When Joss Met Matt by Ellie Cahill

When Joss Met Matt by Ellie Cahill

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Dating can be fun, but it can leave a nasty taste in your mouth. For Joss, ever since her longtime boyfriend cheated on her, she doesn’t want her last memory of a guy to be that jerk. Enter her college friend, Matt. They come up with a theory: after a bad break-up, a person needs to cleanse the palate with a little sorbet sex. Lovers for a night, but always back to being friends in the morning. The two can handle it because they have a contract: rules they wrote, rules they follow and rules they can sometimes bend. The arrangement works: everyone needs a little sorbet now and again … until it starts to be the only thing you want. And then Joss breaks the one rule they never wrote down: don’t fall in love.

This book is the CUTEST! And seriously funny. I want every book I read, from now on, to be this charming and adorable :0) Joss and Matt live in the same dorm their Freshman year of college and meet one night at a party. Matt is a nice guy and he seems to take an interest in Joss, but she has a boyfriend, so they decide to become friends. The two of them together was so wonderfully banter filled and it was very clear how much they really liked each other. After one of them has a particular horrible break-up, the two of them stumble into a friends with benefits scenario, that they charmingly refer to as "sexual sorbet". We get to see their friendship over the course of the next seven years. Through college, new apartments, grown-up jobs, plenty of dates, lots of relationships and their subsequent ends. Joss and Matt's friendship, minus the sorbet, reminded me of some of my best friendships when I was younger and I certainly hope that we were as funny as the two of them were. Romance aside, I really loved seeing these two together. They have such a stellar friendship and if it weren't for the fact that I desperately wanted this to end up with them realizing they were absolutely in lurrrve...I would be totally cool with this just being an awesome friendship story. Basically I just want to gush and squeal, because I just loved this book so much. The only downside I can see here, is that now I'm a little afraid to read another Ellie Cahill book, because what if it is not as perfect as this little gem? Seriously, though, I recommend this to everyone! *Cover photo and description from Goodreads

Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Release Date: January 5th, 2016

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself.

Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy- so far. Her absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.

When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process.

It is evident pretty quickly into the book that Mercy is lost. She doesn't really know who she is or who she wants to be, but she thinks she's in control and she does some pretty extreme things to keep a handle on her "control". I felt sad for Mercy a lot throughout this story, because she went about so many things in all the wrong ways and didn't trust people enough to let them get close and be there for her. Obviously, as an outside observer, you knew everything was going to go wrong eventually, but that was really the only way it could ever go. 

There was a lot I liked about this book. I was definitely a fan of the message about double standards and learning to appreciate the people in your life who want to be there. I was a little bothered by Mercy at points in the book. The way she treated herself and other people just got under my skin. Which I guess was probably the point, at least to some extent, but in the end I felt like she could have done more to earn things back. I won't say more, because I don't want to spoil things.

All in all, I enjoyed Mercy's story and I think it says a lot of good things.

*Cover photo and description from Goodreads