Recommended for You by Laura Silverman

 Hey Everyone!

Another review coming your way!

This one is of a book I found at the library a couple of weeks ago, and it was an absolute cover-read!  The cover caught my attention, and then once I read the inside flap, I knew this sounded like my kind of book!

So here's my review of Recommended for You by Laura Silverman!

From Goodreads:

To All the Boys I've Loved Before meets You've Got Mail in this charming and hilarious rom-com following two teen booksellers whose rivalry is taken to the next level as they compete for the top bookseller bonus.

Shoshanna Greenberg loves working at Once Upon, her favorite local bookstore. And with her moms fighting at home and beloved car teetering on the brink of death, the store has become a welcome escape.

When her boss announces a holiday bonus to the person who sells the most books, Shoshanna sees an opportunity to at least fix her car, if none of her other problems. The only person standing in her way? New hire Jake Kaplan.

Jake is an affront to everything Shoshanna stands for. He doesn't even read! But somehow his sales start to rival hers. Jake may one cute (really cute), and he may be an eligible Jewish single (hard to find south of Atlanta), but he's also the enemy, and Shoshanna is ready to take him down.

But as the competition intensifies, Jake and Shoshanna grow closer and realize they might be more on the same page than either expects...

My Thoughts:

Where to start?  First off, I would say this book is like a book version of the movie Empire Records.  But way more teeny-boppy.  Besides taking place in a book store, I wouldn't compare it You've Got Mail.  

I thought the story was cute.  I love that it took place in a book store, those types of stories always get me, especially contemporary novels!  However, Shoshanna.  Oh, Shoshanna.  Maybe it is because I'm 30, and have lived life a bit, but I just could not find myself relating to Shoshanna.  I'm not saying her problems aren't problems, it's just the immature way she handled anything that came at her.  It was cringe-worthy, and I just thought about how much of a sheltered life this character has lived, even though you wouldn't think so, knowing that she has two mom's, is half black, and Jewish.  It honestly felt like the author, didn't do the character justice. Which I don't know if that's possible when the author made the character up herself. 

Everything just flowed a little much into place, there was no real struggle.  It just was "Oh darn, this sucks." And then the next, "Rainbows and butterflies, everything is fine again."

The part that was a bit hard for me to grasp, how this entire story took place over a single week.  It made Jake and Shoshanna's relationship a little hard to grasp.  It was all so convenient, and just needed more struggle and drama I thought.  The drama that occurred, was just a bit 🥱. 

Overall Rating:

I went back and forth on this rating.  In the end I think it is a two and a half star read for me.  I didn't hate it, the problem is there are just too many things that bothered me about this one, and I wasn't able to truly appreciate the setting and storyline of this book, like I hoped I would.  But again, it may very well be, that I just was too old for this one.  I still enjoy Middle-grade, and definitely still enjoy YA, but this one just had a character that I couldn't get into.

The  Romance Bookie :)