Genre: Paranormal

Blog Tour | ARC Review: Down with the Shine

Posted May 2, 2016 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

Review Whew, what a fun ride! This book was incredibly unique and awesome. I had almost no idea what to expect. I don’t read a lot (or any?) magical realism and this was such an insanely cool “introduction” to the genre for me. The premise definitely intrigued me – magical moonshine that could grant wishes?! I was picturing all of these crazy consequences and that’s exactly what the book delivered on. Lennie decides to get some popularity at a party by bringing along her uncle’s moonshine. She repeats the usual protocol that they do, thinking nothing of it. They ask the drinker to make a wish, she repeats it back, and says “may all your wishes come true, starting with this one.” She has no idea that this is not just a way of enjoying moonshine with someone. It’s a secret power the family possesses where they’re able to grant wishes to the drinker. Of course, like most wishes, they can’t be undone. After a drunken night full of wishing, Lennie realizes something has gone horribly wrong the next morning. Her uncles explain what happened and Lennie is on a path to make things right. There were so many different, interesting characters in this story. For her family, Lennie has her three uncles and their tough love approach, Lennie’s wanted-by-the-FBI-murderer-robber father, and her mother who is a shadow of her former self. There’s her longtime crush Smith, who also happens to be the twin brother of her recently murdered friend […]

ARC Reviews: The Epidemic and Dream On

Posted April 25, 2016 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I was SO excited to grab this one from ALA back in January, but OF COURSE I waited forever to finally sit down and read it. There’s something wrong with me, okay? But after the cliffhanger at the end of THE REMEDY, I knew I had to get to it as soon as there was a break in my reading schedule. Honestly, I kind of created a break in my schedule; I knew this book was one I could finish in three sittings or less because I get sooo addicted to Young’s writing. This was definitely the case with THE EPIDEMIC! It took a few chapters for me to be reminded of what happened in the previous book. Thankfully, there was a pretty solid amount of recapping THE REMEDY without feeling like too much information. I still loved Quinn and was wondering what would happen with Deacon, after the previous book’s major cliffhanger about him. The biggest question I had throughout the story was HOW. How is all of this happening? Does Virginia have something to do with it all? How is it possible that suicide became an epidemic – something contagious – instead of something just related to groupthink. I was so eager to get to the end see everything tie into THE PROGRAM and THE TREATMENT. It’s weird reading a prequel series because you know how the world ends up afterwards… and it’s not a pretty place to be. I knew that my final rating for this story […]

Book Buddies Review: Ruby Red

Posted March 31, 2016 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 2 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 below) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. What did you think about Gwen? Is she the kind of main character you can relate to? Do you feel like she was characterized enough so far? Kaitlin: I think she was a great character! I mean, I really liked how she reacted to the situation she was put in and I do really look forward to reading more about her because Gwen definitely seems like she has had an interesting past. She is kind of the main character that one could relate to. I mean, I know what it’s like to have that one crazy friend but I see her as someone who has kind of always been overlooked and I honestly have not been through that struggle but I do like that though, how people who do feel overlooked get to relate to her and see how it is when an overlooked character finally get’s the attention. I am excited for Gwen’s character development […]

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 […]

Book Buddies Review: The Dream Thieves

Posted January 28, 2016 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 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 below) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead! In our discussion of THE RAVEN BOYS, I asked which character was your favorite. Has your answer changed now that we’ve gotten to know them a bit more? Kaitlin: Oh man, this is a hard question because all of the characters are so good. In this book, the boys did some things that I really did not agree with but I am leaning towards Noah or Gansey for my favorite Raven boy. Adam and Ronan did some things that had ticked me off a bit so that had caused me to like them a bit less compared to Gansey and Noah. I really liked Blue in this book as well and it was really great to read more about Maura, Calla, and Persephone because all four of these ladies are such great characters. Lauren: I agree! I think Gansey might be my favorite for some reason, but I really want to get in his head even […]

Book Buddies Review: The Raven Boys

Posted November 25, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 5 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 below) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead! How did you feel when you started? Did the hype make you excited or nervous? Kaitlin: I definitely did not know what to expect from this book because the synopsis had been super vague about what was going down within this book. All I know was what happened in the beginning chapter and that Blue would eventually become attracted. I don’t think hype really affects my enjoyment for books too much. It motivates me to try to enjoy a book that has lots of love to it but other than that, I mostly enjoy the majority of the books I read so hype is never a huge problem for me when it comes to how I enjoy a book. Lauren: I know what you mean about motivating you to enjoy it! That was such a driving factor in my enjoyment of this book. I felt like I needed to like it because everyone else […]

