In a Nutshell Reviews: Hate-to-Love Edition

In a Nutshell Reviews are my version of mini-reviews, because sometimes, you just want the highlights.

Meet Me at Midnight
Jessica Pennington
Age/Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Tor Teen
Rating:  4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

They have a love-hate relationship with summer.

Sidney and Asher should have clicked. Two star swimmers forced to spend their summers on a lake together sounds like the perfect match. But it’s the same every year—in between cookouts and boat rides and family-imposed bonfires, Sidney and Asher spend the dog days of summer finding the ultimate ways to prank each other. And now, after their senior year, they’re determined to make it the most epic summer yet.

But their plans are thrown in sudden jeopardy when their feud causes their families to be kicked out of their beloved lake houses. Once in their new accommodations, Sidney expects the prank war to continue as usual. But then she gets a note—Meet me at midnight. And Asher has a proposition for her: join forces for one last summer of epic pranks, against a shared enemy—the woman who kicked them out.

Their truce should make things simpler, but six years of tormenting one another isn’t so easy to ignore. Kind of like the undeniable attraction growing between them.

The past five summers have been filled with swimming, the lake, and pranks. This summer, Sidney and Asher agreed to a truce, but once they were not preoccupied with their normal antics, these two began to finally recognize the romantic feelings they had been harboring for one another.

• Pro: This was a enemies-to-lovers type romance, and I think many will appreciate the way a their well established prank war gave way to a pretty mushy courtship, that was filed with great banter and lots of chemistry. 
• Pro: You know what I like? I like when couples have history, and Sidney and Asher had plenty of it. I liked learning about their past, but I was ecstatic when they slowly revealed their well concealed feelings for each other. 
• Pro: These two were high level competitive swimmers, and I liked this aspect of their lives. It tied them together, and there were a lot of really great swim related scenes, which I enjoyed. 
• Con: I did like Sidney, but the emotional runner in her drove me batty. She did it so much, I was able to spot it even before it happened.  
• Pro: Asher was easy to love from the start. He was sweet and charming, and he would store away little bits of information about Sidney, which he would use at just the right time to create some magnificent moments. I almost wanted to give Sidney a good shake to find out what her problem was with him. Oh, don't worry, you will learn the root of the great lake prank war. 
• Pro: Does Jessica Pennington know me or what? She gifted me a wonderful epilogue, which left me happy and smiling. 

Overall: I throughly enjoyed my summer at the lake, as I watched these two lifelong enemies finally acknowledge and act on their feelings for each other. Such a fun, sweet, and swoony romance.

I Hate You, Fuller James
Kelly Anne Blount
Age/Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Entangled: Crush
Rating:  4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

I hate you, Fuller James.

I hate your floppy hair and your lopsided grin and those laughing blue eyes that always seem to be laughing at me.

I hate that you’re the most popular guy in school and I’m still the girl who sneezed and spit out her retainer on someone at a middle school dance. It’s just such a cliché.

I hate that I’m being forced to tutor you in English and keep it a secret from everyone. Because otherwise it might put our basketball team’s chances at winning State in jeopardy, and even though I hate you, I love basketball.

I hate that it seems like you’re keeping a secret from me…and that the more time we spend together, the less I feel like I’m on solid ground. Because I’m starting to realize there’s so much more to you than meets the eye. Underneath it all, you’re real.

But what I hate most is that I really don’t hate you at all.

Wren has hated Fuller James since he came between her and her best friend, AND bestowed that awful nickname on her - Wrentainer. She managed to hate him from afar for the past five years, but as a punishment for launching a handful of mashed potatoes at her nemesis, she was forced to tutor him. After spending time with the real Fuller James, she realized, that maybe, she didn't hate him at all.

• Pro: This book was exactly what I needed after being sick for a week. It was fun and cute, and I really couldn't stop reading it, because I was enjoying it so much. 
• Pro: I ended up liking both Fuller and Wren a whole lot. I loved getting to know them, and seeing beyond the surface, because they were pretty wonderful underneath all their armor. I also adored them together, and was absolutely shipping them the entire time. 
• Pro: There were a few really wonderful familial relationships in this book, which I could not get enough of. Fuller and his little brother were precious together, and Wren and her grandfather stole my heart too. I loved all the positive family focus, and there was a lot of it in this book. 
• Con: Marissa, the ex-best friend, was a miserable mean girl. This trope tends to annoy me, but at least I felt like she served a purpose in the story, and she was dealt with appropriately.   
• Pro: Both characters experienced personal growth, but Fuller grew a LOT. Being with Wren, and being recognized for more than his basketball prowess, had Fuller looking at things from a new perspective. He realized he was changing, and embraced these changes and his new outlook on things, and gosh darn it! Fuller 2.0 was pretty fabulous. 
• Pro: Blount presented me with a rather wonderful grand gesture, a combination of some fan favorites, which delighted me to no end. 

Overall: A fun and cute hate-to-love romance, which delivered many smiles and swoons for me.

** ARCs received in exchange for honest reviews.

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