Category: Book Reviews

ARC Review: Cut Both Ways

Posted August 27, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Sigh. I don’t know. This book had the potential to be really interesting and thought-provoking, but it felt too much like an “issue” book. I don’t mind reading books with clear messages, but it tried to be a lot of things at once. Will’s parents are divorced, his dad’s an alcoholic, he discovers that he has feelings for his male best friend, and he gets his first girlfriend. Lots of drama. It really felt like he was a trainwreck and didn’t help anything with his blasé attitude. Faves The opening of the book was interesting and I completely agreed about his thoughts on divorce. I could relate to him and his feelings about his parents. Beyond that, this book was fairly addicting and fast to read (for the first half). I can’t think of much else that I liked. Oh, he always made fun of Joe Buck and his football announcing. I liked that too. Flaws I didn’t like the choppy, fragmented writing style. I feel like it only added to the fact that Will didn’t have a lot of legitimate thoughts on anything. He was so detached! There was SO much going on in his life, and he didn’t feel connected to anything. His voice was just… not there. He had no interests except from sex. It was LITERALLY all he thought about. Even when shitty things were happening to the people in his life, he still thought about having sex with them. It reminded me of the miserable main […]

ARC Review: The One Thing

Posted August 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 16 Comments

Faves I have to say, choosing to sign up for the ARC tour of this was completely random. I saw the description of the book and thought it may be interesting, but knew it was something I usually wouldn’t be drawn to. I couldn’t be happier that I decided to try this book! It was amazing. I really liked the main character, Maggie – her voice was real and interesting. I can’t lie that the fact that she lived in Connecticut was a major factor in this! I don’t often get to read books that happen in my home state. Aside from Maggie, I looooved all of the characters. Ben was easily my favorite; he was adorable and hilarious. Maggie’s parents (well, mostly her dad) were definitely interesting too. You don’t normally think about how something like this happening also affects your family. Her mom and dad had to completely alter their lives to make sure she was taken care of, but they didn’t realize how much that affected Maggie, too. She just wanted to try to live as normally as possible. I liked her father’s effort and concern about her. This book definitely made me think. I can’t imagine having sight and then going blind – you know what the world was like but you no longer get to see it. It made me wonder which would be “better,” being born blind vs. going blind. You don’t realize how many things need to change once you lose your eyesight. […]

Review: Fangirl

Posted August 21, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Trust me, no one is sadder than I am that this book didn’t work for me. I mean, really, it had a lot of makings for a Lauren book. I used to read fanfiction A LOT about Harry Potter (I was particularly fond of a Draco/Hermione one that I’d give anything to locate again…) and I tend to love books with a college setting instead of high school. Unfortunately nearly none of this book worked for me, yet I couldn’t give it less than 3 stars no matter how much I tried. Let’s dig in a bit, shall we? Oh, Cath. MANY many people have said how much they related to Cath and how they saw so much of themselves in her. Relating to a main character is definitely not necessary for me to like a book. Hell, even LIKING a main character isn’t totally necessary for me. However, I did not like Cath at all. I couldn’t relate to her on really anything. I did not like reading about her at all. It makes me feel kind of… shitty… to be honest? You can tell that she definitely deals with some anxiety about loooots of things, but I couldn’t bring myself to be sympathetic. I honestly didn’t even realize right away that she had anxiety; I just thought she was annoying. It seems like she had friends (mostly through her sister) in high school and was better able to balance fanfic writing and social engagements. Sometimes people clam up in […]

Review: I’ll Meet You There

Posted August 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 14 Comments

Man, what a book. I was a bit hesitant in a general sense for this book – despite all of the hype and excitement everyone else felt for it – just because it didn’t sound like a ME book at all. It seemed like a grittier contemporary with PTSD, poverty – you name it. For some reason books involving the military don’t work for me. However, this book definitely exceeded my personal expectations and I ended up liking it a lot more than expected. I loved that the issues explored within this book really aren’t seen much in other stories. Sky and Josh are from a really poor town called Creek View, where Sky lives in a trailer park with her mom. She works at a little motel that rarely gets visitors and her mom just got let go from Taco Bell. Sky’s dad died in a drunk driving accident. Josh returned from Afghanistan and is down to only one leg. He has nightmares and flashbacks; he’s not the same person he was when he left. See? Lots of things I’m generally not used to seeing or reading about – from socioeconomic status to trailer parks to PTSD. I really liked the small town of Creek View. It reminded me of my hometown in a FEW ways. I can’t lie – my hometown was definitely more towards the upper middle class… but it was very small and everyone knew each other. The setting of the Paradise Motel was pretty amazing […]

Review: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Posted August 17, 2015 / Book Reviews / 14 Comments

This was so cuuuuute! AH. I finally see what all the hype is about (to an extent…). I started listening to the audiobook of this but eventually decided to finish it up with my copy from the library. I’m so glad I did because I was ridiculously excited to find out who the eff Blue was. So, this book was chock-full of adorable and realistic moments about relationships, friends, and family. I’m SO SO glad I finally read it. It centers around Simon, who has been emailing with a mystery guy named Blue. They know that they both go to the same high school and neither one of them is openly gay. I won’t spoil too much about how things progress, but UGH THE FEELS. “People really are like house with vast rooms and tiny windows. And maybe it’s a good thing, the way we never stop surprising each other.” I started off literally loving this book but my obsession waned a little in the middle. I liked it, but I wasn’t getting the same off-the-charts level of feels as everyone else. That changed back again towards the end! I can’t really count this as an all-time favorite for some reason but it comes super close. This is such an important story about coming out, being yourself, dealing with friends, communicating with your parents… you name it. It was such a realistic story about high school; I felt like I was back there dealing with all of the same issues. […]

