Publisher: Harper Collins

ARC Reviews: Meet Me Here and Autofocus

Posted May 26, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I love books that take place in one night. The character just graduated or has one night left before college or is leaving for some reason, and they spend all night with their friends making memories. It’s just a fun plotline to me and definitely read-bait. This book definitely had that element. On the other hand, it had some military plotlines that don’t resonate with me as much. I loved one book involving PTSD and loved it, but read another with someone in the military and didn’t enjoy it very much at all. They can be hit or miss I guess but it’s just not a topic that interests me. So, you could say I went into this book with mixed expectations. Thomas is shipping out the morning after graduation, to follow in his brother’s and father’s footsteps. It’s something he’s kind of always wanted to be a part of but also feels forced into because of the familial expectations. The story takes place the night of/after graduation and kicks off with him coming back into contact with his childhood best friend, Mallory. She has some complicated things happening on her end, and the two of them set off to complete some childhood missions. The book travels with them (and other friends, relatives, and new acquaintances) across town. Thomas is planning on running away by morning instead of shipping out because he doesn’t want to be “messed up” like his brother is now that he’s home from the war. I’m […]

ARC Review: Wanderlost

Posted May 23, 2016 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments

What an adorable, swoon-filled read this was! I have loved international-travel-oriented books in the past because it usually gives me insane feelings of wanderlust. (Meant to Be and Just One Day/Year to name a few highly recommended reads!) I’ve actually never been out of the country and this book definitely got me thinking about it. Amsterdam sounds particularly beautiful and luckily that’s at the top of Chris’s travel list too! Anyways, back to the book… I wasn’t sure what to expect but I really wanted a nice fluffy contemporary involving cool places in Europe. That’s exactly what I got! There were a few main elements of the story that led to some predictability (basically the big ol’ lie to everyone), but the cute/swoon factor completely overpowered any qualms I had with cliches. The story centers around Aubree, who is the reason her sister (Elizabeth) got arrested and can’t take a group of senior citizens on a European tour group. She fills in for her, lies to her parents about where she is for the summer, and pretends to be her sister all around Europe. She also meets a VERY CUTE BOY who happens to be the tour company’s owner’s son. You can assume from this description what will end up happening, but it’s the journey of the whole story that makes it great. I loved reading about the different countries and getting to know the 6 seniors onboard. They were all fantastic and had such distinct personalities. I wish there […]

Blog Tour | Cover Colors: Ask Me How I Got Here

Posted May 13, 2016 / Book Reviews, Cover Colors, Features / 6 Comments

MORE LINKS: Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository Cover Colors I ended up doing two different book-based looks here. I couldn’t resist doing my usual one based on the cover of the book. She’s on the beach and it has that great red color. I chose a beachy look using those colors first. Outfit based on the cover Ask Me How I Got Here Beach by bookmarklit featuring John Robshaw Outfit based on the character Then, the main character runs cross-country in the story and decides to stop running after her experience. I’m not a runner by any means, but I knew I needed to make a cute running/workout outfit for her when I saw those SHOES. Loooove. (She references purple Sauconys in the book but I loved these too much!) Ask Me How I Got Here Run by bookmarklit featuring flower pattern shoes Mini Review I was so excited about Poisoned Apples last year and it truly didn’t disappoint. Clearly I can count on Christine Heppermann to write stories and poetry that appeal to my feminist soul. This story, written in verse, definitely did. Abbie is a cross country runner who gets a new boyfriend, gets pregnant, and decides to have an abortion. Pretty heavy stuff! Abortion is not a topic discussed often in general, let alone in a YA novel. I would love to see this told in a standard novel format instead of verse, but I think she did such a great job with it regardless. I never […]

ARC Review: Unrivaled

Posted May 9, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

This was a super super super addicting read! I don’t know how else to explain it, except I’ve never said “okay just one more chapter” more times in my ENTIRE life. I planned to read up to the 200 page mark before bed and ended up staying up for 2 more hours to just finish. I kid you not, every. single. chapter. I kept saying I would quit and I couldn’t. I needed to see what was going to happen! So aside from the addictiveness, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of substance. My gut reaction is to give this book like 5 stars because I was so enthralled while reading, but I can’t ignore some major issues. First of all, I didn’t like the characters at all. None of them had any qualities or personality traits that resonated with me and they absolutely felt like cardboard cut-outs. I don’t need to LIKE a character to like a book, but I at least need to understand them and feel like they’re more than a stereotype. These people were walking stereotypes of a wannabe journalist (Layla), wannabe actress (Aster), and wannabe musician (Tommy). I liked the chapters with Madison the best because she had a secretive, mysterious past that I was determined to figure out. Overall, they weren’t great people. They were all attracted to fame and fortune, plus winning the competition… so yeah. Not perfect. AGAIN this is fine for me usually, but they were too blah for me to care […]

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 Review: The Way Back to You

