Source: Publisher

Comic Reviews: Saga #1-2 and Saved by the Bell #1

Posted October 3, 2015 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments

Aside from a random Adventure Time comic I read at one point, Saga is really my first foray into this… genre? medium? Either way, I’m so glad I randomly decided to read it. I was sitting at Books a Million with Chris and he decided to read a little comics before we left the store, to make sure he wanted to buy it. He’s been getting into graphic novels and comic books lately. I decided to pull Saga off the shelf for literally the millionth time and read the first chapter. I wanted to see if it was for me or not, once and for all. Well, I ended up reading the entire first volume while sitting there in the store. I couldn’t stop and didn’t want to stop. I’m not experienced at all with what makes a good comic, but this story was SO cool and SO bizarre… I loved it. It took me a long time to fully understand what the fuck was going on. I mean, they’re on a whole different planet (literally) and there’s some intergalactic war going on. It was a bit confusing at times because you’re kind of thrown right into the action, but I’m not complaining. I can’t give this volume a perfect score because I’m still not 100% sure if I understand it, but it’s pretty damn close. Overall, Saga has some really cool art, fun characters, and LOL-worthy moments. I’m excited to see what happens next in Volume 2 and will […]

ARC Reviews: Most Likely to Succeed and Anne & Henry

Posted September 12, 2015 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

There aren’t a lot of YA books that make me feel old. This is definitely a book that I would have probably LOVED in high school, but the drama was very tiring for a 24 year old to read. This was the book in the trilogy I was most looking forward to; there was a lot of build-up between Sawyer and Kaye throughout the book and their plotline was carried through the first two. I LOVE Sawyer – he’s so goofy, fun, and sweet. The first half of the book got on my nerves a lot. Kaye was kind of a huge idiot when it came to just about everything. I know that she only stayed with Aidan because of the whole “powerful couple” thing, but he infuriated me. I would have dumped his pompous ass in the first book of the series! She was stupid about him and then stupid about Sawyer. He CLEARLY liked her and she kept going back and forth about if he did. Everything was right in front of her eyes and she was fucking annoying. If the book stayed like this, it would have been about 3 stars for me. Then, it improved! A lot of the drama happened during the second half, but I enjoyed it a bit more overall. Kaye finally came to terms with her feelings (and realized he felt the same way, DUH), so there was some major shipping on my end. The second half would have been 4 stars. I […]

Review & ARC Review: Daylight Falls Series

Posted July 8, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

I bought this book a loooong time ago and totally forgot about it. When I got approved for the second book, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that I already owned the first one! I was a big fan of Jen Calonita’s series about a girl in Hollywood, so this one seemed to be right up my alley. I was right that the Hollywood setting is kind of like book crack for me. I definitely want to read more books like this and will be rereading Calonita’s series again at some point! It was interesting to get the perspective of the best friend to the Hollywood star, who doesn’t want anything to do with it. Honestly I wasn’t the biggest fan of Ally, compared to the other characters. She had a lot of moments that made me want to punch her. Like, A LOT of moments. She was super self-conscious and self-loathing, no matter what Liam said to her. She was incredibly jealous and let her emotions get in the way of any sound decision-making. Aside from all that, I really loved her friendship with Vanessa though; I could see that they had a solid foundation that Hollywood couldn’t fuck up for them. I’m SO EXCITED to read the next book for more Van. The relationship with Ally and Liam happened kind of quickly and was pretty cheesy in the beginning. I definitely rooted for them throughout though. I didn’t really see what Liam saw in her, because of her […]

