| Title: | All the Little Things Box Set Trilogy | |
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| Author: | B. Hollidae | |
| Publisher | Self published | |
| Publication Date: | April 16, 2019 | |
| Publisher's Description | After spending all her twenties attending the weddings of her close friends and peers and having nothing but bad luck in the area of love despite her best-laid plans, Spring decides she’s done with relationships. She’s skipping the love and marriage and headed straight to the baby carriage with the decision to get artificially inseminated. But at a table in the farthest back corner of the reception venue of her best friend’s wedding, she meets the best man, Bilal, and they click over a mutual admiration for art and geek culture. He’s not looking for a relationship. Even if he was, he just broke off an engagement two months before he was supposed to say “I do,” and he’s not willing to talk about it. Huge red flag. It’s easy for Spring to overlook, though. Not only is he a nice guy, but he sees past the woman that doesn’t need anyone to take care of her and to the woman who still doesn’t need anyone to take care of her but wants to be taken care of anyway. What they decide to start together is supposed to be casual, giving Spring a chance to enjoy the fun of a relationship as long as it will last before she carries out her baby plans. However, slowly but surely, the line between casual and serious starts to blur, and Spring has to start thinking about the tough questions. Do she and Bilal really want the same things out of this? And if they don’t, does it really matter? Just maybe, for once, what she plans for and what the universe gives her will be the exact same thing. And if it’s not, dare she hope for something better? |
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| My rating: |  |
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I was really excited to read this book, because I enjoyed B. Hollidae’s previous series. After the first 50 or so pages, I wasn’t entirely sure that I liked this story as much. Still, I found Spring interesting and the evolution of her relationship with Bilal grabbed my attention. If you also find the book a little slow to grab your attention in the beginning, hang in there. I was glad that I kept reading because the story grew on me as I got further into the book. I liked the descriptions of Spring’s gaming, her job, and the backstory on her family that she went into detail about as the book progressed. I also liked learning more about Bilal; their relationship wasn’t what made them interesting to me, but I did like how they were together. The dialog was pretty snappy and made me laugh out loud a time or two. I liked seeing the evolution of different relationships that Spring had, outside of her romance with Bilal. Her twins sisters were a hoot and I loved their scenes. Spring’s mom was portrayed well, too; without making her annoying, Ms. Hollidae showed the conflicting personality traits that demonstrated the friction between the two women.
One thing that I definitely did not like (and which isn’t unique to this author) is the fact that Spring’s father is only ever described as African. There are 50+ African nations, and some of those countries contain multiple ethnic groups, so it feels cheap not to specify where Aqil came from. Especially because if a character said that their father was European, and followed European traditions, most readers would rightly point out the variety of peoples and traditions that fall under the umbrella of “European” (how similar are the day-to-day lives of most Finns and Turks, for example?). It’s not a deal-breaker, but every time I read “African” instead of a more specific descriptor, it took me out of what was happening. Considering that other facets of life were described and even explained in more detail (such as the fact that, traditionally, black children will call their older cousins “aunt” or “uncle” as a sign of respect), the omission of a specific country/culture felt kind of glaring to me.
It’s hard to remember now, because I enjoyed All the Little Things series so much, but I wasn’t entirely sold on the first novel from the beginning, and it took me a while to get into what was happening. I feel like I’m having the same experience with this series, because I’m already impatiently awaiting book number two. I definitely recommend this novel.
I read a galley of the book, which had not undergone final edits, so while I noticed some issues that should be corrected by an editor, I’m not sure they’ll be in the final product.
I received a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed reading Burn for Me when it was released in 2014, so I was very excited to see that the next two books in the series were going to be published in short succession in 2017. I’ve read way too many books in the interim, so I knew that I was going to have to reread the first book in order to prepare for White Hot. I’m so glad that I did. First, I got to enjoy the world building all over again. The setting of this series is top-notch! Next, I was reminded of how intense these books are. While they can be read in a single sitting, especially if you are as obsessive as I am about good books, they are not at all light books. Although there is a fair amount of humor, as with most of Ilona Andrews’ books, there’s some seriously dark shit in these novels, is what I’m saying. Reading the first and second books in this series back to back allowed me to see the characters grow and evolve from where they were at the beginning of the first novel. I loved the authors’
