Genre: Young Adult

Blog Tour | The Year of Living Awkwardly: Sophomore Year

Posted July 6, 2018 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 1 Comment

I was extremely excited to see the opportunity to join the blog tour for this one, since I SPED THROUGH and LOVED the first book so much. I really put myself in Chloe’s shoes as a freshman in high school. I even said in my review that I wished the author would write a book for each school year! Needless to say, I hopped on this quickly. Chloe had some immaturity and normal-ish “high school related” flaws to work through in the first book. I rooted for her so much in both stories because I could really see her growing and changing. She constantly recognized how privileged she was and how she was often complaining about silly (in the grand scheme of things) issues, but they were still HER issues to work through. I absolutely LOVE her voice and her authenticity. I don’t think I’ve ever read a YA book that feels more real. The diary format helps but the overall voice in the story is so natural. I remember feeling so many of the same emotions throughout my early high school years. She goes through illogical and logical reactions to what’s happening around her, and has her mature and immature moments. Like the first book, I placed myself right in her shoes and remembered what I felt like during those years. I LOVED the ending so incredibly much, but I need more. PLEASE let there be a junior year book next. Please. Keep em coming for the next two years […]

Review Round Up | The Cottages on Silver Beach and Listen to Your Heart

Posted July 5, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 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! The Haven Point series is one of my favorites, set in the adorable town with the same name. My favorite thing about companion series in these small towns is that you meet up again with old characters, visit the same local spots, and really get to know everything there is to know. The latest installment of this series follows Megan, the owner of the Inn that we actually met at the VERY beginning of book one, when it had just burned down and Eliza moved to town. The love interest is Elliot Bailey, another member of the Bailey clan that we’ve encountered in recent stories as well. I loved the parts of the book involving the Inn, Haven Point, and the Helping Hands… but there wasn’t enough of that for me in this book. I missed the setting and characters too much because a fair amount was spent on the road and in Hope’s Crossing (another companion series setting that I’m currently working through). I generally liked Megan and Elliot but the back-and-forth and arguing annoyed me more than usual. Like many of the books in the series, the couple realizes that they love each other very quickly and then proceed to ignore it for most of […]

ARC Reviews: My Plain Jane and To Catch a Killer

Posted June 25, 2018 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

After absolutely loving MY LADY JANE (despite not knowing much about the actual history/true story inolved), I was incredibly excited and optimistic about MY PLAIN JANE. Like the first book, I’m actually not well-versed in Jane Eyre, the heroine for this retelling. I’ve never read the book and actually, in hindsight, it would have been nice to read that beforehand (considering it’s on my “classics I might want to read soon” list). I can’t speak to how it compares to the original source. I can’t lie – this book was a bit disappointing compared to MLJ. I know it had big shoes to fill since I loved it so much, but I found myself slogging through it sometimes (mostly in the first half). I had to start and stop this one quite a few times for other reading commitments, but when I did have time to read it, I was never really compelled to pick it up. It wasn’t as funny for engaging as MY LADY JANE was. I started to get into it a little more in the second half of the book but this definitely felt too long. I never read JANE EYRE so I have no idea how it compares but I have to say I’m a little more interested in reading it now. Jane, Charlotte, and Alexander were interesting main characters and I liked being inside each of their heads. Despite all of those complaints, MPJ got more interesting as it went on and I really enjoyed the […]

Blog Tour: Your Destination is on the Left

Posted June 22, 2018 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 1 Comment

Review After traveling with her family in a caravan of RVs since seventh grade, Dessa is ready to figure out the next steps in her own life. The caravan makes decisions as a group by voting, instead of allowing individual voices to be heard. This works for a while, for most situations (like when and where to go next), but can be harder when someone wants to break free and carve their own path. Dessa is a great artist that, for some reason, didn’t get into any art schools. She’s surprised by her acceptance into an internship with a great artist in Santa Fe, NM, so the caravan heads there. I loved getting to know her grandmother and the artist, Fiona – they were two of my favorite characters. Many of the side characters, like her family and Cyrus, were hard for me. I understood that they needed and wanted to keep everyone together as a group, but it often felt like people were forced into things. Dessa knew what was right for her and no one wanted to let her do it. I appreciated that she fought for her independence and tried to make everyone understand that SHE deserved to make her own decisions. She’s old enough to decide what to do next. Cyrus was an okay love interest sometimes but I wasn’t really sold on the ship… which is weird, because friends-to-more is my jam usually! The two of them have been traveling together since they started and it seemed […]

Review Round Up | The Complication and Sam & Isla’s Last Hurrah

Posted June 13, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 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 cannot believe this series is over, honestly. I have loved every single book almost as much as the previous. My average rating for all the books is somewhere between 4-4.5 stars because of how PERFECT they are. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: when authors continue to add more books to a series to keep things going, I get nervous that they’ll just stretch things too much and ruin everything. That is 100000% not the case for the PROGRAM series. I have never read one of the six books and thought “this is too much and/or not needed.” The world keeps expanding and I keep gobbling them up. As another piece of intro before the actual review: I was in a big reading slump, mostly with physical copies. I’d pick up my Kindle and binge a book in 1-2 days, while whatever physical copy I had started reading would sit around for weeks. I knew that my library hold coming in would snap my slump for physical copies. One of the major threads that definitely came to a head in this book was the “morally gray” area of The Program and Adjustment doctors. Many of them genuinely thought they were helping, but they […]

ARC Reviews: From Twinkle with Love, Dating Disasters of Emma Nash, and The Last Summer of the Garrett Girls

