How My August 2024 Went

Wow oh wow, I did not mean to ignore this post for a month after it was supposed to be originally shared. Life is a bit busy right now, but hopefully I can get these posts back on track!

September is partially drafted, so that may be in another week or so. October has been a pretty busy month, so no shock there that I’m more behind.

• books
• tv shows/movies
• music
• orders

Daily Life

All this feels like a lifetime ago, but let’s get into August!

August 6: Darby had his bi-annual wellness check-up! He has lost some weight and now weighs 39 pounds! I’m proud of the 3 pounds he’s lost since we were there in February. The vet, not so much impressed.

We celebrated with a pup cup from Dunkin’ afterward!

August 11: We celebrated Darby’s 3rd birthday early with some furriends! I can’t believe that I messed up the date to the cake lady, but she was amazing and was still able to fulfill my order within 24 hours!

Unfortunately, he did not get in the pool, but you could really tell that he wanted to. It was the perfect day to have the party! It wasn’t scorching outside that weekend.

We got to celebrate with Birdy, Goose, Watson, Mochi, and Meeko! Honey and Waffles weren’t able to come, and Dobby’s mom got the date of the party mixed up. Mochi and Meeko were last-minute invites since they live in Clarksville and they so happened to be visiting Nashville that weekend!

August 16: Off to Kingsport for a short family visit! Levi’s 4th birthday party was the next day. His birthday party was at Cooper’s Gem Mine on the 17th.

It’s in a random, secluded area in Blountville. I’d recommend going. Us adults had fun sifting for gems! Our bucket didn’t have much, but some of the little kids had better luck, which is good for them, but I love rocks!!

I’ll eventually make a reel and share it here, but I bought this cute little gem tree from the gift shop!

For dinner, we ate at Texas Roadhouse.

The rolls were inhaled. The bloomin’ onion was delicious, as were the ribs.

Whenever I got back home, I found gemstones I’ve gotten whenever I was younger from Tweetsie Railroad and the Rainforest Cafe!

August 31: I went to Clarksville to visit Kelli and Alexis! We went for coffee flights at Wesbrooks Coffee and had Indian food for dinner.

Books

• The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
  • synopsis: Christina Lauren, returns with a delicious new romance between the buttoned-up heir of a grocery chain and his free-spirited artist ex as they fake their relationship in order to receive a massive inheritance.
    
    Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.
    
    Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.
    
    Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.
    
    But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.
  • genres: romance, chick lit
  • rating: 4
    • Suspended lots of belief, but this was a nice light read!
    • My cousin’s mom’s name is Anna Green(e), so that was kind of funny to see as a character’s name.
    • Anna didn’t click with me at first, but she was fun and likable overall.
    • More of the review since I’m attempting to write a Goodreads review for each book I read, starting now, and so I don’t have to write things twice!

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cliché sibling dynamic with Liam and his siblings. Felt a little eh about it. At first, wasn’t sure if I jived with Anna, but she grew on me and felt like a good friend overall.

A ruse that wouldn’t work in the real world, but it was fun in this fictional novel. I’m a mood killer because I was not a fan of the amount of slang in this. At least the book was non-serious in naming the children after former presidents, but ew.

I, too, wish I were fake married to a nice billionaire’s son for student housing and we’d end up falling for one another. Thus, I could pursue my passion of writing like Anna could draw to her heart’s content.

View all my reviews

• All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers
  • synopsis: Everyone from Wakarusa, Indiana, remembers the case of January Jacobs, who was found dead in a ditch hours after her family awoke to find her gone. Margot Davies was six at the time, the same age as January—and they were next-door neighbors. In the twenty years since, Margot has grown up, moved away, and become a big-city journalist, but she’s always been haunted by the fear that it could’ve been her. And the worst part is, January’s killer has never been brought to justice.
    
    When Margot returns home to help care for her sick uncle, it feels like walking into a time capsule. Wakarusa is exactly how she remembered: genial, stifled, secretive. Then news breaks about five-year-old Natalie Clark from the next town over, who’s gone missing under eerily similar circumstances. With all the old feelings rushing back, Margot vows to find Natalie and solve January’s murder once and for all.
    
    But the police, the family, the townspeople—they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie’s disappearance, the more resistance she encounters, and the colder January’s case feels. Could the killer still be out there? Could it be the same person who kidnapped Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night?
    
    In the propulsive debut novel from the host of the #1 true crime podcast “Crime Junkie,” a journalist uncovers her hometown’s dark secrets when she becomes obsessed with the unsolved murder of her childhood neighbor—and the disappearance of another girl twenty years later.
  • genres: mystery, crime, thriller, suspense
  • rating: 3.5

All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, my newly decided mid-year goal is to leave at least three sentences on every Goodreads review. This will be my first one, and maybe I’ll go back and fill in my previous reads. Maybe.

