Category: Book Reviews

Review: None of the Above

Posted February 19, 2016 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments
Review: None of the Above

I think this book is so incredibly important and, a lot of the time, super powerful. I’ve never read a book about an intersex character and I don’t know of any others that exist. The only time I’ve even heard of the term is in the show Faking It. I’m always happy to learn more about the letters across the QUILTBAG spectrum, so this was great for that purpose. Before I get into the characters and plot events aside from the intersex aspect, I’ll just say that this book is really interesting throughout. I wanted to see how Kristin would react to the hand she was dealt and she didn’t often disappoint me. I think it was a super realistic chain of events (unfortunately) that could happen to anyone in her situation. Learning more about AIS was great and for that reason, I’m glad I read this one. It was super informative, without feeling too forced. I think my biggest issue was with the audiobook narrator? While she had a great voice that I liked listening to, she felt really detached from the story emotionally… This made me feel like the MC didn’t have a lot of emotional reaction at times. That’s why I say it didn’t feel TOO forced or clinical, but at times it did. There was one thing that Kristin did that REALLY annoyed me towards the end of the book and I can’t get it out of my head. It involves her friends and determining who spilled […]

Review: Bossypants

Posted February 17, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments
Review: Bossypants

I love Amy Poehler a lot. Parks & Rec is one of my all-time favorite shows and her book, Yes Please, was so fantastic. I’ve always admired her friendship with Tina Fey and as a result, had a nice soft spot for Ms. Fey. But honestly, I haven’t seen a lot of her work (aside from when they host the Golden Globes together and Mean Girls of course). I bought Bossypants a few years ago in a little indie bookstore because I really wanted to make a purchase. Like most celebrity memoirs I read, though, I decided to go with the audiobook to hear her deliver the jokes. I’m happy I did, because she was awesome. It was like she was talking with you. She had so many smart and hilarious comments about EVERYTHING – motherhood, SNL, hollywood, Photoshop, her childhood, and more. It was awesome. I think it essentially reads like a series of funny essays that she put together in one book, which was nice. It was just a smattering of her thoughts on everything. I’ve always wanted to watch 30 Rock but my interest is even higher after reading this book. I couldn’t give it a full five stars for some reason, but it was so so good. I think I just have little to no interest in Saturday Night Live, which was a huge part of Fey’s book as well as Poehler’s. I appreciated some of the stories but just generally don’t like the show too much. I’ll leave […]

Mini Reviews: See How They Run and The Fixer

Posted February 15, 2016 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments
Mini Reviews: See How They Run and The Fixer

I read two mystery/thriller stories in a row, and neither of them disappointed! They both had interesting political elements and little to no romance. (I had grown sick of reading back to back to back (etc.) romancey books in December and needed a new vibe to kick off the year.) I’m bringing some mini reviews your way for both of these highly recommended stories. After the major cliffhanger in ALL FALL DOWN, I was so anxiously waiting to see how things picked up in SEE HOW THEY RUN. I definitely should have reread the ending of the previous book before starting it, because I was a little lost for a while, but I started to remember things as time passed. It did generally take me a while to fully feel invested in the story. I think the action didn’t take off right away and for some reason I wasn’t pageturning like crazy. Don’t get me wrong – some crazy twists and turns happened in the beginning of the book too! It just didn’t click with me right away. In my review for ALL FALL DOWN, I said how I wanted more of her friends and to finally meet her brother. One of these hopes did come true, as her brother Jamie comes to Embassy Row with his friend from West Point. He was definitely a big presence in the book, but her friends weren’t. The pace quickened around the 200 page mark and I didn’t stop reading until I was finished. I […]

ARC Review: It’s a Wonderful Death

Posted February 12, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
ARC Review: It’s a Wonderful Death

