Books I've read: 16 Forever

 

I picked this one from a list of books recommended to me by the Libby app when I was searching around for something to read on my phone.  And it was a fun read.

The book opens with Carter Cohen waking up, excited for his 16th birthday, certain his life is going to change today.  His first inkling that something is wrong comes when his annoying younger brother isn't hogging the bathroom as usual. And when he goes into his brother's room, it's strangely tidy.  Then, when he gets downstairs, his parents sit him down and explain that this is the 6th time he's lived this day - every year when he reaches the eve of his 17th birthday, he loops back in time and has no memory of the previous year he was 16.

In his last loop, Carter and Maggie fell in love.  She was hoping that telling him "I love you" on the eve of his birthday would be the key to him turning 17.  But, when he doesn't contact her that morning, she knows it hasn't happened.  Worse, at school, he doesn't even recognise her.  Unable to deal with the pain of being with someone who will forget her in a year, Maggie vows to pretend she doesn't know him.

But pretending is harder than she thinks it will be, and Carter senses something about her.  It becomes harder and harder for them to be apart, and more and more necessary because Maggie is keeping something a secret from everyone.

Over the course of the year, Carter and Maggie fall in love again.  But with college on the horizon for Maggie, and Carter's 17th birthday approaching again, can they figure out a way to keep him from forgetting her all over again?

This was a fun premise to start with, but as the problems Carter encountered got more and more challenging, the fun part of it got a little dark.  I mean, poor Carter woke up younger than his little brother!  And his poor parents, having to deal with a teenager long after they would have expected to have adult children who had left the nest.

There was some fun stuff in there, like the way Carter used his ID, with his actual birthdate, to legally buy booze and cigarettes and vapes for his friends.  Technically, not breaking the law..  But it was sad how he developed a talent one year, only to have lost the ability when looped again.  I can only see this as being a horrible way to live, no matter how much you enjoy being 16.

I enjoyed this book because Carter was a pretty fun character to spend time with mostly.  I didn't like Maggie so much, which was a shame because she's the POV narrator for some parts of the book.  I kind of understood where she was coming from, but there were places where she was unnecessarily cruel and that bugged me.

But if you're looking for something kind of light and fun to read, but with a little substance, you could do worse than this one.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

It’s the morning of Carter Cohen’s 16th birthday, and everything’s going his way.

He’s psyched and ready to get his driver’s license, his little brother’s not hogging the bathroom, and, man, something smells good for breakfast…

But when Carter bounds downstairs, Mom bursts into tears. It happened again. It’s Carter’s 16th birthday—for the sixth time. Every time he’s supposed to turn 17, he loops back a year. His memory gets wiped clean, his body ages backward—the rest of the world moves on, just not him.

Maggie Spear, on the other hand, has been dreading this day ever since she and Carter started dating. When she spies him in the halls and he doesn’t seem to know her at all, it’s obvious that it’s over between them. She can’t be in a relationship with someone who is just going to forget her again and again. Since Carter doesn’t remember that they’re together, then it’s probably better if she just pretends that they never were.

Except Carter senses that there’s more to their story than Maggie’s letting on, and Maggie’s keeping secrets of her own—but in the process of trying to let the other go, they find themselves falling in love all over again.

With Maggie soon leaving for college and Carter’s birthday quickly coming around again, will they be able to find a forever that isn’t stuck at 16?

Weekly Goals 27-4-26

 I haven't managed to get as much writing done this weekend as I hoped.  The story I'm working on right now, just isn't singing and I'm kind of slogging through.  I may leave it unfinished for now and move on to the next one to see if that works better for me.  It's frustrating after having had such a productive day on Wednesday.

I guess I'll see how I go this afternoon.

I'm glad I've done as much as I have done already though.  The next couple of weeks are looking pretty busy and I may not have a lot of writing time available, so having a good buffer in terms of how much I've already written is good.  The end of June is not as far away as I think it is.

I'm teaching four classes a week for the next two weeks, so that's going to keep me busy, and that's on top of my regular job which is winding up into being very busy too..

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 24-4-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!  And it's a holiday weekend so we get three days!

I had a good writing day on my day off on Wednesday and drafted two stories I'm not entirely happy with, but can work on.  The bones are there for me to polish up once I've finished the others.  I hope to write another two over the weekend, if I can.  I don't have much else on this weekend, so I should be able to get enough writing time in to do that.

That said, I do want to do a bit of resting this weekend.  I taught five spin classes this week and am teaching four per week for the next two weeks at least, so I think I need to give my body a little time to recover.

