surfing!) And the question they try and fail to ignore: what does the energy between them—flaring even in the face of their bone-deep exhaustion—signify?