Review: Summer on the Short Bus by Bethany Crandell

Book Title: Summer on the Short Bus

Author: Bethany Crandell

Published Date: April 1st, 2014

Publisher: Roaring Press Books

Genre: YA Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Spoiled, Versace-clad Cricket Montgomery has seventeen years of pampering under her belt. So when her father decides to ship her off to a summer camp for disabled teens to help her learn some accountability, Cricket resigns herself to three weeks of handicapped hell. 

Her sentence takes a bearable turn as she discovers the humor and likeability of the campers and grows close to fellow counselors. Now, if she can just convince a certain Zac Efron look-alike with amazing blue eyes that she finally realizes there’s life after Gucci, this summer could turn out to be the best she’s ever had.

Summer on the Short Bus is a very non-P.C., contemporary YA with a lot of attitude, tons of laughs, and a little life lesson along the way.

Disclaimer: This was a personal purchase.

Review:

There are so few books about kids with disabilities, so as soon as I saw the synopsis for this book, I knew I had to have it. As a teenager, I attended an aquatics summer camp for teens with disabilities, so Summer on the Short Bus really excited me and I was so hoping this book wouldn’t disappoint me. I wasn’t even concerned with the non-P.C. qualities that it was supposed to possess.

Yes, Cricket was a pain in the butt. She was a spoiled, pampered princess who really had no idea what it was like to grow up in the normal world. Was she ignorant, rude and, at times, downright mean? Yes, she was. It was clear to me that she was not comfortable around kids with disabilities. Truth be told, I was not very comfortable around kids with disabilities even though I have my own disability, but I honestly think that for me, it’s because I never really saw myself as disabled. So I really didn’t crucify her for feeling uncomfortable around these teenagers.

Quinn was an awesome surprise and I was really glad we got to know his story as I thought it was really important. It was important to find out how he had come to work at Camp I Can, and what inspired him to do so. I loved how Cricket slowly began to soften around him. It wasn’t a quick turnaround for Cricket, which made sense to me. It was more realistic for Cricket to be physically attracted to Quinn early on, but to have their relationship slowly grow and develop. I love the slow burn so I was excited to see it here, with these two.

This book was really an awesome surprise, but I really wish there had been more character development for the secondary characters. Especially Colin, Fantine, Aidan, Meredith and Claire. We ended up getting more than I expected about Rainbow, so big kudos to Crandell for that one. Had there been more overall character development I know I would have loved this book. With that said, I really did enjoy this book and will be giving it 4 stars.

Review: Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die #1) by Danielle Paige

Book Title: Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die #1)

Author: Danielle Paige

Published Date: April 1st, 2014

Publisher: Harper Teen

Genre: YA Fantasty

Series: Book One in Dorothy Must Die trilogy

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to be some kind of hero.

But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I’ve read the books. I’ve seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can’t be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There’s still the yellow brick road, though—but even that’s crumbling.

What happened? Dorothy.

They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

My name is Amy Gumm—and I’m the other girl from Kansas.

I’ve been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.

I’ve been trained to fight.

And I have a mission.

Disclaimer: Library book.

Review:

I’m gonna let you all in on a little secret. I don’t actually like The Wizard of Oz. I didn’t like the books or the movie or anything that had to do with it. I’m like the only person I know who doesn’t like the movie. Yes, I know it’s considered a classic, but I never understood all the hype behind it. I’m sure you are now wondering why on EARTH would I want to read a retelling of a classic that I never liked.

Here’s another secret, I like creepy things. I like tales that are much darker. So when I read the synopsis for this book, I got excited. Like really, embarrassingly excited. When my copy arrived at the library, I couldn’t wait to tear into it.

Holy crap, if the original had been like this, I would have LOVED it. Because Dorothy Must Die was awesome, full of mystery and magic. It exceeded my expectations big time which thrills me because honestly I was a little worried that I wouldn’t enjoy this one, but I knew very early on that, that wasn’t going to be an issue.

