Category: Book Reviews

Book Buddies Review: The Dream Thieves

Posted January 28, 2016 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 Comments

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 […]

Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Posted January 27, 2016 / Book Reviews / 13 Comments

I love the ideas of fate and destiny and coincidence and choices. This is something I actively want to read about and think about all the time. I thought this book could be a slam-dunk for me because of it, but I was left wanting more. I don’t know if I’m just a bitter reader these days, but my increasing ability to pick out plot twists ahead of time is starting to grate on me. Even smaller ones in contemporary novels become obvious and I get frustrated. I don’t expect every book to surprise me, but I want to at least be happy overall. This book shows Hadley heading overseas to her father’s wedding, to a woman she’s never met. There are admittedly a lot of family feels that most children of divorce (hi there!) can relate to (yep). I appreciated the honest thoughts Hadley had about her father and their relationship, but it seems unlikely that all of this would happen in a 24 hour period. This timeframe was another thing that led me to this book – I loved the idea of meeting in an airport and having a quick rendezvous, wondering if you’ll see each other again. The short timeframe of course can lead to a feeling of instalove, but I understand how a connection like this can be made in this kind of circumstance. It didn’t bug me too much. The characters were pretty good. It was definitely a character- and family-driven story, but I always feel like I’m […]

ARC Review: Call Me, Maybe

Posted January 23, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

What worked I liked the premise of the story, even though it felt a bit contrived. They meet each other because they accidently switch phones at the airport and are stuck with the wrong phone for a few days. They start chatting and eventually it turns into a relationship when they both return home to Chicago. There was some solid banter between those two! I loved their relationship; it felt really natural for most of the book. It developed a bit too quickly (especially at the end), but I did like how quickly they ~physically~ got together. It was real! Plenty of people do that sooner rather than later, and I appreciated that truth. I looooved the book blogging and romance reader elements. Honestly, that was probably my favorite part. She felt a lot of the things that we all feel on a regular basis. I could relate to almost all of her blogging-related feelings and issues. Everything below that I didn’t like about the book is all in hindsight. I really enjoyed it while I was reading – for the most part – and it was super addicting. What didn’t work It was alllll smooth sailing until a bunch of angst and miscommunication piled up at the end. Seriously, the pacing was quite off. Before all of the miscommunication at the end, she would irritate me by asking him so many personal questions and not really answering any in return. He was an open book for her to prod at, […]

Tom Haverford Giffy Review: Modern Romance

Posted January 21, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

I am a huge Aziz Ansari fan and knew I would happily read one of his books, regardless of the topic, if he ever wrote one. I loved Tom in Parks and Rec and his stand-up was always so funny and so real. It doesn’t hurt that he actively calls himself a feminist and makes fun of dudes for being so shitty. I mean, he’s perfect and that’s all there is to it. The topic of modern romance is an interesting one because clearly things have changed a lot, even within the past 5-10 years. I was intrigued to see what kind of conclusions he would come to. Sociology is one of my favorite subjects (and one of my minors in college!) so I knew that even if this book was more nonfiction-like than humor, I would be happy with it. That ended up being the case! I have to admit, I was warned by some early reviews that the book had a lot of numbers and wasn’t really traditionally funny. I was hoping for some humor throughout (which I got) but expected more of a research-oriented book. Somehow he managed to bring both of those aspects together in a perfect combination. “When you hear a Flo Rida song at first you’re like, ‘What is this, Flo Rida? It’s the same thing you’ve always done. I’m not listening to this song.’ And then you keep hearing it and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, Flo Rida. You’ve done it again! This […]

Blog Tour | Mini Review + Cover Colors: The Impostor Queen (Giveaway!)

Posted January 20, 2016 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 23 Comments

LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with book covers. I love the colors, the typography, the different designs that cover artists can create. I even have a guest post feature where people share their favorite book covers and bookmarks! I decided to start up this random feature where I draw color inspiration from my favorite book covers. I may create an outfit, pick out some nail polish, or design a quote graphic. Today’s cover is… The Impostor Queen by Sarah Fine This cover has some cool bright red and peachy tones, mixed with black and very light blue. I usually don’t go ALL out with the makeup aspect, but her makeup on the cover is too pretty to ignore! I thought it would be fun to show some similar colors to the ones she’s wearing on her face. I chose a dress to match the “Queen” font and some black and light blue accessories. The Imposter Queen by bookmarklit featuring a holiday nail polish Mini Review I have been trying to get better about reading more fantasy books. I always say how it’s one of my favorite genres, but I find that over half of the books I read every year are contemporaries. It’s one of my major goals of 2016 to have a better distribution of book genres, and THE IMPOSTOR QUEEN was the first fantasy book I read this year! (Well, aside from finishing up my […]

