Tag Archives: romance

Just Last Night

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img_5961Book: Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane

Date Read: December 23, 2021 to January 1, 2022

Rating: 4 (of 5) stars

One of the funny things about being a reader is the odd habits that you develop over time related to your reading. Currently, I take pictures of my books with my cats. I used to track the number of books I read by using a different bookmark for every book I read, and then counting up my pile of bookmarks at the end of the year. Perhaps my oddest bookish habit is my text exchanges with a particular friend: we frequently text each other about the books we are reading, but rarely actually share which book we are talking about.

This past December, my friend was texting me about a book that had her on an emotional rollercoaster. She thought she had picked up a romance, but ended up with a story that had much more depth. With each unexpected turn in the story, I got an update about how every prediction made was turning out to be wrong. So toward the end of the month when I ended up waitlisted for all of the audio books I had hoped for on my holiday driving, this turned into a natural recommendation. It is not exactly the book that I would typically pick up on my own, but as she had said, it was much more than the fluffy romance novel that she had anticipated.

Although the romance storyline was definitely there, I felt like this book was much more about friendships and family. It all starts with a friend group and a pub quiz—a new romance trope, I think. Our main character, Eve, introduces the dynamics of the group just before finding herself on a romantic misadventure. This is around where things begin to veer into the unexpected, starting with a tragedy within the friend group.

I try not to give too much away when writing these, so I will just say that the story did not turn out to be anything like what I predicted along the way, while somehow still hitting all the things I would expect from a romantic comedy. McFarlane had me alternately laughing and crying, and did an excellent job of handling some serious topics without straying too far from the heart of the genre.

Boris’s Thoughts: “I never saw this book, so I don’t believe you actually read it.”

The Time Traveler’s Wife

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img_0097Book: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Date Read: July 27 to August 7, 2021

Rating: 4 (of 5) stars

Generally speaking, I tend to lean toward books that are on the shorter end of the spectrum. Not that I avoid longer books altogether, but I find myself satisfied with books staying in the 300-400-something page range. These books feel like anytime books. Anything longer feels like a little more of an undertaking—something that should be taken on with some intention. So I was intentional about timing the “read a book over 500 pages” prompt, and my week of summer travel seemed like the perfect fit. I started this book on a plane on my way home from Denver, and then wrapped it up a couple days after arriving home from Nashville.

The story follows the lives of Clare and Henry, a couple dealing with some peculiar circumstances: Henry cannot stay put in time. Due to this, the story is told in snippets with some variations in chronology. While it mostly follows the traditional chronology of Clare’s life, there are flash-backs and forwards that fill in additional details. The author did well in varying how these were used, sometimes foreshadowing aspects of the story and other times circling back to give more context to things that had not been fully explained. Although I’m not really sure—does it count as foreshadowing when you know things are happening in the future?

I loved the concept of this book, and thought it was done well as a romance/science-fiction crossover. I am not sure that “science fiction” is the perfect classification, but feel the time travel aspect and the genetic studies piece was enough to at least set it on the edge of the genre. It is certainly not simply a traditional love story. In some ways, I debate in its classification as a love story at all—but in the end, I am not sure how else to classify it. The time travel aspect complicates it. While I feel like it is intended to add an element of sadness to Clare’s love, it also takes away the spontaneity and serendipity of a traditional love story. Clare knew she would marry Henry before she had even met him in her chronological life—if she had not been told that, would things have happened as they did? Henry’s attempts to change other events seems to indicate that her knowing did not matter, but I think the idea of everything being preset by fate takes a little magic out, flattening the story just a bit.

Boris’s Thoughts: “This is all a bit much, isn’t it? 1 paw.”