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.