Posted June 4, 2018 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Can you tell that my plan to get ahead on May ARCs didn’t exactly work? I did read all of these books IN May, but didn’t give myself enough calendar space to share my reviews in a timely manner. Two of these published last month and one of them publishes tomorrow! This was adorable! I loved DIMPLE and was extremely excited to read Menon’s sophomore novel as a result. Her formula of geeky smart girls plus cinnamon roll boys is a winning combination for me so far. I noticed some mixed early reviews so I was a bit nervous that Twinkle, as a character, would be frustrating for me to read. I like YA books where the characters are flawed and kind of learn / grow up throughout the novel, but I’m always hoping that it stays relatable. I can see why it’s polarizing because Twinkle definitely makes some rough and immature decisions throughout the book. She’s used to being a wallflower and is feeling hurt that her best friend, Maddie, has moved into the ~popular girls~ group at their school, leaving Twinkle for just some scraps of her time. She has an overwhelming crush on Neil while balancing a friendship with his twin, Sahil. The two of them are working on a gender-swapped Dracula film together and very obviously falling for each other. Add in a mysterious secret admirer named “N” via email, and Twinkle is quite confused. There are so many moments in this book where I questioned Dimple but […]

ARC Review: Save the Date

Posted May 21, 2018 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

Initial Excitement & Summary Morgan Matson is one of those authors that I always savor their books, trying to make sure I have one of them hanging around to read if I’m really in the mood. I jumped on reading SAVE THE DATE pretty quickly though because books about weddings and/or wedding and event planning are so fun for me. My friends who read it even earlier had alllll good things to say, so I hopped on board. In this story set in Connecticut (yay!), Charlie is excited to have all of the Grants under one roof for her sister’s wedding, which is a last hurrah in their childhood home before its sold. Her sister Linnie and brothers JJ, Mike, and Danny will all be home for the wedding weekend. It also corresponds with the final famous comic strip about their family that their mother is publishing that weekend. It’s a comedy of errors, with everything going wrong that possibly could go wrong. Storytelling & Characters I absolutely loved this book. The chaotic weekend was captured so perfectly and made me quickly fall in love with the Grants. They’re the very best part of their book. They’re not a perfect family, even if Charlie thinks so and the comic strip says otherwise. She was so stuck in her ways and absolutely clueless about some things. Each family member was interesting and fun in their own way; I loved the scenes where certain groupings of them were together to show their […]

Review Round Up | Not If I Save You First and A Court of Frost and Starlight

Posted May 18, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 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! I’m a big fan of Ally Carter… clearly, if you look at all the reviews up at the top there. She writes some of the most fun and engaging “light mystery” kinds of books. I love all of them for different reasons. I was pretty excited to explore a standalone too! This was a first for her. The whole Alaskan survival thing didn’t exactly appeal to me but I can’t resist her stories, so I dove in soonafter it came out. I enjoyed Maddie and Logan, and the complexities of their relationship. I’m a huge fan of childhood-friends-to-more, especially if there’s hate-to-love involved. This checked off a lot of boxes for me in terms of tropes I love! There was a decent amount of build for their relationship and understanding where they both were coming from. I shipped them but not to OTP levels. The survival aspects were nicely done and not overkill, considering that I don’t love that genre/topic in general. The journey was really quick (the book itself is quite short and I listened to the audiobook, which was only around 6 hours). I think I would have liked a little more to the story? It was kind of simple, if that makes sense. I […]

Caraval Reread + Legendary ARC Review

Posted May 17, 2018 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Caraval Reread Thoughts I wanted to share some of my initial thoughts on CARAVAL because I decided to reread the book first. The audiobook was a solid choice, narration-wise, so I highly recommend that if you’re thinking of a reread! First Read: July 4 – 5, 2016 As you can tell, I read this book incredibly early. I got the bound manuscript from ALA Midwinter that year and binge-read it by the pool on the 4th of July later that year. I knew the wait was going to be miserable for the second book because its release would be in late May 2018. Can you imagine? That would have been 694 days – a year and almost 11 months! So, I knew I was going to have to reread before LEGENDARY came out. Overall though, my first read of CARAVAL back in the day was fantastic. I loved the world-building and magic, but the main character bugged me sometimes. That was really my only small complaint. Second Read: February 23 – 28, 2018 I bought the audiobook for cheap during the holiday sale on Amazon, so I knew I’d like to try that format for it. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time to read audiobooks in Maine (no commute or getting-ready time) so I also alternated the ebook copy in when I was too addicted to wait for audio time. The good thing about having a terrible bookish memory is that it felt like I was reading the book […]

Blog Tour | Cover Colors: Love & Luck

Posted May 10, 2018 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 2 Comments

More purchase links: Book Depository | Kobo | IndieBound | iBooks I’m excited to be another stop on the blog tour for LOVE & LUCK! Any book involving international travel makes it high on my TBR because I love learning about other countries. I haven’t been outside of the US yet (anywhere!!) so these books give me ideas about where I may want to take my first trip someday. This story is about Addie, a girl who travels to Ireland with her family for her aunt’s destination wedding. The book opens with her and her brother falling down a hill and getting muddy while in their wedding party attire. It’s definitely not a good look. For me, the most fun aspect of the story was the guidebook, Ireland for the Heartbroken, that is featured throughout. Addie finds it in the library before the trip and uses it to guide her travels around the country. I really had a wonderful reading experience with this one. I love road trip books and I don’t know if I’ve read one set internationally before! The family feels were super strong and the main character was a lot better than her best friend was in the previous book. There was a little bit of every emotion throughout the story and I really love the journey that they all went on. I genuinely cried AND laughed out loud. There were so many moments that could have been corny but somehow they just worked in the story felt deeper as a […]