Category: Book Reviews

Isla Is Coming Readalong / Review: Anna and the French Kiss

Posted August 2, 2014 / Book Challenges, Book Reviews, Features / 5 Comments

The Isla Is Coming readalong kicked off on the last day of July and I decided to take part! Unlike most people participating, I’m reading the series for the first time. (Click on the picture on the right to read the informational post). I started reading Anna and the French Kiss on Friday, when the readalong started, and I basically haven’t stopped it reading since. I just finished the book (WAY too early!) and now I’m going to wait another few days before starting Lola and the Boy Next Door with the rest of the readers. It’ll be hard to resist but I really want to keep pace with the readalong. Of course, the point of the readalong is to gear up for the third book’s release – Isla and the Happily Ever After on the 14th. Judging by how much I absolutely loved the first book, I’m sure I’ll really enjoy the next two in this totally adorable trilogy. So now here’s my review for the first book in the Isla Is Coming readalong! Review: This is exactly what I’m looking for when I read a young adult romance. All YA authors should read this book before writing one of their own. I feel like I smiled to myself like an idiot throughout the whole book; it was just so damn cute. Anna was one of the most relatable characters I’ve encountered. Her experiences completely mirror those of the average teenage girl: getting screwed over by a best friend, falling for a boy […]

Review: Class of ’98

Posted August 2, 2014 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Review: What a great plot concept this book has. I am totally smitten with this book and sort of in love with Matt. As you can tell from the synopsis, Jackie and Matt (who were essentially opposites in high school) are sent back in time from their reunion to their senior year. They have to work together to get back to the present…. and that includes bringing back some painful memories. Jackie and Matt are forced back into their high school relationships: with the boyfriend who cheated, the best friend who ruined her relationship, and the girlfriend who becomes an ex-wife. Throughout the book, Jackie is hyper-concerned about messing up her adult life. Even though she is pretty unhappy where she is, she doesn’t want to risk impacting her future as well as those around her. Matt, who naturally develops feelings for Jackie, doesn’t care what happens. Their relationship took some interesting turns throughout the story, which I really enjoyed watching. At times, Jackie could be a little annoying with her incessant need to keep everything the same and, as a result, treat Matt like garbage. A.L. Player did a great job writing this ; the style is humorous and light. I’m pretty sure I read this book in 24 hours. It has elements of young adult fiction as well as adult fiction (and not just because the characters are both young adult and adult age in the book). Once you are introduced to Jackie as a teenager and the events that […]

Review: Gone Girl

Posted August 1, 2014 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Review: Holy shit you guys. Holy shit. I can’t believe it took me so long to read this book. Finally, after the urging of two of my friends, who demanded I read it immediately, I decided to pick up one of the books that’s been sitting on my shelf since Christmas. I can’t even believe how addicting, twisty, and just fucking insane that this book was. Each chapter made me gasp or whisper “holy shit” to myself. That’s barely an exaggeration; I feel like something crazy happened every effing chapter. This book will have you convinced that someone killed her (primarily Nick) and then the next chapter you don’t know what to believe. The first sentence/paragraph/entire chapter of Part 2 absolutely blew my mind. I try not to bother my boyfriend with an entire plot summary of every book I read, but every once in a while I feel the need to update him constantly about what’s happening and interrupt his video game. This was one of those books. I’m so glad one of the friends who forced me to read this book is in the same office as me because I would just yell out to her all day long. Jesus. I feel like my head is still spinning but I need to get this review out now before I forget all of the crazy emotions I feel. Anyways, the characters in this book were fucking crazy. Amy’s diary entries and Nick’s daily activities/thoughts really blew my mind. When […]

Review: September Girls

Posted July 29, 2014 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Review: Oh man. I have so many things to say about a book where barely anything happened plot-wise. Jesus. I saw this cover at the bookstore and the synopsis seemed like something right up my alley. I could see that it was a paranormal-esque book based on the description, but didn’t know what was up with these ~*girls*~ (wasn’t that supposed to be the point of the book? Figuring out the secret of the beach and the girls?). INSTEAD it was completely ruined for me by someones Goodreads shelf. Sad face. I also noticed people referencing it in their reviews, so maybe it was common knowledge and I’m just a little slow? Regardless, I went into this book already knowing what it was leading up to. There were a lot of mixed reviews…There was a pretty serious sexism-related debate between reviewers though, and oddly I agreed with both sides. Check here for a review that the book was sexist and here for one that didn’t think it was. Frankly, both perspectives are worth exploring–especially if for some reason you still want to read the book after this review. I absolutely never wanted to sit down and read this book because I dreaded it. I’m too stubborn to stop reading a book though. If it had been on my shelf for years, I may have stopped, but I JUST bought this one a few months ago and was determined to finish it. At any rate, this book was so effing slow. I’ve […]

Review: The Husband’s Secret

Posted July 28, 2014 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Review: I was surprised at how suspenseful a non-mystery/suspense book could be. I got wrapped up in this book so quickly that I spent most of my work day sneakily reading it on my computer’s Kindle app. I could absolutely not stop. The beginning was the most suspenseful part of the book. It kept building and building until I said JESUS what did this dude write in the letter?!?! Once you finally find out, the novel slowly starts falling together. I’ll say it for the hundredth time: I LOVE books with multiple perspectives/characters whose lives are somehow intertwined. I knew that the different characters in the book would end up coming together somehow but it took some time to get going. I think that helped though; you were able to learn about each character/family without getting caught up in the holy-shit part. The story follows multiple characters and switches between them for each chapter. It takes a good author to pull this off without being confusing (I’m looking at you, Jennifer Close. Ugh). Cecilia is the woman whose husband wrote the lifechanging letter. Tess is a woman who comes home to her mother’s house after her husband has betrayed her in the worst possible way. Rachel is an older woman whose daughter died at a young age. I’ll admit that I had sort of figured out what the letter was going to say before reading it, but that totally didn’t impact the novel for me. I was so happy to follow […]