From early on we’re swept into a world that is familiar, but also unfamiliar at the same time. The Wicked are good and the Good are bad. Everything is sort of topsy-turvy in this world. The once bright and colorful world is now dark and gloomy. The world building throughout this book was top notch. At one point, I said that it was very Tim Burton-esque and I felt that way all throughout the book.

Dorothy is no longer the sweet girl that the story left off at. She’s allowed herself to get wrapped up in power. She is now power hungry. Oz is no longer the happy place that it once was. Monkeys can get killed for treason. The Scarecrow is now a terrifying scientist who turns people into half human half metal. The Lion is terrifying in size and his thing is to drain the fear from his victims and the Tin Man who is just terrifying in his own right.

We also have Nox,who no one knows much about and we can’t figure out whose side he’s on. There’s Gert, who I absolutely loved and wanted to hug her so many times. Melindra & Annabel who play small but important roles in the book. There’s also Glamora and my personal favorite, Mombi. They’re Good…or are they?

Amy! I actually really loved her as a character. I know some people didn’t connect with her, but I did. She was everything that young Dorothy had been except for one small thing. She had edge. She wasn’t the “good girl” that Dorothy was when she came to Oz. 

Amy had her own demons. Her mom was a mess, her dad was living far away with his pregnant girlfriend and she was bullied constantly at school by a girl named Madison Pendleton.She didn’t believe everything right away which I thought was very believable., but she also didn’t take long to embrace what she needed to do.

I actually really loved the ending. I thought it was a great cliffhanger and given the characters that were involved, it definitely set the stage for an exciting, thrilling second book. I am totally giving this book 5 stars. It was perfect. It was awesome and I cannot wait to see what’s in store for all the characters next.

Review: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before #1) by Jenny Han

Book Title: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before #1)

Author: Jenny Han

Publish Date:  April 15th, 2014

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers 

Genre: YA Contemporary

Series: Book 1 in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before duology

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

Disclaimer: library book.

Review:

This BOOK! I am going to be gushing about it all the way through this review so it may be a really short review or it could be really long. It was perfection all the way through. The writing was beautiful, the characters were well developed and gahhhh, this book was everything I want every other book to be. It was my first Jenny Han book which really makes me realize I need to read all of her books. Especially if they are this fabulous.

I thought for sure the romance would be my favorite part of the book but it wasn’t. My favorite parts all had to do with Lara Jean and her sisters and their dad. Very rarely are single dads portrayed in YA books and especially single dads with only daughters. Throw in the fact that the sisters are half Korean and you’ve really got a wonderfully unique book that will definitely appeal to all sorts of readers.

I loved Lara Jean. She was flawed, which is one thing I really love in books. She’s human, she makes mistakes. She fell for her older sister, Margot’s boyfriend for goodness sake. She’s not great in the kitchen, but she’s working on it. 

I didn’t feel like I really got to know Margot as well as  I wanted to, but I think that was mostly because she wasn’t in the book a whole heck of a lot. But I do feel like I got to know her through Lara Jean and Kitty and even through Josh, her ex boyfriend. 

Kitty was an awesome kid and it took me back to remembering how badly I wanted a sister growing up. Kitty was vastly different from her older sisters. She was more outgoing and less reserved than both Margot & Lara Jean were.

Now with the boys, I found myself loving one of them at the beginning and hating the other one. By the time the book ended, my feelings had completely reversed. Talk about confused. I totally understood how Lara Jean could feel confused and conflicted. It made sense to me given all she knew about both boys.

There was definitely more than met the eye with this book. I LOVED this book. I loved that so much focus was on family and despite what the synopsis said, this book didn’t focus as much on the boys as I was expecting. I mean, the boys were there but Lara Jean’s family played such major roles in this book which was what really made me fall in love with it. 5 stars to this book. It’s definitely something you should pick up if you haven’t already.

