Author: Cora Carmack

Review Round Up | Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Love & Gelato, and Finding It

Posted September 22, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Round Up | Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Love & Gelato, and Finding It

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 backlist books I’ve read or listened to recently. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I had high expectations for this one since I’m a huge fan of Morgan Matson. I still need to read quite a few of her books and honestly wondered if I’d ever actually read AMY & ROGER. I love books about road trips and people who go on them together falling for each other, so it was actually right up my alley. I think I was afraid I’d be disappointed somehow. Yet again, my excellent book club was there to rescue me and force me to read things. Amy is dealing with the loss of her father when she embarks on a road trip with Roger, planned by her mom. They decide to take an ~epic detour~ to take care of business and sight see across the country. Her family has been in shambles since her dad died, with her mom moving to Connecticut (and making Amy move as well) and her brother in rehab in North Carolina. The story involves some really fun elements, like playlists, scrapbook pages, and other things they grabbed along the road. It was a nice touch for sure! The serious and sad elements were woven nicely throughout the story, between flashbacks and Amy finally opening up a little bit. I loved the different places that they decided to adventure to! […]

ARC Reviews: Roar and Trusting You & Other Lies

Posted June 19, 2017 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments
ARC Reviews: Roar and Trusting You & Other Lies

I’ve seen some pretty stellar early reviews for this one, plus Cora Carmack is one of my favorite NA authors… so needless to say, I had fairly high expectations! I usually would blame my negative feelings about this book on those expectations and hype, but I absolutely don’t think that was the case here. I was on the fence about reading this one in the first place because the synopsis didn’t really sound like a Lauren book. I decided to give it a go because of the reviews and author, but I ended up pretty disappointed. I’ll keep this short and break it down by the main elements of the story. Main plot: The story is about a princess, Aurora (or Ror, or Roar) who doesn’t have any magic. She has a marriage alliance planned with a prince of Locke (another kingdom) in order to avoid this information getting out. She soon learns that there’s a way of essentially buying magic on the black market and decides to set off on a journey with a group of stormhunters. I honestly thought the plot was kind of boring? I really didn’t care what was happening and often had no motivation to pick up the book. It was a struggle. I like books where people are on the road journeying and training with magic, but this book had almost no ~major events~ I can think of. Main character: On top of the pretty boring plot, Aurora was a boring character for me. Locke thought she was […]

Mini NA Reviews: Faking It and The Score

Posted February 1, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
Mini NA Reviews: Faking It and The Score

After really despising the previous book in this series (and DNFing it), I couldn’t decide if I wanted to read the rest. Because this is a companion series, I was tempted! New characters but the same Cora Carmack writing I generally enjoy? Why not?! I finally decided to go for it via audio (after testing out a sample, because the narrator ruined it last time). I have to say, this book was the complete opposite for me! The narrators were perfect and didn’t feel like young children reading books about sex. The characters were so fun and the narrators did an awesome job of capturing their personalities. I knew from the first few chapters that this one would give me a totally different experience. Thank god! I’ve been feeling annoyed by anything resembling instalove lately, and unfortunately SOME of this fell in that category. I rolled my eyes a bit throughout but it’s because I’m bitter about romance, and have been for the past few months. I liked their chemistry from the very beginning and fake dating is a trope I looooove. It was also a case of opposites attracting, so that was fun. Beyond the romance, Max had a lot of complicated personal and family-related things going on. Cade did too but they weren’t really addressed at all. It was focused a lot on HER and her problems, and I wish he got more attention. As far as characters are concerned, I wished for more about him and less […]

Review: All Played Out

Posted June 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments
Review: All Played Out

I really love this series. All three books so far have been incredibly fast, low-drama new adult reads. This was my BEA train read and I managed to get over halfway done during the two 1.5 hour trips to and from the city. Definitely the perfect read for that occasion! At first glance, the premise for this one seemed a little to similar to All Broke Down: the smart, good girl meets the bad boy player. This was true for most of the book, but they did diverge a bit after some time. Nell is Dylan’s incredibly smart and driven roommate, who has never experienced really anything college had to offer. Torres is the team’s overly confident wide receiver, who is known for getting what he wants from a lot of girls. When he discovers Nell’s end-of-college bucket list, he decides to help her check off the items. I really liked the two of them! No one compares to Dylan and Silas in my mind, but these two are a close second favorite. Torres managed to get Nell to open up and try new things, while she tried to…keep him interested in only one girl, I guess! Again, a lot of it was similar to book #2, where opposites are attracting and the main question is: can these two stick together even though they’re so different? As I said, it diverged away from that towards the halfway point. One trope that has been bugging me lately is the whole “I […]

