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Title: The Hating Game
Author: Sally Thorne
Genre: Chick-lit
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 316
Date read: October, 2019

Lucy Hutton has always been certain that the nice girl can get the corner office. She’s charming and accommodating and prides herself on being loved by everyone at Bexley & Gamin. Everyone except for coldly efficient, impeccably attired, physically intimidating Joshua Templeman. And the feeling is mutual.

Trapped in a shared office together 40 (OK, 50 or 60) hours a week, they’ve become entrenched in an addictive, ridiculous never-ending game of one-upmanship. There’s the Staring Game. The Mirror Game. The HR Game. Lucy can’t let Joshua beat her at anything—especially when a huge new promotion goes up for the taking.

If Lucy wins this game, she’ll be Joshua’s boss. If she loses, she’ll resign. So why is she suddenly having steamy dreams about Joshua, and dressing for work like she’s got a hot date? After a perfectly innocent elevator ride ends with an earth-shattering kiss, Lucy starts to wonder whether she’s got Joshua Templeman all wrong.

Maybe Lucy Hutton doesn’t hate Joshua Templeman. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.


I had this recommended to me, because I'd enjoyed "The Unhoneymooners" so much. I'm glad, because even though it couldn't quite compare to TU, I still really enjoyed it, and read most of it in a day. Chick-lit has come a LONG way since the late 90s/early 00s when I mostly gave up on the genre, and I couldn't be happier.

Once again it's the enemies-to-lovers trope, although the switch from one to the other is a lot more sudden, and not quite as believable. Still, I loved seeing how Lucy and Josh changed their ways of interacting, and read most of the book in just one sitting.

The end did come a few days sooner than I would have preferred, but it never did promise to be anything other than feel-good fluff, so I can live with it.
goodreads: (Default)
Title: Sheets
Author: Brenna Thummler
Genre: Graphic novel
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 224 pages
Date read: May, 2018

Marjorie Glatt feels like a ghost. A practical thirteen year old in charge of the family laundry business, her daily routine features unforgiving customers, unbearable P.E. classes, and the fastidious Mr. Saubertuck who is committed to destroying everything she’s worked for.

Wendell is a ghost. A boy who lost his life much too young, his daily routine features ineffective death therapy, a sheet-dependent identity, and a dangerous need to seek purpose in the forbidden human world.

When their worlds collide, Marjorie is confronted by unexplainable disasters as Wendell transforms Glatt's Laundry into his midnight playground, appearing as a mere sheet during the day. While Wendell attempts to create a new afterlife for himself, he unknowingly sabotages the life that Marjorie is struggling to maintain.


I was utterly charmed by this graphic novel. The drawings are breathtaking (the colouring especially) and the storyline really sweet and touching. I felt for Marjorie from the very beginning, and though she should really have called the police on Nigel the first time he trespassed, as a 13-year-old with an absent father, I can understand why that didn't happen.

Wendell grated on my nerves at first, but as we got to know him better, I started understanding why he acted out the way he did. He did seem somewhat younger than his 11 years, but I'm willing to blame being dead for reverting to a younger childhood.

I loved the end and how the laundrette did become a "spa" after all.
goodreads: (Peanut: Book geek)
Title: Sacred Marriage
Author: Gary Thomas
Genre: Christian non-fiction
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: 304
Date read: August, 2015

Your marriage is more than a sacred covenant with another person. It is a spiritual discipline designed to help you know God better, trust him more fully, and love him more deeply. Scores of books have been written that offer guidance for building the marriage of your dreams. But what if God s primary intent for your marriage isn t to make you happy... but holy? And what if your relationship isn t as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God?

Everything about your marriage--everything--is filled with prophetic potential, with the capacity for discovering and revealing Christ s character. The respect you accord your partner; the forgiveness you humbly seek and graciously extend; the ecstasy, awe, and sheer fun of lovemaking; the history you and your spouse build with one another--in these and other facets of your marriage, Sacred Marriage uncovers the mystery of God s overarching purpose.


Very obviously written by a male for a male audience. He does try to make it generally relevant, but only succeeds about half the time.

He makes several good points, but gives very little practical advice. It's all put in general terms with very little - if any - time spent on how to put the advice into everyday use.

At the end of the book I had a very hard time remembering any specifics about what I'd read. Obviously not a book that spoke to me on any significant level. That's not to say I didn't find it applicable - I just missed insight into how to apply it.
goodreads: (Peanut: Book geek)
Title: The Five Languages of Apology
Author: Gary Chapman & Jennifer Thomas
Genre: Christian non-fiction
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 260
Date read: February, 2013

Just as you have a different love language, you also hear and express the words and gestures of apology in a different language. It's not just a matter of that you apologize but also how you apologize. By helping people identify the languages of apology, this book clears the way toward healing and sustaining vital relationships. The authors detail proven techniques for giving and receiving effective apologies.

The five languages of apology are: Expressing regret, Accepting responsibility, Making restitution, Genuinely repenting, Requesting forgiveness.

Unfortunately not nearly as good as "The Five Love Languages". I do think the authors have a point, that there are different languages of apology, but I found it a lot harder to relate to the differences between the languages, and I still have absolutely no clue what my primary language of apology is!

It's not a book I'd want to read in one sitting - although that's what I did with TFLL - because as it's a book about apology you're automatically made to think of times when you owed others an apology, or they owed you one. Made for rather depressing reading at times.

Gary and Jennifer do have some good points at times though, and while I still have no idea what neither my own nor my husband's language of apology is, I now know to rephrase my apology using several different ones. Besides, I do know one or two that it's definitely NOT, so that always helps.

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