We had some pretty heavy rain this week and my garden took a bit of a battering, so hopefully the weather will be good enough on one of the three days for met t get out there and do some work on tidying things up.  Thankfully we didn't get flooded like so many other people around town.  Which is kind of a miracle considering the house is on a flood plain.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Always Jane

I've read several other books by Jenn Bennett and have always enjoyed them, so when I saw this one, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  And I did enjoy it, despite there being a few things about it that bugged me.

Jane is the daughter of a chauffeur to a wealthy music producer and as such, she's lived a fairly privileged life in the big houses and summer homes he owns.  The summer house is at a lake town that is sleepy and quiet most of the year, but bursts into a hive of activity each summer as they host a legendary music festival.

The family behind the festival are the Sarafians, and Jane has long had a crush on the oldest boy, Eddie.  A couple of summers back, she and Eddie were at the town dam listening to music from a nearby club when Jane fell in and nearly drowned.  Now she suffers from aphasia, a disorder where she can't always find the words she wants.  But, on the plus side, since the accident Eddie has been attentive to her and she has been enjoying their long-distance relationship and looking forward to spending time with him at the lake over the summer.

So, it's a surprise when Eddie shows up at the airport when she arrives and says he's heading to the Philippines on business for his dad.  And when Jane wanders into the local vinyl store and meets Eddie's brother, she's surprised by his intensity.  Eddie has always been competitive with his brother and has never spoken kindly of Fen, so Jane is shocked by how likable this black-sheep brother seems to be.

Fen has long had a crush on Jane, and no more so since he pulled her from the water when she almost drowned.  And now she's back, and Eddie isn't there to overshadow him with his sweet talk and charm.  That he and Jane begin falling for one another is inevitable.

This was a good set up for a romance, the two brothers making two out of three points in a love triangle, but the fact Eddie left town in the first chapter or two, made it less effective.  I would have liked to see the brothers actually compete for Jane's affections, rather than Fen winning basically because he was there.  I also failed to see what was so great about Jane that she had both brothers falling all over her.

As a POV character, Jane was pretty thin.  She didn't have any real goal in the story and just kind of drifted through it.  There was some backstory about her possible parentage, but she didn't;t even seem that curious to find out if Mad Dog was her real father or not.

But it was still a fun read that kept me engaged all the way through.  The music festival setting in the background could have been played out more - that, for me anyway, was interesting, but it never really got used.

So, if you like sweet romances and love triangles, this one might be for you.  It's not perfect, but it's not a bad way to spend a few hours.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Eighteen-year-old chauffeur’s daughter Jane Marlow grew up among the domestic staff of a wealthy LA rock producer, within reach of bands she idolizes, but never a VIP. Every summer, Jane and her father head to the Sierras to work at the producer’s luxury lodge at Lake Condor—a resort town and the site of a major musical festival.

The legendary family who runs the festival are the Sarafians, and Jane’s had a longtime crush on their oldest son, Eddie—doltish but sweet. So when a long-distance romance finally sparks between them, she doesn’t hesitate to cross class lines.

But Jane’s feelings about Eddie are thrown into question after she returns to the lake and reconnects with his alluringly intense brother, the dark horse of her placid summer plans. A fellow lover of music—and hater of the game—Fen Sarafian has been ousted from the family and is slumming it at a vinyl record shop. He burns for Jane like a house on fire and will do anything to sabotage his older brother, even if it means taking a wrecking ball to a multi-million-dollar music festival. Or Jane’s heart.

Weekly Goals 20-4-26

 I managed to get a lot out of my short weekend and got everything done that I wanted to, even with having to work half of Saturday.  

I wrote the second story in my story anthology and I'm much happier with it than I am with the first one.  I'm sure I'll need to polish and tweak all of these when I'm done writing, but having something to polish and tweak is a start.

I've written the opening of the third story too, so I have somewhere to launch from when I start writing again on Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to having a full day to write and seeing what I can accomplish when I have that stretch of time to work.

Plus, I 'd forgotten this weekend is a holiday weekend, so I have an extra day up my sleeve.  If things go well, I could have five or six stories drafted by the end of the weekend - way ahead of the pace I thought I needed to set for this.  I might even have time to go to a movie as well!

Work-wise, this week isn't the most intense because we have no shows for a couple of weeks.  But I am looking into new systems and will have to make a decision relatively quickly to meet the timeframe we'd need to get everything up and running by September.  

What are your goals this week?

