Review Round Up | The Complication and Sam & Isla’s Last Hurrah

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews!

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The Complication by Suzanne Young
Series: The Program #6
Genres: Young Adult, Dystopia, Sci-Fi
Published by Simon and Schuster on April 24, 2018
Also by this author: Just Like Fate, The Program, The Treatment, The Remedy, Hotel Ruby, The Epidemic, The Adjustment, Girls with Sharp Sticks, Girls with Razor Hearts, Girls with Rebel Souls
Format: Hardcover (456 pages) • Source: Library
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How do you go back to a life you can’t remember? Find out in this sixth novel in the New York Times bestselling Program series from Suzanne Young.

Every cure has a cost.

Tatum Masterson learned this after years of being monitored by The Program. She witnessed it when her boyfriend, Wes, came back changed, erased. And now, even the newest “cure” has a heavy cost—one she and Wes paid.

The Adjustment came into Tatum’s life just when she thought she needed it most, a promise for Wes to get back his forgotten memories. But when the procedure went wrong, a revelation shattered everything Tatum thought she knew.

Now, with no one left to trust, Tatum must find out what really happened last summer. And with the help of the boyfriend she lost, Tatum will have to dig into the past and future of The Program and its handlers.

And discover the true cost of a cure.

I cannot believe this series is over, honestly. I have loved every single book almost as much as the previous. My average rating for all the books is somewhere between 4-4.5 stars because of how PERFECT they are. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when authors continue to add more books to a series to keep things going, I get nervous that they’ll just stretch things too much and ruin everything. That is 100000% not the case for the PROGRAM series. I have never read one of the six books and thought “this is too much and/or not needed.” The world keeps expanding and I keep gobbling them up. As another piece of intro before the actual review: I was in a big reading slump, mostly with physical copies. I’d pick up my Kindle and binge a book in 1-2 days, while whatever physical copy I had started reading would sit around for weeks. I knew that my library hold coming in would snap my slump for physical copies.

One of the major threads that definitely came to a head in this book was the “morally gray” area of The Program and Adjustment doctors. Many of them genuinely thought they were helping, but they most often made things much worse. There’s still a part of you that understands where they were coming from though, especially with the Adjustment procedure. I was curious to see how things would shake out because it seemed like the damage was irreversible.

Tatum and Wes were awesome, and the cameos from other books’ main character couples was great too. I loved seeing how everyone intertwined. My one regret is that I didn’t reread the rest of the series before this book. I thought it would recap and refresh everything for me (like the rest of the series has done)… but I think there were too many books and stories alllll coming together. I didn’t remember a lot of details from the previous duos; I remembered Tatum and Wes from book 5 but that was about it. That’s my fault though. I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this series overall. It’s one of my absolute all-time favorites.

Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah by Rachel Cohn, David Levithan
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary
Published by Penguin Random House on April 10, 2018
Also by this author: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily, My True Love Gave To Me
Format: Hardcover (211 pages) • Source: Library
Goodreads • Amazon • Barnes & Noble

The New York Times Bestselling duo behind Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist and The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily return with twins out to throw the party of a lifetime—or at least the best party of high school!

Siblings Sam and Ilsa Kehlmann have spent most of their high school years throwing parties for their friends—and now they’ve prepared their final blowout, just before graduation.

The rules are simple: each twin gets to invite three guests, and the other twin doesn’t know who’s coming until the partiers show up at the door. With Sam and Ilsa, the sibling revelry is always tempered with a large dose of sibling rivalry, and tonight is no exception.

One night. One apartment. Eight people. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, we all know the answer is plenty. But plenty also goes right, as well…in rather surprising ways.

This was a quick read that I kind of needed, much like THE COMPLICATION (in a very different way though). I was intrigued by the premise of this one – the idea of a dinner party where twin siblings each invite three secret guests, and seeing where the night takes them all.

I didn’t love DASH & LILY by this author duo and I have very similar feelings about this one? Their books, for me so far, always have some kind of forced quirkiness, where the characters are punched up too much and somewhat bizarre. The entire crew of people at the last hurrah party were that way too. They were all weird in different ways, interesting in some ways. It was cool to see all the connections and things that happened throughout the night, but it just didn’t feel like a real group of people to me.

I really liked a lot of the ending and some of the scenes throughout were pretty dang funny. Even though the characters felt unrealistic (in terms of how real people act), they were all fleshed out REALLY well. It was surprising, given the fact that this book takes place in just one evening.

Unfortunately the word “pretentious” comes to mind for this one, but I didn’t hate it. I can’t say I’d really recommend it unless you like John Green’s books and characters amped up even further somehow.

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