#sammy espinoza’s last review

[bookishfreedom]

this book felt like a love letter to the PNW ⛰️🌲

[lgbtqreads]

Happy Pan Visibility Day 2024!

Today is Pan Visibility Day, and as usual, we’re celebrating with a bunch of books that have pansexual leads! Today is Pan Visibility Day, and as usual, we’re celebrating with a bunch of books that have pansexual leads! Please note that this post only includes books that weren’t featured in full in previous posts; you can find more pansexual books in posts from past years! Court of the Undying…

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Bookstore Romance Day - Tropes

🩷 Happy Bookstore Romance Day, my lovely bookish bats! "Bookstore Romance Day is a day designed to give independent bookstores an opportunity to celebrate Romance fiction—its books, readers, and writers—and to strengthen the relationships between bookstores and the Romance community." How are you celebrating today? 🩷

🩷 Which romance trope are you obsessing over for Bookstore Romance Day? Tag your favorite indie bookstore in the comments to send them some love!

🩷 Enemies to Lovers 🩷 ❤️ Will They or Won't They ❤️ Red, White & Royal Blue ❤️ Just as You Are ❤️ Love, Theoretically ❤️ Ember in the Ashes ❤️ Not Your Ex's Hexes ❤️ Beach Read ❤️ Fourth Wing

🩷 Second Chance Romance 🩷 💜 The Roughest Draft 💜 Once More With Feeling 💜 Bad Girl Reputation 💜 Sammy Espinoza's Last Review 💜 Meet Me at the Lake 💜 The Ex Hex 💜 The Reunion 💜 Fool Me Once

🩷 Friends to Lovers 🩷 💙 Take a Hint, Dani Brown 💙 Too Wrong to Be Right 💙 Hook, Line, and Sinker 💙 I Wish You All the Best 💙 Kamila Knows Best 💙 A Guide to Being Just Friends 💙 Funny Feelings 💙 Not Here to Stay Friends

🩷 Forced Proximity 🩷 🩵 Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute 🩵 When in Rome 🩵 Tastes in Shakkar 🩵 The Plus One 🩵 The Ex Talk 🩵 Ex's and O's 🩵 Jana Goes Wild 🩵 Icebreaker

[kiiitasticbooks]

Sex Dreams About Your Friends Are Normal, Right? | A Review of Cash Delgado Is Living The Dream by Tehlor Kay Mejia

Cash Delgado has a good life in the quaint town of Ridley Falls. She has Joyce’s Bar, where she manages a familiar group of regulars and emcees the ever-popular Karaoke Thursday. She has her six-year-old daughter, Parker, whose spunky attitude always keeps life interesting. And she has her best friend, Inez O’Conner, who improves Cash’s sometimes overly responsible outlook with one full of joy and potential.

But change is on the horizon when Chase Stanton, the former bar manager at Joyce’s (not to mention Cash’s last hookup), returns to town with business prospects that could threaten the local institution and all of Cash’s plans to someday bring new life to the place. And if that isn’t enough, Cash starts having very intimate dreams of Inez. Dreams that could threaten the foundation of her well-ordered life.

As Cash embarks on a reluctant journey of self-discovery, she’s forced to confront all the ways she’s been hiding in her own life. But will she choose to remain the same, or will the desire for love (even a love that looks different than she ever imagined) prove worth the risk?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for this review. Cash Delgado Is Living The Dream was published July 2nd, 2024.

I love a good book about small town communities and queer found families, and Cash Delgado Is Living The Dream really delivered on both of those fronts!

There’s not too much to say about the plot for this book that hasn’t already been said by the description. We follow Cash, a single mom who works at a bar she loves, but unfortunately does not own. When a former coworker (who Cash has also slept with in the past) stops by one day, Cash learns a big franchise is thinking of opening a bar in their small town, almost certainly spelling the doom of Cash’s bar unless she can figure out a way to make sure the rival bar doesn’t open a location.

Also? She’s having sex dreams about her best friend. But she’s totally straight… right?

I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed this book! I probably shouldn’t have been, since I really enjoyed Tehlor Kay Mejia’s earlier companion novel, Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review, but Cash Delgado was not a book I expected to love as much as I did!

A big part of my enjoyment of this book was the community. Being set in a small town with a close community, it was easy to fall in love with the side characters and the way they interacted with each other! Being able to rely on the old men who come into the bar to argue about which musician did a cover of a song better or the Stitch And Bitch club meeting to do crafts together made this book feel cozy and sweet, and made Ridley Falls seem like the sort of place I would love to live!

