The Spectacular Now (Tim Tharp)

Summary: 
SUTTER KEELY. HE’S the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually. Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever.

What I Thought:
When I first finished reading this book, I couldn't believe that was the end. I literally kept flipping back in forth on my e-reader, sure that I must've lost or missed a chapter or something. Because that couldn't be the end. Sutter leaves Aimee and gets drunk before asking a bunch of other old drunkards if he did the right thing and they agree with him. "He's a hero!" they proclaim. It's kind of sad, really. It's like we saw a glimpse of Sutter's future when he was in that bar. He's going to become one of those drunken losers.

But after a little more time processing, the ending began to make sense. After I finished reading it, I went online to read other people's reviews to see if they were as confused as I felt. But two embodied it the best:
"The book ended with the main character just as he was in the beginning."

After thinking about this, I admit I can't help but disagree. I see how someone may think this. Sutter obviously is an alcoholic. Everyone knows it but no one actually says it to his face, but I'm sure everyone is saying it behind his back.

However, in the beginning of the novel. Cassidy, Sutter's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend asks him to "for once, put someone else's feelings before your own." By the end of the novel, Sutter actually does do this. He puts Aimee's feelings before his own but it takes a lot for him to get there. It takes Cassidy, the guy she starts dating, Marcus and Sutter's best friend, Ricky, trying to give him an "Aimee intervention" where they point out his negative influence in her life. And it's definitely obvious. This girl goes off on her only friend, starts doing shots at different points in the day just because she can and getting sloppy drunk at a party that causes the intervention in the first place.

But Aimee isn't hopeless. She has this dream of her and Sutter starting a new life together in Saint Louis with her sister. They'll get a apartment in her sister's complex there and she'll start attending WashU and he'll go to community college there and they'll be happy. Sutter's never had someone whose happiness that is effected so much by himself until Aimee. Which is why he can't let her down and goes along with her plan. The ending of the book is so sad; Sutter ends up telling her to go ahead without him and after he finishes summer school and get money for their apartment, but he has no true intention of following her, he just wants her to go so that once she's begun her new life it'll be easier for her to let him go.

"This book is just like Sutter. It only cares about now. It doesn't think about solutions, resolutions, or even conclusions. Just the now."

What I will say is the book is properly named. Sutter lives in the now and remains to do so even when the book ends. I both agree and disagree with this idea. On my disagreement side, the book has plenty of endings and beginnings. The ending of Sutter's relationship with Cassidy, the beginning and end of his relationship with Aimee, the ending of his idolization of his father, the self-recognition of Sutter about some of his character flaws. Sure, he never addresses his alcohol issues but he comes to terms that he refuses to believe that he can't be loved and that he's selfish. There is no true resolutions but I think that that's what makes it realistic. If anything Sutter giving up Aimee when he doesn't want to is unrealistic. He could've very easily kept her in a long and eventually unhappy relationship, but he chose to let her go.

Compared to the Movie:
I will admit that I saw the movie only a few days before I actually decided to read the book. And in some ways I did enjoy the movie more because it was more hopeful. Aimee was perfectly chosen in Shailene Woodley. She really embodied the innocence and vulnerability of the character and especially how highly influenced she is by Sutter. She is so hopeful, I was actually glad that the part when Aimee reveals that a guy had taken advantage of her before was taken out. But in a way it made her even more vulnerable to Sutter so maybe it should've been included.

Anyway, I loved the movie more because it gave Sutter and Aimee a Romeo-and-Juliet feel. You want to be hopeful that their relationship will survive but you know if nothing changes, they are doomed from the start.

There are some scenes that are word for word came from the book.

I definitely recommend the movie, but I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the book yet. The two scenes that happened in both, I loved far more in the movie.

The first was the first time Aimee and Sutter had sex was sooo sweet and funny all at once. But at the same time it wasn't romanticized. It had enough raw and genuine moments that kept it from turning into one of those unrealistic, too romantic and perfect Hollywood-first-time-having-sex scenes. Haha, I'll admit that I watched this scene over and over. It was soooo well done.

There was also the scene when Aimee gets hit by that car after Sutter throws her out of his car on the highway. The book definitely doesn't do this scene justice but it's hard to do a scene like this with the right amount of words and description while pulling you into it at the same time. Anyway, go see this movie. I loved it so much it actually became one of my favorites. Go see it! Go read it! Just do it!

Choker (Elizabeth Woods)

SUMMARY:  

Sixteen-year-old Cara Lange has been a loner ever since she moved away from her best and only friend, Zoe, years ago. She eats lunch with the other girls from the track team, but they're not really her friends. Mostly she spends her time watching Ethan Gray from a distance, wishing he would finally notice her, and avoiding the popular girls who call her "Choker" after a humiliating incident in the cafeteria. 

Then one day Cara comes home to find Zoe waiting for her. Zoe's on the run from problems at home, and Cara agrees to help her hide. With her best friend back, Cara's life changes overnight. Zoe gives her a new look and new confidence, and next thing she knows, she's getting invited to parties and flirting with Ethan. Best of all, she has her BFF there to confide in. But just as quickly as Cara's life came together, it starts to unravel. A girl goes missing in her town, and everyone is a suspect—including Ethan. Worse still, Zoe starts behaving strangely, and Cara begins to wonder what exactly her friend does all day when she's at school. You're supposed to trust your best friend no matter what, but what if she turns into a total stranger?

MY THOUGHTS:


This book was ugh. It was predictable and anti-climatic and unsuspenseful. I wanted to be creeped out and the mystery really be to a mystery but it wasn't. This book was a teen boring version of that movie with Johnny Depp, the Secret Window.

Very early on I figured out what was going on. It just seemed too predictable although the author was trying to make it a twist. At first I thought that Zoe was real but then I started thinking.

It's absolutely too much of a coincidence that crazy-Zoe just happened to show up the day that Cara is humiliated at school and gains the nickname "Choker".

Then after thinking about it I thought it was also too coincidental that Sydney dies after making fun of Cara. Of course it made sense if Zoe was really a crazed friend and everything but I started thinking it was all weird.

Then I remembered something that Cara had mentioned in the beginning about her parents hanging around everything when they first moved. Maybe she was crazy or something and her parents started hanging around more.

