Source: Around the World ARC Tours

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: The Memory Book

Posted June 30, 2016 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

Wooooof. This book. I have a really weird mix of feelings about it, but I’m left with an overwhelming positive (in the sense that I definitely liked it more than disliked it) feeling about it. I’m so close to going for 4.5 stars but I keep reminding myself about the first half of the book. I’m going to break it down a little bit to explain what I mean. Sammie was a… weird character. She was hard to get used to in a lot of ways. She was awkward and failed miserably at interacting in social situations. It felt kind of uncomfortable to be in her head, especially because she’s writing everything down from her perspective in the Memory Book. She finds out that she has a type of dementia, essentially, that will cause her to lose her memories and likely die at a young age. She creates this book to fill with memories and daily happenings so that she doesn’t forget anything as her health declines. Super sad premise, obviously. At the beginning, she seemed “normal” (just health-wise) and it was hard to figure out what was going to happen with her. As her health gets worse, the book gets sadder and sadder. I really couldn’t relate to her at first, but this is truly a book where I liked it more with each page I read. She grew on me, the story grew on me, the other characters grew on me… just to the point where I was REALLY […]

ARC Review: A Season for Fireflies

Posted June 27, 2016 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

I tore through this book pretty quickly – it was a really easy read for me and frankly just what I needed at the time. I have some issues with it overall and really think the book could have benefitted from 50-100 more pages. We don’t get enough information about her life before the accident to FEEL anything. There’s one small section of the book where we see her quit drama club, ignore her friends, and keep secrets (her mom’s drinking) from everyone. All of this basically happens in one afternoon. In that same day, she meets the popular girl, Kylie, and they kind of hit it off right away. The book jumps ahead to a year later, where her and Kylie have been best-friend-ing it up. She’s ignored her other friends and moved on from them for what feels like no reason at all. Kylie is apparently vague about her life and Penny enjoys being able to ~hide things~ from her without feeling guilty. THIS is why she completely reinvents her life? I just didn’t buy it. The romance was super meh as a result of everything above. Before she abandons her friends, she has a budding romance with one of her friends, Wes. Something is about to happen between them when she says BYE EVERYONE and moves on to bigger and more popular things. Why!? I literally don’t get it. Because she didn’t want them to know about her mom’s drinking? It just seems kind of stupid to […]

ARC Review: Winning + Mean Girls Book Tag

Posted June 20, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

When I read this book a few months ago, it reminded me SO much of the movie Mean Girls. Honestly, I think the actions of the characters in this book might even be worse than the people in the movie. Because of this, I decided to do something a little different and combined my review with the Mean Girls Book Tag! I saw this one and saved it from Alexa’s blog back in 2015 and have been waiting for the right time to debut it on the blog. (Header graphic credit to her as well!) It was originally created by BookTuber and book blogger Sarah-Jane (check out her her booktube channel and book blog). First, the review! I started this book with really complicated feelings about the main character and her incredibly bitchy behavior. She was the EPITOME of a mean girl. I genuinely couldn’t imagine how this would be okay behavior for actual young adults to read about. I mean, I’m in my mid-twenties so I know how to act and not be a horrible person. But younger people could still be impacted by this! I was nervous, honestly. However… I took another look at the synopsis and realized that this book has no issues with making it very obvious that this is about a mean girl. The more I read, the more clear it became – this doesn’t glorify the mean girl trope (that being a terrible person gets you ahead in life). It exposes it and makes it very obvious that you shouldn’t behave this […]

ARC Reviews: The Marked Girl and The Vanishing Throne

Posted June 17, 2016 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I really liked this a lot! It took me a little while to get engaged with this for some reason; I think the beginning threw me off. After the first few chapters, I started getting really into it and was super curious about where it was heading. The synopsis says that Liv is in some way connected to the people who come in from the other realm, so I was wondering nonstop how all that was going to connect at some point. The basic idea behind the book is that a girl, Liv, finds these three people (Cedric, Kat, and Merek) who end up explaining that they came in from another land (Caelum) through a portal. I haven’t read a lot of books like this, but it reminded me immediately of a cross between Thor and The 20th Kingdom (I’ll admit I’ve only seen one episode, but the premise at least seems similar!). I became hooked soonafter. I’m a bad judge of what a GOOD fantasy story is because I read so few of them. To me, this book was really unique and super interesting. As I said, I’ve never read a book involving realms and portals; I’d only seen it on the shows/movies. So yeah, I thought this book was unique and engaging for sure. Not sure how experienced fantasy readers will feel! There were lots of twists and turns that I honestly didn’t see coming, which was refreshing. Lately I’ve been on a kick where I’m too good at predicting what’s going to […]

