"people dont label anything, it drives me crazy.
do me a favor, both of you, think of the librarians, think of the historians & label your stuff."
pub: 2022
pages: 304
read: Sept 29 - Oct 1, 2022
book: 23 in 2022


THOUGHTS 
meh.
It started off good and then it got to that whole self discovery/I don't wanna get married/but I don't wanna lose you drama and I was over it. I liked it better when she was trying to con Matt. I liked it all before she started beating it into us that she wants to live solo. And there's nothing wrong with that because I also don't see myself wanting to have kids but 🙄
she's constantly having to mention that she doesn't want to share her space and it starts to sound repetitive after a while. even in the fucking epilogue. 

I don't regret reading it but I could have done without this one I think. nothing about Laurie made me be like "iloveheriwishherthebest!".....which, I do (wish her the best but not necessarily love her) but I could go on forever not keeping up with her and whatever happens between her and nick. 

Idk.

It's like a 2 part book.  
The first half is tryina get the duck and the second half is "i know what I want but I'm not willing to change my views for what I want" and ugh.

It wasn't a bad read, it had several funny moments but I think overall this wasn't memorable for me. 

ima be hella honest with y'all, im so over this book i dont even wanna re-read the spoilers to check for misspelled words, so please pardon. 😬

SPOILERS
Laurie's aunt Dot passes away so she goes to sort her things out. In the process she finds a wooden duck and Matt, the guy who was supposed to be helping her appraise things ends up stealing it under the pretense that it's a good fake original Carl someshit (already forgot the name). He gets a fake appraisal, buys it from under Laurie for $50 & then gives it to another crook to sell it thinking that its an og Carl someshit (when in fact it ends up NOT being an og Carl someshit in the first place! its a mess) 

Anyway, Laurie sets up a scheme with her brother Ryan or someshit and they end up stealing back the duck under the pretense that a) It's fake and that b) Matt stole it from under John (the name that Ryan was going by since he was tryina steal it back). Supposedly John had a buyer who had to have it that very same hour and he was willing to split more $ with Rocky (the dude who Matt gave the duck to to sell) if he let him take it. Rocky did and they steal it back. 

It turns out that Dot and Carl dated but he was married. Married to a woman who had a shit load of health problems (which leads me to wonder if Carl would have left his wife for Dot had she not been in need of so much care). They had a years long affair until they went their separate ways and in that time Carl taught Dot how to make the ducks. So the duck that Laurie found is indeed not a mothafuckin' Carl but a Dot original.  She had carved that suck herself!

thats it. thats the story behind the duck.

-

Laurie dated nick when they were kids, they broke up bc of the distance when they were in college but now they're doing the damn thing again. She fights it but they end up together. Well, yes long distance but mostly cus Laarie knew she was never going to go back & that he'd never leave their hometown so hay is for horses.


And that's the basics of it.
"i believe in making your own opportunities. i believe in taking what you wanted from life, and if you had to hurt someone in the process, it had better be for a good reason because i also believed in karma."
pub:2022
pages:290
read: september 27-29, 2022
book: 22 in 2022 (oh shit! 22 in 22!😄) 


THOUGHTS
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVED THIS BOOK!!!!
Once I opened it up I could not get enough.  I didn't know what to expect but it wasn't this. Ahhh!!!!

Do I believe that Kat will succeed like Meg? Part of me wants to believe that she will but I think she's starting off too big. Meg learned from Cory. Kats just guna ace it on the first try?

Idk but I looooooooved this story!
Everything that Meg does with what she achieves makes me giddy because all of me also sorta expected her to be kinda greedy about it. She just wanted to exact revenge.

I just loved this one so hard!!!!!!!
Julie Clark might just turn unto an auto buy for me! 
i wish i had more to say but i think i looooved this book i want to own a copy now so that i can reread it right now speaks just about enough volumes. 
"maybe you judge me for holding him close instead of casting him out. but if you take a look at where cory is now, i think its pretty obvious that holding your enemy close makes it much easier to slip the knife back into their back."


