Publisher: Harper Collins

Review: All Played Out

Posted June 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I really love this series. All three books so far have been incredibly fast, low-drama new adult reads. This was my BEA train read and I managed to get over halfway done during the two 1.5 hour trips to and from the city. Definitely the perfect read for that occasion! At first glance, the premise for this one seemed a little to similar to All Broke Down: the smart, good girl meets the bad boy player. This was true for most of the book, but they did diverge a bit after some time. Nell is Dylan’s incredibly smart and driven roommate, who has never experienced really anything college had to offer. Torres is the team’s overly confident wide receiver, who is known for getting what he wants from a lot of girls. When he discovers Nell’s end-of-college bucket list, he decides to help her check off the items. I really liked the two of them! No one compares to Dylan and Silas in my mind, but these two are a close second favorite. Torres managed to get Nell to open up and try new things, while she tried to…keep him interested in only one girl, I guess! Again, a lot of it was similar to book #2, where opposites are attracting and the main question is: can these two stick together even though they’re so different? As I said, it diverged away from that towards the halfway point. One trope that has been bugging me lately is the whole “I […]

Review: Stardust

Posted June 25, 2015 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

I finally read a Neil Gaiman book! And the bonus is that it was an audiobook narrated in his lovely accent. I picked this one on a whim when Alyssa recommended some to me (and showed me her blog post with specific recommendations). To be totally honest, I don’t have much to say. I really enjoyed listening to this but think I would probably need to listen again and/or watch the movie to figure out a lot of what happened. It seems kind of weird to give this one four stars, when I was fairly distracted throughout, but it was so good! His writing (or, in this case, narrating) style was excellent. I loved it. The fairytale elements were so cool and following Tristran on his journey reminded me of all of those classic stories. After finishing Ella Enchanted right before this (which is obviously not the same exact thing, but kind of similar!), I couldn’t help but love the feeling of following someone on a magical journey. Tristran ventures out of his small village called Wall and into the land of Faerie. He meets a lot of interesting characters along the way, in search of the star that he saw fall. He wants to bring the star back for the girl he loves, in order to prove his affection. I loved all of the side characters and how their stories intertwined with Tristran’s. I definitely didn’t see that ending coming and frankly I feel like I should have. It was all […]

Book Buddies Review: Even In Paradise

Posted June 22, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 3 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 Cristina’s blog! (Link at the bottom) View Cristina’s part of the discussion here. Some spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution. Do you see this as a Great Gatsby “retelling” or just a book that makes a few parallels to it? Cristina: For the first 80% of the book I thought it merely had some parallels to Gatsby (such as Charlotte paralleling Nick, the outsider looking in), but at the end of the book, especially with the twists, it seemed to become much more of an adaptation. I sort of thought the first big “twist” was a good nod to Gatsby, but the additional one at the end felt a little too excessive, like it was trying too hard to emulate the novel. Lauren: I agree. I think the book was trying a little too hard. I could tell that some kind of tragedy was brewing for the end, but I didn’t think it would so closely resemble Gatsby. I did like the parallels of Charlie to Nick, because I think […]

Blog Tour Review: The Revenge Playbook

Posted June 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

I had a good feeling I was going to love this book, especially when I started seeing some great reviews roll in, littered with my favorite word: FEMINISM. I also was excited about the football plot, although it doesn’t make football players look good. (The football guys in this school were absolute pigs and it was awful.) Add in the concept of “different girls brought together under a common revenge goal” and I was SOLD. I felt a lot of things while reading this book! I didn’t ever want to stop reading because I was JUST as determined as these girls to get back at the football players. These guys were absolutley horrible! (Nearly all of them, at least…) They had awful lists about girls and forced guys to break up with their girlfriends if they weren’t up to their standards. They got away with doing anything they wanted and had major preferential treatment from everyone in the school. I kept thinking of the Amy Schumer “Football Town Nights” video, which I won’t link up here for potential trigger warnings. (Google it, if you’re interested!) Everyone in the town perpetuates rape culture without even realizing it. As this book said, “Rape culture isn’t something feminists made up to be angry about.” I liked the romance in this one, although it wasn’t as important. The main point of the book is revenge against dickhead boys, and that took center stage. The most heavily romance-related ones were Melanie Jane’s and Liv’s points of […]

ARC Review: Emmy & Oliver

Posted June 15, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

I can’t lie when I say I was a bit hesitant going into this one. I enjoyed Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway but wanted a little more. I LOVE how unique the concepts of her books are. She takes a cool plot idea, adds great characters, and gives it a great contemporary feel without being too predictable. Sometimes love isn’t something you say, it’s something you do.” (pg. 75, ARC) This book blew me away. I was utterly addicted to it and needed to know how things turned out. If I could have stuck with Emmy and Oliver (the main characters, obviously) forever, I would have. There were so many endearing moments that just killed me with feels. The main premise is that Emmy’s best friend, Oliver, was kidnapped by his father 10 years ago and the family/neighborhood never really moved on. Suddenly Oliver is found and returning home to his mom, who is now remarried and has two kids. Naturally everything takes some getting used to. Oliver doesn’t remember everyone as much as they remember him, but he does end up falling back into his old crowd of friends: Emmy, Caro, and Drew. The minute Oliver was introduced, I fell in love. Seeing him and Emmy fall back in together had me so anxious and full of love; I just NEEDED them to get together immediately. Emmy was an interesting character because she was constantly hiding things from her parents, like the fact that she applied to college and enjoyed surfing, because […]