DNF Review: The Heartbreakers

Posted August 13, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

When did you decide to DNF? I read 138 pages and then skimmed a little bit to see if anything interesting happened. Why did you quit? After 100+ pages I didn’t care about what was going to happen. I can only assume the main character and the boy band singer fall in love, have a fight, and then get back together. I’m cool with the typical YA storyline if I like the characters and feel invested, but I didn’t really feel that way with this one. The main character seemed to have a sort of “selective” feminism. She called her brother out for using her in a bet as a piece of meat, but she didn’t say anything when the boy she likes is sexist about girls and their favorite movies. She proved him wrong by telling him her favorites aren’t The Notebook and Titanic, but she wasn’t at all insulted that he assumed that. It just seemed weird that she’d yell at her brother for something like that but let the boy she (insta)likes do it without a problem. I’m not sure why this is the biggest thing that bugged me, but I really think it’s the main reason I said “never mind” to this book. The writing style felt a bit off too. It mostly had to do with the somewhat cliched teenager words/phrases that were trying too hard. A lot of the characterization of the triplets (the main character, her brother, and her sister) was very… forced? I’m not sure how […]

Reread Review: What Happened to Goodbye

Posted August 12, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I read this book for the first time, I think, during the summer of 2012. It may have been a few years earlier, to be honest. I’ve been iffy about which of her books I’ve actually read – there are so many and they all sound similar (even though they aren’t) when I read the synopsis again – but I knew I did read this one back in the day. Honestly, not much. The mini town model is the one thing I remembered the most from this book. The restaurant itself also seemed familiar. For some reason, the Dessen books that take place in restaurants always stick in my mind the most. I’m so glad I revisited this one, especially because I barely remembered anything from the first time I read it. I’m so terrible with remembering book details; rereading is ideal for someone like me. I remember loving the restaurant, the model, the characters, and the whole plot, actually. I also had a vague idea of how the book ended.When Cristina mentioned that she was rereading this one soon, I knew I had to hop on board. I’ve been aiming to read more Sarah Dessen this summer (somewhat failing, I guess) and this was a perfect one to add to the mix. I will say, I miss Colby (as a setting) and hope to get into some of those books by her during the duration of the summer. There was a glimpse at Colby in this book, which was nice, but I need […]

Review: Three Day Summer

Posted August 8, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

I LOVE WOODSTOCK. I love music from the 60’s and 70’s more than any other time period so I knew I was going to at least love that element of this book. I even wrote a research paper on Woodstock back in high school, because obviously it’s the best time period in history. Can we get more books set in this time? Thanks. I thought the atmosphere felt really well-done and representative of the time. I’ve seen countless Woodstock movies and read articles, so I feel like it was definitely historically accurate. I actually believed that these two characters could have been real concertgoers at Woodstock. The MUSIC was perfect. If I had a time machine……. Every time they referenced Janis Joplin or Roger Daltry or the “new guy” Santana, I squealed a little bit. And of course the biggest event of all: Jimi Hendrix. Goosebumps, dude. Cora, a nurse volunteering at the event, and Michael, a hippie concert attendee, hit it off right away. They were interesting characters that came from different backgrounds but were struggling with similar things – primarily their future. Could Cora become a doctor? And what the hell was Michael going to be when he grew up? The two of them were perfect characters to meet and explore the concert together, and again – very representative of the time. I feel like it would have been nice to get to know Michael a bit more. I think Cora was more fleshed out, including her family […]

Series Review: The Lying Game Books 4-6 + Novella

Posted August 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

So, as you saw in my previous post, I went on a little binge. It was a very spur of the moment decision and I figured I’d just work through the audiobooks for these ones over the course of the month…. but, I couldn’t stop. It ended up being a full-on series binge-read, which fits nicely in my Summer of Series Challenge! I didn’t put it on my TBR, but oh well. I should have known Sara Shepard would make me turn the pages nonstop until I was finished with the series. The Lying Game: Books 4, 5, and 6, plus the other novella I won’t spoil each individual book in the reviews, as usual, BUT each review will likely have spoilers for the previous book(s)! So, beware. To be honest, this rating is probably a little too high. The ending definitely didn’t surprise me but it did make the book a bit more interesting. I’m getting sick and tired of the same plot in each book: Emma learns a piece of information, aggressively suspects someone the entire book, chases down dumb leads and assumes the worst without thinking first, and refuses to think it could be anyone but the person she chose as the latest suspect. She spent the entire book being an idiot and jumping to conclusions. It was just SO convenient that the person she suspected just so happened to be doing sketchy things while she suspected them (when they never really had before). The TV show made me suspect […]

Series Review: The Lying Game Books 1-3 + Novella

Posted August 5, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

So, I went on a little binge. It was a very spur of the moment decision and I figured I’d just work through the audiobooks for these ones over the course of the month…. but, I couldn’t stop. It ended up being a full-on series binge-read, which fits nicely in my Summer of Series Challenge! I didn’t put it on my TBR, but oh well. I should have known Sara Shepard would make me turn the pages nonstop until I was finished with the series. The Lying Game: Books 1, 2, and 3, plus the prequel novella I won’t spoil each individual book in the reviews, as usual, BUT each review will likely have spoilers for the previous book(s)! So, beware. WOO that was really good! I shouldn’t say that I’m suprised at how good it was, but I kind of am. Sara Shepard is known for writing the same kind of books over and over again. I think most people admit that, even her big fans (like myself). There’s just something about her writing style that works for me and keeps me engaged, even if some of it feels like deja vu. THE GOOD NEWS IS: this book was actually not like her other books/series at all. It felt like a completely fresh story, which is definitely what made all the difference. Instead of following a group of girls around trying to figure out mysteries and/or murders (Hi, Pretty Little Liars, The Heiresses, and The Perfectionists), this one involves long-lost twin sisters. […]