SPOILERS
no spoilers because i took forever. 
but i will say that go MEG! 
i thought she was being the bad guy to be the bad guy because she could but homegirl was taking names, kicking ass and giving back like she was oprah with dem cars! 
ahh!!!!!

i fucking loved this book. 

read the last few pages. maybe the last few chapters and itll walk ya thru it. 

or ask! 
ill try and remember! 

ugh - okay. 

meg lived in her home with her mother that was passed down to her by her parents (passed down to megs mom). mom dates Ron (the politician dude) and he manages to swipe the house out from underneath her and then proceeds to kick them out. 
in school Kate, a popular girl, is the only one that ever defends Meg when others tease because girls gotta stick together. 

later on it emerges that Kate had been sleeping with Cory. meg had seen Kate getting out of places after being with Cory but she never said anything. then Kate stops showing up and Cory is no longer a teacher. 

now its been years and megs been doing the living in your car life when she acknowledges that she needs to start dating someone who can give her more so she changes the age settings in her dating profile (she'd use this to get free meals) to older so she can find a dude with a home. 

BOOM!
Cory. 

she creates a fake profile pretending to be this Amelia chick and feeds Cory everything he wants to hear to win him over, sets up a date to meet up and then stands him up. she shows up pretending to also have been stood up and then boom! she cons him into a relationship and much more; she ends up living with him. 
anyway, one day, she's looking for a bulb when she finds pictures of Kate (her name is actually Kristen now that i think about it but were too far in) in sexual positions that Cory had saved from their time. 
she is disgusted and wants to leave (she had no idea about any of this prior to this moment and what she had known before so when she roped him, she was just tryina survive for reals) but decides to stay and get revenge for homegirl because girls stick together. 

yada, yada, yada, a lot happens, she ends up clearing Corys bank account, ruining his friendship with Nate (was that his name? idk but it is now) and releasing all the information about his relation with Kate. 

this is where Kat comes in. she's in journalism and long story short, when Meg was conning Cory, Meg called idk where and said that if they wanted more insight into the cory/student story to go to this place and meet with Nate. after a few drinks, he'd be loose. so Kat goes, talks to homie, gets a call in the middle of the conversation and leaves her drink behind only to come back to Nates apartment the next day i wanna say? 
he date raped her. 

so now Kat is out to get Meg because she thinks that she intentionally sent her out to Nates KNOWING he would rape her because she (meg) had previously claimed attempted rape by nate (she did but he had not tried. he was just calling her out because he knew she was up to something in regards to  Cory....which she completely was by the time he started accusing her. she needed to buy time....) 

so kat becomes homies with meg under the impression that she was interested in buying a house but meg sees right thru her. 

anyway, the entire time, Meg is focused on Ron, the dude who stole her house and screwing him over. 
which she does. 

she manages to sell him on the idea that because he is running for politics he needs to buy a bigger and better home and now with the elections, its the perfect time. she finally sells him on a house and theyre all set to go but in reality she showed him an empty home and stole all of his money. 
she got him to sell his (her) home to a nice elderly couple. she didnt want it for herself, she wanted it out of his hands in the same manner that he took it. 
as for the money for the mansion that he thought he bought, she kept a chunk and another portion was donated to a Homeless Organization which looked very bad on Ron because what rich people want to donate money to help the less fortunate? 

in the end, she tells Kat to meet her at her house and when Kat shows up all she finds is a note and some notebooks that meg left for her. (the notebooks part is the hardest part for me to believe because why would you continuously carry a paper trail? i understand that she might not keep them on her at all times but iduno.....anyway....) in the notebooks she details everything about Cory and all of the other people that she has conned and why. everyone that she conned was conned because they deserved it and she, i believe, always did good with what she took. 

anyway, Kat was trying to be a journalist to appease her mother when in reality she wants to be an author. with meg's permission, she can turn the notebooks into her first book. 

theres obviously a lot more, like Scott! LOVED that shady son of a bitch! that i left out but thats mostly the gist of it.
....or how i remember it week's later. 

thx!
lv u!
byee!
"cover up whatever you please for the world, but in intimacy? hide nothing. in intimacy, everything is beautiful."

pub: 2022
pages: 399
heard: september 1-15, 2022
book: 21 in 2022


THOUGHTS 
the banter is definitely better than Henry's but I think that just in general this kinda romance isn't for me. And it's not that it's not for me because Nina Hill! Half her story felt like 😑🤨 but I still loved it. with this one, idk. I don't hate it I'm just indifferent to it. Like I could've been okay without it. 

Yes stories can be farfetched but I think we decide internally just how much shit we can believe and my threshold for this one was broken pretty early on. 

