A. F. Stone - Strong Stuff

A. F. Stone - Strong Stuff  

5⭐

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, New Adult 

Pages:  265

Format: Paperback 

Publisher: SRL Publishing 

Date Published: 27th April 2021

Huge thank you to SRL Publishing for sending me a copy of Strong Stuff to read and review.

Book Blurb: 

Strong Stuff is the story of Ruby, a young carer who finds her world turned upside down when her mother dies. She is forced to live with her estranged father on the wrong side of the tracks, where her life as a teenager really begins.

Ruby finds love and friendship in the most unlikely of places – but when forces conspire to take it all away, she must fight to keep what matters to her, at all costs.

My Review: 

This book! Omg! What an emotional roller-coaster this book was! It got me crying and it got me laughing and smiling and it even got me upset and angry. Loved this book! The writing of it is beautiful, the characters are so real and raw, and each page is full of emotion. This is one of the books that need to be shouted about from the rooftops, as it explores so much in such a short book, from the life of a young carer to abusive relationships with a parent, to alcoholism and friendships. Although this book doesn’t shy from heavy topics it has some very light and lovely moments of everyday life of a young girl, who is trying to take the first steps into independent young adult life.

The story follows Ruby, who is fourteen and looks after her ill mum. However, soon her life turns upside down as her mum passes away. With being a teenager, social services move her to Denby House, a place for kids to stay until they are found a foster home. Soon, however, Ruby’s father takes her in and she needs to adapt to a life with him, even though she barely knows him. Ruby knows that she needs to make the most of the situation and that she only has to live with her father for two years before she can move and live on her own. However, it is not as easy to live with someone who has an addiction, can barely look after a child and is abusive…

Ruby’s journey is so raw and emotional, but even though life throws so much at her, she doesn’t give up even just for a moment. Her strong spirit and ability to look after herself, whilst also looking after others around her, including her father, her friends and her dog Bella, is just amazing.

Other characters in the book were also very well explored and each of them is just as complex as Ruby is. Each character also added so much depth in to this book. My favourite part, however, was the exploration of the different types of friendships and trust that Ruby had with all of these characters and the different types of support they all gave to her, whether it is emotional or physical support.

I love how this book doesn’t shy from very hard topics such as the reality of young carers' everyday life, rough neighbourhoods and abusive home life. All of these topics are explored through Ruby’s situation and presented so well by the author, with strong empathy, sensitivity, understanding and care. I also liked that this book is set in one of the northern UK cities, Sheffield, and not London as most books of this genre usually is set there. For me the setting of this story, Sheffield, made the story itself stand out so much more and made it unique.

Overall: Such a raw, emotional and heart-wrenching story about someone who has so much that life threw at her, at a young age, but who is a fighter and her strong spirit helped her overcome hard parts of her life. Honestly, a MUST-READ book, as it explores so many important topics that I believe we shouldn’t shy away from talking about more openly. 

About the Author:

Amy Stone grew up in Stoke-on-Trent. She moved to study English Literature at the University of Sheffield, where she now works. Amy was short-listed in the short story category for the Bridport Prize in 2017.

https://srlpublishing.co.uk/authors/s/a-f-stone

Colleen Hoover - Ugly Love

Colleen Hoover - Ugly Love 

4⭐

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Romance, Contemporary Romance 

Pages: 337

Format: Paperback 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK 

Date Published: 5th August 2014

Book Blurb: 

When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.

Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.

My Review: 

Here we go again…Continuing my love affair with Colleen Hoover books. Well, what can I say about Ugly Love? It was okay but it was not the best. It just didn’t do it for me. I didn’t get the vibe and hype about it and I didn’t feel the amazing love story that it was supposed to be. It is weird but with all the hyped-up Colleen Hoover books, I find them just okay, whereas her more underrated books I find loving them. However, maybe it is my weird taste and expectations.

