Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, 2)

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Hannah always considers herself as supporting actress, not a leading lady. She thinks she’s hype girl as her sister Piper always demanded the spotlight ( we already witnessed how her influential efforts resulted with more heartbreaks) since their childhood. And Hannah patiently waited in the wings, waiting for her right time to be announced as best supporting actress. She was always the one who was bolstering the heroine at her lowest point, taking care of the situation, fixing things! There are a couple of reasons for that. The first one is that one of Hannah’s main character traits is that she is very into music and is very nerdy about it - which is great! I just… don’t think that can be an entire personality? Idk! I mean, I feel like most people are very into music, and we’re all nerdy about the artists that we love the most. So I was a little annoyed that this had to be a thing with Hannah. Like, we all love Fleetwood Mac, chill out! So, yeah, the moment this book came out, I put on hold every other book I was reading and dove into it like I was having pregnancy cravings and this book was a pool filled with fries.

The prologue with all its text exchanges between Fox and Hannah was cute, but I guess it failed at showing me how their frienship evolved during the months they spent apart, only speaking through their phones. i really enjoyed the first book in this series because i felt it didn't take itself too seriously and hit all of its emotional beats with relative seamlessness. with hook, line, and sinker, i've had to write up a small laundry list of pet peeves: Is it bad that whenever the main couple was left alone I kept hoping Segrei (or Andrei?) would pop up and we'd get to see the boss jealous😩. ME... no.1 hater of Russian men WANTED the Russian man, and he wasn't even that interesting. But then we reach the middle of the book, and I feel like it kind of lost some steam for me. Instead of the usual snappy pace, it just went on and on. Fox or Hannah would come up with yet another reason (or the same one) for why they can't possibly be together, and we just went in circles, again and again. Eighteen-year-old Mallory Greenleaf is no longer interested in chess, not since her hypercompetitive dad left—the game calls up painful memories. But she grudgingly agrees to play in a charity tournament as a favor to best friend Easton Peña. After she unexpectedly beats current world champion Nolan Sawyer, she’s offered a fellowship that will prepare her to play professionally. Even though Mallory doesn’t want to play anymore, she needs the money that winning would provide; she’s delayed college to support her family, since her mother is chronically ill with rheumatoid arthritis and is unable to work regularly. The more time she spends with Nolan, the more Mallory comes to like and respect him—and the more time she spends playing chess, the more she remembers how much she loved it. But when she learns that Nolan has been keeping a big secret from her, she isn’t sure if she’ll be able to move past it to build a relationship with him. Filled with the author’s signature humor, well-developed characters, and realistic conflicts, plus the fully realized setting of competitive chess, this captivating romance will delight teen readers as well as Hazelwood’s adult fans. Mallory and Nolan are both cued white; there is some racial diversity among the supporting cast. Mallory and Easton are queer.I know most of you will disagree with me, and it's totally fine, but I have to take this weight off my chest: I am disappointed. Once the chapter started rolling, the story started and they obviously were forced to share a house (because, of course, in Wesport there are no hotels and Hannah and Piper's grandma doesn't have a spare bed in her humble abode), I had to have a meeting with my own brain and heart and had to face an ugly truth I was purposely keeping myself from seeing and stop denying the evidence: this book wasn't giving. I blame it on lust, and to whoever decided to advertize this as a friends-to-lovers as it's certainly not. Fox suffers from imposter syndrome. Even his coworker, best friend Brendan doesn’t trust him with Hannah. Everybody in the small town thinks he’s just a manwhore. His parental issues and an unfortunate incident at the college changed his perspective to the relationships. He’s always doubtful about his own self worth and he thinks he destroys anything he touches.

Got a better taste in music than Hannah (yes I listened to every single song mentioned. It was my only shred of happiness during this time) In the follow-up to It Happened One Summer, Tessa Bailey delivers another deliciously fun rom-com about a former player who accidentally falls for his best friend while trying to help her land a different man… On the surface these characters have depth but underneath they were very very flat and unoriginal. They each only had one hurtle to overcome, one thing to change throughout the entire book. Neither one of the main characters was at all unique or did anything new for me. Their conversations felt weird and a lot of this book had me thinking I was listening to YA. Their texting conversation at the beginning was 15 minutes long (I listened to the audio) and it was very very juvenile. I didn’t learn much besides the fact that the tone it set for the book was one I’d have to crawl through broken and bleeding to get past the finish line.

I was thinking to give four stars to this book but ten years later epilogue filled my eyes in tears so I added additional half star to round up 4.5 to 5 sweet, teary, touchy, trust, love, self worth, bravery, second chances stars! Wow! I was already intrigued by supportive, quirky, sensible, musical prodigy Hannah and heartbreaker, charming, flirty Fox at “It Happened One Summer”. They might have been supporting characters of Piper and Brendan’s love story but they truly deserved their own book. The story starts seven months after It Happened One Summer; this whole time, Hannah and Fox have been texting every day and nursing tiny crushes on each other. Now, the movie Hannah’s working on as an assistant producer is heading to Westport for filming, and she’s about to move into Fox’s guest room for the duration. King crab fisherman Fox Thornton has a reputation as a carefree flirt. Until he meets Hannah Bellinger. She’s immune to his charm and looks, but she seems to enjoy his… personality? And wants to be friends? Bizarre. But he likes her too much to risk a fling, so platonic pals it is. I don't know what it is about me and second books in a series, lately, but I keep being let down by sequels of books I'd absolutelly adored.

Let me just start off by saying that this book is in a ~different league~ from the first. Completely different dynamic in the best possible way. I didn't enjoy this book's predecessor which was Piper and Brendan's story, but I knew from the get-go from reading that book, that I loved Hannah & Fox and couldn't wait for theirs. Of course, they had their funny and sexy moments -some steamier and cheesier than others but who's counting-, reason why I'm giving this three and a half honest stars instead of just two.Hannah is a lowly production assistant in Los Angeles with aspirations to work on movie musical scores. She has a crush on her director Sergei, but he hasn’t noticed her in the two years they’ve been working together. When he doesn’t like the location of the current movie he’s woking on, Hannah suggests they move the location to Westport, WA, which coincidentally is where her sister now lives with her fiance Brendan. fun fact: it doesn't seem intentional, but these novels have some elements in common; the age gap, the fact that Hannah -same MC name, too- is someone's blonde little sister, the player who actually is a player only because it's what people expect him to be, and so on) Though I had so much fun reading this one, one of my favorite things about it was seeing the characters so exposed, vulnerable, and unguarded. They really got to know the raw and real heart of each other and though they had mad chemistry, it was that honest heart connection that really did it for me. They both saw a side of each other that others don’t see and the way Hannah stood up for/protected Fox was absolutely everything! Hannah sets out to catch her coworker’s eye… yet the more time she spends with Fox, the more she wants him instead. As the line between friendship and flirtation begins to blur, Hannah can't deny she loves everything about Fox, but she refuses to be another notch on his bedpost. Men like to feel useful. It stirs up our precious alpha male pride. Find something heavy and tell him you need it lifted. You will have emphasized your physical differences and thus, the fact that he's a man and you're a woman. Men need way less prompting to think of...[sex]"