Seven Percent of Ro Devereux by Ellen O’Clover: Review & Ellen’s Top Ten Addictions

Posted by & filed under Author Top Ten Lists, Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Reviews.

Today I’m featuring SEVEN PERCENT OF RO DEVEREAUX by Ellen O’Clover, an addictive best-friends-to-enemies-to-lovers YA romance.

Read on for my review of the book, and then make sure you also check out Ellen’s list of top ten addictions to find out more about the author!

Seven Percent of Ro Devereux by Ellen O’Clover
Published by HarperTeen on January 17, 2023
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Source: The Author
Cover Artist: Andrea De Santis

A clever, charming, and poignant debut novel about a girl who must decide whether to pursue her dreams or preserve her relationships, including a budding romance with her ex-best friend, when an app she created goes viral.

Ro Devereux can predict your future. Or, at least, the app she built for her senior project can.
Working with her neighbor, a retired behavioral scientist, Ro created an app called MASH, designed around the classic game Mansion Apartment Shack House, that can predict a person’s future with 93% accuracy. The app will even match users with their soul mates. Though it was only supposed to be a class project, MASH quickly takes off and gains the attention of tech investors.

Ro’s dream is to work in Silicon Valley, and she’ll do anything to prove to her new backing company—and the world—that the app works. So it’s a huge shock when the app says her soul mate is Miller, her childhood best friend with whom she had a friendship-destroying fight three years ago. Now thrust into a fake dating scenario, Ro and Miller must address the years of pain between them if either of them will have any chance of achieving their dreams.

Fans of Emma Lord and Alex Light will love this stand-alone contemporary novel with a masterful slow-burn romance at its core.

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2022 End of Year Book Survey (& Year in Graphs!)

Posted by & filed under Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Year End Posts.

As I say every year, I’ve adapted this from The Perpetual Page Turner’s End of Year Survey! I’m just barely sneaking this in during January, but I was waiting for my book announcement, and then I had a whole bunch of already previously scheduled posts to go up. So, better late than never?

2022 READING STATS

Number of Books You Read: 115

This just happens to be the exact number of books I read last year.

(Plus 24 picture books and 6 manuscript readings, neither of which are included in Goodreads, but I track them in my spreadsheet.)

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Top Ten Books of 2022!!

Posted by & filed under Book Lists, Feed Your Fiction Addiction.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is

Top Ten Books I Read in 2022

I’m working on my 2022 wrap-up post, but it will take a bit of time, with all the graphs and all. So, I thought for now I’d put up a TTT post to whet your appetite. To choose my Top Ten for the year, I used the very scientific method of looking over my Goodreads Year in Books and choosing the 10 that stood out to me the most.

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September 2022 Reading & Writing Wrap-Up

Posted by & filed under Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Monthly Wrap-Ups.

My Goings-On in September:

Here are the things that stand out to me this month:

  • Working at Barnes & Noble! I’ve been working four days a week, and that’s been an adjustment. I’ve had a lot less time for blogging and blog-hopping. I absolutely love the job, though!
  • Marathon training. I run the marathon on Sunday!! (Of course, I woke up yesterday with a cold. Ugh!)
  • Writing things that I still can’t talk about. I know, I know, I keep saying that. I promise eventually I’ll be able to tell you everything. Eventually.

My 2022 Reading Progress:

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August 2022 Reading & Writing Wrap-Up

Posted by & filed under Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Monthly Wrap-Ups.

My Goings-On in August:

Here are the things that stand out to me this month:

  • I started working at Barnes & Noble! I’m working part-time there, and really loving it. This is the most I’ve gotten to talk about book IRL in a very long time! I definitely have less time for blogging now, though—I even missed my Sunday Post twice!
  • Danielle is off to Purdue, and she’s really thriving there. So far her transition has gone better than any of us ever imagined it would. She loves the school and loves the landscape architecture program. (Noah also started his senior year of high school, and Jade started her final year at Illinois Tech).
  • Some possible developments on the publishing front. I can’t say anything beyond that, but in this business you have to celebrate every single forward movement or you’ll go crazy, so I’m celebrating!
  • Still training for the marathon. Last weekend I ran 18 miles, and I still can’t believe I managed it. I hate to keep asking, but I’m going to swallow my pride and do it anyway because I haven’t hit my fundraising goal–if you want to donate toward my run to bring clean water to developing countries, you can do so by clicking the link!

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MacKenzie’s Last Run by Gayle Rosengren: Review, Pre-order Giveaway, & Gayle’s Top Ten Addictions!

Posted by & filed under Author Top Ten Lists, Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Reviews.

Gayle is one of those authors I’ve been meaning to read for ages because so many people raved about her last book, COLD WAR ON MAPLEWOOD STREET. So when she reached out to me and asked if I’d be willing to read and review MACKENZIE’S LAST RUN and help her create a pre-order giveaway, I was more than happy to oblige. I’m very glad I did because this new book is a gem!