Blog Tour Review: Kissing in America

Posted May 22, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

I really, really enjoyed this book. I couldn’t put it down. I love when a book can completely set the scene and give me plenty of things to relate to. I’ve been liking the format of “five reasons to read” for reviews sometimes, so without further ado… Five Reasons to Read Kissing in America 1. The Road Trip This is definitely the kind of book that gets me in the mood to travel. I love the idea of taking a cross-country road trip and am absolutely determined to do it someday. I have to say, I wouldn’t enjoy the exact same trip that these girls had, but it definitely gave me some inspiration! The story centers around Eva and her best friend Annie traveling to California. They’re headed to a TV competition for Annie to win scholarship money, but Eva organizes the trip with the purpose of visiting Will, a boy she’s been falling for. I loved reading about the two of them traveling the country, stopping and meeting some interesting characters, and exploring a lot of feelings. I love when books motivate me to get up and DO SOMETHING. 2. The Friendship Annie and Eva had a really strong relationship. I loved that they were both incredibly smart and talked about way more complex things than people their age. Eva made some mistakes, especially at the end, but Annie was always there to listen and help her. I can’t imagine Eva being an easy person to be friends with, but […]

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 […]

Blog Tour Review: 99 Days

Posted April 20, 2015 / Book Reviews / 15 Comments

Learn more about the author and enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post! I’m very particular about writing my reviews essentially right after I finish the book. I can’t let my thoughts just sit around in my head, because I will inevitably lose them within a day or two (sometimes much sooner). This book, though, is one that took me longer to digest. I didn’t have mixed feelings on it or anything, which is sometimes the reason I need a few days, but I knew I really appreciated what this book did and how it made me feel. It’s a really hard topic and situation to get involved in, but I think Kate Cotungo did an absolutely amazing job. The general love triangle topic/trope can be VERY polarizing with readers. If it’s something you’re not opposed to in general, I urge you to try this book out. (I’m not one to discount a love triangle as long as it’s believable, well-done, and involves no insta-love. More on that later.) I couldn’t stop reading this. Occasionally there are books where I can say “yep, I finished this in two sittings” but that’s just because I had a lot of time on my hands. This is a book where I could absolutely not stop reading and was determined to see how it all ended. So yes, I totally read this in two long sittings. I couldn’t get enough. I want to compare it to that metaphor where it’s like a […]

ARC Review: The Pretty App

Posted April 17, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

The fastest and easiest thing I can say about this book is this: if you read The Boyfriend App, imagine that you took that book and stripped away a layer or two. Take away some of the cute romance, some of the charming characters, and some of the deeper meanings and morals. Voilà! You have The Pretty App. That sounds harsh, but notice I said the word SOME a lot. I don’t think its a lot worse by any means, I just think it’s a more superficial version of the same book… and it still happens to be damn enjoyable! I was interested initially to get inside Blake’s head. In the first book, she’s the school’s mean girl and doesn’t seem to have many, if any, redeeming qualities. It was kind of exactly what I predicted. She views herself as just a pretty face, she has issues with her family, and she puts other people down to feel better about herself. Cue the character development into a glowing, respectable young woman by the end of the book. (Kind of. She always said she would still have a bit of a “bitch” in her, which I actually appreciated; it was more realistic that way – saying that she could never change some parts of who she is.) It did bug me HOW OFTEN they talked about how she was soooo pretty and had nothing else going for her. She constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY talked about her looks being her only good quality; she’s not […]

ARC Review: Things We Know By Heart

Posted April 15, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

I am actually pretty bummed about this book… which you would never guess, based on the decent rating. I had to break it down with my rating report, below, in order to sort my feelings out. If there was a way to give this 3.75 stars, I would. [EDIT: Upon further reflection, my rating has come down quite a lot. The issues I explain here have only bothered me MORE with time.] This book was easily at the top of my most-anticipated list for this year and the lovely Brittany let me borrow it ahead of time. There was just something about the topic that really drew me in. I expected something very heavy and sad, yet emotionally gripping and (hopefully) uplifting/ inspiring by the end. That’s not exactly what I got. When I first started the book, I was immediately drawn in. I wanted to know exactly what happened with Trent, how she tried to move on, and her experiences with the other organ recipients. Again, I didn’t exactly get that. The timeframe of this book starts a year after Trent dies and after she’s already met every other organ recipient. The boy who got the heart, Colton, never wrote back to her. She takes it upon herself to track him down and accidentally gets involved with him. Of course, you can immediately tell that this is going to be one of those books where she holds out until the last second to tell him the truth about how she […]