Posted April 28, 2016 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

So this is a really strong 4 stars for me. Sometimes I think I could round it up because I really loved it so much as I was reading it! The only issue I’m finding is that I finished the book last night and don’t feel as much of an impact as I expected. The book is about some generally heavier topics so I expected for the ~feels~ to last me a few days. I know my bookish memory is not great at all, but still. I don’t know what it is. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the many, many things I LOVED about this book: Characters I loved learning about Cloudy and Kyle. I thought they had an interesting dynamic and I was really interested to see what transpired between them (that led to their current non-friendship). I wish more was fleshed out surrounding that, or at least about their relationship before Ashlyn and Kyle started dating. I guess I just wanted all that spoiler-y stuff to be beefed up more. I didn’t feel some of it as much as I’d like to in that situation. Lots of telling and not showing. Road trip I love books involving road trips and journeys of any kind. This one had a unique reason (more on that in a second), so I was even more excited. There’s just something about being on the open road with someone, going from place to place, that makes me wanderlust-y. What […]

ARC Review: Queen of Hearts

Posted April 21, 2016 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

This was overall an interesting retelling set in Wonderland, from the perspective of the soon-to-be Queen of Hearts, Dinah. Something happens very early in the book that still feels like a spoiler (it’s not said in the synopsis), so I won’t mention it… although it’s central to the rest of the plot. Anyways, I have mostly mixed feelings about this one? It’s kind of hard to explain this story… mostly because not much happens. I was about 60% of the way through and was able to explain the entire plot to my boyfriend within three sentences. Part of this is because it’s very info-dump-y in the beginning. There were little conversations where side characters would be explaining something to Dinah even though she already knew these random facts about Wonderland. I know these existed to cleverly explain things to the reader, but it felt SO forced. It really just read like an info-dump about the world. A lot of the early chapters involved this so the book had not a lot of action for a loooong time. Along those same lines, the pacing felt weird. The story seems to happen over the course of a year. The first scene happens, then the next chapter is six months later. Then another scene happens, and it jumps ahead a month or two. I don’t know why this was necessary because I feel like everything could have just happened in a more natural timeline? I saw Khanh’s review where she says the book feels like […]

ARC Review: Dreamology

Posted April 7, 2016 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments

I knew I needed this book the moment I saw it – starting with the cover and ending with the synopsis. It sounded right up my alley because it seemed parallel universe-ish and dreamy and did I mention that cover?? I somehow didn’t grab it at ALA because I’m a chicken about talking to publishers, but luckily I was able to grab it from an ARC tour. I seriously seriously loved this book. The concept and storyline was incredibly unique. Basically, Max and Alice have been dreaming about each other since they were kids. Then, she moves to Boston, finds out Max is a real person, and things! develop! I shipped these two literally immediately, during the first dream we got to see. The characters were just SO funny, adorable, and charming. Alice and Max were cute cute CUTE. I loved all of the secondary characters as well: the humor that Oliver brought to the story, Alice’s friendship with Sophie, the inclusion of Celeste, and Jerry the awesome dog. The story definitely had some sciencey elements because obviously these two are legit sharing dreams, but I like that it didn’t get too bogged down with the details as they started figuring THINGS out. It’s very much a contemporary romance – not a lot of sci-fi or paranormal as you may think. A few other things I loved? They were teens who sometimes went to a party and had some drinks. I always think it’s refreshing when there are party-like scenes that […]

Review: Liars, Inc.

Posted March 30, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I totally thought The Art of Lainey would be my first Paula Stokes book because, c’mon, it’s right up my alley. I ended up adding this one to the poll for my YA book club and it was chosen for March’s read. I finished the book within two sittings – it was super fast but unfortunately predictable for me. I always say that I’m terrible about guessing mysteries, but that’s changed recently. Maybe I’m reading too many books like this (even though it doesn’t feel that way) or I’m too comfortable with YA. All of the YA mystery/thrillers I read tend to follow a similar formula and I find myself guessing whodunit without much thought. I know I’m not the target age for them necessarily, so I hope teens have a better time with them! I said during my reading progress on Goodreads that it’s always hard to believe YA mysteries because it just doesn’t feel logical that teens are this involved in murder mysteries. Brittany said it better over here too. The story set-up was kind of cool too. The book started at the end-ish, then jumped to the beginning to backtrack, then went back to the end. I liked that it started the story with a “bang” (haha, literally). That always adds some intrigue to stories for me. Anyways, yeah – this one was too predictable for me. I skimmed a few reviews on Goodreads and it seems like most people were surprised by the ending. Don’t get me […]

Blog Tour | Review: A Study in Charlotte

Posted February 25, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I’m always interested in retellings – even the non-fairytale ones. Those are more common, for sure, but some of the historical retellings are more unique. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about historical figures, so I’m usually entering them blindly… but still end up enjoying them! I’m not overly familiar with Sherlock Holmes stories, so this was another where I luckily didn’t have a lot of historical expectations. It’s nice because I go into it with a wide-open attitude, instead of preparing to make comparisons to the real text. In this story, Sherlock and Holmes were real people that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about. The main characters are Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes, the descendants of the famous detective duo. One of the cooler parts of the book for me is the fact that it takes place in my state – Connecticut! I don’t see a lot of books happening here, so that was almost reason enough to add it to my TBR. It’s funny because the Holmes/Watson relationship ended up being my favorite part of the book! I loved the dynamic between the two of them. I hope it lines up well with the original stories, but from someone who doesn’t know – it was awesome. From what I do understand, they both had similar personality traits to their ancestors. It was cool to see how they come together at the beginning of the book, and how their relationship grows. Great chemistry! The dynamic was definitely different because […]