The Midnight Readers discussion

If someone were to ask Jasmine Santos to describe the last few years of her life with a single word, it would definitely be a four-letter one.

After seventeen years—and countless broken bones and broken promises—she knows her window to compete in figure skating is coming to a close.

But when the offer of a lifetime comes in from an arrogant idiot she’s spent the last decade dreaming about pushing in the way of a moving bus, Jasmine might have to reconsider everything.

Including Ivan Lukov.

From Lukov with Love starting July 19th!

I'm so excited to finally read this! It's been so hyped up, I'm really curious where it'll fall for me

It'll be only my second Mariana Zapata - I'm planning on reading The Best Thing this week.

I actually haven't read anything by her yet, but I also really wanna read The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by her. But everytime I looked for that the copies were super expensive lol

Quinty (Taylor's Version) wrote: "I actually haven't read anything by her yet, but I also really wanna read The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by her. But everytime I looked for that the copies were super expensive lol"

My library is getting copies of her more popular books, including TWoWaM. Also Lingus, Under Locke, a few others...

I think some of her books are on Kindle Unlimited if you have it:
Kulti
Wait for It
From Lukov with Love
Luna and the Lie
The Best Thing

My ereader is a Kobo, so no Kindle Unlimited for me. And also the Kobo subscription sucks here in the Netherlands, so don't have that either lol. I personally also just like owning my books, so haven't gone to the library in years... but back when I did, I remember there being very little English books and overall just not very popular ones. I think that may just be because I'm in a non-English speaking country though haha

Quinty (Taylor's Version) wrote: "My ereader is a Kobo, so no Kindle Unlimited for me. And also the Kobo subscription sucks here in the Netherlands, so don't have that either lol. I personally also just like owning my books, so hav..."

Maybe there's a way I can share my US Libby accounts with you! You could get ebooks and audiobooks in English.

Thank you for the offer but that's okay!! I've bought so many books, it'll probably take me years just to get through my physical tbr lol

We still good to start this tomorrow? And how much do you want to read per day?

I’m good to start tomorrow! Just finished a few other BRs so I’m ready.

Looks like there are 24 chapters total so we could do 6 per day or 8 per day. Either way works for me.

6 a day works better for me. I have to work full days tomorrow and Thursday so don't want to overpromise

Quinty (Taylor's Version) wrote: "6 a day works better for me. I have to work full days tomorrow and Thursday so don't want to overpromise"

Ok! We'll finish in four days then. That sounds good.

Okay perfect! Hopefully this book ends up being good lol, I need a good romance book

So far I'm really liking it. I love that it has a bit more to the story (like a possible stalker)

Hihi! Sorry

Did you guys start today? I can catch up tmrw if you did :)

I haven’t started yet but hopefully I will tonight. I’ve got one more book to finish before this one.

Okay I’m six chapters in. (view spoiler)[ I really like how the feud between Jasmine and Ivan started for completely petty reasons. However I’m firmly anti-Ivan currently because body shaming is NOT chill, at least Jasmine is attacking things he can actually change about himself, like his shitty outfits hahaha (hide spoiler)]

Love the whole family but especially the mom

Helen 2.0 wrote: "Okay I’m six chapters in. [spoilers removed]

Love the whole family but especially the mom"

(view spoiler)[ Yes I agree with the bodyshaming! Idk how he ever thought that was okay. And the casual way her family reacted to it when she mentioned it also made me raise my eyebrows. Hopefully he does some grovelling for that lol (hide spoiler)]

Quinty (Taylor's Version) wrote: "Helen 2.0 wrote: "Okay I’m six chapters in. [spoilers removed]

Love the whole family but especially the mom"

[spoilers removed]"

Yes there better be (view spoiler)[some major groveling haha (hide spoiler)]

I cry quite easily with books but chapter 11 made me cry so much I had to take a break before reading chapter 12 lol. This book is heading towards being my second 5 star read of the year, let's hope nothing messes that up

Yeah Ch 11 was pretty emotional. I like how Zapata is dedicating so much time to digging into Jasmine’s character. I’m so used to dual POV romances that it feels odd how we know so much about Jasmine and next to nothing about what’s actually going on in Ivan’s head. But it makes him all the more intriguing and mysterious.

