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Hello sassy people! Today I’m gonna tell you guys about all the books I read in May 2021! I finished the Kings of Rittenhouse Series by Maya Hughes and started another series by Emma Chase!
Fearless King
(Kings of Rittenhouse #4)
by Maya Hughes
My first crush. My first heartbreak. My brother’s best friend.
The butterflies in my stomach turned into full blown eagles the second our lips touched. A kiss under the stars that changed our relationship forever.
After a lifetime of wishing, I stared up into Ford’s eyes with his fingers caressing my cheek and my heart racing.
The evening ended with my heart bleeding on the ballroom floor.
He destroyed my heart two years ago…but now he wants back in my life.
This time I won’t fall under his spell. I’ll resist his sexy, scruffy beard, and panty-melting smirk.
I thought I was over him. Hell, I fully planned to wave to him through my rearview mirror…but with one text, in the middle of the night, I know I’m in over my head.
Ford: I need you.
I was waiting for this book for a while because I met Olive and Ford in the Fulton U series and I really wanted to see their story. I already knew some of the things that happened in this book, but it managed to surprise me. I really liked this couple, and I really understood both their reasoning and their troubles.
Olive has always lived through her parents’ expectations and after their death, her overprotective brother continues the pressure. That is why Olive is killing herself in medical school and ignoring her dreams. Meanwhile, Ford, who is a professional hockey player, does everything to avoid his best friend’s sister, who he realizes, has grown up. His friendship with Colm is one of the most important in his life, and he would do pretty much anything to save it. These two had to overcome their personal issues before been together, but they never stopped caring for each other, and that shows through the whole book. Super cute, some deep problems solving, and a lot of fighting for what you want.
General grade: 4/5 (Really well writen story, that managed to surprise me even tough I knew a lot of what happened, however not the most memorable one of the series)
Feminist grade: 5/5 (I love how Olive is strong and I love how Maya describes the pressure and all the mental turmoil that goes on with this character)
Final grade: 8/10 (I like this couple really much, their story is cute and hard, so I really liked it)
Heartless King
(Kings of Rittenhouse #5)
by Maya Hughes
Two blue lines. That means not pregnant, right? Right? Oh, sh*t.
Five years ago, Colm Frost asked me to marry him and I ran. I ran from my painful past too raw and fresh to escape. He was the only one who looked at me like I wasn’t broken and made me believe it. He made me feel it.
Now, he’s the hot, angry, hockey player on the mend.
I’m the physiotherapist who’s supposed to get him back on his feet.
I don’t think our night together was what his doctor prescribed, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t dreamt of him every time I close my eyes. I woke up beside him with my body still singing from the way he fanned the flames of my desire, but I couldn’t stay.
His lips on my neck. His hands wrapped around my waist. His impressive…ahem, touch leaving me breathless.
One moment of wild inhibition and it’s come back to bite me in the butt. Kind of like he did that night.
But a baby? Our night was supposed to be a one time thing, closing a door on the future I couldn’t handle.
Will this new bump in the road be everything we needed to find our forever?
Heartless King is a standalone friends to enemies to lovers, accidental pregnancy romance that brings all the laugh out loud, angsty feels!
Okay, I gotta be honest, I was not super excited about this book, because in previous books Colm sounded like a moron. However, reading his point of view, he is just a broken guy, who has been trough so much and just doesn’t know how, or just doesn’t want to deal with things. He grew up with neglectful parents, both doctors who didn’t give him or his sister the attention and care they needed, since little he took care of his sister in a search to help and make his parents proud. His parents died and he got severely injured twice. His life is a mess, and he is buried deep in depression. That is when Imogen comes back into his life, carrying her own baggage and her own traumas, and we get to watch while they work trough them together.
Amazing read, amazing characters with the most interesting and deep stories!
General grade: 4/5 (The beginning is a little slow, and it relies on some information from other books of the series, but overall really well written)
Feminist grade: 4/5 (Colm is a bit rude sometimes, but I just love how Maya describes his mental state and Imogen’s too, super deep and incredibly interesting)
Final grade: 8/10 (Cute and deep and I love surprise baby stories so…)
Tangled
(Tangled #1)
by Emma Chase
Drew Evans is a winner. Handsome and arrogant, he makes multimillion dollar business deals and seduces New York’s most beautiful women with just a smile. He has loyal friends and an indulgent family. So why has he been shuttered in his apartment for seven days, miserable and depressed?
He’ll tell you he has the flu.
But we all know that’s not really true.
Katherine Brooks is brilliant, beautiful and ambitious. She refuses to let anything – or anyone – derail her path to success. When Kate is hired as the new associate at Drew’s father’s investment banking firm, every aspect of the dashing playboy’s life is thrown into a tailspin. The professional competition she brings is unnerving, his attraction to her is distracting, his failure to entice her into his bed is exasperating.
Then, just when Drew is on the cusp of having everything he wants, his overblown confidence threatens to ruin it all. Will he be able untangle his feelings of lust and tenderness, frustration and fulfillment? Will he rise to the most important challenge of his life?
Can Drew Evans win at love?
Tangled is not your mother’s romance novel. It is an outrageous, passionate, witty narrative about a man who knows a lot about women…just not as much as he thinks he knows. As he tells his story, Drew learns the one thing he never wanted in life, is the only thing he can’t live without.