But I also really enjoyed the queer found family in this book. Cash’s best friend she totally isn’t having sex dreams of, Inez, lives on a farm with a few other queer characters, and they’ve built their own mini community out there, helping out with whatever everyone else needs and piling their money together to pay for the house. Even though Cash is totally straight and not having sex dreams featuring another woman, this small community of LGBT people is there to help her out in any way they can, whether that’s helping Cash with her fashion choices, watching Cash’s daughter for a while, or helping Cash realize that society’s compulsory heterosexuality has made her think she can only have relationships with men (and not her best friend, who she is having sex dreams about).

If you’re in the mood for a small town community, queer found family, and a main character realizing she may not be straight and may, in fact, be in love with her best friend, I definitely recommend Cash Delgado Is Living The Dream!

[the-forest-library]

September 2023 Reads

Reign - Katharine McGee

Kissing Kosher - Jean Meltzer

Skip to the End - Molly James

Every Duke Has His Day - Suzanne Enoch

The Plus One - Mazey Eddings

Meet Me at the Lake - Carley Fortune

The Love Plot - Samantha Young

Maybe Meant to Be - K.L. Walther

Cleat Cute - Meryl Wilsner

Sammy Espinoza's Last Review - Tehlor Kay Mejia

The Borrow a Boyfriend Club - Page Powars

Lost in the Moment and Found - Seanan McGuire

Thornhedge - T. Kingfisher

Men at Arms - Terry Pratchett

Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor

Climbing the Stairs - Padma Venkatraman

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart

Fangirl, Vol 3 - Rainbow Rowell, Gabi Nam

The Witch's Hand - Nathan Page

King-Cat Comics and Stories #73 - John Porcellino

King-Cat Comics and Stories #76 - John Porcellino

King-Cat Comics and Stories #78 - John Porcellino

King-Cat Comics and Stories #79 - John Porcellino

When Sharks Attack With Kindness - Andres J. Colmenares

We Are Starlings - Robert Furrow

Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver - Mary Oliver

The Book of (More) Delights - Ross Gay

Bones of Belonging - Annahid Dashtgard

White Women - Regina Jackson, Saira Rao

The Country of the Blind - Andrew Leland

When You're Ready, This Is How You Heal - Brianna Wiest

While You Were Out - Meg Kissinger

Trauma is Really Strange - Steve Haines

Young Forever - Mark Hyman

The Pegan Diet - Mark Hyman

Bold = Highly Recommend Italics = Worth It Crossed out = Nope

Thoughts: 

I hope Ross Gay continues to write about the delights he finds in the world for years to come.

Goodreads Goal: 324/400 

2017 Reads | 2018 Reads | 2019 Reads | 2020 Reads | 2021 Reads| 

2022 Reads | 2023 Reads

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 1/5

Book Blurb: A music critic stuck in a spiral of epic proportions targets her teenage crush for a career comeback and a chance at revenge. What could possibly go wrong? Sammy Espinoza’s life is a raging dumpster fire. Her desperate attempt to win back her singer ex-girlfriend has landed her in hot water at work, and she has one last chance before her editor cuts her column. Luckily, Sammy has a plan to redeem herself, but it won’t be easy. Rumor has it that Max Ryan, the former rock god, is secretly recording his first-ever solo album years after he dramatically quit performing. And it just so happens that he and Sammy have history: Right before Max got his big break, he and Sammy spent an unforgettable night together. Exclusive access to Max’s new music would guarantee Sammy’s professional comeback and, even better, give her the opportunity to serve some long-awaited revenge for his traumatic ghosting. But Max lives in Ridley Falls, Washington, and Sammy has history there as well: a family that never wanted her and a million unanswered questions. Going back would mean confronting it all—but what else does she have to lose?

Review:

A music critic finds her career and heart in jeopardy after a horrible break up with her musician girlfriend, to try and get both back she hopes to not only snag an exclusive story from her teenage crush who broke her heart but get some revenge on him. Sammy Espinoza has had a rough life, her entire childhood has been scarred by the fact that she feels like she’s constantly being abandoned and it doesn’t help that her first real crush who later turned out to be a famous rockstar, completely abandoned and ghosted her. Now she’s been dumped by her musician girlfriend and her career is under fire because as a music critic she’s been trying to fix her love life by writing favorable reviews hyping up her then girlfriend’s mediocre band and now her fans have turned from her. In order to get her career back, Sammy hopes to run into former rockstar Max Ryan who is said to be recording his first ever solo album after his dramatic exit from music.  Sammy might also have a super complicated history with Max and this would be her chance to get revenge against the guy who broke her heart. When she does run into Max, he doesn’t remember her hat all and soon she finds herself going on dates with him. But their complicated history and what Sammy’s entire motivation for getting access to Ryan’s music could derail what is starting to look like a second chance at a relationship. Can they make it work the second time around? Honestly this one was not for me, I didn’t like Sammy or Max and for people who are in their late 20s they acted more like teenagers. The romance wasn’t really working for me and I just was not having a great time with this book. It started off a bit interesting but then lost me. I wasn’t invested in seeing them get back together after everything and unfortunately, I was just looking forward to the book ending. Overall, if you are interested in second chance romances give this one a go, maybe it’ll be a better time for you than it was for me.

