Genre: Contemporary

Review: Magnolia

Posted November 12, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments
Review: Magnolia

I honestly had no idea what to expect with this book. I wasn’t interested in it last year when it came out for some reason, and then I started getting more and more interested. I love hate-to-love romances and really needed something fluffy, after reading a couple of darker books. This book was just what I needed: fluffy, cute, and a bit cheesy. It took some getting used to because I honestly don’t know the last book I read in first-person. It was a bit jarring at first because Jemma was essentially talking to the reader, instead of just narrating what she was doing. It was kind of cute though! This book certainly made me smile and keep reading. Things I loved Shipping them the hardest | Okay, their first kiss killed me for some reason. I loved the build-up to the romance in this book! It’s easily one of the best hate-to-love romances I’ve ever read. Add in the storm (more on that later) and I’m hooked. I was rooting for them right off the bat and thought they had the best chemistry in the beginning. Hearing about the eighth grade dance broke my heart, but it was such a sweet moment to move on from. Southern setting, complete with tornadoes | I never thought I would like books set in the south for some reason. Maybe because life is different down there and I only saw stereotypes? Either way, I keep falling for every romance set in the south! It […]

ARC Review: Young Widows Club

Posted November 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Review: Young Widows Club

Sigh. For a book with such a sad premise, I sure didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t expecting to like this one that much but I wanted to try it out anyways. The writing wasn’t too bad but the feels and emotions were just straight up nonexistent for me. Tamsen (weird name) got married to her longtime boyfriend Noah when she was just seventeen. Six weeks later, he dies unexpectedly in his sleep. She’s reeling and not sure what to do with herself. Her entire life revolved around him and his band; she even dropped out of high school to work on band manager stuff. The book focused on Tam’s life six months after he passes away. She’s forced to join a Young Widows Club, go back to high school, and think about getting her life back on track. The overall premise of the book was pretty good and interesting enough. Tam as a character was super boring because she didn’t have a life or interests aside from Noah and his friends. Moving on from his death was a huge deal because she had to figure out what kind of future she actually wanted, without him in it. She spends time getting back in touch with her old friend Lula (another weird name) and repairing her relationship with her dad and stepmother. Like I said, I definitely didn’t feel a lot of emotion from this book. Her struggles in finding herself and moving on were at the forefront, but they still didn’t […]

ARC Review: The Anatomical Shape of a Heart

Posted November 2, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Review: The Anatomical Shape of a Heart

The premise of this book and the characters inside it were just so unique – I knew I was going to like it (at the very least!). I have definitely not read a book about a girl who draws cadavers and dreams of being a medical illustrator, or a boy who is a graffiti artist with lots of family secrets. Both Bex and Jack felt so real, interesting, and different. I say this a lot, but I love when a YA book features strong family presence. There were some great scenes with Bex, her mom, and her brother. They were so funny and her mom was the best: super understanding and compassionate. I loved the interactions between the people in Bex’s family. I wish there was even more time with them. Even Jack’s family presence (and growth) was strong, and he was just the love interest. I think the biggest thing I loved about this book was how unique it is. The story is unlike any that I’ve ever read. It’s not every day that you meet characters with such interesting backgrounds and interests. They both felt fully developed to me. As I said earlier, Bex wants to be the next great medical illustrator, so she gains access to some cadavers at the local university. She meets Jack on the late night train and discovers that he’s the notorious graffiti artist. The two of them hit it off literally instantly and their relationship grows from there. Jack kept a lot of secrets […]

ARC Reviews: The Lies About Truth and Hotel Ruby

Posted October 30, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Reviews: The Lies About Truth and Hotel Ruby

