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

Standalone

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: Behind the Scenes (Daylight Falls #1) by Dahlia Adler

Book Title: Behind the Scenes (Daylight Falls #1)

Author: Dahlia Adler

Published Date: June 24th, 2014

Publisher: Spencer Hill Press

Genre: YA Contemporary

Series: Book 1 in Daylight Falls

Book Link: Goodreads

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

Synopsis from Goodreads:

High school senior Ally Duncan’s best friend may be the Vanessa Park – star of TV’s hottest new teen drama – but Ally’s not interested in following in her BFF’s Hollywood footsteps. In fact, the only thing Ally’s ever really wanted is to go to Columbia and study abroad in Paris. But when her father’s mounting medical bills threaten to stop her dream in its tracks, Ally nabs a position as Van’s on-set assistant to get the cash she needs. 

Spending the extra time with Van turns out to be fun, and getting to know her sexy co-star Liam is an added bonus. But when the actors’ publicist arranges for Van and Liam to “date” for the tabloids just after he and Ally share their first kiss, Ally will have to decide exactly what role she’s capable of playing in their world of make believe. If she can’t play by Hollywood’s rules, she may lose her best friend, her dream future, and her first shot at love.

Disclaimer: I received this e-ARC from Spencer Hill Press via Edelweiss.

Review:

I was really excited about this book despite the fact that it isn’t normally my cup of tea. I am definitely a sucker for good friendship stories and that’s what Behind the Scenes gave me. Ally and Vanessa’s friendship was solid and it was an equal friendship. Vanessa is talented and she is set to be one of the stars of the new show Daylight Falls. Yet, she is careful not to flaunt her success in front of Ally.

Ally’s going through her own problems. Her father is in the hospital, fighting Stage IV skin cancer. Doctors are saying that he doesn’t have much time left so Ally spends a lot of time in the hospital with him. Her family is very close and supportive of one another. Ally has been planning to attend Columbia, but now that her father’s medical bills are eating up the college fund. So Ally wonders just how she is going to be able to go to Columbia when all this is going on in her family.

That’s where Vanessa sweeps in and hires Ally as her assistant so that Ally can go to Columbia like she’s dreamed of. It’s here where Ally met Liam. Ally tried her hardest to ignore Liam. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with a guy who makes a living as an actor. What she doesn’t know is that Liam has his own demons.

When Ally begins to talk to Liam, she learns that he has gone through absolute hell. His mother died from cancer when he was 8 and he was whisked off to his father’s house. He didn’t know his father at all and things between his father and him never improve.

“Sick as it was, there was something oddly nice about being able to talk cancer with someone who already knew the terminology.” -Ally-

I totally understood that as I have often said the same thing about my own health problems. It is definitely really nice to be able to talk about my heart problems with others who have experience with it. That means I don’t have to stop and explain everything that I’m talking about, which sometimes drives me batty. I could tell Ally really needed someone who knew about cancer to talk to them about it.

It wasn’t just the cancer thing that brought Ally and Liam together. They have great chemistry even as friends. Liam desperately wants to prove to Ally that he’s not a total douchebag and Ally wants to believe that he’s not like every other actor on the planet. But as things begin to deepen between them, Ally starts to wonder if she can really deal with being the secret girlfriend to an actor. She starts to think that maybe she’s not cut out for this. Maybe she’s not okay with seeing him “date” Vanessa.

“I just wanted to be enough” -Ally-

That line pretty much broke my heart. Ally’s best friend is a beautiful actress and her boyfriend is a very attractive guy. Ally lives in the real world. The world of high school and homework and prom, and sick dads and money problems. She doesn’t feel like she’s good enough for Liam. She doesn’t feel pretty enough, she doesn’t feel sexy enough. Not feeling good enough is definitely a high school thing so I was happy to see Adler put this in the book as I felt like Ally didn’t feel good enough for Liam for the longest time.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. More than I expected to. I am definitely excited to see what happens next. It was a book that combined friendship, family and love and those seem to be my favorite books regardless of the setting. 4 stars to this book and I’m excited for Vanessa’s story next. 

