Publisher: Sourcebooks

Saying Goodbye to the Hundred Oaks Series | ARC Review: Coming Up for Air

Posted June 26, 2017 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

This is it! The end of the Hundred Oaks series by Miranda Kenneally. I’ve looked forward to each new installment since I read BREATHE, ANNIE, BREATHE back in 2014. I thought because of the cover that it wasn’t included in the same series, so I read it first. I ended up going back soonafter and reading the rest of them in order. Some of these books are all-time favorites and MK became an auto-buy author for me. I thought the final review for the final book would be a great place to share how much I love the series as a whole and rank them in order of favorites. Favorites, Ranked: #1- Catching Jordan – 5 stars – Football This one had me at football, but I love friends-to-more! #2 – Breathe, Annie, Breathe – 5 stars – Running Clearly my expectations for the rest were high right off the bat. #3 – Jesse’s Girl – 4.5 stars – Music There was something so addicting and cute about this one! #4 – Coming Up for Air – 4 stars – Swimming Super steamy and a wonderful conclusion to the series! #5 – Stealing Parker – 4 stars – Softball I loved reading about Parker and c’mon… Corn Dog. #6 – Defending Taylor – 4 stars – Soccer Taylor was a frustrating character, but the story was good. #7 – Racing Savannah – 3.5 stars – Horseback Riding This one just lacked a spark I can’t put my finger on, but still good! #8 – Things I Can’t Forget – 3 stars – Camp Too much religion […]

Mini ARC Reviews: Letters to the Lost, Pretty Fierce, Zenn Diagram, and Done Dirt Cheap

Posted April 3, 2017 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments

Am I the only one with a million ARCs of books releasing this month?! (Even this week in particular!) I wanted to bring together a few reviews here because there are just too many to include. I read some of these a long time ago and a couple of them more recently, but I’m going to pat myself on the back for getting a good portion of them done before their release date. All of these ones were mostly enjoyable – a few more than others – so be sure to read on! 😉 S H O R T & S W E E T A R C R E V I E W S I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Declan and Juliet were definitely interesting characters who were going through a LOT of shit. The premise of writing letters to each other was really sweet; I love the whole “hidden identity” letter-writing/online-chatting trope. There’s always the torturous waiting game to see when one or both of them realize who the other person is. In this case, it was fairly complicated as they grew to know each other IRL too. Like I said, both had a lot going on. Juliet was dealing with the unexpected death of her mother from earlier that year. Declan was dealing with community service requirements and big family-related issues. He was always angry and closed off from literally everyone, and Juliet was fairly similar except she was sad instead of mad. It […]

Mini Reviews: All the Summer Girls and The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

Posted July 11, 2016 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

I have a tendency to add adult fiction to my TBR alllll the time… and then never read it. I was randomly in the mood for some recently and a couple of them happened to be nice beachy reads. I spotted the first one on Hoopla and remembered being interested in it a few months ago. Then, I was browsing my Kindle for another read and remembered the eARC I’ve been putting off for no reason. It’s not nearly as summery or anything, but it is about a vacation (“holiday”) in general… so that counts.I saw mixed reviews for this one, but it seemed like a lot of my friends enjoyed it more than the random reviewers. I was quickly intrigued by the story but thought it was kind of heavy-handed at times. There wasn’t a lot going on and the secrets the characters were hiding seemed obvious to me. Kate felt like the main character even though it switched perspectives. She just got dumped and found out she was pregnant, so she uses her Bachelorette weekend to head to the Jersey Shore with her friends. Vanessa now is a stay-at-home mom who is getting feelings for an old boyfriend, despite being married. Dani is a free spirit kinda gal who kept moving west after losing 12 jobs in 7 years post-college. Needless to say, they’re all quite different. It was fun to see the friends get back into a rhythm after time apart, even though you knew tensions were […]