Review: Shadowlands (Series)

Posted July 22, 2014 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

Review: Goddamnit Kate Brian, you never disappoint me. I can’t think of the last time I read one of her books and wasn’t completely shocked, intrigued, and/or baffled by the ending. Let me start out by saying that the only reason I read this book is because it was written by Kate Brian — I would usually never pick up a book that sounds this creepy. The other books I’ve read by her (primarily the Private series) can get a little freaky, but not this much. It took me a little while to get into, but that was mostly because I refused to read it at night and scare myself into thinking I was going to be murdered before bed. I just steamrolled through the second half of the book this afternoon because I could not put it down. I can’t even think of a good reason why this book doesn’t have five stars, but I kind of forced myself to give it 4.5. I like to reserve 5 stars for books that are completely lifechanging and/or would go on my “favorites” list. The book begins with Rory being chased by a serial killer through the woods and her escaping from him. Her family, which includes her father and her sister Darcy, is going into “witness protection” to the island of Jupiter Landing. Let me just say it is extremely unreasonable that the FBI had the family head off in a car by themselves while a killer was on the […]

Review: Before I Fall

Posted July 18, 2014 / Book Reviews / 16 Comments

Review: I haven’t had as many “holy shit that was an amazing book” books in a while. This book had me staying up late reading (which is something I haven’t been compelled to do in a long time either). And even after I decided to go to sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about the book. It was truly the definition of a pageturner. I wanted to get all of that out of the way first. The plot of this book is that a popular teenager, Samantha, is killed in a car accident while driving with her friends. She wasn’t a nice girl to others in high school, which is pretty standard of “popular” girls nowadays. The book starts with her last day of life and outlines everything that happened leading up to the accident. When she inevitably dies, she wakes up in the next chapter and thinks the whole thing was a bad dream. Of course it wasn’t…she is actually dead and reliving the day over and over again, like Groundhog Day. She goes through the typical stages: disbelief, frustration, sadness, etc. Oliver does not try to make Sam a likeable character (at first). She’s a mean girl. Her friends are mean girls. As the book goes on, she tries to make amends for everything and live each day the best she can. She realizes what she needs to do in order to pass on to the afterlife. I don’t want to give too much away, but this book really had me […]

Review: Girls in White Dresses

Posted July 18, 2014 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Review: I’m not really sure where to begin with this one. It was one of those books that I wanted to read for MONTHS before actually deciding to read it… and it was such a let down. Frankly, I should probably give it less than three stars. It got three because I think it had some redeeming qualities. I’ll go with those first. In a lot of ways, this book was very relatable. Every girl in her 20s has experienced most of the situations in this book. Between friends getting married and having kids, moving away from home and/or college, losing friends, gaining friends, boyfriend problems, friend problems, etc… It touched on a lot of the basic issues that 20-somethings encounter at one point or another. I liked that. That’s really all I liked. The book ended very abruptly and offered literally a paragraph of “closure.” We find out a sentence about like three of the characters and we’re supposed to just wonder if things come through for them. I don’t remember almost any of the names of the characters, but two of the final two girls that the book discussed seemed to be the main ones. This was another book that switched characters for every chapter; this is something I normally don’t mind. But – this book had a million characters! Some of the bitches would only be in ONE chapter. What happened to them? Why even bother introducing them in the first place if they weren’t going to have […]

Review: The List

Posted July 18, 2014 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Review: At first glance, this book seemed like it may be a little too “young” adult for me. I don’t discriminate though; any book with an interesting enough plotline is worthy of my attention. The basic plot summary is as follows: at some random high school, each year some unknown person makes The List. It includes the ugliest girl and prettiest girl of each grade level. So in total, eight girls’ lives are changed because high school is a place where only appearances matter. Sounds like a great premise. They each struggled with different (pretty serious, at times) issues. Let me tell you a little about each girl and their story, because it was kind of hard to keep up with the changing perspectives. Yes, of course this was one of those books where the author rotates through each girl’s story in different chapters…for eight characters that can be a bit challenging. The story follows these girls over the course of a week. Danielle is named ugliest freshman because apparently her swimmer’s body is a bit too big for some people. She has a boyfriend that she met at camp over the summer, and she wonders how he’ll react. Their story was comparatively boring, but I ended up liking her a lot in the end. Abby is named prettiest freshman and is a little bitch to her older sister about it. She sucks at school and her sister is smart and they’re just SoOoO different. She was pretty annoying but whatever, freshman usually are […]

Review: We Were Liars

Posted July 16, 2014 / Book Reviews / 13 Comments

Review: Well, I decided to make my first review about a book I didn’t like too much. I have mixed emotions about this book, so let me try to work through them here. I have to admit, I was extremely interested in the book based on the cover. I don’t know who is making all these cool, graphic book covers lately, but I love them. I was fascinated by the small amount of plot-related information that was out there and it kept getting rave reviews, so I decided to try it out. The general plot, without giving anything away, is that a rich family goes to their own private island every summer. The kids play while the adults get drunk. Sounds about right for my family gatherings (minus the private island thing). The book goes back and forth between past summers and the current summer, which surprisingly wasn’t too confusing. The main character loved to repeat the same effing phrases over and over again. If I read “Gatt… my Gatt” one more time, I think my head would have exploded. The writing style was choppy and not what I normally like. She wrote paragraphs that seemed literal but were actually figurative. At one point, she says something along the lines of “my father shot me; my brains were all over the grass,” or some shit. As I’m reading, I was like holy shit this dude just shot his daughter… Oh wait, that wasn’t literal. Unfortunately, this was one of the first scenes […]