Month: April 2018

Are You a Character Driven or Plot Driven Reader? | Discussion

Posted April 6, 2018 by Jana in Discussion / 39 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday has brought up an interesting discussion that I wanted to expound upon. Let me set the stage: I have a Top Ten Tuesday topic suggestion form, where participants can submit their suggestions for future TTTs. The topic “Characters I Liked from Non-Favorite/Disliked Books” came through and I was kind of intimidated by it, but figured I’d put it on the schedule because I want topics to apply to a variety of readers and not just be ones that are easy for me.

As I started building my list a couple weeks in advance I realized how unbelievably hard it was for me to come up with 10 characters I liked from books I didn’t like. I am a very character driven reader. If I don’t like a book it’s usually because I did not like the characters. I’ve never disliked a story but liked the characters enough to continue reading it. If I can’t connect with or fall in love with the characters, then it’s a pretty automatic DNF for me. There’s just no reason for me to stick around. I started looking at all my one and two star reviews to try and find books I rated low, but found redeeming qualities in the characters. Most of the time I was actually complaining about the characters! I ended up picking a lot of characters that I used to love, who took a bad turn in sequels and series books because I couldn’t come up with much else.

Once this TTT went live and the Linky was open for people to link up their posts, I quickly noticed how slowly the links were submitted. Usually the Linky explodes with submissions within minutes of the post going live. I started visiting the blogs who participated, and made it through the first 20 or so posts before sleep took over. I noticed that many people were in my same boat and struggled with coming up with their lists. Some of them reversed the topic and wrote about characters they hated from books they loved, which would have been so much easier for me. Someone even changed the topic to characters they loved. Period. Participation was also down. By the next day only 85 people had linked up their posts, as opposed to the 300-350 I usually see.

Clearly, I’m not alone! I saw several posts where people said they loved the topic, and easily came up with 10 picks. For a lot of us, though, I know how tricky it was and I feel bad that so many people struggled with it. I’ll do my best to not make such a hard topic anymore.

So, let’s discuss!
– Are you a character driven reader like me, or plot driven reader?
– Or does something else drive your love of books? The writing? The world? The author? Your own stubbornness? All of the above?
– Do you DNF over characters you can’t connect with, or can you keep going with a book even if you don’t like them?
– Which books come to your mind when you think of this discussion topic? 

There’s so much to talk about!

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch | Book Review

Posted April 5, 2018 by Jana in Book Review, Young Adult Fiction / 8 Comments

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch | Book ReviewLove & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
Series: Love & Gelato #1
Also in this series: Love & Luck, Love & Olives
Published by Simon Pulse on May 3, 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Pages: 389
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher (Edelweiss)
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“I made the wrong choice.”

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.

But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires Lina, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.

People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.

I love books set in other countries, especially countries I’ve visited myself. It makes for a very fun reading experience, and I usually gobble them up quickly. Love & Gelato is another book I can add to my stack of favorites, and it’s not just because it takes place in one of my favorite cities in the world.

1. Love & Gelato was everything I hoped for and more. I loved it so much, not only because the story and writing were pure and utter perfection, but because my love of YA contemporary romance was renewed. I’ve been having a hard time with this genre for the last couple of years, and I chalked it up to the fact that I’m not a young adult anymore. I figured I was identifying less and less with the characters, so I needed to move on and read books with characters my age in order to connect. I was pretty heartbroken about this. I thought back to all my favorite YA contemporaries: Wanderlove, Just One Day, Anna and the French Kiss, Unbreak My Heart, The Summer I Became a Nerd, and Wish You Were Italian and was super sad that, if I were to re-read them, maybe I wouldn’t love them anymore. Love & Gelato was a bit of a gamble for me, but since I love Italy so much I figured I would at least love that about it. But I loved EVERYTHING. I loved the characters, the story, the romance, the issues, the scenery, the mystery, and all the coming of age moments. It reminded me that I will always be able to relate to teens because I was there. I went through it, and no matter how old you get you never forget what it was like to be a teenager. I’m so relieved that I’d just found a bunch of bad egg books, rather than discovered that the genre that once brought me so much joy was not for me anymore.

2. This book takes place on the outskirts of Florence, Italy… one of my favorite places in Italy. Lina’s mother dies of cancer and has spent her last months talking with Lina about her time in Italy. She wants so badly for Lina to move there and live with a man named Howard. So she goes there and lives with him in a WWII cemetery where he is the groundskeeper. Lina is given the journal that her mom wrote in while she was living in Italy, and she learns so much about her mom and herself. Pretty much the entire story is Lina walking in her mother’s footsteps, while also falling in love and experiencing Italy. I loved every page.

