Source: Borrowed

ARC Review: All of This is True

Posted May 3, 2018 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

Initial Excitement & Summary I struggled with THE UNSCRIPTED JOSS BYRD because the main character was too young for me. It read like a middle grade, which I don’t read very often, so I decided to put it aside. However, when I saw ALL OF THIS IS TRUE, I was fascinated. I loved the idea of YA readers getting too close to an author and ~scandals~ happening as a result. The story is told through a few different ways: interviews with a TV producer (Miri and Penny’s perspectives), a journal (Soleil’s), newspaper articles, and excerpts from Fatima’s book (essentially Jonah’s POV through Brady, the character she created. Storytelling & Characters This book was suuuuuper meta, which I usually love. It was telling the story of these teens who were duped into being friends with an author, who then turned around and wrote a “fictional” book based on all of the things she learned about them. With the excerpts from that book on top of the interviews/regular story, it was a book within a book that’s also about a book? Confusing but yes, meta. It was also an incredibly quick read since it alternates between all of the different formats and perspectives. I couldn’t stop reading it. You can tell from the synopsis that the four teens that this book is about all have different feelings about what happened with Fatima. Miri still sticks up for her and is okay with what she did. (Miri was frustrating to read about because she […]

Review Round Up | A Taxonomy of Love, Together at Midnight, and The Upside to Falling Down

Posted February 2, 2018 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 3 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I finally read it, guys!! I’ve had this book in my clutches for months and finally made myself read it. I was really excited for it because I love Rachael Allen, but I just couldn’t get myself in the mood for it. I knew it might be a sadder, harder to read contemporary, so I think I was just avoiding that part. Spencer and Hope have been friends and neighbors since middle school, with countless ups and downs in between. It’s a neverending cycle of one of them wanting something more at the wrong time, and going back and forth for years. I love neighbors/friends-to-more stories so I was definitely hoping for a happy ending. I thought the two of them were a good pair, but it was a LITTLE hard to get the feels because of how up and down their relationship was. On top of that, the story is broken into sections for different ages, starting with 7th grade and working up until they’re 19 years old. I liked seeing the development over time, but it was also a little hard to keep up with their relationship developing in a linear way? Not sure how to describe it. The story has little taxonomies, online chat […]

ARC Review: The Cruel Prince

Posted December 13, 2017 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments

Initial Excitement & Summary I loved Holly Black’s TITHE series when I was younger. Unlike a lot of bloggers I’ve noticed, I actually love fae stories. My cousin and I were always obsessed with faeries when we were kids and that definitely spilled into my reading life. And, of course, Black is the absolute QUEEN of fae stories. Needless to say, I was realllly jazzed up about this one. I had it on my Goodreads TBR since 2015, then Ellice grabbed it for me and let me borrow it early, so I read this back in September/October. Jude and her two sisters, Vivi and Taryn, witnessed a faerie come kill their parents and whisk them away to the Faerieland. They live there with Madoc, a high-ranking fae, because he is technically Taryn’s father. Jude grows up and starts to fight for power. She clashes with one of the princes, Cardan, and trains to become a Knight. I can’t say too much more summary-wise because things get awesomely twisty as the book goes on! Storytelling & Characters Hoooly shit, you guys. This book was amazing. All of Black’s descriptions were out of this world (I guess literally?) and I really felt like I was there. The beginning part of the book is sort of a slow climb up to the climax, where we learn more about the land they live in and Jude’s relationships. She forms alliances, learns new skills, and even has to kill. She is manipulative, fascinating, and a straight-up […]

Review Round Up | Kissing Max Holden and Follow Me

Posted December 4, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 3 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! My sister lent me her copy and has been bugging me for MONTHS about reading it. I can’t say that I blame her now that I’ve finished it. What a wonderful contemporary I didn’t know I needed! I had just went through a binge of mysteries and other non-contemporaries when I decided I should give this one a try. It ended up being so perfect that I read it in one sitting and stayed up until 3 AM to finish. I would call this fluff, but it’s a liiiittle more serious that fluff often implies. There is a LOT going on, family-wise, in this book. I absolutely hated her dad the entire time I was reading and was hoping she would tell him off at some point. The familial relationships were incredibly complex, both for Max and Jill. Max’s dad was recovering from a stroke that changed their relationship and, as I mentioned, Jill’s dad was basically a dickhead. I loved seeing her relationship with her stepmom grow throughout the book too. The romance was solid. I love childhood friends/neighbors-to-more SO much, because you can just feel the history bubbling into something new. They had a solid base to build a real (romantic) relationship and it showed […]

Bite-Sized ARC Reviews: 36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You & The Knowing

Posted October 5, 2017 / Bite-Sized Reviews, Book Reviews / 4 Comments

I know I have full reviews and I have mini review round-ups, but there are some books that could be reviewed in just a few sentences. This is mini round-up I’ll have sometimes for books that really don’t need much more than my small Goodreads review and progress updates say. First up, we have a pretty disappointing reality check for a book I was really excited about. I’ve heard about the 36 question study where people develop a connection by the end of it and the thought always fascinated me. When I saw a book based on that study, I immediately requested it. I wish I DNFed because it was not nearly as good as I expected. 🙁 Next, a companion novel I was SO excited for! I loved THE FORGETTING and was so excited to learn more about Canaan. I didn’t realize it was a companion novel at first, but I’m happy to report that it was as good as expected. Many thanks to Ellice for letting me borrow this one <3

