Publisher: Macmillan

Review Round Up | Truly Devious and Renegades

Posted February 22, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 3 Comments
Review Round Up | Truly Devious and Renegades

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 love books about boarding school and have really been meaning to read Maureen Johnson, so it’s only natural that TRULY DEVIOUS intrigued me right away. I requested it from the library before it even came out, so my hold came in immediately. I quickly started reading… and quickly finished in two sittings. I read 70% of a 400+ page book in one night and could not stop reading if I tried, even though my eyes kept closing on me from exhaustion. I was fascinated and intrigued by the story from the very beginning. Everything from the setting (remote Vermont boarding school for incredibly smart kids) to the mixing of past and present (1936 when the first murders and kidnappings happened and present day when Stevie attends the school) kept pulling me in. While there were some parts that dragged a little and even confused me (why so many characters?!), I was hooooooked. Stevie was an interesting main character and I LOVED her interest in true crime. I’m a podcast addict when it comes to that topic as well. Her friends and housemates were all unique and compelling from the beginning, even though it was sometimes hard to keep track of all the characters involved. There are […]

Review Round Up | Surprise Me and Gone Rogue

Posted February 8, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 Comments
Review Round Up | Surprise Me and Gone Rogue

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’ve been a fan of Sophie Kinsella since wayy before these books were “appropriate” for me. I read some of the SHOPAHOLIC series back before high school. I read a few more in 2014 and loved her latest release before this one, so clearly I was jazzed up for SURPRISE ME. I liked Sylvie and Dan as a couple, with them finishing each other’s sentences and managing to have a really solid relationship. When the whole “you have 65 years left together because you’re super healthy and will live LONG lives” thing comes up, they’re both thrown. How are they going to survive THAT many years together? It’s a reality check for them and even though there’s really not much wrong with their relationship necessarily, they second-guess everything. Sylvie develops this plan where they surprise each other with little things to keep everything interesting. Naturally, the surprises go awry and Sylvie learns that surprises aren’t the only key to a long and healthy marriage. The whole situation about Sylvie’s father that died and her weird mother was… interesting. She had the opposite of the traditional “daddy issues” thing – she was obsessed with her dad and thought he was a perfect hero. She had a very odd […]

Review Round Up | They Both Die at the End, Foolish Hearts, Top Ten, and Wonder Woman: Warbringer

Posted January 24, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 6 Comments
Review Round Up | They Both Die at the End, Foolish Hearts, Top Ten, and Wonder Woman: Warbringer

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 definitely DID expect for this book to wreck me, based on what the last Silvera book did to me, and that doesn’t even consider the countless reviews of THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END where people talked about it wrecking them. I was totally prepared for it and not nearly prepared enough at the same time. The story is set in the near-future world, where a company called Death-Cast calls you on the day you’re going to die. You don’t know how or when specifically, but just that you have less than 24 hours left. Rufus and Mateo both receive the call and meet up through the Last Friend app. I’m so happy that I ended the year with this book. Can you ask for a better rating to finish a reading year?! Adam Silvera writes such compelling stories with characters I grow to love so quickly. Seeing people just go through one 24 hour period and feeling connected to them in that short of a timeframe is really powerful to me. I love stories where people are connected in ways you don’t understand at first. The first part of the book alternates between Mateo and Rufus as they learn their fates. The following parts include […]

ARC Reviews: Pretty Dead Girls and As You Wish

Posted January 18, 2018 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
ARC Reviews: Pretty Dead Girls and As You Wish

