I tried to get through this book but I found it too saccharine and simplistic. I went in not knowing it was supposed to be an Austen retelling, which might have made a difference, but I'm not familiar with the story. What I read felt like it was trying way too hard to be relatable. Edie read like an adult pretending to be a pouty teenager and her aunt seemed like the wicked stepmother from every fairytale. I couldn't bring myself to finish it.

I really hoped that I loved this book but I did not. I could just not get into it and did not finish. I blame myself only. I normally love YA. It is just that this poor girl is suffering a hardship and she is thrown into a rich world that only cares about things when all she needs is a hug or her mom back.

I do hope to someday come back to this one and give it a proper review. But for now, I am DNF with no rating (Note: Netgalley made me pick a star rating so I chose 2 bc 1 felt too harsh).

I cant stay away from a Jane Austen/Jacquline Firkins mix! Her and her beautiful story. The dialogue was Witty, well drawn characters and plenty of swoon worthy moments
This book has been made a winner on my shelf, and this talented debut author a must-buy from now on.

But note its a slow start but worth it in the end~

This book was a light, sweet read that's perfect for fans of YA contemporary.
There is a lot of heart poured into this story when it comes to self discovery and family relationships. Which this aspect was my favorite thing about this book. I do wish that we got a little bit more character development especially from our main characters. They almost felt like they were the same exact characters in the end that they were in the beginning. I think this is why I didn't fully love the romance although it was cute. (Henry deserved WAY better.) At times it felt rushed or the pacing was off which made it hard to follow.. But overall it was an enjoyable read. <3

Confession: I had no idea this was a retelling of Mansfield Park and I haven’t read that, BUT the great thing is you really don’t have to to appreciate the story!

Let’s start off with the characters. All the characters (ALL OF THEM) are flawed and I LOVE IT. And yet you still will find yourself rooting for people. It’s awesome! It’s very rare to see every character be not-so-perfect and especially when it comes to a novel with a lot of secondary characters!

Edie was really relatable in the sense that she was a musician and a reader with extensive random knowledge of quotes. I loved the scenes where she would quote authors and I especially loved the jokes she would tell!

The other main characters were Sebastian and Henry. I’m not going to lie, Henry was totally my favorite character. He was flawed and one of those typical jocks that had a soft side. Like, duh of course I’m gonna love him! I loved learning about his character and the scenes with him and edie were definitely the highlight of the book.

Sebastian was… average. Edie kept going back to him because he was the “boy next door”, but he had a girlfriend. While he and Edie’s few interactions were cute and I could see them together, I also just didn’t care for him that much. I didn’t really get why Edie was pining over him, but whatever.

Edie’s cousins were also intriguing. They weren’t completely the “snobby egotistical” girls and it was fun getting to know them especially as they started to come more into their character and stop hiding behind facades.

The plot itself had a few different layers and I was so surprised when one of my favorite tropes (I won’t say which because it’ll ruin the fun) was implemented! I liked that Edie had more than just the love interest conflict. I liked the strained relationship with her friend from back home and the little blog posts she would do to try and keep up with her.

The only reason I didn’t rate this a 5/5 was because there were a few things I had a problem with. Some of the lines were just sort of cringe-y but overall, the story was great. And though I was very very angry with how the book ended (not because it was bad, but it just didn’t go the way I hoped), this is definitely a recommendable book because it was fun and interesting!

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys music, book quotes (especially cheesy Shakespeare), hilarious “man walks into bar” jokes, flawed and three dimensional characters, friendship drama, pining over the boy next door, really fancy parties that you have no businesses being at, really dramatic poker games, pixie sticks, and high school drama! If you like boys next door and arrogant but actually really sweet “bad” boys, really great gifts, a weird sort of love triangle and trying and failing to “find yourself” in an effort to get scholarships, this is the book for you!

Edie's lost her mom, and her aunt FINALLY decides to have Edie come live with her family in Mansfield. Besides two cousins, Julia and Maria, Edie also has fond memories of the boy next door, Sebastian. Only after making a re-connection with Sebastian, Edie meets his girlfriend, Claire.

