i read 10 2022 releases in 7 days | christina lauren, emily henry, nikki castle, f. t. lukens etc.

Hey everyone, welcome or welcome back to my blog! I’m starting to get into doing week-long challenges here on my blog (I recently did a challenge where reading was the first thing I did in the morning) and I’m really enjoying them! This year I’ve also been falling behind on reading the new releases on my tbr, so last week I read only 2022 releases! My goal is a book a day but we’ll see how that goes 😓 lol, either way, I am really excited to hopefully read from some favourite authors this week and hopefully, find some other authors I love too (and finally read some more new releases!)

→ Side note: I’ve also included all of the tropes that fit into the books I read this week just in case any of them spark your interest! Let me know if this is something you’d like to see me continue to do in the future!

Here’s how it went! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

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DAY ONE [JULY 1ST]

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Something Wilder by Christina Lauren & The Stranger in 8B by Nikki Castle

Thank you to Hachette Australia for my review copy of Something Wilder!

Today I read the first chapter of The Stranger in Seat 8B (17%) and I read the entirety of Something Wilder!

Unfortunately, Something Wilder didn’t end up being my vibe. Everything going on in the book was crazy and yet I was still so bored! With some of Christina Lauren’s other books, I can see myself re-reading them in the future, but I honestly think I won’t pick this one up again. It’s a fun gimmick and I think it would make a great movie. but it just felt like both too little and too much all in just under 400 pages.

I also read the first chapter of The Stranger in Seat 8B and really enjoyed it, I’m really loving it so far. I’m really liking how Nikki Castle reversed the grumpy x sunshine trope since it’s usually the guy who’s all gruff!

Something Wilder tropes: forced proximity, second chance romance, only one bed

DAY TWO [JULY 2ND]

Book Lovers By Emily Henry

It’s day two and on a whim, I picked up Book Lovers and listened to the entire book! I can’t believe I’m on day 2 and reading a new release by another romance author that I love and I’m disappointed again! Maybe this is just a bad week of reading for me (so far) but, this was so boring! I was so excited to read this because so many of my friends had rated this highly, but I just couldn’t ever get fully on board with it. It took me until roughly the 280-page mark to start enjoying it and even then I was mostly just reading faster to get to the end of the book. I will say though, I also think this would make a fun movie too, but they’d have to give the main characters some more fleshing out, especially, characters like Libby and the townsfolk. What’s the point of a small-town setting if everyone and everything is immediately forgettable?

Book Lovers tropes: small town, forced proximity, grumpy x grumpy, workplace (somewhat) romance

DAY THREE [JULY 3RD]

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A Chance For Us by Corinne Michaels & The Stranger in Seat 8B by Nikki Castle

It’s day 3 and today I read A Chance For Us and I finished The Stranger in Seat 8B! I’ve never read a Corinne Michaels before and I know this is the last book in a standalone series but, I was in the mood for a marriage of convenience so I picked up the audiobook!

ACFU wasn’t mindblowing by any means and for being a 300+ page book, it did go by really quickly and everything in the book happened way too fast! But, I did still enjoy it and I know I’ll definitely pick up the first 3 books in the series because it was still a lot of fun!

As for The Stranger in Seat 8B, I was expecting to enjoy it because I read her other 2 books earlier this year and really enjoyed them (I loved 2 Fights!!) but, I was nervous about this one because it’s a barely over 100 page-long novella where her other books are both between 400 and 500 pages. But, as it turns out, I didn’t have anything to worry about because I really enjoyed this one and I know I’ll preorder the next book in this series as soon as it’s announced! This was a really quick read because of its short page count but, I’m a sucker for the reverse grumpy x sunshine trope so I got through this super quickly before bed!

A Chance For Us tropes: grumpy x sunshine, marriage of convenience, vacation

The Stranger in Seat 8B tropes: reverse grumpy x sunshine, forced proximity

DAY FOUR [JULY 4TH]

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We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets & So This Is Ever After by F. T. Lukens

I really wanted to try and switch up the different types of books I was reading this week to avoid getting into a genre-induced reading slump. So, I thought, to try and change things up since I’ve already read so much romance, I would try and read something more hard-hitting so I picked up We Had To Remove This Post which is actually a translated novel (translated into English from the original Dutch). Earlier this year I made a massive list of translated books I want to read and this was on it, though I certainly think I need to go through that list now and add trigger warnings because this book really was ALL OF THEM. The main character is a content moderator for a social media company and so she has to see all of the posts that get flagged hence, all of the triggers. The mc is somewhat desensitized to these images so they describe them in a lot of detail throughout the book. Some advice: do not eat or drink anything while reading this! This was a really interesting and well-written novel but, I really felt like I needed a nap after finishing it!

