Genre: Young Adult

Review Roundup | The Honeymoon Crashers, None of This is True, and One of Us is Back

Posted September 14, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Roundup | The Honeymoon Crashers, None of This is True, and One of Us is Back

I was so excited when I learned that THE UNHONEYMOONERS was getting a “sequel” in any capacity. Learning it was an audio exclusive with a full cast, sound effects, and generally full production was even MORE exciting for me. This novella-length audiobook follows the best man and maid of honor for Olive and Ethan’s wedding on Maui! The two announce to Olive’s family they’re just going to elope and get married on the island alone. Cue her twin sister Ami and brother Diego deciding instead to invite 18 family members to surprise the two of them there with a real wedding instead of an elopement. The production here was awesome, and appropriately sparse (if that makes sense) – there were a handful of scenes with background noise and sound effects like the ocean or breezy music, but not all the time. It was perfectly done to not be distracting! Many of the conversations between characters alternated between them like they were actually talking, with the voice actors taking turns and no “he said” or “she said” in between like you would read in the book. I liked Ami and Brody a lot – I think the book did a good job of building up their romance and chemistry in a shorter time period, but I totally could have seen this being a full-length book instead. They had different personalities but in a way that balanced each other out. Plus, you learn a bit more about Brody at the end of […]

ARC August Reviews: All That’s Left to Say and Same Time Next Summer

Posted September 8, 2023 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
ARC August Reviews: All That’s Left to Say and Same Time Next Summer

Emery Lord has been one of my favorite authors since I first started my blog in 2014. It’s kind of alarming to see how underrated this book is (literally, there are only a few hundred reviews and ratings on Goodreads!). Remember when she was the top author in YA?? I feel like some of my fellow YA comrades have fallen off a bit (which I understand) but she’ll be an auto-buy forever for me. I joined some reading sprints on booktube the other day and people didn’t even really know Emery Lord when I mentioned this was my current read. I MUST EDUCATE EVERYONE. As you can see, I’ll read her books immediately regardless of topic. This book is about very fresh and unexpected grief, which is not something I like to read about. I don’t pick up sad books on purpose and just try to escape to a happier place when I read (or solve a murder mystery – nothing more or less!). Reading about the opioid crisis was even harder. However, as always, Emery Lord treated the topic with care and created a very emotional and powerful story. In ALL THAT’S LEFT TO SAY, Hannah is reeling from losing her cousin Sophie to an extremely unexpected overdose. Perfect, vivacious Sophie would never take pills on purpose! The story features her immediate grief and how she decides to get to the bottom of what happens to her. This includes transferring to Sophie’s school and trying to track down where […]

ARC August Reviews: The Last One and Business or Pleasure

Posted August 24, 2023 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment
ARC August Reviews: The Last One and Business or Pleasure

If there’s one thing Will Dean has, it’s the audacity. What an ending!! I did not see that coming at all. (Had to get that off my chest first, now on to an incredibly vague review!) The synopsis of THE LAST ONE intrigued me so much when I watched a the booktuber vlog her reading experience. Basically the first 10% of the book is the synopsis and a bunch of other stuff happens after that – I strongly recommend going into this book as blind as you can so I’m definitely not going to share anything else that happens lol. My main theories right off the bat were some of the classics (everyone is dead including the MC, it’s all a dream, etc.) – needless to say I won’t tell you if anything was right. I couldn’t put this down and finished it in one day. Once some ~things~ happen and are revealed, the book is a pretty slow-ish thriller. It’s not fast-paced like many others but I still couldn’t stop reading because I was dying to know what would happen next. There are some strong twists but not too many, which was really nice (no whiplash like other thriller books/writers). It’s a little slower at parts like I said and thus I think it’s a LITTLE too long, but the ending was so good. I can’t believe how the author chose to end this lol. There was a lot of character backstory that I think was supposed to make us […]

ARC August Reviews: In Nightfall and The Blonde Identity

Posted August 16, 2023 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
ARC August Reviews: In Nightfall and The Blonde Identity

