I am extremely excited to pair all of the songs on evermore with romance novels, but I’m waiting for two things. (1) My physical cd to arrive so I can include the two bonus tracks (it has shipped!) and (2) I’m going to have to read more marriage in trouble romances before I can successfully do this! Something about evermore just really screams marriage in trouble to me, but I haven’t read quite enough. The good news is, I’m sort of reading new books again and my cd has shipped. So, sometime in January my official evermore + romance novels, parts one and two will be posted! In the meantime, Enchanted Reader is incredibly on top of things and has already made an evermore Book Tag so I thought it would be the perfect thing to tide us all over! Let’s jump into it.
willow – a book that is a masterpiece
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid will forever and always be my answer to a question like this. The audiobook is actual perfection and I am still impatiently waiting this show!!
champagne problems – a book that caught you off guard
I’m going to go with Open Book by Jessica Simpson, which I feel like I’ve talked about surprising me more than once. But for real, it caught me completely off guard how much I loved hearing her tell me her life story and how many times I would just start crying while listening to it. This one got me good.
gold rush – book with a gold cover
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert is definitely yellow rather than gold, but I have decided that counts. Plus, Take a Hint is fun and bouncy like this song’s melody.
’tis the damn season – a winter/Christmas book
I’ve read two holiday novellas this month that I really loved. The first is Missing Christmas by Kate Clayborn, which was fantastic as always. Kate is so good at writing emotions and Jasper is so buttoned up. There are all these rules, but then they get snowed in and break them. I loved it. The other is a marriage in trouble book called Home for Christmas by Brookelyn Mosley, which was just gorgeous. This couple’s little boy asked just that his parents both be with him for Christmas and they couldn’t resist, obviously. It was great. (For the record, I think Home for Christmas is actually a really good pairing with “Coney Island” in terms of ambition getting in the way of being a good partner.)
tolerate it – a problematic book
I mean, there are just so many problematic books in the world. Do we go with a book I still liked? Or a book where the problems made me want to throw it against a wall and storm away? Let’s go with the first because I like the song. I really like Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, which is problematic because the author has done this fun thing about doubling down on the representation in Eleanor and Park, which is not good representation. But I loved Fangirl.
no body, no crime – a mystery/murder investigation book
When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole is actually a good example of no body, no crime in the literal sense given that the book is a slow build where you know things are off, but can’t figure out how or why. It’s so well done. I’ve also loved this year The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware, A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh, and The Guest List by Lucy Foley.
happiness – a book about hope
I mean, in general, romance novels are about hope, but to pick a book specifically? That’s a little more challenging. However, I just reread the Forbidden Hearts series by Alisha Rai and in the acknowledgements for Hurts to Love You she talks about how she hopes this series has filled our well of hope and honestly, just yet. These books all feature flawed characters, usually with parts of their life not yet sorted out, falling back in love or in love for the first time where each character is loved for who they are as people. It’s a perfect series and I think it definitely works for a book about hope.
dorothea – a book to movie adaptation
My favorite book to movie adaptation is Crazy Rich Asians. I love the movie so much. The book was fun, but the movie is excellent. I’ve also loved the adaptation of Little Women we got recently (2019, right??) and Perks of Being a Wallflower is a much better movie than book. Honestly, I’d even rather watch the 2005 Pride and Prejudice than re-read the book even though it’s one of my favorites.
coney island – a book that brings back memories
Tell me why my mind just went blank. Are books linked to memories? Yes, 100%, hence my 29 Books that Influenced Me post. But let’s see, linked to memories… We read The Westing Game in my gifted class in 4th grade and I absolutely loved it. It will always remind me of 4th grade gifted, even though I’m the weirdest student and remember more about what we learned that year than I do about who was in class with me.
ivy – a book you can’t help but love (guilty pleasure read)
I say I don’t really believe in guilty pleasures as a concept, but tbh, my obsession with Christine Feehan’s Torpedo Ink series is actually pretty much exactly that. I don’t know what it is about those books, but I read three back to back last month and loved the first one. I’m now looking forward to the next one. Like, just sign me up for the really interesting and problematic plots. I can’t seem to resist!
cowboy like me – a book you didn’t expect to love but did
I don’t tend to read books I don’t think I’ll love, but I did pick up Love Her or Lose Her by Tessa Bailey despite not really loving her writing in the past. I picked up Love Her or Lose Her though because it’s a marriage in trouble book that my library had available and it absolutely swept me up and I adored it.
long story short – a short book (under 300 pages)
My favorite novellas this year, aside from the two I mentioned as Christmas books, were Undone by Olivia Dade and Guarding Temptation by Talia Hibbert. Neither of these are particularly surprising because both of these authors are among my favorite.
marjorie – a biography
I don’t really do biographies, in general, but I do read a lot of memoirs. Aside from Open Book, my other favorite memoirs are Hunger by Roxane Gay, We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union, and Becoming by Michelle Obama. The first two have content warnings related to sexual assault you may want to look into more before reading and both of them also made me cry. Becoming is just narrated by Michelle, who I love, and I got to feel like she was telling me about her life, which I loved.
closure – favorite last book in a series
Wildfire by Ilona Andrews even though technically speaking the series kept going, this book did wrap up the original Nevada trilogy and it did it SO WELL. (Tbh, I mostly thought of ends of book series I don’t love though, so that’s annoying.)
evermore – a book that was painful to get through
Painful as in made me cry? Or painful as in so bad I was struggling to get through it? I’m going with the first and I’m 100% sure the hardest I’ve ever cried reading a book remains The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord. The end of that book actually broke me.
This was fun! What’s your favorite song on evermore? Mine is “Long Story Short,” which I am obsessed with. It’s closely followed by “’tis the damn season.”
xx
firewhiskeyreader 