Review Round Up | One of Us is Lying, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, and Always

Posted September 25, 2017 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 4 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I was REALLY excited for this book for a long time, so I immediately put in a library hold for it. The physical copy was taking forever so I ended up requesting the ebook from there. I put my TBR on hold and dove right in. My memory is terrible with books, so I was happy when Carrie and I started chatting via DM about the book while we both read (that way I have some record of my initial thoughts and reactions!). I kind of suspected everyone and no one at the same time. I didn’t initially think any of the characters were capable of murder, even though McManus gave us plenty of red herrings for just about all of them. They each had suspicious excuses for that day, on top of dirty laundry they were trying to cover up. The more I read, the more I KNEW none of them did it. It just wasn’t possible. I developed a few theories but, as you know, I’m really bad about predicting murderers/mystery things. I genuinely loved all of the characters in this one. They had the stereotypical qualities of different types of high school students, but still felt real and unique to me. Bronwyn was the […]

ARC Review: In Some Other Life

Posted August 11, 2017 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Initial Excitement I adore parallel life books. Anything involving that premise goes on my TBR immediately. The concepts of fate and destiny vs. free will have always been super interesting to me. I’ve enjoyed the synopses of Brody’s books but hadn’t managed to pick one up until this one. I think I’ll definitely try her other sometime soon! Summary & Storytelling The story starts with a fairly long glimpse into Kennedy’s real life where she chose the public high school. She’s the school newspaper editor and helped revive it from being shut down. Soonafter the story starts, she discovers her best friend and her boyfriend kissing at his house. She rushes to the Windsor Academy, where she’s been secretly pining over the fact that she got in and didn’t go, and promptly hits her head. She wakes up from this concussion and is in the parallel universe where she said yes to Windsor Academy and started there instead. There’s no newspaper, she’s in Robotics Club, and plans to major in Economics in college. Basically, her life is super different. I loved that her younger brother, Frankie, is incredibly smart for his age and interested in physics. She was able to talk with him about what happens and he came up with theories about the parallel universes out there. Usually books like this involve the main character having no one to talk with about what’s going on with them. It was annoying because she knew what happened when she moved into the […]

Bite-Sized Reviews: The Last of August & Lucky in Love

Posted July 10, 2017 / Bite-Sized Reviews, Book Reviews / 10 Comments

I know I have full reviews and I have mini review round-ups, but there are some books that could be reviewed in just a few sentences. This is mini round-up I’ll have sometimes for books that really don’t need much more than my small Goodreads review and progress updates say. First up, we have the sequel to A Study in Charlotte. I enjoyed the first book but it wasn’t a favorite. I felt really disconnected from the characters and those issues definitely continued in book two. I’m still intrigued by the “retelling” of Sherlock Holmes vibes, so I will probably read the next book. Next, the newest Kasie West book! She’s clearly in my top three favorite authors. I always love her stories and have not rated one less than four stars. This wasn’t my favorite by her, but it was a solid story about winning the lottery and finding your own way.

ARC Reviews: What to Say Next and Hello Sunshine

Posted July 4, 2017 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

OH MAN, I loved this book. I don’t think I have a lot to say about it because I can’t put the feelings into words. The setup is that Kit’s father died a month ago, so she decides to sit with David at lunch to get away from her friends. The two of them end up talking and she’s refreshed by his honesty and bluntness with her, since everyone else has either been tiptoeing around her feelings or acting like she should be behaving normally. David is on the spectrum and was really interesting to read about. I work with a pediatric neuropsychologist that specializes in testing for ADD, autism, etc. so I’m fairly well-versed in those areas. I liked being able to understand where David was coming from because of that, but I also think he was a character that anyone could really connect with. Buxbaum did an amazing job explaining how he was feeling or why he said certain things. I loveeeed the family relationships in this book. David is close with his sister Lauren, who was a cool girl in HS that no one messed with her (or him). They had a great relationship and she taught him some everyday “rules” for fitting in with everyone else. His parents were great and supportive too. On Kit’s side, she pretty much just had her mom. They were close throughout the grieving process but there were moments of tension in the second half of the book as well. I just […]

ARC Review: When Dimple Met Rishi

Posted May 18, 2017 / Book Reviews / 14 Comments

Initial Excitement I was excited for this book for so many reasons. I saw it a long time ago when it was added to Goodreads and discussed it with my friend Natasha, who is Indian and always reads books about white people. She was so excited to hear about the premise and added it to her non-book-blogger-TBR-in-her-head. When Nick offered it up for me to borrow, I jumped on it immediately. Quick Summary WHEN DIMPLE MET RISHI is set up to bring together classic rom-coms like When Harry Met Sally and some classic Bollywood movies and plot points. I’ve seen a good amount of these movies (Bollywood and US-based rom-coms) and have to say it was a great combination. Dimple’s family is pressuring her to wear makeup, find a serious Indian boyfriend, etc. and she is not a fan of the idea. Rishi’s family is doing the same thing, but his attitude is very different from hers. The two meet at a summer coding camp called Insomnia Con. Little does Dimple know, Rishi is there because their parents are all pushing for an arranged marriage. This sets off a funny chain of events where Rishi comes on too strong… and the relationship grows from there <3 Storytelling, Setting, and Feels Plot: I adored the premise for this story. Dimple and Rishi head to a coding summer camp-type of thing and end up working together on the project. The setting and competition of who can develop the best app was a lot of fun […]