Review: Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang

Book Title: Falling Into Place

Author: Amy Zhang

Publish Date: September 9th, 2014

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Pre-Order Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Synopsis from Goodreads:

On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newton’s laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. 

Why? Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? Vividly told by an unexpected and surprising narrator, this heartbreaking and nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian High’s most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, force—Liz didn’t understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesn’t understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect? Amy Zhang’s haunting and universal story will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver, Gayle Forman, and Jay Asher.

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

Review:

Okay, let’s see if I can get my thoughts all written down before I start crying. Holy cow, this was such a powerful book. Emotional punches were packed tightly within this book so it was akin to a roller coaster, albeit, an emotional one. Knowing a teenager wrote this, seriously makes me feel like a big fat slacker.

I cannot say enough amazing things about the prose. Oh my goodness, it was beautifully written. It was emotional, it was easy to relate to and it was written in a way that would ordinarily confuse the heck outta me. But this time, I wasn’t confused. I was too drawn in to be confused by the fact that the timeline of the book wasn’t straightforward. There were flashbacks and a lot of jumping around to different parts of the story.

Sometimes when the writing is really beautiful, character development suffers. Happily, that was not the case with this book. Liz, her mom, her friends and even the boy she bullied, were all well rounded, complex characters which was another thing that I loved. No, the characters as a whole were not likable characters, but each of them had their own redeeming moments.

This book also had some tough subjects attached to it. Rape, Suicide, bullying, teen pregnancy, drug & alcohol use. These subjects were weaved into the story well which was great to see as often it feels as if the author has bit off more than she can chew. Clearly, that was not the case with this author.

Books like this tend to be on the preachy side, but thankfully this one was not. It did make me think a lot about my own life and what it means to be a friend, to love someone. Life is complicated, messy and like this book, it rarely goes in a linear fashion. I absolutely adored this book and I cannot wait to get my hands on a finished copy of it. 5 stars to this beautifully written book about life and the choices we make every single day.

Love I’ve Found In You

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably have seen news that wedding bells are ringing for me.

Chris and I are incredibly happy together and we recently ramped up our discussions on marriage. I’ve had some issues with commitment (issues that Chris has been incredibly supportive in helping me deal with) Issues that have plagued me for a very long time. Issues that made me question if I was really marriage material. Marriage had scared me for a very long time, but I now look forward to spending the rest of my life with Chris.

We’ve decided that I will pick 3 rings that I love and then it’s all on him. He knows that there’s no rush to propose. I know it’s coming soon and that’s all I need to know. I always thought I needed to have my hands in all parts of the proposal, but I don’t. I’m not as much of a control freak as I thought I was. Chris is a romantic and while I could certainly learn some of this romance stuff, I’m happy to leave it up to him.

He loves me and I love him.

Here are the three rings I need to choose from. I don’t know how I will choose between them.

 This ring is beautiful. When I first started looking for rings, I had this one in my mind. I thought for sure this one would be it. 

 This ring was not something I was expecting to love, but I actually did love it. This was Chris’s favorite too.

This ring was totally up my alley and although I did love it, I wasn’t expecting to fall for a ruby stone. However, red is Chris’s favorite color so maybe that means something.

So I really have a tough choice to make. Chris just wants me to be happy, no matter which one I choose. I never expected to have such a hard time choosing a ring to wear forever. Engagement rings are a very personal thing and I really don’t want to chose “wrong” I do love them all, so I don’t think I can choose wrong.

I cannot wait to fill you all in on my official engagement story and to show off the ring I chose.

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: Red At Night by Katie McGarry

Book Title: Red At Night

Author: Katie McGarry

Release Date: April 1st, 2014

Publisher: Harlequin Special Releases

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Standalone (e-novella)

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Link: Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

In Red at Night, Stella and Jonah are total opposites. She’s the girl with purple hair from the wrong part of town. He’s a high school senior who hangs with the cool crowd. Until a car accident leaves him haunted by guilt, and Jonah starts spending time at Stella’s favorite refuge…the local cemetery.

Stella knows she should keep her distance—after all, she spent her girlhood being bullied by Jonah’s friends. Once he’s sorted out his tangled emotions, Jonah won’t have time for her anymore. Too bad she’s already fallen for him.