Review: Noggin by John Corey Whaley

Book Title: Noggin

Author: John Corey Whaley

Published Date: April 8th, 2014

Publisher: Atheneum Books For Young Readers

Genre: YA Science Fiction/Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Listen — Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn’t.

Now he’s alive again.

Simple as that.

The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but he can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy’s body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he’s still 16 and everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she’s not his girlfriend anymore? That’s a bit fuzzy too.

Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, then there are going to be a few more scars.

Oh well, you only live twice.

Disclaimer: Library book.

Review:

Eeeeeep! This book was such an awesome treat. It was quirky, interesting and it managed to combine science fiction elements with a contemporary feel. I really wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it because I am so picky about my science fiction stories and this one seemed so out there that I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it. I mean come on, a kid’s head is sawed off of his body after death and then it’s stored in the freezer of a cryogenic facility in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, they are able to reattach the head to a donor body and magically Travis wakes up?

Doesn’t that sound just a bit far fetched?

It definitely did to me, but I fell for the characters. For Travis’s family he was basically gone for 5 years, but to Travis it feels like only seconds have passed. Suddenly everything is different, his best friend Kyle retreated back into the closet, Travis’s longtime love Cate is now engaged to another guy and Kyle’s sister, who five years ago, was a gangly 9 year old has transformed into something of a hottie.

It was Travis’s voice that hooked me. He was desperately trying to find his place in the world again. Yes, he was a little obsessive about Cate and that did drive me a little batty, but I had to keep reminding myself that he had been gone for 5 years, but to Travis it felt like he had only been gone a nanosecond. He was trying to reclaim his friendship with Kyle even though he didn’t understand what had happened to Kyle. Why had Kyle slipped back into the closet?

I really enjoyed this book, but I felt like the ending was a bit rushed. I wanted a little more resolution in the end. It felt very open ended and while I can see why that was done, I craved more. Craving more is definitely the mark of a great book. I going to give this book 4 stars. I definitely need to buy myself a copy of this book.

Review: Far From You by Tess Sharpe

Book Title: Far From You

Author: Tess Sharpe

Publish Date: April 8th, 2014

Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Genre: YA Contemporary Mystery

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice.

The first time, she’s fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that’ll take years to kick. 

The second time, she’s seventeen, and it’s no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina’s murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery.

After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina’s brother won’t speak to her, her parents fear she’ll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina’s murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina and about the secret they shared.

Disclaimer: This is a library book.

Review:

I had my eye on this book for months and when I got my new library card, I immediately put a hold on this book. I had heard nothing but amazing things about it and I could not wait to get my hands on it. It was totally amazing, unputdownable, fabulous mystery mixed in with friendship and romance. It was fast paced and it kept me guessing all the way through.

The timeline actually worked for me. I liked how it bounced around from present time to past time. It filled in a lot of the gaps that I would have had without the flashbacks. We got to see the characters in different lights. We got to see how Mina and Sophie fell in love. We got to see Mina’s struggle with wanting to be herself in front of her family, but also fearing the consequences of it. We got to see how Sophie’s addiction started, which was probably my favorite subplot of the story.

When we first meet Sophie, she’s nearing the end of her stay in a rehab facility. It’s been 4 months since her best friend was murdered right in front of her. Sophie has been dealing with addiction since she was fourteen years old, after a terrible car accident that left her in constant pain. But she shouldn’t have been at Seaside. At the time of her best friend’s death, she had been clean and sober for 10 months.

None of that mattered to her parents. Especially when they found a bag full of drugs in her jacket pocket the night of the murder. Her parents, the detectives, even her friends won’t listen to her. That was incredibly hard for me to read. My heart ached for Sophie. She had just lost her best friend and now her parents refused to believe she was clean. Not only that, but they were sending her off to a rehab facility. 

So many things happened in this book. So many difficult things were talked about in it, In true mystery book form, there were twists and turns, none of which I saw coming. And there was a romance, although it was more like a love square. It was complex, but interesting to see how Sophie interacted with Kyle & Trev. It was interesting to see that the secret Sophie and Mina shared was not quite as secret as they thought it was.