Okay, so I’ve read Emma Chases’ books before, and I absolutely love her and I heard a lot about Drew Evans, so let’s say I was excited about this book. I absolutely loved Drew, not for his almost (and sometimes fully) sexist comments, but the narration of this book is perfection, Drew is charming and sassy, smart, and he just wins you over the page, I truly loved the way she wrote this book, and we end up forgiving all the shit he says because we just love him so much. And Katherine is so strong, and she gives as strong as she gets, so I just love them both so much.
This is a book that does not deal so much with deep issues, it has some, but is not the main point of the book, so it is light and easy to read and easier to fall in love.
General grade: 5/5 (Amazing narration, hilarious and charming and captivating way to write, loved it)
Feminist grade: 4/5 (Drew is sexist and a little pushy, but he is so charming it almost makes me want to give this book a 10, almost)
Final grade: 9/10 (Great, if you don’t count the sexism, it was AMAZING)
Twisted
(Tangled #2)
by Emma Chase
There are two kinds of people in the world. The ones who look first, and the ones who leap. I’ve always been more of a looker. Cautious. A planner. That changed after I met Drew Evans. He was so persistent. So sure of himself – and of me.
But not all love stories end happily ever after. Did you think Drew and I were going to ride off into the sunset? Join the club. Now I have to make a choice, the most important of my life. Drew already made his –in fact, he tried to decide for the both of us. But you know that’s just not my style. So I came back to Greenville. Alone. Well, sort of alone….
What I’ve come to realize is that old habits die hard and sometimes you have to go back to where you began, before you can move ahead.
TWISTED picks up two years after Tangled’s end, and is told from Kate’s POV.
I gotta say, I was excited about this book, and it let me down. “Tangled” was just so amazing, I had high standards for this book, and it did not reach them. This book is a series of silly misunderstandings that lead to more and more silly heartbreak, that if they just had one, ONE, honest conversation, none of it would have happened. It is also a series of preposterous assumptions about the other person and never saying your real thoughts out loud. Just a massive, MASSIVE, lack of trust and communication that left me tired. Disappointed. There are more books in this series that feature this couple, but this book made me give up on them, like I said before, it got me tired. Maybe one day I will finish it, but now I don’t have that kind of motivation.
General grade: 3/5 (Highly unprovable plot, most of the time silly reasons, all depending only on miscommunication and honestly dumbness)
Feminist grade: 3/5 (This couple should never be taken as an example for reasons I already described above, but just almost ridiculous in the communication department)
Final grade: 6/10 (Disappointed me and made me give up on the other books of the series, so I don’t have many positives to say, the author is amazing, but this book is definitely not)
Tamed
(Tangled #3)
by Emma Chase
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: girl meets player, they fall in love, player changes his ways.
It’s a good story. But it’s not our story. Ours is a lot more colorful.
When I met Dee I knew right away that she was special. When she met me, she thought I was anything but special–I was exactly like every other guy who’d screwed her over and let her down. It took some time to convince her otherwise, but turns out I can make a convincing argument when sex is at stake.
You might know where this story’s headed. But the best part isn’t where we ended up.
It’s how we got there.
Tamed goes back in time to the Tangled days. But this time around, it’s not Drew dishing out the advice and opinions – it’s his best friend Matthew, who of course is dealing with Dee Dee.
I got into this one with low expectations, and in the end, I actually liked it. They were a super cute couple, so honest with themselves and unapologetic and I loved the characters, their personality, their relationship, and their story.
General grade: 3/5 (Great book, great couple, hilarious and enjoyable, but not super memorable (since I’m writing this, months later, and I couldn’t remember a lot of it before writing this post))
Feminist grade: 5/5 (I loved their honesty with themselves and their unapologetic way, Dee Dee is such a strong female, I love her)
Final grade: 8/10 (Cute and interesting story, especially with the nun jokes and all, just not amazing)
These were all the books I read in May! Have you read any of them? Did you like them? Do you agree with me? If not you can tell me so too!
Well, that is all for today, I hope you like this post, hope you enjoy these books if you decide to read them. Feel free to leave your opinion about it in the comments and I will see you next time!
Bye sassy people!
- I know that some comments I make about decent guys on my posts are the bare minimum a guy should do, so no, they don’t deserve to be treated like gods for doing the minimum, but at the same time, I’ve read a lot of sexist books and I appreciate authors who make characters that can serve as role models and examples of how a decent guy acts and what a loving and respectful relationship looks like. I believe we should always encourage these authors and bring attention to the ones that still write sexist characters and stories.
- I make a lot of comments about sexism and healthy role models in books, but a lot of times these characteristics don’t make the book a bad book and definitely don’t make the author a bad author. Please never shame these authors and these books for these comments, I simply feel that we need to have awareness of the less than ideal situations some books bring us, and not use the romanticized problem as examples of what a relationship should be. Most of these authors are still amazing and the content they write doesn’t reflect directly with their personal views and opinions. Always make sure to respect and be kind to everyone, even while criticizing their content.
Find Me In
Meet Me
Brazilian architecture student and book lover
One of my goals in analysing my readings was to talk about important topics, like feminist and consent, because literature, art and culture influence us, and I believe we should always encorage authors who talk about this topics.
Come check out my Goodreads Reading Challenge!
Goodreads Reading Challenge 2020
I read 148 books in 2020, come see them!