And it was weird that Cara kept talking to herself mentally about the murders/kidnapping and talking about Zoe. Then when she started smelling stinkiness and...by the time Ethan said that there was no one there when Zoe and Cara were fighting in the barn, I knew it.

But what the heck? What kind of cops let anyone on a crime scene anyway?

This book could've been so much more but it wasn't.

Gorgeous [Avery Sisters #2]

SUMMARY: She's looking good...but Allison Avery can't believe it. Growing up with beautiful, blond sisters, Allison has always been the dark-haired, "interesting-looking" Avery. So when the devil shows up and offers to make her gorgeous, Allison jumps at the chance to finally get noticed. But there's one tiny catch, and it's not her soul: The devil wants her cell phone.

Though her deal with the devil seems like a good idea at the time, Allison soon realizes that being gorgeous isn't as easy as it looks. Are her new friends and boyfriend for real, or do they just like her pretty face? Allison can't trust anyone anymore, and her possessed phone and her family's financial crisis aren't making things any easier. Plus when she finds out that she might be America's next teen model, all hell breaks loose. Allison may be losing control, but how far is she willing to go to stay gorgeous forever

MY THOUGHTS:
Okay, this book is very bad, forget “ehh”. It doesn't really take itself seriously.

There’s the cliche girl who is the middle child and feels like her family treats her older sister and the baby of the family way better than her. And she is a MAJOR pushover. Her so-called best friend Jade basically judges any and every one from the amount of make-up they were to their grades and how many extracurriculars they're involved in. I especially don’t like Jade because she tells Allison that by skipping ONE DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL IN THE 9TH GRADE colleges weren't going to accept her.

Um, okay because that’s not a strict exaggeration.

And she expects everyone to abide by her rules. And if they don’t, she gives them the silent treatment. It’s like her go-to solution. For example: Allison laughs too loudly at a joke Jade makes in the cafeteria and Jade and their other friend (basically Jade’s lackey) Serena just follows her example.

And then the boy of the story, Ty/Tyler is ugh. He’s fickle. He flirts with Allison’s new friend Roxie and then her best friend Jade (another reason I don’t like her because she knows that Allison has had a crush on him for forever and she just disregards that) and then starts going after Allison when she gets pretty. And then the author tries to make him seem like a good guy by humanizing him and throwing in that he has a brother with Down Syndrome and he is his hero.

I’m confused. Is he good or bad?

And Allison is kind of naive too. Like when Tyler admits to her that he only/started liking her because she got hot, she seems surprised.

And don’t even get me started on the devil part.

This really makes no sense. It’s used as a plot device to get the actions of the book started but it's not properly executed at all. Like when the devil first shows up, Allison doesn't freak out. She just goes pee and keeps herself covered because she doesn't want to expose herself to him. And then they haggle over a deal that makes no sense. He tries to offer Allison her sisters metabolism in exchange for her soul (but apparently she doesn't have one? I didn't understand this part) but she asks to be gorgeous instead...in exchange for her CELL PHONE! And the devil takes it.

What does he need a cell phone for???? He doesn't even take it away. Instead, he merely “possesses it” which means it basically does whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Making weird sounds, playing the music randomly and loudly. And he allows her to keep it...um, okay?  Then the devil turns out to be the editor-in-chief of the magazine Allison is a finalist in. And he expects her to tell all about her family's financial problems and her trouble with Jade and Roxie and Ty and her stuff with her sisters. Which I guess is the author's way of saying something about beauty and culture and magazines and the people behind them.

And it ends the way it began, Allison rips up a photo of her looking gorgeous and walks out choosing to be noble and to keep her family's secrets out of the spotlight at the expense of herself. Which is kind of a predictable ending. And with that she decides she's good enough to date Ty and they start dating.

The end.

Talk about time waster reading this book was.

Gorgeous (Paul Rudnick)

SUMMARY: Inner beauty wants out.

When eighteen-year-old Becky Randle’s mother dies, she’s summoned from her Missouri trailer park to meet Tom Kelly, the world’s top designer. He makes her an impossible offer: He’ll create three dresses to transform Becky from a nothing special girl into the most beautiful woman who ever lived.

Becky thinks Tom is a lunatic, or that he’s producing a hidden camera show called World’s Most Gullible Poor People. But she accepts, and she’s remade as Rebecca. When Becky looks in the mirror, she sees herself – an awkward mess of split ends and cankles. But when anyone else looks at Becky, they see pure five-alarm hotness. Soon Rebecca is on the cover of Vogue, the new Hollywood darling, and dating celebrities. Then Becky meets Prince Gregory, heir to the British throne, and everything starts to crumble. Because Rebecca aside, Becky loves him. But to love her back, Gregory would have to look past the blinding Rebecca to see the real girl inside. And Becky knows there’s not enough magic in the world.

MY THOUGHTS:

This book was fairly interesting. It kind of read like a parody because even though at the heart of the book there's a good message, there's all this humor and wit. I will admit this isn't the BEST book I've read this summer but it's definitely one I'd like to re-read in person (aka not a e-book but a plastic covered hardcover from a library).

However, in the beginning I found it hard for me to get into it. I actually started this book weeks ago but the first couple of chapters bored me and were taking to long to get to the plot that I forgot all about it until last night. Not to mention the descriptions of the outfits people were wearing and other things were sooooo long. I started skipping those paragraphs so get the point of the scene. Not a good thing I know but still. Over-all I did mostly enjoy this book there were some plot holes.

It's revealed that the Tom Kelly that Becky meets isn't exactly real. Or alive I mean. It turns out that he's her dad and he died before she was born from AIDS (I could be wrong about the disease but it was never stated by name). He really did love her mom and she made him promise to give her daughter beauty too. So I'm guessing that the reason no one saw him for the 20-ish years before Becky came to NYC is that he was dead. In the beginning I thought maybe he was the devil, and I wasn't the only one but the whole death thing and how he came back to life thing wasn't really touched on. So I don't get what happened. Just that after Becky got her happily ever after, he called her and said goodbye, her dead mom said she loved her and the call was over. I was/am so confused.

