Category: Book Reviews

Book Buddies Review: These Broken Stars

Posted May 1, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 3 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 at the bottom) View Cristina’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution. What past experience have you had with sci-fi books like this? If you’ve read some before, did you find this book easy to slip into, or was it a challenge from lack of experience? What did you think of the world-building? It felt a lot different than the world-building in fantasy books I’ve read. Lauren: I don’t think I’ve really read any book that falls into this category. I was kind of leery but extremely interested to see how it worked for me. To be honest, it took a while to get into. I was eager to see what happened with the characters but started off quite confused about their world. I couldn’t grasp the fact that (I think?) Earth didn’t exist to them. They were just floating around the galaxy on a ship and there were loads of other planets to explore. With fantasy books, they’re usually set […]

ARC Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Posted April 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

This review was written immediately upon finishing the book (February 13th), so pardon any nonsensical flailing (AKA the whole review. Okay bye.) MY THOUGHTS? WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS, STUPID REVIEW GRAPHIC???? I DON’T KNOW HOW TO MAKE WORDS. This was my first Sarah J. Maas novel (don’t yell at me) and I can certainly now see what all the fuss is about. I decided to approach this one before Throne of Glass because honestly the synopsis of ToG didn’t appeal to me NEARLY as much as this one did. I love faeries! Love, love, love. Always have. When the lovely Andi lent me her ARC, I started reading it immediately because I was just so in the mood for it. I finished it in three days, which is a little longer than usual for me… BUT not that long considering it was over 400 pages and I pretty much read it in a few loooong sittings. I could not stop reading, folks. Even when there wasn’t much happening as far as plot-moving action, I couldn’t stop. So damn engrossing. Fantasy books can be very hit or miss with me; for some reason they don’t hold my attention as much as contemporaries do. I find myself getting distracted. Nope. Not with this book. I was drawn in immediately as I learned about Feyre, her family, and their history. I despised her sisters right off the bat and was hoping that there’d be some redeeming qualities eventually. No matter how poorly her family members treated her, […]

Review: Station Eleven

Posted April 22, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

I’m very glad that I reduced my Goodreads challenge as I was reading this one, because I certainly ended up taking my time with it. It’s one of those books, for me, where it takes me a lot of effort to actually pick it up and start reading. I was never really in the mood for it, but it was completely engrossing and interesting once I did pick it up. I had a similar experience with To Kill A Mockingbird, and I ended up loving that one by the time I finished. It’s just one of things where the book is kind of hard compared to what you usually read so you want to take your time with it. At least that’s how my experience was! I probably won’t be able to say too much on this one because it’s really quite hard to explain what this book is about and how I feel about it. I was convinced I was going to be the black sheep and almost DNF’ed it a few times, but those feelings passed once I really got going. I absolutely love books where the stories are all intertwining and the characters don’t really know it. In this case, the story spans over time (pre- and post-apocalypse) and covers numerous characters. The cast of characters was so interesting to me because the book was narrated from a third person omniscient point of view. You could get into anyone’s head and the chapters and sections of the book alternated around […]

Blog Tour Review: 99 Days

Posted April 20, 2015 / Book Reviews / 15 Comments

Learn more about the author and enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post! I’m very particular about writing my reviews essentially right after I finish the book. I can’t let my thoughts just sit around in my head, because I will inevitably lose them within a day or two (sometimes much sooner). This book, though, is one that took me longer to digest. I didn’t have mixed feelings on it or anything, which is sometimes the reason I need a few days, but I knew I really appreciated what this book did and how it made me feel. It’s a really hard topic and situation to get involved in, but I think Kate Cotungo did an absolutely amazing job. The general love triangle topic/trope can be VERY polarizing with readers. If it’s something you’re not opposed to in general, I urge you to try this book out. (I’m not one to discount a love triangle as long as it’s believable, well-done, and involves no insta-love. More on that later.) I couldn’t stop reading this. Occasionally there are books where I can say “yep, I finished this in two sittings” but that’s just because I had a lot of time on my hands. This is a book where I could absolutely not stop reading and was determined to see how it all ended. So yes, I totally read this in two long sittings. I couldn’t get enough. I want to compare it to that metaphor where it’s like a […]

ARC Review: The Pretty App

Posted April 17, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

The fastest and easiest thing I can say about this book is this: if you read The Boyfriend App, imagine that you took that book and stripped away a layer or two. Take away some of the cute romance, some of the charming characters, and some of the deeper meanings and morals. Voilà! You have The Pretty App. That sounds harsh, but notice I said the word SOME a lot. I don’t think its a lot worse by any means, I just think it’s a more superficial version of the same book… and it still happens to be damn enjoyable! I was interested initially to get inside Blake’s head. In the first book, she’s the school’s mean girl and doesn’t seem to have many, if any, redeeming qualities. It was kind of exactly what I predicted. She views herself as just a pretty face, she has issues with her family, and she puts other people down to feel better about herself. Cue the character development into a glowing, respectable young woman by the end of the book. (Kind of. She always said she would still have a bit of a “bitch” in her, which I actually appreciated; it was more realistic that way – saying that she could never change some parts of who she is.) It did bug me HOW OFTEN they talked about how she was soooo pretty and had nothing else going for her. She constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY talked about her looks being her only good quality; she’s not […]

