10 Blind Dates

10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston is a straight forward teen romance with straightforward writing. Girl and boy break up. The girl is sad. Crazy family intervenes. The girl finds a new boy. One of the strongest elements to this story is not the romance or the dates, but the family dynamic. Sophia comes from a large Italian family who swarm her with love and laughter as she wrestles through a breakup, multiple dates, and budding feelings. You will feel right at home with her family as they take meals together, make bets against each other and show support during some difficult times. The romance itself is predictable and doesn’t really induce any exciting, warm feelings because it isn’t given much time to shine. Although the story takes place over a two-week period, a lot of things are crammed in which makes certain aspects seem rushed. All in all, it was a simple and fun read.Positives:Family portrayal. Not overly dramatic romance. Conflicts are handled directly and wrapped up without excess drama. 10 blind dates idea was pretty cool and fun to see what happened on each one.Negatives:Pretty easy to figure out whom she’d end up with. Relatively shallow romance development. The side story with her sister involved a lot of texting that was just telling and a little boring to read at times.Things that might matter to some people:Slight LGBTQ representation. Some kissing. No language. Porn is mentioned and described (not graphically).

“10 Blind Dates” by Ashley Elston ⁣Genre: #fiction #youngadult #yafiction ⁣Rating:☀️☀️☀️/5 ⁣1-Word Review: en·dear·ing⁣adjective⁣endearing⁣•inspiring love or affection.⁣———————————————————⁣3.0/5.0:⁣𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝:⁣Elston delivered a cute, entertaining and easy to read young adult novel. The characters were likable and I related to certain aspects of the story, being that it was set in the south. ⁣⁣𝗪𝐡𝐲 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝟓/𝟓? 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳: 𝘐 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝟻𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵:⁣ 𝟷. 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 ⁣ 𝟸. 𝘐𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘤....⁣𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞:⁣The writing and plot were just okay for me. While this is YA, I think that I enjoy YA novels that contain a little more drama or have a really intriguing writing style. This was another book that I could have walked away from and not have been haunted by the lingering question of “what happened?!” I anticipated the ending of the book on page 40 of 327 and nailed it. ⁣⁣To end on a high note, if you’re looking for an easy read- this is for you. I 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝 this book to readers looking for a light-hearted YA book. ⁣

STORY | It may be the holiday season, but when Sophie’s parents leave to be with her expectant sister, she anticipates having the house to herself to spend more time with her boyfriend. Her plans fragment when she learns Griffin is anything but glad his “boring” girlfriend is staying in town instead of heading to her grandparent’s, which is where her parents think she’ll be.Devastated, Sophie decides to make the three hour trip to her grandparent’s unprepared for the unusual plans her large and nosy family has in mind. Somehow Sophie finds herself the subject of a series of ten blind dates, all set up by various family members. From awkward to simple and fun, Sophie’s dating adventures become fun, and sometimes a little bit torturous, but through it all, she realizes that maybe she hasn’t given her heart to the right person…!REVIEW | From the moment I saw the title and cover art for this one, I knew it’d be my cup of tea. It looks darling and of course, the plot sounds equally so. This is what prompted me to request it on NetGalley (which I never do because I don’t like e-reading), and feel quite surprised (pleasantly so) when I was able to read this one.The story inside this adorable cover art is as cute as you imagine it to be. If you’re not into sweet romantic-comedies, this one won’t be for you, but for those of us who enjoy them, plus a fun seasonal read, this one is all kinds of fun. I like the set-up of the book which covers all ten dates, some with greater detail or time than others. What is a bit distracting is the fact that the e-ARC isn’t separated by page or chapter breaks, and the margins are a bit messy. That said, in no way does this reflect on how very much I enjoyed this fun novel. What does affect my thoughts is the way this one ends, or rather its stance on “labels.”I feel a little bit contradictory because I do think many YA novels tend to come across as unrealistic in their portrayal of a teenage love story, so given that, it might be refreshing to discover how this novel ends. But with all that said, the way the story concludes kind of (but not really…?) takes away a bit of the stories charm. Being vague might not be the best way to attempt to explain something, but for fear of spoiling anything, I’ll leave that there.That said, "10 Blind Dates" is still adorable. Sophie’s a fun character, there’s cute guys, and while this does take place over Christmas, it doesn’t read as overly Christmas-y or “too much.” If you enjoy authors like Kasie West, I think you’d love this one. Plus, I’ve read that it’s already been optioned for film, and ideally, would be an exclusive to something like Netflix. We all know the streaming giant is working YA romcom magic these days; and "10 Blind Dates" is a worthy potential new club member.Content: There’s some minor innuendo, and one date involves a porn movie (non-graphic). The book is secular fiction, and would be considered a light (think teen rom-com) PG13.Sincere thanks to Disney-Hyperion for kindly providing an e-galley copy of this novel for the purpose of a review; all opinions are my own.

