Publisher: Penguin

Review: Where She Went

Posted August 13, 2014 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

Contains spoilers if you haven’t read If I Stay! Review: If you haven’t read If I Stay [review here], you should probably read that before reading this review! Overall, I liked this one better than If I Stay. I think. To me, they were just so different. The first book is from Mia’s perspective, where you learn about her family, friends, and boyfriend as she decides if she should live or die. Once you get to know her parents and brother, you understand why this is a difficult decision for her, now that they have passed away. She can take the easy route and join them wherever they ended up, or she can struggle through the rest of her life without her family but with her boyfriend and bright musical future ahead of her. She ends up deciding to stay. At the end of the book, I was itching to know a little bit more about what happens next. I didn’t feel like there was closure. I think that If I Stay could have been a standalone, but I’m glad it wasn’t. I loved Adam from the first book and when I learned that Where She Went was from his perspective, I was very excited…. until I read the plot summary. She left him?? How could she do that!? I was initially pissed but then realized how hard it must have been for both of them. I was glad the two would have a chance to meet up again and hopefully start their […]

Isla Is Coming Readalong / Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door

Posted August 11, 2014 / Book Challenges, Book Reviews, Features / 6 Comments

The Isla Is Coming readalong kicked off on the last day of July and I decided to take part! Unlike most people participating, I’m reading the series for the first time. (Click on the picture on the right to read the informational post). I finished Anna and the French Kiss WAY too early and waited to start Lola and the Boy Next Door with the rest of the readers. I finished Lola within 24 hours as well! Of course, the point of the readalong is to gear up for the third book’s release – Isla and the Happily Ever After on the 14th. So now here’s my review for the second book in the Isla Is Coming readalong! Review: As predicted, I loved this book. It was hard not to compare it to Anna and the French Kiss, though… I found myself doing that a lot. I think there were enough similarities and differences to make this book really a great follow-up. Perkins does a wonderful job of bringing variety to a typical YA book/topic. There was somewhat of a love triangle, which I normally don’t care for, but the reader obviously knows how the book is going to end and who she is going to end up with. It always takes the main character a lot longer than the reader to figure out! Lola was very different from Anna, which I liked. She had two dads and a messed-up biological mom, who all worked together to make a pretty interesting family dynamic. It was […]

Review: If I Stay

Posted August 9, 2014 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Review: My expectations were too high with this novel. Everyone constantly raves about it and I’ve seen countless 5 star reviews. I’m not sure why, but it just didn’t hit that level for me. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked this book. I can see why it’s so popular and I’m really glad I read it, but I was expecting to be blown away. This tweet kind of sums up my reaction: I gave 'If I Stay' 3 stars immediately, got off the couch, thought about it and let it really sink in, then bumped it up to 4 stars lol — Lauren (@bookmarklit) August 8, 2014 When I finished the book, I was really surprised. I was like “that was it?” — but that was mostly because there were a million fuckin pages at the end of the book for discussion questions and author questions and other shit. I was totally caught off guard; I thought I had a good 30 pages left to read. In other words, I wasn’t mentally prepared for the book to end. It sounds stupid, but it completely threw me off and made me think “wow I don’t know if I liked this book that much.” After getting off the couch for a few minutes and coming back, I started to let the book sink in (like an ending normally would have). I’m pleased with the way it ended, after a lot of thought. This is definitely the kind of book that resonates with […]

Isla Is Coming Readalong / Review: Anna and the French Kiss

Posted August 2, 2014 / Book Challenges, Book Reviews, Features / 5 Comments

The Isla Is Coming readalong kicked off on the last day of July and I decided to take part! Unlike most people participating, I’m reading the series for the first time. (Click on the picture on the right to read the informational post). I started reading Anna and the French Kiss on Friday, when the readalong started, and I basically haven’t stopped it reading since. I just finished the book (WAY too early!) and now I’m going to wait another few days before starting Lola and the Boy Next Door with the rest of the readers. It’ll be hard to resist but I really want to keep pace with the readalong. Of course, the point of the readalong is to gear up for the third book’s release – Isla and the Happily Ever After on the 14th. Judging by how much I absolutely loved the first book, I’m sure I’ll really enjoy the next two in this totally adorable trilogy. So now here’s my review for the first book in the Isla Is Coming readalong! Review: This is exactly what I’m looking for when I read a young adult romance. All YA authors should read this book before writing one of their own. I feel like I smiled to myself like an idiot throughout the whole book; it was just so damn cute. Anna was one of the most relatable characters I’ve encountered. Her experiences completely mirror those of the average teenage girl: getting screwed over by a best friend, falling for a boy […]

Review: The Husband’s Secret

Posted July 28, 2014 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

Review: I was surprised at how suspenseful a non-mystery/suspense book could be. I got wrapped up in this book so quickly that I spent most of my work day sneakily reading it on my computer’s Kindle app. I could absolutely not stop. The beginning was the most suspenseful part of the book. It kept building and building until I said JESUS what did this dude write in the letter?!?! Once you finally find out, the novel slowly starts falling together. I’ll say it for the hundredth time: I LOVE books with multiple perspectives/characters whose lives are somehow intertwined. I knew that the different characters in the book would end up coming together somehow but it took some time to get going. I think that helped though; you were able to learn about each character/family without getting caught up in the holy-shit part. The story follows multiple characters and switches between them for each chapter. It takes a good author to pull this off without being confusing (I’m looking at you, Jennifer Close. Ugh). Cecilia is the woman whose husband wrote the lifechanging letter. Tess is a woman who comes home to her mother’s house after her husband has betrayed her in the worst possible way. Rachel is an older woman whose daughter died at a young age. I’ll admit that I had sort of figured out what the letter was going to say before reading it, but that totally didn’t impact the novel for me. I was so happy to follow […]