Disclaimer: This book was a freebie from Amazon.

Review:

So I’ll read anything this woman writes. Oh my goodness, I never would have thought that so much emotion could be in a e-novella that was only 87 pages. Clearly I underestimated McGarry’s talents in condensing the story but not allowing the emotion to suffer. This book wrecked me nearly on the same level as Pushing The Limits did.

My heart ached so badly for Stella. She didn’t think there was any hope for her in life. She was resigned to her fate to work a full time job with no college since she couldn’t afford it and she didn’t have the type of family support she deserved. She had long ago learned that hoping doesn’t change the facts and that it was useless to hope for more. She had learned to be realistic and that dreams were just that, dreams.

“If I don’t hope for more, then it can’t hurt as bad.” -Stella

See, what did I tell you? Feels aplenty.

Then we had Jonah, who had the family Stella deserved but he couldn’t get past watching a complete stranger die on the road one night. He hated all the press that came with it. He hated being called a hero, because he wasn’t. He was just there at the right time and did what any decent person would do.

“His last words to me and on this earth were that he lived his life wrong.”-Jonah

I think everyone has that fear. That fear, that you’ll get to the end of your life and you’ll realize that you made some mistakes and maybe even lived your life wrong. Dying with regrets has got to be one of the worst feelings in the world because you can’t change it.

I loved Jonah and Stella’s relationship. I loved that he was willing to tell off his best friend, Cooper for making fun of her. I loved that he sided with her and was willing to defend her no matter what. The chemistry leapt off the page and it made me smile a lot.

“I know who I want to be and I want you by my side as I become that person.”

That quote is one of the most beautiful quotes I’ve ever read in a book. Oh my goodness, just reading it again, gets me all choked up. To have someone feel that way about you, has got to be one of the best feelings in the world.

This book packed an emotional punch from the very beginning and did not let go. I absolutely ADORED this book, and like I said before, I’ll read anything this woman writes. She’s that fabulous and her books are amazing, full of emotion and always, ALWAYS have amazing, and well written characters. 5 stars to this book that made me think of life, love and the choices we make in this world.

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: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Book Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Release Date: May 13th, 2014

Publisher: Delecorte Press

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

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

Synopsis from Goodreads:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Disclaimer: I received this e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

This book has been very highly regarded among my fellow bloggers so when I was granted access to this title, I was excited. I had very high hopes for this book. Upon finishing it, I felt let down in a big way.It wasn’t this amazing book that had reduced me to tears. It was a pretty “meh” book for me overall.

From the beginning, I knew that this book was going to be different. I hated the writing style. It was lyrical and it bored me. I thought the male love interest was a colossal jerk and I couldn’t understand what Cady saw in him. Also I really didn’t like Cady all that much. At times, I felt sympathy for her, but I never really warmed up to her the way I wanted to.

Through the first 70% of the book, I was bored. It seemed like the book was too long for not much to happen. Maybe it had to do with the insanely slow moving plot that only picked up in the last 30% of the book. Maybe it had to do with the characters. There seemed to be too many of them and not enough time was devoted to really developing them the way I would have liked.

Now the last 30% was like someone completely different wrote the book. The writing was less lyrical and more straightforward and the feels were there in a way that they hadn’t been in the first seventy percent. It was like it was a totally new book. That was really disconcerting to me.This book lacked fluidity throughout.

I’ll admit that in the last 30% I teared up. I didn’t full on sob like a baby, but tears were produced. In the interest of not spoiling things, that’s all I’ll say about the ending. Oh and that things aren’t always how they seem.

If I was rating just the first seventy percent of the book, it would get only one star. If I was rating just the last 30% of the book, it would be getting 4.5 stars. I’ll average it out to three stars. I hated the first seven-tenths of the book but I loved the last three-tenths of the book.Overall I didn’t hate the book, but I didn’t love it either.However, I know many other people loved it, so some of you may as well.