Blog Tour Review: Jesse’s Girl

Posted June 17, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

I love Miranda Kenneally’s books. I just binge read the middle few books in the series (since I previously read Catching Jordan and Breathe, Annie, Breathe out of order) before getting to this one. Although a couple of them (Stealing Parker and Things I Can’t Forget) are more religion-based than I personally enjoy, I still always love and appreciate the characters she writes. The romances are real and fun, the characters have distinct personalities, and the supporting characters also have complexities that get some attention. So, I’m happy to report that THIS BOOK made me so happy and hit the mark for me in nearly every possible way. I never really consider myself to be a big music buff; I don’t spend time seeking out new music or exploring artists. I stick to what I know and love, which is classic rock or 90’s music nearly 100% of the time. I’m not a big 80’s music fan (sorry, everyone!), but Maya still made me extremely happy with all of her musical referenes and her entire personality. I have to say, reading the countless comments about Queen made me incredibly gleeful. I LOVE QUEEN. FREDDIE MERCURY FOREVER. If she was going to be an 80’s girl and I’d be hearing about 80’s music, I’m so glad it was Queen. I do like a bit of country music too, so I was really excited about this book. Maya is Sam Henry’s little sister (so there was a LOT of Sam and Jordan, one of my […]

ARC Review: The Pretty App

Posted April 17, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

The fastest and easiest thing I can say about this book is this: if you read The Boyfriend App, imagine that you took that book and stripped away a layer or two. Take away some of the cute romance, some of the charming characters, and some of the deeper meanings and morals. Voilà! You have The Pretty App. That sounds harsh, but notice I said the word SOME a lot. I don’t think its a lot worse by any means, I just think it’s a more superficial version of the same book… and it still happens to be damn enjoyable! I was interested initially to get inside Blake’s head. In the first book, she’s the school’s mean girl and doesn’t seem to have many, if any, redeeming qualities. It was kind of exactly what I predicted. She views herself as just a pretty face, she has issues with her family, and she puts other people down to feel better about herself. Cue the character development into a glowing, respectable young woman by the end of the book. (Kind of. She always said she would still have a bit of a “bitch” in her, which I actually appreciated; it was more realistic that way – saying that she could never change some parts of who she is.) It did bug me HOW OFTEN they talked about how she was soooo pretty and had nothing else going for her. She constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY talked about her looks being her only good quality; she’s not […]

ARC Review: Play On

Posted April 16, 2015 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I really liked this one for the most part! It definitely was different than I expected in a lot of ways too. I think the best way to break it down is in a what worked/what didn’t kind of format. My rating is rounded down just because I did roll my eyes at the cheese more often than it made me swoon, as well as the first reason listed in the negatives section below. Overall I would recommend this book (especially if you’re a baseball fan!) because it was a cute, quick story. What I Liked The main character was a nice perspective to hear the story from. I liked reading a male POV in a contemporary, because it doesn’t happen too much. It was nice to see the more emotional side of himself and having him admit to having feelings for Marissa. There’s a lot more about the voice that I need to go into (on the negative side, unfortunately) but OVERALL I did like Austin as a main character. The book was deeper than I expected. It had cute elements that I expect from contemporary YA, but it also had some darker themes that I didn’t see coming. The issues with Austin’s dad and Marissa definitely took up a lot of the book and I liked having something different and difficult to read about, while still getting an adorable story. There was a good balance between lighter and darker themes. I’m really starting to enjoy books set in […]

ARC Review: The Start of Me and You

Posted March 26, 2015 / Book Reviews / 13 Comments

Yeah, I’m not sure how I’ll ever formulate words about this one. My Goodreads review that usually is a few sentences about my first reaction literally consisted of: I pretty much loved this book from the first page. I’m not going to say anything fancy about it. I just did. When I saw that I got approved for this one on NetGalley, I celebrated like never before and immediately started reading after my current book. This all happened in January – and, because I’m me, I wrote the review then. (Hi! This is January Lauren!) This was easily one of my top three anticipated books for 2015 so my excitement was out of control. Thank god, somehow, my expectations were exceeded. I really loved Open Road Summer but I’m a weirdo in that music isn’t a huge part of my life. I liked the tour aspects. I LOOOOVED me some Matt Finch. But a book centered around music is kind of meh for me. REGARDLESS, excellent book. How could she top that? (She did though) Also, there was a Lilah Montgomery reference in this book and I died. LET ME GET TO IT FOR REAL NOW: This book was perfection. There were some moments where I wanted to kick Paige in the butt, but I felt the same way about Reagan in ORS. Emery Lord’s main characters are imperfect. Flawed. They make mistakes that the reader wants to punch them for, but loves them anyway. I loved Paige. I loved […]

