Category: Book Reviews

Holiday Review: Christmas at Lilac Cottage

Posted December 16, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

This month I’ll be highlighting different holiday or Christmas-oriented books on the blog. I love reading based on the season, so stay tuned for more wintery reviews. To learn more about what’s coming and my holiday book rating system, check here! This book started out really strong for me and then my feelings kind of dwindled towards the end. I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of instalove-like romances and I’m getting tired of it. I need a good hate-to-love romance to get back in the swing of things. I didn’t realize throughout most of my reading that this book basically only happens over the course of a week… meaning there was some EXTREME instalove. This bugs me more than love triangles do. I did feel some chemistry but the whole use of the L-word right away is a major deterrent. Here’s a breakdown of some good/bad things. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book if you don’t mind the instalove factor. I enjoyed it a lot aside from that. If the plot was just stretched out over a longer period of time, it would probably work okay for me. The story was cute in general and very atmospheric. I love the town of White Cliff Bay so I will definitely be reading the next story at some point!I definitely expected the book to be more Christmassy, especially because of the title. It took place in the week leading up to Christmas […]

Review: Last Will and Testament

Posted December 13, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Oh, Dahlia. I don’t think you’ll ever disappoint me. *knocks on wood* This was another fantastic story by her. It had all of the wonderful features of her young adult books with quite a bit more sexytimes added. I’m not a person who goes into books blind; I always refresh my memory on the synopsis before starting. I definitely did NOT do that with this book, so I was really caught off guard by the beginning of the book! Lizzie finds out that her parents have been killed in an accident and she becomes the legal guardian of her two younger brothers. They move back up to where she’s attending college and she tries to get her grades back on track. Meanwhile, she starts falling for her TA. I definitely haven’t read a book – especially not an NA book – with the whole parents/guardianship thing. I liked that the concept was unique overall, even though the student-teacher forbidden romance part was not. Speaking of that, I could really feel their chemistry. WHEW. I don’t generally like those books, but this one felt real and organic. And also, holy shit, those steamy scenes were… eeeeek. I LOOOOVED Lizzie as a character. She did what she wanted, she spoke her mind, she stuck up for herself, and owned her sexuality/sexual experiences. I loved that so much. She was really brazen, which I’m honestly not used to reading, so it was refreshing. (I feel like so many main characters are timid or […]

Holiday Review: Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses

Posted December 11, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

This month I’ll be highlighting different holiday or Christmas-oriented books on the blog. I love reading based on the season, so stay tuned for more wintery reviews. To learn more about what’s coming and my holiday book rating system, check here! My holidays would not be complete without a Jenny Hale Christmas story. I’ve read her two other Christmas books and loved them so much. This year I was provided an ARC from the publisher and had to resist digging in right away. These books are SO EFFING CHRISTMASSY that it would be best suited for the beginning of December, when I want to jolt my Christmas spirit for the month. Of course, it delivered in every way I hoped. I’ll be completely honest when I say that Hale’s holiday stories are formulaic. There’s a girl who starts to work for or help out a workaholic millionaire around the holidays – maybe she moves into his house for a ~reason~ – and they start to fall in love. So far, all three books have followed this general formula. However, in the same way that all AC/DC songs sound the same, I love them all equally and don’t even care if they’re a bit too similar. They’re all perfect. Plus, if you read one once a year, you’re not likely to get sick of a similar story. So, as usual, I loved this one. Abbey was a great protagonist, and her son Max was even better. I loved the family feels […]

Review: The Isle of the Lost

Posted December 9, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

It feels kind of stupid to point out that this book feels very young, considering it skews towards Middle Grade. Goodreads does list both YA and MG as categories for it though. Be that as it may, this book feels very young. I borrowed the book from my 13 year old sister, so that should give you a solid indication of the best audience (she loved it). I couldn’t resist borrowing it from her though, because hello? Disney villains! The premise of this story is just so appealing to Disney lovers. It sat on my shelf for a number of months before I was compelled to read it. I started with the physical copy from her but realized it didn’t really hold my attention in that format. I got the audio from Scribd and decided to truck along, using both formats (until Winter was released and I switched to just audio). Speaking of the audio, the narrator was the worst. Sofia Carson is an actor in the Descendants movie (which is essentially the “second book” in this series, I guess). She narrated the book as if she was over-acting in a Disney movie. So. Yeah. Not fun. The plot was pretty slow as far as pacing is concerned. Most of the action was at the end, and even then… it was anticlimactic. It read like a prequel novella and not a story that was needed on its own. I did like it OVERALL even though I have more complaints than […]

Holiday Review: Icing on the Lake

Posted December 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

This month I’ll be highlighting different holiday or Christmas-oriented books on the blog. I love reading based on the season, so stay tuned for more wintery reviews. To learn more about what’s coming and my holiday book rating system, check here! I had literally no idea what to expect from this book. I couldn’t track down a real synopsis for the life of me. I knew it was one of those HarperTeen books from back in my high school days; they tend to read like a romantic comedy. Early contemporary romance YA, I suppose. I really enjoyed Snowed In last year, which I imagined was quite similar. I remember getting these types of books out from the library after school and reading them in the library. Anyways, the book is about a girl (Kirsten) who goes to stay with her young divorcee sister and her son, because she hurt her leg or something. She is somehow able to live there for a month or two while her sister heals. She’s just… not attending high school, but is able to work on an independent project for the month instead. Pretty not realistic, but okay. Basically she gets involved with some ~boys~ because she wants to bring one to a weekend away with her friends. → A few highlights because I really don’t know what to say: The writing and dialogue felt super awkward (especially the “banter”) Lots of characters were fleetingly introduced at the beginning and I couldn’t keep her friends straight […]

