In trying to review this book I now know why some of you wait to review these series in one fell swoop instead of individually. In praising this effort from Bowen I find myself tempted to just repeat myself from previous reviews. In the fourth book in the series, Sarina Bowen has found her sweet spot and is continuing to write feminist bent romance and in many ways appears to be gunning to be the Courtney Milan of the contemporary new adult genre (as much […]
Warning: Spoilers After this Title
I’m not trying to be cute here, but 15 minutes into reading The Fifteenth Minute, I became very uncomfortable. This is an accurate representation of my face – my smile morphed from anticipatory to a rictus grin of horror. I love Bowen’s previous installments in The Ivy Years series, though I’m less enchanted with her Gravity series. I pre-ordered The Fifteenth Minute and was very excited. But then I read about DJ’s drama and suddenly I was much less excited. I did my best to […]
I want to grow up to be like Rikker’s grandma.
I have been continuing with The Ivy Years books by Sarina Bowen and they continue to be delightful. Delightful feels like such a weird word to use about a series that focuses on such relatively heavy topics and subjects. As I’ve discussed previously The Year We Hid Away and The Year We Fell Down each tackle heavy topics with a deft hand, and The Understatement of the Year, the third full novel in the series, does the same, this time venturing into the dynamics of […]
The Good Guy and the Not Dumb Blonde
I wasn’t planning on reading Blonde Date immediately after finishing The Year We Hid Away. But I had a book hangover and spending some time with the ancillary characters that were to be featured in their own novella seemed to be the perfect plan. One of my few complaints about The Year We Hid Away was that we didn’t get to spend much time at all with other characters or parts of Harkness College, and Blonde Date fills that gap well. The story is the […]