Sophie’s relationship with her aunt Macy was awesome to see. We don’t see extended family much in YA novels so I was excited to see Macy make several appearances. Especially since she was the one who helped get Sophie clean. I actually wanted to see more of Macy because I thought she was a great character.

This book was nearly perfect, so I’ll be giving it four and a half stars. I can’t quite figure out why I can’t give it the full 5 stars. I just know that I need to buy my own copy of this book whenever I can afford it. I cannot wait to see what the author writes next.

Review: Pointe by Brandy Colbert

Book Title: Pointe

Author: Brandy Colbert

Published Date: April 10th, 2014

Publisher: Penguin

Genre: YA Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Theo is better now.

She’s eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction—and his abductor.

Donovan isn’t talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn’t do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she’s been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.

Disclaimer: This book was a personal purchase.

Review:

Um…

Um…

Holy catfish, this book was far more complex than I ever gave it credit for. It’s not “just” a ballet book with kidnapping and anorexia subplots. It involves friendships, boys, choices and, even a more dark subject matter, rape and I think realizing that was important. There was definitely more than met the eye for this book. It tackled a ton of tough subjects and it was done well, really well. When you first start reading this book, you think it’s going to head in one direction, but it doesn’t and that really threw me off for a little while.

Theo didn’t always make the best decisions, but that’s what I loved about her. She was real, she was human and she was dealing with more issues than I had ever dealt with in my life. She loved and was devoted to ballet, something that never wavered throughout the book. She was loyal to her friends Sara-Kate and Philip. She had supportive and loving parents who she had put through the wringer. And there’s Hosea, he’s spoken for, but Theo cannot help but be drawn to him. 

And then, there was Donovan. Her best friend who she hadn’t seen in 4 years. In those four years there had been leads, but all had been false. Until the day, he returns. It’s an ordinary day, a day much like the previous days. Except Donovan is back. 

Theo is desperate to see him, to talk to him, but he’s not talking, his mother is honoring his request to keep a low profile. So Theo has no choice but to wait.

Waiting is hard for Theo. She likes being in control but she cannot control this situation. She cannot control anything about Donovan’s return and the legal case that will follow it. Because there will be a legal case. The person who took Donovan will be put on trial. Worst of all, Theo must testify about the last time she saw Donovan before he disappeared. Secrets threaten to come to the surface, but Theo knows that she can’t keep quiet anymore. She knows that she must spill secrets that she’s kept for four years. 

The feels were definitely there in abundance. I cried a lot in the beginning of the book and I cried a lot at the end of the book, so major kudos to Colbert for giving her readers those all important feels. This book didn’t read like it was penned by a debut author. It read much more like Colbert was a seasoned author. It was well written and beautifully written. 

I think this book was incredibly important for reasons that you’ll find out as you read the book. It touches on important topics and it does it with honesty. As I laid awake in bed after finishing it, I felt my feelings for this book only soar higher. I want to be able to give this book a full five stars, but I wanted to see Donovan more in the book. He was the one I wanted to know more about. 

Yet I understood why he wasn’t in the book that much and my favorite part between Donovan and Theo was at the end. It was beautiful, heartfelt and so damn perfect. 4.5 stars to this extremely important and beautifully written book. I definitely would recommend it to fans of contemporary YA and I will definitely read anything this woman writes.

Review: Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaria

Book Title: Love Letters to the Dead

Author: Ava Dellaria

Publish Date: April 1st, 2014

Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux

Genre: YA Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more; though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was; lovely and amazing and deeply flawed; can she begin to discover her own path.

Disclaimer: I borrowed this book from a fellow blogger. 

Review:

This book is going to be a very hard book to review. First of all, you need to put away any preconceived notions you have about this book. I know I had to. Secondly, if you aren’t kicked in the feels by the time you finish reading it, then you are dead inside. Okay, maybe not dead inside, but at least for me, it was a book full of feels. It’s a book that I had a hard time getting into. It was slow at first and I was getting sad and disappointed by the fact that I wasn’t loving it.But it grows on you and before you know it, you don’t want to put it down.