*Thanks Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Dell for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[1fairy]

bfj reading challenge 52

d-495 🩷 day 53 🌷181 pages 🪻sammy espinoza’s last review - tehlor kay mejia 🌸chapter 24-42

🌷18 pages 🪻the road to the city - natalia ginzburg 🌸chapter 3-5

☑ i finished sammy espinoza's last review. finally. the latter half of the book that wasn't focused on the romance and more so on sammy's developing relationship with paloma and all her other meaningful relationships really made this book for me. like yeah i was emotional. i wasn't really going to give this book anything over a 3.5, but i think that if a book actually makes me feel that way, it deserves a little more room to move. but yeah, it hurt. but yeah, i wasn't completely sold on the romance.

the road to the city is developing. i tend to enjoy these kinds of stories.

[kappabooks]

Can't Wait Wednesday | July 12th

An adult romance with queer musical characters! Sign me up!

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review by Tehlor Kay Mejia A music critic stuck in a spiral of epic proportions targets…

[jolieeason]

WWW Wednesday: July 19th, 2023

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.The Three Ws are:What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading?What do you think you’ll read next? What I am currently reading: A music critic stuck in a spiral of epic proportions targets her teenage crush for a career comeback and a chance at revenge. What could possibly go wrong? Sammy…

[jolieeason]

It's Monday, What Are You Reading---July 17th, 2023

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment and add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book…

[lgbtqreads]

Hey, do you have any recommendations for books with pansexual female protagonists who are in a m/f relationship? My classmate said she could never find books that represent her properly, soI want to surprise her with some recs!

I do! Three faves that immediately come to mind are A Shot in the Dark by Victoria Lee, For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes, and Chef's Choice by TJ Alexander (these all happen to have trans rep, too), and I don't remember if it's explicit in the gorgeous The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore, but I do remember that the cover is specifically and intentionally pan-coded. There's also Sammy Espinoza's Last Review by Tehlor Kay Mejia, and, in YA sci-fi, Crownchasers by Becca Coffindaffer. There's also Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan, where the female MC isn't sure whether she IDs as bi or pan.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Queer Books July 2023

🦇 Good morning, my beloved bookish bats. I'm sorry this post is coming to you so late in the month; I planned more content than I realized! Let's rewind and look back on all the queer books released this past month. Though I'm sure a number of these covers look familiar, there are also as few that haven't received the attention they deserve!

What books are you adding to your summer reading list at the last minute?

🌈 Role Playing by Cathy Yardley 🌈 A Place for Us by Brandon J Wolf 🌈 A Thorn Among Roses by Hayley Anderton and G. L Preston 🌈 Of Love & Libraries by Brenna Bailey 🌈 A Crime of Secrets by Ann Aptaker 🌈 The Beasts of Paris by Stef Penney 🌈 Wanderlust by Elle Everhart 🌈 The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson 🌈 Go the Way Your Blood Beats by Emmett de Monterey 🌈 The Lighthouse Keeper by Liv Rancourt 🌈 Overemotional by David Fenne 🌈 Lioness by Emily Perkins 🌈 All About Romance by Daniel Tawse

🌈 Moonlight and the Monarch by Evelyn Carver 🌈 The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera 🌈 A Song of Salvation by Alechia Dow 🌈 All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky 🌈 A Warning About Swans by R.M. Romero 🌈 Digging for Heaven by Jenna Jarvis 🌈 Marigold by Melissa Brayden 🌈 All the Yellow Suns by Malavika Kannan 🌈 On an Ebbing Seafoam Tide by Alannah Radburn 🌈 The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa 🌈 The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqqi 🌈 Play to Win by Jodie Slaughter