This book definitely ended up being different than I expected! I can’t tell if I’m glad about that or not. I was picturing a similar story set-up to BEFORE I FALL, which is one of my favorite books of all-time. It was definitely reminiscent, but not the same. More on that later. The premise of the story is that soul of mean girl RJ is accidentally collected before she’s supposed to die. She gets brought up into the afterlife and has to deal with trying to get back to earth to finish living her life. She’s not ready to die yet, so she has to prove to a jury of angels and other related mythical beings that she deserves a second chance at life. By doing this, she will be sent back to her past to re-do some key moments in her life. If she makes the changes and improves her life (and those around her), she may get a second chance on earth. I thought it would be a book that focused solely on RJ going back and reliving / re-doing some of her life events. There was actually very little time spent on that part, and the rest was spent dealing with the “afterlife,” a trial, and repercussions. The changes that RJ made within herself were somewhat believable, but because the re-do aspect of the book was so short, it was hard to REALLY feel the change. It was too quick for me. In BEFORE I FALL, you […]

ARC Review: The Word for Yes

Posted February 10, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments
ARC Review: The Word for Yes

Warning: I am going to probably have a few spoilers in this review. I just… can’t do it without them. Trigger warning: Book is largely focused on a date rape and its aftermath I didn’t like this book and I kind of feel uncomfortable reviewing it. I feel weird about saying that a book with SUCH an important topic… felt pointless. I actually haven’t read a lot of books that involve date rape or anything similar, but I know there are powerful ones out there. How can something like this be breezed over, when it’s meant to be the point of the book? Let me back up a little bit. The synopsis says that three sisters try to move on from the aftermath of something that happens at a party. I mean, sure, that happens? But it wasn’t what I was expecting. They all kind of hate each other and – spoiler alert – that doesn’t really change at the end. In fact, NOTHING changes at the end! Melanie is raped at a party by a guy who is one of her best friends. This impacts her family and her in different ways, but no one is changed by what happened. By the end of it, Melanie kind of moves on and forgets it happens in some ways. She has ONE conversation with a guy she likes and just feels completely better. It’s like in the books where the main character’s depression is ~cured~ by a boy that comes into […]

Mini Reviews: Of Beast and Beauty and Second Time Around

Posted February 8, 2016 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments
Mini Reviews: Of Beast and Beauty and Second Time Around

A couple of very random mini reviews for you! Both backlist: one YA retelling and one Adult “chick lit” type. Here’s what I thought of Of Beast and Beauty and Second Time Around.I definitely expected a lot from this book, and I think that wasn’t very fair of me. The biggest fault with this was comparing it too much to Princess of Thorns. The other story I read by Stacey Jay featured non-stop twists and new information and swoooons, even after a very slow beginning. With this one, there were less twists and turns and jaw-dropping moments…and I just expected too much. It started off slow but I kind of thought that might just be Jay’s style? But, it took about 75% of the book for me to really make me eager to keep reading. The ending was solid and interesting, for sure. If I try to be a little more objective, this was REALLY good. Same slow-burn, complex story with great world-building. I totally need more Stacey Jay in my life. I’m not sure if this was a case of the right book at the right time, or if I just really loved this one, but either way- so glad I read it. I needed something with no hype and non-YA, and this delivered in spades. I loved the cozy, college campus vibe (even though they were all 10 years out of college, just living somewhat on the campus) and the theme of second chances. There were four main characters […]

Review: Parallel

Posted February 5, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments
Review: Parallel

I love parallel life books so much. Andi kept gently pushing *cough* for me to read this book, and I don’t know what took me so long. This book comes close to an all-time favorite, but I’m not sure I can give it that label. I feel like it may change if and when I reread. The book follows Abby, who finds out that a collision of parallel universes happened and she’s the only one who knows about it. It’s really hard to explain but basically she has some real memories and some that her parallel (in the past) has rewritten. The book starts with her on a movie set in LA and then she ends up waking up at Yale for college. She has to figure out how everything changed, and the book alternates between “here” and “there.” I really loved this book, but let me count the ways for you… LOVED IT Abby is basically me. Not in the personality way, but in every other way. Her birthday is the SAME DAY AS ME, down to the year. And her birthday is kind of a big deal throughout the book, so they spent a lot of time talking about it. That gave me a lot of warm and fuzzies. She was born at 9:09pm on September 9th, which is almost the same time I was born. Because she went to Yale for part of the book, she lived in Connecticut! She mentioned alllll sorts of things I know about […]

