ARC Review: All The Wong Shelves by Felicia Blaedel

Nessa Ravn couldn’t have picked a better time to look for a library ghost.

Zander is making the right decisions to fight the indifference that has shaped his life. When one of those decisions leaves him temporarily homeless, he never expected to gain a new friend.

Nessa is real, she’s honest, and she believes in him. Zanders longs to be authentic. He’s been pretending, playing a part, for as long as he can remember.

But Nessa is pretending, too. Pretending she isn’t exhausted, that the world isn’t too loud, and that she doesn’t have a book full of notes that might explain why she’s always been a little different.
As she’s learning to trust herself, she might even realise that she doesn’t need to hide who she is. 

They’re unexpected roommates, unlikely friends and maybe something more — something real.

My Thoughts

“Maybe we aren’t supposed to be confined to a single shelf. Maybe we need to move freely around in a floor to ceiling library.”

All The Wrong Shelves, Felicia Blaedel

I received an e-ARC copy of this book personally from the author in exchange for an honest review. All the Wrong Shelves will be out on February 25, 2021.

All The Wrong Shelves is the author’s #ownvoices romance novel featuring a woman who struggles with autism, and just got officially diagnosed during adulthood. I just loved and enjoyed how the author’s personal experience with autism was brazenly bared out in this book, thus giving the readers the glimpse to look into how her (and Nessa’s) mind works. Autism has a special place in my heart, because I have a younger cousin who has the same condition, so I personally know the effort they needed to make to be able to do whatever they wish, and it requires a lot of patience and trust within their inner circles to understand them. I like seeing that how much different each case is to a person, but at the same time, there are bits of similarities between them too.

This book not only just focused on Nessa’s autism journey, but it also explored how Zander learned to cope with his struggle with anxiety and alcoholism. Having such a formidable character that I love to hate in Chasing Pebbles and then finally seeing a whole different side of him in this book was actually pretty impressive. I really liked the way he accepted that he was the one who had done hurtful things to everyone, but Oliver and Frida had come to forgive and love him again. His family is a whole different story, but at least it was something already on the mends before the book ended.

While I loved Frida and Oliver’s story in Chasing Pebbles, I actually enjoyed this book more! It still has that same heartwarming and slow burn romance I enjoyed in the first book, but I really liked how this book spoke so much more about second chances, trust, and love in all forms and sizes. Nessa and Zander’s story was so much more endearing, and I loved how much of it was initially based on mutual trust with each other – something both of them struggled at the beginning. I even liked the build up of their romance that started off from random little things such as cooking and watching tv shows to them having full blown steamy scenes.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who just wants to read a heartwarming story full of love, friends and family, plants, and tons of tea set in the ever magical Scandinavian regions.

 

My Rating

Goodreads | Amazon

About The Author

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Felicia writes quirky and heartfelt romance with real, flawed characters. She also reads whenever she has a free minute and can’t leave her house without her beloved kindle. Felicia writes in English, but is Danish and lives in Denmark with her husband and son.

Felicia’s debut novel, Chasing Pebbles, released in June 2020.

When Felicia isn’t doing something bookish, she enjoys drawing, dancing (mostly at home with her toddler), cooking (for the most part) and travelling.
She also tends to buy anything with dinosaurs.

Felicia writes books about being true to yourself, and she is passionate about mental health and authenticity. As an adult, Felicia received professional confirmation that she is actually autistic.
Felicia hangs out (too much) on Instagram where she posts about her indie-author life, cute dresses, coffee mugs, musings about autism and anxiety, book recommendations, and much more. She would love it if you came by and said hello. @feliciablaedel

Author Website | Instagram