I read WHTRTP early in the morning (which was a choice…) so try and lighten the mood I opted for a fantasy romance for the rest of the day! So This Is Ever After is about what happens after the war has been fought and the villain’s kingdom has been overthrown. Who takes over power? How do you rule a kingdom? Do all prophies come true? How do you do all of this when you’re only 17? This was a pretty slow-paced read and honestly, it was very predictable, and at times, that made it a bit boring. BUT, it has major Merthur (BBC Merlin Cerca 2008, for those who don’t know) vibes and a great cast of background characters who I really loved! I think this would make such a fun tv show because it was really cinematic and I was able to picture everything in this book so clearly, which is an absolutely brand new occurrence for me! This wasn’t my favourite thing I’ve ever read, but it was still fun, had a lot of hijinks and I know I’ll be reading more of F.T. Lukens’ books as soon as this week is over! (I have their 2021 release about gay pirates on audiobook already and I am excited!!)

We Had To Remove This Post tropes: workplace romance (toxic)

So This Is Ever After tropes: best friends to lovers, grumpy x sunshine, found family

DAY FIVE [JULY 5TH]

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

It’s day 5 and we have finally come to the main reason I decided to do this week-long challenge and I couldn’t be more surprised and shocked to tell you that this book gets an immediate 2 stars! Cleopatra and Frankenstein takes place over the course of a year and I tell you, it felt like it took me a year to get through it. I refused to stop reading it until I was finished it because I knew if I put it down I would never pick it up again, and that’s how I was still on the couch at 2am listening to an audiobook and playing animal crossing until my eyes went rectangular.

I know this will probably win a bunch of awards because the main character is British and it’s about addiction and toxic environments and everyone is pretentious and has too much energy while somehow simultaneously having absolutely no energy at all. But, it absolutely wasn’t my jam and definitely not what I needed to read today. But, hey, now I’ve renovated my entire island and I’ve read another book… so yay?

Cleopatra and Frankenstein tropes: age gap

DAY SIX [JULY 6TH]

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See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon & The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Okay. so if there was any book on my tbr for the week that I thought I would enjoy the least or just not get to, it was this one! But, See You Yesterday ended up being a 4 star read for me and now I’m considering going back and reading Rachel Lynn Solomon’s backlist since I’ve only ever read her adult romances before now! I’ve never seen Groundhog Day (slander, I know!) but, I love the idea of the trope, even if it hardly ever gets done well in media. So, I was expecting this to be a bit of a flop that I would eventually take off my tbr and forget about, but, it turns out this was so so good! It was a lot of fun and very chaotic which I loved! It includes so many of my favourite tropes and I wouldn’t be surprised if I re-read this again in the future! I just checked Scribd and some of RLS’s backlist YA is on there so I definitely think I’ll be binging F.T. Lukens and Rachel Lynn Solomon after this experiment is finished!

I also decided to finish the night off by starting a new book; The Kaiju Preservation Society! It’s definitely different from any of the books I’ve read so far this week and I highly recommend it for fans of Jurassic Park, The Great Zoo of China & Godzilla! I got 7 chapters in and I think I’ll be able to finish it pretty quickly tomorrow. It’s very cool so far, though, I could have done without the Covid stuff at the beginning.

See You Yesterday tropes: groundhog day, opposites attract, friends to lovers, forced proximity, grumpy x sunshine, the guy falls first, only one bed

DAY SEVEN [JULY 7TH]

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The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi & Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Thank you to Pan Macmillan Australia for my review copy of Sea of Tranquility!

It’s the last day of this mini-experiment and I’m finishing the week off by reading two books! I finished The Kaiju Preservation Society and wow that was so much fun! I really wasn’t sure what to expect but, it gave off major Jurassic Park, The Great Zoo of China and Godzilla vibes, so if you like any of those things you should absolutely pick this up! It’s a lot of fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously so I really wouldn’t be surprised if I picked this up for a re-read in the future!

& last but not least, I decided to read something, again, completely different from all of my other reads this week, I read Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. I’ve read two of their backlist novels, The Glass Hotel & Station Eleven, both of which I had differing opinions on. Honestly, this felt pretty similar, to what I can remember of their other books. The writing is good, there are lots of characters, everything sort of connects in the end and if you get distracted and leave your audiobook running you will spend ages trying to figure out where you were only to figure out that you never really noticed what was going on in the first place. This book is an interesting kind of boring because the writing is good and the characters are vaguely interesting you feel like you should care more than you do, or at least that’s how I felt reading this. I rated this the same as The Kaiju Preservation Society but they are two very different ratings – Kaiju was fun and a bit ridiculous, but, this was just a solid average read, it wasn’t good or bad. I will say though, as someone who has gone out of their way not to read about anything related to Covid, it was very spooky for me to pick up two books in a row that both mentioned the pandemic!

The Kaiju Preservation Society tropes: alternate universes

Sea of Tranquility tropes: different timelines, pandemic

How do we feel about these week-long challenges?
Have you read any of the books I read last week?

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