Also I wasn't that invested in Greg and Becky's love story. I thought it was somewhat interesting the way they're conversations went and I think even if they loved each other, I don't think they were IN LOVE. But maybe that would happen in time. And at least it wasn't that "insta-Love" crap. I kind of wanted Becky-as-Rebecca to ask Greg if he could still love her if she didn't look the way she did. I mean, sure the end of the book answers this question but I'm curious to hear Greg's reaction to that especially considering his WTF reaction when she pulled off her veil at their wedding and was just Becky after that. Lol, although I don't know how she and Rocher managed to run away without the Brit police catching up to them.

I really did enjoy Becky's best friend although she kind of annoyed me when she got into a fight with Lady Jessalyn (the one England actually wants Prince Greg to marry) and only Becky is implicated in the press for it. It was ridiculous. And I could not believe that neither one of them thought to save any of the Rebecca money she had to have made from her VOGUE shoot or the movie she did. But it did seem very dramatic that they became poor after that. It kind of reminded me of the end of [book: Jane Eyre] after Jane runs from Rochester and goes and lives with these other people.

Anyway, over all this book is a interesting read. Although I think the writing and plot holes do give the reading a bit of a hard time (and I NEVER notice plot holes) I definitely think this book offers something to readers that other books similar to this don't...lol although I can't exactly describe what that is.

MY DE-CRYPTION OF THE BOOKS CHARACTERS AND THEIR REAL LIFE COUNTERPARTS

Tom Kelly=Ralph Lauren

Prince Gregory=Prince William

Prince Jasper=Prince Harry

Princess Alicia=Princess Diana

Queen Catherine=Queen Elizabeth II

Lady Jessalyn=Kate Middleton

Shop-a-Lot=Save-a-Lot/Shop-n-Save (I figured this out from my time in Missouri for college)

Valu-Brite=Wal-Mart

Starglass [Starglass #1]

Terra has never known anything but life aboard the Asherah, a city-within-a-spaceship that left Earth five hundred years ago in search of refuge. At sixteen, working a job that doesn't interest her, and living with a grieving father who only notices her when he's yelling, Terra is sure that there has to be more to life than what she's got. But when she inadvertently witnesses the captain's guard murdering an innocent man, Terra is suddenly thrust into the dark world beneath her ship's idyllic surface. As she's drawn into a secret rebellion determined to restore power to the people, Terra discovers that her choices may determine life or death for the people she cares most about. With mere months to go before landing on the long-promised planet, Terra has to make the decision of a lifetime--one that will determine the fate of her people.

Let me start by saying, what the heck does a "copper-skinned" person look like? Or an amber colored person. Isn't that the stuff that bugs are preserved in?

Ew...so someone's the color of insect preservative.

I loved the multiculturalism in this book I did. I mean, a star-ship with religion? An Earth based, with all it's history based religion? Jews on a star-ship? I'm surprised it took this long for someone to have come up with this idea and run with it. Why wouldn't there be a group of religious people who want a star-ship of their own? Why not? It could totally happen. So from the moment I read that I was like, "okay...okay...okay. Let's see what else there is."

That's a original twist that tosses most of my Across the Universe comparisons aside. But every time someone who wasn't white came into the story, I felt the description of their skin color disrupted the story. At least in this story, being in space they kind of had an excuse for not using "black" or "African-American" but the author could've came up with something.

And it did. It so did. I don't think I've read any book in space or any dystopia story that features homosexuality in it what-so-ever. Let alone as a driving point for freedom that reminded me of current and past Earth times. So I thought that was pretty original too.

Anyway, I really did enjoy this book. Although there were parts of it that reminded me of  Across the Universe and Delirium (the fight for the right to love against the chain of command) it also kind of seemed original too. And I enjoyed that Tessa wanted to mess around later, even if it wasn't sex. That really made me believe that she was a teenage girl. I totally connected with her on that. 

I didn't connect with her so much with the mysterious death of her mother, which her second-fiance's dad apparently orchestrated only we don't really know why. Or if we did, it seemed totally pointless unless we're meant to learn more in the books that follow.

But Tessa could've been fleshed out a bit more. Because how do you say you have a best friend but she doesn't know that you like to draw? Or why is it you claim to love art, but we only witness you doing it once and there's no other sort of interactions with any sort of art later? Stuff like that makes characters seem two-dimensional or less which is badddd in a Main Character/Protagonist.

And a lot of her character seemed kind of cliched. The dead mother and the alcoholic, physically and verbally abusive father. Although when he kills himself in the end, that really did touch me. I had seen it coming for a bit though. He'd made it obvious throughout the book that he didn't want to land on the planet without her mother. And he did everything he could to make sure Tessa wasn't alone. He tried to find her a husband...which became awkward seeing how he got her engaged to his secretly-gay apprentice. And man...the way Tessa found out he was gay was like, 

When I read the scene, this was basically my reaction. My brother kept asking me what was wrong and I kept staring at him like he was crazy. Like this had come out of nowhere. Although there are parts of the book where one of Tessa's ancestors is writing to her daughter, Tessa (who is not the narrator) and she describes her love for a woman named Annie, still. I was just in SHOCK.

I get why some people say Tessa's selfish  She nearly marries the guy that her so-called best friend, Rachel had asked to marry and got viciously rejected by. Like, that's a no-no. That's breaking girl-code and friend-code times a million. I wish she would've hinted or just told Rachel that the rebellion group on the ship was making her kill him. Not to mention the way she viciously outs Koen (her first fiancee, her father's apprentice) to Rachel after her and Rachel's confrontation of her stealing of the boyfriend. That was not cool at all.

But the manipulative woman behind the rebellion group in the first place...she's got...I would say balls but please, having balls does not equal bad-assery. But...if I say she has a va-jay-jay I'm just stating the obvious and that just sounds stupid. The girl has tits (lol). In her quest for power she managed to turn the lower citizens into a rebellion to get rid of her mother (the captain) and her successor? She nearly succeeds. Luckily Tessa realizes in the end but not before the girl kills her own mother in cold blood.

Anyway, my favorite part of the book is the search for Tessa's true love whom she has sexual dreams. She calls him her "bashert" which means soul mate or destiny and the book comes to a dramatic end. Not only has she witnessed a second murder and ran out on her own wedding but Tessa realizes that her soul mate is one of the aliens on the planet that her ship is supposed to colonize and is against their landing.

Shades of Earth [Across the Universe #3]

Oh, some of the characters in this book made me so MAD!!!! Namely, everyone who had a name and dialogue except for Elder.