Ashley Elston has out done herself in her latest novel about reconnecting with family and finding love after heartache. 10 Blind Dates is about high school senior, Sophia, who’s large Southern family decides to cheer her up during Christmas break by picking 10 blind dates for her. Let the fun begin. The dates will have you laughing out loud and the ending will have you clapping and cheering. Set aside some time when you start this book because you will not want to put it down! Kudos to Elston for this bit of magic. Christmas comes early with this one!

Sophie wants one thing for Christmas – time with her boyfriend Griffin. So when her parents plan a trip to visit her sister over the holiday, Sophie begs to be left behind with her grandparents and her boisterous extended family. But she and Griffin break up and she's devastated. Sophie’s grandmother, hating to see her so upset, devises a (not so) brilliant plan – to distract her from heartbreak. Over the next ten days, different family members will set Sophie up on ten different blind dates, which doesn't sound awkward at all . . . When Griffin turns up unexpectedly, it makes Sophie more confused than ever. Because maybe, just maybe, she’s started to have feelings for someone else. Someone who is definitely not available.Rating 4.5/5Sophie is looking forward to spending time with boyfriend Griffin whilst her parents spend the holidays with her pregnant sister. However, when Sophie overhears Griffin saying he wants to break up with her she flees to the cocoon of family at her grandmother’s house. There she spends Christmas surrounded by her huge extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins slowly reconnecting with them. Her family decides to cheer Sophie up by setting her up on tender and dates of their choosing. Slowly Sophie begins to enjoy herself and discover that breaking up with Griffin may not be so bad after all.I really enjoyed this book! From the start I like the main character Sophie and I really felt for her when she heard Griffin talking about breaking up with her. Shortly after your thrown headfirst into meetings with his huge family. I initially found the family quite hard to follow as there were many characters. I started drawing out a little diagram but soon gave up as I couldn’t follow who everyone was and how they were related. I did find though that generally this didn’t matter too much. I didn’t need to know the name of every cousin and soon recognised the main people who played big roles in the story.The overwhelming joy of this book came from the family. Even though the story is shaped by the dates it’s the family at the heart of the story. I adored Sophies family in particular her Nonna and the relationship she shared with her. She also shared a lovely relationship with her sister Margot who was quite present in this book even though she’s wasn’t spending Christmas with Sophie. It was lovely to see her reconnect with cousins Olivia, Charlie and childhood friend Wes. It was also great that they had a little group and called themselves the fab four. I always enjoy books that has a strong family at its centre and this one certainly did.When I read the 10 blind dates concept, I did envisage Sophie going a string of silly amusing dates. There were a few of these and that did create some funny moments! But there were also some lovely dates that saw Sophie make some lovely new friends. The best part of the story without a doubt was watching Sophie come back into the fold of the family and that along with the dates she went on really enabled her to reconnect with her old she felt she had lost.Although set over Christmas there wasn’t a massive focus on the festive fun, but Christmas Day did feature. However, it still felt quite Christmasy somehow, I think it was the gathering of everyone together and just having fun together. This was such a sweet, heart-warming read that I didn’t want to end. I think due to the fact that it is set around Christmas it would make a perfect festival read but equally you could also pick it up at any time of the year enjoy a family centric cute romance.

I found this really easy to read. It's real to life and not overly romantic. I read in fits and bursts due to having a busy life but I managed to keep the story going because of the nice style it's written in. I'd recommend it to young women wanting a feel good story. I'd love a large family like this.

Nice and easy read- cheese and teenage romance a fave combo of mine.Nice character development of the female lead, and lush friends to more story ♥️

Absolutely loved this! Cute, fluffy...adorable with a hint of angst. Loved the characters, loved the crazy family!

This is a lovely fluffy story that is excellent to read during the holidays.