Avery loves her life and the business she works with her sisters.  Well, she loves it most days.  With her best friend as her roommate it can be a good thing in the best way.  When tragedy strikes, however, things can change in an instant.

Declan doesn't know how much his best friend really means to him until it is literally almost too late.  Now he wants to to spoil her as best he can.  When the sparks start flying they both have to lean how to live with the heat turned up.  Can they compromise on the feelings that have begun?

I loved this story and I already wish for it to be on the big screen!  These characters were such a joy to read.  They author really brought them to life for me.  I enjoyed all the will they and won't they, and the heat does get turned up.....all the way!  I give this book a 4/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

***This early copy was given in exchange for an honest review only, by Netgalley and its publishers.

Um Himmelswillen! Was für eine gequirlte Ameisenscheiße! Also diese Geschichte spottet wirklich jeder Beschreibung. Ich empfehle FSK18, damit kleine Mädchen in ihrer seelischen Entwicklung nicht geschädigt werden. 

Was für ein unfassbarer QUARK. Also wirklich. Und ich dachte immer ich wäre eine hoffnungslose Romantikerin. Aber Selbstrespekt finde ich leider auch ganz gut. 

Was schön, wenn einen ein Buch so richtig auf die Palme bringt. Da kann man wenigstens nicht sagen, man wäre nicht gut unterhalten worden. 

by Anonymous

I read this Classic many years ago, but had forgotten most of it so tried a sample and it held my interest enough to pay the 1.99 Kindle price so I could keep going, though I hadn't yet got to the 'meat' of the story.

It's about an ordinary young girl in America who has a lot of insecurities about fitting in at school. She turns 15 early in the story and her family moves to another town. It's supposed to be a true story, but I'm not sure whether that's hype or not.

As it goes along, we read through her diary how she got lured into drug use and quickly goes down a familiar route of trying different substances and getting caught up with dodgy boyfriends. She makes a good friend and after a period of going down a slippery slope, they decide to run away to get away from the bad influences plaguing them. Where do they go? San Francisco!

A lot of the tie the diary entries sound too Pollyanna to be real, but they reflect her ups and downs, attempts to get away from drug culture and the pitfalls along the way. In the late 1960s, it was a hard hitting portrait of the culture of the time and the sorts of things that could happen to young teenage runaway girls, or even those who don't leave their families.

It is certainly dated, but I'm glad I read it again.

***Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Netgalley!***

The best thing that I can say about this book was that it was forgettable. The worst thing I can say about this book was that it is forgettable and pointless. The short version of this review is that these aren’t actual short stories. They are pieces of stories. Not a single one of them actually has an ending. They end, but they don’t have an ending. Even the one story that I liked just….ended with no resolution. And several of them were three paragraphs long and left me wondering what the point of even reading it was.

Add in the rampant, militant feminism that every male in the stories is a bad man, hurting women and doing terrible things and every woman needs to be avenged for the collective sins of men and I just couldn’t bear this book at all.

WARNING: Spoilers from here on out.

The one story that I enjoyed was about a couple who can’t stop thinking about the great amount of noise their upstairs neighbors make in the middle of the night. Are they moving bodies up there? Do they own ten Great Danes? Teach midnight tap dancing? Everyone who has had upstairs neighbors knows this feeling. So it was very relatable and fun. But then it was just over. The male of the couple goes upstairs to confront the neighbors about the noise and she just keeps waiting for him to come back, the end. Very abrupt and ended right in the middle of the resolution. This made it so forgettable that it took me ten minutes to remember the premise of this story when I sat down to write this review.

There were also some fact problems with this book. For example, the story about the Sabine women. I am familiar with the story and I am familiar with the varying interpretations of the story over the years. Basically soldiers from Rome invade the city of Sabine killing all the men and taking the women as war trophies to rape and force into marriage. It was a fine story but when the Roman soldiers invade Sabine the women cry out to the goddess Demeter for assistance. Why? Demeter is a fierce goddess to be sure and a great defender of women, but she’s also a Greek goddess. Five minutes on Google will tell you that Sabine was part of the Roman empire in, what is now, Italy. So why would they be crying out in anguish for a Greek goddess’ assistance? That made zero sense and took away from the story.

Also, none of the women actually have to take responsibility for their actions in these stories. Men are bad and women cannot have freedom or happiness until men are eradicated from the world. That’s the main premise of every story in the book. Even when you are living with someone who is obviously mentally ill, has proclaimed themselves a messiah and is planning a massive murder/suicide plot….just blame him for your decision to stay with him and complain that he just abandoned you for his delusions. Don’t try to intervene to get him help or anything, let him go along with his plan but bitch about it every step of the way because obviously he’s the bad guy. Where’s the accountability? Where’s the compassion to try and get someone who you love the help that they obviously need? No, he’s obviously the bad guy and the poor woman doesn’t have to take any accountability for her choices. This is just one example out of many.

Some of the stories even stretch plausibility to the breaking point to make men the bad guy. At one point a girl just randomly happens on the janitor from school abducting her friend and fights to free her. It didn’t fit the story at all and was so unexpected that I just couldn’t get there. I almost thought about abandoning the book at that point because it was nonsensical and only happened to make janitor guy a monster. Or the story about a historical woman who helped her husband achieve greatness while remaining in the darkness herself, despite being more accomplished. This should have been a fascinating story to tell. But instead we got two women joking over text messages about how religion is ridiculous and men are stupid. With almost those exact childish words. Really? I’m supposed to take these women seriously when you paint them as immature children?

At the end of the day I will have forgotten about this book by tomorrow because it was just that pointless.