Chris:

When I first heard about this character, I was like, awww crap. Another stupid and pointless love triangle. I despised every moment that Amy was flirting with him-which she so was even if she never seems to acknowledge it. And I already knew he was apart of the hybrid race.

However, he really got on my hit list when he had both of Amy's parents killed (okay, one was indirectly but the only reason he felt bad was when Amy was rightfully pissed off and despised him afterwards) and singlehandedly is the reason that she became a hybrid herself and therefore not only is she not already accepted fully by the shipborns but the Earthborns may be wary and scared of her too. And he has the audacity to whine about how he had no choice in any of the choices he made and he was only trying to help his people. I'm almost surprised that no one compared his ass to Elder. Ugh! Every time this jackass even talked I got pissed off.

I wish the author would've killed him off in the end. That was something that Amy should've been given. What idiot is like, "oh yeah, this girl I want [whose parents I killed both of and changed her from human to a despised non-human like myself] is totally gonna want me.

Shaking my damn head; idiot.

Amy: 

This girl was really pissing me off during this book.

She flirts with Chris, she never sticks up for Elder to her parents or even gives them any inkling that he is anything but her friend (I wasn't sure they had the boyfriend term still around in the Earth Amy grew up in but still). I understand that she had nearly lost her parents forever but from the moment the ship landed and she had released the frozens, I was hoping she would be the link between the Earth and shipborns. She's pretty much dating the leader of the shipborns and she's the daughter of the Earthborn's military leader. It would've been nice if she tried to navigate the lines of both worlds in order to bring everyone more together but she doesn't. She lets her parents talk bad about Elder and doesn't do anything to help the shipborns even though she knows that the Earthborns have supplies that they aren't sharing with the shipborns.

Not to mention, she lets Chris kiss her and never tells Elder or gives Chris enough of a "back-off" signal because he keeps trying.

Anyway, other then the characters who pissed me off, I enjoyed this book. I just wish the ending had been a lot different. That we could've flashed forward to the future of the colony.

Seven Minutes In Heaven [The Lying Game #6]

So Ethan killed Sutton.

Because he was obsessively in love with her.

-_-

And he killed Nisha.

-_-

Because she read what REALLY happened in his file.
-_-

(He killed a girl when he was 10 for having another "best friend:)

Apparently, he had some psychological disorder (I really don't remember or care too) and when Emma found the file while she and Ethan were snooping in Nisha's deserted house, she (stupid girl!) ran to where he killed Sutton...and he tried to kill her too. But she got away...and the bad boy went to jail.

This book really had no purpose. I feel disappointed times A MILLION! The only interesting thing was when Sutton's body got found and she got busted by the cops for being Emma, her grandparents threw her out of the house (siting crazy-Becky's contagious as an excuse), she got kicked out of school (the reason being that Emma Paxton never enrolled/got into whatever school she'd been going too) and her friends ditched her...I felt like I was reading 90210 by the way everyone drove the innocent girl into the bad boys arms (I'm talking about Annie and that Jasper guy). But of course they all apologized and accepted her before giving Sutton a big salute at her funeral. Then after Emma spent her first Christmas with a family, Sutton passed on to the next life.

:( Poor Thayer. And that was the end.

Well, thanks Sara Shepard for devoting all your time to a zombified series (a series that was dead and came back to life when it should've stayed gone. Y'all know what I'm talking about.) It feels like she didn't even try with this series. Readers had guessed around book 2 or 3 (for some, even book 1) that Ethan was the killer. But they were counting on her signature to twist it out into being someone else.

But she didn't. Because she was too worried about PLL.

I guess I'm done with the Lying Game entirely now. First ABC Family cancels the show (which I loved) and now the disappointment that became the book series ended.

New Girl

• the plot of the book

The narrator, whose name is Callie although we learn that in the last couple of pages of the novel, is enrolled in a boarding school she lost interest in years ago for her senior year. She temporarily fell in love with the idea of boarding school after reading Harry Potter but quickly got over it when her chosen school rejected her. What Callie didn't know was that her parents wanted her to be happy so much that they kept resubmitting her application year after year despite her desire had been long forgotten. But she enters the school, M-something, long from wanted and we quickly discover why.

The reason Callie has finally managed to gain a spot in this school is because last year another girl enrolled...and disappeared. This girl, Becca, left a large (Alison DiLaurentis like) presence on the school despite her disappearance. The day Becca got on campus she managed to start a tradition of weekend parties in the school boathouse without any of the students getting caught and sleeping with the most unattainable guy on campus. Anyway, Becca was definitely loved and Callie was definitely not. Everyone immediately despises her for taking Becca's place especially their roommate, Dana. There are the typical mean girls but they're divided in half. There's the ones who are loyal to Becca's memory who warn Callie that Becca's past boy-toys, her ex-boyfriend Max and (I'm unsure of why they did this since they didn't know Becca and he were hooking up) Johnny. So, of course Callie falls for one of them, the ex-boyfriend, which feels purposeful. If Becca comes back, then she can be with Johnny and Callie can be with Max.

Not that anyone, especially Dana wants that to happen. Everyone is convinced that Becca will come back and until then, her so-called wannabe, Callie needs to stay away from everything that belongs to her. Dana even goes so far as to steal Callie's Halloween costume in order to get her into Becca's old Marilyn Monrue costume from last year to make everyone at school agree with her that Callie is just a Becca wannabe. Also, unnoteably so, Callie and Max have a series of enteractions and eventually they start sleeping together-without a title-which goes against everything Callie is trying to do. She wants to be viewed as herself which no one does, they all call her "new girl" and only see her as Becca's replacement. Too bad she did exactly what Becca did, sleep with Max without a title.

Anyway, half of the book is devoted to Becca's beginning junior year, a year ago that keeps in time with Callie's current senior year. In it we learn that Becca was a little psychotic. Although Becca starts dating Max, it's kind of something that she shrives to do because she doesn't want to be rejected and she wants to be the envied golden couple. Who Becca really wants is Johnny, who happens to have a thing for a roommate than Becca ruined on her first day. Eventually she gets Max to commit but keeps Johnny around on the hush. Towards the end of the novel, we discover that one of the rumors about Becca (that she was kidnapped, that she ran away, that she was murdered...etc) is true; she was pregnant. Not that we get to know who the baby daddy is. Becca ends up so drugged up, but she tries to convince Johnny to be with her not knowing that Dana is eavesdropping. Johnny drugs her up more to try and calm her down but all the drugs in her system cause Becca to end up drowning. Dana saw her on the dock but was the person who believed the most that Becca was alive.

