Genre: Young Adult

Review Round Up | Undercover Bromance, The June Boys, and Marriage on Madison Avenue

Posted March 23, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! DNF: 33% While I enjoyed the first book in this series, I certainly didn’t love it like everyone else. I didn’t really like Liv, the previous MC’s sister, at all either. She was incredibly stubborn and overprotective to me. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled when she was the lead character for book two. She proved to be just as irritating in this one – maybe even more so since we were in her head. I enjoyed Mack as a character and thought he was way sweeter than his “smooth guy” persona implied from the previous story. I loved how quick he was to use his resources to help Liv take down the shitty restaurant owner she previously worked for. I didn’t read the synopsis of this one fully and was really just excited to see how book two would go, so I wasn’t fully aware that this had the heavier topic of sexual assault/harassment at the forefront. I didn’t realize it was central to the plot for whatever reason. I just couldn’t read it. Also, the first book had cute inserts from the romance that the book club was reading, and showed how it related to the story itself. This book didn’t have that in the […]

Blog Tour: All Your Twisted Secrets

Posted March 18, 2020 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

iTunes | BookDepository | Kobo | Google Books Review Honestly I’d been stuck in a reading rut for a couple of months when this tour was coming around. Luckily, I had two bookish friends buddy read this book and discuss how addicting it was for the less-than-a-day it took them both to read it. I decided this would be the perfect thing to read to break myself from my reading problems! I’m a huge sucker for books with the kind of “Breakfast Club” setup, especially if it involves some murder mystery elements. I’d been burned by this kind of book before though so I was cautiously optimistic for ALL OUR TWISTED SECRETS. There’s a fine line between successfully using those “stereotypes” in a logical and realistic way, and relying on them to much to create the characters. I don’t like when the “mean girl” trope is too much because I just think it paints the wrong picture. Plus, I hope and think we’ve gone a bit beyond the traditional cliques in high school. I know they still exist but acting like they’re the end-all, be-all doesn’t seem to be true anymore. This book was EXTREMELY well-plotted, alternating perfectly between the past and the present. Something would be said in the room in the present and then the next chapter set in the past would provide background and context to that piece of information. I found myself racing through the pages, constantly wondering what might happen next to advance the connections […]

ARC Reviews: Girls with Razor Hearts and In Five Years

Posted March 9, 2020 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Yup, this was just about as wild and powerful as expected, and the perfect way to kickoff my reading year. I chose it as my first book of 2020 because I love starting things off on a perfect note, or at least with a book I can safely assume will be in the 4.5-5 star range! Mena and the other girls have escaped Innovations, on the road to enacting their revenge against the evil corporation and academy that trained them to be obedient little girls like society wants. This is an incredibly feminist story, obviously, and offers dystopian-like connections to our own world. Young is masterful with this – she makes you realize immediately where she’s drawing inspiration from our world, but manages to make this near-future feel like a possibility. I think there are some elements of this that are possibly a little too on the nose and preachy but it really makes sense coming from Mena’s point of view (somewhat spoilery reasons if you haven’t read the first book – but I will say it’s primarily because Mena and the other girls haven’t been outside in the real world to know what it’s like. You’re seeing it through their inexperienced eyes.). I loved (and obviously hated because this book is not necessarily a walk in the park) the moments where they would think they could trust someone or think that a man would be helpful and then realize he may be almost as bad as the rest of […]

Review Round Up | A Heart So Fierce and Broken, The Hand on the Wall, and Royce Rolls

Posted March 5, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I saw some lower ratings for this one ahead of reading it and most stemmed from people thinking this would be about Harper/Rhen again. I knew what to expect going into it (Grey and another new character as the POVs) so that definitely helped with my enjoyment. Like the first one (and most fantasy books), it was a bit slow-going at first. I broke my reading up into sections to pace myself out for a week until book club’s meeting date. I do think I was a bit disappointed by this one though, and I think – like everyone else – it had to do with the characters being slightly less interesting to follow. Grey fascinated me in book one and he did keep me interested here, but Lia Mara was much less interesting than Harper was. The plot involved them, plus a few other characters, making their way to another country. I tend to enjoy books where a couple of characters go on a journey and there’s some fun magic and banter involved, but this one didn’t have as much going on for me. One thing, romance-wise, that I’ve enjoyed about these books is that they don’t jump right into loving each other (even if the […]

Review Round Up | The King of Crows, Starting Over at Blueberry Creek, and All Eyes on Us

Posted February 27, 2020 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Spoilers for the previous books and tiny early-book spoilers for this book. HO BOY. I can’t believe this series is over! As sad as I am that I didn’t start way back when it first came out, I’m glad I had the experience of the Diviners Readalong to keep me going and break up these huge books. I did a little refresher before diving into the final installment though, since I read the third book back in November. I really liked how the beginning/middle of the book went, with all of the Diviners split up and trying to get to the same place. The groupings were wild and entertaining: Henry, Memphis, and Bill near the flooded Mississippi River and on trains; Theta, Evie, *someone*, and Isiah with the circus; and Ling and Jericho traveling with a band. It created some fun dynamics and new friendships/alliances among everyone while journeying across the country. The King of Crows, the Shadow Men, Roy, and Jake Marlowe fucked with them every step of the way. I don’t want to get into spoiler territory but let me say there were a few parts of this that totally broke my heart! I am truthfully really happy with how the book ended though and […]

