Review The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord

Book Title: The Start of Me and You

Author: Emery Lord

Publish Date: March 31st, 2015

Publisher: Bloomsbury Kids

Genre: YA Contemporary

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Book Link: Goodreads

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

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Following her pitch-perfect debut Open Road Summer, Emery Lord pens another gorgeous story of best friends, new love, & second chances.

It’s been a year since it happened—when Paige Hancock’s first boyfriend died in an accident. After shutting out the world for a year, Paige is finally ready for a second chance at high school . . . and she has a plan. First: Get her old crush, Ryan Chase, to date her—the perfect way to convince everyone she’s back to normal. Next: Join a club—simple, it’s high school after all. But when Ryan’s sweet, nerdy cousin, Max, moves to town and recruits Paige for the Quiz Bowl team (of all things!) her perfect plan is thrown for a serious loop. Will Paige be able to face her fears and finally open herself up to the life she was meant to live?

Brimming with heartfelt relationships and authentic high-school dynamics The Start of Me and You proves that it’s never too late for second chances.

Disclaimer: I received this ARC from Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review.

Review:

Sweet mother of God, Emery Lord is a WIZARD! 

I fell in love with her debut, Open Road Summer last year and never in a million years thought that she could do better. It was a beautiful debut that had everything I could want in it: friendships, cute boys and music. When I got book number 2 in the mail I had just started hearing whispers that The Start of Me and You was actually better than Open Road Summer. It wasn’t until I finished reading it that I had to concede that those whispers were correct.

The Start of Me and You is about friendship, family and of course, love. In this book we meet Paige, whose boyfriend died a year ago and who she’s still grieving for. She is still greeted with “That Look” very often and then sometimes complete strangers send her pitying looks. She wants this year to be the best year ever. She even has a plan.

1. Parties/Social events

2. New group

3. Date

4. Travel

5. Swim

She has wonderful friends who have been there for her in this past year. Gosh, I just love the way Lord writes about friendships. Tessa, Morgan, and Kayleigh each have their own distinctive personalities and problems but they are very loyal friends.

And Paige is going to need them as she navigates the waters with her parents. Paige’s parents have been divorced 5 years, but times are changing and they are beginning to date. So now Paige must deal with her own feelings about that. Her mom has become very strict and overprotective since Aaron drowned the year before. But what she doesn’t know is that Paige has not gone swimming since that day. She refuses to go into the water. Despite that refusal, Paige continues to have nightmares where she’s drowning and no one can get to her in time.

And then there’s Ryan Chase, the boy Paige has been crushing on for as long as she can remember. She is hopeful that this year will be different. He’s recently single and Paige is ready to make a move on him. But Paige didn’t expect Ryan’s cousin Max to look so different than he looked the last time she saw him.

She didn’t expect to fall for geeky, nerdy Max who stockpiled Do Si Do Girl Scout cookies and whose favorite TV show was the one season wonder, Firefly. It turns out that the guy she thought she wanted made a much better friend, than boyfriend. And the guy she never thought she’d fall for was the guy she needed in her corner. He was the guy willing to call her out on her skepticism and her realism.

“I mean, you’re always preparing yourself for the thing that’s most likely to happen, instead of hoping for the thing that you most want to happen.” –Max-

It’s been a very long time since a quote has stopped me cold to that extent. I mean, wow, Max could have been describing ME at that very moment. It wasn’t until this quote that I realized Paige and I were similar in some ways, yet Max’s backstory with his deadbeat dad was also so similar to my own backstory with my biological dad. All the way down to him wanting to meet me when I was about a year older than Max.

I cried a lot in the last 40 pages. I had spent a lot of time laughing while reading this book, but the ending broke me into tiny pieces. Lord is so good at weaving in happy, funny moments with heartbreaking poignant moments. Like I said earlier, this woman is a WIZARD. This book is definitely getting 5 stars. I absolutely loved this book and I cannot wait to get a finished copy of it. Emery Lord has secured her place on my growing list of auto-buy authors. Everyone go read this book, pre-order it, tell your library about it. 

Review: 17 First Kisses by Rachael Allen

Book Title: 17 First Kisses

Author: Rachael Allen

Publish Date: June 17th, 2014

Publisher: HarperTeen

Genre: YA/ Contemporary

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Book Link: Goodreads

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

Synopsis from Goodreads:

No matter how many boys Claire kisses, she can’t seem to find a decent boyfriend. Someone who wouldn’t rather date her gorgeous best friend, Megan. Someone who won’t freak out when he learns about the tragedy her family still hasn’t recovered from. Someone whose kisses can carry her away from her backwoods town for one fleeting moment.

Until Claire meets Luke.

But Megan is falling for Luke, too, and if there’s one thing Claire knows for sure, it’s that Megan’s pretty much irresistible.