I haven’t looked up the specifics of JonBenét Ramsey’s case, but I noticed the similarities, as did others writing reviews who are familiar with the case. It didn’t click with me until the pageant details regarding January.

Anyway, there were lots of unanticipated twists. What really lowered the rating was due to the fate of one character being up in the air. WHY?! I’m not a fan of open-ended books. I’d like to believe the character lives, but I’m not sure if the odds were in their favor.

In a small town, that would definitely look suspicious if they end up dying. This is your cliché Christian small town where everyone knows everyone’s business and no resident would harm a soul.

I’m glad the main murderer is finally discovered and how the suspicion was placed on different people throughout the book to keep me guessing.

Overall, not bad, but the ending is unsatisfactory, and even ironic. I’d read another book by this author. It kept me hooked.

View all my reviews

• Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
  • synopsis: The story of the heart can never be unwritten.
    
    Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away.
    
    But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy’s entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother…only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.
    
    Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy’s decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.
    
    Love, loss, friendship, and the betrayals of the past all collide in this first fiction novel from New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Autoboyography, Dating You / Hating You).
  • genres: romance, chick lit, coming of age
  • rating: 3.5

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars, rounded up, I think.

So I saw that a lot of people compared this book to Carly Fortune’s debut novel, and it’s been a while since I read it, but I don’t think they were that similar. It’s been like a year of so since I read that book, so I may be blanking on stuff, but I actually liked that book better than this one.

The characters as teens acted too old and mature, and honestly, you could’ve told me their dialogue was in the present timeline and I would’ve believed you.

Sorry, but Lisa Unger ruined “solar plexus” for me forever, and I just can’t imagine someone saying this in a sentence IRL.

Elliot’s side of the story sounds super questionable and borders on assault, so I wasn’t a fan of that.

What dad would let their teenage daughter drive at midnight on new year’s!? My parents would not.

I wasn’t as emotionally tied to this book, but maybe that’s due to the hype and because I read Every Summer After first and it spoke to me more.

Overall, not a bad book by this duo, but it wasn’t my favorite.

View all my reviews

• The Last to Vanish by Megan Miranda
  • synopsis: New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda returns with a gripping and propulsive thriller that opens with the disappearance of a journalist who is investigating a string of vanishings in the resort town of Cutter’s Pass—will its dark secrets finally be revealed?
    
    Ten years ago, Abigail Lovett fell into a job she loves, managing The Passage Inn, a cozy, upscale resort nestled in the North Carolina mountain town of Cutter’s Pass. Cutter’s Pass is best known for its outdoor offerings—rafting and hiking, with access to the Appalachian trail by way of a gorgeous waterfall—and its mysterious history. As the book begins, the string of unsolved disappearances that has haunted the town is once again thrust into the spotlight when journalist Landon West, who was staying at the inn to investigate the story of the vanishing trail, then disappears himself.
    
    Abby has sometimes felt like an outsider within the community, but she’s come to view Cutter’s Pass as her home. When Landon’s brother Trey shows up looking for answers, Abby can’t help but feel the town closing ranks. And she’s still on the outside. When she finds incriminating evidence that may bring them closer to the truth, Abby soon discovers how little she knows about her coworkers, neighbors, and even those closest to her.
    
    Megan Miranda brings her best writing to The Last to Vanish, a riveting thriller filled with taut suspense and shocking twists that will keep you guessing until the very end.
  • genres: mystery, crime, suspense, thriller
  • rating: 3

The Last to Vanish by Megan Miranda
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dreadfully slow start. It took me several days to get through the first 100 pages of the book. Around the middle of the book, things got twisty and interesting. There was a bombshell I didn’t expect, although one was due to the main character with secrets of her own. Kind of suspected the murderer and was sad to find out who it was.

Abby is an outsider who tries to prove to the insiders that she is an insider after living in the small community for 10 years. Lots of kept secrets and fierce loyalty.

Not sure if Megan Miranda is for me, but I keep giving her books a chance.

View all my reviews

• The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
• synopsis: Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.
  
  As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn’t go as planned. Esme’s lessons in love seem to be working…but only on herself. She’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection
  
  With Esme’s time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he’s been wrong all along. And there’s more than one way to love.
• genres: chick lit, temporary romance, autistic spectrum disorder
• rating: 4

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a quick, light read for me. I enjoyed Esme as a character, and Khai’s POV was decent. Crazy storyline, but it was a fun reading experience.

I really rooted for Esme given her circumstance, and I was satisfied with how the book ends. I’m surprised by how well Khai reacted toward the secret she kept all summer, but I’m glad this had an all-around happy ending.