Edie has to spend her senior year navigating the waves of her cousins, Claire, Sebastian, and Claire's brother Henry, upon whom Julia has a crush, with whom Maria wants to have a fling, and who seems to have a genuine interest in Edie. But Edie has to focus on coming up with college tuition, not boys. Boys are a distraction.

This cute, contemporary novel takes the reader on a journey with Edie as she tries to repair a friendship back home and build new ones in Mansfield. The story is well plotted if not particularly exciting, but it does leave the reader with a satisfying happily ever after ending.

I was provided with an ARC of this title from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Is your life filled with "what ifs"? Edie's certainly is. The boy who burrowed into imaginary fur coats with her searching for a way to Narnia, who climbed trees with her, and gave her the only kiss she's ever received, is her "what if."

Edie doesn't really fit in with her rich cousins, and to her aunt she is a charity case meant to portray sainthood to the Junior League. She wears comfortable, kinda grungy clothes, she's very openminded and she's not afraid to be herself.

This is a lovely exploration of the journey to find yourself in a world that wants you to just be quiet and blend in. It's a heartbreaking, yet uplifting story of a girl who takes all of the terrible things in her life and lets them build her inner strength.

I liked this so much more than I thought I would! It's actually an extremely well-done love triangle. If you're in this for kissing though, BEWARE THERE IS NONE UNTIL AFTER PAGE 287. There is also a LOT of mocking and mean-girling, which really got to me, especially since a majority of it came from Edie's aunt and cousins and no one ever really called them out on it.

I really enjoyed a great many things about this book. Characters were fleshed out and the plot was well spaced. Some of the secondary storylines could've used a bit more page space but all in all an enjoyable read!

Joke time. So, a girl walks into a bar ... which hurt because she had her nose stuck in this book and couldn't see where she was going. I know what you're thinking and I disagree with you. Because I'm hilarious and delighted with this book.

I realize I sound like a broken record in saying this, but contemporary YA romances are a hard sell for me. I rarely relate, get irritated by how irritating the main characters tend to be, and the predictability has me bored by the fourth chapter. Needless to say I feel like I take my own life in my hands whenever I risk cracking one open. I love being proven wrong and shown there are literal gems in this genre. It was a slow start to get into, but soon I was barely able to put this down.

This is a modern retelling of Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park, which is what piqued my interest in this book in the first place. I read Mansfield too many years ago to remember what happened, so I can't accurately speak to how loose of a retelling this is plot-wise. However, after a quick Google, I can immediately pick out the comparisons. The town where the story takes place is, obviously, Mansfield. The main character is Edie Price, not Fanny, but she is sent to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle. There are also a few plot lines as well that seem to line up quite similarly.

Edie was a great character. She was surprisingly easy to love and never annoying or ridiculous in the dilemmas she has to deal with. The book starts with her basically coming into a brand-spanking new life. She is still grieving for her mother and she's left a foster situation to move to a highly swanky posh town. New school, only her cousins and their friends, feeling inadequate and uncomfortable in most settings they relish in. Her childhood crush is with someone else while someone else is pursuing her in a way she wishes they wouldn't. Honestly, everything of her journey in this book was so relatable. Who hasn't had those awkward, blush-inducing moments with their crush? I got a little irritated with her obsession with the classics because of course she does, but then admonished myself hard when I remembered half the books I read in high school were by Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. Can't quote them off the top of my head, but I devoured them just the same.

Please be aware that there is a love triangle in this book. In fact, it features quite heavily. As a rule, I do not care for love triangles. I find them pointless and stress-inducing. Not the case here. This was done amazingly well. Edie was given the chance to grow and explore either side of her relationships without some puffed up jealous dude barging in and forcing her to make stupid decisions out of fear or love. I'm also very stoked that Firkins ensured that the concept of consent and protection was understood. There is a lot of sex-positivity and I could not love that more.