GIF Review: Jellicoe Road

Posted January 18, 2016 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

So, I finally did it. I asked Chris to pick my next book off of a certain shelf and he pulled this one off. I was kind of nervous but knew this was the motivation I would need to finally read it. I was mentally prepared for the confusing beginning. Every single review said that the first X number of pages would be hard to read or understand, but pushing through was worth it in the end. I read one review that said 80 pages was the magic spot where pieces came together. 80 pages came and went… and I was still incredibly confused. Intrigued, but confused. Another blogger told me page 125 was when it clicked for her. Nope, still pretty fucking confused. Still interested for sure, but very unsure of what was going on. Aaaand another told me 150 pages was when she figured this shit out. Again, that mark came and went. Things were KIND OF getting pulled together MAYBE… but I started to get frustrated. Everyone insisted that I keep reading, so I did. At this point, I was damn determined to make sure I wasn’t just an idiot. I read page after page until I was more than three-quarters through the book and still felt SO disconnected. It’s not like it was a bad book, I just was never surprised or shocked or impressed. I finally understood what was happening, but was completely disappointed by the lack of “AHA!” moment. There was no jaw drop. I […]

More A to Z! | Review: The Distance from A to Z

Posted January 16, 2016 / Book Reviews / 14 Comments

I thought this book looked really adorable when it first came onto my radar, and I decided to preorder it. ($1.99? Why not?!) I ended up reading it right away because I heard so many awesome things from lots of blogger friends. Andi was talking about how she wanted more from the characters she grew to love, so she asked some of us to hop on and help out the author with a little review campaign. I take Andi’s book recs for me VERY seriously, so I was happy to come on board even before reading the book. After reading it? TOTALLY AGREE. Like I said, I started this right away when it was delivered to my kindle, and finished in the day. IT WAS SO CUTE. I absolutely loved the characters (main and side) and seeing their relationship grow throughout the summer. Why you should read this one: The main characters speak French to each other throughout the book, and that makes it pretty darn romantic. I don’t speak French and didn’t find myself confused. There’s a lot of baseball talk (which was fun, even for this football fan), but nothing that would make non-Sports-fans run the other direction. The book is an incredibly quick read. Once I started, it was really hard for me to stop. (And I didn’t! Totally finished in one day.) The best friend character has a real personality and is completely fleshed out. We know so much about her and can easily see why […]

Review: The Mistake

Posted January 13, 2016 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Clearly my book funk is making me bitter. I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t really ENJOYED a book in a while. As of the moment I’m writing this – early December, hello again from the past – I’ve had such a failure this month in terms of reading enjoyment levels. My rating average is a 3.25, which is incredibly low for me. I don’t know if I’m just pissed off about books and everything is weighing in on what I’m reading… but regardless, this book probably would have been enjoyed more if I read it at a different time. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll try to get into why this one wasn’t a favorite for me. I LOVED its predecessor and am still eagerly waiting for the next book, but there was just too much drama and angst throughout this one. I liked the family dynamics (well, the different kinds of family situations that were represented. I didn’t LIKE what Logan’s father was doing). Let me break it down, as I’ve been doing a lot lately. LIKED Grace + Logan overall – I totally shipped them. I loved their chemistry and banter. They were super cute. After ~the mistake~ happened, Logan was adorable. Even though this aspect of the book DID bug me a bit, there was a lot about it that was cute. He was relentless, but only because he could really see she was interested. Otherwise he would be stalker status, for […]

GIF Review: I Am Princess X

Posted January 9, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I’ve never done a full-on GIF review before, but I don’t think I have much to say about this book that can’t be said in GIF form… so here we go! I added this book to my TBR and thought it was some kind of paranormal, actual superhero book. Come to find out, it was just a mystery-esque book. Shelving it on Goodreads became an issue for a while because I was totally thinking it was something different. As I kept reading, I was actually pretty happy that it was more a mystery book. I was intrigued by the storyline even though it wasn’t what I expected at all. The story started coming together and the concept was incredibly cool. I liked following May and Patrick try to figure out clues from the comic and track down Libby, who she suspected was still alive. A lot of the clues were really unexpected and awesome. The more I kept going… the more far-fetched it got. They made a lot of obscure connections really quickly, as if they’d been cracking codes and finding murderers since birth, a la Nancy Drew. It kind of lost me for a little bit towards the middle-end. I mean, come on. I kept reading reviews from my IRL book club girls on Goodreads where they said it was far-fecthed and I didn’t think it was possible (back when I was convinced it was a paranormal book). Like, how could it be far-fetched? Well the amount of things […]

ARC Review: This Is Where It Ends

Posted January 8, 2016 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Whew, this book was not easy. I raced through it in one sitting on a Saturday night and was desperate to see how it all ended. Heartbreaking, terrifying, and real. This won’t be an easy review. I’m a Connecticut resident and live about an hour from Sandy Hook… plus I have a friend who is a teacher in that town. Needless to say, this book hit entirely too close to home (literally). School shootings are something that really scare me more than I can express. When I was younger I read books about Columbine and in high school I read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. I don’t know why, but these stories have always grabbed me. Maybe because it feels like your biggest fear realized. Aside from my personal connection and “interest,” this book was incredibly well-written and well-done. I sat on my couch and finished it within a couple of hours; I couldn’t stop. The book centers around an hour long period, from when the shooting starts until it ends. There are four main characters whose POVs get alternated between: Sylvia, Autumn, Tomas, and Claire. I won’t get too much into their relationships to each other and how they related to the shooter, but they were all definitely connected. I was nervous about all of these characters and their relationships at first, but I finally got the hang of it. Despite the constant POV changes, I really felt like I knew these characters. Maybe it’s because in your moments […]