Publisher: Macmillan

Reviews: Scarlet and Cress

Posted November 5, 2015 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments
Reviews: Scarlet and Cress

I think my feelings for this book can be summed up in my Goodreads review, which is usually just a quick snapshot of my gut reaction: Okay yeah, so I am really enjoying this series so far! It’s not what I was expecting (in a good way) but somehow I’m not in LOVE with it like most people. I’m sad about that. I’ve heard that a lot of people count Cress as their favorite, though, so I’m feeling really good about the next book. As for Scarlet, I feel like I didn’t get enough of SCARLET! I love that these books alternate around between some of the main characters, but Cinder’s story from this book is sticking more in my mind than Scarlet’s chapters. I don’t know if it’s because I was more interested in Thorne than Wolf – or something similar – but damn. I kept itching for Cinder’s chapters. I loved the end of the book, when all of the stories connected and everyone came together. I can’t wait to see how they mix in Cress and other new characters in the next couple of books! Stories that have characters whose lives are connected (usually without them personally know each other) are always fun for me. These books, so far, feature a decent amount of action throughout, and then a little uptick towards the end. Usually that climax is what keeps me interested and prepares me for the next book. I’m really glad that I started Scarlet late in the readalong, so […]

ARC Review: Young Widows Club

Posted November 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Review: Young Widows Club

Sigh. For a book with such a sad premise, I sure didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t expecting to like this one that much but I wanted to try it out anyways. The writing wasn’t too bad but the feels and emotions were just straight up nonexistent for me. Tamsen (weird name) got married to her longtime boyfriend Noah when she was just seventeen. Six weeks later, he dies unexpectedly in his sleep. She’s reeling and not sure what to do with herself. Her entire life revolved around him and his band; she even dropped out of high school to work on band manager stuff. The book focused on Tam’s life six months after he passes away. She’s forced to join a Young Widows Club, go back to high school, and think about getting her life back on track. The overall premise of the book was pretty good and interesting enough. Tam as a character was super boring because she didn’t have a life or interests aside from Noah and his friends. Moving on from his death was a huge deal because she had to figure out what kind of future she actually wanted, without him in it. She spends time getting back in touch with her old friend Lula (another weird name) and repairing her relationship with her dad and stepmother. Like I said, I definitely didn’t feel a lot of emotion from this book. Her struggles in finding herself and moving on were at the forefront, but they still didn’t […]

ARC Review: The Anatomical Shape of a Heart

Posted November 2, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Review: The Anatomical Shape of a Heart

The premise of this book and the characters inside it were just so unique – I knew I was going to like it (at the very least!). I have definitely not read a book about a girl who draws cadavers and dreams of being a medical illustrator, or a boy who is a graffiti artist with lots of family secrets. Both Bex and Jack felt so real, interesting, and different. I say this a lot, but I love when a YA book features strong family presence. There were some great scenes with Bex, her mom, and her brother. They were so funny and her mom was the best: super understanding and compassionate. I loved the interactions between the people in Bex’s family. I wish there was even more time with them. Even Jack’s family presence (and growth) was strong, and he was just the love interest. I think the biggest thing I loved about this book was how unique it is. The story is unlike any that I’ve ever read. It’s not every day that you meet characters with such interesting backgrounds and interests. They both felt fully developed to me. As I said earlier, Bex wants to be the next great medical illustrator, so she gains access to some cadavers at the local university. She meets Jack on the late night train and discovers that he’s the notorious graffiti artist. The two of them hit it off literally instantly and their relationship grows from there. Jack kept a lot of secrets […]

ARC Review: Signs Point to Yes

Posted October 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments
ARC Review: Signs Point to Yes

I definitely have mixed feelings about this one. I usually write reviews right away, but I can’t really put all of my thoughts together. It doesn’t help either that it didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I started out being a fan of the three perspectives: Jane, Margo, and Teo. It sort of switched between the three of them with each chapter. Jane and Margo had an interesting sister dynamic. They apparently weren’t close before the book started, but conveniently became friends literally right as the book was starting. I also didn’t understand the friendship between Kavi and Teo. It took absolutely forever to figure out why Kavi hated Jane so much, and the reason ended up being completely ridiculous and stupid. I didn’t get it at all. The biggest thing I can say about this book is that it was awkward. Literally one part of dialogue was, “you keep doing these awesome things (69).”  I just didn’t feel like the dialogue worked at all. They were awkward characters, but it was further emphasized by the writing style. It was very “he said, then she said, then he said.” The third person point of view was interesting in some ways, but it made everything feel detached and not emotionally connected at all. There was a lot of telling instead of showing, which definitely bugged me. The whole premise of the book was kind of bizarre. I literally wrote in my notes that they had lots of “hairbrained” ideas. Next thing […]

Review: Cinder

Posted September 18, 2015 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments
Review: Cinder

Let me start out by saying, YES I finally read this book! Yes, for the first time. No, I’m not sure what took me this long. When Brittany mentioned a Lunar Chronicles readalong for this year, in preparation for the newest release, I knew that this would be my reason to finally read the series. I’ll say quickly: I’ve never had this much trouble coming up with a Friends connection for my GIF below! It usually takes me forever to find or create the right GIF, but the reference itself comes right into my brain. Regardless, I think this book is just so unique and hard to classify that – for once – my Friends-obsessed brain had some trouble! Well, what did I think? This was a really great series-starter! I’m so intrigued with this world and can’t wait to see what happens in the next installment. Cinder was an interesting character – she’s a cyborg who dealing with the prince’s sudden interest in her and her sister’s sudden illness, all while slowly learning some insane things about herself and her past. I didn’t fully connect with her for some reason, but that didn’t really damper my enjoyment for the book overall. It seems like her story is going to be the one carried through the rest of the series, all while highlighting new characters and, probably, locations. There’s this phenomenon that happens to me sometimes while I’m reading that I call being “mockingbirded.” When I was in high school reading To […]

