Cover Image: Smothered

Smothered

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A fun YA crossover featuring a character whose age isn’t often featured in books. In Smothered, Lou has just graduated from college, and she ends up moving back in with her parents in LA. The problem? Her helicopter mom is a but, well… smothering. The characters are fun and larger than life. The writing is perfect for fans of Meg Cabot and Sophie Kinsella, and I loved the journal entry format. It’s a hilarious coming of age story with fun mother/daughter dynamics.

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This is a funny read that is relatable to anyone who has to move back home and navigate home life with a parent who wants to smother them. Enjoyable and not to heavy, this would be a great read for young adults coming out of college and struggling to find their place in life.

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SMOTHERED - Autumn Chiklis

GREAT FORMAT! - 5 stars

Plot - 5 stars - After graduating from college, Lou has returned home to live with her parents while searching for a job. Her parents are overbearing and full of personality, so it's entertaining to watch her try to navigate.

Writing - 5 stars - This is funny without being over-the-top. No, wait, it IS over the top, but in the best way. The scenario is set up for built-in humor, and it's pretty relatable since so many college graduates are turning to their parents for help in today's expensive society. The format of including text conversations and emails within the bulk of the story added plenty of interest and relevance since that's pretty much how we all communicate these days. I liked that it allowed the story to move forward quickly while keeping me totally engaged.

Characters - 5 stars - Lou is a great main character. She is clearly very intelligent, but she allows herself to get into the craziest situations with the ultimately hilarious results. She is self-deprecatingly funny, and her outlook on life made me alternately roll my eyes and laugh out loud. Supporting characters of her mother (smothering), father (stern but lovable), and sister (the queen of social media) are hilarious and add another level of fun. Theo is the ideal boyfriend. He's sweet and loving and really cares about Lou, in a dorky kind of way. They make a great couple, and I was really hoping for their success. Megan made me laugh as the typical mean girl, Natasha is the typical stoner, and Alyssa is legally blonde.

Title - 5 stars - Lou is feeling smothered by her situation, but it's all too common in this day and age. And I loved the fact that her father pointed out that her smothering mom's job is to be smothering--it's part of the word, after all.

Cover - 4 stars - The cartoony characters on the cover are not my favorite, but the bright color definitely catches the eye.

Overall - 5 stars - Lou, feeling trapped by her situation and especially by her mother's hovering, is totally intimidated and overwhelmed by her life. After exceeding during college, she's now unable to settle down or find her direction. Which means she then does the absolute minimum, suddenly realizing that her life is passing her by. Her good intentions and plans are like everyone's, but somehow (like many people), she gets waylaid by unimportant tasks or bogged down in the details. I thought I'd be frustrated by her inaction, but instead I found myself laughing out loud many times at the ridiculousness of her situation. I could also relate to her continued inaction, thinking to myself that I agree with her that there's always another day. I had expected to find the author trying too hard to be funny, creating such over-the-top scenarios. But, instead, I found the whole story to be light-hearted and hilarious. I will definitely look for more from this author.

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I have a hard time reading books written like this it honestly takes a bit of the hype away for me. I find it to be harder to use my imagination on it. I am very happy the genre was changed from YA to New Adult. I love how absolutely outrageous all of the characters are. Lou and Theo's relationship was a bit odd to me. If you are with someone don't hide them and if you are the one being hidden just leave. People don't change that much.

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I'm clearing out books that I requested ages ago and have been on sale for years! I really enjoyed this title.

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This was thenfirst book I have read by Autumn Chiklis but it won't be my last. Chiklis manages to craft characters that are flawed and endearing. Furthermore, I found myself laughing out loud frequently while reading this book. I adore Mama Shell and the rest of the Hanson family. Such a fun read!

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I loved this. I related to the main character since I moved back into my parents house during the pandemic. I moved back into my parents house when this all hit, I was able to relate to the main character. I really enjoyed this one! It was a fast and fun read!

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This novel was pretty darn fun and it made my really grateful that my mom isn’t nearly as crazy as Shelly. The main character was witty and cute but she became a little annoying after a while. I kind of wanted her to quit complaining and get her life together, but I think she was supposed to come across that way. All in all it was an entertaining read but I don’t think it’s one that will stick with me. Thank you to Netgalley for sending this novel in exchange for and honest review.

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The premise of this book is fun: recent college graduate tries her best to move on with life and establish a career. Her mother tries to keep her at home. Add a Southern California setting with fashionable, wealthy friends, and things get crazy pretty quickly. Lou's story unfolds in journal entries, tweets, text messages and emails.

This is perfect summer read. I would especially recommend it to new adults.