Mini NA Reviews: Faking It and The Score

Posted February 1, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
Mini NA Reviews: Faking It and The Score

After really despising the previous book in this series (and DNFing it), I couldn’t decide if I wanted to read the rest. Because this is a companion series, I was tempted! New characters but the same Cora Carmack writing I generally enjoy? Why not?! I finally decided to go for it via audio (after testing out a sample, because the narrator ruined it last time). I have to say, this book was the complete opposite for me! The narrators were perfect and didn’t feel like young children reading books about sex. The characters were so fun and the narrators did an awesome job of capturing their personalities. I knew from the first few chapters that this one would give me a totally different experience. Thank god! I’ve been feeling annoyed by anything resembling instalove lately, and unfortunately SOME of this fell in that category. I rolled my eyes a bit throughout but it’s because I’m bitter about romance, and have been for the past few months. I liked their chemistry from the very beginning and fake dating is a trope I looooove. It was also a case of opposites attracting, so that was fun. Beyond the romance, Max had a lot of complicated personal and family-related things going on. Cade did too but they weren’t really addressed at all. It was focused a lot on HER and her problems, and I wish he got more attention. As far as characters are concerned, I wished for more about him and less […]

Blog Tour | ARC Review: Reign of Shadows

Posted January 29, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments
Blog Tour | ARC Review: Reign of Shadows

MORE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository Oh man, what a book! Within the first few pages, I didn’t want to stop reading. I had pulled it up on my Kindle and wanted to see how the beginning would go and kept reading for 10 minutes (even though I had somewhere else I needed to be). I didn’t expect to be so interested and engaged within the first few pages of the book! This feeling did not end; I couldn’t stop reading until I reached the last page. The book reminded me a bit of Princess of Thorns, which I absolutely adored. There was a journey with someone who didn’t necessarily want to journey with another person, a tiny bit of gender-bending, and interesting creatures/people along the way. I just love stories like this apparently. (Any recs for other journey-style fantasy books?!) I loved Luna and Fowler. The set-up for the story was fantastic, with Luna living in her tower, letting Fowler and his companions into their lives, and starting their journey. I shipped them kind of immediately. I couldn’t help it. I liked that the two of them took a little while to get to the same place as me, re: their feelings for each other. I shipped them before they even knew they liked each other. Like I said above, this book featured a cool journey in the DARK because there’s a perpetual eclipse over the kingdom. I think this plot point […]

Book Buddies Review: The Dream Thieves

Posted January 28, 2016 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 Comments
Book Buddies Review: The Dream Thieves

Book Buddies is a discussion-style review that takes place with one of my two buddies. (Learn more and see past reviews here) We both read the book and then have a private discussion about it. We post our discussion as a review on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll be able to see our similar/different opinions on the overall book, characters, writing style, etc. – just like a regular review. The first half our discussion will take place right here, and the second half will be on Kaitlin’s blog! (Link below) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead! In our discussion of THE RAVEN BOYS, I asked which character was your favorite. Has your answer changed now that we’ve gotten to know them a bit more? Kaitlin: Oh man, this is a hard question because all of the characters are so good. In this book, the boys did some things that I really did not agree with but I am leaning towards Noah or Gansey for my favorite Raven boy. Adam and Ronan did some things that had ticked me off a bit so that had caused me to like them a bit less compared to Gansey and Noah. I really liked Blue in this book as well and it was really great to read more about Maura, Calla, and Persephone because all four of these ladies are such great characters. Lauren: I agree! I think Gansey might be my favorite for some reason, but I really want to get in his head even […]