I liked ch 12, showing how Jasmine’s argumentative nature isn’t inherently a bad thing. I think she’s way too hard on herself. She doesn’t even seem particularly bad-tempered to me, in lots of the situations she’s been in so far I feel like I would have been way less calm and kind!! 🤣 maybe that says more about me haha

Yes I keep expecting to get an Ivan POV lol but I get why she kept it to just Jasmine. Like you said, it just shows so much more of her character. And I think it also builds up the "suspense" a little bit. Like why does Ivan know her favourite is chocolate cake or that she always eats a Hershey after a shit day?? (Probably because he's been obsessed with her since forever but still lol) And why can it only be for a year??

People are really treating Jasmine like shit and then act like she's the bad person for clapping back!! She's not bad-tempered unless she is provoked. Sure, she's not the nicest person around, but let's be real, who is

Oh my god this book is so emotional I love it

(view spoiler)[ Lukov saying they'd win gold at at the Olympics 2 years away?? Him calling her baby a couple times?? Him taking care of her while she's sick?? I'm eating this shit up. This is what I call a slow burn romance (hide spoiler)]

Yeah the slowburn is amazing. Also this section totally ended on a cliffhanger!! 😨😨

I am loving Ivan now. Though I don’t like how the main reason she’s falling in love with Ivan seems to be the fact that he’s in love with her?

I don't necessarily think the main reason she's falling in love with him is because he's in love with her. He is a steady presence in her life and always hypes her up and makes a priority, when she feels like no one else in her life has done so. I guess he indirectly treats her like that because he loves her though lol so I supposed it all comes back to the same thing.

But yes the cliffhanger!! I'm scared there are only like 80 pages or something left, I'm gonna be pissed if they don't win a medal now

I'm done and I'm in love. This is everything a romance should be

Quinty (Taylor's Version) wrote: "I'm done and I'm in love. This is everything a romance should be"

I'm so glad you loved it! I hope I get to read the rest today.

There's not much left! A lot less than we've read so far each day. There are 2 chapters that are only a page each. Overall I think yesterday's parts were the strongest, but I still really enjoyed these last pages

Okay just got done! I did love the ending. So sweet.

I had so many mixed feelings about this though. I feel like I started the book pro-Jasmine anti-Ivan and I ended the book pro-Ivan anti-Jasmine. Maybe because so much of the conflict revolved around Jasmine being insecure or upset and Ivan coming to rescue her.

I found this one a lot more engaging than the previous Mariana Zapata book I read. It was definitely good, just hit a ton of my pet peeves too.

Would you want to buddy read any of MZ’s other books? I’ve got Luna and the Lie, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, Kulti, and Wait for It on my tbr as well.

Helen 2.0 wrote: "Okay just got done! I did love the ending. So sweet.

I had so many mixed feelings about this though. I feel like I started the book pro-Jasmine anti-Ivan and I ended the book pro-Ivan anti-Jasmin..."

I agree that I started pro-Jasmine and anti-Ivan, but I definitely did not end up anti-Jasmine. I feel like she was very relatable and I guess I liked Ivan coming to her rescue so much. Like we know he didn't need to and she could have handled everything herself, but he wanted to. And I guess there's just something appealing to me about that. The book had a lot of angst though. Personally I like that, but I can see why that could get on someone's nerves. I just like angst in books because it engages me a lot more than just a book where everything's peachy and the characters are fighting over petty stuff and there aren't any real problems that need to be solved. Like Ivan and Jasmine started fighting over petty stuff, but the book wasn't about them fighting about petty stuff. It was about Jasmine almost overcoming herself and finding love on the way

Helen 2.0 wrote: "Would you want to buddy read any of MZ’s other books? I’ve got Luna and the Lie, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, Kulti, and Wait for It ..."

Yes I'd love to! I have to look into getting them first though, but I'll definitely get back to you about that

So I caved and got all of those lol. They should be arriving this week, but I probably won't have time for them until end of August at the earliest, most likely September

End of August is fine with me. Any specific one you want to start with? If I can get an audio copy of Winnipeg I'd want to start with that one, but not sure if my library will get it to me in time

Winnipeg is probably highest on my tbr but I don't have a specific preference as to which one first soI'm good with doing another one first too (or simply waiting until you get the audio copy depending on when that would be)

I'm about 5 weeks away from getting the Winnipeg audio... should we do Luna and the Lie in between? That's the one that's next on my TBR after Winnipeg. It's get reverse grumpy/sunshine which I tend to love

Unless I miscounted, I think 5 weeks from now is end of August right? The week of the 28th. That week is probably about the earliest I could do one of these between vacation and other buddyreads etc

Quinty (Taylor's Version) wrote: "Unless I miscounted, I think 5 weeks from now is end of August right? The week of the 28th. That week is probably about the earliest I could do one of these between vacation and other buddyreads etc"

Oh ok that works then!