With true love and best friendship on the line, Claire suddenly has everything to lose. And what she learns—about her crush, her friends, and most of all herself—makes the choices even harder.

In her moving debut, Rachael Allen brilliantly captures the complexities of friendship, the struggles of self-discovery, and the difficulties of trying to find love in high school. Fans of Sarah Ockler, Susane Colasanti, and Stephanie Perkins will fall head over heels for this addictive, heartfelt, and often hilarious modern love story.

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

Review:

This book was far more complex than I initially thought it would be. I was expecting a sweet, fluffy book with some friendship drama mixed in. What I got was a book about love, life, choices and family.

Claire’s family has been through absolute hell and they are still going through it. Her mom spends her days in bed, avoiding her children & husband. Claire’s father has immersed himself in his work, leaving Claire to run the house & take care of her younger sister Libby. Claire had a lot of pressure put on her and my heart broke for her.

Yet she also is dealing with the fact that every attractive boy in the world seems to want her best friend. As a teenager, that is an all too common problem. Every female teenager has that “hot” friend that the boys are in favor of. And it sucks because you want to be that girl. Thankfully, Megan and Claire made a pact to never let a guy come between them. 

But that comes into question when Luke arrives on the scene.

I could never get a really good read on Luke. Sometimes I’d really like him and root for him and Claire to be together because poor Claire desperately needed something good to happen for her. But sometimes I’d want her to run far away from this guy. There really is more to attraction than simply physical attraction and I think teens struggle with that fact.

Megan and Claire’s friendship is not smooth sailing, but no friendship ever is. There’s bumps in the road, fights that happen and loyalties that are questioned. However I never doubted the friendship. I never doubted that they cared about one another. I never thought that they couldn’t work things out. Friendships aren’t perfect and mistakes are definitely made.

I really wished we had seen more of Sam. I really liked him a lot and I definitely wanted to see more interaction between him and Claire. He seemed to linger in the background a lot without being a main character in the story. I couldn’t really tell what part he’d play in the story but I was definitely eager to see where it went.

This book brought out the feels more than I ever expected. There was a significant chunk about 30% in where I just full on sobbed. It was beautiful and heartbreaking. I found myself wanting to hug Claire because I remembered what it was like to have a mom refuse to get out of bed. It was unbearably hard and oftentimes I cried myself to sleep. So that part was really hard for me to read.

Character development for the main characters was pretty good, but character development for the secondary characters was lacking. However, I really enjoyed the book,and will be giving it 4 stars. I would definitely recommend it to others. It’s not a light and fluffy read by any means, but it was still a very worthwhile book.

Review: Dare You To (Pushing The Limits #2) by Katie McGarry

Book Title: Dare You To (Pushing The Limits #2)

Author: Katie McGarry

Release Date: May 28th, 2013

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Series: Book 2 in Pushing The Limits series

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Link: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. “Dance with me, Beth.”

“No.” I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again….

“I dare you…”

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all.

Disclaimer: This was a personal purchase.

Review:

Yesterday I reviewed Pushing The Limits which is the first book in this series. Today I am reviewing the second one in the series. I had heard through the grapevine that this one wasn’t as good as Pushing The Limits and while I did have some issues with Ryan at the beginning, I have to say that I loved this one too.For different reasons of course. Pushing The Limits was about realizing that while you may be damaged, you are still worthy of love. Dare You To was about needing to live your own life, apart from what is expected of you.

Ryan is expected to play ball and date Gwen. That’s it.His father has put immense pressure on him to focus on baseball and date a “good girl” like Gwen. The pressure has gotten worse since Mark, Ryan’s older brother came out of the closet.Ryan’s family has all but abandoned Mark for something that he cannot control.

Then we have Beth. Hardcore Beth who we saw a bit of in Pushing The Limits. The Beth that a lot of us were convinced would end up with Isaiah. I think that was part of my initial issues with her and Ryan. I couldn’t get the idea of her and Isaiah out of my head.Beth’s had a hard life. She’s had to play the adult to her mother since she was pretty young.She feels like it’s her responsibility to do that because her mom didn’t leave her.

It takes just about the entire book for her to realize that she is not responsible for her mother’s behavior. Her mother chooses that life. Her mother would rather have a violent drug dealer as a boyfriend than get away and be safe with Beth. Watching Beth realize all of this was gut wrenching. Watching her lean on Ryan was amazing to watch. In the past, her self esteem was in the toilet. She never felt like she was good enough for anyone. Which is why, when rumor swirl around the school about her past, she goes back to believing that she’s not good enough. 

“I love how he can smooth away the roughness and make me feel like someone worth loving.” -Beth

At the end of the book there is a particularly heartbreaking scene that had me in tears, actually more like violent sobs. It wrecked me in the best possible way. It’s no secret that I like books that give me the feels and this book did that.