🌈 A Rulebook for Restless Rogues by Jess Everlee 🌈 Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch 🌈 The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella 🌈 More to Love by Georgina Kiersten 🌈 Defiant Bodies: Making Queer Community in the Anglophone Caribbean by Nikoli A. Attai 🌈 The Ink Drinkers by Dror Bloodwood 🌈 Counting Lost Stars by Kim van Alkemade 🌈 Women of the Post by Joshunda Sanders 🌈 Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle 🌈 Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review by Tehlor Kay Mejia 🌈 The King is Dead by Benjamin Dean 🌈 Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

🌈 Buzzing by Samuel Sattin & Rye Hickman 🌈 The Third Daughter by Adrienne Tooley 🌈 Firebird by Sunmi 🌈 A Guide to the Dark by Meriam Metoui 🌈 What a Desi Girl Wants by Sabina Khan 🌈 The Pomegranate Gate by Ariel Kaplan 🌈 The Stablemaster’s Heart by Sarah Honey 🌈 The Sun and the Void by Gabriela Romero LaCruz 🌈 The Valkyrie's Shadow (The Helheim Prophecy #2) by Tiana Warner 🌈 In the Case of Heartbreak (Fern Falls #2) by Courtney Kae 🌈 The Hunt by Kelly J. Ford 🌈 Rana Joon and the One and Only Now by Shideh Etaat

[1fairy]

bfj reading challenge 51

d-496 🩷 day 52 🌷137 pages 🪻sammy espinoza’s last review - tehlor kay mejia 🌸chapter 11-23

🌷14 pages 🪻the road to the city - natalia ginzburg 🌸chapter 1-2

made progress in sammy espinoza. it's alright. i'm glad certain things got cleared up, but i also wish that there was just a little bit less withholding of the truth as a 29 year old. but sammy is a bit of a mess i guess. i also think her holding a torch for him and carrying that anger towards him is so silly after only knowing one another for a night. it's blatant that it's due to her upbringing and the type of attachment she has due to her childhood, but idk it's a little bit overboard. she's in therapy and it's something that hasn't been addressed? be real.

started the road to the city and i'm liking it so far! the writing style is nice and the characters are already interesting enough.

[1fairy]

bfj reading challenge 50

d-497 🩷 day 51 🌷28 pages 🪻sammy espinoza’s last review - tehlor kay mejia 🌸chapter 9-10

🌷117 pages 🪻the order of the pure moon reflected in water - zen cho 🌸chapter 3-8

☑ i finished the order of the pure moon reflected in water. i found myself really enjoying it! it's kind of hard to explain, but i really liked the sense of place and the characters as well. it was a bit zany, but it all came together in the end. the story is surprising fleshed out for a novella. the ending was intriguing to me.

didn't really focus on sammy espinoza today. tomorrow's another day.

i've been using annotate with me videos to read along with and they're really working for me. it's calming lol.

[1fairy]

bfj reading challenge 49

d-498 🩷 day 50 🌷76 pages 🪻those who leave and those who stay - elena ferrante 🌸chapter 103-123

🌷9 pages 🪻sammy espinoza’s last review - tehlor kay mejia 🌸chapter 8

🌷20 pages 🪻the order of the pure moon reflected in water - zen cho 🌸chapter 1-2

☑ i finished those who leave and those who stay. firstly, elena needs to stop being a simp for nino. like my god she just needs a good talking to about like......making sound decisions. she's so blindsided by he infatuation for him. the need for male validation and the constant internal competition she feels with women is just draining to read about. there were times i wanted to move away from lina and he toxicity, but then we'd spend so much time with elena and her empty headedness and inability to comprehend that i just couldn't stand reading about her as an individual. her life and those around her were interesting. there's so much going on. but elena is draining to be in the mind of.

i started the order of the pure moon reflected in water and i'm still feeling it out. it's unique, i suppose, but it feels kind of silly. we'll see what happens next.

my next focus will be on sammy espinoza. hopefully i can finish it tomorrow, but idk if that's possible lol.

[1fairy]

bfj reading challenge 48

d-499 🩷 day 49 🌷137 pages 🪻those who leave and those who stay - elena ferrante 🌸chapter 73-102

🌷14 pages 🪻sammy espinoza’s last review - tehlor kay mejia 🌸chapter 7

decided to spend some time tonight focusing on those who leave and those who stay and i made good progress. hopefully i can finish it tomorrow. i will say that everyone in this book is a mess and i think both lenu and lina would be better off just never speaking to each other ever again lol. there's a lot of intricacies and not enough understanding of self for both lenu and lina lol. it truly all circles back to some negative internal competition. i watched annotate with me videos alongside reading and they were great. a nice change from a timer on the screen and it was a very peaceful and satisfying experiene.