84 books like Forever...

First off, it’s set in the 80s. This is my generation. No smartphones. No social media. Just pure teenage angst.

Mostly, I love the back-and-forth conversation and inner thoughts of Eleanor and Park. Rowell nails the authenticity of teens. Their strange humor and insecurities. I want to throw my arms around them and shelter them from the cruel bullies haunting them.

Rowell sucks you into their lives, and it feels so real and raw that you remember the wonder and horror of your own teenage years. The dialogue is rich in its realness, and the tender little moments between Eleanor and Park are precious.

Honestly, this book crushed me, but in the most beautiful way possible.

It taught me that love can be found in the most unexpected places, even when faced with life's harshest realities. This narrative made me appreciate the small but significant moments in life, a lesson I try to convey in my own writing.

Water for Elephants was a book I went into not knowing what to expect! It was another recommendation from my mom and she was so right!

I love watching people fall in love, especially when I’ve had my own trials and tribulations in relationships! Jacob and Marlena are such a testament to true love triumphing over everything, and that is my number one reason for suggesting this book!

It also gives an incredible depiction of the Great Depression. Because of this book, I came away with a better understanding of my grandparents’ childhood struggles.

Maddy (a biracial black Asian teen) suffers from a rare illness that has made her allergic to literally everything! A modern-day “bubble girl,” the illness has kept her confined in her house for 15 years, her only company being her mom and her nurse. But when hot new neighbour Olly moves in across the street everything changes. Maddy falls in love and vows to leave the house and sneak away with Olly…cue the huge plot twist! No spoilers from me, but you will want to race to the end. Oh, and beware of the movie version, classic example of “the book was better.”

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen-­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, observing her broken body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces—to figure out what she’s lost and what she has left. If I Stay carefully walks the line on being an afterlife story because Mia is suspended--caught between life and death. But we’re suspended too, waiting for her to decide. I love books with tough choices, stories where there are no right or wrong answers, just decisions. This one is perfectly imperfect.

“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.”

Gemma James hooked me at the title—Swallow Me Whole—and delivered on the naughty bits, dirty lies, and BDSM/dark vibe.

This friends-to-lovers trope made me want to high-five Sadie for having the guts to go for it with Ashton, and to kick the men in her life to the curb who won’t support her independence. 

What I really like is that the initial “arrangement” between Sadie and Ashton hits on the perfect note of hot and intriguing as hell. Clever quips between characters offer a comic relief that shows they’re into each other way beyond sex. 

There’s actually a great plot that unfolds where the reader will root for Ashton’s evolution into the man who allows Sadie the freedom to find who she’s meant to be: a confident, sexy woman. 

Kitty King does not play when it comes to writing erotica. It’s dark AF, featuring domination/submission and BDSM.
Red Night: Xavier’s Delight had more twists and turns than a mountain road, plus plenty of kinky sex. While I didn’t really like Xavier or his lover Marissa, their disturbing love dance left me wondering whether either one was a redeemable character.

What intrigued me the most was their codependent/narcissistic love affair—degrading, terrifying, and loving. I wasn’t sure whether to root for Marissa’s honesty to self and her eventual realization of Xavier’s motivation, or Xavier’s hot-and-cold nature. His impressively-described tool helped keep this reader attached to the story (just sayin’…).

The brilliance of this dark erotic piece: a sexy dichotomy between wanting what is safe and wanting what might destroy you. 

This book was a perfect combination of on-the-edge-of-my-seat sexy and tug-at-my-heartstrings romantic.

The author created phenomenal dialogue between Fisher and Reese, so good, in fact, that their flirting was almost as hot as their eventual hookups. I really did adore this story for the plot twists that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Reese’s growth into a confident young woman who stopped thinking about how things were just happening to her and took control to make the things she wanted to happen was remarkable; their second-chance love story with all the sexy feels was exactly the heart-mind turn-on I had hoped it would be.

The best part? The effortless way Fisher and Reese not only fell in love with each other but loved their tribe, too. It made me feel just really good to be a part of this story.  

The subtitle to Robert Sullivan’s The Meadowlands is Wilderness Adventures on the Edge of a City, and it’s Sullivan’s adventures exploring the vast New Jersey wetlands that make the book so entertaining. But Sullivan is right to use the word “wilderness” to describe the 32 square miles of swamp, landfills, and rusting industrial debris along the Hackensack River where it flows into Newark Bay just five miles from the Empire State Building in New York City. Like the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, the Meadowlands have been abused and degraded for centuries but also show the resilience of nature and how people’s attitudes toward it have changed. “Now it is a good place to see a black-crowned night heron or a pied-bill grebe or eighteen species of ladybugs,” Sullivan writes, “even if some of the waters these creatures fly over can oftentimes be the color of antifreeze.” Sullivan’s loving description… show more.

What is it like to be a thief? I picked up Ghostman after writer Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) joked on Facebook that the book taught her how to rob a casino. This exciting story does that and much more. The protagonist is forced to untangle a caper gone FUBAR and then disappear without a trace. Through multiple twists and backstabbings, readers learn the fine points of pulling off grand thefts and long cons, the tricks and trials of becoming a permanent “ghost.” The information is offered seamlessly, with no jarring breaks from action or characterization. In my opinion, there’s never been a better heist novel, though its sequel, Vanishing Games, comes close. (Sadly, Hobbs died when he was only 26, leaving behind no additional manuscripts.)