Format: eARC

ARC Reviews: The Marked Girl and The Vanishing Throne

Posted June 17, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I really liked this a lot! It took me a little while to get engaged with this for some reason; I think the beginning threw me off. After the first few chapters, I started getting really into it and was super curious about where it was heading. The synopsis says that Liv is in some way connected to the people who come in from the other realm, so I was wondering nonstop how all that was going to connect at some point. The basic idea behind the book is that a girl, Liv, finds these three people (Cedric, Kat, and Merek) who end up explaining that they came in from another land (Caelum) through a portal. I haven’t read a lot of books like this, but it reminded me immediately of a cross between Thor and The 20th Kingdom (I’ll admit I’ve only seen one episode, but the premise at least seems similar!). I became hooked soonafter. I’m a bad judge of what a GOOD fantasy story is because I read so few of them. To me, this book was really unique and super interesting. As I said, I’ve never read a book involving realms and portals; I’d only seen it on the shows/movies. So yeah, I thought this book was unique and engaging for sure. Not sure how experienced fantasy readers will feel! There were lots of twists and turns that I honestly didn’t see coming, which was refreshing. Lately I’ve been on a kick where I’m too good at predicting what’s going to […]

ARC Review: Out on Good Behavior

Posted June 10, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I am too sad that this series is over. New Adult can be truly hit or miss for me. I find that I’m not a fan of a lot of drama and angst between the couples. I’m prettttty much here for the college-aged-setting and sexytimes. I really love Dahlia’s books in general, but she pretty much slays at NA. She has a great mix of the hot stuff, the relationship development, and most importantly – FRIENDSHIP. The saddest thing about this series is that I don’t have the ability to hang out with Lizzie, Cait, and Frankie anymore. I love them so much. Between the dirty jokes and the fact that they’re always there for each other, they are legit #squadgoals. I’m going to miss them. The previous two books had a lot of family feels and issues brought in, but this one had almost zero. It’s really not a big deal and I didn’t notice that much when I was reading… but it’s odd in hindsight. Samara had the issue of her parents and telling them she’s gay but that wasn’t at the forefront. We heard a little about Frankie’s parents but no interaction with them at all. The relationship between Sam and Frankie was really sweet. Frankie is known in the previous two books for doing whatever she wants with whoever she wants, so it was clear she’d need some character development for her to be monogamous. She didn’t change herself for a girl though – she made […]

ARC Review: Seven Ways We Lie

Posted March 23, 2016 / Book Reviews / 15 Comments

I’ve seen some mixed thoughts on this one overall but I really, really enjoyed it. There are many people who didn’t think the seven points of view were different enough, but I fall firmly on the opposite side of that opinion. I really could see the difference between each person and felt that they were all different and unique in their own ways. I’m super impressed that the author was able to take seven different people with distinct personalities and carve them out THAT well. Corresponding to the different sins, however, was a little less clear for some characters compared to others. Some of them were very obvious while others didn’t click right away. I did some researching around other reviews and confirmed what I suspected about some of them, so that helped. However, I think in terms of matching up with that completely, the sins could have been more obvious – since that seemed to be the entire idea behind the story. Because this is such a character-driven story, I’ll talk a little about each character and go through them in order of my favorite to least favorite. The character descriptions may be spoiler-y in the sense that I WILL say which sin I think they each correspond to. Characters Olivia | I feel like she was kind of the main character even though there wasn’t necessarily a MAIN character. Her sin was pretty clearly lust because she hooked up with a lot of guys. I really loved her perspective and feminism. […]

Mini ARC Reviews: Linny’s Sweet Dream List and Rebel Bully Geek Pariah

Posted March 17, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

I generally liked this one, but the last half of the book bugged me. Consider this a very strong 3 stars! It was a quick, cute read about a woman trying to get her life back on track. I loved the Southern small-town setting that had lots of fun and interesting characters. The family dynamics between Linny, her sister Kate, and her mother Dottie were so great. I loved seeing their relationship, as well as Linny’s relationship with her best friend Mary Catherine. However, Linny jumped to so many conclusions throughout the book about Jack and his marital status… no matter how much evidence was OBVIOUS otherwise. QUIT ASSUMING! I also think the events of the plot could have been better spaced out; it was very slow-moving overall. The writing was a bit bland at times? I felt like the same descriptors were used too often and the book just felt… bland. I don’t know how else to explain it. She referred to Jack as “the vet” and his son as “the young boy” every other sentence instead of using their names, which felt impersonal. Overall though, it was a heartwarming, quick read with solid ending that made me happy I read it. Like most readers of this book, I expected a Breakfast Club vibe with a little mystery involved based on the synopsis. I figured it would be a contemp with multiple points of view – from the rebel, the bully, the geek, and the pariah. The book ended […]