I was looking forward to this book but I’m always nervous about mystery/thrillers. I’ve said in the past how I’m not really great at figuring them out, so if I DO happen to determine whodunnit too early… the book gets a little ruined for me. Frankly it’s because I don’t read a lot of murder mysteries; I tend to think all of the ones I read are SO good because they always manage to blow my mind. I wish I could say that was the case here. So aside from that element, which I’ll get to after, I didn’t love a lot of the OTHER parts of this book either. The main character, Penelope, is characterized as this perfectionist with parents who push her into doing everything. She has siblings who suffered the same fate but they’re all apparently well-adjusted kids still. I thought this sounded like a recipe for disaster, but instead it was completely glossed over and barely discussed. It’s the kind of thing that could lead to some major character flaws or a showdown later in the book. Unfortunately, Penelope just completely fell flat for me. Her internal monologue and constant need to start fights with Cass was increasingly annoying with every fight she instigated. I totally get being cautious because you barely know the dude and there’s a murderer out there… but this was so excessive and REPETITIVE. She accused him of the same things and they had the same conversations all the time, as if […]

Review Round Up | The Language of Thorns, Every Heart a Doorway, and War of the Cards

Posted January 5, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 11 Comments
Review Round Up | The Language of Thorns, Every Heart a Doorway, and War of the Cards

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! Ayama and the Thorn Wood  This story really hooked me after the first couple of pages; what an interesting collection of stories this already is shaping up to be! I liked this story a lot. I always struggle with reviewing short stories but Bardugo’s writing style is gorgeous and addicting. The Too-Clever Fox  Another excellent one. This one was very clever (lolz) and I didn’t expect that ending. Loved it. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be ~learning lessons~ from these but I am so bad about fables haha. The Witch of Duva  Another excellent one. This one was very clever (lolz) and I didn’t expect that ending. Loved it. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be ~learning lessons~ from these but I am so bad about fables haha. Little Knife  I liked the message of this one. Bardugo is really good at surprising me when I reach the end of each story. The Soldier Prince  Gorgeous writing as usual but I’m not 100% sure what happened there, or what the message is? The concept overall was interesting but still don’t know what any of it means or what really happened haha. When Water Sang Fire  I wish I had a better memory of the other Grisha […]

Holiday Reviews: My New Crush Gave to Me and Winter Solstice

Posted December 15, 2017 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments
Holiday Reviews: My New Crush Gave to Me and Winter Solstice

Story I was really hoping for something cute and Christmassy, which I got in some ways. Unfortunately I spent most of the book incredibly frustrated by the clueless yet often bitchy and domineering main character. I like predictable holiday stories because they’re comforting but there was literally no surprise for any element of the plot. By a quarter of the way through the book, I knew every detail about how it was going to end. The side characters were fun and nice people who definitely put up with Charlie FAR longer than I would have. Her best friend was too understanding but it helped that there wasn’t a best-friend-fight subplot. The general storyline is that she is determined (with absolutely no actual evidence) that Teo is the perfect boyfriend for her, so she stops at nothing to make this happen… and I mean nothing. She refuses to see any kind of sign that maybe he’s not the right guy for her and ignores the compelling evidence that perhaps someone else is. I definitely wanted to give her a swift kick in the ass 99% of the time, which doesn’t make for the most fun holiday read. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The book took place in Connecticut, which I love, but they didn’t really make it a point to reference that too much. The main character has (in the past) loved Christmas and she celebrates pretty hard with her mom when she’s not working. (I literally can’t even remember if […]

Review Round Up | Kissing Max Holden and Follow Me

Posted December 4, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 3 Comments
Review Round Up | Kissing Max Holden and Follow Me

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! My sister lent me her copy and has been bugging me for MONTHS about reading it. I can’t say that I blame her now that I’ve finished it. What a wonderful contemporary I didn’t know I needed! I had just went through a binge of mysteries and other non-contemporaries when I decided I should give this one a try. It ended up being so perfect that I read it in one sitting and stayed up until 3 AM to finish. I would call this fluff, but it’s a liiiittle more serious that fluff often implies. There is a LOT going on, family-wise, in this book. I absolutely hated her dad the entire time I was reading and was hoping she would tell him off at some point. The familial relationships were incredibly complex, both for Max and Jill. Max’s dad was recovering from a stroke that changed their relationship and, as I mentioned, Jill’s dad was basically a dickhead. I loved seeing her relationship with her stepmom grow throughout the book too. The romance was solid. I love childhood friends/neighbors-to-more SO much, because you can just feel the history bubbling into something new. They had a solid base to build a real (romantic) relationship and it showed […]

