Source: Around the World ARC Tours

ARC Reviews: Rules for 50/50 Chances and Just Visiting

Posted November 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

This was a pleasant surprise! I have a tendency of signing up for ARC tours for books I’m kind of in the mood for, but never really want to read them when I have to. Struggles of being a mood reader, I suppose. Regardless, I was able to knock this one out in pretty much three sittings over the course of two days. I think this story is really unique overall, and I would definitely recommend it to people who aren’t familiar with Huntington’s Disease. Oddly enough, I read one other book series where this rare disease made an appearance, so I already knew a little bit about it. Rose’s mother has Huntington’s, a degenerative disease that is slowly killing her. The biggest problem is: there’s a 50/50 chance that Rose has it too. Her father is incredibly supportive, helpful, and loving towards his deteriorating wife. He was easily my favorite part of this story. This book deals with alllll of Rose’s struggles. She is a ballet dancer trying to decide where to go to college, if she can allow herself to fall in love, and if she should take the test for the Huntington’s gene. Lots going on for this girl. I felt bad for her because of all of these things, but my sympathy for her dried up surprisingly quickly. She had a “why me” attitude about everything, which is understandable, but she was constantly comparing her family’s issues to everyone else’s. No one else was allowed to have […]

ARC Review: Young Widows Club

Posted November 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

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

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 Reviews: The Lies About Truth and Hotel Ruby

Posted October 30, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

This book started off kind of weird for me. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like it for some reason, but I’m SO glad that changed pretty quickly! The book slowly gave some details away about what happened and who the characters were. I finished this book a few days ago (at the time of writing this) and to be honest, I don’t remember much about Sadie – the main character. Nothing really stuck out about her and I think that’s because the book is so focused on the accident and how she copes with it. It’s something that seems to consume the most space in her brain, so there wasn’t really room for her to feel like herself. I loved how complex the relationships were between all of the characters. Sadie’s family was in a sort of group with a few other families; they’d go on vacation and spend a lot of their time together. It was five kids – Sadie, her then-boyfriend Gray, her best friend Gina, Gina’s boyfriend Trent, and Trent’s brother Max. (Phew.) I won’t get too much into why their relationships with each other were complicated, but just know that they definitely were. They all had some healing to go through when they were involved in an accident that killed Trent. There were lies and secrets between ALL of them. The focal point of the story is that Trent’s family moved to El Salvador for a year and is coming back to town. In the […]

ARC Review: Signs Point to Yes

Posted October 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments

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 […]

ARC Review: Dumplin’

Posted September 9, 2015 / Book Reviews / 14 Comments

I have no idea why Dumplin’ didn’t sound that appealing to me when I first heard of it. I mean, really, it has a lot of elements I’d be interested in. I almost didn’t bother requesting it through the ARC tour, but I couldn’t be happier that I decided to go for it. First of all, the cover is amazing and minimalistic and absolutely perfect for the story. Second, the story was fucking amazing. Dumplin’ honestly blew me away. I wrote down so many powerful quotes that I don’t even how to share them with you. All I know this, this book was extremely perfect for me. I feel like all girls (at some point or another) struggle with their appearance: whether it has to do with their weight, their legs, their hair… anything. I’m constantly self-conscious about how I look and my weight. I wish I was half as confident as Willowdean is in her skin. Girls of all sizes and appearances will appreciate the message of this book. Willowdean, as confident as she is, even has some moments of doubt – between her relationship with Bo, her feelings about her mother, and the pageant, even some things can bring her down momentarily. I loved her right away, starting from the moment she distracted Millie from the taunting of a dickhead guy at school. I completely understood SO many of the things she was going through, from growing apart from her best friend, to being jealous of new friends, to […]

