Source: Around the World ARC Tours

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 […]

ARC Review: All We Have Is Now

Posted July 22, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

This book definitely made me think. I have to say that I’ve had a lot of “end of the world” books on my radar in the past, but this is the only one I’ve read. (Unless you count Station Eleven, which was more post-apocalyptic.) You know it can end in three ways: (1) the world actually doesn’t end, (2) the world actually does end, or (3) you don’t know what happens because the book ends before you find out. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, but I was pleased with the ending overall. Sorry, I got ahead of myself. I’ve also never read a book involving kids that are runaways/homeless. Emerson and Vince were really likable characters, but I feel like they were somewhat underdeveloped. We got a bit of their story and background, but a lot of the story was focused on some random memories mixed in with the current happenings. I’m not sure why, but I just wanted a bit more. I loooved the whole “pay it forward” concept that drove the first half of the book. Carl, a man they meet on the suicide bridge, grants them one wish and asks that they pay it forward if they can. I don’t want to spoil too much about that, but it was a great plot element. Carl’s chapters were actually incredibly enjoyable and I was wishing for more of him all the time. Towards the end, when they meet the skeptics, I really started to […]

Blog Tour Review: The Revenge Playbook

Posted June 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

I had a good feeling I was going to love this book, especially when I started seeing some great reviews roll in, littered with my favorite word: FEMINISM. I also was excited about the football plot, although it doesn’t make football players look good. (The football guys in this school were absolute pigs and it was awful.) Add in the concept of “different girls brought together under a common revenge goal” and I was SOLD. I felt a lot of things while reading this book! I didn’t ever want to stop reading because I was JUST as determined as these girls to get back at the football players. These guys were absolutley horrible! (Nearly all of them, at least…) They had awful lists about girls and forced guys to break up with their girlfriends if they weren’t up to their standards. They got away with doing anything they wanted and had major preferential treatment from everyone in the school. I kept thinking of the Amy Schumer “Football Town Nights” video, which I won’t link up here for potential trigger warnings. (Google it, if you’re interested!) Everyone in the town perpetuates rape culture without even realizing it. As this book said, “Rape culture isn’t something feminists made up to be angry about.” I liked the romance in this one, although it wasn’t as important. The main point of the book is revenge against dickhead boys, and that took center stage. The most heavily romance-related ones were Melanie Jane’s and Liv’s points of […]

ARC Review: Emmy & Oliver

Posted June 15, 2015 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

I can’t lie when I say I was a bit hesitant going into this one. I enjoyed Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway but wanted a little more. I LOVE how unique the concepts of her books are. She takes a cool plot idea, adds great characters, and gives it a great contemporary feel without being too predictable. Sometimes love isn’t something you say, it’s something you do.” (pg. 75, ARC) This book blew me away. I was utterly addicted to it and needed to know how things turned out. If I could have stuck with Emmy and Oliver (the main characters, obviously) forever, I would have. There were so many endearing moments that just killed me with feels. The main premise is that Emmy’s best friend, Oliver, was kidnapped by his father 10 years ago and the family/neighborhood never really moved on. Suddenly Oliver is found and returning home to his mom, who is now remarried and has two kids. Naturally everything takes some getting used to. Oliver doesn’t remember everyone as much as they remember him, but he does end up falling back into his old crowd of friends: Emmy, Caro, and Drew. The minute Oliver was introduced, I fell in love. Seeing him and Emmy fall back in together had me so anxious and full of love; I just NEEDED them to get together immediately. Emmy was an interesting character because she was constantly hiding things from her parents, like the fact that she applied to college and enjoyed surfing, because […]

Blog Tour Review: The Summer of Chasing Mermaids

Posted May 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler Publisher: Simon Pulse Release Date: June 2nd 2015 Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Retellings, Chick Lit The youngest of six talented sisters, Elyse d’Abreau was destined for stardom—until a boating accident took everything from her. Now, the most beautiful singer in Tobago can’t sing. She can’t even speak. Seeking quiet solitude, Elyse accepts a friend’s invitation to Atargatis Cove. Named for the mythical first mermaid, the Oregon seaside town is everything Elyse’s home in the Caribbean isn’t: An ocean too cold for swimming, parties too tame for singing, and people too polite to pry—except for one. Christian Kane is a notorious playboy—insolent, arrogant, and completely charming. He’s also the only person in Atargatis Cove who doesn’t treat Elyse like a glass statue. He challenges her to express herself, and he admires the way she treats his younger brother Sebastian, who believes Elyse is the legendary mermaid come to life. When Christian needs a first mate for the Cove’s high-stakes Pirate Regatta, Elyse reluctantly stows her fear of the sea and climbs aboard. The ocean isn’t the only thing making waves, though—swept up in Christian’s seductive tide and entranced by the Cove’s charms, Elyse begins to wonder if a life of solitude isn’t what she needs. But changing course again means facing her past. It means finding her inner voice. And scariest of all, it means opening her heart to a boy who’s best known for breaking them . . . This book was one […]

ARC Review: Dream a Little Dream

Posted April 10, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

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 […]