As everyone around here knows, I’m a huge fan of Suzanne Young and all of her books. She’s such a talented writer and her prose is so accessible (definitely mean that as a compliment – I read her stories SO quickly!). IN NIGHTFALL is a bit different for her in some ways, and different for my reading tastes as well… which I loved! The story follows Theo and her brother Marco as they head to Nightfall, Oregon with their father for the summer as punishment for a big party they threw. Her dad is originally from there and his mom lives there, so they stay with her. She’s been an enigma in the kids’ lives and they’re basically meeting her for the first time. She’s prickly and has a lot of weird rules, like don’t stay out after dark and don’t talk with the locals. Naturally both of them ignore these rules and immediately fall in with some local teens. The town (and most people there) are really creepy and mysterious. There are some upcoming traditions that they want Theo and Marco to partake in, as well as their nightly parties on the beach. Theo starts to feel like something weird is in the air in Nightfall and these two podcasters in town for the Midnight Dive event are investigating it as well. The book is a little creepy but breezy and easy to read as well. I really liked the tension being slowly turned up throughout the book as […]

Series Review: Crowns of Nyaxia

Posted August 7, 2023 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Series Review: Crowns of Nyaxia

(These titles are too long to include in the blog post title.) I surprised everyone on Threads when I put vampires last on my “fantasy creatures” ranking. Honestly it’s because I’ve basically only read TWILIGHT? I can’t think of many other vampire books I’ve actually read lol. Regardless, the hype was getting to me with this series! I read the first book on a whim a few days after I checked it out from the library, also on a whim. I wasn’t expecting to see it on the shelf! I thought it would be something I’d read on Kindle Unlimited when I did my annual “one month of KU” subscription to read a few things before cancelling. Once Jamie posted about loving it and reading it in 24 hours, I decided to just go for it. Yes, it delayed me finishing the ToG series yet again but it was worth it. I ended up also subscribing to KU so I could read it on the go, and then I figured I’d start the second book while I had the subscription. I was advised to actually read the novella (#1.5) in between the books so I went for that first, and then launched into the official second book. I’m sorry in advance for how this review is mostly built around a comparison to FOURTH WING, but hear me out. I basically heard about these books at the same time. Both were popular romantasy series getting SO much hype out of nowhere. […]

Review Roundup | Practice Makes Perfect, The Risk, and No Good Tea Goes Unpunished

Posted August 4, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Roundup | Practice Makes Perfect, The Risk, and No Good Tea Goes Unpunished

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT had a lot to live up to. I fell head over heels for WHEN IN ROME and was pretty certain its companion sequel wouldn’t match up. My sister marked this one as her favorite of the two but she predicted that I’d love WIR more. Surprisingly, both ended up being five-star reads for me! (But yes, if I had to pick, Amelia/Noah are my peeps and edge out Will/Annie just a bit.) I thought Annie would annoy me a bit based on her characterization in WHEN IN ROME – she’s treated like a little angel who doesn’t swear and keeps track of her siblings cursing. Let me just say: she has so much more under the surface, and all of those little things I thought would annoy me weren’t really accurate. Will definitely had me from the beginning – I loved learning more about him and his childhood. I think I would have liked a LITTLE more there but it was good overall… There was a lot of telling instead of showing in regards to his background (and some things later in the book I won’t spoil). The two of them embark on a “fake dating” journey but more like “practice dating” – Annie wants to be less boring so she can land a husband and start the rest of her life. Will is simply just bored hanging out as a bodyguard in Rome, Kentucky… can’t fault him for that! I really loved watching their relationship develop […]

ARC Reviews: The Legacies and Dark Corners

Posted July 20, 2023 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
ARC Reviews: The Legacies and Dark Corners

It’s no secret around here that I love a “rich people behaving badly book” – there’s something about it that appeals to my Gossip Girl-loving heart. I KNOW they’re bad people and I’m okay with reading about them. I don’t have to like or root for the characters in every book I read. I know it’s a personal preference thing and I’m okay with that. Just be warned, if you aren’t a rich kid drama girlie, you probably won’t find much to like in this one. This book feels simultaneously similar and different than Goodman’s other books. I’ve rated her other books 3, 3.5, and 4 stars, respectively, so she’s always been a good-but-not-a-favorite author of mine. I still find myself so drawn to her synopses and eagerly await each new release! The whole vibe of this one (like her other three books) is more of a contemporary fiction book with some death and suspense as the backbone. Her books aren’t thrillers, they’re sort of mysteries, but they’re more like… mysterious contemporary fiction? This book is the first that features unlikeable rich kids at a prep school in NYC – the others are set in normal high schools or at summer camp. The story alternates between Bernie (a rich kid living in her mom’s shadow), Isobel (another rich kid and Bernie’s best friend with a substance abuse issue), and Tori (the scholarship kid whose mom died the year before). I enjoyed reading from each of their POVs for the most part […]

