The love of my life by Rosie Walsh
Goodreads blurb: I have held you at night for ten years and I didn’t even know your name. We have a child together. A dog, a house.Who are you?Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she’s told them about herself is a lie.
And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer; Emma a well-known marine biologist. When she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real.
When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . .
But first, she must tell him about the other love of her life.
my take: 4.5 out of 5. I did not know what to expect with this book at the beginning and the first 5-10% of the book its sweet yet underwhelming. But once the story gets going, its good, tis really good. I did not predict half of what was happening. Also the love stories are beautiful, such good relationship description and the characters are awesome, flawed but ones you want to root for throughout the book. I read this in a day and loved it, highly suggest you do the same.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Goodreads blurb: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
This is an ARC review thanks to a gift from the publisher, the book comes out July 5th, 2022
My take: 4.5 out of 5. This was a book I was not supposed to like. I do not like video games, I actually kind of dislike them. However this book got me hooked. It is not about gaming, it is a book about lives, relationships and what makes us whole. What our passions are and how life gets in the way for better or for worse. Life is a game and we are just players. two of my favorite quotes from the book stem from that:
- ” And this is the truth of any game – it can only exist at the moment that it is being played. It is the same as being an actor. In the end all we can ever know is the game that was played in the only world that we know”
- What is a game? .. its tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Its the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent
I loved the characters, i loved the supporting characters and the descriptions are so vivid they came alive in my head. I actually felt i know how the games were and again I don’t even play games (save for my daily wordle and solitaire adventures)
Why doesn’t it get a full 5 rating – it did go a bit long, the whole inside the game section at the end was a bit tedious and it just made me want to fast read. Also i wanted an epilogue – I want to know more! all this talk and we get an ambiguous ending. I admire the poetic beauty of it but tell me what happened!
The Road trip by Beth O’Leary
Goodreads blurb: Addie and her sister are about to embark on an epic road trip to a friend’s wedding in the north of Scotland. The playlist is all planned and the snacks are packed. But, not long after setting off, a car slams into the back of theirs. The driver is none other than Addie’s ex, Dylan, who she’s avoided since their traumatic break-up two years earlier. Dylan and his best mate are heading to the wedding too, and they’ve totalled their car, so Addie has no choice but to offer them a ride. The car is soon jam-packed full of luggage and secrets, and with three hundred miles ahead of them, Dylan and Addie can’t avoid confronting the very messy history of their relationship… Will they make it to the wedding on time? And, more importantly… is this really the end of the road for Addie and Dylan?
My take: 2.5 out of 5. This was al most a DNF for me. However I was already at 50% and felt i was too invested. Maybe it was because I was listening to the audiobook? i dont know, it took a while to get through it because I would not get hooked. At the end o the day I really did not care about Addie or Dylan or any of the characters. Maybe about Marcus because he was just so wrong at least he was interesting. The dual narrative, which I usually love just did not do it for me here. It is highly disappointing as I really enjoyed her previous books The Flatshare and the Switch, but this one is a miss for me.
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