ARC Review: Mirrored

Posted September 7, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I definitely have some mixed feelings on this one. I’m tempted to lower the rating because of all the things that bugged me, but there were quite a few things I liked as well. The overall story behind this one was really cool, from a retelling standpoint. All of the elements that actually connected to Snow White were really well-done. Some of them made you think a little bit, and I bet I even missed some of the references to the original story. The plot was a really interesting take on that story and didn’t seem too similar. I have to give this book points for that. It was also cool to have the three different perspectives in the story, starting with Violet’s backstory, how that impacts Celine in her part, and how Goose finishes off the book. The characters were pretty good. Again, I liked getting a glimpse at Violet’s backstory so you could really see how and why she got to be the way she was. It was a little bit easier to be KIND OF sympathetic towards her when she starts being insane. Celine was a nice enough main character but was really just (1) smart and (2) obsessed with a singer named Jonah Prince. We don’t get too much more than that. Goose was probably my favorite but even then he wasn’t super memorable. The pacing and writing style really bugged me. There were a few (okay, a lot) of places in the book that draaaaggged on […]

ARC Review: Everything, Everything

Posted September 4, 2015 / Book Reviews / 15 Comments

I totally, totally loved this. Is it bad that I spent the entire time thinking about Bubble Boy though? I’m just glad the main character of this book was a little less (okay, a LOT less) weird than Bubble Boy. Otherwise, a looot of the elements were the same… I absolutely looove books that have emails and images and IM conversations… anything that has that sort of element is going to be a-okay in my book. This was so fast and easy to read, because of the aforementioned elements and the incredibly short chapters. Love me some short chapters. Aside from all that fun stuff, the writing was kind of gorgeous. “You can’t predict the future. It turns out that you can’t predict the past either. Time moves in both directions – forward and backward – and what happens here and now changes them both.” The story follows Madeline, a girl with SCID – it basically means she has to live in a bubble-type environment (her completely sterile house) so she doesn’t get sick and die quickly. Her mother and her nurse are the only people who see her… until she meets the new neighbor, Olly. Sigh. So cute. The two of them start talking right away and eventually the nurse sneaks him into the house. Their relationship was adorable and heartbreaking, because you wonder if/how it’ll ever work. I loved her nurse, Carla, because she was so supportive of Madeline in everything she did. Even more so than her […]

ARC Review: Cut Both Ways

Posted August 27, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Sigh. I don’t know. This book had the potential to be really interesting and thought-provoking, but it felt too much like an “issue” book. I don’t mind reading books with clear messages, but it tried to be a lot of things at once. Will’s parents are divorced, his dad’s an alcoholic, he discovers that he has feelings for his male best friend, and he gets his first girlfriend. Lots of drama. It really felt like he was a trainwreck and didn’t help anything with his blasé attitude. Faves The opening of the book was interesting and I completely agreed about his thoughts on divorce. I could relate to him and his feelings about his parents. Beyond that, this book was fairly addicting and fast to read (for the first half). I can’t think of much else that I liked. Oh, he always made fun of Joe Buck and his football announcing. I liked that too. Flaws I didn’t like the choppy, fragmented writing style. I feel like it only added to the fact that Will didn’t have a lot of legitimate thoughts on anything. He was so detached! There was SO much going on in his life, and he didn’t feel connected to anything. His voice was just… not there. He had no interests except from sex. It was LITERALLY all he thought about. Even when shitty things were happening to the people in his life, he still thought about having sex with them. It reminded me of the miserable main […]

ARC Review: The One Thing

Posted August 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 16 Comments

Faves I have to say, choosing to sign up for the ARC tour of this was completely random. I saw the description of the book and thought it may be interesting, but knew it was something I usually wouldn’t be drawn to. I couldn’t be happier that I decided to try this book! It was amazing. I really liked the main character, Maggie – her voice was real and interesting. I can’t lie that the fact that she lived in Connecticut was a major factor in this! I don’t often get to read books that happen in my home state. Aside from Maggie, I looooved all of the characters. Ben was easily my favorite; he was adorable and hilarious. Maggie’s parents (well, mostly her dad) were definitely interesting too. You don’t normally think about how something like this happening also affects your family. Her mom and dad had to completely alter their lives to make sure she was taken care of, but they didn’t realize how much that affected Maggie, too. She just wanted to try to live as normally as possible. I liked her father’s effort and concern about her. This book definitely made me think. I can’t imagine having sight and then going blind – you know what the world was like but you no longer get to see it. It made me wonder which would be “better,” being born blind vs. going blind. You don’t realize how many things need to change once you lose your eyesight. […]