DNF Review: Losing It

Posted February 18, 2015 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments
DNF Review: Losing It

When did you decide to DNF? I was at the 60% mark. I know, I know. I could have just finished. But I just got so frustrated! Why did you quit? Sigh. I really wanted to like this book, but I could almost tell from the first few minutes that I wasn’t going to. The characters were just so BLAH to me. Bliss was as annoying and stupid as her name. She continued to lie, lead on her best friend, and make dumb choices despite knowing that she was doing that. I just was not at ALL invested in them. I truly didn’t care about anything. Garrick was irritating and overly possessive for no reason. It struck me as insta-love the vast majority of the time and I didn’t feel the chemistry. There was a whole lot of nothing happening too; there were multiple chapters around Bliss getting drunk with her friends that seemed to drag on with little reason. The bottom line is that I just couldn’t make myself care. I can safely assume that Garrick and Bliss end up together… I’m just not interested in hearing how or why. Another huge aspect was the audiobook narrator. There’s a good chance I would consider returning to this book and read the physical copy. The narrator sounded like she was 12 years old and thus made Bliss sound WAY too young – especially when the topic of the book was losing her virginity. It felt creepy. What was the last […]

Review: All Broke Down

Posted February 2, 2015 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Review: All Broke Down

I honestly don’t have much to say about this book except for one word and any words that have the same definition as it: STEAMY STEAMY STEAMY Seriously though. People weren’t lying about this book. It was s-e-x-u-a-l. Aside from that, this book was a lot of great things. I really did love it more than the first book, and I think the main reason was the characters. Dallas was very meh for me in All Lined Up but Carson was the BEST. It was a little too unbalanced. (And even so, the fact that he was way to overprotective/territorial over her in this book bugged me. I’m NOT the kind of person who things that type of behavior is cute. It’s a bit too controlling when you flip out about anyone talking about your girlfriend. I get where he’s coming from, but let’s relax a little bit.) DALLAS AND SILAS THOUGH. I loved them. Both of them. For very different reasons. It’s a typical opposites-attract kind of story, and the main drama point of the book is obviously: can these two ever be a successful couple if they’re so different? Silas is a guy who was a major dick in the previous book but came a very long way in this one. He has a bad history with his family and feels like he’s constantly going to fall into bad habits. Dylan, on the other hand, is a part of a wealthy family that expects her to be a perfect […]

Review: All Lined Up

Posted January 12, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments
Review: All Lined Up

Review Honestly this one wasn’t what I expected. I should have known it wasn’t going to be the LOL-funny New Adult books I’ve recently come to know and love. It was a bit more angsty than that. There were definitely some funny moments that I enjoyed, and definitely a bit of steaminess, but a lot of the “emotional” parts had me rolling my eyes like nobody’s business. Dallas was a bit melodramatic a lot of the time. I get where she’s coming from: her dad doesn’t pay her a lot of attention, her mom isn’t around, and she doesn’t know who she is (apparently). I do enjoy some flawed characters – but only to a certain extent. They have to realize when they’re being weird and insecure in order for me to be semi-okay with it. Luckily Dallas does seem to realize it a few times… “I recognize the self-loathing because I’m a master at it.” – yeah, no kidding girl. A lot of the drama in this book was built on misunderstandings, which always annoys me. Dallas hung around being a whiny baby all the time and Carson remained perfect. (I love him, by the way.) The CHEMISTRY between those two… JESUS. Besides all of that self-pity, a lot of the dialogue (both inside her head and with her friends) just bugged me. People complain that The Fault in Our Stars has two teenagers with vocabularies that are “unrealistic” or too fancy for their ages? Well, I thought that the dialogue in this […]