Then everyone graduates, Max and Callie end up together and presumably go to college in the same town or near each other (I don't know what towns Boston University and Harvard are in) and Becca's mom turns out to be pregnant. The End.

• my thoughts on the book

This book was properly named although I don't like the wisp of premise on the cover. What if no one knew your name? It completely misdirects the direction that the novel is actually going to go. New Girl doesn't explore the idea of someone who the people around her don't know the name of. Instead, it explores the idea of replacing someone else against your will so much so, that everyone refuses to acknowledge your name but rather the action of replacement. I felt or understood most of Callie's feelings about being thrust into Becca's shadow so much. And it's one thing to be always cast in Becca's shadow by her peers but by the guy she likes too...that must suck.

However, New Girl doesn't truly belong in the mystery category. Sure, there's a mystery but every clue that we should've gained by sleuthing, Callie's sleuthing, was told to us by Becca's third person sections of the book. It was so anti-climatic and un-interesting although informative. The most suspenseful part of the entire novel was when Becca showed up as a hallucination? (This part was unclear because Callie wasn't asleep  unlike the later times she runs into Becca). At that point in time it wasn't known of Becca was alive or not.

Anyway, everything that could've been done with this book was tossed aside. It was anti-climatic. The romance was soooo uninteresting. I was more invested in Johnny and Becca than Callie's romance with Max (in which neither of them learned anything about one another that didn't somehow relate to the Becca mess). And I started to believe that Dana had killed Becca and was succumbing to guilt or was going off the deep-end but that all turned out to be post-traumatic stress symptoms probably due to Dana seeing Becca on the dock as/or the results of her rape, which she confided in Becca about that made her so loyal  to her. But instead Becca just died, pregnant and drugged up. This book, now that I think about it was soooo disappointing. 

Another Little Piece (Kate Karyus Quinn)

Another Little Piece is about the return of a girl named Annaliese to her hometown after disappearing a little under a year ago after trading her soul for the lust of her crush, Logan, the running back on her school football team. However, what she didn't realize is that she got cheated in more ways then one. As soon as she gives it up to Logan in the woods, she tells him he loves her and he pretends not to hear as he goes back to the party they're at. 

But it sucks for Annaliese because now she's lost everything and she's given up her soul for a boy who has what he wanted. Anna, the name of the one Annaliese gives her soul too, tells Annaliese she has to pay now. So Annaliese cuts Anna's heart out of her current body and then eats it, not realizing that in doing so she has given Anna control of her body. 

However, something goes wrong when the body Anna-is-currently-in's mother shows up and messes up the ceremony spiraling into a series of events that leads to Anna's memory loss and the beginning of the novel.

When Anna-as-Annaliese returns she runs into every love interest she's going to have in a record amount of time. Lucky for us though, it's never any contest who she has feelings for or any kind of love triangle. 

Eric/Franky is the creepy loser who manipulated Anna into her more than nine-lives years ago who insists that he loves her and she'll give in to moving onto the next body when the hunger for a new body takes over her. Apparently, the first time she switched bodies, it took over her and she killed her original family. 

There's Logan, whose role in the climax I should've seen coming but missed. I think that the lust may have evolved into something else because the first time Anna-as-Annaliese runs into him, he drunkingly reveals his guilt of taking her virginity and leaving her in the woods in front of the whole school turning her from a poor-victim into a home-wrecking whore.

Eventually, Logan becomes prey to Eric/Franky when he wants Annaliese's love and gives up his body and soul for it. 

And then there's Dex, the boy next door who's not as normal as you might think. Dex can see people's deaths and saw Annaliese's years ago, therefore recognizing that she is someone else not that that stops him from developing feelings for her.

I liked this book for a number of reasons.  I enjoyed how the author took a step away from the Twilight formula. I loved the romance factor. Anna and her love interest, Dex never say "I love you" to each other in the book. They never become creepily obsessed with each other or even get anywhere close to having those I-love-you feelings. And there's something about Dex that makes him so much more compelling then most YA love interests especially the paranormal versions. 

I also liked that it was a standalone novel instead of the author being greedy and trying to bank off of a series of books. And I also enjoyed that not every mystery of the book was wrapped up at the end. We didn't really learn about why the Physician was who he was and did what he did or about his sisters. But I'm glad we didn't because not everything had to be wrapped up at the end although I am curious but I feel like the explanation concocted wouldn't live up to the standards of the mystery.

This book was nothing like I thought it was going to be. But that is a good thing. I thought it was a realistic, suspenseful mystery and while it was two-thirds of those things, it also had supernatural tones too. And not the supernatural tones most books have. This book was actually dark and that was part of the reason I enjoyed it. Now-and-days most paranormal, supernatural books try to follow the success that Stephenie Meyer discovered with a Twilight-esque formula and everything but switch the new girl for the boy boy or the supernatural entity being the girl instead of the boy and blah-blah-blah. This novel was far from Twilight and I loved that about it.

Parallel

I loved this book. And it wasn't because of the writing or the plot. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure entirely why I loved this book. It kind of reminded me of Gimme a Call, but instead of the Abby's being apart of the same time stream, in this one the girls live in two different dimensions. I think one of the reasons I loved this book is because one of the themes was how choices can define your life and you as a person. And if someone is different, who's to say that the people they choose to love and love them aren't so different either? Abby-from-Here (the true main character) starts dating this guy named Michael while she's attending Yale. Which she is absolutely beguiled about because she wanted to study journalism at Northwestern (this was a flaw for me in the novel because Yale doesn't have journalism, yet we never learn Abby's major or if she even has one) and in her world she's currently staring in a movie that she was forced to give up college for. That is until her world collides with a parallel Earth (let's call it Earth 2)and her life starts being dictated by Abby-from-There's (Abby 2's) choices because her world takes place a whole year later.

