Ladies and gentlemen, buckle your bootstraps because I’m taking you to Texas and I don’t think I’m ever coming back home… First let me start out by saying, I had in no way planned for this blog post to happen. I hadn’t even planned to read these books and certainly not so quickly. But alas, here we are. Let’s first start with the fact that I'm stingy--and I mean stingy--with my five star ratings. But after I finished reading the first book, I didn't even hesitate and even after sleeping on it, I have yet to take it back. Though, I must admit it was well deserved. I feel like these books go beyond what I liked personally but also how much I valued the writing for each of these novels; between the characters—for their differences, relatability/likeability-- and the overall theme and plot for these stories. Kate Stewart is by far my new favorite author because of the way she can tell a compelling story about people; which is all I can ever aspire to do as a writer, and everything she accomplished by giving me something I had always looked for in novels and finally found. But enough ranting and raving, let’s get into the elements of the books: what I loved, comments on character, style/format of writing and recommendations! Intro: This series is a new adult sports romance based in Texas (hence my cheesy Intro line) set at a fake university...in Texas. It’s got sass and cowgirl boots and a whole lot of heart so let’s get into BOOK 1! The Guy on the Right- Rating 5Summary: This story follows a guy named Theo whose a band geek. At the beginning of the book he’s just coming out of a heartbreaking relationship and so his goal is to loose his virginity. With the help of his more popular, football playing roommate things don’t go as well as he had hoped and on a drunken night that’s where he first meets Laney. Laney is tired of dating assholes who don’t respect her and so she’s swearing off men for the rest of her senior year (Theo is a junior) and they embark on this hilarious and loving friendship. Things I loved: The characters. I think the theme of this entire trilogy that you’ll see as being Kate Stewart’s strongest points in these books is how well she develops her characters. They’re well rounded with quirks and flaws that aren’t just there to say they’re there, but we feel and understand the character’s motives for everything they do. This book focuses heavily on insecurities as being the driving force of the plot’s conflict but it was built up so well throughout the rest of the novel and we get to see a lot of the character development in a way that’s just enough so we feel the angst but understand why the tension is there and how things finally develop into something real. Also, Kate Stewart is freaking hilarious! The banter between this couple was so incredibly funny, the moments they share together were just awesome and real and I love how this trilogy is called The Underdog Series because Theo really was portrayed as a regular guy with fears and ranging emotions and they were compatible for each other but he was the underdog. The plot. There was a never a point in the book where things didn’t make sense for the characters to not be together. As I mentioned before, the insecurities were the main things that were driving this couple away but I thought that because this novel did so well with developing a story between characters, it made sense that there wasn’t some dramatic plot twist that drove them away. Instead it were the flaws of these characters that we saw sprinkled throughout the rest of the story rearing it’s ugly head. I think a lot of times, novels can try too hard to make for an interesting plot in order to drive the story along, but I loved that it stayed between the people we had been following throughout and nothing was too dramatic and it was realistic. I love how this story gave us scenes and moments that were slice’s of life but the scenes always added something more to the story. There was never a point where things felt like a filler or that it was too cheesy, everything was well rounded and came full circle at the end. I also liked how the characters got together about 50 percent into the story because usually I read stories where the characters come together at the end and they get their happily ever after and it makes sense. But there are few that I’ve read where the characters come together so close to the beginning were it feels well developed and then the big conflict happens and the end still feels as well rounded as this one does. Which is also why I appreciated the slice of life moments we were getting, especially after they got together because it wasn’t always happily ever after. The scenes were doing something to either add to character development or lead us up to the overall conflict at the end. Any problems: There weren’t too many problems that I had with this book except the ending of the conflict and how that was handled. I definitely understood why the conflict happened, there was definitely a good build up to it happening but I think this is the only time I felt that there was slightly unnecessary miscommunication. Though, the characters had their motives explained, our main character took more time to coming around than I would have thought but I feel like this was so minor on the grand scheme of things. I think this can be a point made on how people can’t just overcome their insecurities so quickly which I can still appreciate. Even the epilogue, which I felt could have probably been the cheesiest moment in the entire book, was well placed and written and this book was just phenomenal. Extra thoughts: I also want to point how despite how strong our main characters were, how equally strong and developed our secondary characters also were. They weren’t just cardboard cutouts used to drag the story along, you felt their personalities and some of their motivations as well, at least pertaining to the main story. Even though I couldn’t say I was so eager to read about the second person in the trilogy, I think that’s only because I loved this first story so much, I still loved Troy, the second book’s hero, just based off of this book and was definitely interested in his story by the end of this. The Guy on the Left- Rating 4.5Summary: This story is the second book in the trilogy and follows Theo’s roommate named Troy, and Clarissa a single mom. Troy’s a football player with a lot more responsibility than let on and Clarissa is a teacher. This is sort of a second chance romance as Troy tries to be a part of his five year old son’s life. Things I loved: First of all, I’m a sucker for kids in romances when they’re written well and this was simply spectacular. Dante was a little spitfire with interests and personality that were so beautifully portrayed