This book started off kind of weird for me. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it for some reason, but I’m SO glad that changed pretty quickly! The book slowly gave some details away about what happened and who the characters were. I finished this book a few days ago (at the time of writing this) and to be honest, I don’t remember much about Sadie – the main character. Nothing really stuck out about her and I think that’s because the book is so focused on the accident and how she copes with it. It’s something that seems to consume the most space in her brain, so there wasn’t really room for her to feel like herself. I loved how complex the relationships were between all of the characters. Sadie’s family was in a sort of group with a few other families; they’d go on vacation and spend a lot of their time together. It was five kids – Sadie, her then-boyfriend Gray, her best friend Gina, Gina’s boyfriend Trent, and Trent’s brother Max. (Phew.) I won’t get too much into why their relationships with each other were complicated, but just know that they definitely were. They all had some healing to go through when they were involved in an accident that killed Trent. There were lies and secrets between ALL of them. The focal point of the story is that Trent’s family moved to El Salvador for a year and is coming back to town. In the […]

Review: The Boy Most Likely To

Posted October 16, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments
Review: The Boy Most Likely To

I AM SAD AND DISAPPOINTED. I don’t know how else to start this review. 🙁 In the first book, I didn’t really like Tim at all. He grew on me, for sure, but not enough to make me say “hey I’d love to read a book about him.” Regardless, when I saw this one on Scribd, I thought it’d be a perfect audiobook to start. I was pretty interested at the beginning and Tim continued to grow on me even more. And then the TWIST happened (which happens so early in the book that it feels weird to call it a spoiler?) and everything went downhill. Don’t worry, I’ll be spoiler-free for a while. In the most general terms I can say, I didn’t MIND this turn of events. It’s not what I was expecting when I set out to read this book, but it also wasn’t surprising. I knew exactly what was going to happen when certain things started happening. Sorry for the vagueness, but go with it. Regardless, I don’t think this particular element of the story (which turned into pretty much the entire plot) bothered me like it may have bothered others. I didn’t care about Tim much so it didn’t upset me that this was happening to him. I was intrigued but slowly that interest waned. I had a big feeling of what was going to happen by the end of the book, so it all felt pointless to me. There were some pretty big glaring holes that […]

Review: We All Looked Up

Posted October 8, 2015 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments
Review: We All Looked Up

I actually thought this may be a five star read for me… until I got together with my book club. Funny how things like that can happen! People definitely can open your mind up to different things you never thought about while reading. While I do have to say I loved this book overall – especially the message, writing style, and some memorable quotes – there were some areas that missed the mark for me. I loved: The writing, to me, was fantastic. (See quote on the left. PERFECTION). I wrote down a number of quotes and loved the way it FELT. I don’t know how else to explain it. The atmosphere of the book just felt cool. The whole end-of-the-world premise may be a popular semi-trope, but I’ll always be drawn to those books. I think the way this was formatted was cool – like the Breakfast Club at the end of the world. I enjoyed seeing a few different people’s perspectives and how the world essentially goes crazy in preparation of the asteroid. The whole plot was interesting. I really like books that leave an impression on you and make you think. I really started to consider what I would do in their shoes; I loved seeing the different reactions people had, as well as the different actions they took with their lives. Knowing you only have two months to live is crazy enough, but knowing everyone is in the same boat? Insane. OVERALL I have really positive memories of this […]

ARC Review: Signs Point to Yes

Posted October 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments
ARC Review: Signs Point to Yes

I definitely have mixed feelings about this one. I usually write reviews right away, but I can’t really put all of my thoughts together. It doesn’t help either that it didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I started out being a fan of the three perspectives: Jane, Margo, and Teo. It sort of switched between the three of them with each chapter. Jane and Margo had an interesting sister dynamic. They apparently weren’t close before the book started, but conveniently became friends literally right as the book was starting. I also didn’t understand the friendship between Kavi and Teo. It took absolutely forever to figure out why Kavi hated Jane so much, and the reason ended up being completely ridiculous and stupid. I didn’t get it at all. The biggest thing I can say about this book is that it was awkward. Literally one part of dialogue was, “you keep doing these awesome things (69).”  I just didn’t feel like the dialogue worked at all. They were awkward characters, but it was further emphasized by the writing style. It was very “he said, then she said, then he said.” The third person point of view was interesting in some ways, but it made everything feel detached and not emotionally connected at all. There was a lot of telling instead of showing, which definitely bugged me. The whole premise of the book was kind of bizarre. I literally wrote in my notes that they had lots of “hairbrained” ideas. Next thing […]

