The Bad Boy Experiment ft. Experiments of My Own

About a month ago I signed up for the blog tour for the Harlequin Desire books coming out this winter! I had actually never read a Harlequin Series book, but knowing how foundational they were in building up the genre, and having seen them around, I was very intrigued when I got the offer to participate! What’s really fun about this blog tour, is it’s open to creative blog posts, which are my favorite kinds of posts to write! So today, after telling you a bit about the book I read, since it’s called The Bad Boy Experiment, I’ll be discussing a reading experiment I’ve tried or want to try in the future!

Book: The Bad Boy Experiment by Reese Ryan

Source: I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Harlequin Desire

Release Date: December 28th, 2021

Pages: 224

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This book follows Renee who moves back to her hometown with her son Mercer, in hopes of buying the family land to start an organic farm. However, her old friend Cole has other plans for the land, and the two end up having to prove to Renee’s grandfather which one of them is more worthy of the land by living next door to one another and starting a mini version of their projects for 6 months. But along the way Renee discovers that the house she’s living in, which used to be her great aunt’s house, contains a diary filled with tales of a “Bad Boy Experiment” her aunt attempted. Inspired by the diary and her growing attraction to Cole, Renee decides to have a fling of her own, but soon love might come into play as well!

This was my very first Harlequin Series romance and I enjoyed my time reading this book. While there were time I rolled my eyes at some tropes or found certain plot points a little over the top or too perfectly placed to be believable, I did get the romance that I was looking for.

However, I think I could have used a little more of the two main characters spending time together without other family members butting in to give their opinions, just so I could watch the relationship form a little more before the two started their arrangement. I also would have loved getting to hear more about the passion projects that Renee and Cole were working on as I felt that got glossed over a bit.

In all, while I appreciated how light and cute this story was, I felt that it tried to pack in a bit too many elements, which didn’t give each each element enough time to shine or develop. It was still a pretty solid romance though, so I gave it three stars in the end.

While this book wasn’t my absolute favorite, it did get me thinking about some experiments I’ve wanted to try over the years. And since this is a book blog after all, let’s talk about the bookish experiments I’ve considered, whether I’ve attempted them, and why I either didn’t go through with them, or if I went through with them, what I learned from them!

1. Trying Out New Genres

In general, I’m pretty bad at trying out new genres. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are some genres that are not even contenders as options for genres that I’d try out. Mysteries, Thrillers, and Horrors are not my thing, and I don’t need to make myself anxious and scared to confirm that. Then, for the other genres out there, I have dabbled in most of them! Of course, my all time favorites are romances and graphic novels, but I’m willing to step out of my usual genres once every few months for a work of poetry, YA contemporary, or even a sci-fi novel or two. However, I don’t dabble very often, so I’d love to do a mini experiment!

This year, if I get enough suggestions, I will try out 3 books from three genres I don’t normally read from. One of the genres, I already know that I’ll read from and that is Literary Fiction. I happen to like more lighthearted (or at least not deeply traumatic and triggering) literary fiction novels, which I find makes it a bit harder to curate a selection for myself. However, I have found three books that I purchased that I’ll be attempting to read in 2022. If you have any suggestions though, I’m definitely open to hearing them!

The other two genres will be up to you! I’m thinking I might enjoy some sci-fi and some light-hearted manga, but if I get enough fantasy recommendations that keep my interest, or poetry collections that sound up my alley, I’ll chose those instead. The main thing to keep in mind when recommending something to me is that I will always prefer something light hearted and easy to read over something featuring death, gore, and trauma heavily. So recommend away and help me with this experiment of figuring out which other genres I enjoy!

2. Can I Keep to a TBR?

As for a failed experiment that I’ve done, just this year I tried setting a TBR for myself, KNOWING that I can’t keep to TBRs. I thought I made it easy for myself! I told myself that reading just 5 out of the 10 books I selected would be a win! However, not only did I not read the vast majority of my picks, I actually ended up unhauling 8 out of 10 of the books I mentioned! Now that’s a failure right there! But I did learn that TBRs are DEFINITELY not for me, no matter how hard I try!

This was essentially me with the TBR I set

3. Writing Mini Reviews

This last experiment is one that I’m going to be trying for one month in 2022. I’ve always been in awe of people who wrote reviews for every book they read. For me, it can take me a while to formulate my thoughts, and so unless I have a book for review, I won’t bother saying anything about the book. But I want to see if could manage to write a mini review, from one sentence to a paragraph or two, on every book I read for one month this year! I think I might make that month be January, but I’m not sure yet, so I guess we’ll all find out. But what I think will be fun is finding out more about my reviewing methodology in the process. How will I review when I don’t send in my thoughts to the publisher? That’s the aim of this experiment, and I can’t wait to find out!

There you have both my mini review and the reading experiments I’ve both tried in the past and will be attempting in the future. If you think there’s any other reading experiment that I would enjoy, be sure to let me know! And be sure to suggest some fun books from random genres that you think I would enjoy!