in the novel making him just as important and well rounded of a character. Which I think is so important when writing kids because they shouldn’t just be things used as an end goal to get our main characters together and this definitely was a story about them as a family and them trying to make things work aside from just the romance. Again, the characters were well rounded although I definitely felt that these characters were more consistent and this story wasn’t so much focused on character development as it was the main theme of the story driving our characters motives and how they were challenged to react in their environments. I definitely had stronger emotions towards whose side I was on when conflict arose but I don’t think that had to do with the writing per se, and I appreciated that we were never told who to root for. I definitely felt like this story was supposed to show more of an overall theme of family and loyalty and trust in relationships more than the characters in a relationship themselves. This was a true slow burn in terms of the romance. There weren’t even any steamy scenes until the end but because it was so well written, I didn’t mind. I also loved that Troy’s story was happening at the same timeline as Theo’s story and how many pop up surprises we got from recurring characters. I think this story does an amazing job of building on the characters that we see in the first story, giving them an ending in this story or allowing us to see more relationship building, using this story as a way to cross over from one story into another (whether that be from the first book to this one or preparing us for the characters in this story for the third one). The plot: As I mentioned before, this story definitely was showcasing themes about love, relationships and parenting and I think this story does a great job of developing these themes and explaining this theme in a way that’s not necessarily unconventional, but in ways that make you think and offer different perspectives. I like how this story wasn’t like the first one and instead didn’t build up to a final conflict, instead there were many small conflicts scattered throughout the story that the couple had to jump through and cross together as they discovered who they were with each other and what they wanted to be in the future. I really love how our main character found himself in the end, because I think a lot of romances focus on the characters together and who they are without each other when they are apart but not so much who they are alone (unless it’s at the beginning of the story) so I thought this did that very well. Any problems: I think my two thoughts on this story were how often I didn’t like our heroine. She seemed unnecessarily hostile and untrustworthy at times. I understood her reasons why, she was definitely built up enough as a character for me to feel this way but there were times where I felt she was being immature or just extra and I felt those minor internal conflict battles were getting annoying to an extent. Though again, this critique isn’t about the writing per se, and more so personal thoughts and feelings. I did, however, think this ending tied up a little too fast. Maybe a few more pages could have done things well for me in order for me to feel like the couple had actually gotten to the place they needed to by the end of this book (mainly involving ways to make the reader feel like our heroine should be trusted in wanting to make things work with our hero) but I also think that’s another small part to make this actually a problem for me because in the end things tied up in a nice full circle which I enjoyed. Extra thoughts: I loved the ending of this book and the secondary characters were phenomenal. I thought this book was definitely a heart tugging story and we were always rooting for the characters to get together (even when our heroine was making our hero work so freaking HARD. Lol) This book was also not as lighthearted as the first which isn’t a bad thing but prepare for the deeper plot line but overall I loved it. The guy in the middle- rating 4.5Summary: This story is about the third roommate of Theo and Troy, Lance, and how he comes to be in a relationship with Harper. This is a brief friends with benefits turned loving relationship as well as forbidden romance trope though under more than one different conflict (personal and external) which I enjoyed, along the way. Things I love: Sooo, originally I was going to rate this book 4 stars, but based off of the last five chapters I bumped it up to 4.5. I’ve never felt so compelled to up a rating so late in a book but I had to because Kate Stewart really is Just. That. Bitch. Gosh that ENDING SLAYYYYYED ME. But I’m getting ahead of myself so let me start from the beginning. I loved the romantical development of this relationship. It definitely was a faster slow burn but that was only because this story focuses a lot on their relationship over the course of a few years instead of them actually falling in love. With that being said, I did enjoy the discovery of the problems between the couple and for them individually and how they tried to work through that within the novel. I also enjoyed the characters. Between all three books, I feel like this book started out with the most very sure-of-themselves and well-rounded characters, so there didn’t need to be much self discovery but of course there was which made it make sense for why the plot was more of the driving force keeping our characters apart. This also made the introspection more interesting and allowed it to focus more on the characters surrounded by their conflicts and how to interact with those in the plot which I thought was amazing. This book also dealt with bullying as teenagers and the trauma it causes in young adulthood and mental health; though it was mainly brought into the limelight towards the end it didn’t feel misplaced with the theme of the book and the hints placed throughout which I appreciated and thought made things feel very realistic. The plot: I know for the second book I talked so deeply about the themes being the driving force of the plot, mixing character development and environment to make that story full, but if you take all of my comments that I talked about for that plot, put it towards this book, and just change the themes, that’s this book just….10xs more plot and theme driven. Which I know might make things so confusing and redundant but I hope you can stick with me here. Lol. With this book being the most conflict and plot driven, I love how real-time it felt. There weren’t any spontaneous plot twists that didn’t make sense. I do want to mention the impact of the ending again and how I felt that it was beautifully written, tying up the overall