Next of Kin By: Hannah Bonam-Young - May Book Club Read

In this episode Tyra and Tabitha are discussing their thoughts on “The Next of Kin By: Hannah Bonn-Young,” the T & T Book Haven Book Club May Read. It was cute, but both T & T were waiting for a ball that never dropped. If you’re a romance book lover, this book might be for you. WARNING - this episode has spoilers! 

Transcript

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Hey book lovers, welcome to TNT Bookhaven, our cozy corner where we obsess about all things books. I'm Tyra, the first T and TNT, chaotic, free-spirited mama, laughing all the time with the TBR that never stops growing. And I'm Tabitha, T number two, organized type A mama, suspense junkie. And yes, my TBR is officially out of control. Today we are diving into Next of Kin by Hannah Bonham Young. So grab your drink, get cozy, and let's get into it. Bum bum bum. So if you have been following uh the TNT book club, then you know that for the month of May, we uh read the Next of Kin by Hannah Bonham Young. Um so just a little bit of details regarding the author, Hannah um Hannah is a New York Times bestselling author who writes romance featuring a cast of diverse, disabled, marginalized um storylines that blend beautiful, messy, and challenging realities of life. Um, so when you're not reading or writing a romance, you can find her having a living room dance party with her kids or planning an occasion that warrants a cheese board. Originally from Ontario, Canada, she lives with her childhood friend turned husband, Ben. Uh, their two kids, a feisty orange cat and a sleepy bulldog near Niagara Falls on the traditional territory of the Hod and Sony. When I got this from her website, I was like, oh my goodness, we are going to butcher this. I'm guessing it's um like Native American tribes. I'm guessing. That's what I'm guessing, yeah. So we apologize for the inability to pronounce these, but yeah, Hod Hod Hodanasani andeshinabe. Anishinabe? Peoples. Yeah. Sorry if we mispronounced that. Yes, they are beautiful names. We just don't know how to say those. Um, but yeah, the that was directly from her website. So just like details that she's put out there about herself. Um, it sounds like she has a pretty normal life, like being married, two kids, a cat, she likes to have dance parties with her kids. I think it's super cute. Um, and it does kind of tie into her stories, at least this one that we've read. The the a little short summary of this book is it follows the two main characters. So the female main character, you find out that she she is an adult, she's graduated college, but she has a rough life. Like her mother was a drug addict and often on lost custody of her, and is now she now just found out that her mom is pregnant again, and had a baby isn't is in the same boat where she is not in a good space to take care of this child. Um, and so she's kind of thrown into being a big sister and now like a parental figure to this little baby. Um, and she is still kind of a child herself. It's like she's barely an adult. Um, and then she realizes that she's not in a good spot to do that. Obviously, like money and stability and all that stuff. And so working with the child care services, like protective services, um, there's an option for her to kind of team up with another person who's in a very similar situation where they can help each other either from a monetary standpoint or a housing standpoint. And she has a home, which is great. Um, so she needs someone who has income, and she ends up getting paired up with a guy who is uh the guardian for his little brother, who's what is he, like 15, 16? Yeah. Um and they need a place to stay. So it it just goes along the story of them meeting each other and pretty much hating each other, um, to getting to know each other and that how that story unfolds of now they build the relationship and all of that. So it's a it's a pretty cute story, uh, from what is it like enemies to lovers, I think would be the the appropriate thing there. Yeah. So kind of some interesting things about um Hannah and why she wrote this book specifically. Um, so she wrote next to Kim because she wanted to tell a heartwarming story about the power of a found family and sacrifices. The inspiration from the novel came from a few specific places. So it actually is based on a true story. Um, she was moved by a local news report about two grandparents who met um in an online forum and moved in together to qualify for guardianship of their foster grandchildren. How sweet. I when I saw that, I was like, that is such a sweet story. I didn't even realize that that was a true story. I did not either. But the whole like fake dating trope, she loves the fake dating romance trope and originally conceived the premise as a comedy about a guy asking his colleague to be in a fake relationship to his foster brother. Um but she also had diverse perspectives. So as an adoptee herself, which fun fact, Hannah is adopted. Um, she wanted to explore the complexities of family ties and the realities of marginalized and diverse characters, which is a hallmark of her writing. Yep, and so it is the next of kin was the resulting story, and it followed two bickering strangers who team up as roommates to foster and raise their younger siblings, and all of the things that happen with that. So, um overall, how did this book make you feel? Overall, um it was a very easy read. And a sense of feelings, I guess, um it made me like feel like happy. I was just happy that everything ended up working out. Yeah, I feel like it was uh I agree, it was an easy read. I I have a hard time with this one because it there just wasn't really anything not that I wanted it to be bad or like a lot of conflict or anything, but it was almost too easygoing where it was like they're typically with books you think you like something's gonna happen, a bomb is gonna drop. I thought the same thing. Yeah, and they mention in there that like um her mom is gets clean, and you have the assumption that okay, now she's gonna come and try to get custody of Willow, which is her little sister, the mom's dot newest daughter, and it kind of has a little bit of conflict around that storyline of going and meeting her and having these sessions where they're um supervised visits and all of that. And yeah, you you get the impression that it's like, okay, she's doing really well. So when is this gonna blow up and uh she's gonna lose custody? And that never happens. Um there's a little bit of conflict with her adopted parents. Um yeah. That was a very easy conflict, though. I was like, um, that's it. It's like they blow up and have an argument, and then from there it's kind of like, okay, now everything's easy going again. It just kind of for me, it felt a little bit more surface level of there wasn't a lot of depth. Exactly. I was gonna say there wasn't anything deep going on. Yes, there wasn't a lot of depth to the story that was like, oh, I like it didn't make me feel a ton. It was a really sweet story, but it was like, yeah, okay. Like I I wasn't totally bought in. And um I think both of us, we don't normally take a long time to finish a book, especially when it's like this book was tiny. Yeah, it was not very many um bonus points. This book had very short chapters, which I thank you, Hannah. Yes. Um, and even with that, it still took quite a while for me to finish it. We with if you're reading this, um, I don't know if everybody who's reading this or listening to this um knows that we do do these books for our book club. Now, this is our second one that we've done. Um, and we give it a month so that if anybody joins us, we have a full month to finish this and there's not a lot of pressure to like rush through it. And sadly with this one, it took both of us almost the entire month to finish it. With it being such a small book, I think that just kind of shows that it wasn't there wasn't anything really like gripping that made us want to like jump back into it. So sad that's that's really where I'm at is I I feel like it was a cute story, but it wasn't uh life-changing. Yes. Cause I always feel like especially I have a hard time when I have a book like this, and because I typically only read one book at a time, and so I'm typically not reading another book at the same time. But when I find a book like this and I'm not like super invested, but I want to just read that book because I want to finish it, especially for you know the book club. I latched on reading in general last month because of it. Yep. Because I just wasn't bought in all the way. I mean, it was a cute story. Um I just thought something more was gonna happen. I thought there was gonna be a bigger conflict. I agree. It was just um the conflicts that were involved, like we said, it just wasn't a lot. The there honestly, we didn't even touch on it, but the main thing that really happened was that um her and the male main character, Warren, yeah, they get into a little bit of an argument. It's like very minor, and he ends up kind of storming out and leaving, and she doesn't know where he's at, and she has to try to find him. And even that piece of it was very like oh like it was so easy to find him. Yes, yeah, it just wasn't, yeah, it just there just wasn't a lot of um, yeah, there just wasn't a lot of depth to it, which isn't a bad thing. I feel like it was it was a good story. Um but comparing it to like other romances that we've read, uh it was just kind of it was like, oh, it was cute. Yeah. But do you feel like you learned any lessons from this book? Like, did this book teach you anything? I think the lesson that I learned from this book, um, because I always try to take a book and learn something from it. Um, so I think from this one is uh really not just judging people immediately, like taking the opportunity to get a know to know a person and taking the opportunity to understand a person and just not look at them and make assumptions about the person that they are. I couldn't agree more. I think that the way that it started out, um, like we were saying, it was very much enemies to lovers where they did not like each other at first. And I think it's because they were both going through things that the other person was unaware of, which duh, like everybody's going through stuff. I think that was a good, a good takeaway is especially in this world we live in now, it's uh it's crazy and there's a lot of bad things that happen, and on the surface it might seem like everything's fine. So when you meet somebody new or even people that you do know, and it's like it just puts it into perspective that there's always things under the under the surface there. So like kind of lead with grace and um just be kind. So absolutely, absolutely, because you wouldn't want somebody just judging you based off of looking at you. Yeah, and also the the found family thing that um we talked about with her kind of like idea for writing this, that was very true for this story where their their actual family kind of sucked. Like they they were able to find really, really strong and supportive relationships in people that were just in their lives, like uh the people that they worked with, the people that they went to school with, uh just like friends in general that really became their family. And they ended up uh having a party at the end of the book to celebrate and they get engaged and everything's super sweet and happy. Um, and the majority of the people that were there were their found family. It was it was just very a very sweet uh support system that they had that was there for them. Yeah, and then I love the piece where they, you know, they didn't really come from a great background, so they're like, let's create a new background for us. And so they changed their last names to Dove. So I think that was really cute too. Yep. The um we've already mentioned like it was a little difficult to get through this book. It took us all month. Um, but how were you able to make it through the book? Um, so I read the book on Kindle. Um, and like literally being able to finish it at the end, I got it on Audible so that I can finish the ending. Yeah, just power through it. Um, and so the audio version was good. So I'm happy that I, you know, got that and was able to power through it and was able to be like, oh, that's yeah, that's a cute story. Like, no, and that's a good idea. I needed to finish it in general. So no, that's a good thing to remember that it doesn't always have to be you don't have to start and end on the same version. Like if you pick up the physical book, you could finish it on Kindle or audio or all of those intertwine, like vice versa. If you started it on audio and aren't really liking the narrator, which we've talked about that before, that'll that'll make or break an audiobook. Um so if you pick it up and you really want to read this, the story, but you don't like the narrator, just switch over to something that's either physical or on Kindle. Um that's a good, a good reminder. Um the I read it on physically, I I I bought the book, and like I said, it was very small, so I I felt like I was gonna fly through it, and that did not happen. So I was a little disappointed in myself. I was like, this is such a small book, like what is going on? Um but yeah, I think the it just seemed like a busier month in general. Um it did. And so it was a little bit harder to read, and I think that combined with the just the story, it just wasn't as engaging hard. Yeah, it took took away from took me away from the book a little bit, but uh yeah, we we got it done. Um what do you think made you read this one slower? Like you said, just overall for the month, do you feel like it was not a a good reading month for you? I just feel like it it like I was interested in what was going to happen. Um, but it wasn't the type of book that I picked up and I'm like, I need to keep on reading because I need to know what happens. It was more of a I want to know what happens rather than I need to know what happens. Yeah, it's just like when it's like a I like just want to know what happens, I think that just made me move slower because it was like I I I didn't feel the need to figure it out right away. Yeah, it didn't didn't hook you. Same with me. But with all of that being said, uh there were good parts of this book. So who was your favorite character and why? I think my favorite character is Luke. Yeah, Luke is the younger brother um of Warren. So Warren is the main male character. Um and Luke is his little brother, and he's deaf, and he goes through all like the teenage angsty things, but you can tell that he just has like such a sweet soul. And such a big heart, too. Like he he truly like he wants Warren to be happy. He's happy living with Warren and Chloe, so he just he is just uh he was such a he wasn't like a huge role, but he was still a big role. Um and so yeah, I really liked him. I I really liked all the characters in general, but I think he was my favorite. Yeah, I I liked um like Warren, he was there were things about him where I was like, oh he's he's he's good, but yeah, I would agree. I think Luke Luke wins it for me. He is my favorite. Um the flip side of that, least favorite character. Ah, I don't even remember his name because he sucks. What was it, like Bryce or something? The guy at the beginning. What was his name? I don't even remember, but the guy who literally like called Chloe the B-word. I'm like, you like come in another person's house and you think that you could act that way and do that and then just have the audacity to call her that before leaving, like you're you're messed up. Warren's quote unquote friends, and they're over there for Warren's birthday, and they start bringing out things that are inappropriate to have around honestly anybody, but around little kids, especially. Especially when they're having to deal with CPS. It's like no, you need to take that out of my house, and it obviously blows up into this big old thing. But no, he is a I think it is Bryce. I think that is the correct name. Um it may or may not be. There was another friend that he had that I I thought that friend was decent, but no, that yeah, that one friend was like dude. Least favorite, honestly, and it's sad to say, but is uh it's her adopted mom. I do not like her. Oh, that's true too. I didn't even think about her. I don't like her either. She it's just so bizarre to me because I feel like usually in adopt-e, adoptive whatever story, or like real life things, the adopted parents want the kids so badly. And so they almost like overcompensate and like love too hard. And in this one, it was like the opposite. Like they were trying to make her stronger or whatever, like make her go through these struggles. And I'm like, I j it just didn't fit for me. I'm like, I don't, I don't agree with the way parents treated her. Um, but she was very harsh and very cold. Um and I just didn't like it. I did not like her mom's or her adopted mom's character at all. No, I didn't either. I actually liked her biological mom more than her adopted mom, which says a lot because her biological mom had some some issues. Um, but yeah, that I will give it to Hannah Bonham Young. I think that she did some good characters in there. She she gave them a little bit more depth that made you feel something for them. Uh so I'll I'll give her that. But uh overall book rating for you, what would you say is your rating for this book? I so I'm kind of on the fence. Um I think what increases my rating a little bit is knowing that this is a true story. So if it wasn't a true story, and like just kind of like that is cute in in and of itself. Like like I appreciate her writing that book and telling that story and stuff. If it wasn't that, I would have done a 2.5. But knowing that, I think I'm at a three. I also am at a three. Um it's just I hate to say it was a blah book, but for me, I feel like it was a little bit on the like, okay, I don't know that like a month from now I'll remember much about like I don't know that it's gonna stick with me um much, which is unfortunate, but I do think that uh it was a cute story, and I I appreciate her telling that story. Um and I this is a series, so I'm on the fence on whether or not I want to. Yeah, I think there's a at least another book, possibly more than that. I did not realize this was a series. Yeah, so I'm torn on whether or not I want to read the next one. I feel like Well, I'm kind of like, is there gonna be something bigger that happens in the next one? I would hope so. Like, is the next one the one that's gonna be the banger, you know? Yep, a little bit more drama or something, like something to kind of like, oh my gosh. So I probably will. I probably will read the next one, but I agree a three, three out of five for me on this one. Um but recommendations on like who we would recommend this book to. I think if you're the type of person who likes just a cutesy little quick read, that's a romance. Quick read if you're if you're quick at reading to just get through it. But um, like if you're just like looking for like a little romance to pick up, then this would be a good book for you. I agree. But yeah, I think if you're like if you're the type of person who your romance is like you want a strong storyline, you want a strong like banger, like you want something that like a bomb is gonna drop and then it's gonna be all good, then this is not the book. I agree. It's uh I think it's maybe like even if you were in a like you're just barely getting back into reading and you want something that's a little bit easy and just able to kind of breeze through, it's a good one. Um But yeah, I think overall it's a it's a cute little romance story. So I think if you like romance, then you probably somewhat enjoy it. But I agree it's it's not it doesn't have anything where it's like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened. So um yeah. But if you happen to pick it up and read it and you have different thoughts, we would we would love to hear uh what you thought when you read through it. Absolutely. And we did already pick our next book for um our June book club book. So we posted that video. If you would like to join our book club in the in the month of June, we are going to be reading uh Woman Down by Colleen Hoover. So come join us. Yeah, there's been uh uh mixed reviews of that book, so I guess we'll have to finally put give our input on it. So yeah, come join us on our book club. It's um we're on Fable as TNT Bookhaven. Uh, but yeah, that wraps up today's deep dive. Um, if you've loved hanging out with us, don't forget to follow TNT Bookhaven and leave us a review. It truly, really helps our little Bookhaven grow. And like Tyra mentioned, um, come over and find us on social media. We would love to chat with you. We're on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook as TNT Bookhaven, and then also Fable for our book club. We would love to have you join us there as well and um be a part of the discussion as we read through this next book in June. So until next time, stay cozy and happy reading, book lovers. Bye. Bye.