Helen > Recent Status Updates

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher and author for this e-arc!
I’m finding this to be the kind of story I enjoy however so far there have been a few words that have been repeated a lot which I’m finding slightly annoying and it makes fun of cats which I always hate so we'll see what I think of this

I’m really enjoying the writing and general voice of Scarlett however there are a lot of rude comments that she’s making disguised as “jokes” which I obviously hate. The book has good humor and interesting references so it can do so much better and mean, offensive jokes are never okay

I love Christine but her last two books haven’t been my favorite but this one is really entertaining me, I’ve actually been laughing!

How has Harriet the Spy been mentioned twice already

I wasn’t having a great day yesterday and this book was one of the few things that helped pick me up

Fuck cheaters fr (especially at Christmas)

Sally Rooney mention!!!

This has been so heartbreaking

Really weird and wrong of fizzy to pressure Connor about coming in to have sex when he said no

I’ve really been enjoying this!! It’s been fun and I love a Cinderella story of a woman falling into money in the most random and “I’m so happy for you and I wish that happened to both of us” way. The scene where west showed up and told her everything has been my favorite so far! I really hope I like this book

“When am I going to musically assault you?” Oh my god ew

THIS GUY IS CREEPY!! He just met her and he’s like “say this is a date” constantly!! You have no reason to be entitled to a date, there’s literally no history whatsoever like I really don’t get it her last series was so good but this one…? And I feel Ike if she’s mentioned her fiancé that has passed several times he should maybe ask some more questions or wait a little while to see where she’s at with that

Romance books have such a weird relationship with consent. Everyone’s wondering why Adrien didn’t kiss Vanessa back when first of all she was drunk!!! Obviously he shouldn’t have kissed her!!! Second, maybe he just didn’t want to!!! Even if someone likes you they may simply not want to kiss you for many reasons! I can understand how in the moment it can be upsetting but once you think about it he did the right thing

So far sooo bad!!!
How did Abby Jimenez write Part of Your World, Yours Truly and Just for the Summer and this???? This is kind of creepy and not funny and her friend doesn’t like her boyfriend because he likes different parties than she does?? Huh?? And there’s a lot of military discussion which I don’t like in my books

Reading those top few lines made me go full feral. Like “it’s different now” “because she has a boyfriend?” noooo stop, five stars for that alone

I’m 18 pages in and this book has already changed my life

I got an arc of this book from a bookstore a while ago and am hopefully getting to it now

And her brother fighting in Afghanistan got engaged. A lot is happening but she’s also trying to find herself but she doesn’t have anyone who really believes in her. She says she wants to be a writer but her coworker doesn’t seem convinced or not enough to let her touch hawthornes desk. I could feel her need to be wanted
3.8 stars
Very creeped out by Ted though, what was his deal??

The Wayside was home to several famous authors, their life happened at her workplace but what about her own? And life did happen, she got to experience some responsibility by doing a tour on her own, she saw a coworker in the midst of a breakdown and called an ambulance, the creepy man at work slept with her which was horrifying especially since he knew her age, fuck Ted! Her and Julie spent less time together

The Wayside is the last story here and follows the summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college of our main character who is mostly watching life happen and wonders how life can happen to her. Er friend Julie has life happen to her but she also realizes she doesn’t know how to make life happen to her or what that would mean to her.

When Chris left the bar the woman’s girlfriend hits her (hard) and her friends are all holding her back. Chris sits down and recounts what happened and how “It felt good, it felt like justice.” Which was an interesting line. I think this story was about how people don’t know how to bond, she’ll take a class on it but doesn’t know how to implement it. I mostly liked this story
3.8 stars

This girl, Wendy, is always telling the main character about their class assignments and one night the main character leaves a bar and sees Wendy who had been working on flash cards fora test they have the next day and the mc, Chris, forgot about. They go to Wendy’s house to study since Chris asked and they hook up but it didn’t satisfy either of them. Chris goes to a bar and talked, maybe more, with a girl with a gf

“Human Bonding” follows a woman taking a human Bo ding class in college. She’s a senior from what I could remember and is only just now taking this credit, we’ve all been there. There’s a freshman in her class though who very much looks like a freshman and our character borrows a pen from her since she’s one of those students who color coordinates her notes so she has many to choose from.

First Aid speaks about this girls struggle with self harm, I don’t have much to say about it but I think the way it was told was interesting
1.5 stars

The Lunatic Report while not a great name is my other favorite story. This girl doesn’t entirely understand what goes on in that area of the hospital but she meets someone and she wants to help her only to find out that her situation is more complicated and what they both thought this patient needed wasn’t really what was needed. Difficult to describe my feelings for it but I liked it
4 stars

Unattached was an interesting one and it took me a while to realize that she somehow levitated into this tree while running and I don’t really understand what this story was meaning to say. Was it saying that there’s nothing to ground her and she feels directionless? Maybe
2.5 stars

How to Wait discusses a woman married to a man in the military and the sense that they are drifting apart and how she’s so worried for him. This was one of the shortest stories and I think it could have been even a little bit longer
2 stars

When she sees the look on this woman’s face she realizes, or at least feels, that everyone has been lying to her about her speech and all the things they said she could do. This was a heartbreaking story because of the truth in it, you can see why the girl would want to run out and be by herself but you can also believe that someone would look at her the way she was looked at and her knowing what her look meant
3

The Portrait was definitely an interesting story detailing the experience of a deaf little girl and how protective her mother is and running out while her mother is in the washroom at the museum where she is approached by a woman wanting to help her since she looks lost only to find out that she is deaf and visibly thinks less of her. The girl had also been taking speech lessons that she doesn’t like

None of This Will Bring Disaster is my favorite story so far. I liked the story and the writing and the discussion of work and loneliness and MEN! It was wild how this man ate only blue slushees in this book and he still had two women interested in him.
4 stars