I've been searching all over for novels about situations similar to the premise of this book. Just the other day I finally got a hold of one called Don't You Wish but could barely get through it because of how boring and superficial it was. Sure, this book had it's bad points but another reason I loved it, was that it made me think. People always wonder how different choices could have determined their lives or themselves as a person and in this novel we really got to see that. I understood Abby-from-Here's fear about waking up and being in a whole new place with a new history every night. I understood her confusion about Josh although that could've been emphasized. And I definitely understood her wish to get her best friends, Caitlyn and Tyler together and it soooo sucked that that backfired. I especially understood her anger and anguish when Abby-from-There (2) caused the car accident that could've killed Ilana (the mean girl) in her quest to get her friends together and how it nearly killed all her friendships.

But I mostly loved the ending. Although I had a few problems with it. We got introduced to all this scientific theory in the beginning, I expected that in the end, this would be the savior. But it also makes sense about why that didn't end the book. I guess I just felt like it was rushed. Abby-from-Here and Abby-from-There chose the boys that we didn't actually get to see them dating in the novel. Instead we got brief moments with them before Abby-from-Here chose to be with Josh and Abby-from-There chose to be with Michael (ha! I caught onto them being brothers only paragraphs before it was revealed). But looking back, it kind of made sense for Michael and Abby-from-There to be together. He loved/wanted/liked the Abby who was a rowing/boating team member. Haha, that's my only clue but still. However, I didn't like we were kind of pushed into that direction. Both Abby's had a flash of the future in which their "soul-mates" starred and from there, realized who they should be with.

Abby-from-Here took this widely romantic gesture after breaking up with Michael on a whim to be with Josh, who she barely knows. However, luckily she doesn't have to be with a Josh who already knows how to be with her. In the end, the earth's separate (or that's my theory) and each Abby's life is her own. Abby-from-Here's life reverts back to the beginning of the novel where she is starring in a movie. Only luckily as fate has it, she was supposed to be with Josh after all and ends up meeting him for the first time at the baseball game she Choose him at. So now, she has the chance to be with Josh and it's assumed after main Abby declares it, that Abby-from-There chose to be with Michael and go to Yale and be on the rowing team. I kind of wished we had gotten to see more about that but this book wasn't about Abby-from-There but Abby-from-Here. Overall, though I enjoyed it.

Janie Face to Face [Janie #5]

This title was illogically chosen. It's called Janie Face to Face and you would think that it would refer to Janie finally coming face to face with Hannah considering the premise, however she doesn't. That was the most disappointing part of this book. There are few books where I am unable to guess the plot if not large chunks of it but surprisingly this was one of those books.

The premise talks about a famous crime writer wishing to write a story about Janie/Jennie/Jane but it turns out that the writer isn't who we think he is. Everyone in the book considers people around them for choosing to write the book and everyone has their own motivations. It turns out that some of Janie's Spring family resent her for choosing her Johnson family over her bio-family for what seems to be the last time by allowing Hannah to still go free in the last book. But it turns out that despite everyone's desire to catch Hannah and get justice, it's no one we know betraying Janie. Instead, it's Hannah. Like I said, totally surprising.

I don't know how I didn't see that coming from the moment that we heard the book's title, The Happy Kidnap and all the badmouthing the author did towards Janie's Johnson parents. In the end, however, Hannah does get caught but without any sort of confrontation that I was waiting/hoping for. Instead, she gets arrested in the Johnson's new house while they are at Janie's wedding and that's the end of that. I felt like the ending was sort of rushed. Like maybe the author didn't know how to make Janie and Hannah come face to face so she just didn't allow them too.

I loved this book but I also hated it too. I loved that Janie and Reeve got married and they had that romantic airport proposal with all of those people watching. That was probably one of my favorite scenes in the book. And it was fitting that later when Reeve gave Janie her engagement ring, it was also in the airport. I just wish we had gotten to see some of the time Janie and Reeve had together during the weekend that led to the spontaneous proposal. Without it, it makes me feel slightly lost.

I hated that Janie was becoming Jennie Spring. That she was leaving behind her Johnson family in favor of the only family she was supposed to have. But I think that she and the author forgot that nothing was how it was supposed to. I hated everything that Janie was doing to become herself. I loved her college essay, I loved her emotional turmoil. It all reminded me of Juliet from Shakespeare's question, What is in a name? I wanted Janie to continue to balance her lives, her selves. Because she wasn't just Janie Johnson but she wasn't just Jennie Spring either and it felt wrong to me for her to give up everything she was in order to be someone she never got the chance too. She wasn't the Jennie-who-might-have-been, so why try now? I hated all of that. I wanted her to choose a new wedding dress for herself, not use her Spring mother's old one. I wanted her to figure out a way to tell both of her families at the same time that she was getting married. I hated Janie's evolution into Jennie but luckily she married Reeve and became someone with a different name entirely.

Overall, though I did enjoy the book although some of the repetition with things bothered me. I do recommend fans of the series read this book. We got into Hannah's head quite a bit. She hates Janie. She believes she stole her parents, her money and all the love she should've had. Every time someone is mean to her, she blames it on Janie. We learn that she viciously chose to give Janie to her parents believing that they would get busted within days and thrown in jail for kidnapping.

Of Poseidon

I had such high hopes for this book. This is the second book in a couple of days that disappointed me due to the love story. Of Poseidon is about a girl named Emma who has the Gift of Poseidon which means that she can talk to underwater mammals in order to feed her people. Which is awkward because Emma hates seafood.

The story started off kind of boring so I skimmed the first few pages describing Emma's encounter with a boy and his sister who happen to have the same purple eyes that she does while on vacation with her best friend who happens to be black (yay!) but dies in the cruel and vicious attack of a shark that Emma later describes as not hungry but playing a game with her (how sadistic). The guy, Galen, and his sister, Rayna try to help Emma out but fails. The shark only stops when Emma screams for it to stop while underwater, not realizing that her best friend has already bled to death.

In the first moments of this novel, I mentally wept for Emma. But then the book took a turn. Suddenly, a few months later I'm in a flipped mermaids-not-vampires version of Twilight. Galen is Edward in personality but Bella in that he's the new student and Emma tries to change her schedule to get away from him because he reminds her of her deceased best friend. However, instead of Emma fainting from classroom blood testing, she hits her head and passes out during a argument with Galen.