Review: Fangirl

Posted August 21, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments
Review: Fangirl

Trust me, no one is sadder than I am that this book didn’t work for me. I mean, really, it had a lot of makings for a Lauren book. I used to read fanfiction A LOT about Harry Potter (I was particularly fond of a Draco/Hermione one that I’d give anything to locate again…) and I tend to love books with a college setting instead of high school. Unfortunately nearly none of this book worked for me, yet I couldn’t give it less than 3 stars no matter how much I tried. Let’s dig in a bit, shall we? Oh, Cath. MANY many people have said how much they related to Cath and how they saw so much of themselves in her. Relating to a main character is definitely not necessary for me to like a book. Hell, even LIKING a main character isn’t totally necessary for me. However, I did not like Cath at all. I couldn’t relate to her on really anything. I did not like reading about her at all. It makes me feel kind of… shitty… to be honest? You can tell that she definitely deals with some anxiety about loooots of things, but I couldn’t bring myself to be sympathetic. I honestly didn’t even realize right away that she had anxiety; I just thought she was annoying. It seems like she had friends (mostly through her sister) in high school and was better able to balance fanfic writing and social engagements. Sometimes people clam up in […]

Review: I’ll Meet You There

Posted August 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 14 Comments
Review: I’ll Meet You There

Man, what a book. I was a bit hesitant in a general sense for this book – despite all of the hype and excitement everyone else felt for it – just because it didn’t sound like a ME book at all. It seemed like a grittier contemporary with PTSD, poverty – you name it. For some reason books involving the military don’t work for me. However, this book definitely exceeded my personal expectations and I ended up liking it a lot more than expected. I loved that the issues explored within this book really aren’t seen much in other stories. Sky and Josh are from a really poor town called Creek View, where Sky lives in a trailer park with her mom. She works at a little motel that rarely gets visitors and her mom just got let go from Taco Bell. Sky’s dad died in a drunk driving accident. Josh returned from Afghanistan and is down to only one leg. He has nightmares and flashbacks; he’s not the same person he was when he left. See? Lots of things I’m generally not used to seeing or reading about – from socioeconomic status to trailer parks to PTSD. I really liked the small town of Creek View. It reminded me of my hometown in a FEW ways. I can’t lie – my hometown was definitely more towards the upper middle class… but it was very small and everyone knew each other. The setting of the Paradise Motel was pretty amazing […]

ARC Review: Dream a Little Dream

Posted April 10, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments
ARC Review: Dream a Little Dream

The Story The main premise of this story revolves around Liv and her extremely vivid dreams. Her family, which consists of her mother and sister (Mia), has moved around quite a bit over the recent years to follow different university jobs for her professor mother. They make their “final” move to London because her mom has landed her dream job at Oxford. Enter her mom’s new boyfriend, Ernest, and his two children, Grayson and Florence. The new blended family joins together in Ernest’s house and adjust to their lives together. Meanwhile, Liv’s dreams are getting crazy. She’s seeing people from school, including her new stepbrother and his friends, and they seem to recognize her too. I was a huge fan of the different worlds going on in this book: the dreams and reality. I didn’t expect some of the events or main parts of the plot to be as dark as they were, though! That was a bit much for me but I’m excited to see what happens. The book itself was VERY introductory. I cut the first book in a series some slack because it often is more informational than action-packed, but this was definitely an extreme example of that. This book was purely setting the stage for the other two books in the series. I enjoyed reading it but felt like nothing was happening. There wasn’t a lot of action at all; it was mostly explaining how things worked and learning about the characters. The Goodread synopsis doesn’t […]

Book Buddies Review: Ruin and Rising

Posted March 25, 2015 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 1 Comment
Book Buddies Review: Ruin and Rising

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 Kaitlin’s blog! (Link at the bottom) View Kaitlin’s part of the discussion here. Some decently big spoilers ahead regarding the ending and some plot points, especially if you haven’t read the whole series! Proceed with caution. Before starting this book, did you read any reviews on it? Do you generally read reviews before or after reading a book, and does it impact your reading if you read them before? Kaitlin: Usually I don’t read a review before reading a book. That’s what happens after I finish the book. If the person posts a review for a book plan to read then I’ll save it on Bloglovin for later. Other than that, no. Reviews are usually read after the book is finished. Same went for Ruin and Rising, I didn’t read reviews before I read it but since, now, I have already read it, I went ahead and let myself read reviews. My reason for that is usually to avoid spoilers. I understand that people don’t include spoilers […]

Review: Landline

Posted March 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments
Review: Landline

I feel like this past month has been full of books that I wasn’t sure how to rate, and this was no exception throughout most of the book. The ending REALLY sealed the deal for me (in a good way). I don’t think I have too much to say here, so I’ll break it down short and sweet. This book just felt so real: the feelings, the thoughts, the reactions. It reminds you that all relationships take work. You can’t take things for granted. There were lots of little lessons that make the reader really understand how things just can slip away undetected until you don’t even know how you arrived at where you are. Rainbow Rowell’s writing + the narrator = perfect. Highly recommend the audio version. The ending of the book brought a major smile to my face. I wasn’t sure how I felt about things for a while, because of all the reasons below, but I think the ending totally made up for all of it. Adorable. There were SO MANY great quotes. Some of my favorites are scattered around the post!     I really didn’t even like the characters… that seems like an awful big negative, eh? Well, throughout the whole book, Georgie made decisions and said things that just made her seem so selfish and self-destructive. She constantly took Neal for granted, worked too much, and just didn’t seem to care about any dreams but her own. Neal was totally too good for her… and […]