Review: I’ll Give You the Sun

Posted December 6, 2015 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

Why do I read stories I know I’m not going to like?????? I was pretty damn adamant that I wasn’t going to read this book (evidence 1 and 2). I heard somewhere that the writing style was metaphor-filled like We Were Liars, which I totally loathed. I was right. It was similar and heavy-handed and frustrating. I feel stupid when I read books like that because I can’t tell if the person is being literal or if it’s a metaphor. Anyways, because this book was very middle-of-the-road for me, I’ll break into my usual YES and NO lists… What I Liked In general, I was a fan of the two separate timelines. I thought it was interesting to read about Noah at 13 while reading about Jude at 16, because you wonder how things progress in those 2-3 years. I started putting puzzle pieces together early on and saw some click into place depending on whose chapters I was reading. The storyline was pretty interesting. I was curious to see how it all ended up, especially because it seemed like the twins ended up switching personalities in those few years. I wanted to know what happened to cause that. I thought the ending was sweet. I actually started to think, “did I really hate this book as much as I thought?” when I read the ending. It was enough to leave me with a generally positive feeling about the book, instead of the low score I was planning. What I Didn’t Like […]

Review: First & Then

Posted December 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

THIS BOOK WAS THE CUTEST. It took me a little while to get settled into the plot and the characters for some reason, but once I did… oh boy. So perfect. This is definitely one of my favorite books this year based on sheer cuteness and readability. I read this in basically just a couple of sittings over the course of two days because I was determined to finish and feel all the things. Devon’s annoying younger cousin, Foster, moves in with her family after basically being abandoned by his mom. Come to find out, he’s a great kicker and is invited onto the football team. Their family feels progress and grow slowly throughout the book, as does the romance between Devon and SOMEONE. I’m keeping this sentence spoiler-free but you may be able to guess by the end of the review. Sorry, not sorry. I will also totally reread this book, and that’s a big honor. So far the only books I’ve reread are Sarah Dessen (duh), the Harry Potter series (double duh), and books I read a long time ago because I wanted to finish the series. To have a random YA contemporary (non-Dessen) be thrown in as a worthy reread is kind of big deal. Perfect things are perfect THE FEELSSSS between Devon + Foster (seriously, the way they warmed up to each other killed me) between Foster + Ezra (what a fucking adorable friendship. I can’t) between Ezra + Devon (mmmm what a slow burn, with a […]

Review: Winter

Posted November 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Well well well, Marissa Meyer. I see what you did there. You made each book get increasingly better than the last until I finally said holy SHIT this is one of my favorite series. When I finished Cinder, I wasn’t totally convinced. When I finished Scarlet, I said “that was very good, not fantastic” yet again. When I finished Cress, I thought she was headed towards something excellent. I loved being introduced to more and more characters who were special and important in their own ways. With the introduction of the ultimate bae Carswell Thorne, I was pretty sold in general… but I knew that the final book would have to blow me away to make up for my this-is-great-but-not-a-favorite feelings that I was working with from the first two books. AND THEN SHE DID IT. There are so many wonderful things about this book and about the whole series that come to a head in this finale. I would venture to say that it’s my favorite series-ender ever. (This may be because I haven’t finished a lot of series like this, but seriously it’s gotta be top three at least!) How do I love thee? Let me count the ways… 1. SQUAD GOALS Has there ever been a group of people this perfect before? Prob not. As each book progressed, we were introduced to more and more characters to make up the final crew of saviors. Book one brought us Cinder and Kai, the smart cyborg and the emperor. Book […]

Book Buddies Review: The Raven Boys

Posted November 25, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 5 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! How did you feel when you started? Did the hype make you excited or nervous? Kaitlin: I definitely did not know what to expect from this book because the synopsis had been super vague about what was going down within this book. All I know was what happened in the beginning chapter and that Blue would eventually become attracted. I don’t think hype really affects my enjoyment for books too much. It motivates me to try to enjoy a book that has lots of love to it but other than that, I mostly enjoy the majority of the books I read so hype is never a huge problem for me when it comes to how I enjoy a book. Lauren: I know what you mean about motivating you to enjoy it! That was such a driving factor in my enjoyment of this book. I felt like I needed to like it because everyone else […]

ARC Review: Hello?

Posted November 22, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

This one totally took me by surprise. I absolutely loved it. There were plenty of positive reviews ahead of time but I wasn’t sure how it would resonate with me. I am actually a fan of books that mix around different formats; this one promised poems, narrative, screenplays, and images. I thought it made the book an even quicker, more addicting read. Seriously though – the epitome of unputdownable. I read it in two marathon sittings because I couldn’t stop. I’ll keep this one short and sweet with some bullets… Perfection The concept of fate and people being destined to meet, or at least in each other’s lives. I won’t expand on too much of this but everyone in the story is connected to and/or impacted by someone else. It really got me thinking about the things that are meant to happen to us. (You know this shit is my favorite thing to think about!) Going off of that, I enjoy books where all of the characters are connected in some way without realizing it. With each page, you learned more and more about their histories and families. It reminded me of The Husband’s Secret in some ways. The format really worked! It was fun to read the poetry and the screenplays intermixed with the narrative-based chapters. I wish there were a few more from Brian’s perspective though! I liked seeing images of his artwork. It was just so addicting! I couldn’t put it down for the life of me. I sat […]