I think my beef with this book is that Sawanee is super anti love (who can blame her?) But then outa well, not nowhere but, ya know,....., she has 2 dicks to chose from (not really) and for someone who doesn't believe, she's like super into both of them never questioning how anti all of it she was 2 seconds prior. 
Idk idk idk. I feel like she gave in too easy for someone who was so against romance (audio but anyway....)

Idk. 

It wasn't a bad listen to (audio route) but meh. maybe im still in a funk and no book is safe. idk. for me Nick was perfect and then they got in a fight and i was like okay spicy and then it gets resolved quicker than over night oats and idk. it wasn't that bad but i did zone out thru a lot of this book because i was kinda over it. 

i honestly dont know?




SPOILERS 
sawanee was on track to become a huge movie star but while on set she decided to go celebrate with her best friend A by jumping out a plane. originally her chute wasn't working but last minute it did and to celebrate that idk wtf she did but she ended up getting her eye taken out. Now it's been years and she's always rocking an eye patch. 
because of her actions, there went her movie career and instead A is the huge movie star. 

Sawanee is an audio narrator who goes by Sarah some shit who would read Audiobooks for a Jane something. 
Ever since the accident she doesn't do romantic audio anymore. Jane has now passed and her last request is for Sarah and Brock McStorm or someshit to do the audio of her last book. 

Long story short Sawanee is in Vegas to celebrate A for her success in idk what. They're at a club when A gets called to go back to LA for an audition so she goes leaving S alone and boom. Here comes Nick. 
They have one of those nights, connections, that's just once in a blue moon. 
They go their separate ways and that's it. 

Later, S gets the email about the audiobook request Jane left. She's still missing nick but now had moved on to chit chats with Brock McMuffin. (by this point they chat all the time about the project) 

They decided to finally meet (as sarah & mcmuffin) and of course it's on the night they both unbeknownst to each other, are both presenting and receiving an award for Jane (nick is Jane's nephew).
Except that Sawanee had no idea that, yes. NICK IS BROCK MCMUFFIN!!!!

In the end Sawanee learns that she needs to accept her shit so that other people can hurry up and accept her and her and mcmuffin end up together.  

That's the generality of it. I don't remember exactly how it ends. 
"I'm not sure which is worse, losing someone suddenly, or after a prolonged illness." 

pub: 2022
pgs: 366
heard: june 30 to july 5, 2022
book: 20 in 2022

SYNOPSIS

THOUGHTS
well, well, well. 
isnt life funny. 

i cant say that this is my fave CL story BUT what i can say is that this story might just be cemented into me for life. 
here is Lily dealing with her dad's shit after his passing. (LOL! )
and of course there is more but well, its cemented into me for a reason. 

i would have finished this sooner but i was saving this to listen to it as i worked at work and then shit hit the fan and then well, you gota handle your shit you know. (sorry dad)!
.....i think the best way that i can describe this to you would be to tell you to watch The Lost City movie. these two (both in the book and the movie) get into some unbelievable shit but its lol and you get into it if you don't pay too close attention. (i appreciate the way the authors acknowledged this at the beginning - somethings are out there. it helped me a lot to know that even the authors knew they were pushing it a little. lol.) 

i appreciated that homie was chill and calm, the way everything was connected was - lol i guess. 
i couldnt with brad? what was his name? lol you know who im talking about. 

idk. i currently dont have the mental capability to be more detailed so ill leave it at this but yeah, i guess this one was cool. 

but honestly, if you dont want to read this but wanna experience it, just watch the movie. i love the movie. lol 


SPOILERS

Lily and Leo date when they were teens and he was working at her ranch. they were going to end up together but there was an accident and leo had to leave. originally he was going to help his mom but she ended up passing away so he needed to stay to take care of his sister. he did call her back but her dad answered and he never passed the message down. so they lose contact. (thats why Leo never came back but she doesnt learn this until after they reconnect.) 

fast forward to today. ...and because i wana be quick about it...

leo's roomate B (i forgot his name ) was in cahoots with the motherfucker that went over the cliff (i think his name is John)  and the whole point of the set up was to I guess trap Lily into somehow getting them to Dukes massive fortune that was hidden but never found.

In the end, Lili and Leo find it on their own and the horrible homie gets caught. Idk. 

It's been a while. 

Let's move on.