Laurel has gone through her parents divorce but nothing hurt as bad as it hurt when her big sister died. She blames herself for it and she’s convinced that her mom does also. Why else would her mom have moved so far away from her, leaving Laurel to split her time between her Aunt Amy & her dad.

Laurel starts off writing a letter to a dead person as part of a school assignment, but it gets bigger than that and soon she is writing many letters to many dead people. She talks about her friendships with Kristen, Tristan, Hannah & Natalie. She talks about maybe, possibly, falling in love with Sky. Most importantly she uses these letters as a way to grieve for May.

Through these letters, we grow to learn what exactly happened to May and what happened to Laurel as well. Laurel also learns that May wasn’t as perfect as she thought she was and that she was flawed but did her best to hide that from Laurel, most likely, because she wanted to protect her little sister.

I ended up loving this book, but it wasn’t an easy road and it wasn’t until about page 150 that I really began to fall in love with this book. From that point on, I spent most of the book in tears, even sobbing by the time I had finished the book. Dellaria broke me in the feels but in one of the most honest, and beautiful ways possible. I would love, love to give this book a full 5 stars but knowing how long it took me to even get into the book, I have to give it 4 stars. I would absolutely highly recommend it to anyone. 

Review: Great by Sara Benincasa

Book Title: Great

Author: Sara Benincasa

Release Date: April 8th, 2014

Publisher: HarperTeen

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

In Sara Benincasa’s contemporary retelling of The Great Gatsby, a teenage girl becomes entangled in the drama of a Hamptons social circle, only to be implicated in a tragedy that shakes the summer community.

Everyone loves a good scandal.

Naomi Rye usually dreads spending the summer with her socialite mother in East Hampton. This year is no different. She sticks out like a sore thumb among the teenagers who have been summering (a verb only the very rich use) together for years. But Naomi finds herself captivated by her mysterious next-door neighbor, Jacinta. Jacinta has her own reason for drawing close to Naomi-to meet the beautiful and untouchable Delilah Fairweather. But Jacinta’s carefully constructed world is hiding something huge, a secret that could undo everything. And Naomi must decide how far she is willing to be pulled into this web of lies and deception before she is unable to escape.

Based on a beloved classic and steeped in Sara Benincasa’s darkly comic voice, Great has all the drama, glitz, and romance with a terrific modern (and scandalous) twist to enthrall readers.

Disclaimer: I received this e-ARC from HarperTeen via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

In high school we had to read the Great Gatsby for English class (I think it was Sophomore English but I’m not 100% sure) I loved it. I gobbled it up in two days while the rest of the class grudgingly read the assigned chapters for two weeks. I loved reading the book and anytime I heard someone complaining about it, I got annoyed. Obviously, I also know that a movie adaptation was made. I did not go see it because I was certain that it was going to be a poor adaptation of the book.

So when Great became available via Edelweiss awhile back, I was excited but anxious. The idea of retelling a classic terrified me because I loved the classic so much and I wasn’t sure how the retelling would live up to it.

Well I didn’t need to be concerned. It was a very well done retelling of The Great Gatsby. The opulence was there with Jacinta’s parties and her outfits, not to mention the location of the story, most of it taking place in the East Hamptons. That screams money & opulence right there. I was also really excited to see that there was an LGBT element in the book. That was an awesome surprise and I kinda cheered when I got to that point. YAY for more LGBT characters in YA.

I am really not sure how I felt about Jacinta. My feelings about her kinda flip-flopped throughout the entire book. That was frustrating to me as I never knew how I would feel about her from one page to the next. When secrets about her are revealed, I did feel empathy for her and that’s when I started to have positive feelings about her and towards her.