ARC Review: Play On

Posted April 16, 2015 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I really liked this one for the most part! It definitely was different than I expected in a lot of ways too. I think the best way to break it down is in a what worked/what didn’t kind of format. My rating is rounded down just because I did roll my eyes at the cheese more often than it made me swoon, as well as the first reason listed in the negatives section below. Overall I would recommend this book (especially if you’re a baseball fan!) because it was a cute, quick story. What I Liked The main character was a nice perspective to hear the story from. I liked reading a male POV in a contemporary, because it doesn’t happen too much. It was nice to see the more emotional side of himself and having him admit to having feelings for Marissa. There’s a lot more about the voice that I need to go into (on the negative side, unfortunately) but OVERALL I did like Austin as a main character. The book was deeper than I expected. It had cute elements that I expect from contemporary YA, but it also had some darker themes that I didn’t see coming. The issues with Austin’s dad and Marissa definitely took up a lot of the book and I liked having something different and difficult to read about, while still getting an adorable story. There was a good balance between lighter and darker themes. I’m really starting to enjoy books set in […]

ARC Review: Things We Know By Heart

Posted April 15, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

I am actually pretty bummed about this book… which you would never guess, based on the decent rating. I had to break it down with my rating report, below, in order to sort my feelings out. If there was a way to give this 3.75 stars, I would. [EDIT: Upon further reflection, my rating has come down quite a lot. The issues I explain here have only bothered me MORE with time.] This book was easily at the top of my most-anticipated list for this year and the lovely Brittany let me borrow it ahead of time. There was just something about the topic that really drew me in. I expected something very heavy and sad, yet emotionally gripping and (hopefully) uplifting/ inspiring by the end. That’s not exactly what I got. When I first started the book, I was immediately drawn in. I wanted to know exactly what happened with Trent, how she tried to move on, and her experiences with the other organ recipients. Again, I didn’t exactly get that. The timeframe of this book starts a year after Trent dies and after she’s already met every other organ recipient. The boy who got the heart, Colton, never wrote back to her. She takes it upon herself to track him down and accidentally gets involved with him. Of course, you can immediately tell that this is going to be one of those books where she holds out until the last second to tell him the truth about how she […]

ARC Review: Dream a Little Dream

Posted April 10, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

The Story The main premise of this story revolves around Liv and her extremely vivid dreams. Her family, which consists of her mother and sister (Mia), has moved around quite a bit over the recent years to follow different university jobs for her professor mother. They make their “final” move to London because her mom has landed her dream job at Oxford. Enter her mom’s new boyfriend, Ernest, and his two children, Grayson and Florence. The new blended family joins together in Ernest’s house and adjust to their lives together. Meanwhile, Liv’s dreams are getting crazy. She’s seeing people from school, including her new stepbrother and his friends, and they seem to recognize her too. I was a huge fan of the different worlds going on in this book: the dreams and reality. I didn’t expect some of the events or main parts of the plot to be as dark as they were, though! That was a bit much for me but I’m excited to see what happens. The book itself was VERY introductory. I cut the first book in a series some slack because it often is more informational than action-packed, but this was definitely an extreme example of that. This book was purely setting the stage for the other two books in the series. I enjoyed reading it but felt like nothing was happening. There wasn’t a lot of action at all; it was mostly explaining how things worked and learning about the characters. The Goodread synopsis doesn’t […]

Review: The Boyfriend App

Posted April 8, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

I received an ARC of The Pretty App, the next book in this companion series, a looong time ago. I tried to read it first without reading The Boyfriend App, but wanted to go through the whole series in order. I didn’t have a lot of expectations going into this one. I was hoping to breeze through and get the background info for the next book in the series. Well, that worked: this was a super quick and entertaining read! It’s certainly not perfect, but I definitely enjoyed it overall. The number one thing I liked about this book was the concept. There’s an app contest where the winner gets scholarship money and prizes for their school. Audrey, the main character, designs The Boyfriend App. First, it matches people up based on compatibility and distance. The second version of the app creates a lot of chaos, as it actually gets the other person to fall in love (but mostly lust). For a contemporary romance, the concept was unique. I loved that the MC was a geeky, super smart girl. I loved her group of friends: Aidan (the cute boy I shipped hard throughout), Lindsey (her fashion-obsessed cousin who always had her back), Mindy (her supportive friend with a speech impediment and didn’t talk), and Nigit (another super-smart geeky guy in the group). The book is split into two parts – one for each “version” of the app. The first part is Audrey brainstorming her app and figuring out what she wants […]

Review: Nowhere But Home

Posted April 6, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

I have no idea how to review this book. I wasn’t really able take notes during this one, but just wrote down a few different words that I couldn’t forget: Poetic. Sad. Beautiful. Unique. Interesting. Amazing characters. It’s a book that usually wouldn’t be on my radar at all, aside from the gorgeous cover. I’m really picky about books and their subjects, and I’m even MORE picky with adult books. I honestly can’t even tell you what I look for in women’s fiction; usually there’s just a spark of something that interests me in the synopsis. The synopsis for Nowhere But Home is certainly interesting, but not my cup of tea. Following Hannah’s blog has brought a lot more adult titles to my attention, and Liza Palmer’s books were promptly added to my TBR. In fact, her review is actually a lot more coherent than mine is going to be, so I recommend reading that. After finishing Nowhere But Home, I took a reading break for a day. I wasn’t ready to part with the characters or the story. I felt like the next book I read would pale in comparison, and I didn’t want to ruin my next book because of this massive book hangover. This is a book I wanted to crawl inside and stay in forever. “It’s what we’re all trying to do, right? Remember a time that was better. Re-create a moment of that memory as we let the crisp Coke bubble down our throats. Riding bikes on […]