Blog Tour | ARC Review: My Lady Jane

Posted June 8, 2016 / Book Reviews / 13 Comments

I was so thrilled when Alexa invited me along for the MY LADY JANE blog tour! I absolutely adored this book and truthfully haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it so many months ago. (Get a taste of this novel by reading the prologue!) More places to find it: HarperCollins / Book Depository / iBooks / Indiebound / Chapters Indigo This book was absolutely unlike anything I’ve ever read, and it’s placed firmly on my favorites shelf. There were seriously SO many fantastic elements to this story – I’m going to have a hard time sharing just how fun and special this book is. Let me break it down as best as I can: Those narrators! I just have to mention the three amazing women who wrote this book together. They often had little asides where they would address the reader directly, and it was always so funny. It never took you fully out of the story – it really just added to its charm in ways I can’t explain. It was also super cohesive; it never felt like three different people wrote the book. Their voices and writing styles blended together perfectly and seamlessly. Pop culture references in historical fiction?? Yep. It was awesome. They made little remarks here and there alluding to things happening today (like a Red Wedding, referring to main characters as the Royal We, and quotes from Monty Python and The Princess Bride). Those examples don’t even scratch the surface; I would have to reread this book multiple times to pick up on everything, […]

ARC Review: True Letters from a Fictional Life

Posted June 1, 2016 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

This one got me going in ways I didn’t expect. I don’t read a lot of coming out stories (and admittedly, unfortunately, few QUILTBAG stories in general). I loved Simon and hated Cut Both Ways. This book had whispers of both books, but luckily landed more towards the LOVED end of that particular scale. Right off the bat, I loved the characters. James and his best friends Hawken and Derek had such great personalities. They were all funny too. At times, laugh-out-loud funny. I particularly thought that Hawken was such an excellent, supportive friend. He did nothing but try to help James and understand his perspective… even at times where most friends would have been nervous or scared away. Derek had his own way of being supportive, but he was great too. I loved the various get-togethers they had and just observing them as a group of friends. While I did enjoy all of the parties and gatherings, some of them felt a bit unnecessary. There were lots of different events that didn’t necessarily advance the plot or character development. I did like that it felt like this book was a “slice of life” instead of only focusing on the coming out piece. We learned about his whole life and those more random events just fleshed it out, I guess. Some of the other important characters were the members of James’s family. I don’t want to spoil their ~feelings~ and reactions to the “coming out” part of the story, but I will say […]

ARC Review: The Leaving

Posted May 30, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

Wooof I haven’t been THAT addicted to a book in a long time! I sat down at 10:30 PM on a Friday night to start this book and finished it three hours later without stopping. I’m not a huge mystery/thriller reader but some of them just speak to me. This was definitely one of them. Six kids went missing eleven years ago, and then five of them randomly return. None of them remember what happened. MEEP. I didn’t have any theories while reading (for the most part) so that made it even more fun. I had no idea what was going on. This was the epitome of a page-turner. I sat and literally could not stop reading. I tried to stop when I got tired and ended up reading through bleary eyes for an extra two hours. I loved the style of the story; the chapters were super short and alternated between three characters. Avery is Max’s younger sister (the only person who didn’t return), and Lucas and Scarlett were two that returned. Lucas and Scarlett had some cool effects with the writing style. Hers were kind of written like poetry, with different symbols and text effects. Lucas had some parts (memories) that popped onto the page in black boxes. It’s hard to explain, but it was cool. It added to the effect of the memory loss story. The characters were interesting because they don’t know who they are or what they’re like. They don’t remember anything about their lives, […]

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 […]