The Fall Bucket List Book Tag

This tag has become a bit of a tradition, or I’m trying to make it one; I don’t know which it is. I like this for fall. Tiffany created this tag at Read By Tiffany.

Rules:

• Link back to the original creator in your post.
• Feel free to use any of the graphics in your post, or create your own!
• Tag seven other people at the end of your post, and let them know you’ve tagged them.

Goodreads Blurb:

With Catia Roday has learned the hard way that love always disappoints, so when she finds herself falling for Josh Rideout—the handsome, charming, seemingly-perfect guy she just met on vacation—only to find out they hail from neighboring towns, she has one question: what’s the catch?

Unwilling to let love make a fool of her again, Cat tries desperately to ignore the chemistry between her and Josh, but it isn’t easy when their vacation plans keep overlapping. With the universe constantly throwing them together, and her friends practically staging an intervention to tell her she’s making a huge mistake, she decides to prove her point once and for all. On the way home, she makes a bet. She’ll take her budding vacation romance back to the real world, and when she proves Josh is too good to be true, she wins! (And she avoids another heartbreak.)

I need something light-hearted or gripping to read it, mainly on the phone.

Goodreads Blurb:

When Sara Foster runs away from home at sixteen, she leaves behind not only the losses that have shattered her world but the girl she once was, capable of trust and intimacy. Years later, in Los Angeles, she is a sought-after bartender, renowned as much for her brilliant cocktails as for the mystery that clings to her. Across the city, Emilie Dubois is in a holding pattern. In her seventh year and fifth major as an undergraduate, she yearns for the beauty and community her Creole grandparents cultivated but is unable to commit. On a whim, she takes a job arranging flowers at the glamorous restaurant Yerba Buena and embarks on an affair with the married owner.

When Sara catches sight of Emilie one morning at Yerba Buena, their connection is immediate. But the damage both women carry, and the choices they have made, pulls them apart again and again. When Sara’s old life catches up to her, upending everything she thought she wanted just as Emilie has finally gained her own sense of purpose, they must decide if their love is more powerful than their pasts.

I have seen it on blogs and Instagram, but when I read it, I was close to DNF it.

Goodreads Blurb:

Talented A-lister Cate Whitney is the gorgeous middle-aged movie star almost every lesbian has a crush on.

Rachel Janssen, an introverted medical physics student, is no exception. So when her celebrity crush starts filming near her Vancouver apartment, she can’t believe her luck.

A chance encounter with Cate leads to a little swooning, small-talk, and a shock offer to help the star as a science consultant on her Marie Curie film. And, wait, could Cate actually be flirting with Rachel?

However, as the chemistry sizzles between them, Rachel struggles with the harsh reality of being linked to a famous actress. Paparazzi keep dragging her into the spotlight when all she wants is to be taken seriously in her medical career.

Is falling for a superstar too much to handle? Even if sexy Cate Whitney is the one everyone wants? Even if she’s everything Rachel needs?

I loved Rachel’s friend/roommate.

Goodreads Blurb:

Teenage baker Syd sends ripples of heartbreak through Austin’s queer community when a batch of post-being-dumped brownies turns out to be magical—and makes everyone who eats them break up.

“What’s done is done.”
Unless, of course, it was done by my brownies. Then it’s getting undone.

Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd’s breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it’s probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd’s magical baking can fix things, too—one recipe at a time.

I think for my review it’s pretty clear I love it and it was a five star for me.

Goodreads Blurb:

He’s sexy. He’s southern. And he won’t stop showing up at my door half naked. Meet Elijah Jackson, my hot new neighbor…

From the outside looking in? I’ve got it all. Prestigious job. Pretty house. And a perfect boyfriend who just proposed with the perfect ring.

I should feel ecstatic—but instead, I feel suffocated. So I break up with my boyfriend, hop in my car, and head south.

Charleston, South Carolina: home to stunning architecture, sultry accents, and—oh yeah—my perpetually shirtless neighbor, Elijah Jackson.

As if his abs for days and inked up deliciousness aren’t enticing enough, he also encourages me to chase down my dreams. And the chemistry between us? Hotter than the kitchen at Eli’s restaurant.

But I still have a life a thousand miles away. One I’ve worked really hard to build. And I don’t know if I can just leave it all behind.

I have to choose. A choice Eli doesn’t make any easier by inviting me out to his cabin for a long weekend. Just the two of us. And one bed. I swear to God this southerner is out to charm the panties right off me. Just this once, I might let him…

Elijah has it all in my eyes, he’s the kind of chef who can have the cake and eat it too, if it makes any sense?

Goodreads Blurb:

A heartfelt and inspiring memoir and Deaf culture anthem by Nyle DiMarco, actor, producer, two-time reality show winner, and cultural icon of the international Deaf community.

Before becoming the actor, producer, advocate, and model that people know today, Nyle DiMarco was half of a pair of Deaf twins born to a multi-generational Deaf family in Queens, New York. At the hospital one day after he was born, Nyle “failed” his first test—a hearing test—to the joy and excitement of his parents.

In this moving and engrossing memoir, Nyle shares stories, both heartbreaking and humorous, of what it means to navigate a world built for hearing people. From growing up in a rough-and-tumble childhood in Queens with his big and loving Italian-American family to where he is now, Nyle has always been driven to explore beyond the boundaries given him.

A college math major and athlete at Gallaudet—the famed university for the Deaf in Washington, DC—Nyle was drawn as a young man to acting, and dove headfirst into the reality show competitions America’s Next Top Model and Dancing with the Stars—ultimately winning both competitions.

Deaf Utopia is more than a memoir, it is a cultural anthem—a proud and defiant song of Deaf culture and a love letter to American Sign Language, Nyle’s primary language. Through his stories and those of his Deaf brothers, parents, and grandparents, Nyle opens many windows into the Deaf experience.

Deaf Utopia is intimate, suspenseful, hilarious, eye-opening, and smart—both a memoir and a celebration of what makes Deaf culture unique and beautiful.

Two things made me super happy here, one pushing for accessibility across the board—two, learning that Nyle is Bi.

Tagging:

I will ask some people if they want to do this tag; if they do, I will tag them here.

Alex