It took me awhile to warm up to Ryan but once I did, I really liked him. I also really liked that he called her by her name and NOT some stupid nickname. Beth remained my favorite character throughout this book.While I couldn’t relate to her, I could empathize with her. 

I wish we had seen more of Ryan’s brother Mark, but what we did see of him, I liked. I really liked how Beth worked to get Ryan and Mark on speaking terms again.

“Grow a pair of balls, that’s what I would have done. God, Ryan, you are an asshole.Your brother is gay and you toss him out of your life because you are too much of a pansy to stand up to your father.” -Beth

Ryan’s friends Chris, Lacy & Logan all seemed like a good crowd. They supported each other and they were always willing to help each other out. The dares that were part of the friendship took a backseat to true friendship which I loved.

This book was near perfect for me. I am giving it 4.5 stars. I am taking off a half a star mostly because it took me nearly half the book to warm up to Ryan. If you haven’t read this series yet, then you need to and soon.

Review: The Moon & More by Sarah Dessen

Book: The Moon & More

Author: Sarah Dessen

Published Date: June 4th, 2013

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Genre: NA/Contemporary/Romace

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Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Synopsis:

This summer is a time for transitions for Emaline and her family. While she prepares to head off to college,other members of her family are experiencing changes of their own. Emaline has been with her boyfriend Luke for as long as she can remember.He is perfect in every way but now Emaline is starting to wonder if perfect is really what she needs. Enter Theo the mysterious stranger.

Theo is everything that Luke is not. Theo is ambitious and he goes for what he wants,every day believing that this day or this experience will be the best ever.He thinks that Emaline is much to smart for the small town of Colby.

Emaline’s mostly absent father agrees with Theo. He believes that Emaline can do much better than Colby but he is not willing or able to actually help her get there. Emaline can’t deny that she is interested in this future that both Theo and her father see for her.She loves her family and her small town and she’s reluctant to break out of her comfort zone.

Emaline wants to have it all but how can she balance where she came from,from where she’s going?

Disclaimer: I purchased this book from Amazon

Review:

I know most people are going to focus their reviews on the love triangle aspect of the book but not me. I am going to focus this review on Emaline’s family,most specifically her relationship with her mostly absent father as I related to that one so much. 

Like Emaline, I don’t have much of a relationship with my father. Actually the interaction I have with him is SO much less than what Emaline has with her father.Like Emaline though I do have a relationship with my half siblings. Not much of one but this book inspired me to make more of an effort.

“No you’re my father.I have a dad and right now Benji needs his. Not a lecture.Not fixing because he is not broken. Just your attention and your patience and your time.Just you.” 
                                 -Emaline

Benji was a cute kid and I’m not at all convinced that he didn’t steal the show so to speak in certain parts of the book.I really didn’t like Emaline’s father.Especially towards the end.I began to see just how selfish he was and I hurt so badly for Benji. I wish we had gotten to see more of Emaline’s stepmother Leah. I have a feeling I would have really liked her.

Now Emaline’s nuclear family was great. I loved her grandmother, mom,stepfather and sisters Margo & Amber. They all seemed like a typical family.Close enough to drive each other crazy,but also allowing for autonomy.I can’t blame Emaline for not really minding that her father wasn’t around much.She had a wonderful & supportive family.

Daisy was so sweet and such an awesome friend. I wish I had a friend just like her. I liked her relationship with Morris. I know it seemed like he was a lazy ass and maybe he was,but he made one hell of an effort for Daisy which made me smile.

Oh Ivy,throughout most of the book I kept saying that she was a very high strung woman and just needed to chill for a bit. But by the end of it,I loved her.Yes she was a hard-ass but once I really got to know the character I didn’t mind one iota.She actually grew to be one of my favorite characters in the whole book.

Okay I guess now I have to talk about the two guys. Initially I felt that Luke was too vanilla for Emaline and that Theo was more of a raspberry sorbet type. I liked Theo more for Emaline through a good chunk of it but then I started to realize that he was doing his best to try to change Emaline which drove me bananas. Yes coaxing someone out of their comfort zone could be helpful but he was really pushy.The fact that every day could be the “Best Day Ever” started to really irk me. No day is perfect and there is no such thing as having every day be the best thing ever.

I ended up loving Luke by the end of it. He was sweet and kind and most importantly he cared for Emaline in a way that I don’t think Theo ever did.He didn’t try to change Emaline and he also didn’t push for a reconciliation by the end.

“My point is, I don’t want anymore weirdness between us. Which means honestly not having anything between us.At least not now. All right?” -Luke

There were a few points in the book where it seemed to drag and that really is the reason I’ve giving this book 4 stars.If there hadn’t been any dragging parts,then I would be giving this book the full five stars. As it is,I need to go read some more of Sarah Dessen’s work.