This next part was so unrealistic to me. Emma's mother starts yelling at her demanding to know who Galen is and talking about how the principal saw how "intimate" they were with each other and how Galen "never left her side or let go of her hand". What kind of principal notices things like that then mentions them to her mother. And why was the principal observing all this when she should've been helping Emma, or getting the nurse. That's who should've been there. Not her. Emma's mother bothered me from the start, like she really pissed me off. Usually I have a talent of guessing plots and I was pretty sure that her mother was Galen's brother's long lost-fiance who disappeared after they had a fight in a human mine that blew up. What I couldn't understand though, was Emma had this early memory of nearly drowning in a pond and the fish saved her life and her mother of all people didn't believe her. She didn't even bother wondering if her daughter was going to have a fin or have any of traits from her Syrenan heritage. Or I guess she was just stupid as what and expected Emma to tell her. But after that denial of the fish, I can understand why Emma didn't talk to her. That woman is hard to talk to. In ways, she's worse than Bella's dad.

However, she's not the only one who has issues to me. Galen has issues. I guess his mission originally made sense to me. He came to Emma's vacation spot to see if she was one of them and quickly got a bunch of yes' and a bunch of no's and obviously confused, he followed her home and enrolled in her school. Quickly, all the girls want him (is that what every woman/girl wants because this is something common in movies and YA. The guy who every girl wants, happens to want the protagonist which she, of course, finds hard to believe due to her self-esteem issues) and he wants Emma.

At some point I started skimming over the book because the plot got so cliche. Emma and Galen want each other, she doesn't believe he wants her though, his best friend kisses her to make Galen's sister, his "mate" jealous and Galen nearly kills him. Blah, blah, blah. I don't like Galen. Emma seems to have forgotten Chloe...in the end, the novel ends with a cliffhanger. Galen finally realizes the obvious: Emma's mother is the Poseidon heir, Nalia who was supposed to marry his brother but disappeared. And confronts her about it.

Sigh, this book could have been soooo much. But really, it just turned out as a disappointment. I'm wondering if every time I try to read YA or magical/paranormal books, the thing that ruins them for me is the boring romance.

The Sweetest Spell

I had a feeling when I first read the summary for this novel a couple of weeks ago that it wouldn't exactly have a believable factor. I mean, a girl who can churn cream into chocolate? That's as unbelievable as it gets. But I thought that the story would be interesting and maybe some sort of spin on the Rumpelstiltskin story. However, apparently this story is supposed to be a retelling of The Ugly Duckling fairy tale. I didn't really see that though. It was kind of shown in a way but not exactly to the extent of the fairy tale.

the synopsis of the book...
Emmeline is a member of division of a mythical kingdom that has been cast out by the rest of it's members due to history and prejudice (they are marked by their red hair and called "dirt-scratchers"), then she in turn has been cast out of her society for not dying when her dad left her in the woods to die because she has a physical disability. However, some cows surround her and he decides to take her back. Everything changes the day that the royal soldiers come to her village and take all the unmarried men away for a way during the annual husband market (a dirt-scratcher tradition that auctions off eligible men in the community for the women to bid on). After the men are forced into service, the village floods and Emmeline's favorite cow dies, but not before bestowing a gift upon her.

Emmeline washes up in Normal-Citizens Land by a dairy boy who finds one of his cows guarding over her as she lays passed out on the shore. He and his family takes her in and she is revealed to be beautiful and the dairy boy, Owen, who of course is a lady's man, finds himself enthralled by her. While showing her around, Emmeline accidently brews a bucket of chocolate that Owen's family tells everyone in town about.
Before Owen and Emmeline ever have any real substantial conversation that can function as the basis of a relationship, Emmeline is kidnapped by someone wanting to exploit his gift for his own selfish reasons. Owen gets stabbed, Emmeline believes he's dead and gets carried off and eventually ends up serving the king and queen. Owen goes after her despite his doctor's orders but ends up getting thrown in jail and sentenced to mining, Les Mis style. It turns out that everyone stolen from Emmeline's village including her dad, was forced into slavery to mine gold for the king and queen who have been imposing ridiculous taxes (there's even a tax on water) on their kingdom and that's where Owen ends up.

In the beginning of the novel, Owen read Emmeline the story behind why her and her people were exiled in the first place and I was sure from the moment I heard it, that the history was fake. And as it turned out, I was right. The current queen and her son (who is a homosexual) are Flatlanders/dirt-scratchers who dye their hair. If anything the real history seemed like a combination of the European history between Native Americans and African Americans. But with chocolate.

In the end, Emmeline discovers Owen's alive and they declare their love for each other, she and the prince run his parents out of the kingdom and she teaches other women from her village how to make chocolate and the story ends happily ever after.

how i felt about it...
The love story in this book really bothered me. First off, Emmeline and Owen probably only got a few days if even two weeks with each other before being separated for God knows how long. But by the time they meet up with each other again, they've supposedly fallen in love. How? There was nothing in the novel that convinced me of their genuine feelings for each other, other than Owen commenting on Emmeline smiling at him more-then she gets kidnapped! They never talked about anything really. They didn't have anything in common and it literally was not until the last chapter in the book that was in Owen's POV that he stopped referring to her people by the derogatory term "dirt-scratcher" (I think this name is a reference to farmers). What kind of guy who loves a woman of a oppressed group of people, insists on calling that group by the worst name for them possible? Like I said, I'm so not convinced.

Another thing I hated was the switching of point of view between Emmeline and Owen. You could tell they were written by the same person and the author didn't label the chapters by the person speaking. It was really confusing.

Another thing that bothered me was some of the writing and terminology. At several points in the novel, Emmeline and Owen refer to the most attractive guy in her village as "the most popular guy in the Flatlands". Number One, who says that during the time of kingdoms?And Number Two, what GUY says that either?
Also the story about the cow queen who first bestowed the gift of chocolate-churning bothered me.
The scene in which the prince and Emmeline team up so that they can get rid of his money and chocolate hungry parents seems so silly and 100% unbelievable.

overall...
Although I thought this was a interesting concept, I felt like the plot and the writing could have been wayyy better. The different character POV's should've been labeled with names, the characters could've been fleshed out more because they all seemed like cardboard cutouts. You know, the ones that have another piece in the back that holds them up. It was like the author tried to make her characters more three-dimensional but failed. 

