Love & Olives

Product Information

I organized this by genre and release date, and I always preface my rounds-up by saying that I will definitely have more 2024 anticipated releases as the year continues and more books are announced ( I see you Fourth Wing 3 👀🤞🏻). YA has unfortunately just not been meshing well with me recently and maybe that contributed to my feelings!

The tension in this book was really well written and I thought some of the more serious themes like abandonment and mental health were handled with grace. I also loved getting to know more about the lore of Atlantis and there were a lot of fun scientific facts thrown into this book which I always appreciate.

This, like the other books, dealt with more serious topics as well, anxiety and mental illness in this case, and that was something I enjoyed. The episodes were described accurately and made me think of my sister who suffers from the same illness. It was nice to see cameos of different characters, but I couldn’t help but see how Love and Olives was literally a carbon copy of Love and Gelato. She's sweaty, probably can smell herself, in need of a good sleep, her whole body aches because airplane chairs are the worst and Theo meets her.

I won’t spoil anything but, upon discovering what that reason was, I found myself sad and melancholy as I read. Liv arrives on Santorini still holding onto a lot of pain and anger, and no desire whatever to let go of any of it. I want to save THE PARADISE PROBLEM for next year, but I may or may not devour this new romance from CLo over winter break !Maya turned, and we watched her and her dog trot off into the distance while I waited for Dax’s customary denial. I don't know what it is with Jenna Welch and her flair for the dramatic, but I wasn't a huge fan of soap opera-esque reveals (I spotted the (view spoiler) [secretly dying dad looking for closure (hide spoiler)] a mile away, but the (view spoiler) [secret mental illness (hide spoiler)] was a surprise. Let us begin with the first thing I realize, the reason why I dislike this book’s protagonist, Olive. I loved the idea of a girl reconnecting with her father who left her, and jetting off to Greece to help him film a documentary on the lost city of Atlantis.

My eye snagged on a red-cheeked garden gnome planted in the flower bed of a yard we were passing, and I found myself praying to it out of sheer desperation.I loved the tension between Liv and Theo, but I appreciated that nothing really happened until she broke things off with her boyfriend back in the States. Even so, she can’t help but be charmed by everything Santorini has to offer—the beautiful sunsets, the turquoise water, the sun-drenched villages, and the delicious cuisine. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis.