Member Reviews

Funny, sexy and a little outrageous I really enjoyed this one! I legitimately laughed out loud while reading and couldn’t help from falling in love with Roxy a little bit.

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Can she keep Austin weird? Roxy and her friends team up as the millennial Bridget Jones, to save her love life and protect her city. Told in a series of letters, this book is cute and funny

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The main character felt like a caricature of that crunchy granola life that people think Austin is all about. I really didn't like her and couldn't finish this title.

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This story told in letters was funny at times but mostly, I was waiting for it to be over. I had a really hard time liking Roxy. She goes on and on and on about certain things, just rambling, like stream of consciousness but also trying really hard to be cool and hip ("GRRL!"). And because the letters are the only insight we get into her character, it keeps the reader at a distance. I might have been able to see past the obnoxiousness if I was able to see her from other perspectives...so I wonder if this would have worked better told another way (prose instead of letters). As it was, while Roxy is clearly one of a kind, she's not someone I really enjoyed reading about.

**Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!**

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This book was recommended for fans of Bridget Jones but I completely disagree. Roxy is nothing like Bridget Jones...I would dare say that compared to Roxy, Bridget Jones was a classy prude.

This book is written in letters to Roxy’s ex, Everett. This format doesn’t bother me at all and I normally enjoy books written in different formats. Unfortunately most of her letters we very random and rambling. The chapters were entirely too long. So much was about her lack of sex and other subjects which can be handled gracefully in some instances...not in this one.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

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The Roxy Letters introduces us to Roxy whose life is in complete disarray. She lives in the chaos with her ex-Everett, who shares a room in her apartment and works at the local Whole Foods. She begins writing letters to Everett about rent, and other things. Soon the letters start chronicling everything she loves and despises in her hometown. The Roxy Letters is definitely a YA book. Although the story was cute, I couldn’t relate to the characters. If you like s lighthearted read, this would be a good book to grab.

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I wanted another version of Moxie, but I didn't get it. That's why I waited so long to write a review. I hate to be negative. about someone's hard work.

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Foxy is awesome! Roxy is a real mess and a bit short-sighted, but she has a very big heart. Her adventures and antics in this book are just the right mix of funny and serious, and by the end of the book, you’ will have fallen in love with her. You’ll be rooting for her, proud of her, rolling your eyes at her, and cheering her on.

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Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The synopsis of this book sounded intriguing to me so I requested a copy to read.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during that 2nd attempt, I have only managed to make it halfway through so I'd rather stop here and state that this book just wasn't for me.

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Despite wanting to love her, I just couldn't shake the feeling that everyone is laughing at Roxy, not with her. That might be my own insecurities talking.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for a copy to review.

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I've tried multiple times but I cannot get into this book. Sadly, it was a DNF for me. While I understood the concept going into it and was excited by the faith the publishers put into the story, I struggled to get past everything being letters to an ex-boyfriend roommate. It felt completely unrealistic to leave these long, detailed letters to a roommate. The format didn't work for me and it often felt more like diary entries or that another format would have told the story better. I feel like letters work best in a book when there's back and forth correspondence but we only saw Roxy's POV. It didn't help that she wasn't very likable.

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I thought I'd love this book based on the summary but I think I'm too old. The humor was probably perfect for a millennial to relate to but this Gen-Xer just rolled her eyes.

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This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

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I thought this book was a fun and light read. I did find it a little hard to get attached to any of the characters, but I enjoyed the story nonetheless!

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DNF. Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy! I decided to not keep reading this one, it was not for me. Thanks!

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While taking a page and making it longer "The Roxy Letters" was enjoyable. If not for the length of it and the fact I kept losing my focus, I think I would have enjoyed it more. I'm going to try and re-read this again at a later date.

Cute story or a gal writing letters to her ex who lives in her side house.

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Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I originally requested this book based on the description, thinking that I would enjoy it. I didn’t really like this book. Mainly for 2 reasons.

First, I can never get into the whole writing style of a book written as letters. I’d rather just have the story told to me.

Second, Roxy was actually a pretty annoying character for me. It was always poor me and everything that could happen did. And I just couldn’t handle it after about 45% of the book. Quirky is one thing, but annoying is totally another. And then I felt as if the ending just wrapped it all up too perfectly for how much of a train wreck she truly seemed to be. I ended up finishing it, but not happily.

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This is a cute, fun book that I breezed right through. I really love the epistolary style and this one worked really well for me.

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In <i>The Roxy Letters</i> by Mary Pauline Lowery, Roxy is an Austin native watching her home city get sucked into the gentrification bubble, while feeling unmoored from her prior friends groups and losing even the few people she felt closest to. The summer of 2012 starts as a mess, with Roxy's ex-boyfriend temporarily moving into her home and a new obsessive pattern of writing him letters about what's going on in her life.

Comparable to <i>Bridget Jone's Diary</i> in the style of entries, engaging and does well capturing the feeling of each character despite coming through one narrator. I will say, the structure of writing these obsessively detailed and directed towards her ex-boyfriend creates a very disjointed feeling at the beginning. Once I settled in and read for a bit, everything felt a lot more normal and I enjoyed the structure.

Roxy is…intense, to say the least. She has sooo many <i>feels</i> and hasn't found a way to release them. She's stuck in a rut, and watching everything take a turn for the worst, or at least what she thinks is the worst. Roxy above all feels so very human. An ex did her wrong and she can't let it go. She wants to do better, but has a hard time being motivated. Her feelings are so relatable that it was a really great read.

This book got a ton of press, massive amounts of PR, and was absolutely everywhere when it came out. Sometimes, that kind of over abundance, without any word of mouth attachment, feels like way too much. I maybe didn't read this as soon as I might've because of it, however, I was WRONG. This book is so good! It's so completely worth the rave reviews and press. It's not just a PR baby.

Lowery makes it feel like you know Roxy, she could be you or she could be your best friend. After a few entries I couldn't help but really genuinely care about her. Similarly, Lowery perfectly captures Austin in 2012. With tech people and hipsters migrating there in droves, it was gentrifying at an alarming rate, and like any true local of a pre-gentrification place, Roxy feels the impact.

I was provide a copy of <i>The Roxy Letters</i> by Simon & Schuster via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This review will be posted to Commute Reads on August 4th, 2020.

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I wanted to love this book, but I just couldn't get into it. I rarely DNF books, but unfortunately this was one of those for me. I just wasn't engaged.

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