Delilah was interesting. I couldn’t quite figure out if she was a good person or if she was just trying to use both Naomi & Jacinta at times. I don’t feel like I got to know her as well as I wanted to.

Naomi was a fun character. She clearly was nothing like her mom.She wasn’t into the fashion, she cared about other people and she was there for her friends and family when they needed her. I didn’t understand her choice of “boyfriend” while she was visiting her mother. I put the term boyfriend in quotation marks because it seemed like all they did was make out.I never really warmed up to the guy, but Naomi I loved.

One character I wish I had seen more of was Skaggs. She was woefully absent from the book, but when she did appear, she was awesome. She was the one to tell Naomi that she was basically being a bad friend to Skaggs because Naomi had become so involved in her life in the East Hamptons that she seemed to forget about Skaggs.

The ending was heartbreaking and even though I knew something incredibly sad was coming, it was still hard to read it. That’s where tears nearly fell. The ending. I was genuinely happy with how it ended though. It remained very loyal to the original which thrilled me.

The beginning was on the slow side and it took me a little while to really get into the story. Even as I was pulled into the world, there were still times were the pace had slowed down a bit too much and I found myself bored. Also I wanted a bit more character development for Delilah. It didn’t feel like I knew her as well as I knew Jacinta & Naomi which bummed me out a little bit. 

I am giving this book 4 stars because overall, I would recommend this book because it was a good, fun read and the resemblance to The Great Gatsby was uncanny. 

Review: The Taking (The Taking #1) by Kimberly Derting

Book Title: The Taking (The Taking #1)

Author: Kimberly Derting

Release Date: April 29th, 2014

Publisher: HarperTeen

Genre: YA.SciFi

Series: Book 1 in The Taking trilogy

Book Link: Goodreads

Pre-Order Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day. 

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men. 

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

Diclaimer: I received this e-ARC from HarperTeen via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

Normally alien/SciFi like this really is not my thing. I am very picky about my SciFi but when I saw it on Edelweiss awhile back, I considered it. Even at the end of 2013 I wasn’t totally sold on it but I knew I wanted to expand my horizons book wise. So a couple of days ago, after my blogger friend Andi had bugged me for what seemed like the thousandth time, I picked it up and I devoured it.

Sixteen year old Kyra has everything a teenager could want. She’s got a doting boyfriend, parents who love her and love each other and she’s a rising softball star. Things change abruptly after a fight with her father after a softball game. The fight was over college and her plans to go to college in the fall with Austin, the aforementioned doting boyfriend.

A blinding white light changes everything.

When she comes to, she initially believes that she just fell asleep behind a dumpster. Strange yes, but what is even stranger is the world she finds waiting for her. She learns that it has been 5 years since anyone last saw her. Yet she hasn’t aged a day. Everything is different now. Her parents are divorced, Austin is away at college and in love with Kyra’s longtime best friend Cat.

And Austin’s brother Tyler has grown up.

Now I am really not a fan of the whole insta-love thing. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Insta-love doesn’t exist. Insta-lust definitely does and normally I would have labeled the thing between Tyler & Kyra as insta-lust but somehow I didn’t mind it. I rooted hard for Kyra & Tyler. There are so many swoony scenes for the both of them, but my favorite involves sidewalk chalk and a birdcage.

I loved this book. I loved the characters so hard and so much. I do hope that we see more of Simon & Willow in the next book because I really did like them. When Kyra begins to accept that maybe her father isn’t as crazy as her mother says he is, there’s an absolutely heartbreaking scene between Kyra and her mom. Her mom who used to be her best friend. I had a hard time with that scene because I kept thinking of my own relationship with my mom. 

I love books that are full of twists and turns and this book definitely brought that. In addition it also brought the feels in a big way. I was a wreck at the end of the book and it took me several minutes to calm myself down and stop crying. Derting combines, SciFi, Romance, and Contemporary all into one book. That is so hard to do and Derting did it. Not only did she do it, she did it amazingly. Even if you aren’t really into SciFi or if you are picky about it like I am, read this book. You will not be sorry. I am giving this book 5 stars and I cannot wait to see what happens next in this trilogy.