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I laughed a lot reading this. How many times have "adults" at the age of 18, "ran away" from home to live an independent life only to be smacked in the face by reality and end up back home? I enjoyed the diary style writing of Smothered. It makes me feel like I am up close and personal with the characters. I know it's fiction but it doesn't seem realistic in that the family is rich. I am not sure that Lou wants a job for herself, or wants a job to throw in her families face.

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This was a fun read! I couldn't relate to it a ton because of my own relationship with my mom but I did enjoy the writing style a ton

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Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

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This is a quick, fun, beach-y type read. I’m not the target demographic, being closer in age to the main character’s mother, but nevertheless found it to be a decent story. It kind of reminded me of a Sophie Kinsella, if Becky Bloomwood was an American who graduated from Columbia and had a Real Housewife for a mom. If you’re lookin for something lighthearted and not too involved I would definitely recommend.

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I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

Lou Hanson has just graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University and doesn't know what to do next. She hasn't had any job offers, so she moves back home with her family in L.A. Lou has set short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals to get out of her parents' house and start her life. Her mom, on the other hand, is ecstatic to have Lou back and takes far too much control of Lou's life, as far as Lou is concerned.

I think this book was supposed to be funny, but I just found the characters annoying. Maybe it was supposed to be more of a satire of how shallow and selfish people can be. I did like the format of the book, told through journal entries, texts, bills,o and the like. This book was not for me. Maybe if you are closer to Lou's age, you could relate more to it? Lou was making her life a lot harder than it needed to be with her lying.

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Life for recent grad Eloise isn't quite what she expected, and moving back in to not only her childhood bedroom but with the helicopter mom of all helicopter moms is going to be a new challenge. Cute story and characters and everyone will relate to Eloise or her mom and sometimes both.

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Thank you for providing a copy of this book for review however I was unable to open the file for this document unfortunately! Apologies.

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Smothered just was not for me. The book was very cringe-worthy and the shallow, racist characters just completely turned me off. Someone compared this to The Princess Diaries and I can't see the similarities. This was just a story of an entitled rich girl whining about how her life after college isn't automatically amazing and successful.

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I really enjoyed this new adult novel from Autumn Chiklis! I wish I had more books in this age range. I thought it was funny, inspiring and hit me in the feels several times.

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This book was a little to cheesy and shallow for me - not in a "Quick fun read" way but a hard to get through slow read. I may not be the right demographic for this book but it wasn't terrible!

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I didn’t officially make a resolution or anything, but I have been trying to make a concerted effort to tackle some of the ollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllld reader copies that reside on the ol’ Kindle because (at the moment) I am doing a better job of requesting things far in advance of their release and not getting 27 library books at one time. I’ve also been tearing through like one book per day the past week or so (or in the case of this one TWO books in one day – that’s just pathetic) and need to blow the dust off as many of these as I can while I’m still in beast mode when it comes to book reading. So there’s the unnecessary info dump behind me finally diving into Smothered. Unfortunately, it missed the mark for me.

The story here is of Eloise Hansen. Recent Columbia University summa cum laude graduate (with a pretty worthless degree), Lou has to bite the bullet and move back in to her childhood home. That’s okay, though, because she has a firm 9-month plan on how she is going to get a job, get on her own two feet, and get out in the world.

I appreciate what this book was trying to do. Kind of a revamped Bridget Jones for the post-college sect. It’s not terribly written, uses “mixed media” of texts/e-mails/internet/etc. that I enjoy, and is over-the-top-silly (on purpose). The problem I had???? The characters. So annoying.

First of all, we’re dealing with some real first-world ancillary people here with an “Instagram celebrity” younger sister and a vapid mother who is able to charge tens of thousands of dollars monthly and never really have it catch up to her. But the real problem is Lou. Now I know I’m old and cranky, but I 100% sympathize with youngsters today trying to make it upon graduating. The job market is hard and the housing market is nearly impossible. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t afford to buy my house today – and that sumbitch is pretty much an effing dump. However, I do not want my reading experience to make me feel even more curmudgeonly than I do on the regular and this one had me seriously channeling my inner John Witherspoon.

I mean maybe don’t major in Philosophy if you’re planning on immediately being able to obtain a paycheck upon receiving your degree, but at minimum be prepared to apply for jobs! - ANY jobs. Retail, coffee shop, ANYTHING. JFC, who does this girl think she is – Cousin Eddie?

The only likeable character in the whole mix was the boyfriend, but even he was a knock-off of Adrian Grenier’s chef character in The Devil Wears Prada . . . . and also he should have dumped Lou’s a$$ for being ashamed to introduce him to her parents.

This one is getting shelved under "maybe I'm too old for this $hit." because it made me feel like a geezer, but I’m not certain it won’t be a big hit for those of you who are (sadly) decades younger than me.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

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