So, this story follows Tate, who moves with her pilot brother Corbin. Once Tate has moved in, she meets a gorgeous stranger called Miles, who is also Corbin’s friend and a pilot too. Tate and Miles find instant attraction towards each other; however, Miles doesn’t want a serious relationship. Tate agrees to just be friends with benefits with him but slowly starts falling in love with Miles. Miles, however, strongly guards his heart against anyone, because of what happened to him six years ago when his heart got broken into a million little pieces and since when he is unable to love anyone. Tate, however, is determined to find out what happened to Miles to make him this way and hopefully find a way to make him fall in love with her…

As always, I adored Coho’s writing. The way she writes just keeps the tension going and you want to read more and more. She connects her words and plotlines with the tension and the reader perfectly. I can’t fault that at all. However, the story and characters in this book had some red flags for me.

This probably going to be such an unpopular opinion but I didn’t like Miles until the last 80% of the book. I thought he was quite nasty, disrespectful and mean towards Tate, as well as he led her on so much without telling her much about himself. Only at the very end, I realised why he did that, but still, for me, it doesn’t make it right how he treated Tate for most of their ‘relationship’. Also, I found it strange that his POV chapters only featured him falling in love with another girl, although it did give some slight light (especially in the later chapters) on why he is traumatised and doesn’t want to love or be loved.

Tate’s characters…well, I liked her and then I didn’t. I didn’t like how she let Miles treat her like garbage at times. Although I did appreciate that she realised that throughout the book. I just wanted her to stand up for herself a little bit more throughout the story.

There was barely any real romance, apart from them having loads of sex and then Tate falling in love with him. It was more like Tate’s struggles to get Miles to love her like she deserves to be loved, whilst alongside we see Miles falling in love with someone else six years ago. The only real romance between Tate and Miles happened in the last 10% of the book and in Miles's POV chapters.

The twist in this book wasn’t as strong as it usually is in Coho books. It was not predictable but it didn’t explain fully why Miles was afraid of love. It just felt like some details of that were missing to get the whole picture and the reasons why.

Overall: Love Coho’s writing and the brilliant ways she has with words, but this story was not the best story of hers by far. It is a good book to read but it's not as deep as her other books are. The relationship Tate and Miles had was very unhealthy at times and Miles was very disrespectful towards Tate for most of the book too. Recommend if you like an easy read and some spicy moments. 

About the Author:

Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-two novels and novellas. Hoover’s novels fall into the New Adult and Young Adult contemporary romance categories, as well as psychological thrillers. 

Colleen Hoover is published by Montlake Romance, Grand Central Publishing and Atria Books. Colleen also has several indie titles, including Heart Bones.

In 2015, Colleen’s novel CONFESS won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance. That was followed up in 2016 with her latest title, It Ends With Us, also winning the Choice Award for Best Romance. In 2017, her title WITHOUT MERIT won best romance.

Colleen founded The Bookworm Box, a charity subscription service and bookstore, with her family in 2015. The Bookworm Box is a subscription service that provides readers with an exciting opportunity to receive signed novels in the mail each month from authors all over the world. All profits from the subscription service are donated to various charities each month. To date, The Bookworm Box has donated over $1,000,000 to help those in need.

https://www.colleenhoover.com/about-coho/

Colleen Hoover - It Ends With Us

Colleen Hoover - It Ends With Us 

4⭐

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, New Adult, Romance 

Pages:  376

Format: Paperback 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK 

Date Published: 2nd August 2016 

Book Blurb: 

SOMETIMES THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU IS THE ONE WHO HURTS YOU THE MOST

Lily hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up - she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, and maybe even a little arrogant. He's also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily, but Ryle's complete aversion to relationships is disturbing.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan - her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.

With this bold and deeply personal novel, Colleen Hoover delivers a heart-wrenching story that breaks exciting new ground for her as a writer. It Ends With Us is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.

This book contains graphic scenes and very sensitive subject matter...

My Review: 

Another one of CoHo’s books ticked off from my list! I know there’s so much BookTok and Bookstagram hype about It Ends with Us and honestly, I enjoyed reading this book. However, in my opinion, it is not the best of CoHo’s books. I rated Regretting You and Layla higher than It Ends with Us, as I just felt that the previous two books had much more defined plot and takeaway messages than It Ends with Us. It Ends with Us takeaway message either confused me or I am very silly since I took away two conflicting and contradicting messages from this book.

