Review: On The Fence by Kasie West

Book Title: On The Fence

Author: Kasie West

Publish Date: July 1st, 2014

Publisher: HarperTeen

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

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

Synopsis from Goodreads:

She’s a tomboy. He’s the boy next door…

Charlie Reynolds can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn’t know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world. To cope with the stress of her new reality, Charlie takes to spending nights chatting with her neighbor Braden through the fence between their yards. As she grows to depend on their nightly Fence Chats, she realizes she’s got a bigger problem than speeding tickets-she’s falling for Braden. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

Fun, original, and endearing, On the Fence is a romantic comedy about finding yourself and finding love where you least expect.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from HarperTeen via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

By then time you read this, I will have read all of Kasie West’s books and have hopefully enjoyed them all. When I wrote this review I had only read Pivot Point but had just recently bought & received in the mail, Split Second & The Distance Between Us. I was hoping for a cute fluffy read and I definitely got that with On The Fence.

Charlie struggles a lot with this book and I was able to relate to that a lot more than I think I expected to. Charlie is a tomboy with 4 brothers being raised by her dad after her mother died 10 years ago. She doesn’t think that she is what guys want because she’s not feminine and she doesn’t wear makeup and talk endlessly about clothes and boys.

It was so clearly a struggle for her because she feels like she has to change who she is in order to get boys to notice her. She feels like boys don’t want girls who are “big and burly” and Charlie doesn’t know how to be delicate and feminine like she feels she should be in order for guys to notice her.I got that because I was much the same way in high school. Boys didn’t notice me because I was much more sporty than feminine. Boys went for the girls who were “hot” and who wore gobs of makeup and revealing clothing to make themselves look hot.

Working in a clothing store filled with feminine clothing initially makes Charlie borderline uncomfortable but then she begins to embrace her femininity and she begins to realize that she can be both. She can be sporty and feminine. Not having a mother in the past 10 years has made her feel like she must choose one or the other. Feminine or sporty. 

Charlie meets a cute guy named Evan, but she feels like she has to dumb herself down for him because apparently making a guy feel useless is emasculating. So instead of rattling off everything she knows about sports, she stays quiet, allowing Evan to believe that he is teaching her something. Next door neighbor Braden actually had some good insight on this whole dumbing herself down for a guy thing

“If you can’t be yourself around him, you shouldn’t be dating him.”

I absolutely LOVED this quote. I had highlighted several things in the book, but this one in particular stuck with me. Mostly because I think most teenage girls go through this. They feel like they have to dumb themselves down for a guy. They feel like they have to be something different in order for a guy to like them.

Watching Charlie realize that Braden was right and that a girl should never try to be something else in order for a guy to like her, was really awesome. If a guy doesn’t like her for who she is, he’s not worth dating.

It’s hard for longtime friends to admit to being attracted to each other. It’s terrifying because each of them worries that their friendship might be ruined.And what if the relationship doesn’t make it? Will they ever be able to be friends again? So I totally understand why it took so long for Charlie and Braden to admit their feelings.When they do though, its full of sweetness and swoons.

I really only had one complaint.When secrets are revealed about how Charlie’s mom died, I felt like Charlie reacted and then got over it really quickly. I mean I wanted more about that and I felt like it wasn’t delved into it as completely as it should have been.Had that been explored a little more, I think I would have given this book a full 5 stars. But I definitely had the feels while reading this book. Kasie is really good at giving her readers those all important feels. So this book will be getting 4.5 stars. Kasie has absolutely secured herself a spot on my author auto-buy list.

Review: If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Book Title: If You Find Me

Author: Emily Murdoch

Published Date: March 26th

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Genre: YA 

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Synopsis from Goodreads:

There are some things you can’t leave behind…
A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.

Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down.

Disclaimer: This book was purchased by me.

Review:

Oh wow…

I’m not even sure that I can spit out in coherent sentences how amazing this book really was. It’s rare that a book can leave me totally speechless but this one rendered me speechless for a good hour or so after I finished the book.

Not only was I speechless but I had tears rolling down my face during the majority of it. This book really brought out those all important feels and I’m getting choked up again as I try to write a decent review for this book.

The idea of being told so many things and then eventually finding out that most of the things your troubled mama told you were lies. That is just heartbreaking to me. Carey and Jenessa “Nessa” both showed how incredibly strong they were. Carey needed to step up and be the mom that Nessa needed since their own mom had her own issues with mental illness and drugs. 

