Release date: July 9, 2013
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Age Group: New Adult
Genre: Contemporary romance
Tour organized by: AToMR Tours
Where to Find Romancing the Bookworm:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Sometimes, even the best-laid plans can unravel.
It's spring break, and Tamara Winters would rather stay on campus and read romance novels than flaunt her size-fourteen body on a beach. But her best friend, Rony, has other ideas. Against her wishes, Tamara is whisked away to picturesque Maverick Bay, where she's wrangled into waiting tables with Rony at the Shore Shack for its busy week leading to Maverick's Surf Invitational. There she meets fellow schoolmate Xavier Solomon, the Invitational's organizer and campus womanizer by reputation. From the moment Tamara sees him emerging from the waves like a hero in of one of her romance novels, all she wants to do is run away from the feelings he inspires in her.
Little does she know Xavier has been watching her for weeks now. In fact, after failed attempts at asking her out on campus, he's concocted a crazy plan: fabricating romantic situations straight out of her favorite books. Xavier quickly realizes that if Tamara gets a whiff of his designs, he might as well spell CREEPER across his forehead. Yet as they grow closer, he's convinced it's a risk worth taking. What he hasn't planned on, of course, is his drug-addicted, alcoholic stepbrother, who decides to join the fun and put a wrench in Xavier’s scheme.
Spring break is proving hotter than Tamara expected. Will her romance novels be able to compete?
Our Review:
I got really giddy at the idea of a book about a boy reenacting romantic scenes from romance novels to win over the girl he likes, so to say I was really excited to start this one is an understatement! He is also a surfer, so this definitely made the list for a great summer read before I had even finished the first chapter.
Court, I also was excited to read this book--I thought the premise was super sweet and it turns out that it was. Xavier, our male protagonist, has gone to extremes to romance Tamara and to try to break through her book haze long enough to get her interested in him. Anyone with half a brain can see that this is just the perfect set up for for things to go wrong and they do.
Haha...the best laid plans...Xavier and Tamara both have big time foot-in-mouth moments because they can neither one say the right thing to save their life. Which is amazing. Just like Cora Carmack has instilled the mantra "Embrace the awkward" in me, and I think it applies here. I can totally see myself as Tamara tripping and falling all over myself if someone that looked like Xavier paid me any attention...oh wait, I have done that! *facepalm*
I thought the first few attempts to grab Tamara's attention were sweet and funny--Xavier was trying so hard to get her to notice him and when things don't go as planned it was fun to see what he'd do next to try to make things work. To his credit he did not throw in the towel when things didn't go as planned and he also got comfortable enough to sort of let go of his plans when he finally managed to break through some of Tamara's barriers. Not only was his desire to woo her completely adorable but the fact that he only had eyes for her even as beach babes were trying to get his attention made him an even better guy than he was.
He really was a good guy...and this is testified by how close he and Ronni (Tamara's best friend) and Hudson (Ronni's brother/Xavier's best friend) all are. They had each others backs and talked out pretty much everything, which is always really refreshing in characters. Even if it hurts and just totally sucked they told each other what was needed to be said...and I love strong secondary characters, so there's that!
Reading Tamara's reactions to Xavier's attempts to grab her attention were equally fun. She was so incredulous and confused and in denial...her reactions were priceless. I loved when she finally let go of her wall of books and decided to enjoy herself; it was nice to see her let go and allow herself to experience the pleasures and feelings of real life .
I was a bit skeptical of her books references at first, but then when the book flowed so well it didn't bother me. She had more reasons than (well, than I do) to have her nose stuck in a book all day, so all of these shenanigans were truly helping her find herself and break out of her shell.
Of course, as it tends to happen in almost every book ever written, obstacles to the happily ever after are thrown in the path of our boy and our girl. In this case we have Xavier's messed up brother, the deaths of parents that have left some scars, and of course the deception that got Tamara to go to Maverick Bay in the first place. I have to say that these obstacles were, thankfully, not overly angsty.
Very true...they were tough for the characters, but not tough to read...which I think goes back to that there were no secrets with these people. Even if Zander was doing something with a bit of malicious intent, the truth always stayed in the forefront and made them hash it out.
Final thought. I wish that we lived in a world where what I'm about to say wasn't a big deal..and I think we're making baby steps to that world...but we're not there yet. So...I love that Kate Evangelista made our heroine real--she has curves and she likes to eat and she's a size 14 and she's proud of it. I love that she wrote her as confident and beautiful as she deserved to be. We finally have a heroine who isn't a perfect size 4 with long legs and model-esque body...instead, she's like many of us in the real world.