Celebrated the Small Things 17-4-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

Well, sort of.  I do have to work on Saturday because we're running a school holiday program at the museum.  It's going to be crazy - both sessions are sold out with over 350 kids in each. Although, the weather is supposed to be horrible on Saturday, so we may lose a few people to that.

While that's not going to take my whole Saturday, it's definitely going to cut into my leisure time, so writing this weekend might not be as productive as last weekend.  But all is not lost!  Because I'm working this weekend, I'm taking Wednesday off and plan to go to the library to write all day.  I think I should be able to draft at least two stories in that time, if I'm lucky.

Nothing much else to report here.  It's that time of year where winter is just about to kick in, but we still have some gorgeous days that feel summery.  I don't think that's going to last too much longer though.  I probably only have another three to four weeks left in which I can ride my bike to work.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: Rent a Boyfriend

 

I'm a huge fan of Gloria Chao.  I discovered her first book, American Panda, before it was published and she entered parts of it in a contest I was slush-reading for.  The voice and humor just leapt off the page.  I can't remember if she won the contest or not (I think she did), but it was not a huge surprise when the book was published.

Rent a Boyfriend mines similar ground in that it's about the massive divide between an American-born Chinese girl and her very traditional Chinese parents.

Chloe (or at home, Jing Jing) is at college in Chicago.  With the holidays looming, she's terrified about going home to California and facing her overbearing parents who have basically promised her to the worthless son of a wealthy family in their community.  In an attempt to put the brakes on this arranged marriage, Chloe uses a company called Rent for Your 'Rents and hires a boyfriend for the holidays - Drew, who arrives as serious, studious Andrew.

Her parents aren't entirely convinced that her relationship with Andrew is real, and are not sure he's from a good enough family to support her the way they want her to be supported.  There's friction, fighting and some hilariously bad food involved.  And somewhere in that mess, Chloe and Drew begin to have feelings for each other.

With the arranged marriage still on the table, Chloe hires Drew again for the next holiday and the lies begin piling up as she blows her entire family's lives apart.  And somewhere, within all this chaos, she and Drew fall in love.

Drew's family have basically disowned him for not following their dream for him becoming a doctor or lawyer or architect.   Instead, he dropped out of college to try and become an artist, something that is not going well because he doesn't have the confidence to show anyone his art.  If Chloe's parents find out the truth about Drew,  they will definitely not trust him with their daughter's future.

As Chloe and Drew grow closer, she gives him the confidence to try and move forward with his art while he shows her that she doesn't have to give up her Chinese side to have a happy life.

This was a deeply uncomfortable read.  Chloe's parents are so well drawn with their traditions, superstitions and neuroses.  To anyone not familiar with Chinese culture, they could be seen as borderline abusive, but if you understand, you can see it's just their way of showing their daughter they love her.  Unfortunately, Chloe has been brought up n western culture and doesn't want the things her parents want for her.

Drew's character was kind of under-written in many ways.  He lacked direction, I think.  If he dropped out of college to pursue art, he should have been pursuing it, rather than hiding it in his room, too afraid of failure here too to even make an attempt.

Yet, despite being somewhat under written in places, the book felt too long.  There were several places it could have ended and didn't.

I didn't dislike it, but there was definitely some tightening that could have been done.

But if you enjoy reading about cultural clashes and people finding the strength to defy their parents and go their own way, this is a good place to start.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before meets The Farewell in this incisive romantic comedy about a college student who hires a fake boyfriend to appease her traditional Taiwanese parents, to disastrous results, from the acclaimed author of American Panda.

Chloe Wang is nervous to introduce her parents to her boyfriend, because the truth is, she hasn’t met him yet either. She hired him from Rent for Your ’Rents, a company specializing in providing fake boyfriends trained to impress even the most traditional Asian parents.

Drew Chan’s passion is art, but after his parents cut him off for dropping out of college to pursue his dreams, he became a Rent for Your ’Rents employee to keep a roof over his head. Luckily, learning protocols like “Type C parents prefer quiet, kind, zero-PDA gestures” comes naturally to him.

When Chloe rents Drew, the mission is simple: convince her parents fake Drew is worthy of their approval so they’ll stop pressuring her to accept a proposal from Hongbo, the wealthiest (and slimiest) young bachelor in their tight-knit Asian American community.

But when Chloe starts to fall for the real Drew—who, unlike his fake persona, is definitely not ’rent-worthy—her carefully curated life begins to unravel. Can she figure out what she wants before she loses everything?