Read on for my review and check out the author’s Top Ten Addictions and the pre-order giveaway, which is especially great for teachers and librarians (but everyone can get in on the fun!). There’s also a Goodreads giveaway going on, so I’ve linked to that, too.

MacKenzie’s Last Run by Gayle Rosengren
Published by Three Towers Press on September 1, 2022
Genres: Contemporary, Middle Grade
Pages: 236
Source: The Author
Cover Artist: Youness El Hindami

Thirteen-year-old MacKenzie (Mac) Lawrence secretly blames himself for his father’s death in a mall shooting. In his grief and guilt, he has pulled away from everyone, even his twin sister Tessa. When their mother announces her plans to remarry barely two years after Dad’s death Mac is furious and runs away in an attempt to force her to break off the engagement.

Unfortunately, nothing goes as Mac plans. He ends up seriously injured, miles from home, unable to reach out for help, while clues he inadvertently left behind suggest he’s been kidnapped—possibly by Mom’s fiancé—and set his twin sister Tessa on a desperate search to find him. But she’d better hurry, because the clock is ticking, and Mac is running out of time.

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July 2022 Reading & Writing Wrap-Up

Posted by & filed under Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Monthly Wrap-Ups.

My Goings-On in July:

Here are the things that stand out to me this month:

  • I started training for a marathon! Now, I am not a runner. At all. The farthest I’ve ever run was a 5k, and that was like 10 years ago (and I thought it was amazing that I even accomplished that at the time). I haven’t run since. But World Vision came to our church and talked about the importance of bringing clean water to developing countries, a cause I’m already passionate about. Many people walk miles every day to get clean water, so I figured I can run a few to help them. (Okay, more than a few, but it’s worth it.) I’ve been training, and have made it up to a half-marathon, which already felt more than a little impossible! If you want to donate toward my run to bring clean water to developing countries, you can do so by clicking the link!

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Mid-Year Bernie’s Book Bank Check-In: Books I’ve Donated This Year

Posted by & filed under Feed Your Fiction Addiction.

Many of you know that I volunteer at Bernie’s Book Bank, a fantastic organization that provides books to kids in under-resourced areas. The founder of Bernie’s was a reading tutor and realized that many of the kids he worked with couldn’t practice reading at home because they had NO BOOKS! (Anyone visiting my blog understands the tragedy in this statement.) Well, he decided to do something about it, and now Bernie’s has given out more than 20 MILLION books!

Bernie’s gets lots of books from their partners (I’m including a pic down at the bottom of this post since these publishers, distributors and resellers deserve all the praise for their contributions), but they also rely on individuals who donate their gently-used kids’ books.

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May/June 2022 Reading & Writing Wrap-Up

Posted by & filed under Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Monthly Wrap-Ups.

My Goings-On in May & June:

Here are the things that stand out to me over the past two months:

  • May was all about graduation and end-of-school events. 
    • Danielle graduated high school. She’s off to Purdue in the fall! We had her graduation party last week.
  • June was all about vacation, followed by COVID.
    • At the beginning of June, we went to Disney for the Special Olympics USA Games, where my son’s team got the silver medal for his division. The games were great, and Disney was lots of fun, but then…
    • COVID struck. Everyone but my husband, who didn’t go to Disney, got it—and even he had a cold (which he got before we came home, so he didn’t get it from us). I’m actually still not completely over COVID’s effects. I still have a bit of a sore throat and I’m congested. I’m ready to be done with it now!!
    • So I wasn’t around the blog much in June (and didn’t even manage to get a May wrap-up posted, thus the two-for-one here). Hopefully things will go back to normal soon, but I feel like I’ve been saying that for a while.

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The War on All Fronts by Kim Oclon: Review & Author and Character Top Ten Addictions

Posted by & filed under Author Top Ten Lists, Feed Your Fiction Addiction, Reviews.

Today I’m featuring THE WAR ON ALL FRONTS, an LGBTQ YA historical that takes place during the Vietnam War. Check out my review, along with Kim’s list of top ten addictions, bonus lists of the two MCs’ top ten addictions, and a giveaway of the book!

The War on All Fronts by Kim Oclon
Published by Trism Books on May 7, 2022
Genres: Historical Fiction, LGBTQ+, Young Adult
Pages: 344
Source: Purchased, The Publisher

An LGBTQ coming of age story about fighting for someone you love, brought to life in this Vietnam War era historical fiction.

It seemed as though Anthony and Sam had just found each other, and now they were already being torn apart. Sam to college in Wisconsin; Anthony across the world fighting in the Vietnam War. Through their separate journeys, they discover themselves, and rely on the one way to share their secret together. Corresponding with secret messages, scary truths, and fears about the war, readers will follow Anthony and Sam’s path to friendship, love, and survival.

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