What lost the star for me was the ending, and this is just a personal opinion. Without giving anything away, I basically fell in love with the wrong dude and I think Edie chose wrong. And given who she did not pick, I'm surprised I fell for him as I did because in theory he should be absolutely the wrong kind of guy for me. I also struggled a little with the age gaps between some characters. Some may consider it a silly thing to be bothered by, but it felt super odd when Edie's cousin hasn't even graduated high school yet but she's engaged to someone who is finishing Harvard.

Excited to participate in the FFBC blog tour December 12!

Between the synopsis and the cover, I knew that I want to read this book because it sounded like a fun contemporary story about a young girl trying to find herself with a little romance to keep her on her toes!

From the very first page, I intrigued because Edie had been in foster care after the death of her mother until her aunt and uncle takes her in for her senior year in high school. Now, Edie finds herself living in a world filled with parties, extravagant clothes, and wealth making her feel way out of her comfort zone, and if that’s not enough her aunt like to have everything her way and her two cousins are a story all in their own!

The love triangle is very interesting because I feel like this is the first book I’ve read in a while where the MC actually has feeling for both of the guys, and the guys in this story couldn’t be anymore different. After the first time I met Sebastian, I was honestly catching feelings. Because he was so happy to see Edie again. Sebastian is the guy next door who’s sweet and somebody that you’d take to meet your family after the first date; Sebastian has been her best friend since they were kids, but she has seen him since she left and went into foster care, yet when they reunited, it was like no time has passed and they went back to the banter like old friends and was reciting quotes and talking about things as if they had been talking the whole time she was gone.

On the other hand, Henry is the bad boy who get around and doesn’t do commitment. Henry on the other hand is new and gets Edie fired-up, but he also shows her that unpredictability is good in life, and despite all of that, he always seems to be listening to everything that Edie has to say and finds ways to surprise her!

If that’s not complicated enough, Sebastian also has a girlfriend who happens to be Henry’s sister.

As the story progresses, Edie finds herself dealing with situations that she’d never thought she find herself in like dealing all while trying to find out who she is. She has to try to fix the mistakes she made in her past, learn that love doesn’t always end in destruction, and come to terms with all of her mixed emotions about the past.

Overall, I really enjoyed to book. It was fast paced, and it made me laugh, cry, and do some major swooning. I wish that the book was longer, so it could go into more depth about Edie’s mom, Edie’s past life before she moved in with her aunt and family and talked about Edie’s friendship with Shonda. But, I understand that this book is about Edie and how she grows as a person, so it makes sense that she doesn't dwell on the past a lot.

(There's a playlist that I made on my blog!)

I really wanted to love this but it just wasn't for me. Edie has lived in foster care after her mom died and suddenly her aunt and uncle decided to take her in but make it known shes mainly there as a charity case. She is given her hand me down school uniform that does not fit her and is way too small. There is the next-door neighbor who has a crush on, but he has a girlfriend. The girlfriend's brother is dirty and wants any girl he can get but he is also college age and is going after Edie's little cousin.

I do not know if I am more in love with Alexa Martin or her characters. I mean honestly, she has built this whole world of amazing girl bosses and upstanding athletes. Her balance of football, real life, and fun shenanigans continues to be aces in Blitzed. Honestly, this series IS sports romance. It’s the absolute epitome of it.


Listen, I would only work at a bar like HERS because Brynn is the kind of millennial woman we need in charge. Her loyalty to all her Lady Mustang friends, her fierceness in dominating a male-centric profession, and her ability to just make you giggle are the tip of the iceberg on why she is amazing. I have loved her since book one and I was ecstatic to see her through her happiness.


Maxwell. Yeah, he is one of those quiet but strong types and honestly everything he says is delicious. I hung off of his every word and you cannot tell me otherwise about how in reality I couldn’t because he is fictional. Not to mention, he has this complete and thorough adoration for Brynn from the beginning. What kind of man calls his lady “Boss?” Maxwell. Maxwell does and it is the hottest and most progressive bit of nicknaming I have seen.
I can never say enough about this whole series and I completely understand why it got picked up for a tv show. I cannot wait to see what Martin comes up with next and I will be waiting to watch the show!