Nevertheless, Hoover's writing is superb. I just love her writing more than anything else. She just knows how to perfectly pull the right heartstrings at the right moments. Hoover writes in a way that let's reader experience a wide spectrum of different emotions just in one chapter and packs the book with a roller-coaster of emotions.

The story of It Ends with Us follows Lily who after her abusive father’s funeral meets a very charming neurosurgeon Ryle. They both instantly feel attracted to each other. At first, they don’t act on this attraction as both are ambitious to follow their career dreams and don’t have time for a relationship. However, they keep running into each other and matters get worse when Lily becomes best friends with Ryle’s sister Allysa. Then Ryle’s and Lily’s relationship starts developing quite fast and they end up moving in together and getting married. Then Lily gets to find out that there is a different Ryle from the one she knows, the abusive Ryle. Lily’s life gets even more complicated when the person she cared about the most comes back into her life. Atlas.

There was so much going on in this book that sometimes it was so hard to keep up with all of the topics and subjects that Coho wanted to address in this book, such as homelessness, abusive relationship, death, romance, and many more. I think if Coho chose one topic to explore in this book like she usually does in her books, it would have been an amazing book, but in this format it at times was too complicated.

I also know that many people find this book quite triggering because of the topics discussed in this book, especially abuse. For me, however, yes, some of the things that Lily's father did to her and her mum, as well as the things Ryle did to Lily were heart-wrenching to read at times but it is also quite educational, especially raising awareness on how to spot abuse and that abuse like that do happen in real life and victims most of the time are scared to speak up against the abuser because of the issues Lily discusses with her mum near the end of the book.

In terms of characters in this book. I loved how Lily’s and Atlas's story was told through diary entries. I liked Lily's and Atlas's relationship when they first met. Especially how nice and caring Lily was for Atlas and helped him as much as she could. She also learned a lot from Atlas and getting to know him changed her opinions about certain things such as homelessness. Lily was very empathetic toward Atlas and also knew that it is not fair that he has to be homeless because of his parents. She also wanted him to have someone, that's why she was kind and friendly so that he felt needed at least by someone. There was not much Atlas in this book at the present timeline but he is there in the background ready to help and support Lily if she needs him to.

Also, I loved Lily’s relationship with Allysa. She is such a great character. Allysa, although Ryle is her brother was the one who makes Lily aware that she should get out of the abusive marriage with Ryle and that no matter what she is going to support Lily.

In terms of Ryle, well…I neither liked him nor disliked him to be perfectly honest. For me, he seemed like someone who is not ready for a relationship or marriage or family at all and acted on the fact that Lily was a warm, kind and caring person, who he thought can help him manage his emotions and emotionally support him, whilst he builds his career. I think more of Ryle’s backstory would have made him a character that a reader could understand better, especially his motives for why he is abusive. Although, Ryle begging Lily for sex… that scene was just too cringy and awkward to read. He's a grown adult who is supposed to be a well-educated neurosurgeon but in reality, acts like a 16-year-old horny teenager. Lily being younger than him is acting more mature than him most of the time in this book.

Overall: I liked this book and I really enjoyed reading it. Like always I loved CoHo’s writing but this book for me is not the best CoHo book that I read. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to reading It Starts with Us and learning more about Atlas and hopefully more about Ryle too.

About the Author:

Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-two novels and novellas. Hoover’s novels fall into the New Adult and Young Adult contemporary romance categories, as well as psychological thrillers. 

Colleen Hoover is published by Montlake Romance, Grand Central Publishing and Atria Books. Colleen also has several indie titles, including Heart Bones.

In 2015, Colleen’s novel CONFESS won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance. That was followed up in 2016 with her latest title, It Ends With Us, also winning the Choice Award for Best Romance. In 2017, her title WITHOUT MERIT won best romance.

Colleen founded The Bookworm Box, a charity subscription service and bookstore, with her family in 2015. The Bookworm Box is a subscription service that provides readers with an exciting opportunity to receive signed novels in the mail each month from authors all over the world. All profits from the subscription service are donated to various charities each month. To date, The Bookworm Box has donated over $1,000,000 to help those in need.

https://www.colleenhoover.com/about-coho/