Source: Borrowed

ARC Reviews: 9 Days and 9 Nights, Love Songs and Other Lies, and August and Everything After

Posted May 9, 2018 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments
ARC Reviews: 9 Days and 9 Nights, Love Songs and Other Lies, and August and Everything After

^ can we just talk about how many times the word “and” appears up there?? You know those books you finish and you wish you could have a sequel, but you also really don’t want one because you feel like it’ll get ruined? Well when that sequel ends up happening and the original story DOESN’T get ruined, it’s one of the best feelings as a reader. I’m here to confirm that totally happened for me with 9 DAYS AND 9 NIGHTS. Katie Cotugno writes the messiest characters and situations that have me on the edge of my seat, anxious the whole time, and completely enthralled too. I read 99 DAYS in one sitting, way past my bedtime, and I did the same thing here (luckily a little earlier in the night though). Preamble aside… that was so fucking good. I loved it. Almost maybe more than the first one, or at least very close? Everything in Molly’s head felt so real, as it did before, and I loved every conversation that happened. It was just so authentic. In a lot of books, if the main character has a boyfriend but is considering someone else, there’s usually something super wrong with that guy. It’s obvious from the get-go that he’s not right for her and the breakup is logical and tidy. Ian was a really great guy in this story. He was funny, thoughtful, and fairly perfect most of the time. Then of course… there’s Gabe. The guy she can’t help […]

ARC Review: All of This is True

Posted May 3, 2018 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments
ARC Review: All of This is True

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

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
ARC Review: The Cruel Prince

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
Review Round Up | Kissing Max Holden and Follow Me

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

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

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
ARC Review: In Some Other Life

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

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
ARC Reviews: What to Say Next and Hello Sunshine

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 […]