December ARC Reviews: The Pretenders and Blitzed

Posted February 10, 2020 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I read THE SIMILARS super early, months before it came out, so I feel like I’ve been waiting for the sequel forever. I was soooo addicted to it and I’m pretty sure read it in one sitting. I think reading the first one so quickly and being super addicted meant that I overlooked some things with my rating? The writing here in THE PRETENDERS wasn’t particularly great and I definitely noticed it this time around because I read it much slower. It was moderately addicting when I really got going and pushed myself to read it though. I mostly enjoyed it but the writing and internal dialogue of the main character, Emma, got super repetitive. There was a love triangle, which I saw coming based on the ending of the previous book. I don’t mind them if they make sense and this sort of did, but it was also super weird. She was stuck between Ollie, her best friend from childhood, and his clone, Levi. So, basically the same dude with different personalities. Again, I could SEE the reason for its existence and how the two guys were different from each other, despite the clone stuff, but it annoyed me a lot. The ending was absolutely batshit and unexpected, so that took it to a different level! I’m not sure those twists were necessary (some things seemed like twists for the sake of them and not because they made the book better). Overall, I’m glad I read this duo. I’ve […]

ARC Review: Of Curses and Kisses

Posted February 6, 2020 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I am a member of Sandhya’s Street Team because I support her and love her books. However, this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review. When I first saw the announcement for this book and series, I was straight-up over the moon. It immediately became one of my top most anticipated reads. When I was accepted to join Sandhya’s street team and was given an egalley of this book, I was even MORE excited. I dove into it pretty quickly. Unfortunately I didn’t FINISH it just as quickly, but I’ll get into that later. As you can see from this post, I was so effing excited: Like… excuse my French but are you fucking kidding me? I need this series more than I need the air I breathe. Everything about this is perfect and has me written all over it. The author, the boarding school setting, the fairytale retellings, the possible fake dating/hate-to-love trope… Good lord. I’ve been turning a corner on Royal-related books lately and this one will 100% be perfect for me. I just know it. I was in a bit of a slump in September 2019 when I started reading this (woof) and unfortunately that hindered my interest in it. I put it aside for maybe a week or two after starting because I had a few other required reads to sneak in between. When I picked it back up in October, I wasn’t quite as excited to keep reading. The premise […]

Review Round Up | Supernova, American Royals, and One of Us is Next

Posted January 29, 2020 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! Like with the other two books in this series, I wish this was shorter by about 100 pages. There were some repetitive internal thoughts throughout and it just makes me think that more editing would have removed some and gotten this to a reasonable length. There’s no reason for this series to be the length it is! The pacing is super off. I think the first two books had a bit more twists throughout to keep things interesting but this one really didn’t get going until the final third. My favorite thing through reading all three books was watching Nova slowly think for herself and realize what was important. She started out as a such a villain on the side of the world’s biggest anarchist, and then realized that maybe she didn’t have to be that way. It genuinely took a while and was spaced nicely and naturally throughout the trilogy. Other than that, everyone was so boring. They were all about their powers and that’s about it. I couldn’t tell you anything about their personalities or interests otherwise. Just boring superheroes. Overall though, this book was a really good conclusion to the trilogy. Definitely wondering if a spinoff will happen based off the ending… I’ll always […]

Blog Tour: Tweet Cute

Posted January 20, 2020 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

BUY THE BOOK HERE! Book Review I was so excited when I was asked to join the TWEET CUTE blog tour! I’ve been looking forward to this book ever since it was first announced, and the early glowing reviews from friends only furthered my interest. Needless to say, I had high hopes and expectations… so luckily this book delivered. The story follows a few different elements involving our lead pair getting to know each other, so try to keep up. Big League Burger is a rising star in the fast food business now, but Pepper remembers when it was just a family-owned burger joint in Nashville, owned and operated by her parents. When business takes off and they start franchising, competing with the likes of McDonalds and Burger King, she moves to NYC with her now-divorced mom to run the show. She’s often responsible for the lighthearted, witty tweets and jabs from the company on social media. Enter Jack, the son of family-owned NYC deli Girl Cheesing. It’s been in the family for generations and he’s due to take over (not his twin Ethan, but that’s a whole other thing!). When he discovers the Big League Burger has not only stolen their grandma’s NYC-famous grilled cheese recipe, they’ve also stolen the name of it too, he starts an unexpected Twitter war with the burger company… and therefore Pepper… in the process. Meanwhile, the two are unknowingly chatting it up anonymously on an app that Jack developed for their private school. AND on […]

Blog Tour Spotlight and Cover Colors: Lie to Me

Posted January 17, 2020 / Cover Colors, Features / 0 Comments

Welcome to my stop on the LIE TO ME blog tour! I’m here to do a quick spotlight on the book and a little bit of Cover Colors, since it’s been a while! In case you haven’t seen it before, I typically pull the colors from the book cover and create a palette. I usually make some kind of outfit and accessory post to correspond but it’s hard to do that when the book is a mystery and involves some kind of murder or death… 😉 Cover Colors I was drawn to this cover right away because it’s pretty simple but haunting! The pops of pink color lighten it up a little bit too. I was definitely curious to read the story after having seen this cover initially. About the Author Kaitlin Ward grew up on a dairy farm in a tiny New Hampshire town, the same town where she lives now with her husband and son. She studied animal science at Cornell University and cofounded the well-known blog YA Highway. She is also the author of Where She Fell, Girl in a Bad Place, and Bleeding Earth. Find her on Twitter at @Kaitlin_Ward.