Protected: Slut-Shaming, Relationships, and Feminism in YA
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Month: September 2015
Review: The Night We Said Yes (+ Bonus Novella)
I don’t really know where to start with this one! I enjoyed it overall but I don’t think it’s a book that will stick with me very long. The characters were pretty good, the style of storytelling was excellent, and the overall concept was cool. I think my biggest issue is that I took a break in the middle to read something else and when I came back, it just wasn’t the same. The story alternates between “then” and “now.” In the “then” chapters, it shows the night that Ella met Matt, and they went out with another couple on a night where they said yes to everything. The “now” chapters are a year later, when Ella runs into Matt again for the first time in about six months. The synopsis makes it seem like the two of them had a magical night together and then he took off for a year. In reality, though, they dated for six months and then he left without a word. I had to adjust my expectations a bit once I realized that. Anyways, in the “now” chapters, Matt is trying to win Ella and her friends – Meg and Jake – back, when he returns to their town for college. He tries to recreate the night with Ella from a year before. I loved the alternating chapters with the two different times. It was fun because they lined up nicely with each other. Each one ended on a mini cliffhanger, so I was […]
Top Ten Tuesdays #55: Excuses (Freebie)
Ten Books I’m VERY Excited to Read (and am Running Out of Excuses for Why I Haven’t Read Them Yet) Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. So, awhile back I did a TTT for the ten books I just NEEDED to buy ASAP but still haven’t read yet. I like the idea of that kind of post because it’s fun to make a TTT with books you haven’t read yet, as opposed to repeating the same all-time favorites too often. Next week’s topic is your fall TBR, but this week I’ll be bringing you ten books I was very excited to read but still haven’t for some reason. I’m also going to have a poll at the bottom in case you want to help me decide which I should read by the end of the year. I PROMISE to read at least one of them by the end of 2015 😉 I love this author and don’t want to run out of their books… THE BOOKS: Girl Before a Mirror by Liza Palmer | After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid | The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West ⇒ THE EXCUSE: You know that feeling when you read a PERFECT book by an author, so part of you wants to immediately read ALL of their other books… […]
Inside & Out #14: Chris, Mr. Bookmark Lit
Admiring book covers and bookmarks, shared by you! Welcome to INSIDE AND OUT. This feature includes two of my absolute favorite book-related things: bookmarks (inside) and book covers (out)! I’ve invited guest posters to share their favorite book covers and bookmarks here on the second and fourth Mondays of each month. Sign-ups are always open (see bottom of post)! Check out past posts here. Chris, the wonderful boyfriend of Lauren from Bookmark Lit Instagram: @thebrickbuddy | Flickr: thebrickbuddy Tell me a little about yourself: I’m Chris and I’m a 23 year old old AFOL (adult fan of Lego). Lauren is my girlfriend and forced me to participate in this because someone bailed at the last minute. I like to read graphic novels set in the Marvel universe and build Lego in my spare time. I also like to play video games and watch football. Talk about your blog (what you blog about/kinds of books, features, etc.): I don’t have a blog at the moment, but I take pictures of my Lego creations on my Flickr and Instagram pages. I’ve been reading comics lately, mostly Marvel. I also listen to audiobooks at work sometimes and am in the process of rereading Harry Potter, the Series of Unfortunate Events, Captain Underpants, and a couple of Lego books. Favorite genre: I like fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero graphic novels. Three books you recommend most often and why: Lego: A Love Story by Jonathan Bender because I think it gives good insight into the Lego hobby and is kind of a “coming of age tale” into […]
ARC Reviews: Most Likely to Succeed and Anne & Henry
There aren’t a lot of YA books that make me feel old. This is definitely a book that I would have probably LOVED in high school, but the drama was very tiring for a 24 year old to read. This was the book in the trilogy I was most looking forward to; there was a lot of build-up between Sawyer and Kaye throughout the book and their plotline was carried through the first two. I LOVE Sawyer – he’s so goofy, fun, and sweet. The first half of the book got on my nerves a lot. Kaye was kind of a huge idiot when it came to just about everything. I know that she only stayed with Aidan because of the whole “powerful couple” thing, but he infuriated me. I would have dumped his pompous ass in the first book of the series! She was stupid about him and then stupid about Sawyer. He CLEARLY liked her and she kept going back and forth about if he did. Everything was right in front of her eyes and she was fucking annoying. If the book stayed like this, it would have been about 3 stars for me. Then, it improved! A lot of the drama happened during the second half, but I enjoyed it a bit more overall. Kaye finally came to terms with her feelings (and realized he felt the same way, DUH), so there was some major shipping on my end. The second half would have been 4 stars. I […]
Five on Fridays #16
