Member Reviews
This was my first by this author and definitely won't be my last! What a great story! Aly has her dream job at a magazine when she suddenly throws a curve ball into her own life. She is caught, on camera, yelling at a co-worker in a local shop. Wellllllllll her boss sees the footage and with the outreach that YouTube has, she takes a month long leave from work. A great time for her to head home to Michigan to take care of her brother's estate. After his passing she hasn't been able to deal with the finality of it very well but reluctantly heads to his house....where she finds his best friend. Wyatt has been living here because, well, he owns half the house. To Aly's shock...and horror.
These two have to learn to get along because they aren't the same people they used to be. Also, Wyatt has been holding in her brother's secret for a very a long time. Will this cause them to hate or love each other? Time will tell.
I loved this book. It was a fun and quick read. I rated this book 4/5 stars and I would recommend this book!
Here is a real story of coming* to terms with the past. The past in this case is an ill tempered best friend of your brother. Alt Jackson has her dream job, until she doesn’t. An unfortunate scene involving a coworker has her put on leave with her future in flux. Needing to reset and reevaluate her future she goes to a place she inherited from her brother Luke. Luke was her North Star forever. His death has left a space in her life she cannot fill. Unknown to her was the fact that the house she thought Luke left to her is only half hers. Wyatt , owns the other half. As these two come to terms with the loss of Luke and deciding the best way forward , feeling begin to grow .
Camille Pagan does it again! This is my second book Ive read by her and it did not disappoint! I laughed, cried and was maybe a little angry at times. It hit all the emotions.!
Aly is the editor-in-chief for a magazine that she dreamt of working at for a very long time, but after an altercation she had with a couple of co-workers she is placed on unpaid leave until the dust settles. In order to clear her head she goes to the house her brother left her when he passed away, except she isn't the only owner of the house, as Wyatt her brother's best friend is also a beneficiary. Wyatt is the total opposite and doesn't agree with Aly's desire to sell the house.
It was a story full of emotion relating to the grief one suffers when one loses a loved one and how we should deal with it. The author did a great job describing what Aly and Wyatt experienced when they lost Luke, and how they dealt with their grief.
Aly and Wyatt are two characters that, by the end, I just wanted to give them both hugs and say "Luke would be so proud of you".
Story explores death, loss, overcoming trauma, found families, grief, and exploring how and when to move on.
#arc
#netgalley
#goodforyou
Good for you was a great book with a great story line. This book covers grief and how everyone processes it differently. It was easy too read and everything flowed together nicely. I wish I could have felt more of a connection (or their connection) for the two man characters. Overall worth the read!
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for allowing me to read a copy of Good For You.
Wow this book was sooo good! I highly recommend this book. Clear your schedule because once you start you won’t stop!
This was a very good book Covers grief and how someone can deal with loss. I don’t talk about how people go through their own processes and it takes them as long as it takes each person. I enjoy the slow burn romance in this, although they had like an Insta love type thing in the beginning, it was reinforced with events and actions and time with each other, I also really like the male lead and the female leaders are both relatable and they always had reasons for what they were doing. I think the descriptions were spot on the character arcs was absolutely amazing and I loved her best friend. I would 110% recommend this book. I will definitely be reading more from this author in the future and I hope that they create more books in this as a series as I think it was very respectful and also true to life.
I can always count on Camille Pagán to bring on all the feels. She writes in such a warm friendly way that you want to cozy up and crawl into her stories. Aly is unaware that she is lost in grief until the incident that forces her to come face to face with it. She literally runs into Wyatt at the Lake Michigan house and he is also grieving the loss of her brother, his best friend. I love these two together and the process they go through to come out whole on the other side is messy, funny, heartbreaking, and beautiful. Camille captures life experiences perfectly.
Overall, this story had a great base with strong plot lines. I feel like the execution fell a little flat and the connection between the two main characters lacked a bit.
This book did not disappoint. It was a fun, enjoyable read. I really liked the characters and seeing their stories unfold.
Beautiful cover for a beautiful book. I have seen this book all over bookstagram, and after seeing so many five star reviews for it I knew I needed to read it. This book made me laugh. It made my cry. It made me think. It was exactly what I needed in my life when I read it. My new goal this year is to read the rest of her books. It was that good.
This was just...ok. I went in expecting a heartfelt romance and this is more contemporary fiction with a romance subplot. That's totally on me. Another personal issue is that the audio narration was not great. The whole book is in Aly's POV, which was fine, but there was a whiny inflection added to her voice, both internal monologues & to others. By the end this was grating. Reading print might not have had this effect.
