Really good, chilling ending and never guessed right about who was good or bad...

I read this for a bookclub, and it was not for me. The story follows the life of Isaac Dahl. This book isn’t that long, but the titular character’s life is (as promised) very long. The problem is, I never cared about the characters. They felt stiff. This felt like more of a catalog of events over time. Everything felt like an observation rather than emotion and personality driving action. I appreciate the LGBTQ representation in the first person protagonist but never really got into this audiobook I borrowed via Libby.

2.5 stars. I listened to this audiobook in one sitting as it’s quite a quick read, clocking in at 4 hours. I picked this up because I was looking for books that would satisfy a “two books with the same titles” bingo square, and there’s at least three other Forget Me Nots that I have/will read. As an Oregonian, I was intrigued by the historical romance set in Baker City. I don’t often read Christian fiction, but it’s also nice to mix it up. In this second chance romance, Julia and preacher Seth rekindle their former flame after seven years apart. This book’s first turn-off was how Julia went from not recognizing this apparent love of her life to instantly feeling infatuated as if no time or intervening events had passed. I really struggled with the Chinese immigrant representation. It felt so stereotypical with too much emphasis on the white savior. Maybe the stilted broken English speech on the audiobook exaggerated the effect, but I felt there was a missed opportunity to humanized these underrepresented characters. I appreciate what the author is trying to do (as evidenced in the author’s notes), but I think she misses the mark in execution. Maybe this book would be better as a full-length novel in which their story gets fleshed out a bit more. I almost rounded this book up on the rating because I think the intentions are good, but as it currently stands, I would recommend skipping this.

This Julie Soto book has been on my radar for a while and I finally read it for a summer reading bingo. I liked the two main characters and their chemistry. The side characters also added to the story and were entertaining/enjoyable. The dual narration was great. I’m not the biggest tattoo fan, but Elliot’s body ink was cool, and I loved all the floral and wedding elements in the book.

I could read it all day

Funny. Especially the ghost pepper part!

Loved it!!!! Highly recommend

I never believed that the animal kingdom can have a predator protecting a prey

A great author can make complex characters come to life even in a short book. Over a long weekend in June, Gail is blindsided by an announcement from her boss, surprised to find her ex-husband on her doorstep with a rescue cat in tow, and confronted by events from her own past on the day of her only child’s wedding. Gail thought she had her life perfectly in control, but is it a happy life?

Two Degrees is my favorite book and I deeply fell in love with it. The way the author let the characters voce shine through throughout the hole book is a hard thing to do but Alan Gratz did it so easily with so meany vivid words he led me through a tail of excitement scare and overall I was at the edge of my seat through the hole story. I would recommend the book to you if you like realistic fiction because it has some parts of things that could happen in the future. So if you want a book about globule worming or overall a fun journey with three kids this is the book for you. I hope this helped enjoy the book.