Between Me and You, Allison Winn Scotch

 

Between Me and You by Allison Winn Scotch I bought this book on CD several years ago (it came out in 2018 and I must have bought it somewhere around 2020.  This has been sitting in a basket near the door (amongst other audio books) for car listening.  I imagine that at some point in the future, I will no longer have a CD player in the car, so I probably should be busy listening to the books in this basket before I end up giving up on the old Nissan Leaf.  I'm sure I bought this book on audio because I simply could not get it at the library at the time, but I cannot remember what brought me to want a Romance novel--not really my genre.  Maybe I was branching out or had read a review about the book telling the same story from multiple points of view (something I do really like).  I dunno.

Started: May 17, 2025
Completed: July 30, 2025
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: Not sure

Review:

I did not enjoy this book.  The plot "twists" were rather obvious and only twists by virtue of not travelling the story linearly in time.  The characters were shallow and did not develop.  I think that this counted as a "meet cute" which ran the traditional story line of boy/girl meets girl/boy, boy/girl loses girl/boy, and boy/girl gets girl/boy.  The only redeeming portion of the book is that it was written from both the main characters' point of view, so they were some occurrences where the same event was viewed differently, but mostly it was each validating the other's perspective internally without doing so externally.  The whole story just left me flat.

Vladimir, Julia May Jonas

 

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas is another attempt to find a way to enjoy romance novels.

Started: July 19, 2025
Completed: July 22, 2025
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: The Guardian

Review:

I guess I am a pretty pedestrian (some might say, "Hallmark," romantic).  I don't find masturbation romantic.  I'm not a BDSM kinda guy.  I guess I just really like when two people click.  I do see this in the Hallmark romances, although it is not common there.  The push me, pull you style of romance has no attractiveness for me.  I don't get a rush over the enemies turned lovers (although I have room for that...it is more that there is not the "thin line" between these two things as some suggest for me).  I get how everyone has a bunch of angst around romance and so a touch of that is just realistic...a month of that seems, to me, like a wild indulgence.  Not so interesting for me.  The book is well written with pretty good character development and a reasonable story line (until the end when it all falls apart in my mind and becomes a rush to stop writing at some word requirement).  There is a lack of transition to the ending (imagine, and they all lived happily ever after--though that is not the exact nature of this particular ending).  It just felt like it wrapped up once the romantic drama was done, then there was a bunch of hand waving and it is over.

The Dead Romantics, Ashley Poston

 

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

Started: 10/28/2022
Completed: 10/31/2022
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Every now and then I try to stretch my borders and read something outside my comfort zone.  This one slapped me right back.  I did not find the romance very compelling, spoilers below here.  Woman who sees ghosts.  She sees a ghost and falls in love, but not to be because, well, he is a ghost.  Man turns out to be in a coma.  Happily every after when he wakes up and remembers being a ghost.  Poston posits that this was a ghost story.  It isn't.  It isn't even really supernatural...just sort of corny to use her own word.  Poston seems to be aware that this is all rather corny.  Then in a sappy author's note she hopes that this is the book for the reader.  If not, maybe another one will be.  I dunno, but I stepped out of my comfort zone for a romance and got a poorly written ghost story.  Dang.