January Love/Hate Challenge: 2020 Releases 📚💕🥱

Hey everyone, welcome back to my blog and welcome to my new 2021 series! Last year I saw the two Emmas on Booktube doing this really fun Love/Hate challenge and I thought it looked like a lot of fun and like a good way to get out of my comfort zone so I mentioned it to my friend Rebecca over @ Bookishly Rebecca and she said she’d do it with me for the year!

This is a challenge where the two of us recommend 2 books and 2 movies to eachother, one that we *hated* and one that we *loved* and then by the end of the month we have to guess which one the other peron liked/disliked and review them each ourselves.

I’m really excited for this challnege because while we watch similar movies, we rarely see eye to eye on books so I’m hoping this will get us both out of our comfort zones, especially since we have a theme for each month! January was 2020 releases and honestly, I had a blast with this theme!

Make sure to check out Rebecca’s wrap up to read her thoughts on this month’s theme!

January kicked off our challenge with an already difficult choice! I said this before but Rebecca and I really do have quite different reading tastes and we rarely actually agree on a book so it’s a wonder that she’s put up with me for this long, honestly! 😂 So, when she gave me these picks I was honestly a bit worried because I usually stick to very specific tropes and character-types within the Romance genres and neither of these books sounded very appealing to me.

Hammer & Tongs by Lara Kinsey | ⭐

My guess: LOVE 💕

My thoughts: I thought the idea of this was really interesting and I probably would’ve enjoyed it a bit more, if it was even 100 pages longer. Because none of the book was fleshed out I just never became attached to any of the characters and that really hindered my reading experience. I do think that Rebecca probably loved this though, because this really seems up her alley. While I didn’t love this at all, I am still glad I read it because I read something out of my comfort zone!

Why Rebecca picked this for me & the answer: I chose Hammer and Tongs because it was one of the few 2020 releases I read that I actually enjoyed. It was such a short and steamy historical romance which I normally don’t enjoy and I know that it would be out of Ellyn’s wheelhouse.

Verdict: Love 😍

The Honey Don’t List by Christina Lauren | ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

My guess: HATE 😫

My thoughts: I’ve read two of Christina Lauren’s books in the past and loved them both with my whole heart so I don’t know why I was so releuctant to pick this up, to the point where I literally left it until the very very end of the month to start it. But, joke’s on me because I demolished it in a matter of hours and then forced my mother to read it! 😂

I loved the characters and the conversations and the positive discussions around therapy and attending or not attending university and I loved how easy it was to read and how real the whole book felt despite it being incredibly insta-lovey. I think most of all what I loved was the ending. It wasn’t a typical romance or rom-com ending, it wasn’t show-offy or big, it was just cute and normal and I loved it a lot. Can you tell I liked this book?

Why Rebecca picked this for me & the answer: As for The Honey-Don’t List, I enjoyed this book until the 75% mark and absolutely hated the ending. It felt entirely too distracting and ruined the entire experience for me.

Verdict: Hate 💀

Phineas and Ferb: Candace Against the Universe | ⭐⭐⭐

My guess: LOVE 💕

My thoughts: I’ve never watched any Phineas and Ferb content before so not only did I have no idea what this expereicne was going to be like but I also had no idea that Asley Tisdale is the voice of Candace??? Also there are musical numbers???

I thought this was really fun and I really appreciated the ending. I still don’t know which is Phineas or which is Ferb and I don’t understand why anyone would have a platypus as a pet but this was a lot of fun!

Why Rebecca picked this for me & the answer: While I enjoy this show, this movie just didn’t work for me. It could have been a decent special but making it into a movie felt like the wrong choice here. Easily one of my most disappointing 2020 films!

Verdict: Hate 💀

The Devil All The Time | ⭐⭐⭐

My guess: HATE 😫

My thoughts: Okay, so it’s the first month in this challenge and I’m already kind of failing but I’ve actually already seen this movie and I watched it pretty recently in September so I decided not to rewatch it. Mainly I decided not to watch it again because I remeber the movie really vividly and it was completely depressing and I really have no wish to ever watch it again, so I decided that for the sake of my mental health, to not rewatch it.

All in all, Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson both stood out but for maybe not the best reasons and this was a completely relentlessly depressing film from everything to the plot to the actual “look” of the film. As for my verdict, I don’t think Rebecca would enjoy this kind of movie and Phineas and Ferb seems like the most realistic answer on my part since Rebecca typically enjoys animated movies and shows, and did anyone really like this movie, anyway?

Why Rebecca picked this for me & the answer: The second movie I chose was The Devil All the Time which was honestly such an incredible film. It had a great cast and took such an intense yet watchable story. I know it won’t be for everyone but I really enjoyed my time, watching it.

Verdict: Love 😍

My picks for Rebecca

The Books

• Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space
• The Glass Hotel

The Movies

• The Old Guard
• Love Wedding Repeat

What are you currently reading?
Are we reading any of the same books?

Goodreads | StoryGraph | Instagram | Letterboxd | TV Time | Twitter | Tumblr