ARC Review: When Joss Met Matt

Posted February 23, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Alright I am a big new adult fan lately, but this one definitely lends itself more towards the young adult side. Don’t get too excited about lots of graphic sexytimes, because it’s not gonna happen. This one is purely classified as new adult because of the age range. Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you how freakin cute this book was. I love Liz Czukas (here writing as Ellie Cahill) so I requested this one immediately when I saw it. It’s been sitting on my Kindle since October and I finally decided to dive in. I’m so glad I did because February is my big lame Valentines Day contemporary binge month, and this one fit right in. I absolutely loved the way this story was put together. It alternates between present day and some of their experiences during college. You essentially get to travel back in time throughout the various times they’ve called each other for some sorbet sex. It’s a bit unorthodox, though, to learn about all of their other relationships while you’re just kind of anxiously waiting for them to get together. It works for a lot of reasons, but mostly because you get to see how wrong everyone else is for them. It would have been cool to see Matt’s perspective throughout the book, but it definitely would have involved too much switching around (between people and timeframes). I found myself wishing it was from Matt’s POV a lot of the time because […]

ARC Review: Promposal

Posted February 11, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

I have some mixed feelings here. Promposal and I are not friends, but we’re certainly not enemies. There’s nothing really wrong with this book per se; nothing that got my blood boiling. But there also wasn’t really ANYTHING that made me smile, either. It’s one of those books that you read that just doesn’t affect you in any way. “Promposals” are the new phenomenon that involves asking people to prom as if they were proposing marriage, with big/extravagant gestures. These started to become big back when I was in high school and my boyfriend at the time actually did a great job of asking me to dances. We dated for three years so it wasn’t really necessary, but it was still thoughtful and appreciated by me. When I saw this one on Edelweiss, I requested it immediately. I’ve always been fascinated by the different ideas people came up with and was looking for a book full of them. That’s not exactly what I ended up with. The book alternates points of view between two best friends, Camilla and Joshua. Camilla is pining over a boy in class who has never spoken to her, but ends up saying yes to an extravagant promposal from someone else. Josh is in love with his best friend, Ethan, but then Ethan asks him to plan a promposal… for another guy. I enjoyed the two separate (but connected) storylines, for sure, but it was like reading the same thing. The two characters were given absolutely no […]

ARC Review: All Fall Down

Posted January 19, 2015 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

AHH THIS WAS SO GOOD GUYSSSS. Throughout the whole book, I kept wondering when I would find a flaw. I really couldn’t, for the most part, until the very end of the book. My first impression was that this book had a more mature feel to it than the Gallagher Girls, which was nice. The one thing that’s recently bugged me during my GG reread was that Cammie felt too immature to me. I was really looking forward to seeing what Ally Carter could do with an older character. Of course, Grace has her own problems that did at times make her seem younger than her age. There were times when she got angry and pouty that were reminiscent of a bratty teenager… but when you think about everything she’s been through, you kind of understand why. She seemed overdramatic at times, but she always said what was on her mind and wasn’t afraid of the backlash. She was kind of a badass, while also being funny and very sarcastic. This book is about Grace trying to prove that her mother was murdered and not killed in the fire. She has very foggy memories of that night, but does vividly remember seeing the bullet holes in her mother’s chest. She tries to find the Scarred Man that she remembers from that night, as she believes he’s the one who killed her mother. I loved that Grace developed as an unreliable narrator in some ways; you start to doubt her memories […]