conflict of bullying and depression. This book definitely was more serious than the other two, and the problems that our hero faces is so relatable at least to me which I thought was great. It never felt like the the problems in Lance’s life were “other” than him, they definitely defined him as a character and we got to see the affect of that on him and his relationship. I love how we got to see his family so well flushed out as this book also deals with the impact of being the oldest and responsible son. I also loved how the book made a point to show how things weren’t happily ever after but emphasizes that life isn’t that way but things can still be worked out and be good as long as you have hope and faith and family. (Which is to say, despite this, the book didn’t end on a depressing note at all, so it was a very satisfying pay off to all of our struggles as a reader). And omg THE EPILOGUE! I definitely could have written this under one of the main things I loved but I think putting it under plot is good because the things that I loved about it was the fact that the epilogue ties up all the themes of the books individually and as a series so well. It brings back all of our main characters, shows even more development from the first two couples since we’ve last seen them, and ties in the bigger theme of realism in relationships and life, together so so well. 10/10. Any problems: It’s not a big problem, but the layout of this story was definitely different than the last two in the sense that we follow our main characters over a few years and months and I didn’t love the way the time jumps were woven together. They definitely made sense, and I love how within these time gaps we get to see the personal growth and successes of our main characters, though I thought the way they got back together the first time was a little cheesy but I can forgive it. There’s also the time when they’re in the midst of working things out and he’s such an asshole. Which I know seems so biased but I’m still unsure as to where the anger is coming from to explain these actions. I definitely plan on re-reading this series in the future so hopefully I can I figure it out then and edit my thoughts but my goodness, it was so angsty to read. Though, I thought the inner dialogue was well thought out to try to explain the actions and reactions. At times, it just felt like it was a little too much, especially in the beginning. But again, that might just be me or due to the fact that during this time we got mostly our heroines perspective. My main problem though has to be with the side character and best friend of our heroine. He has an accent and his character is written in the accent in which he speaks. That was hard to read and I admit I definitely skimmed some of the things he said because they just made the reading jarring and hard to concentrate on. I definitely think there could have been a way to allude to the accent and also continually bring it up in order to remind our characters of the ethnicity of the character, though I’m still not sure what ethnicity that is (even though I can guess, I don’t want to assume but I will be asking for opinions to make sure). I’m not sure if I would call this problematic per-se, just very hard to read and unnecessary. Extra thoughts: Despite my criticisms and initial thoughts before the last five chapters, I still thought this book’s message was the most powerful of the three. There’s always that question of: talk about a book that’s changed you and why/how? and I never had one until now. It definitely changes the way I view the world and people, especially us women in the way that we talk about each other and judge. Insecurities about looks can do so much damage and they can really destroy a person’s life and it just makes me want to think about being more conscientious about my first impressions of people. And even if society has programmed us with some of these toxic traits, I too am human and have flaws and make mistakes and it’s always about what you can do to change and grow as a person and I love that this book emphasized that mentality, at least for me. Again, I’m going to mention how the epilogue nearly destroyed me. Just reading the POV after finishing the last chapter brought tears to my eyes because I knew I had come to the end of the book with these amazing characters and their stories. I did not want it to end, I still don’t want things to end and I would love to just have more, but Lance and Harper definitely were the couple that resonated as the most realistic to me and I loved that so much. Final thoughtsKate Stewart really is my new favorite author at the moment and her books are everything I’ve ever needed and now have found. I want to read more of her backlist sometime soon but I have a mile long tbr list right now and I really want to get through other authors and genres first but I will most definitely be coming back to read more of her work in the future. I’m also so glad that I found her now because I would have died if I had to wait for the third book (the guy in the middle just came out in 2020). I read this on kindle unlimited which I highly recommend if you guys are avid readers, especially for romance, they have an amazing selection. I think you get the first month free and then it’s 9.99 after that so, from someone who doesn’t like to pay for anything, it’s totally worth it. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of ebooks for long term but I’m making plans to collect the entire trilogy for my shelves, so if you like to read things to see if they’re worth owning (like I do) I recommend kindle unlimited for this purpose as well. I love how different Kate Stewarts books are each from each other even within the trilogy. She stands out from other authors because of how well developed her characters are which I so heavily enjoy. "My everything is yours"- Troy, The Guy on the Left I know this is a long one but I had been talking about this book series too long not to write to you guys about it so here I am. I hope I did a good enough job of explaining things without giving away too many spoilers. I really just hope you read these books and tell me if you do and what you think because so far this series is my most favorite of the year so I’m pretty happy about that. I actually took a break after reading the second book because I didn’t want the books to start blending together and I’m so glad that I did. I then waited a little while after that to write this review because I wanted this to be my raw and unfiltered thoughts post-reading high so that I could trust my emotions on these books haha. So, I hope you guys are doing well and are reading and watching Netflix at leisure if you can. Stay tuned for my next adventure (reading or other)!