These personal conflicts aside, there were still some issues (contains spoilers):
* I did not get the romance at all. Aly basically says Wyatt is disgusting and then all of a sudden they get close and we are to believe there is sexual tension there. But tension is not even described at all and there is no lead up AT ALL. Wyatt is barely at the house and Aly spends her time complaining about Wyatt's cleanliness (or lack thereof) and being upset about her career and her brother (understandable). There is one on page conversation/dinner/date where not much really happens and then all of a sudden they are making googly eyes at each other and talking about how wrong it is. The rest of the needed sexual tension and chemistry is completely off page which is very odd... for a book.
* It is mentioned in passing that Aly should see a therapist but money and availability are an issue. Wyatt is in therapy (whoohoo! man in therapy trope *heart eyes*) and tells her she may have reacted because she has PTSD and she just runs with that and starts having mental breakthroughs - ALL WITHOUT ACTUALLY SEEING A THERAPIST! *facepalm*
* Aly has a problem where she blacks out in stressful situations. Which is what happens when she has a public meltdown at a coworker and gets out on leave from work. She is too embarrassed to admit this to ask what she said or did, which is understandable, however a video was posted on YouTube and she refuses to watch it even though everyone she knows has watched it. She goes the whole book being in the dark and being confused when people are talking to her about it. I just don't get this. If she doesn't want to watch it then she should ask someone, like her best friend, to give her a summary at least. Especially since this directly impacted her career which is the most important thing to her for most of the book.
My issues aside this was a quick book to listen to while I was working on a puzzle and it was interesting enough to keep listening through to the end.
Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the advanced copy in exchange for my review.
Camille Pagan wrote an intensely emotional story in Good for You. Please note a trigger warning for childhood physical abuse.
Aly Jackson achieves her dream job as editor-in-chief of All Good magazine, and loves everything about it, except the budget cuts management makes. She overhears her team bad-mouthing her in public, and creates a scene that ends up on YouTube.
Her supervisor and the HR representative place her on unpaid leave for a month. She ends her relationship, and leaves New York to deal with the house her brother, Luke, left her in Michigan. She plans to put it on the market and return to New York as soon as possible.
Her plans are stymied when she learns that Luke's best friend, Wyatt, inherited the house with her. Her mother, Cindy, lives nearby and tries to reestablish a relationship with her.
Aly has to learn to cope with multiple losses, and face her inability to control her life despite planning every detail. Wyatt was with Luke on a sailing trip when Luke lost his life. He has his own issues to resolve related to his failure to prevent Luke's death.
I was drawn into the story right away, and read it in one sitting. I could picture the characters as friends. I plan to read other books by this author.
This book was so good! I loved the characters although I wasn’t sure I would at the beginning. The way the book came together was just perfect!
This was a good new book by Camille Pagan but not my favorite by her. The story just felt a bit discombulated, not always flowing naturally. The main relationship was extremely predictable in development but I still enjoyed it. I would have liked more about the relationship between Aly and her mother. The storyline about Aly's job just felt strange - it would come in and out and many times seemed not to matter at all, sometimes seemed to be everything. Overall, I enjoyed Don't Make Me Turn This Life Around or Forever Is The Worst Long Time quite a bit more.
Grief is the theme that runs through GOOD FOR YOU. It permeates each of the characters in some way. There's grief for a brother, a best friend, lost childhoods, abusive father, look-the-other-way mother, lost job, lost co-worker friendship... while I thought the genre for GOOD FOR YOU was Romance, it's really Women's Fiction.
Aly is dealing with the aftermath of holding in her grief from her brother's unexpected death. He left her his beach house in his will. He also left his best friend, Wyatt, the house as well.
The two must work past Aly's dislike of Wyatt to figure out what to do with the house. During this time, she's also reeling from a terrible work incident that was posted online.
Meanwhile, both of their childhoods become front and center in their shared traumas of grief.
Naturally, opposites attract and the two navigate a romantic relationship.
I enjoyed GOOD FOR YOU a lot. It was much more serious than I anticipated it would be. I thought it would be an enemies-to-lovers and it was, but that was the B subplot.
Nonetheless, GOOD FOR YOU is a good read for those who steer more towards Women's Fiction.
Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for providing me an e-copy of GOOD FOR YOU to review.
I rate GOOD FOR YOU four out of five stars.
A definite tear jerker. This book was an easy read, in the sense that it kept pulling me back. It is a book of loss, love and realization that not everything is exactly as it seems. This book is a reminder to keep yourself open to the turns the highway of life throws at you. With every closed door, a new window of opportunity opens.
The book is very much grumpy sunshine vibes. Aly is the main character living in the city. Life and work is not going her way so she decides to head to the cabin her brother owned and decided now was the perfect time to clean it out since his passing. Her brother, Luke, had left the cabin to Aly and his best friend, Wyatt. The book is them figuring out why it was left to both of them and what they should do.