ARC Review: Liars and Losers Like Us

Posted March 7, 2016 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

So, I’ve honestly never felt so conflicted about rating a book. There were almost equal parts YES and NO about this story, so I want to break it down a little bit to try to explain why. What worked I liked the premise of the book. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a story where prom is the center of the plot, so it was nice to be back into that area of high school. (Although I’m very glad I’m not ACTUALLY back at that point in high school…) I’m still pretty darn obsessed with the book cover. It’s something I’ll always appreciate, because I’m superficial like that 😉 I’ll get more into this later, but there was some solid banter and jokes between Bree and Sean. I definitely shipped them in a general sense, but there were awkward moments too. The entire friend group was interesting. They all definitely had their individual issues that came to light, although some felt superficial. All of them mostly felt like real people though. Again, there were some funny jokes and insults thrown at each other that made them feel realistic. I really couldn’t stop reading. The book was kind of addicting and I was interested the entire time, despite its flaws. It’s not perfect and neither were its characters, but it kept me going. The ending of the book was damn near perfect. Super minor spoiler ahead, that’s kind of revealed in the synopsis… I loved Bree’s speech and how she called everyone […]

Blog Tour | Review: A Study in Charlotte

Posted February 25, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I’m always interested in retellings – even the non-fairytale ones. Those are more common, for sure, but some of the historical retellings are more unique. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about historical figures, so I’m usually entering them blindly… but still end up enjoying them! I’m not overly familiar with Sherlock Holmes stories, so this was another where I luckily didn’t have a lot of historical expectations. It’s nice because I go into it with a wide-open attitude, instead of preparing to make comparisons to the real text. In this story, Sherlock and Holmes were real people that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about. The main characters are Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes, the descendants of the famous detective duo. One of the cooler parts of the book for me is the fact that it takes place in my state – Connecticut! I don’t see a lot of books happening here, so that was almost reason enough to add it to my TBR. It’s funny because the Holmes/Watson relationship ended up being my favorite part of the book! I loved the dynamic between the two of them. I hope it lines up well with the original stories, but from someone who doesn’t know – it was awesome. From what I do understand, they both had similar personality traits to their ancestors. It was cool to see how they come together at the beginning of the book, and how their relationship grows. Great chemistry! The dynamic was definitely different because […]

ARC Review: It’s a Wonderful Death

Posted February 12, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

This book definitely ended up being different than I expected! I can’t tell if I’m glad about that or not. I was picturing a similar story set-up to BEFORE I FALL, which is one of my favorite books of all-time. It was definitely reminiscent, but not the same. More on that later. The premise of the story is that soul of mean girl RJ is accidentally collected before she’s supposed to die. She gets brought up into the afterlife and has to deal with trying to get back to earth to finish living her life. She’s not ready to die yet, so she has to prove to a jury of angels and other related mythical beings that she deserves a second chance at life. By doing this, she will be sent back to her past to re-do some key moments in her life. If she makes the changes and improves her life (and those around her), she may get a second chance on earth. I thought it would be a book that focused solely on RJ going back and reliving / re-doing some of her life events. There was actually very little time spent on that part, and the rest was spent dealing with the “afterlife,” a trial, and repercussions. The changes that RJ made within herself were somewhat believable, but because the re-do aspect of the book was so short, it was hard to REALLY feel the change. It was too quick for me. In BEFORE I FALL, you […]

Blog Tour | ARC Review: Reign of Shadows

Posted January 29, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

MORE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository Oh man, what a book! Within the first few pages, I didn’t want to stop reading. I had pulled it up on my Kindle and wanted to see how the beginning would go and kept reading for 10 minutes (even though I had somewhere else I needed to be). I didn’t expect to be so interested and engaged within the first few pages of the book! This feeling did not end; I couldn’t stop reading until I reached the last page. The book reminded me a bit of Princess of Thorns, which I absolutely adored. There was a journey with someone who didn’t necessarily want to journey with another person, a tiny bit of gender-bending, and interesting creatures/people along the way. I just love stories like this apparently. (Any recs for other journey-style fantasy books?!) I loved Luna and Fowler. The set-up for the story was fantastic, with Luna living in her tower, letting Fowler and his companions into their lives, and starting their journey. I shipped them kind of immediately. I couldn’t help it. I liked that the two of them took a little while to get to the same place as me, re: their feelings for each other. I shipped them before they even knew they liked each other. Like I said above, this book featured a cool journey in the DARK because there’s a perpetual eclipse over the kingdom. I think this plot point […]

ARC Review: Call Me, Maybe

Posted January 23, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

What worked I liked the premise of the story, even though it felt a bit contrived. They meet each other because they accidently switch phones at the airport and are stuck with the wrong phone for a few days. They start chatting and eventually it turns into a relationship when they both return home to Chicago. There was some solid banter between those two! I loved their relationship; it felt really natural for most of the book. It developed a bit too quickly (especially at the end), but I did like how quickly they ~physically~ got together. It was real! Plenty of people do that sooner rather than later, and I appreciated that truth. I looooved the book blogging and romance reader elements. Honestly, that was probably my favorite part. She felt a lot of the things that we all feel on a regular basis. I could relate to almost all of her blogging-related feelings and issues. Everything below that I didn’t like about the book is all in hindsight. I really enjoyed it while I was reading – for the most part – and it was super addicting. What didn’t work It was alllll smooth sailing until a bunch of angst and miscommunication piled up at the end. Seriously, the pacing was quite off. Before all of the miscommunication at the end, she would irritate me by asking him so many personal questions and not really answering any in return. He was an open book for her to prod at, […]

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 […]