Until Next Time! With love, Arianna P.S. What are some books that have changed you and why?
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5/11/2020 0 Comments Ex(pose)sureWhen sunlight hits against,
Elevated cheekbones without your favorite highlighter; And golden hues reflect on uneven toned skin. Your lashes close, dusting your cheeks And your lips are chapped and shaking. You are vulnerable. You are selfish. You are vain. You are skin. When your palms are dry and cracked, Aching, as skin is stretched taught as it reaches for tangible dreams in the sky; Your fingertips graze the clouds of possibilities, But only raindrops fall and drench your sleeves; Your wrists are wet and damp uncomfortably. You are yearning. You are eager. You are hopeful. You are skin. When the light is no longer working for your bathroom mirror, And you’ve run out of acne cream; When your favorite waxing salon has closed down, And you really can’t afford another pair of new jeans… When there are no longer any more clothes to hide under, The dark circles are big enough for everyone to find; When you are naked and standing in the mirror, With no one but yourself to look you in the eye. When your heart aches for the things your hands cannot touch; And your voice is but a whisper after all the words you still didn’t say, Your body reflects the life you’ve lived; And your body is all the love you are. You are torn, You are broken, You are scars, cuts and bruises… And you are skin. I know this kind of ended on a depressing note but first I want to say HI! How are you? I know it’s been so long and the world is really crazy right now. I debated giving a life update--I finished my first year of university (yay!), I made some amazing friends (who really do make the world go round), I’m developing a strong mental, emotional and physical health (we love a growing Queen), and I’m going through this pandemic crises just like all of you. So with that in mind, I decided against the update and created this instead instead. This was an idea that I had in mind for a really long time and I finally created the aesthetic and the pictures to go with it but had no idea what I wanted to create with it until I finally thought--poetry, duh! It's been awhile since we've seen any on the blog so I was excited to share it. Anyways, in spirit of us all going through similar life experiences, (though completely unrelated), I wanted to share a poem about how societal pressures of beauty force us to see things as these imperfections that need to be fixed or covered up. When really, our raw and most authentic and unedited selves are the most beautiful because that’s who we really are and how could we not want to love ourselves? Even though it can be hard. We have to learn and love and appreciate that inner self so that it can reflect to our outer selves before we allow these corporations tell us what they think we’re missing from our lives. After we understand that: "Makeup or no makeup, I’m still beautiful", then we can pile on everything else materialistic and superficial because makeup is fucking fun and it makes you feel fun and sexy and confident. And in the end, that's all any one of us wants to feel on the inside. The point of this or anything really is to help us truly understand who we are and what parts of ourselves we want to reflect to the world--of course the best parts, but are those “best parts” truly you? Or are they the metaphorical “makeup” that we choose to hide behind because we think people will like that version of ourselves better? So make sure you're doing things to feed that inner beauty and not because society tells you there's something wrong with who you really are. Either way, I really thought this poem could help some of you guys to look at the inner and outer beauty being reflected differently through words. DISCLAIMER! I am not calling anyone selfish or vain, I am speaking to the corporations who tell us that we need something more/other than ourselves in order to feel or be beautiful. I definitely played with words and meanings behind punctuation in this poem so I really hope you guys enjoyed. I’m hoping to learn how to reclaim and define definitions of words in life and through my writing that are used to tear us down so that’s kind of my intention behind this. I love you guys, I really hope you guys are all staying safe, staying healthy and I’ll talk to you soon. Until Next Time. With love, Arianna |
AuthorI'm an 21 year old girl who lives in NY. I love to read and write and fashion is my life. Follow me to find out more! Archives
January 2023
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