Five on Friday displays the the top five things that have been on my mind this week! It could be book-related, but it may be music, movies, TV, personal life, food, etc. Previous posts can be found here! MEEP. The last one of these was done in June, and the previous one was in March. Clearly I’m not on top of things… which is fine. I resolved to do at least two or three of these for September and October, since I have MANY exciting things happening and they deserve to be talked about more than just a paragraph in my monthly wrap-up. LABOR DAY WEEKEND I had a really fantastic weekend with friends over Labor Day. My birthday (Wednesday the 9th) gave us a good excuse to all get together finally. Two of my college roommates live only 20 minutes away and we still manage to never see each other! Another lives in New Jersey and her boyfriend (also from my college friend group) lives in Rhode Island. We all got together for some bowling and drinks at this fun alley nearby. We had dinner at the lane and spent some time outside on the patio bar playing Kanjam and cornhole. It was a lot of fun and I’m really glad they pressured me to have a birthday gathering. I generally don’t like celebrating my birthday before or after the actual day; I like doing something only on my actual birthday. Overall, it was a great night. We had the two […]
Blog Tour Review: Come Away With Me
I absolutely raced through and devoured this book. It was the epitome of the “one more chapter” excuse before bed because I literally could not force myself to put the book down and sleep. I wasn’t expecting to be so entranced by the story, but I couldn’t stop. I generally read Young Adult books because I still feel like I am one. I’m 24 years old (officially, as of yesterday!) but relate much more to the YA characters I read than the ones in Adult Fiction. The characters in this book were going through some pretty tough stuff that I truly couldn’t relate to, but I was still SO deeply invested in their stories. For me, that’s a successful book. I love reading books where I have been through similar experiences to the main character(s), because it’s just easier to relate and enjoy it. If a book is able to creep in my mind and never leave, regardless of never experiencing anything like it, it’s wonderful to me. Tegan and her husband, Gabe, had a serious car accident with even more serious consequences. She still hasn’t forgiven him for the accident and the results of it, and she has slipped into a depression for the past few months. Gabe reminds her one day of their “jar of spontaneity” that they put together when they were engaged, and they decide now is the time to pull it out. They wrote various destinations and “bucket list” tasks on slips of paper and would pull […]
ARC Review: Dumplin’
I have no idea why Dumplin’ didn’t sound that appealing to me when I first heard of it. I mean, really, it has a lot of elements I’d be interested in. I almost didn’t bother requesting it through the ARC tour, but I couldn’t be happier that I decided to go for it. First of all, the cover is amazing and minimalistic and absolutely perfect for the story. Second, the story was fucking amazing. Dumplin’ honestly blew me away. I wrote down so many powerful quotes that I don’t even how to share them with you. All I know this, this book was extremely perfect for me. I feel like all girls (at some point or another) struggle with their appearance: whether it has to do with their weight, their legs, their hair… anything. I’m constantly self-conscious about how I look and my weight. I wish I was half as confident as Willowdean is in her skin. Girls of all sizes and appearances will appreciate the message of this book. Willowdean, as confident as she is, even has some moments of doubt – between her relationship with Bo, her feelings about her mother, and the pageant, even some things can bring her down momentarily. I loved her right away, starting from the moment she distracted Millie from the taunting of a dickhead guy at school. I completely understood SO many of the things she was going through, from growing apart from her best friend, to being jealous of new friends, to […]
Top Ten Tuesdays #55: Series
Ten Finished Series I NEED to Finish (or Start!) Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review. I’m actually not TOO bad at finishing series once I start them. If the books are published and I started the series, there’s a good chance I finished it too. I could only think of five published series that I still need to finish… so, I decided to also show five finished series that I want to read but haven’t yet! Boomerang trilogy by Noelle August Read: Boomerang | To Read: Rebound, Bounce I actually loved the first book, which could be why I’m so nervous to read the next two! I’ve heard some mixed things about both of them. I know they’ll be super quick reads but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. New Adult has been on the back burner! Private series by Kate Brian Read: Books #1-11 | To Read: Book of Spells, Vanished, Ominous, Vengeance I absolutely loved this series and remember buying and reading each book immediately when it came out. It was really the first series (aside from Harry Potter, obviously) that I tracked when each book was coming out and bought them. Once I finished the 11th book and knew I had to read the prequel, I lost some […]
ARC Review: Mirrored
I definitely have some mixed feelings on this one. I’m tempted to lower the rating because of all the things that bugged me, but there were quite a few things I liked as well. The overall story behind this one was really cool, from a retelling standpoint. All of the elements that actually connected to Snow White were really well-done. Some of them made you think a little bit, and I bet I even missed some of the references to the original story. The plot was a really interesting take on that story and didn’t seem too similar. I have to give this book points for that. It was also cool to have the three different perspectives in the story, starting with Violet’s backstory, how that impacts Celine in her part, and how Goose finishes off the book. The characters were pretty good. Again, I liked getting a glimpse at Violet’s backstory so you could really see how and why she got to be the way she was. It was a little bit easier to be KIND OF sympathetic towards her when she starts being insane. Celine was a nice enough main character but was really just (1) smart and (2) obsessed with a singer named Jonah Prince. We don’t get too much more than that. Goose was probably my favorite but even then he wasn’t super memorable. The pacing and writing style really bugged me. There were a few (okay, a lot) of places in the book that draaaaggged on […]