3. Howard is the kind of guy every girl wishes was her dad. He clumsily navigates his relationship in a way that only a man who has no idea what a teenage girl is could. But he is so full of love and only wants what’s best for her. If that’s an overflowing plate of lasagne or a shoulder to cry on, he’ll give you both.

4. Lina is strong in the wake of her biggest personal tragedy to date, and I admired her. She flies all the way to Italy and into the unknown while mourning the loss of her mom. She pouts and mopes and comes up with a million reasons to go home, but she also searches for answers and discovers why she’s there. Ren is very sweet and goofy, and I loved his personality. The supporting characters are all great, too. Ren’s mom is so much fun. Ren’s friends are great.

5. So much Italy! And so much gelato! It was like I was there again.

6. The writing was lovely. I can’t say much more about it, other than the fact that I remember the story and the people more than the writing. I think an author does their job when that happens.

All in all, I will be forever grateful to Jenna Evans Welch for reminding me why I love YA so much. I’ve read two more YA contemporary romances since I read this book, and I loved them both. I think I’m out of my slump! I loved going back to Italy and watching Lina figure out who she was and where she came from. I highly recommend Love & Gelato.

Top Ten Characters I Liked That Were In Books I Didn’t Like

Posted April 2, 2018 by Jana in Top Ten Tuesday / 18 Comments

Today’s TTT topic was submitted by Annemieke of A Dance With Books through the topic suggestion form. If you have ideas for future topics, submit them here!

Ok, so have you ever come across a character who you actually liked but really didn’t like the book they were in? Maybe the character was amazing, but the author never put him/her in the limelight or developed their character enough. Maybe the author had this character do something really dumb? Or maybe this character was just the only bright spot in the book for you. OH, and my least favorite situation? When I LOVED the character until they turned into someone I didn’t love anymore as the series continued. Today we’re showing those characters some love.

Ok, so… confession time: THIS LIST WAS REALLY HARD. It’s hard for me to curate this list because usually the lack of great characters is what makes me hate a book in the first place! I don’t usually dislike a book if I liked the characters. A great character will make it easier on me to enjoy reading a book, even if the story is not resonating with me as much as I’d like. Needless to say, I was pretty stumped. After a TON of thinking, though, I’ve done it!

1. Nikolai from The Crown’s Fate by Evelyn Skye
Nikolai was wonderful in The Crown’s Game, but his character was unrecognizable in a bad way in this sequel. He went in a very heartbreaking direction that I did not get over by the end of the book. He was one of the main reasons I rated this book so low.

2-4. Rafe, Leah, and Kaden from The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. Pearson
My beloved characters became flat, shells of themselves. Rafe lost his backbone, Leah got selfish and demanding, and Kaden was completely ignored. This book kind of broke my heart all over the place.

5. September from The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
Now… I liked September, but not as a twelve-year-old. Her voice is very strong and dynamic, but she does not act her age. She acts WAY older, so it all just felt really weird. And that book is a trip. I don’t even know what happened there. lol.

6-7. Emma and Galen from Of Neptune by Anna Banks
Emma became very selfish and immature in this third and final book of the Syrena Legacy trilogy. Also, things I found funny in book one, like Emma’s “ohmysweetgoodness” and “fan-freaking-tastic” and sarcastic quips were not funny this time. I wanted her to grow up a little and show me that she has changed over the years. I didn’t love Galen anymore either. His uses of marine words inserted into human phrases is not endearing anymore. He calls Emma “Angel Fish” and that really started to bug me! He has also gotten way too broody. I loved the romance in the first book, but things really fizzled in book 2 and even more in this one. I don’t even believe their love story anymore.

8. Jules’s Father in Everless by Sara Holland
This man is sweet and caring and loyal and way too good for his crappy, lying daughter.

9. Catherine in Heartless by Marissa Meyer
Catherine is sweet and spunky and so full of innocence and hope. I just loved her personality and her quirky love of baking and her sarcasm. We all know how she turns out (Queen of Hearts, duh), but boy was I hoping for a different outcome.

10. Rose from Public Relations by Katie Heaney and Adrianna Rebolini
I liked Rose for her ability to stand up for herself (and not keep quiet as she was instructed) and voice her opinions during the client meeting that would inevitably change her life. Her inner monologue was very entertaining. The book itself was pretty awful.

So there you have it! Which characters are you loving on today?
Do you agree with any of my picks?

And did you have as hard a time as I did coming up with your list this week? Do you tend to dislike books, but still like the characters? It’s super rare for me.