Khai had a lot to unpack. He eventually learned and figured out how to navigate his emotions to finally be able to express how he truly felt about Esme.

I’ve now read all three of Hoang’s books, and this one is not as steamy as The Kissing Quotient. I think this one was the least steamy of the three, IMO.

View all my reviews

• On a Night Like This by Lindsey Kelk
  • synopsis: It only takes one night to fall in love…
    
    Within days of wishing she could change her life, Fran Cooper is acting assistant to a celebrity, on a yacht in the Mediterranean, and en route to a tiny Italian island and the glittering Crystal Ball, along with the world’s rich and famous.
    
    When she – quite literally – bumps into a handsome American called Evan, a man able to keep his cool in the face of chaos, the magic really begins.
    
    Evan makes her a promise: no last names, no life stories, just one unforgettable night. Yet Evan belongs at the Crystal Ball and Fran is a gatecrasher. They may be soulmates, but their homes are an ocean apart, and their lives a world apart. They’ll never meet again – unless, on a night like this, everything can change forever…
  • genres: chick lit, Cinderella retelling
  • rating: 4

On a Night Like This by Lindsey Kelk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rating it 4 stars due to all the name dropping! Wasn’t a fan of that, but the book kept my attention.

The synopsis is a little misleading to me, to the point where I was worried about cheating, but there was no physical cheating.

To be fair, Fran’s fiancé, Stew, is a cheater and sucks, so I wouldn’t blame Fran since their relationship was practically dead before the Crystal Ball event.

Anyway, this was a light, fun read that I enjoyed. Fran was too nice to defend her VIP client, and she attracted way too much attention to herself at the ball, but that’s what drove the plot for a story.

Fran was funny, and Evan was charming. He was totally a man written by a woman. I wanted more from his character, but Fran had a lot of her life to sort out.

I would love for another book to see how Fran navigated her new relationship since Evan’s world is so different from hers!

View all my reviews

• The List by Yomi Adegoke
  • synopsis: Ola Olajide, a celebrated journalist at Womxxxn magazine, is set to marry the love of her life in one month. She and her fiancé Michael are considered the “couple goals” of their social network and seem to have it all—that is, until one morning when they both wake up to the same message: “Oh my god, have you seen The List?”  
    
    It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list—she’d retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time Michael’s name is on it.
  • genres: mystery, thriller, feminism
  • rating: 4

The List by Yomi Adegoke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the unspoiled:

This was a powerful book to read, and it really got me thinking what i’d do in Ola’s situation because it put her in a tight spot, especially considering her career. Ola being in this situation forced her to look at things differently because if Michael’s name wasn’t on The List, she would’ve been allll over that and scorning any partners of the accused people who chose to stay with them.

The story is told from Ola’s and Michael’s points of view, which added more depth and power to the situation. As a reader, I got to see how Ola’s and Michael’s friends reacted once The List was made public.

To be in Ola’s shoes and find out the man she’s supposed to marry in less than a month is accused of assault and other things, especially after spending nearly thirty thousand dollars on the wedding, that is devastating. Honestly, I think I would do the same as she did in the story.

Michael’s chapters made me less empathetic for him as things went on since he was not the best partner to Ola or toward women whenever he was younger.

Now, the very last chapter is the real bombshell and changes things. I ended up feeling even worse for Ola and even a little bit for Michael.

There is a lot going on with this book, and it went on a bit longer than I think was necessary, but I was hooked on the story overall to see how it would end.

————

Spoiled/those who have read:

(view spoiler)[To learn that Michael’s name is only on The List because of a past hookup’s partner put him on it is such a good but horrible reveal!!

That changes nearly everything. Can’t forget that Michael was a disgusting partner, as we learned, but it seemed like he truly loved Ola and was trying to be the partner she deserved, which made me have some hope for him.

I’m a little conflicted on him still since he never came clean about his and Jackie’s relationship the second time it happened.

It’s great that those who were guilty of what they were accused for were called out, but the fact that anyone could add a name without it being true is so dangerous.

I think Ola and Michael could’ve made it work if The List was never made public, honestly. He seemed to be doing better, but the company he keeps is a little iffy. He needed to drop Armani. Many Seun, too, but his character didn’t input much.

Learning about one character’s suicide was sad, but that made the plot more believable when accusations like that are thrown around. (hide spoiler)]

View all my reviews

TV Shows/Movies

Can’t recall starting anything new, so please send recommendations on what to watch!

Music

“Sorry Mom”

Short n’ Sweet (2024 )— Sabrina Carpenter

F-1 Trillion (Long Bed) (2024) — Post Malone

Orders

Don’t think I ordered worth noting this month, so that is all!

Sorry for being such a bore for this post. September was also crazy for me, but I’ll try to be more detailed in that post!