Floating on cloud nine for this as well. I'm one of those people who has been a lot of sizes through the seasons, so it is nice for her to be the strong lead character with minimal hangups about her body. She had a few insecurities, but she wasn't portrayed as the FFF (funny, fat friend) or had out of control body issues. Sometimes books find me at the most perfect times, and Shelley, you know how emotional Brittany Gibbons of Brittany, Herself blog has made me this week, so you can imagine how much my heart melted for Tamara's awesomeness.
Shelley: 4 Stars
Courtney: 4 Stars
Court, I also was excited to read this book--I thought the premise was super sweet and it turns out that it was. Xavier, our male protagonist, has gone to extremes to romance Tamara and to try to break through her book haze long enough to get her interested in him. Anyone with half a brain can see that this is just the perfect set up for for things to go wrong and they do.
Haha...the best laid plans...Xavier and Tamara both have big time foot-in-mouth moments because they can neither one say the right thing to save their life. Which is amazing. Just like Cora Carmack has instilled the mantra "Embrace the awkward" in me, and I think it applies here. I can totally see myself as Tamara tripping and falling all over myself if someone that looked like Xavier paid me any attention...oh wait, I have done that! *facepalm*
I thought the first few attempts to grab Tamara's attention were sweet and funny--Xavier was trying so hard to get her to notice him and when things don't go as planned it was fun to see what he'd do next to try to make things work. To his credit he did not throw in the towel when things didn't go as planned and he also got comfortable enough to sort of let go of his plans when he finally managed to break through some of Tamara's barriers. Not only was his desire to woo her completely adorable but the fact that he only had eyes for her even as beach babes were trying to get his attention made him an even better guy than he was.
He really was a good guy...and this is testified by how close he and Ronni (Tamara's best friend) and Hudson (Ronni's brother/Xavier's best friend) all are. They had each others backs and talked out pretty much everything, which is always really refreshing in characters. Even if it hurts and just totally sucked they told each other what was needed to be said...and I love strong secondary characters, so there's that!
Reading Tamara's reactions to Xavier's attempts to grab her attention were equally fun. She was so incredulous and confused and in denial...her reactions were priceless. I loved when she finally let go of her wall of books and decided to enjoy herself; it was nice to see her let go and allow herself to experience the pleasures and feelings of real life .
I was a bit skeptical of her books references at first, but then when the book flowed so well it didn't bother me. She had more reasons than (well, than I do) to have her nose stuck in a book all day, so all of these shenanigans were truly helping her find herself and break out of her shell.
Of course, as it tends to happen in almost every book ever written, obstacles to the happily ever after are thrown in the path of our boy and our girl. In this case we have Xavier's messed up brother, the deaths of parents that have left some scars, and of course the deception that got Tamara to go to Maverick Bay in the first place. I have to say that these obstacles were, thankfully, not overly angsty.
Very true...they were tough for the characters, but not tough to read...which I think goes back to that there were no secrets with these people. Even if Zander was doing something with a bit of malicious intent, the truth always stayed in the forefront and made them hash it out.
Final thought. I wish that we lived in a world where what I'm about to say wasn't a big deal..and I think we're making baby steps to that world...but we're not there yet. So...I love that Kate Evangelista made our heroine real--she has curves and she likes to eat and she's a size 14 and she's proud of it. I love that she wrote her as confident and beautiful as she deserved to be. We finally have a heroine who isn't a perfect size 4 with long legs and model-esque body...instead, she's like many of us in the real world.
Floating on cloud nine for this as well. I'm one of those people who has been a lot of sizes through the seasons, so it is nice for her to be the strong lead character with minimal hangups about her body. She had a few insecurities, but she wasn't portrayed as the FFF (funny, fat friend) or had out of control body issues. Sometimes books find me at the most perfect times, and Shelley, you know how emotional Brittany Gibbons of Brittany, Herself blog has made me this week, so you can imagine how much my heart melted for Tamara's awesomeness.
Shelley: 4 Stars
Courtney: 4 Stars
About the Author
Where to Find Kate Evangelista:
Check out this giveaway!
Thank you so much for the post and giveaway! I'd so love to read Romancing the Bookworm, so fingers crossed for the giveaway. :-)
ReplyDeleteBest Wishes,
Lindsey V.