Review Roundup | The Wishing Game, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, and Live and Let Chai

Posted July 17, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Roundup | The Wishing Game, Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, and Live and Let Chai

I was soooo looking forward to THE WISHING GAME. The book sounded so magical (while being realistic and not actually featuring any magic or fantastical elements) and the cover? Absolutely one of my favorites I’ve ever seen… which is why it’s such a bummer that I feel so incredibly mixed on this book. I had to really think about a rating for it. At its core, this book is a whimsical ode to children’s books and the lifelong impact they have on us. I loved that aspect! It was so cute in a lot of ways. If I sit here and think about the story as a whole and ignore a lot of the details that really bugged me, this could have easily been very highly rated. I appreciate the granting of wishes and foster care/adoption plotline in a general sense but I was really uncomfortable with how Lucy went about it all with Christopher. It’s one thing to want to adopt a child that needs it but I personally found it to be inappropriate that she was kissing his forehead and having him sit on her lap (and discussing her desire to adopt him before she was permitted to – I have to think, if it didn’t happen or come true, wouldn’t the kid be in a worse mental space? She even tried to argue that sleeping on the floor of her bedroom in a house she shared with drunk college students would be a better situation for him […]

Review Roundup | When in Rome, Bad Summer People, and Happy Place

Posted July 5, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Roundup | When in Rome, Bad Summer People, and Happy Place

I always expect the popular, hyped books to not be as good as others say (looking at you, Fourth Wing), but I was thrilled to be proved wrong with WHEN IN ROME! I suddenly had the urge to follow the hype (something I’m doing this year for some reason) and request this one from the library. I also requested the new companion sequel, PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, at the same time. I thought I’d probably enjoy this one but I didn’t think I’d be adding my name to the list of crazed Sarah Adams fans… yet here we are with a new favorite five-star romance! This story follows Amelia, a super popular pop star who needs a break from it all, when her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere Rome, Kentucky. She’s saved by adorable baker Noah and he eventually offers up his guest room for her. She gets to know Noah, his sisters, and other locals around Rome, and pretty much falls for everyone very quickly. This was exactly the kind of low-drama romance I’m into these days! I don’t want to spoil anything but there’s really not any major events or miscommunications leading to a huge breakup of the main couple. It’s definitely got instalove (I mean, they knew each other for two weeks!!) and zero spicy scenes. It’s closed door, which is fine, but I do think the story could have used some! (Maybe I’m just biased toward that kind of romance these days lol.) I […]

Blog Tour: The Night It Ended

Posted June 30, 2023 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
Blog Tour: The Night It Ended

Additional Purchase Links: HarperCollins // Bookshop // Books-a-Million Review I’ve been really into mystery/thrillers lately and this one definitely intrigued me! A boarding school setting is one of my absolute favorites, and this one was even creepier because the 95% of the campus was away for winter break. When a girl dies tragically on campus, Madeline (a psychologist who specializes in female violence) is brought on campus to investigate what happened with the private investigator, Matthew, the family hired. They don’t believe the local police that it was a tragic accident; the PI thinks Madeline can help crack the girls on campus to see what really happened that night. The book was a bit of a slow burn with not a ton happening in the first half, but the setting and characters were intriguing enough to continue. I liked the chapters from the past that were mixed in (an interview or interrogation between two people who are not named) to keep me engaged in multiple stories. I assumed I knew who was in that interview from the previous year, but wasn’t sure if it would be that easy or predictable! I won’t spoil it either way. Madeline was struggling with some mistakes she’d made in her past – I wanted to know more about what she did to make her act this way and/or lose contact with her family in some way. It was interesting because she often felt like an unreliable narrator based on her behavior and issues she was […]