My Music

So I struggled with a topic for this week just like I always seem to do, but then I realized that I had never talked about my other love (outside of reading & outside of my cats) and that is music. I have a very eclectic taste just like I do with my books and what I like to read. I like rock, I like some pop and I looooove country. Like borderline obsessed with it. I’ll do some alternative and I do love me the soundtracks. Especially for movies that I have loved. I absolutely gotta have the soundtrack.

There are some types of music that I cannot stand. Rap is my number on cannot stand music. It’s not even really music to me and most of it is so offensive to women that I can’t even handle it. Of course that happens to be my 13 year old brother’s favorite genre of music and he is allowed to listen to the more offensive stuff at his dad’s which really upsets my mom. Classical makes me think of either elevator music or the music they play when you are on hold on the phone. Jazz, icky, ick. So not my thing. Actually makes me consider sleeping whenever I hear it.

I thought about putting some video clips of my favorite songs in this post, but I didn’t want to slow down the blog for anyone. That’s a pet peeve of mine so why would I do that to someone else?

I’m really on a country kick right now, even more than usual. My top country artists include Reba McEntire (she’s my all time favorite) Taylor Swift (yes I know she’s kinda Country/Pop but I love her) and Carrie Underwood, oh and Lady Antebellum, love them. Of course I cannot forget the men Garth Brooks, Lonestar, Brooks & Dunn & Vince Gill.Blake Shelton is okayish. Luke Bryan is fun & attractive to look at, but I’m not sold on his music.

So what are your favorite types of music and who are your favorite music artists?

Review: Fire & Flood (Fire & Flood #1) by Victoria Scott

Book Title: Fire & Flood (Fire & Flood #1)

Author: Victoria Scott

Release Date: February 25th, 2014

Publisher: Scholastic

Genre: YA/SciFi

Series: Book 1 in Fire & Flood series

Book Link: Goodreads

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

Synopsis from Goodreads:

A modern day thrill ride, where a teen girl and her animal companion must participate in a breathtaking race to save her brother’s life—and her own. 
Tella Holloway is losing it. Her brother is sick, and when a dozen doctors can’t determine what’s wrong, her parents decide to move to Montana for the fresh air. She’s lost her friends, her parents are driving her crazy, her brother is dying—and she’s helpless to change anything.

Until she receives mysterious instructions on how to become a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed. It’s an epic race across jungle, desert, ocean, and mountain that could win her the prize she desperately desires: the Cure for her brother’s illness. But all the Contenders are after the Cure for people they love, and there’s no guarantee that Tella (or any of them) will survive the race.

The jungle is terrifying, the clock is ticking, and Tella knows she can’t trust the allies she makes. And one big question emerges: Why have so many fallen sick in the first place?

Disclaimer: I received this print ARC from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

What would you do for someone you love, who was suffering? That’s the question that Tella Holloway is forced to face when she receives an anonymous box one night. Her answer is quick, she would do anything for her brother who’s suffering from an unknown illness. Doctor after doctor have tried to help him but no one knows what’s ailing Cody Holloway. 

So when Tella learns that the prize for winning this thing, is The Cure, she knows that she must compete.Even if she’s never even heard of The Brimstone Bleed before.Even if she has no idea what to expect. She knows that Cody would do it for her in a heartbeat. Tella is bright, intelligent and devoted to her family no matter what kinds of things await her. 

There were so many themes in this book, but the one that stuck out to me the most is loyalty.One could also make the argument for family being the main theme, but loyalty was an even bigger one. Not just loyalty among human allies, but loyalty from Pandoras to humans.

I’m obsessed with Pandora’s.First, you find them as eggs in a room, even before you reach the first stage of the competition. You have no clue what these eggs hold or even if they’ll hatch. So you take a gamble and hope that it pays off. I have never wanted anything like this in my life. I WISH Pandora’s were real. That would be so darn awesome. 

I really liked the supporting characters: Harper,Caroline, Olivia and of course Guy. Oh my goodness, Guy was mysterious, intriguing and just SO swoon-worthy. Initially, he kind of gave me the creeps, but I eventually warmed up to him just like he warmed up to Tella.

I am so excited to see what the next book holds for all of these characters.This book will be getting a full five stars and I cannot wait to read the next book in this series.