Review: How to Be Bad

Posted October 5, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
Review: How to Be Bad

Just take a look at the rating report below and you’ll know how I feel about this book: very mixed. On one hand, it was kind of a fast, friendship-packed story that had a great road trip premise. On the other hand, the characters were terrible at their worst and annoying at their best. Let’s see if I can explain the pros and cons of this one. What worked The road trip premise is something I’ll ALWAYS be interested in reading. Unfortunately, like an idiot, I read this outdated road trip right after reading another outdated road trip book. Both were written around 2007 so the technology and social media aspect was totally dated. Not a huge deal, but still worth mentioning. I loved the setting (Florida) and the reason for the trip (visit Vicks’s boyfriend at his college in Miami). I also liked that the book switched between three perspectives: one for each girl, written by each author. The girls and their reasons for going on the trip were very different, so that was pretty cool. I liked Mel the most out of the three girls, I think. It was engaging and easy to read. I also am kind of obsessed with the fun cover and am still glad I bought it for my shelves. What didn’t work Man, these characters didn’t work for me. Jesse was judgmental (about everything and everyone) and incredibly religious. Mel was self-loathing and self-conscious. Vicks was the typical bad girl who made terrible decisions. Well, […]

Review: Two-Way Street

Posted October 2, 2015 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Review: Two-Way Street

For an outdated road trip book with characters I barely liked, this book wasn’t bad. It was a really quick read and perfect for Bout of Books (when I read this back in August). I’m glad I finally read it but it’s definitely not a new favorite. This had alllll the makings for a book I’d love. I read Ex-Mas back during the holidays last year and loved the concept: exes taking a road trip together and falling back in love. In this book, Jordan and Courtney are taking a road trip from their hometown in Florida to their new college in Boston. They broke up a few weeks earlier but decide to make the trip up together still. The gist of the story is that Jordan says he dumped her for some girl he met on MySpace (yep, this book is old) but really that’s a lie. He’s covering ~something~ up that I happened to figure out within the first few chapters. I really, really didn’t like Jordan that much. He made CONSTANT sexist references to girls, their clothing, their habits, and their bodies. I rolled my eyes and/or cringed at something he said or thought in literally all of his chapters. He’d talk about girls like they were crazy, generalize all of them into one big group, and talk shit about their “slutty” clothes. He even said Courtney looked like a tramp at one point! All of that macho bullshit is SO not okay with me. Otherwise, I did […]

Review: My Life Next Door

Posted September 23, 2015 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments
Review: My Life Next Door

Okay obviously the first thing I need to mention is CONNECTICUT! I love when books are set in my state; I can definitely get a better feel for the setting and environment. Of course, the made-up town in this book is clearly down by the shore (an area I am definitely not from), so it barely feels like Connecticut. My part of the state features a lot of farms and smelly cows. This book was definitely hyped up, but – thank god – met my expectations! I really loved Jase, and he’s the reason this book was so fantastic. Sam was an okay character, but a little flat. I know that she’s had a pretty sheltered life and Jase helped her get out of of her comfort zone a bit, but I just wasn’t totally on board with her. Regardless, I shipped them as a couple very hard. I liked how sex was kind of an important part of the book. Any YA book that talks about it or actually does it is okay in my book. It’s real! It’s a part of teenagers’ lives. There were a few things that bugged me. I mean, clearly Tim had a problem with drinking and some drugs, but AS USUAL the portrayal of weed-smoking in a YA book bothered me. It’s something that I think authors don’t usually get right. This was no exception. Tim was a huge dickhead in the beginning but seriously shaped up throughout the book. At first, I […]