ARC Reviews: The Lost & Found and Defending Taylor

Posted July 4, 2016 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

I kind of just sat here and stared at my screen until I thought of words. This book was really, truly fantastic. If you like character-driven novels with adorable side characters too, read it. If you love road trip stories, read it. If you’re a fan of light magical realism, read it. If you’re a book blogger who can relate to internet friendships becoming real, read it. Honestly… I could go on like this for days. Frannie and Louis are online pen pal-type friends who met on a virtual support group website. They both end up on trips to Austin, TX (for different reasons, but also to see each other for the first time). As a special note of magical realism, the two of them are constantly losing things. They literally just disappear. Frannie has lost letters, photos, super soakers; Louis has lost tennis rackets, fabric, money. They start finding each other’s items as they travel towards each other, as if by magic. The entire story was just so endearing. I LOVED Frannie and Louis, and I almost equally loved their “partners” in the story. Frannie travelled with her cousin, Arrow, and Louis went with his twin sister, Willa. They all had such interesting backstories. Plus, diversity! Arrow was adopted from Vietnam, Willa lost her legs in an accident, and Louis/Willa were half Indian. All of these aspects were so seamlessly integrated into the story and discussed organically; it didn’t feel like diversity for the sake of diversity. Each character was […]

ARC Review: This Is Where It Ends

Posted January 8, 2016 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Whew, this book was not easy. I raced through it in one sitting on a Saturday night and was desperate to see how it all ended. Heartbreaking, terrifying, and real. This won’t be an easy review. I’m a Connecticut resident and live about an hour from Sandy Hook… plus I have a friend who is a teacher in that town. Needless to say, this book hit entirely too close to home (literally). School shootings are something that really scare me more than I can express. When I was younger I read books about Columbine and in high school I read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. I don’t know why, but these stories have always grabbed me. Maybe because it feels like your biggest fear realized. Aside from my personal connection and “interest,” this book was incredibly well-written and well-done. I sat on my couch and finished it within a couple of hours; I couldn’t stop. The book centers around an hour long period, from when the shooting starts until it ends. There are four main characters whose POVs get alternated between: Sylvia, Autumn, Tomas, and Claire. I won’t get too much into their relationships to each other and how they related to the shooter, but they were all definitely connected. I was nervous about all of these characters and their relationships at first, but I finally got the hang of it. Despite the constant POV changes, I really felt like I knew these characters. Maybe it’s because in your moments […]

DNF Review: The Heartbreakers

Posted August 13, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

When did you decide to DNF? I read 138 pages and then skimmed a little bit to see if anything interesting happened. Why did you quit? After 100+ pages I didn’t care about what was going to happen. I can only assume the main character and the boy band singer fall in love, have a fight, and then get back together. I’m cool with the typical YA storyline if I like the characters and feel invested, but I didn’t really feel that way with this one. The main character seemed to have a sort of “selective” feminism. She called her brother out for using her in a bet as a piece of meat, but she didn’t say anything when the boy she likes is sexist about girls and their favorite movies. She proved him wrong by telling him her favorites aren’t The Notebook and Titanic, but she wasn’t at all insulted that he assumed that. It just seemed weird that she’d yell at her brother for something like that but let the boy she (insta)likes do it without a problem. I’m not sure why this is the biggest thing that bugged me, but I really think it’s the main reason I said “never mind” to this book. The writing style felt a bit off too. It mostly had to do with the somewhat cliched teenager words/phrases that were trying too hard. A lot of the characterization of the triplets (the main character, her brother, and her sister) was very… forced? I’m not sure how […]

Review: Things I Can’t Forget

Posted July 2, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

This was not an easy book for me to read. You’d never guess that, considering I read it all in one night. Because of Kenneally’s writing and my love for the rest of this series, I’m really tempted to bump my rating up… but I just can’t do it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I read the book and got to see some of my favorite people again (Parker and Will, obvs). The events in this series kind of roll into each other for the rest of the books, so it’s awesome catching glimpses of people like JEREMIAH who I already know is going to be PERFECT in Breathe, Annie, Breathe. I don’t think you have to read this series in order (obviously I didn’t for the most part) but it really helps in that aspect. Anyway, again I’ll probably be divisive in my thoughts on this. It seems like most people really enjoyed this book. It was hard for me to let myself enjoy it because of the main character and her beliefs. I like to think I’m an understanding person that can respect others’ opinions, but that doesn’t mean I WANT to hear about some of them for 320 pages. I really can’t do it. I’m surprised I was able to push by some of that and eventually grow to (kind of) like Kate. Kate has always been the epitome of a good girl. She’s been kissed once, never EVER does anything bad, goes to church, and […]