Review: Split Second

Posted May 18, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I read Pivot Point back in January and absolutely loved it. Kasie West is probably my #1 auto-buy author. There are two reasons it took me so long to read this book: (1) I preordered the paperback version so my set would match, which meant it wouldn’t arrive until two months after reading the first book, and (2) This is the last published Kasie West book I could read! I didn’t want to run out 🙁 I didn’t realize this book was going to feature dual POV’s between Addie and Laila; the first book had two POVs but it was the two different timelines of Addie’s search. I was happy to see some more time with Laila, even though things were kind of awkward after what happened in the previous book. In dual-POV books you can sometimes expect that you’ll prefer one person’s storyline to the others; I found myself enjoying both perspectives equally for the most part! Laila did frustrate me at times because I felt like she wasn’t making the right decisions. Her relationship in this one was a hate-to-love situation that took her SO LONG to figure out. I was okay with their banter but didn’t ship them as hard as I usually would in that kind of relationship trope. Even though the book was split between Addie and Laila, Addie is still the “main character.” I felt like her personality wasn’t as developed in this book for some reason. I missed that. The same thing goes for […]

Review: When

Posted May 6, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

I’m sorry for the inevitable rant that this review is going to become. I was immediately intrigued by the premise of this book before it was released and thought it’d be a solid one to listen to on Audible. I was definitely wrong in that, and now I’m wondering how much the format of the book impacted my rating and feelings. Would it have been different to read this in print, or did I reaaaally just not like the book at all? Anyway, this book was pretty painful to listen to for a variety of reasons: THE AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR. This is certainly my biggest gripe, hence the debate above. The narrator read so fucking slowly that I wanted to speed up the narration. (Yes, I know that’s possible on Audible, but then the person gets a squeaky mouse voice.) She had the weirdest inflection on certain words and characters’ voices that I cringed so often. It can always be awkward when narrators try to change their voice for different characters, but this was just so bad. THE MAIN CHARACTER. Maddie made me SO annoyed throughout the whole book. Coupled with the narrator’s young-sounding voice, Maddie was so damn immature and stupid sometimes I can’t even explain it. Her whining was so melodramatic; I rolled my eyes WAY too many times. I feel bad saying this because she went through so much, especially with the bullying from her classmates, but I can’t help it. Some examples where I wanted to punch my phone: Lady […]

Book Jar Review: Pivot Point

Posted January 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 15 Comments

Twice a month, I’ll pick a slip of paper from my book jar and read a book that has been sitting around for a while. I don’t buy as many physical copies as I do e-books, but my bookshelves are still overflowing with far more unread books than ones I’ve read. A lot of these book jar picks will help with the TBR Challenge I joined for 2015, but some books I own are newer books that won’t qualify. Without further ado, here’s my review for the first book I drew from my book jar! This definitely qualifies as one of those books where I find myself asking WHY didn’t I read this sooner?? I absolutely loved The Distance Between Us by Kasie West and heard nothing but great things about this duology, too. I got it in my Uppercase box a few months ago and was really happy to finally own it… and even happier it was one of my first Book Jar picks! Anyways this book was AWESOME. Totally not what I was expecting – in a great way. I assumed it would be really similar to Just Like Fate, which I also liked, but this was definitely higher-stakes. It was a bit of a mystery and I absolutely could not put it down. First, I thought that Addie was a random girl with abilities. I didn’t realize she lived on a Compound full of people with abilities. That was SO cool and really made it much more […]

Review: White Hot Kiss

Posted November 19, 2014 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

I have a lot of mixed thoughts on this one. First, I definitely didn’t read the description. I’m not sure why, because that’s normally something I read multiple times before and during my reading. Layla is half-demon, half-gargoyle, but her allegiance has always been towards the gargoyles (Wardens). She helps the Wardens keep demons at bay and lives with them on their compound. Suddenly there’s an uptick in demon activity and Layla is the reason. The biggest thing I liked about this book is that it’s incredibly unique. I’ve read and heard of a lot of paranormal books, but this one is definitely different. Demons and gargoyles? Sounds kind of cool. How the heck did JLA come up with this stuff?? A lot of parts of the book were confusing to me because there were so many types of demons to keep track of. Also, Layla talks about how the Wardens “went public” at one point, so the general public knows they exist but don’t know what exactly they do aside from protect them. The story was unique, which was the biggest selling point for me, but I just could not get into it. I was never in the mood to dive in and sit down to read it. I ended up taking a break in the middle of the book to read something else because I just wasn’t making any progress. Luckily, that worked – I was able to pick up where I left off and was suddenly more […]