ARC Review: In Some Other Life

Posted August 11, 2017 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments
ARC Review: In Some Other Life

Initial Excitement I adore parallel life books. Anything involving that premise goes on my TBR immediately. The concepts of fate and destiny vs. free will have always been super interesting to me. I’ve enjoyed the synopses of Brody’s books but hadn’t managed to pick one up until this one. I think I’ll definitely try her other sometime soon! Summary & Storytelling The story starts with a fairly long glimpse into Kennedy’s real life where she chose the public high school. She’s the school newspaper editor and helped revive it from being shut down. Soonafter the story starts, she discovers her best friend and her boyfriend kissing at his house. She rushes to the Windsor Academy, where she’s been secretly pining over the fact that she got in and didn’t go, and promptly hits her head. She wakes up from this concussion and is in the parallel universe where she said yes to Windsor Academy and started there instead. There’s no newspaper, she’s in Robotics Club, and plans to major in Economics in college. Basically, her life is super different. I loved that her younger brother, Frankie, is incredibly smart for his age and interested in physics. She was able to talk with him about what happens and he came up with theories about the parallel universes out there. Usually books like this involve the main character having no one to talk with about what’s going on with them. It was annoying because she knew what happened when she moved into the […]

Review Round Up | Here Lies Daniel Tate, Just Dreaming, and Same Beach, Next Year

Posted August 3, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments
Review Round Up | Here Lies Daniel Tate, Just Dreaming, and Same Beach, Next Year

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 backlist books I’ve read or listened to recently. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I was pretty eager to get my hands on HERE LIES DANIEL TATE. I’ve thought about ALL OUR YESTERDAYS so much since I finished it a few years ago and have been hoping for a new book from Terrill. This one seriously did not disappoint! I expected something twisty that I couldn’t put down and I totally got that. “Daniel” is the ultimate unreliable narrator. He blatantly lies, tells you that he was lying, and always implies that maybe some of the story isn’t even true. I can’t say too much about him or the plot without giving a lot away about what happens, but just know that his unreliability does not change. I still, weirdly, found myself liking him as a main character. Mia was super adorable and Nicholas was really interesting as well. I have a few issues overall, but not much. I think the inclusion of some kind of “romance” was definitely not necessary. I mean, I can sort of see why it was included? Minor spoiler in italics: I think it was to show that the MC was really a normal human boy with feelings, or at least was starting to develop them. It added a little bit to his character because part of him really just wanted that normal life and […]

ARC Reviews: Roar and Trusting You & Other Lies

Posted June 19, 2017 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments
ARC Reviews: Roar and Trusting You & Other Lies

I’ve seen some pretty stellar early reviews for this one, plus Cora Carmack is one of my favorite NA authors… so needless to say, I had fairly high expectations! I usually would blame my negative feelings about this book on those expectations and hype, but I absolutely don’t think that was the case here. I was on the fence about reading this one in the first place because the synopsis didn’t really sound like a Lauren book. I decided to give it a go because of the reviews and author, but I ended up pretty disappointed. I’ll keep this short and break it down by the main elements of the story. Main plot: The story is about a princess, Aurora (or Ror, or Roar) who doesn’t have any magic. She has a marriage alliance planned with a prince of Locke (another kingdom) in order to avoid this information getting out. She soon learns that there’s a way of essentially buying magic on the black market and decides to set off on a journey with a group of stormhunters. I honestly thought the plot was kind of boring? I really didn’t care what was happening and often had no motivation to pick up the book. It was a struggle. I like books where people are on the road journeying and training with magic, but this book had almost no ~major events~ I can think of. Main character: On top of the pretty boring plot, Aurora was a boring character for me. Locke thought she was […]