The story was okay, but it felt forced at the same time. I wasn't a fan of Edie's constant need to judge her cousins love of clothes and fashion and the continuous reminder of how unique Edie is because she wasn't like other girls. I feel like that could've been conveyed without needing to lessen the typical likes girls have. It's also a little too trope-y for my taste. It would've been better had it bended the old school tropes and given it a fresh, new take, but it just kept falling back to it. They were also tropes that are a little outdated at this point. This book would be good for younger teenagers to get them interested in reading.

This book was a quick read. It had its moments but mostly fell short for me. And let’s be honest: Sebastian is a real dud. He barely has any personality and doesn’t even appear that often. I found it a little confusing. And Maria’s hot and cold flip flop got really old and Julia should have been cut out completely. And can we talk about what a jerk Sebastian was with the things he was doing in spite of Claire. Really?!

It took me about 100 pages to really get into this book. I felt like the characters were introduced with little back story even though a backstory existed. It took me a while to figure out who was who and what was going on. From there the book picked up for me. It was very teenage drama, and I felt like Edie, Sebastian, Claire, Julia and Madison were all realistic teenagers, self centered, idealizing, focused on romantic relationships excessively. As an adult this got tiresome but I think teenagers would like it and could relate to the angst. I was worried .Edie was going to have sex with Henry at prom, during which point I would have really disliked the book, but at least she waited for a bit. I liked Edie's relationship with Henry way more then Sebastian. I felt that there was more chemistry, honesty and playfulness. Even at the end I still felt like Sebastian should just be a good friend. I am holding out hope that she dumps Sebastian and gets back together with Henry, they are both in fact in Boston at the conclusion of the book. For me this was too sexualized to recommend to my students.

There are so many things to love - cousins who welcome, boys who are genuine, friends who forgive. Not to mention girls who figure out what they really want.

I think the enjoyment of this relies on your level of enjoyment of tropes. Some of the tropes aren't favorites to begin with ("I'm not like the other girls"/the sexy vs. smart divide; the purportedly awkward girl who somehow has boys falling all over her) but I think my main issue was that there kept being points where I thought that the narrative would subvert tropes in interesting ways (in regards to boy next door vs. bad boy, or the mean girl stereotype) and then it just...would go along with the trope instead.

The story has several laugh out loud moments, is fun and overall readable despite a weaker final quarter. It's exactly what it advertises itself to me.

This one reminded me of the Cinderella story. We have Edith who has lost her mom and her father is not in the picture. She spend three years in the system to all of a sudden being taken out by her Aunt. I think that its weird that the foster care system would allow someone to basically adopt their relative after them being in the system for three years. That has to be the only real issue I had with this one as it just felt off and not realistic.

This title is over the top with tropes of falling in love, the cliches, beautiful people, etc. But in a way that you want to find out what is going to happen and how it's all going to turn out. If you're looking for a story with a lot of depth this might not be for you. It does deal with the loss of a parent and how Edith is overcoming that loss. But its overshadowed with her crush on Sebastian etc.

I did like Edith, Henry, and Sebastian they were so adorable. The rest of the cast were pretty evil in some ways but not in others. This was a pretty good title for fans of Morgan Matson and those who are looking for a cute quick story. This one didn't end like I thought it was going to so that was interesting.


Go Into This One Knowing: Loss of a parent, somewhat instalove

I think that Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things did a lot of things right. Most of the issues that Edie grapples with in the story, such as grief, heartbreak, and repairing a friendship, are realistic. I also appreciate that while some of the supporting characters are truly awful at times, they eventually come to realize that they said or did things they shouldn't have. However, this book reads like an old-school YA, and I can't get past that. Had I not known any better, I would have guessed that it was written in 2009 instead of 2019. Since it's very old-school YA, Edie has a terrible case of "I'm Not Like Other Girls". Also, this book is set in a wealthy Boston suburb, and I grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb and I found the depiction to be a total exaggeration. Overall, Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things is a quick YA read with some depth.