Judging plots & rating from the title + cover!

Hi, friends! I have no better title for this post, but I got the inspiration from a post the lovely Fadwa @ Word Wonders did. It sounded so fun so I wanted to join in and add my little twist on it. You’re more than welcome to join, too!

r u l e s

🌿 Go to your Goodreads TBR shelf
🌿 Choose 5 to 10 books at random from there
🌿 Guess what the plot is about based on the cover and title
🌿 Read the real synopsis
🌿 Predict your rating
🌼 Once you read the book, go back and check what it is about

t h e b o o k s

Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal About Generation Z’s New Path to Success

🐝 Starting off with a rather easy one… I am guilty of having requested this on NetGalley because of how amazing the title and cover make it sound.

🌿 My guess (plot): This is a nonfiction book about the late-1990s to mid-2000s babies and their paths to success. I’m guessing this will look at competitions, particularly spelling bees, and see how outside and inside stress factors push the Generation Zers toward achieving their goals, and how these are different from the patterns we have seen in the past!

🌿 The real synopsis… The Generation Z seems to be made up of anxious overachievers, hounded by Toger Moms and constantly tracked on social media. Contrary to popular belief, they are not the worst off competitors in the National Spelling Bee. Anthropologist Shalini Shankar argues that Gen Z spelling competitors are learning crucial twenty-first-century skills from their high-powered lives.

🐝 My predicted rating: Between 4 to 5 stars! It’s really going to depend on how well this is written, but I’m excited!!!

The DNA of You and Me

🌿 My guess (plot): In a world where love is becoming increasingly harder to find on your own, a company has stepped in and developed a testing program based on DNA and world-wide databases. All you have to do is give the company a DNA sample and they will match you with your meant-to-be match. But the DNA test isn’t always right — and there’s no one better than a person to test out the raw chemistry between a couple.

🌿 The real synopsis: Emily has been hired to work as a researcher at a DNA lab facility. She is focused and dedicated to her research, until she meets Aeden, another researcher working on the same project as Emily but not as part of her team. The stakes are high and the competition ferocious, and as Aeden and Emily’s relationship goes from enemies to colleagues to something more, their love for research may threaten to come in the way…

🐝 My predicted rating: 3 to 5 stars. So many mixed reviews for this one, but it sounds right up my alley! I’ll try to go in without many expectations.

If, Then

🌿 My guess (plot): The world of human-like robots has improved drastically in recent years. Now, thanks to a Silicon-based tech company, anyone can buy a robot companion that talks and acts like humans. But as technology gets better and better, issues of ethics start to arise — can they feel? is programming them to be submissive an act of violence?

🌿 The real synopsis: In a sleepy mountain town in Oregon, people start to have vividly real visions throughout their day. They affect four residents in particular: Ginny, a devoted surgeon who suspects her husband of cheating; Mark, a wildlife scientist who sees images of doom and destruction; Samara, a grieving young woman who has visions of her late-mother as a healthy and happy woman, making her question her family’s secrets; and Cass, a brilliant researcher who witnesses herself pregnant right as she is about to embark on a career-defining project.

🐝 My predicted rating: Gee, I was far off!!! Between 4 and 5 stars — I love speculative fiction.

The Glovemaker

🌿 My guess (plot): A Russian glove-making family moves to the United States in their search for a better life during the late 19th century. This tale of family love, second chances, entrepreneurship, and immigrant life will leave all readers sobbing.

🌿 The real synopsis: It is 1888 and Deborah lives in a Mormon community in the inhospitable lands of Utah Territory, waiting for her husband to return from his travels. When he doesn’t show up, she starts to get worried. One day in January, a man asks that Deborah house him, but who, besides a criminal, would be traveling across Utah in the cold January months? The arrival of this mysterious stranger turns Deborah’s life upside down in this different take on the Western subgenre.

🐝 My predicted rating: Uhh… A western might be fun, but it is definitely not a subgenre I gravitate toward. Let’s say… 3 stars out of 5 for this one.

A Place for Us

🌿 My guess (plot): A Place for Us is the story of an immigrant Muslim family in Australia, who are just now carving a new life for themselves. There are a lot of things they have to adapt to, and they must somehow preserve part of their heritage even though it is not seen as valued in the new place they call home.

🌿 The real synopsis: An Indian-American family is reunited in their California home for the eldest daughter’s wedding, a match done by love rather than tradition. It is the first time Amar, the youngest of all the siblings, has had contact with the family in over three years. During the course of the festivities, the whole family must come together and get through what caused them to be estranged in the first place — and must find a way to balance authenticity and adapting to the American culture

🐝 My predicted rating: 5 stars. I love all immigrant stories, and this one sounds right up my alley. I think I’ll really love it! And hey, I wasn’t too far off — hurrah!

The Stationery Shop

🌿 My guess (plot): A young man opens up a stationery shop in Istanbul, Turkey. One day, a young lady comes in looking for a notebook to write all her poetry. Their shared love for stationery brings them together, and a beautiful relationship blossoms in one of the most gorgeous cities in the world at the turn of the century. We follow these two characters as they grow old, their children, and the fate of their beautiful stationary shop.

🌿 The real synopsis: 1953 Tehran, Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager finds a literary oasis in Mr. Fakhri’s stationery shop, where she could spend whole afternoons in. Mr. Fakhri has a penchant for matchmaking, and so decides to set up Bahman, his other favorite customer and yet another lover of poetry and social justice. As the romance blossoms and the date of their wedding nears, the coup d’etat that changes the course of the country’s history takes place, and the darling young couple can’t see each other anymore. That is, until sixty years later a strange accident of fate makes the lovers’ paths cross once more, and time may not have changed a single thing…

🐝 My predicted rating: 5 starts, definitely 5 stars!!! Doesn’t this story sound super adorable?? Too bad this book is only out in June of this year!

How did you like this post? Did you try to guess along with me the plots? I think I did not too bad of a job — it really is harder than I was expecting!