Review: Stealing Parker

Posted June 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I adored the first two books I read by Miranda Kenneally: Catching Jordan and Breathe, Annie, Breathe. I read BAB first because I didn’t think it was included in the series. (At that time, it didn’t have the Hundred Oaks name next to the title on Goodreads!) I absolutely, unexpectedly LOVED it. I decided to go back and read her other books in the series, especially because CJ was about FOOTBALL which, as you know, is my entire life. Also loved it. So why the major hesitation to embark on the rest of the series? Religion. Gah. I don’t want to be divisive on here, but I will say that I was raised an atheist and continue to strongly hold those beliefs. As a result of that, it’s extremely hard for me to enjoy books that feature religion, praying, church, etc. in any way, shape, or form. This book wasn’t completely about church, but it was pretty strongly included. Definitely enough to make me roll my eyes a lot. I feel kind of bad saying this, because people are certainly free to believe whatever they believe, but it just doesn’t work for me. Did it dampen my enjoyment of this book? Yeah, definitely. Did I still really enjoy the book overall? Yes. I thought that Parker was kind of annoying at first and I was very excited for the impending character development that MK is famous for. Although I will say, I don’t understand what she meant by the fact […]

Blog Tour Review: Jesse’s Girl

Posted June 17, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

I love Miranda Kenneally’s books. I just binge read the middle few books in the series (since I previously read Catching Jordan and Breathe, Annie, Breathe out of order) before getting to this one. Although a couple of them (Stealing Parker and Things I Can’t Forget) are more religion-based than I personally enjoy, I still always love and appreciate the characters she writes. The romances are real and fun, the characters have distinct personalities, and the supporting characters also have complexities that get some attention. So, I’m happy to report that THIS BOOK made me so happy and hit the mark for me in nearly every possible way. I never really consider myself to be a big music buff; I don’t spend time seeking out new music or exploring artists. I stick to what I know and love, which is classic rock or 90’s music nearly 100% of the time. I’m not a big 80’s music fan (sorry, everyone!), but Maya still made me extremely happy with all of her musical referenes and her entire personality. I have to say, reading the countless comments about Queen made me incredibly gleeful. I LOVE QUEEN. FREDDIE MERCURY FOREVER. If she was going to be an 80’s girl and I’d be hearing about 80’s music, I’m so glad it was Queen. I do like a bit of country music too, so I was really excited about this book. Maya is Sam Henry’s little sister (so there was a LOT of Sam and Jordan, one of my […]

Blog Tour Review & Favorite Quotes: Gone Too Far

Posted January 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Review This is definitely a book that got stronger as it progressed. The first person perspective threw me off a little because I feel like most of the books I’ve read lately haven’t been. It’s a completely different reading experience, in my opinion. Some of the writing felt awkward at first because of that, but then I definitely got used to it. A lot of character names were introduced right away and I felt like they all blended together, but again I slowly got used to it and they all started to differentiate. Our main character, Piper, was definitely a character that developed over time. It was reminiscent of the character development in Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas. The character starts out with pretty general characterizations, (she’s interested in photography and just your average high schooler) and then becomes more involved with some darker stuff. She isn’t a villain or anything that serious, but she gets mixed up in some bad things for a little while. It’s very cool to see a character develop and change in a non-traditional way. Also, there were some majorly swoony scenes with a cute boy… which is always a plus. I like when there’s a realistic romantic relationship included in mystery/thriller books. It adds a little something else to the plot. I like books where I’m suspicious of every character because it makes things more interesting. I’m normally very bad at solving the mystery before the end of the book. I had a lot […]