Crazy Rich Asians

jacqui_monet
February 22, 2019

Title: Crazy Rich Asians

Author: Kevin Kwan

Series: Crazy Rich Asians, number 1

Genre: Adult/ Romance/ International

Pages: 546

I  enjoyed this book a lot. It was a pretty quick read and I appreciated that the author used authentic slang from the different languages that the characters speak and included a glossary for those terms and them bottom of each page.

Even though many of the characters come from obscene amounts of money, they still felt like real human beings. None of the characters were “all good” or “all bad” which tends to happen in these types of stories. Everyone had their own motivations, hopes and dreams. There were also a ton of characters, so I liked that the author titled the chapters with the character whose POV we were experiencing.

I’m definitely going to read the rest of the trilogy and watch the film.

Ratings

Plot: 3/5          Characters: 5/5          Ease of Reading: 5/5

Taking The Stage Book Review

jacqui_monet
September 5, 2016

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Title: Taking The Stage

Author: Paige Parsons

Series: n/a (well, not yet anyway)

Genre: Romance, Interracial Romance (BWWM)

Pages: 134

Taking the Stage is the debut novel of Paige Parsons and I have to say I loved every second of it. I’ve never read a romance novel with the intention of  sharing my experience with the public, but I’ve decided to go for it anyway. You know, why not?! That being said, let’s jump right in to it.

This book centers around the working and personal relationships of stage manager Robyn (Roby) Rose and her director Joseph (don’t-call-him-Joey) Davis. Roby has moved back to her home state of Arizona because she suffered a massive personal blow; she caught her husband with his head between the legs of a hot young teacher. Considering that he was the principle of the school that both women worked at, he’s lucky there wasn’t a messy lawsuit along with professional embarrassment. Roby, however, stuck it out for the rest of the school year and then bounced which is more than I can say for myself, I honestly would have walked right out of his office never to be seen or heard from again.

Anyway, after a few weeks or so in good old AZ, Roby is settling into a new apartment and is handed a job at a theatre in town. Roby is chronically late to everything which drives Joseph crazy. He wants to resolve the problem and gives her a choice: 1) every minute late will be docked from her pay or 2) each minute results in a swat. A SWAT!! As in, spanking. There is spanking in this book! At first I thought, “Mm sounds like a sexual harassment lawsuit to me,” because well, he is her boss. But as the book went on I became okay with it  because the spanking wasn’t sexualized. What was sexy though, was the dialogue and their inner monologues about each other. I could feel the sexual tension between them as the story progressed. Throughout the novel, our potential lovers deal with family, meddling mentors and an old flame come back to town in the form of a desperately needed leading actress.

Now, I know I listed above that Taking the Stage is an interracial romance novel but I didn’t really touch on it. In all honesty, the book doesn’t either. The most we get is the occasional description of her skin comparing her to chocolate, which I hate! Why are black characters always described in conjunction with food? Ugh. We don’t describe white characters as mashed potato colored. Anyway, I did like that race never came up. Roby’s blackness is never used against her nor is Joseph’s whiteness used against him. Seriously, I loved that this is a modern story and that race just isn’t an issue.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Once I got past the um “original” spellings of Roby’s sisters’ names, Taking the Stage ended up being a very quick read. In fact, I wish the book had been a little bit longer; I could stand to know a little bit more about what happened between Joseph and his ex. But when all is said and done, this novel was fun and sexy and full of accurate theatre lingo. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone, especially my theatre friends.

Check the links below to get this e-book for yourself!

https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Stage-Paige-Parsons-ebook/dp/B01IWQEP3G#nav-subnav

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/taking-the-stage-paige-parsons/1124141693?type=eBook

Fireworks and Tea Parties

jacqui_monet
August 5, 2016

Okay, so I went to Broken Bow, Oklahoma to visit The Husband’s family and man was it something else. Now B-Bow, as they call it, is one of those towns that’s so small you have to continually zoom in on  google maps and even then you might give up before you find it. It’s the type of place where you wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t lock their doors and people literally “drive in to town”.  At night it pitch black because they don’t have street lights and the bugs try to murder your ankles. It’s a nearly 19 hour drive from where I live, but it’s totally worth it!

While there I saw fireworks and had the chance to shoot them off for the first time. Where I live, it’s totally illegal to do that. I totally freaked out because I just knew I was going to catch my hair on fire; it didn’t help that I witnessed a kid accidentally shoot my Father-in-Law in the face with a bottle rocket. The Husband and I did take time for ourselves, though, at the local library and a tiny coffee shop called Adam and Eve (which totally had a better Caramel Macchiato than Starbucks).

cafe

I also threw a small surprise tea party for The Husband’s maternal grandmother. She loved it even though she hates surprises. I almost got a little misty-eyed when she told me she’d never had a birthday party before. Not one in her whole 78 years life! God, I was grateful that I spent hours and hours baking in my sister-in-law’s kitchen.  The party was  “girls only” which was nice because everyone was comfortable and Grandma P told us stories about her life and I couldn’t help but be thankful for the experience and the time spent with such a wonderful woman.

Look at all the food!
Look at all the food!

Enough gushing and onto the food. With a little assistance from the Mother-in-law, I made glazed croissants, scones, meat pies, individual strawberry cheesecakes, red velvet cupcakes with cutout hearts, Judy’s Trifle Cake and BLTs. I also cold brewed several flavors of green tea for a tea tasting. I don’t know about the other girls but I was a fat baby bird by the end of it!

Alright, that’s all for now. Remember, if you have a book you think I should read and review suggest it to me on my Goodreads!! https://www.goodreads.com/ReadEatDrink.

Kisses