First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"When I was eleven years old, my father decided he needed a new wall on the front of his shop. It would be a big wall: roughly twelve feet high by twenty feet long. The old wall was crumbling, and he was 'sick-o'-lookin' at it."

~ Will by Will Smith

Love Radio

"Detroit, what up doe!" ~ 3%

What initially attracted me to Love Radio was the setting: my beloved city of Detroit. Secondly, it features a main character that loves music. Last of all, the author is Michigan-born. The description says this new YA novel is Hitch meets The Sun is Also a Star. How can it not grab my interest? 

Prince is a teenage self-professed love doctor with a popular radio show. DJ Love Jones' advice on the Detroit radio station is quite popular and valued. But the true test is if he can take own advice and fall in love. Dani is a girl with a plan: graduate high school with honors, earn a scholarship and become a famous author in NYC. She is not looking for love or checking for the confident radio DJ. Dani gives Prince three dates to convince they can fall in love.

Love Radio is not just a lovesick romance among high schoolers. It also deals with heavier issues such as sexual assault and illness. Even with this balance, it follows a common road that young adult books tend to follow. There was no element of surprise but more-so running through the pages because I knew what was coming next...and it did. For this reason, well-read adults can pass on this new release; this is fit for young readers.

Happy Early Pub Day, Ebony LaDelle! Love Radio will be available Tuesday, May 31.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins.

Title: Love Radio
Author: Ebony LaDelle
Published: May 2022
Pages: 320 
Edition: Galley
Genre: YA Romance
Rating: 🖤 🖤

The Gravity of Missing Things

"The gravity of all these painful, missing things weighed me down. Way, way down." ~ 76%

Violet's mother never misses her performances. So why isn't she in the audience? Once the curtain closes, Violet is told heart-stopping news: Flight 133 has disappeared. Her mother is the pilot. Suddenly, social media is full of conspiracy theories, the news is on her front lawn and her priority is finding out what really happened. There is no way her mother crashed the plane on purpose. So why did her mother leave a note and box of letters behind for Violet's eyes only?

The author took a great risk in writing about a disappeared flight. We all remember the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 that disappeared in March 2014. Now we have the fictional Flight 133 that disappeared over the ocean, with no wreckage, no distress signal, no bodies. It was obvious that Marisa Urgo researched and learned the lingo while writing in a young adult voice. Very well done!

"It would've hurt far less." ~ 15%

As if the disappearance isn't a big enough plot, there are a couple captivating side stories! There is nothing like a twist that comes out of nowhere yet makes perfect sense. There was a certain point I wanted the story to move along faster but that was my own impatience at Violet finding out the truth.

I recommend the appropriately titled The Gravity of Missing Things for all Bookhearts. I savored reading it over the course of five (5) days only to have it test the definitions of closure and a satisfying ending. Yet here I am still thinking about it. This is what I call a successful debut novel!

Happy Early Pub Day, Marisa Urgo! The Gravity of Missing Things will be available Tuesday, June 7.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins.

Title: The Gravity of Missing Things
Author: Marisa Urgo
Published: June 2022
Pages: 320
Edition: Galley
Genre: YA Mystery
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 

Short Story Sunday: Sophie Dreams Big

(Southern Belle Insults #4) 

Short Story Sunday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Read a short story.
• Share your review/recommendation below.
• Include the title, author and series name.

"You feel like everyone around you is a reflection of who you have to be or that everything said wrong to you should become who you are." ~ 72%

For the last installment of this series, I chose to listen. What a treat! Keke Palmer with the narrating voice of Lady Miss was hilarious. I could just hear the confidence exude from former pushover, shy girl Janet. The new wig named Sophie brings balance into her personal and professional life. The insults were still there but gave just the right amount of push to make Janet stand on her own.

Southern Belle Insults short series marked finished! You can read or listen to these all at once too. 

Title: Sophie Dreams Big

Authors: Keke Palmer with Jasmine Guillory 
Published: November 2021
Time: 29 Minutes

Edition: Audiobook

Series: Southern Belle Insults
Genre: Humor Fiction
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 

First Lines Friday

First Lines Friday is a bookish meme hosted by Literary Marie. I encourage all of my fellow book bloggers and bookhearts to play along.

• Grab your current read(s).
• Share the first line(s).
• Include the title and author.

"There's a small wooden cross staked into the ground on the side of the road with the date of his death written on it."

~ Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover 

 

She Memes Well

"While they may look simple, memes and gifs are nuanced forms of language." pg. 25

Abbott Elementary is the funniest new sitcom. Every other line is a hoot. The characters and facial expressions are every.thing. All thanks to comedian Quinta Brunson. So I had to find out more on the person behind the show.

In this personal, and of course, funny collection of essays, Quinta focuses on trying to make it when you're broke and finding the humor in everyday life. As an added bonus, she shares classic lists of the shows, songs, movies and memes that made her into the talented woman she is today.

"Of course my expressive-ass face gave some of the best reactions." ~ pg. 95

"HE GOT MONEEEEY!" Quinta is the master of going viral and creating content to entertain the masses. She began writing and developing for BuzzFeed and producing more viral videos. Now she is gracing the pages of her debut essay collection adding "author" to her list of impressive titles. 

She Memes Well is guaranteed to make readers LOL. You should have seen the looks I got in public while reading! I highly recommend my Bookhearts add She Memes Well to TBR lists and S1 of Abbott Elementary to watch lists. Both are hilariously entertaining while addressing real issues. 

Title: She Memes Well

Author: Quinta Brunson

Published: June 2021

Pages: 218

Edition: eBook

Genre: Memoir Humor

Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤 

Real Life, Real Love

"Conversations matter." ~ 52%

RaaShaun "DJ Envy" and Gia Casey have been together for 27 years (married for 20). They've been through growing celebrity, a public cheating scandal, a miscarriage and birth of six children. In Real Life, Real Love they explore the chronology of their romance, answer questions from fans and provide a guidebook with valuable tools for relationships. It appears that nothing is off limits and everything is laid on the table for us readers to understand their love and learn from it. 

I am a daily listener of The Breakfast Club on my morning commute. Over the years, I heard tidbits of DJ Envy's relationship with Gia. He speaks with pride about his marriage and children. But not until this book did I realize the extent of their love. I praise them for being transparent about the early stages of their relationship, infidelity, career, challenges and rewards of parenting. The life lessons were abound and shared. This might be the closest we get to a cheat code, y'all.

"There's a saying that there can't be a testimony without a test, and there's always a mess before the message. We've had the tests and the messes; we can let somebody else skip that part." ~ 88%

Don't think of Real Life, Real Love as an entertainment love story. Don't even think of it as a memoir. I put it in the category of "Black Love For Real." The overall themes are faith and restoration. It is for every reader no matter your relationship status: single, engaged, married, divorced, dating or complicated. It was very interesting to read about the evolution of their lives from the age of 15 to present. Hopefully their lessons are music to our ears.

Happy Pub Day, DJ Envy and Gia! Real Life, Real Love is now available.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins.

Title: Real Life, Real Love: Life Lessons on Joy, Pain & The Magic That Holds Us Together
Author: RaaShaun "DJ Envy" & Gia Casey
Published: April 2022
Pages: 256
Edition: Galley
Genre: Nonfiction Relationship
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