Review: The Break-Up Artist by Philip Siegel

Book Title: The Break-Up Artist

Author: Philip Siegel

Release Date: April 29th, 2014

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Pre-Order Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Some sixteen-year-olds babysit for extra cash. Some work at the Gap. Becca Williamson breaks up couples. 



After watching her sister get left at the altar, Becca knows the true damage that comes when people utter the dreaded L-word. For just $100 via paypal, she can trick and manipulate any couple into smithereens. With relationship zombies overrunning her school, and treating single girls like second class citizens, business is unfortunately booming. Even her best friend Val has resorted to outright lies to snag a boyfriend.

One night, she receives a mysterious offer to break up the homecoming king and queen, the one zombie couple to rule them all: Steve and Huxley. They are a JFK and Jackie O in training, masters of sweeping faux-mantic gestures, but if Becca can split them up, then school will be safe again for singletons. To succeed, she’ll have to plan her most elaborate scheme to date and wiggle her way back into her former BFF Huxley’s life – not to mention start a few rumors, sabotage some cell phones, break into a car, and fend off the inappropriate feelings she’s having about Val’s new boyfriend. All while avoiding a past victim out to expose her true identity.

No one said being the Break-Up Artist was easy.

Disclaimer: I participated in an ARC Tour for this book & read it with On The Same Page ARC Tours.

Review:

I honestly was not sure what to expect with this book. I knew it could go in many different directions, but I didn’t know what direction it would go.I absolutely did not expect to relate to Becca so easily, but I did. Even though I didn’t really go through the whole friends abandoning me in favor of their boyfriends in high school, I went through that in college. 

One of my childhood friends got a boyfriend and she could not stop obsessing about him. At one point I completely lost it and started yelling at her at a movie theater in front of the popcorn stand about how she didn’t seem to value friendship as much now that she was dating (and BTW the guy was a CREEP) After that our friendship basically ended. But I digress.

I know of several people who are seemingly unable to have time with their friends & time with their significant others. It’s frustrating especially when the friends lose out to the significant other. I understood why Becca was so upset that her onetime friend Huxley had basically abandoned her when Steve came into the picture.

It’s hard to explain to someone who has never gone through it but it really hurts that a friend would rather couple up and shut out all the single friends rather than bring the new significant other around the friends so that they can all spend time together. Or even better do something with their friends and without the significant other *gasp*

Becca is afraid that things are about to repeat themselves with Val and her new boyfriend Ezra and she does not want to lose another friend to the over-hyped bogus concept of love. But what she doesn’t expect is to fall for Ezra herself. Especially since she doesn’t believe in love. 

It’s hard for Becca to believe in love when her sister was left at the altar by someone that she loved. Love has come to make no sense to Becca. All she’s seen it lead to is heartbreak after heartbreak. Becca has a very narrow view of what love looks like. To the point where she doesn’t think that her parents are in love anymore. There’s none of that affection, that is so rampant in high school, in her own home. 

So she starts this business of breaking up couples and the business is booming. It definitely helped being anonymous though.She knows if her name gets out, then any chance of a social life is over. Not that she actually has one now, but she won’t be able to recover from this.

I really enjoyed this book even though parts were hard to read because of my own history with losing my friends to coupledom. Both Becca and her sister transform in different but no less awesome ways. I didn’t particularly love Val or Huxley and that’s because of their insistence on putting romantic relationships and social standing at the highest level and leaving their friendships to crash and burn.I also didn’t love Ezra. I started to, but then when we got to learn more about him I no longer liked him.I didn’t particularly love the ending because I thought it left a lot of questions. Sometimes I’m okay with it and sometimes I’m not. This time I was not.

So this book will be getting 4 stars from me. It was a good read, a quick read and one that I think everyone should read.Having a balance between your friends & significant other is so important and not one that people think about enough.