Kill Me Softly

The cover totally throws off the actual story. It makes it look like a murder mystery or something and while there's murder and mystery it's so much more then what it is. But you know, don't judge a book by it's cover

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book. It kind of reminds me of the Sisters Grimm series with a more grown up, harsher tone. Mirabelle runs away to find her parents grave and finds love instead. And not just love that consumes you but love that kills you.

And a love triangle The Vampire Diaries style because it's between two brothers. And surprisingly enough I didn't hate the triangle. It was so much more realistic then most. First she meets Blue and loathes him 100%, not attracted to him, no hints of more, just completely hates him. Then she meets his brother Felix and as a girl who is 15, grown up in a strict household where she couldn't wear make up or date (so probably hasn't been kissed or had crushes/returned crushes) she falls instantly for his charms. He puts her up in a room in the Valentine hotel/casino and she's gone.

What attracted me:
The town she's come to reminds me of Ferryport Landing in the Sisters Grimm. A bunch of magical beings relating to fairy tales reside in secret in a town together. But here they are all cursed and marked to show what exactly their curse is. While the whole idea of the fairies and curses and marks didn't exactly appeal to me, I did enjoy the psychology of living a life that was set for you, from beginning to the end. Of course, Mira just happens to also be one of these characters. It's a strange set up the way the curses work out, but anyway it turns out that Mira is a "Sleeping Beauty" and her prince is this guy named Freddie that she doesn't want. But instead of a spindle, her "spindle" is a razor".

That's what made Felix a slightly more three dimensional character rather then a cardboard cutout of a villain masquerading as someone charming. I just wish some of this angst that he feels had appeared when he tried to kill Mira.

But the rising action kind of deflated when the climax hit (Felix finding Mira in his Dead Girl Room--why is it that Felix's name is Felix but their mom named his brother Blue...one of these things is not like the other...). Because he doesn't hurt her and she tries to run like once and then they start making out but I wish it could've been painful--him stealing her love--because it kind of deflated the action. So she cuts her self with her spindle--a razor (Oh, that's why her godmothers only let her use Nair to get rid of unwanted hair. That makes sense) and falls into her Sleeping Beauty sleep. Then Freddie and Blue show up and instead of a fight with Felix or something to drive up the action, they quickly hack through the thorns, find Mira and save her in like 30 minutes. Then there's a party, she saves herself from being without Blue and that's the end...C'mon there was so much more you could've done with that.

if only, if only, if only...
I only wish that Mira's parents had made an appearance because the introduction to them just seemed like a device used for Felix to gain Mira's love/trust and to get her to town in the first place. She even gets their number and her guardians reappear at the end of the story but everyone's pretty much forgotten all about them. So there are some loose ends that need to be tied up.

Especially because Blue foreshadowed that the curse (he and Felix are correspondents of a Bluebeard story except because they are Romantics, they kill the ones who love them by feeding on their love) wouldn't allow him to just let Mira live knowing about his collection of dead girls. Hopefully there will be a sequel in Mira's POV and then others following up the stories of Viv (Snow White counterpart), Rafe (a Beast counterpart), Layla (the Beauty counterpart) and the rest. I was actually drawn in by this world and there are some loose ends that need tying up.

All and all, an interesting read.

Hidden [House of Night 10]

Sadly, I literally had to force myself to read this book. That's how bad or how far this series has come too. I remember when I first found Marked in 9th grade and how in love with the series I was. I found the next book or two and read them over that same weekend. But now...I'm so over it. It's like the authors just want to profit now. I used to go back and re-read the entire series before reading the newest installment (this was supposed to be over a lonnnggggg time ago) but I don't feel like doing that anymore.

So what I noticed was there were all these characters, so many that I couldn't keep them straight and half of them sounded the same dialogue wise. Like the boyfriends of Aphrodite, Zoey and Stevie Rae all sounding the same. THEY'RE DIFFERENT! I feel like Stevie Rae's boyfriend would be more reserved and quiet and definitely not PDA with Stevie Rae (even if it is cute_. And Darius and Stark wouldn't sound similar because Darius is supposed to be a grown man!

And another thing I noticed, for such a feminism society that this world is built up off of, isn't weird that pretty much every girl/woman who is evil is a slut?

~Neferet,

~Erin, after she suddenly decides that she likes Dallas after she and Shaunee stop acting like two-girls-one-brain and strips off her clothes and does God knows what with him.

~Nicole was portrayed as a slut as was Aphrodite before she and Zoey became friends.
Every girl who had chosen to be evil is shown to be a slut.

"Sluts equals evilness" is a stupid mindset not to mention sexist mindset that goes completely against everything that feminism stands for what with gender equality and what-not. Those who are branded sluts are shown to be victims of gender inequality.

And I heard how the authors don't/still don't plan for Zoey to settle down so that's why they keep adding all these guys. Okay, that might have made sense in the beginning. Zoey had been with Heath since she was little so it kind of made sense that she decided to try something new with Erik and then Loren came and took her virginity opening up a whole new relationship when Stark came along but this is ridiculous. Stark being all jealous and possessive and Heath coming back as (basically) a Minotaur is just skirting around the issue. By choosing one guy to date she's not choosing forever. You could leave the ending open to interpretation so that we can think whatever we want, but this is ridiculous.

Okay, I'm done ranting. Now my actual review: Nothing happened. 

• Erin turned evil/slutty and became Dallas' new girlfriend.

• Everyone realized that the bull-boy really is Heath.

• Kalona really is "Good" now.

• Erebus is revealed as his brother and shows up twice in the story.

• Erik's thoughts are revealed (he's actually more of a jerk/such a guy then  I realized so I actually enjoyed this) as well as his interest in Shaylin--or rather love interest.

• Zoey's grandma is kidnapped by Neferet and is saved.

• Neferet explodes into a bunch of spiders and is exiled by the High Council or whatever their name is.

• Damien gets a new love interest.

• Lenobia's new love interest Travis is revealed as her soul mate who died a long time ago and came back Heath style.

• Nicole starts turning nice.

The end of this series doesn't even sound appealing anymore now that Kalona is on the good side for real now.

I forced myself to read this and I probably will force myself to read the last two books because I don't want to have wasted all of this time and effort. But really, Cast family, this series was supposed to be done along time ago. I'm in college now; I have no time to read. Why can't you just be done like everything else these past two years: Gossip Girl, the Twilight movies, the Hunger Games trilogy, Smallville, and a bunch of other stuff.

End already!