Suddenly they are forced to live with Carey’s father and stepmother and stepsister even though they had been frequently told that Carey’s father Charlie was a bad man and that they had to stay away from him.It wasn’t explored in the book much but I have a feeling that Carey wondered a lot about her dad despite the lies her mother had told her.It’s only natural to wonder about someone you haven’t seen in a decade.

I loved Melissa, she was exactly the kind of woman that Carey and Nessa needed in their lives and I am so glad that she was such an important part of their girls’ new life. I was focused so much on Carey and Nessa’s story that it wasn’t until the end that I really started thinking about Delaney and how she was feeling about all this. Like Melissa told Carey,it was an adjustment for all of them, Delaney included.I think Delaney struggled with the abrupt changes in her own life with her mom and stepdad.

Ryan and Pixie were totally awesome people. Ryan’s connection to Carey and to her mom Joelle was heartbreaking and the few times it was brought up, I only cried harder.In my head Ryan is the guy who Carey gives herself to. Not because she has to but because she wants to.

This is the kind of book that really makes me so grateful for the people in my life.Especially the people who are constantly and consistently in my life. I don’t know what I would do without them.I absolutely adored this book and it gets an easy five stars from me. I couldn’t imagine this book being any more wonderful.

Review: Alternate Currents by Arleen Alleman

Book: Alternate Currents

Author: Arleen Alleman

Published Date: July 5th, 2013

Published by: Xlibris Corporation

Genre: Mystery/Contemporary

Series: Book 4 in the Darcy Farthing series

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Synopsis (from Barnes & Noble): 

This fourth novel in the Darcy Farthing series continues to explore themes of love and tolerance in the midst of crime and prejudice. Author Darcy Farthing is living in DC with her fiancée, Mick Clayton, enjoying a much needed respite. As they prepare for a wedding and a romantic cruise, they find out that a good friend, Charlie Scott, has mysteriously disappeared. Against Mick’s wishes and without much thought of consequences, Darcy flies to Seattle to help Charlie’s partner, Don Freeburg, and daughter, Penelope, cope with their loss. She finds that a prior well-intentioned decision about parenthood has sparked a series of tragic events, which threaten to destroy a parent-child bond. Eager to help, Darcy plummets into the unfamiliar world of same-sex partnerships, surrogates, and assisted reproductive technology. 

While the police and FBI are still trying to solve Charlie’s kidnapping, Penelope also vanishes. Detectives implicate a local clergyman, a birth-mother, and a radical author, but can find no proof of guilt. When Darcy tries to apply her investigative skills to the baffling case she sustains a vicious attack by an unbalanced killer. Mick rushes to her side and as the mystery is finally solved he also becomes a victim of vengeance and madness.:

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for my honest review.

Review: 

Within the first 50 or so pages,I was tempted to throw this book across the room. Not because it wasn’t good but because the ultra-conservative pastor and his deplorable feelings on gay people. I was angry and rage-y. I was livid at the words I was reading on the page. I rarely get this rage-y while reading but I couldn’t understand how this author managed to write such an asshole character. That was in addition to Darcy’s fiancee Mick. Yet another homophobic character. Yes he did eventually become more accepting but my initial feeling about him was definitely not positive.

Anywho, I loved both Don and Charlie. They were not the stereotypical gay couple which was great to see.Plus they clearly loved each other and their sweet little girl Penelope.When things went bad,they stayed supportive of each other and didn’t allow the mystery surrounding Penelope’s parentage to push them apart.Even when Penelope was abducted and the days with no answer as to her whereabouts went on,they stayed committed to each other.

Darcy and Deanna were two awesome ladies who seemed to both kick ass and take names while doing it. I loved watching the friendship develop between them and how they both supported Don & Charlie through this whole thing.

I knew that there was more to the whole surrogacy issue than met the eye. It was clear to me that Andrea had scammed a couple desperate to have a family. It was also clear that Charlie and Don had put far too much trust in both Andrea and the lawyer handling the case. I knew that the pastor was definitely involved somehow.Every single word that came out of his mouth just made me angry.

Of course I can’t leave out Leslie Lavender who was crazy about Don or just crazy in general. To the point that he was stalking him and making plans to get rid of Charlie & Penelope so that he and Don could be together. Never mind that Don had already shot him down repeatedly.

I’m giving this book 4 stars. I would love to give this book 5 stars because it was an enjoyable mystery overall. However I just cannot get past what bigotry and hatred the pastor had spewed about gay people.I’m a little annoyed that this character was in this book because if the pastor had not been in the book,I probably could have overlooked both Mick & Leslie Lavender and their abhorrent behavior.