Regretting You

 Book 74 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read on October 11

Regretting You by Colleen Hoover

published 2019

Summary (via the book jacket)

Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike.

Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn't have a spontaneous bone in her body.

With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris - Morgan's husband, Clara's father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.

While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and Clara turns to the one boy she's been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.

My Opinion 

4 stars

I read this after seeing a trailer for the movie and wanting to read the book first.  Because I knew some plot points going into the book, it's hard for me to rate this book blindly.  It's a 4 because of its readability but I also think things wrapped up too nicely for such big betrayals.

I think more story before the accident would've helped me feel more investment in the betrayal, like more scenes between the adults to fully feel the deception.  Also, I didn't see any of the "family anchor" stuff referenced in the summary; there weren't really interactions between Chris and Clara, Chris and Morgan, or Chris acting as a buffer between Clara and Morgan.  Yes, Clara and Morgan were disconnected after the accident but that would be expected no matter what the relationship was beforehand.

So I read the book quickly and did enjoy it but I think I would've been frustrated if I didn't know what was going to happen; I think the emotions I did feel were more from the trailer than from the text.  And unless I missed it, the payoff of the watermelon Jolly Ranchers never happened in the book even though they were referenced multiple times.  Another example of the trailer adding depth to the reading experience for me. 

Youth in Revolt

 Book 73 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from September 21 - October 9

Youth in Revolt by C.D. Payne

published 1995

Summary (via Goodreads)

Youth in Revolt is the journals of Nick Twisp, California's most precocious diarist, whose ongoing struggles to make sense out of high school, deal with his divorced parents, and lose his virginity result in his transformation from an unassuming fourteen-year-old to a modern youth in open revolt. 

As his family splinters, worlds collide, and the police block all routes out of town, Nick must cope with economic deprivation, homelessness, the gulag of the public schools, a competitive Type-A father, murderous canines (in triplicate), and an inconvenient hair trigger on his erectile response—all while vying ardently for the affections of the beauteous Sheeni Saunders, teenage goddess and ultimate intellectual goad.

My Opinion

1 star

*I always write and publish my review first so it's solely my opinion and then I go to Goodreads and read other reviews for different perspectives.  However, I had a little cheat when I went to Goodreads for the summary of the book and saw this book has a 4.06 rating.  I can't wait to go back and see what other people had to say because apparently I'm in the minority with my 1 star rating.

No.  During the first half of the book I was questioning if I actually hated the book or if I just hated the characters because they're so unlikable.  The answer is I hated the book.  But by that point I was already 300 pages deep into a 500 page book and I needed to finish it, both to see if there would be resolution (there wasn't) and to get credit for the pages I'd already invested.

There were felony-level catastrophic events impacting multiple people that had zero consequences.  I was waiting for redemption or remorse or even a sociopathic "recognition of hurt but don't care" but none of those things happened.  He just hid until everything worked out for him.  Gross.  And you can be selfish without being mean, especially to "friends".  Yuck.

Something I did find interesting is that even though this book was written in the 90's, it didn't feel dated.  Other than the collect calls and the lack of technology which would've made hiding much more difficult in current times, the emotions (or lack thereof) and priorities of teen boys still felt relevant.

Oscar Wars

 Book 72 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from September 2 - October 5

Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears

by Michael Schulman

published 2023

My Opinion

3 stars

I picked this up from the library after seeing it in People Magazine.

Overall, I found most of it interesting but nothing really rave-worthy.  Taking a month to read it in sections like an educational non-fiction book helped; when I first started reading it like a 'regular' book I felt bogged down with too much information.

The smallest change/biggest impact to me was when Allan Carr made the change from "And the winner is..." to "And the Oscar goes to..." to help ease competitive winner/loser feelings.